The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi

by Jacqueline Park

  Of the funeral there is nothing to tell. Of the subsequent events, much. The reading of my father’s will had revealed the greed that lurked in the shadows of our family’s grief when property was at stake. This time, it took longer to surface, not due to any change of heart but because my grandfather’s style was so prolix that it took an entire morning for the poor lawyer to wade through the ocean of platitudes that preceded the actual bequests. It is a style reminiscent of the poems you have heard intoned at Madonna Isabella’s fetes written to mark the death of one of her little dogs.

  But finally, in the early afternoon, after digging through a ton of verbiage, we came to the hidden bombshell.

  “My house in the Via delle Volte and all its furnishings . . .” As one, the assemblage leaned forward, on the alert. “I bequeath to my grandson Jehiel and his wife, Ricca —”

  That is as far as he got.

  “My house! Never!” La Nonna’s shout was loud enough to be heard by the eels sunning themselves in the Comacchio basin. Before anyone could quite grasp what was happening, the old lady fell on the floor and lay there gasping. “Not my house . . . No . . . no . . . no . . .” Whereupon her voice trailed off and she began to twitch and foam at the mouth.

  If ever I had wished for revenge against La Nonna, I got it that day, watching her borne out of her sala grande held high in Jehiel’s arms as on a catafalque, pursued by the two women she had trusted and who, it was now clearly revealed, had conspired to betray her. Yet I felt no triumph in my revenge. Only a faint disgust and a strong wish to get out of that house — Ricca’s house now, it seemed.

  Penina voiced the sentiments of us all when she murmured, “I don’t envy Jehiel caught in the current of that filthy pool.” The unaccustomed sharpness of her comment reinforced my conviction that in spite of her marriage she had not given up her hopeless passion for my brother. And who could blame her? He had grown into a wonderfully handsome man, all traces of boyhood plumpness erased, his body lithe and strong, with solid, broad shoulders and narrow hips. And all of this natural beauty was enhanced by the rich court clothes he had taken to wearing. Even his black mourning doublet was trimmed with fine lace. And the sheen of his costume remained untarnished by that damnable yellow circle that Duke Ercole had once again ordered the Ferrarese Jews to wear. Jehiel was excused from that humiliation by the special dispensation of Prince Alfonso, Duke Ercole’s heir. Somehow my brother had become a member of the prince’s inner circle . . . shades of my father. He would have been at court even now had it not been for the required mourning, Asher said. As it was, Este pages came every day to our portal with secret letters and messages for Maestro Vitale.

  “What does he do at court?” I asked Asher.

  “He claims to be employed in the cannon foundry.”

  “Do I take it you do not believe him?” I asked.

  “He hardly dresses like a foundryman, does he?” was his rejoinder. “Nor does a foundryman generally sail the river on a prince’s bucentaur or gallop at the prince’s side chasing wild boars. And where does he get the money for these clothes he keeps buying? Not from a foundryman’s salary.” He stopped himself suddenly. “I sound envious, do I not?” he asked.

  “You sound skeptical, as I am after what you tell me, cousin,” I replied. “We both have cause to know Jehiel’s recklessness.”

  “I do fear for him,” he answered. “Yet I refuse to repeat idle gossip.”

  “By the time there is proof, it will be too late to save him,” I replied. “You do him no disservice by telling me, Asher. I am his sister. I love him.”

  “Very well,” he sighed. “They say he sells Hebrew amulets to the ladies and gentlemen of the Duke’s court and that he forecasts the future from Tarot cards. If the Wad Kellilah proves that he is practicing magic with the words of the Torah, they will whip him in the synagogue and excommunicate him just as they did your father.”

  “Does he admit to selling amulets?”

  Asher shook his head. “But it is the most likely explanation for his sudden affluence. Christians will pay any price for Jewish magic.”

  I knew he spoke the truth. Judah was constantly being badgered by importunate Christians for brevi — as these bits of gibberish were called — from The Sword of Moses or The Wisdom of the Chaldeans. “They think we Israelites have Jehovah by the tail,” he explained.

  Now it seemed that my brother was invested in the business of catering to this perilous fantasy. I knew I must speak to him at once — and firmly. But each time I saw him that day he was whirling in and out of the house in La Nonna’s service and could not be stopped. First the doctor had to be fetched. Then the pharmacist was brought to purge the invalid, and the butcher to bleed her. Each time I passed the door of her room, I was assailed by groans of pain and noxious fumes.

  By the time of the compline bells I had given up hope of cornering my brother. But after I retired, an opportunity unexpectedly arose. Hearing footsteps on the tiles overhead, I pulled back the shutters at my windows and saw him standing on the roof above me, peering through some kind of astronomical instrument.

  Stealthily, so as not to alert Ricca, I made my way up to the third floor loggia and onto the roof tiles. There I found my brother, eye to lens, gazing skyward through a glass with such intense concentration that I had to pluck at his sleeve twice to alert him to my presence.

  “Grazia, what brings you here?”

  “I might ask the same of you, brother,” I answered in the Talmudic style.

  “I have come to look at the stars, as I do every night.”

  “You have become an astrologer?”

  “Better say an acolyte. I am following up the studies I began with a certain master in Mantova.”

  “I do not like it, Jehiel,” I stated flatly.

  “You do not like astrology, sister? Or the master? Or the stars?”

  “All three of those things. Only fools or people who wish to deceive others pretend to read a man’s destiny in stars and cards. All wise men agree on this, men as far apart as Maimonides and . . .” My tongue stumbled as I said the name, “Pico della Mirandola.”

  “Yet the same Pico hired more than one Jew to teach him the secrets of cabala,” he retorted. “So I must conclude that I am acting according to the precepts of wise men if I seek out numerical formulas for bringing rain or destroying an enemy.”

  “Are the stories true, then?” I challenged him. “Are you selling amulets to the Christians?”

  “If I am?”

  “This is no game, Jehiel. The Jews will excommunicate you if they catch you at it.”

  “Then I must take care not to get caught.” He grinned.

  I could have kicked him for his arrogance, and might have done so but for an interruption that put a halt to our debate: a series of taps on the ceiling below us as if someone was signaling with a long stick. And to be sure, Jehiel responded to the signal by walking over to the edge of the roof, where he lay down on his belly so as to lower his head safely over the side and, from that position, to conduct a whispered conversation with someone in the room below the eaves.

  “My wife,” he explained tersely when he returned to my side. “Like you, she objects to my study of the stars. It takes me away from my marital duties.”

  “But is she not keeping watch over La Nonna tonight?” I asked.

  “She says the old lady is too much out of her senses to notice us and that conjugal life must go on. She has even prepared a pallet for us on the floor.”

  “She plans to copulate with you tonight with La Nonna lying hard by?” I asked, unable to believe what I thought I had heard.

  “My wife cannot settle into sleep until I have done my marital duty by her at least once each night . . . sometimes more than once. Sometimes more than twice,” he added. Was he complaining or boasting?

  “Are you happy with your life, Jehiel?” I a
sked.

  “Plato said that no man can call himself happy until the moment of his death,” he replied with a shrug.

  “Sophocles said that no man can call himself happy until the moment of his death,” I corrected him. “Plato said that no man can call himself free. But my question stands. Are you happy?”

  “Happy with what? With my wife? With my life? With my work?” He bit on his lower lip thoughtfully. How full it was. How luscious. And his eyelashes, a double row of them that framed his velvet eyes like black lace. And the way he carried his body. Even standing casually up here on the roof, he fell naturally into the graceful contrapposto pose of a Greek nude. What a figure he must cut at the Este court, I thought. Beauty is much admired at courts. And sought after. And rewarded.

  “I hear you have become an intimate of the young prince Alfonso,” I remarked.

  “He is my patron,” he replied simply.

  “And just what in you does he patronize?” I asked.

  “I have constructed a cunning little astrolabe that he can take around and hold in his hands,” he replied. “And I have built a telescope for him. I am his Leonardo.” There was an edge of mockery in his tone.

  “Leonardo does not sell amulets,” I retorted.

  “You pay too much attention to gossip, Grazia,” he answered calmly. “The truth is, there is more magic in jewels than in amulets. And more profit. If you like I will get you a turquoise that will protect you from all accidents, especially when riding a horse. I also have a stone which makes fountains spring up overnight.” My face must have mirrored my disbelief, for he added, with some urgency, “I have done it, Grazia. I have the gift.”

  “The gift of what?”

  “The gift of prophecy. The gift of magic. I have an angel in my head.”

  Now Jehiel may have been reckless and naive. But he never was a liar. If he said he caused a fountain to spring up overnight, he had.

  “What other magic do you perform?” I asked.

  “I concoct certain potions with the aid of an apothecary of my acquaintance. But I prefer not to discuss that part of my work with the wife of a doctor. The medical profession seems to feel it holds a God-given right to dispense remedies.”

  “Do you have a remedy for barrenness?” I found myself asking.

  “Why do you ask? Do you long for a child?” He asked the question in a voice quite new to me who had known him all his life. It was the voice of a sibyl issuing from a cave and it called forth in me the recognition of what I had never yet admitted: that I did long for a child, not only in memory of Diamante, nor in imitation of my female acquaintance, but to fill something in me that stood empty. “Yes,” I confessed, “I do long for a child.”

  “Do you wish me to help you?” he asked, in the same distant, sepulchral tone.

  “Yes,” I answered in spite of myself.

  “Very well then. But first I must read you.”

  “The Tarot cards?” I shivered.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps the palm. Perhaps the face. I must think about it. Meanwhile, duty calls. I do have an angel in my head, but I also have a wife in my bed.”

  As if on cue the tapping started again below, this time more urgent than before. Not a tap, tap this time but a bang, bang.

  “Go to your wife,” I said. “I will stay here and look at the stars through your glass. Who knows? Maybe I too can find some profound truth up there in the vault of heaven.” My remark was not entirely specious. Even though Judah refused to give credence to the influence of the stars, I knew that many wise men took an opposite view.

  I leaned down to fasten my eye against the eyepiece of the instrument. The Chair of Cassiopeia loomed up, stunning me with its brightness. I could almost feel the cold northern rays of the double star entering my head, bending my mind.

  Then a voice spoke within me. “Everything a man is to believe must be traced to three categories,” it said. “First, things which can be proved by mental processes, such as mathematics and geometry; second, things of which the five senses can convince us; third, things known by tradition through the prophets and wise men. Only a fool would believe anything beyond these categories.”

  Those words of Maimonides came back to me with all the force of my father’s adoration of that great sage behind them and reinforced by Judah’s imprimatur. Compared with their clear, steady light, the brilliance of Cassiopeia paled. I set the instrument aside and scuttled off to bed, determined that if Jehiel proposed to me any further excursion into magic or astrology I would refuse.

  But the next night when he whistled down to me, I went again to meet him on the roof. As if the moonlight had clouded over my reason, I took my place obediently on the little stool he had brought there and allowed him to proceed with his reading.

  In preparation he had wrapped himself in a long tunic of white cloth, passed a red belt around his waist, and put on a helmet garlanded with drawn snakes that looked alarmingly lifelike in the moonlight. Then, setting a marble vase in front of him and lifting a sponge tied to a man’s leg bone in his left hand, he drew a deck of playing cards from under his cloak, muttered some weird incantation, knelt, kissed the tiles, dipped the sponge into the vase, and whispered, “Let us trace Pluto’s circle with this dragon’s blood.” Whereupon he proceeded to draw a large circle on the tiles with his reddened sponge.

  I knew all this to be nonsense. Yet I waited, subdued, obedient — caught up in the magic.

  Now began the laying out of the cards. First he divided the deck card by card, discarding a good number. “Those are the common cards of the Minor Arcana,” he explained. “They are unsuitable for divining.”

  “What are they suitable for?” I inquired, ever curious.

  “For gaming, what else?” he answered impatiently. “Any fool can place a bet on a ten of staves, sister, but few men can read the future in the Tarot.”

  The explanation was meant to put me in my place and it did. I remained quiet while he shuffled the cards of the Major Arcana, all the while mumbling some odd-sounding gibberish. Gypsy talk?

  Finally he ceased to shuffle and mumble. “Draw five cards,” he ordered me, “and lay them out in the shape of a Greek cross.”

  I did as I was told.

  “Now you must turn them over one by one, starting at the top and going around the clock.”

  “And the one at the center?” I asked.

  “That is the one which will seal your fate.”

  Before you judge me a gullible fool, think of the scene. The pale backs of the cards glowing within the blood-red circle. The telescope standing by as a conduit to the stars. My brother, solemn, white-robed under the vault of heaven, suffused with that serene certainty that emanates from saints and fortune-tellers. And I, your mother, desperate to fill my barren womb with a child.

  I reached down and turned over the top card. It showed a man and a woman, their hands joined, under the sway of Cupid, blindfolded and nude, preparing to launch an arrow.

  “This Card of the Lovers shows the struggle between sacred and profane love,” my brother advised me. “It forecasts the coming of a test. You will subject yourself to a trial. Turn the next card.”

  When I turned the card over to lay it in position, I saw that it was upside down and began to turn it right.

  “No!” Jehiel snatched it from my hand and laid it down as it had lain in the shuffled deck. “You must not defy Fortuna, Grazia. An upside-down card reverses the meaning.”

  “Is that bad?” I asked.

  “In this case, yes. The obverse meaning of the Lovers is delay, disappointment, and divorce.”

  “Divorce?”

  “I do not create these portents, Grazia,” he advised me sternly. “I merely divine them. Delay, disappointment, divorce,” he repeated. “That is what threatens you, unless . . .”

  “Unless?”

  “Turn the
next card,” was his answer.

  Now appeared an amazing card, much decorated, with a winged, blindfolded figure at its center turning a golden ring balanced on the back of an aged man in a ragged white garment, his stockings worn through, and festooned with the legend “Sum sine regno” — “I do not rule.”

  “This is the Wheel of Fortune,” Jehiel explained. “It tells you to believe in the signs. You are not the master of your own fate, no matter how much you wish to be.”

  The fourth card revealed a youth in green hose hanging upside down by one foot, whom Jehiel identified as the Hanging Man. “He predicts reversal of the mind. Rebirth. He orders you to reverse your thinking and to prepare for the approach of new life forces. He orders you to surrender.”

  “To what?” I asked.

  “To Venus,” he answered without hesitation. “You and your husband have incurred her wrath. How you offended her I do not know. Look up, Grazia,” he instructed me. “She is there among them, looking down, cursing you with barrenness. Ask her what you must do. Repeat after me, ‘I conjure you, luminaries of heaven and earth . . .’”

  “I conjure you, luminaries of heaven and earth,” I repeated.

  “‘And in the name of the twelve hours of the day and the three watches of the night and the thirty days of the month and the thirty years of shemitta and the fifty years of Jubilee and the name of the angel Iabiel, who watches over wombs, and of the angel Anael, ruler over all manner of love, to look into her mirror and find there a child for me.’”

  “. . . and find there a child for me,” I repeated.

  “Now touch the last card and kiss it,” he ordered me. I did.

  Then he placed the card faceup in the middle of the red circle and I saw staring up at me a golden woman, big and luminous, with green hands.