The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (54 page)

“Maestro Daniele?” The friar spoke in a high whine.

“My father is ill,” I answered. “I am Grazia dei Rossi. What can I do for you?”

“We are here to see Maestro Daniele.” The other spoke this time. “These papers are for his eyes only.”

“I am his eyes,” I answered. “And his ears and his hands as well.”

“Is there no man in the family? An uncle? A brother?”

“I am the manager in my father’s stead. Please show me the document.” It was all I could do to be civil. Blackmailers and pirates who hide themselves in holy garb bring out my worst.

“Very well then.” The friar turned to the fat one. “Messer Ghisolfo, the document.”

While the fat one was fussing with his case, the priest explained, “Messer Bernardo Ghisolfo is the Marchese’s architect.”

Architect? What a strange person to dun us for money, I thought.

“And you, Father? May I know your name?” I asked.

“I am Fra Redini. Fra Girolamo Redini of the Eremitani order. Adviser to the honorable Protonotary, Sigismondo Gonzaga.”

So this was Redini, the inventor of the program for the Madonna of the Victory; also, I suspected, the author of the plan to get Daniele dei Rossi to pay for it. He certainly had the face for chicanery: a mouth like a viper and a tongue that worked constantly. And when he held out his cursed document I could tell by the proprietary way he handled it that he had devised this new ruse, and shuddered to think what we were in for.

The document was short and clear. Daniele the Jew was to be honored once more. His house had been chosen as the site for a small chapel to house the Madonna of the Victory, an altarpiece being made even now by Maestro Andrea and dedicated to our Lady by Her grateful son Marchese Francesco Gonzaga, in praise and gratitude for his glorious victory at Fornovo.

“Our house . . . this house . . . is to be a chapel?” I stammered, for I did not completely understand what was intended.

“Not this structure, lady,” the architect explained. “Merely this site. The house which stands here now will of course have to be razed to accommodate the new chapel. Razed to the ground.”

“Razed to the ground?”

“It would hardly redound to the glory of our Lady to worship Her image in the house of a heretic Jew, now would it, madonna?” The sarcasm fairly dripped from the friar’s thin lips.

“But this is our house,” I mumbled stupidly.

“No longer,” the friar replied. “As of this morning, the twelfth day of April, it belongs to the Holy Virgin. But you seem not to be sensible of the honor.”

“To have our house razed to the ground is an honor?”

“To provide a shelter for our Lady is more honor than any Jew ought to expect in a lifetime. You should be down on your knees thanking the Marchese for allowing you to make such a noble contribution in his cause.”

“I am honored,” I answered, hardly aware of what I was saying. “I am truly honored. We are all truly honored. And where would you suggest we take our honored selves and our honored business, having given over our house and shop in the Marchese’s cause?”

“God will provide,” he answered airily. Then, in a more urgent tone: “You must be out by Tuesday next. Five days from now.”

“The work of demolition begins on Wednesday,” the architect chimed in. “The date is registered with the guild.”

“Over my dead body,” I answered, without thinking. Then added quickly, to cover up my lapse: “My father is ill, gentlemen. Very ill. He cannot be moved.”

“Sick or well, he will rejoice when he knows the purpose of his removal. He may even rise and walk from his sickbed a new man. I have seen it happen. God works in mysterious ways. And do not forget, madonna,” he reminded me gaily, “that on the sixth day the
bargello
’s men will be at the door with their pikes. You have five days.” Five days to pack up a business, a household, and a dying man.

I kept the visit and its purpose to myself all day, but at sundown, with no solution in sight, I decided that I must consult my father. So, while the others were sitting in the
sala
, I excused myself and climbed the stairs to his room.

As always he smiled at the sight of me. “Take my hand, Grazia,” he invited me. “Tell me what happened today in the world.”

I would never get a better opening for the terrible story I had brought to him, so I took a deep breath and began to report the events of the morning as I have told them to you. And he followed my words most attentively, like a child listening to a cautionary tale, never interrupting, not even to ask a question.

When I was done, he nodded sadly and said, “I see.” That is all. “I see.”

“What shall we do, Papa?” I asked at last. “Please help me. Tell me what to do.”

Not a word from him. Only a tear at the corner of his eye. Then another. Then a blink. Then a flood onto the pillow. He was weeping silently. Where was my sense? How could I have put this burden on him?

“I am so sorry, Papa.” I took him up in my arms. He felt lighter than a feather tick. My husky father, his once-ruddy skin now as transparent as parchment and his once-sparkling eyes cloudy behind the tears.

“Only one thing, Grazia . . .” He spoke haltingly.

“Yes, Papa.”

“Let me die here. In my own bed. In my own house.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Don’t let me die on the street, daughter. Or in the house of strangers. That is all I ask. Let me die in my own bed.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Will you swear it?”

“Yes, Papa.” What was I swearing to? How could I swear it?

“Listen to me, Grazia . . .”

“Yes, Papa.”

“You must not cry for me.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“I am not afraid to die. Or even sorry. My life — what I have made of it — is not such a field of roses. My best days are behind me . . . the days with your mother when you and Jehiel were young and we used to ride together. Do you remember?”

“Oh, Papa . . .” How could he think I would forget?

“No tears. Do you hear me, daughter?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Life has been good to me. I have had many good times. I was given two fine sons. And you, my treasure, to stay beside me at the end. No man could ask for more than that.” He stopped, opened his eyes wide, and then, looking deep into my eyes, spoke in a much stronger voice. “But I do ask for more. I ask for this one thing. Only this. To die in my own bed. Not in the street, Grazia. Do not let me die in the street.”

I wrote to Madonna Isabella that night requesting an urgent audience, and charged our porter to be at the gate of the Reggio when it opened in the morning to present my petition.

What I wrote would have choked your throat with bile. So servile was I. Such a sycophant. I named her saint, angel, Diana, Minerva, every flattering epithet in both the Christian and pagan lexicons. A man’s life was at stake, I wrote her. And only she — the
illustrissima
, the Celsitude, the beneficent — could save him. That much at least was true. She was my last chance.

I waited all day Thursday for a reply. Early Friday morning I received my answer, a letter from Madama by the hand of her private secretary. The message, in sum: She did not hold court on Saturdays. However, on account of her love for our family, she would audience me privately in her suite the following morning. Be early and wait patiently, she advised. Your petition will be heard.

I entered the
illustrissima
’s presence much more of a soggy rag than I would have liked. She on the other hand appeared radiantly cheerful and almost happy to see me. Perhaps it was simply the prospect of an admirer for her new
camerini
, the suite of “little rooms” she had moved into in the Domus Nova since my last visit.

“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.