“What think you, Grazia? Is this not an improvement over that dreary old castle across the moat?” she asked.
I agreed that these camerini were a vast improvement over her old suite. In fact, the rooms were smaller than her old camerini and even more cluttered with the cameos and coins and medals and paintings she had acquired. There were now so many paintings that many had to be placed on easels, since there was no room for them on the walls. Yet there were many more to come, she told me, “. . . for I mean to have the finest collection of treasures in all Italy.” (And so she does.)
Although for once I was not captivated by the trappings of lusso, I managed to make a good show of interest in her plans for the camerini. Impatience to get to the point is the prerogative of princes. Patient humility is the lot of Jews and other negligible persons. Surely the honor of being admitted to the princely presence is reward enough for the lowly. Must they also insist on being heard?
At length, I got my chance. The letter. Ah yes, my letter. Someone dying? Who, pray?
“It is my father, illustrissima.”
“Daniele? I had heard he was improved.”
I almost corrected her but caught myself. Be sensible, Grazia. What does a Jewish pawnbroker mean to her that she should remember the latest bulletin on the state of his health? I went on with my plaintive report. His pallor. His loss of weight.
“And is there nothing your distinguished husband can do? We have heard that he performs miracles for the French.” From her sister-in-law Chiara, no doubt.
“Judah says the end is very near, madama. The tumor has eaten him away. My honorable husband is a great physician but no miracle worker, as he would be the first to acknowledge.”
“Well then, if your celebrated husband can do nothing for Daniele, what do you want of me? Am I a miracle worker?”
“Yes, madonna.” I knelt at her feet and kissed her hand. “You have the power to grant him his dying wish.”
She withdrew her hand as if she suspected poison in my kiss. “And what is that?”
“You can allow him to die in his own bed,” I answered. “There is a document. Signed by your hand, madonna.”
“My hand?”
“Yes, madonna. An order to destroy our house.”
“I thought so. It is Ghisolfo’s chapel you’ve come about then.”
“We will gladly give up our home to your husband’s cause, madonna. All I ask is that you wait until my father has breathed his last.”
“And when is that likely to be?”
“He is very weak, madonna.”
“He has been weak for many months.” Her tone had proceeded from quite warm, to lukewarm, to cool, to cold and was now bordering on icy.
“He is close to the end, madonna.”
“But how close? You cannot tell me, can you? How do I know that you and Daniele between you did not concoct this dying wish as a ploy to keep from losing your house?”
Monstrous woman, I wanted to shout. Are you asking me for a guarantee that my father will be dead by Tuesday?
But I did not shout. Instead, I changed my tack.
“We will start to move the family immediately, madonna. And to disassemble the banco.”
“If you wish I can make arrangements for space at the convent in the Via Pomponazzo.”
“Thank you, madama. We already have an offer of space with the banker Davide Finzi.” We had no such offer, but I was not so far gone in desperation that I would entrust my valuables to this lady. That would have been leaving the wolf to guard the chicken house.
“It is not the valuables or even the children that bring me here, illustrissima. It is my father. If you could see him, so frail, so resigned. He asks nothing, only to die in his own bed. Have mercy on him, madonna. Delay the eviction.”
“Impossible. Redini’s plan for the chapel has been accepted. Our honorable consort has approved the plans and given the orders that construction is to begin at once. He is commander here as he is in the field. It is not my order. I am but his lieutenant.”
“For mercy’s sake.”
She waved away my plea as if it were a bothersome fly. No use. She would not be moved. Yet I could not give up. Try something else. An appeal to her cupidity, perhaps. But how to get to it without impugning her honor?
“The necklace, illustrissima, the Necklace of a Hundred Links . . .”
“Yes . . .” At least I had her attention back.
“We know how dear to you it is. I wish to assure you that it has been sent to Ferrara for safekeeping.”
“I am pleased to hear that.”
“An arrangement could be made, madonna . . .” I dropped my head in embarrassment. How I wished Papa had been there. He was so clever at these kinds of negotiations. “An arrangement that I believe is called a quid pro quo.”
“Something for something?”
Why must she make it so difficult? She knew damn well what I was after. “We will return your necklace at once, madonna, and forgive the interest on the loan if you allow us to stay in our house until my father dies. Not a day longer.”
There was a moment when her eyes lit up and I knew she was tempted. But the moment passed and instead I got my final rejection. “What you ask is impossible. I can give you two days of grace, no more. This Friday coming, the bargello will be at your gate to pull down the house. If Daniele is as close to the end as you say, he will be dead by then and his dying wish will have been honored. Otherwise, he moves. He has five days to die. One of my men will see you home.” And she turned away from the reproach in my eyes.
At least I had gained two more days. After that if Papa was still alive I would throw myself in the way of the bargello’s men and give the last thing I had to give for my father — my life.
My mind was teeming with such wild fancies as I left that room that I barely heard Madama’s last words, hurled at me like a thunderbolt as I passed through the portal.
“Why are our dealings with you dei Rossis always so contentious?” she shouted. “Why can you not be gentle?”
Walking back from the Reggio in the gathering dark, I pondered what course I must take. It was one thing to offer myself as a victim to the bargello’s sword but quite another to sacrifice my brothers and cousins in the cause. They must be gotten away safely. Then there was the banco to deal with. My father had honored me by placing his trust in me; but he had laid me low with the weight of it.
My brothers looked so very young to me that evening, sitting around the trestle table playing some silly game. Even Asher, a full-grown man, clapped his hands together delightedly like a child when his counter took the rest. I left them there and went off to my bed to plan our evacuation feeling at least twice my seventeen years.
By morning my plans were made. I would send the famiglia on to Ferrara at once. And the banco must be dismantled quickly. I instructed Asher to begin packing up the contents of the warehouse and went off to arrange for the transfer of our goods to a safe place. Messer Davide Finzi, our old neighbor and fellow loan banker, bore no great love for our family; but I had been told all my life that in times of trouble Jews stick together. The time had come to test the truth of that axiom.
The old man agreed at once to make room in his warehouse for our goods — at a fee, of course, and a fee which I had to negotiate at that. But business is business, as I had also heard all my life. What surprised me was that, without my asking, the old man offered my family one of his bravi as their escort to Ferrara. He even bent his stiff old neck so far as to volunteer himself and his sons as pallbearers at Papa’s funeral, a most considerate gesture since all the men in our family would be gone by the time of that unhappy event if my plan went well.
My next stop was the posthouse. There I hired enough horses and carts to carry everyone in our household to Ferrara, excepting only my father and me. If it must be done, it had bes
t be done quickly.
That afternoon I gave orders for the banco to be closed and called a family meeting. As accurately as I could, I relayed to them the substance of my meeting with Madonna Isabella. “I will stay with Papa,” I announced, “as I gave him my word I would. It is best that you all go on to Ferrara now. There is no need for anyone else to stay behind but me. There may be trouble here with the bargello’s men and —”
“If there is trouble, we must be here to fight off the devils,” Jehiel broke in heatedly. He never was short on courage. And little Gershom added, “We can get swords out of the warehouse. I have seen them there.”
“Quite right, cousin,” Asher agreed. “A woman alone . . .”
“A woman alone has a better chance than a group of unarmed boys,” I answered him. “I have my tears to protect me.”
“But we cannot abandon you, Grazia,” Penina insisted.
“You will not be abandoning me,” I answered. “You will be doing me a service. I must keep my vow to Papa. If you go, you will leave me free to do my duty. Don’t you see?”
“But I do not want to leave you, Grazia.” Gershom threw himself into my arms, a child still in spite of his efforts at manliness. “Must I go?”
I nodded sadly. “Yes. It is best for all of you and for me. Now it is time for you to begin packing. I have ordered the horses for tomorrow.”
Through it all not a word from Dorotea. Now, she spoke. “You have arranged all this without consulting me?”
“The sooner we get our gold and valuables out of the city, the better,” I explained, with as much patience as I could muster. “Already the illustrissima has offered to ‘protect’ them for us. And you can guess what that means.”
“But should not our honored parents be consulted?”
“There is no time for that, Dorotea. They will be happy to see their strongboxes safe, believe me.”
“All this comes too fast for me . . .”
“For me too,” I answered tartly. “And I daresay for Papa. I do not believe he was counting on leaving this world quite so hurriedly.”
“Oh, Grazia, what a thing to say . . .” And she flew from the room, weeping. I still do not know whether she intended to stay on with Papa or go to Ferrara with the rest. God knows, I did not want her. Still, I could hardly forbid a wife her place at her husband’s deathbed.
I needn’t have worried. After the children were asleep, she came down to the banco, where Asher and I were packing up, and beckoned me to one side. “I must speak to you, Grazia . . .”
“Speak.”
“Not here. Not in front of Asher.”
“Dorotea, I have enough work to keep me here all night. And I must try to sleep a little to keep strong for my father. So, whatever you have to say, you will have to say it here or not at all.”
She now went into a little song and dance of whining and truckling as she always did when I spoke curtly to her. “Oh, Grazia, have pity on me,” she whined. “I have an important decision to make and who else do I have to turn to? Your honored father on whom I depend for counsel is . . .” She snuffled up the bubble at the end of her nose. “Asher is meant to take the place of his father but he has not your strength, Grazia. He is delicate like me.”
And what am I, I thought, a pack mule?
“I know that your honorable father would understand, but I fear that you will never forgive me,” she wailed.
“For what?” I demanded.
“For going ahead to Ferrara with the children.” She pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed at the end of her nose. “I would be no use here, Grazia. Soldiers frighten me. And you know I always faint at the sight of blood.”
“But Papa isn’t bleeding, nor is he expected to,” I reminded her.
“He cries out in pain,” she answered. “I cannot bear the sound of his screams in the night.” How could she speak with such indulgence of her own gutlessness?
“What about me, Dorotea?” I taunted her. “Am I to be left alone with a dying man in a house under siege?”
“You can manage it, Grazia.” She reached over and patted my arm with her hand. “You have the strength for it.”
Using every bit of self-control I possessed, I very carefully detached her hand from my sleeve. It felt clammy and boneless, like an eel.
“Have you told Papa you plan to leave him?” I asked.
“Would you tell him for me?” Once again she placed her hand on my sleeve. This time I made no attempt to disguise the disgust I felt when I picked her fingers off me.
“Yes, Dorotea, I will do your dirty laundry for you. I will tell Papa that I have begged you to go with the children for their protection. I will do it not for you but to save his feelings. I cannot bear to see him so bitterly disappointed in these last days of his life as he would be if he knew what a craven, gutless, crawling, cringing, fawning bitch he picked to take my mother’s place. Now get out of my sight.”
And the poor wretch crept out into the dim of the courtyard.
But don’t you think she was back in five minutes, pulling at my sleeve again?
“What now, Dorotea?” This time, I all but shoved her aside.
“A little thing . . .” She hesitated. “When you speak to your father, had you not best find out from him where he keeps his will? To make certain that his wishes are carried out? I have looked high and low for it.”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” No reply. “Or have you already?” Silence. How strange that he had not confided in her.
“Very well. I will ask him,” I agreed, for it was important to me too that my father’s wishes be known and carried out.
“Tonight?”
“When I see fit,” I answered brusquely. Then, beyond patience, I added, “Do not worry yourself, lady. I will worm the secret of his will out of him before he breathes his last.”
“Oh, Grazia, how cruel you are . . .” And she was gone, this time not to return.
As Asher and I worked on wrapping and packing and checking our inventories the matter stuck in my mind. It was unlike her not to know what was in Papa’s will. If I knew her, she had dictated it.
Then, as if he had been reading my thoughts, Asher spoke suddenly. “My mother fears that Uncle Daniele has made a new will these past few weeks.”
“Is it true?” I asked.
“Just before you arrived he had Ser Natale the lawyer here three days running. The lawyer had never stepped foot inside this house before, Grazia. But he came three times and brought documents and he called for a quill and some hot wax. Your father must have signed something official.”
“It could easily have been banco business,” I suggested.
“Yes, it could.” He considered my suggestion. “But I do not believe it was. For after the lawyer left the last time, my uncle called me to him privately — I have told this to no one, Grazia — and spoke to me most affectionately. He said he wanted to assure me that I would be taken care of, that he had arranged it. He told me that when he took me to his bosom after my own father died, it was not only an act of charity but also an act of love.” He turned his head away and pulled out a raggedy fazzoletto from his sleeve. “And he thanked me for my service to him. And called me his own son. And he kissed me . . .” No longer able to stifle his sobs, he turned and buried his head in my breast. “Oh, Grazia,” he sobbed. “I will miss him so. He was like a father to me.”
Then I broke down as well and we let our tears mingle and were finally the brother and sister that my father had so long wished us to be. Together, we finished fastening the last chain around the last cassone just as the watchman passed by chanting matins. We had inventoried and packed the entire contents of the warehouse within one revolution of the sun. We had done Papa proud.
“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine for matins time.” The watchman’s rough voice rang out in the str
eet below.
“I must admit I was never certain we could accomplish the task,” I confessed to my cousin. “I could not have done it without your strong right arm,” I told him.
“My strong back is more like it, cousin.” He smiled. “But this is only the beginning of the task. It is far easier to dispatch trunks and cartons than people.”
“Oh, we will get them off safely, never fear,” I assured him.
“About my honorable mother . . .” He hesitated.
“Yes?”
“I beg you not to judge her too harshly, cousin. In many ways she is a child. Often she does not know what she is saying.”
So she would have you think, I said to myself. But I held my tongue. No matter how indefensible her conduct, she was his blood mother and there was something upright and admirable in her son’s defense of her.
Then on a sudden impulse I turned to him. “Stay with me, cousin,” I urged. “Dorotea can take care of the children. I need you more than they do. Next to my honorable husband, you are the strongest and most loyal man I know.”
How eagerly he responded to the compliment! “At your service, madama.” He sprang to his feet and executed an awkward bow. True, he almost toppled over on his way up from the floor. But if gallantry begins in the heart as they say it does, my cousin Asher had all the makings of a true gallant. What a fine husband he will make for someone, I thought to myself. How perfect for Penina. But I quickly reminded myself that La Nonna had other plans for her and no doubt for Asher as well.
The next morning the children lined up at my instruction to come and say their goodbyes to Papa. Gershom was the first. No one had told him in so many words that this was the last time he would see his father alive, but he knew.
“Papa . . .” He bent down and laid his cheek beside my father’s. The blue-veined eyelids fluttered. Papa had lost at least half his body weight in these last weeks and his skin stretched over his bones like a fine woven cambric cloth. Beside him, the little boy’s sallow complexion appeared positively ruddy with health and youth.
The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi Page 40
