Juliet (19 page)

He let me run for a bit, and even waited until I had turned the first corner, before he came after me. Not at high speed, as if he wanted to run me down, just fast enough to let me know that I was not going to get away.

That was when I saw the blue door.

I had just turned another corner, and knew that I only had a small window of opportunity before the headlight would find me again, and there it was, right in front of me: the blue door to the painter’s workshop, magically ajar. I did not even pause to consider whether there might be more than just one blue door in Siena, or whether it was really such a good idea to barge into people’s homes in the middle of the night. I just did it. And as soon as I was inside, I closed the door and leaned against it, listening nervously to the sounds of the motorcycle passing outside and eventually disappearing.

Admittedly, when we had met in the cloister garden the day before, the long-haired painter had struck me as a bit of an oddball, but when you are being chased through medieval alleys by nefarious characters you can’t be picky.

MAESTRO LIPPI’S WORKSHOP
was an acquired taste. It looked as if a bomb of divine inspiration had gone off, not just once, but on a regular basis, scattering paintings, sculptures, and bizarre installations everywhere. The Maestro was apparently not someone whose talents could be
channeled through a single medium or expression; like a linguistic genius, he spoke in the tongue that fitted his mood, choosing his tools and materials with the commitment of the virtuoso. And in the middle of it all stood a barking dog that looked like the unlikely mix of a fluffy bichon frise and an all-business Doberman.

“Ah!” said Maestro Lippi, emerging from behind an easel as soon as he heard the door closing, “there you are. I was wondering when you would come.” Then, without a word, he disappeared. When he returned a moment later, he was carrying a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a loaf of bread. Seeing that I had not yet moved, he chuckled. “You must excuse Dante. He is always suspicious of women.”

“His name is
Dante?”
I looked down at the dog, who now came to give me a slimy old slipper, apologizing in his own way for barking at me. “That is so odd—that was the name of Maestro Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s dog!”

“Well, this is his workshop.” Maestro Lippi poured me a glass of red wine. “Do you know him?”

“You mean,
the
Ambrogio Lorenzetti? From 1340?”

“Of course!” Maestro Lippi smiled and raised his own glass in a toast. “Welcome back. Let us drink to many happy returns. Let us drink to Diana!”

I nearly choked on my wine. He knew my mother?

Before I could sputter out anything, the Maestro leaned closer, conspiratorially. “There is a legend about a river, Diana, deep, deep underground. We have never found her, but people say, sometimes late in the night, they wake up from dreams, and they can feel her. And you know, in the ancient times, there was a Diana temple on the Campo. The Romans had their games there, the bull hunt and the duels. Now we have the Palio in honor of the Virgin Mary. She is the mother who gives us water so we can grow again, like grapevines, out of the darkness.”

For a moment we just stood there, looking at each other, and I had a strange feeling that if he had wanted to, Maestro Lippi could have told me many secrets about myself, about my destiny, and about the future of all things; secrets it would take me many lives to discover on my own. But no sooner had the thought been born than it fluttered off, chased away by the Maestro’s giddy smile as he suddenly pulled the wineglass from my hand
and put it down on the table. “Come! I have something I want to show you. Remember, I told you?”

He walked ahead of me into another room that was, if possible, even more packed with artwork than the workshop itself. It was an interior room with no windows, clearly used as storage. “Just a minute—” Maestro Lippi went right through the mess to carefully remove a piece of fabric covering a small painting hanging on the far wall. “Look!”

I stepped closer in order to see better, but when I came too near, the Maestro stopped me. “Careful. She is very old. Don’t breathe on her.”

It was the portrait of a girl, a beautiful girl, with big blue eyes looking dreamily at something behind me. She seemed sad, but at the same time hopeful, and in her hand she held a five-petal rose.

“I think she looks like you,” said Maestro Lippi, looking from her to me, and back, “or maybe you look like her. Not the eyes, not the hair, but … something else. I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a compliment I don’t deserve. Who painted this?”

“Aha!” The Maestro leaned towards me with a furtive smile. “I found it when I took over the workshop. It was hidden inside the wall in a metal box. There was a book, too. A journal. I think—” Even before Maestro Lippi had finished, all the little hairs on my arms were standing up, and I knew exactly what he would say. “… No, in fact, I am sure it was Ambrogio Lorenzetti who hid the box. It was his journal. And I think he painted this picture, too. Her name is the same as yours,
Giulietta Tolomei
. He wrote it on the back.”

I stared at the painting, scarcely able to believe this was really the portrait I had been reading about. It was every bit as mesmerizing as I had imagined. “Do you still have the journal?”

“No. I sold it. I talked about it to a friend, who talked about it to a friend, and suddenly, there is a man here, who wants to buy it. His name is Professor … Professor Tolomei.” Maestro Lippi looked at me, eyebrows raised. “You’re a Tolomei, too. Do you know him? He is very old.”

I sat down on the nearest chair. It had no seat, but I didn’t care. “That was my father. He translated the journal into English. I am reading it right now. It’s all about her”—I nodded towards the painting—“Giulietta Tolomei. Apparently, she is my ancestor. He describes her eyes in his journal … and there they are.”

“I knew it!” Maestro Lippi spun around to face the painting with pleased agitation. “She is your ancestor!” He laughed and turned again, grabbing me by the shoulders. “I am so glad you came to see me.”

“I just don’t understand,” I said, “why Maestro Ambrogio felt he had to hide these things in the wall. Or maybe it was not him, but someone else—”

“Don’t think so much!” warned Maestro Lippi. “It puts wrinkles on your face.” He paused, struck by unexpected inspiration. “Next time you come, I will paint you. When will you be back? Tomorrow?”

“Maestro—” I knew I had to grab hold of his consciousness while its orbit still touched on reality. “I was wondering if I could stay here a bit longer. Tonight.”

He looked at me curiously, as if it was me and not him who was showing signs of insanity.

I felt compelled to explain. “There is someone out there—I don’t know what’s going on. There’s this guy—” I shook my head. “I know it sounds crazy, but I am being followed, and I don’t know why.”

“Ah,” said Maestro Lippi. Very carefully, he draped the fabric over the portrait of Giulietta Tolomei and escorted me back into the workshop. Here, he sat me down on a chair and handed me my wineglass before he, too, sat down, facing me like a child expecting a story. “I think you do. Tell me why he is following you.”

Over the next half hour I told him everything. I didn’t mean to at first, but once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. There was something about the Maestro and the way he looked at me—eyes sparkling with excitement, nodding now and then—that made me feel he might be able to help me find the hidden truth behind it all. If indeed there was one.

And so I told him about my parents and the accidents that had killed them, and I hinted that a man named Luciano Salimbeni might have had a hand in them both. After that I went on to describe my mother’s box of papers and Maestro Ambrogio’s journal, as well as my cousin Peppo’s allusion to an unknown treasure called Juliet’s Eyes. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?” I asked, when I saw Maestro Lippi frowning.

Instead of answering, he got up and stood for a moment, head in the air, as if listening for a distant call. When he started walking, I knew I had to follow, and so I trailed behind him into another room, up a flight of stairs, and through a long, narrow library with sagging bookcases from
floor to ceiling. Once here, all I could do was observe as the Maestro walked back and forth many, many times, trying to locate—I assumed—a particular book that did not wish to be found. When he finally succeeded, he tore it from the shelf and held it up triumphantly. “I knew I had seen it somewhere!”

The book turned out to be an old encyclopedia of legendary monsters and treasures—for apparently, the two go together and cannot be separated—and as the Maestro began leafing through it, I caught sight of several illustrations that had more to do with fairy tales than with my life until now.

“There!” He tapped a finger on an entry. “What do you say to that?” Unable to wait until we were back downstairs, he switched on a wobbly floor lamp and read the text out loud in an animated mix of Italian and English.

The essence of the story was that Juliet’s Eyes were a pair of abnormally large sapphires from Ethiopia, originally called The Ethiopian Twins, which were—allegedly—purchased by Messer Salimbeni of Siena in the year 1340 as an engagement present for his bride-to-be, Giulietta Tolomei. Later, after Giulietta’s tragic death, the sapphires were set as eyes in a golden statue by her grave.

“Listen to this!” Maestro Lippi ran an eager finger down the page. “Shakespeare knew about the statue, too!” And he went on to read the following lines from the very end of
Romeo and Juliet
, quoted in the encyclopedia in both Italian and English:

When he finally stopped reading, Maestro Lippi showed me the illustration on the page, and I recognized it right away. It was a statue of a man and a woman; the man was kneeling, holding a woman in his arms. Except for a few details, it was the very same statue my mother had tried to capture at least twenty times in the notebook I had found in her box.

“Holy cow!” I leaned closer to the illustration. “Does it say anything about the actual location of her grave?”

“Whose grave?”

“Juliet’s, or, I should say, Giulietta’s.” I pointed at the text he had just read to me. “The book says that a golden statue was put up by her grave … but it didn’t say where the grave actually
was
.”

Maestro Lippi closed the book and shoved it back in the bookcase on a random shelf. “Why do you want to find her grave?” he asked, his tone suddenly belligerent. “So you can take her eyes? If she doesn’t have eyes, how can she recognize her Romeo when he comes to wake her up?”

“I wouldn’t take her eyes!” I protested. “I just want to … see them.”

“Well,” said the Maestro, switching off the wobbly lamp, “then I think you have to talk to Romeo. I don’t know who else would be able to find it. But be careful. There are many ghosts here, and they are not all as friendly as me.” He leaned closer in the darkness, taking some kind of silly pleasure in spooking me, and hissed, “A plague! A plague on both your houses!”

“That’s really great,” I said. “Thanks.”

He laughed heartily and slapped his knees. “Come on! Don’t be such a little pollo! I am just teasing you!”

Back downstairs, several glasses of wine later, I finally managed to steer the conversation back to Juliet’s Eyes. “What exactly did you mean,” I asked, “when you said that
Romeo
knows where the grave is?”

“Does he?” Maestro Lippi now looked perplexed. “I am not sure. But I think you should ask him. He knows more about all this than I do. He is young. I forget things now.”

I tried to smile. “You speak as if he is still alive.”

The Maestro shrugged. “He comes and goes. It is always late at night … he comes here and sits down to look at her.” He nodded in the direction of the storage room with the painting of Giulietta. “I think he is still in love with her. That is why I leave the door open.”

“Seriously,” I said, taking his hand, “Romeo doesn’t exist. Not anymore. Right?”

The Maestro glared at me, almost offended. “
You
exist! Why wouldn’t
he
exist?” He frowned. “What? You think he is a ghost, too? Huh. Of course, you never know, but I don’t think so. I think he is real.” He paused briefly to weigh the pros and cons, then said, firmly, “He drinks wine. Ghosts don’t drink wine. It takes practice, and they don’t like to practice.
They are very boring company. I prefer people like you. You are funny. Here”—he filled up my glass once again—“drink some more.”

“So,” I said, obediently taking another swig, “if I were going to ask this Romeo some questions … how would I do that? Where can I find him?”

“Well,” said the Maestro, pondering the question, “I am afraid you will have to wait until he finds you.” Seeing my disappointment, he leaned across the table to study my face very intently. “But then,” he added, “I think maybe he has already found you. Yes. I think he has. I can see it in your eyes.”

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