I, Mona Lisa (11 page)

I turned to my mother. She was watching me carefully, though she said not a word about the mural, nor the reason we had lingered there. It was the first time I had stayed for any length of time in the piazza, the first time I had been allowed such a close view of the hanged men. “This last one was done by a different artist,” I said.

“Leonardo, from Vinci,” she said. “He has an amazing refinement, doesn’t he? He is like God, breathing life into stone.” She nodded, clearly pleased by my discernment, and waved for the driver to move on.

We made our way north to the Piazza del Duomo.

Before entering the cathedral, I had examined Ghiberti’s bas relief panels on the doors of the nearby octagonal Baptistery. Here, near the public entry at the southern end of the building, scenes from the life of Florence’s patron saint, John the Baptist, covered the walls. But what truly tantalized me was the Door of Paradise on the northern side. There, in fine gilded bronze, the Old Testament came to life in vivid detail. I stood on tiptoe to finger the sweeping curve of an angel’s wing as he announced to Abraham that God desired Isaac as a sacrifice; I bent down to marvel at Moses receiving the tablets from the divine hand. What I most yearned to touch were the delicately rendered heads and muscular shoulders of oxen, emerging from the metal of the uppermost plaque to plow a field. I knew the tips of the horns would be sharp and cold against my fingertip, but they lay too high for my reach. Instead, I contented myself with rubbing the numerous tiny heads of prophets and sibyls that lined the doors like garlands; the bronze burned like ice.

The interior of the Baptistery was for me less remarkable. Only one item caught my attention: Donatello’s dark wooden carving of Mary Magdalen, larger than life. She was a ghastly, spectral version of the seductress: aged now, her hair so wild and long that she clothed herself in the tangles, just as Saint John clothed himself in the skins of animals. Her cheeks were gaunt, her features worn down by decades of guilt and regret. Something about the resignation in her aspect reminded me of my mother.

We three made our way into the Duomo proper then, and once we arrived in front of the altar, my mother immediately began speaking of the murder that had taken place there almost fourteen years earlier. I had only moments to draw in the astonishing vastness of the cupola before Zalumma grew worried and told my mother it was time to leave.

“I suppose so.” My mother reluctantly agreed with Zalumma’s urgings. “But first I must speak to my daughter alone.”

This frustrated the slave. She scowled until her brows merged into one great black line, but her social status compelled her to say calmly, “Of course, Madonna.” So she retreated, but only a short distance away.

Once my mother satisfied herself that Zalumma was not watching, she retrieved from her bosom a small, shining object. A coin, I thought, but after she had pressed it into my palm, I saw it was a gold medallion, stamped with the words
PUBLIC MOURNING
. Beneath the letters, two men with knives readied themselves to attack a startled victim. Despite its small size, the image was detailed and lifelike, rendered with a delicacy worthy of Ghiberti.

“Keep it,” my mother said. “But let it be our secret.”

I eyed her gift greedily, curiously. “Was he really so handsome?”

“He was. It is quite accurate. And quite rare. It was created by the same artist who painted Baroncelli.”

I tucked it at once into my belt. My mother and I both shared a love of such trinkets, and of art, though my father disapproved of my having anything so impractical. As a merchant, he had worked hard for his wealth, and hated to see it squandered on anything useless. But I was thrilled; I hungered for such things.

“Zalumma,” my mother called. “I am ready to leave.”

Zalumma came to fetch us at once and took hold of my mother’s arm again. But when my mother began to turn away from the altar, she paused and wrinkled her nose. “The candles . . .” she murmured. “Have the altar vestments caught fire? Something is burning. . . .”

Zalumma’s expression went slack with panic, but she recovered herself immediately and said calmly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world: “Lie down, Madonna. Here, on the floor. All will be well.”

“It all repeats,” my mother said, with the odd catch in her voice I had come to dread.

“Lie down!” Zalumma ordered, as sternly as she would a child. My mother seemed not to hear her, and when Zalumma pressed on her limbs, trying to force her to the ground, she resisted.

“It all repeats,” my mother said swiftly, frantically. “Don’t you see it happening again? Here, in this sacred place.”

I lent my weight to Zalumma’s; together we fought to bring my mother down, but it was like trying to bring down an immovable mountain—one that trembled.

My mother’s arms moved involuntarily from her sides and shot straight out, rigid. Her legs locked beneath her. “There is murder here, and thoughts of murder!” she shrieked. “Plots within plots once more!”

Her cry grew unintelligible as she went down.

Zalumma and I clung to her so that she did not land too harshly.

My mother writhed on the cold floor of the cathedral, her blue cloak gaping open, her silver skirts pooling around her. Zalumma lay across her body; I put my kerchief between her upper teeth and tongue, then held on to her head.

I was barely in time. My mother’s dark eyes rolled back until only the veined whites were visible—then the rigors began. Head, torso, limbs—all began to jerk arrhythmically, rapidly.

Somehow Zalumma held on, rising and falling with the waves, whispering hoarsely in her barbarous tongue, strange words coming so fast and so practiced I knew they were part of a prayer. I, too, began
to pray without thinking in a language equally old:
Ave Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis pecatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae
 . . .

I focused on the linen kerchief in my mother’s mouth—on her champing teeth, and the small specks of blood there—and on her jerking head, which I now held fast in my lap, so I was startled into fright when a stranger beside us began praying loudly, also in Latin.

I glanced up and saw the black-frocked priest who had been tending the altar. He alternated between sprinkling my mother with liquid from a small vial and making the sign of the cross over her while he prayed.

At last the time came when my mother gave a final wrenching groan, then fell limp; her eyelids fluttered shut.

Beside me, the priest—a young red-haired man with pockmarked florid skin—rose. “She is like the woman from whom Jesus cast out nine devils,” he said with authority. “She is possessed.”

Sore and halting from the struggle, Zalumma nonetheless rose to her full height—a hand’s breadth taller than the priest—and glared at him. “It is a sickness,” she said, “of which you know nothing.”

The young priest shrank, his tone now only faintly insistent. “It is the Devil.”

I glanced from the priest’s face to Zalumma’s stern expression. I was mature for my age and knew responsibility: The increasing number of my mother’s fits had caused me to act as mistress of the household many times, playing hostess to guests, and accompanying my father in her place on social occasions. For the last three years, I had gone with Zalumma to market in my mother’s place. But I was young in terms of my knowledge of the world, and of God. I was still undecided as to whether God was punishing her for some early sin, and whether her fits were indeed of sinister origin. I knew only that I loved her, pitied her, and disliked the priest’s condescension.

Zalumma’s white cheeks turned shell pink. I knew her well: A scathing reply had formed in her mind, and teetered upon her rouged lips, but she checked it. She had need of the priest.

Her manner turned abruptly unctuous. “I am a poor slave, with no
right to contradict a learned man, Father. Here, we must get my mistress to the carriage. Will you help us?”

The priest looked on her with justifiable suspicion, but he could not refuse. And so I ran to find our driver; when he had brought the carriage round to the front of the cathedral, he and the priest carried my mother to it.

Exhausted, she slept with her head cradled in Zalumma’s lap; I held her legs. We rode home directly back over the Ponte Santa Trinità, a homely stone bridge which housed no shops.

Our palazzo on the Via Maggio was neither large nor ostentatious, though my father could have afforded to adorn the house more. It had been built a century before by his great-great-grandfather from plain
pietra serena
, the expensive subtle gray stone. My father had made no additions, added no statuary nor replaced the plain, worn floors or the scarred doors; he eschewed unnecessary adornment. We rode inside the gate; then Zalumma and the driver lifted my mother from the carriage.

To our horror, my father, Antonio, stood watching in the loggia.

M
y father had returned early. Dressed in his usual dark
farsetto
, crimson mantle, and black leggings, he stood with his arms crossed at the entry to the loggia so that he would not miss us. He was a sharp-featured man, with golden-brown hair that grew in darker at the crown, a narrow hooked nose, and thunderous thick eyebrows above pale amber eyes. His disregard for fashion showed in his face; he wore a full beard and mustache at a time when it was common for men to be clean-shaven or wear a neat goatee.

Yet, ironically, no one knew more about Florence’s current styles and cravings. My father owned a
bottega
in the Santa Croce district, near the ancient Wool Guild, the Arte de Lana. He specialized in providing the very finest wools to the city’s wealthiest families. He often went to the Medici palazzo on the Via Larga, his carriage heavy with fabrics colored with
chermisi
, the most expensive of dyes made from the dried carcasses of lice, which produced the most exquisite crimson, and
alessandrino
, a costly and beautiful deep blue.

Sometimes I rode with my father and waited in the carriage while he met with his most important clients at their palazzi. I enjoyed the
rides, and he seemed to enjoy sharing with me the details of his business, speaking to me as if I were his equal; at times, I felt guilty because I was not a son who could take over the family trade. I was his sole heir, and a girl. God had frowned upon my parents, and it was taken for granted that my mother and her fits were to blame.

And now there was no hiding the fact that our secret escapade had just caused her to suffer another one.

My father was, for the most part, a self-possessed man. But certain things goaded him—my mother’s condition was one of them—and could induce an uncontrollable rage. As I crawled from the carriage to walk behind Zalumma and the others, I saw the danger in his eye and looked guiltily away.

For the moment, love of my mother took precedence over my father’s anger. He ran to us and took Zalumma’s place, catching hold of my mother tenderly. Together, he and the driver carried her toward the house; as they did, he glanced over his shoulder at Zalumma and me. He kept his tone low so it would not distress my semiconscious mother, but I could hear the anger coiled in it, waiting to lash out.

“You women will see her to bed; then I will have words with you.”

This was the worst possible outcome. Had my mother not succumbed to a fit, we could have argued that she had been too long housebound and deserved the outing. But I was overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility for all that had happened, and ready to submit to a well-deserved tirade. My mother had taken me into the city because she delighted in me and wished to please me by showing me the city’s treasures. My father could never be bothered; he scorned the Duomo, calling it “ill-conceived,” and said that our church at Santo Spirito was good enough for us.

So my father carried Mother up to her bed. I closed the shutters to block out the sun, then helped Zalumma undress her down to her
camicia
of embroidered white silk so fine and thin it could scarce be called cloth. Once that was done, and Zalumma was certain my mother was sleeping comfortably, we stepped quietly out into her antechamber and closed the door behind us.

My father was waiting for us. His arms were again folded against
his chest, his lightly freckled cheeks flushed; his gaze could have withered the freshest rose.

Zalumma did not cower. She faced him directly, her manner courteous but not servile, and waited for him to speak first.

His tone was low but faintly atremble. “You knew of the danger to her. You knew, and yet you let her leave the house. What kind of loyalty is this? What shall we do if she dies?”

Zalumma’s tone was perfectly calm, her manner respectful. “She will not die, Ser Antonio; the fit has passed and she is sleeping. But you are right; I am at fault. Without my help, she could not have gone.”

“I shall sell you!” My father’s tone slowly rose. “Sell you, and buy a more responsible slave!”

Zalumma lowered her eyelids; the muscles in her jaw clenched with the effort of holding words back. I could imagine what they were.
I am the lady’s slave, from her father’s household; I was hers before we ever set eyes on you, and hers alone to sell.
But she said nothing. We all knew that my father loved my mother, and my mother loved Zalumma. He would never sell her.

“Go,” my father said. “Get downstairs.”

Zalumma hesitated an instant; she did not want to leave my mother alone, but the master had spoken. She passed by us, her skirts sweeping against the stone floor. My father and I were alone.

I lifted my chin, instinctively defiant. I had been born so; my father and I were evenly matched in terms of temper.

“
You
were behind this,” he said; his cheeks grew even more crimson. “You, with your notions. Your mother did this to please you.”

“Yes, I was behind it.” My own voice trembled, which annoyed me; I fought to steady it. “Mother did this just to please me. Do you think I am happy that she had a spell? She has gone out before without incident. Do you think I meant for this to happen?”