The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (16 page)

Stunned by the suddenness of the maneuver, I stood mute as the groom boosted her up onto the saddle. She raised her arm in a salute. Then all at once, her horse reared and, although she managed to keep her seat, her riding hat, a fine, rust-colored felt with a red plume, fell to the ground. The groom reached to pick it up. Too late. The horse’s hoof claimed it first, smashing it into the mud. Zaira looked down, shrugged, dug in her spurs, and galloped off.

All I had of her now was the hat. I grabbed for it greedily and bore it away upstairs, vowing to myself to keep it always as a memento of one who had loved me so valiantly. But the next day it disappeared from my room. I never saw it again.

10

O
nce Zaira was gone, my father refused to speak of her. My questions about her met with cold rebuffs. When her name was mentioned in company, his face went masklike, as if she were dead. And very soon he began to frequent the Duke’s court as he had in bygone days. He was at Belriguardo. At Belfiore. At the Schifanoia Palace on the edge of town. He was once again a part of the Duke’s inner circle. And the Duke and his
intimati
, as everyone knew, had nothing better to do with their time than to ride around the park, dabble in astrology — and gamble.

When the calamity came, it blew up like one of those violent tornadoes that afflict the Tuscan plains, gaining intensity slowly as the skies darken until at last they swallow up all the land and everything on it.

This whirlwind began early one morning, before the three iron locks on the front door had been unlatched, with a barrage of knocks and shouts from the street below. The shouting was so loud that even up in the schoolroom we heard the gravelly male voices below shouting, “Open up, you Jews, in the name of the Duke.”

Famiglia
and servants alike streamed down the main stairway, garments unbuttoned, faces unwashed, to discover the cause of the commotion. We reached the
cortile
just in time to see three armed brutes from the
bargello
’s department lay hands on my grandfather and accuse him of crimes against the Duke.

When my father pressed them to name the charge, one of them raised a short dagger and threatened to cut off his Jewish nose for his insolence. Then they were off, dragging my dignified grandfather after them as if he were a sack of millet.

My grandmother was the first to regain composure. Within moments, she had Giorgio ring his bell for silence, and after the din had subsided, she walked up a few steps of the great stair with her accustomed bold step, and from there addressed the gathering in a loud, unwavering voice.

“I order you all — family and servants — to go to your accustomed tasks at once. The
banco
will open on time. The children will attend their lessons. Dinner will be prepared as usual. And I will get to the bottom of this matter. Go now and shush your chatter.” She gathered up the folds of her
gamorra
and ascended to the
sala
followed by her steward, her rabbi, and her retinue of ladies. Almost as an afterthought, she beckoned my father to follow.

That was the last we saw of Papa for two days. He simply dropped out of sight without an explanation or even a goodbye. When we inquired, we were put off by vague admonishments to “be good children and pray” — a poor substitute for the assurance we so desperately wanted that our only remaining parent was not gone forever.

The result? We became prey to my cousin Ricca’s wicked inventions. The evening after Papa’s disappearance, she beckoned us into a dark corridor and informed us that she knew why Grandfather was taken and our father fled.

“Uncle Daniele has committed a terrible crime,” she whispered with a wicked gleam in her eye, “but don’t ask me to speak of it. It is too terrible . . .”

“You must tell us, Ricca,” I begged. “He is our father.”

“No.” She shook her head vigorously. “No. I cannot speak of it for shame.”

Jehiel was the more effective persuader. “If you don’t tell us at once, I’ll wring your neck until you choke,” he warned her, with all the assurance of someone who meant what he said.

To my astonishment, Ricca’s courage collapsed at the threat. “Very well,” she conceded. “I’ll tell you.” Then she added, with a dash of malice, “But you’ll wish you hadn’t heard. Your father has run away. And poor Grandfather is being held hostage for him in the dungeon of the
castello
.”

“Why has he run away, Ricca?” Jehiel pressed her. “What terrible crime has he committed?”

“That’s the shameful part.” She lowered her eyes. “It pains me so to speak of it.”

Jehiel took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Speak of it,” he ordered.

“Your father has been keeping a woman —
a Christian woman!
— in a house near the public baths.”

“I don’t believe you,” Jehiel announced. “Who told you?”

“Our porter heard it from the
bargello
’s man,” she replied, then added, “I suppose you know that last year a Florentine Jew was beheaded and burned in the Piazza della Signoria for only one encounter with a Christian woman. So you can imagine the punishment for keeping a Christian woman all the time . . .”

Had we had the wit to think, we would have recognized her story as a fabrication. If Papa had been found out keeping a Christian woman, then he, not Grandfather, would have been arrested. But reason had fled our minds. That night, I dreamed of a headless body trussed and roasting on a spit, while a fat woman with huge, pendulous breasts and a cross around her neck slowly turned the handle.

It was my grandmother who finally, after two days of silence, rescued Jehiel and me from this miasma of rumor and fear. Dour and harsh as always, she wasted no time on words of sympathy. But, say this for her, you could believe what she told you.

“You will want to know that your father is safe. He is,” she began. “But he has gotten us all into serious trouble. Once again his cursed gambling is at the root of it.”

This explanation had the ring of truth to it.

“It appears that he is heavily in debt to his patrician friends, and has resorted to that most heinous of all crimes — coin clipping.”

At least he was not keeping a Christian woman in a house near the baths.

“That is not the worst of it,” my grandmother went on. “The manner in which your father committed this offense has tarred many innocent victims with his guilty brush. Every Jewish business in Ferrara is closed by the Duke’s order. Your grandfather languishes in the dungeon at this very moment for his part in the mischief, even though he knew nothing of it and passed the coins in perfect innocence. Your father has gone to see the Duke at Belfiore and confess his guilt.”

Was this really true? Had Papa allowed Grandfather to take the punishment rightly coming to himself? I could not believe it.

“Do you doubt my word, Grazia?” I hung my head.

Now came a quiet mutter from the other side of the table. “My papa would not do such a thing. My papa is an honorable man.”

“Some fine gentleman to let an old man take his punishment for him. And that man his own father.” La Nonna’s pockmarks were showing dangerously white against her flushed skin.

Dio
, I thought, she is going to beat us. But no. The accusation with the ring of truth about it was punishment enough.

My father returned from his audience at Beiriguardo the next morning. He galloped into the
cortile
, sweated and filthy from riding all night, but triumphant, having achieved Grandfather’s pardon. The old man would be released from the dungeon that afternoon. And the next morning the Jewish
banchi
and shops would be permitted to reopen. Papa himself was, he explained to us, “the most fortunate of men.” The Duke had granted him full clemency — an unprecedented act of mercy.

“I told them you were not a cheater.” Jehiel danced along happily at Papa’s side. “I knew you would never do a wrong thing, Papa.”

“Ah, but I did, my son. I am guilty of coin clipping. Furthermore, I allowed my father to go to prison for it. It would be wrong of me to deny my guilt. And useless. For I am to be tried for my crime.”

“But you said ‘full clemency,’” I interrupted heatedly. “And that means you are forgiven, does it not?”

“By the Duke, yes. But he has remanded me to my own people for justice and punishment. I am now bound over to the
Wad Kellilah
.”

“That is not fair!” I cried. “He gives with one hand and takes away with the other.”

“Stop your ranting,” Papa ordered me severely. “I have done a grievous thing. I deserve to be punished.”

“Just for clipping a little bit of gold off the edge of some coins?” I asked.

“In any other city in Italy I would have lost my head for clipping that little bit of gold. Or at least had both my hands cut off. Here, look at this.” He reached into his pocket and handed me a gold coin. “What do you see?”

“I see a ducat,” I answered stupidly.

“Give it to Jehiel,” he ordered me impatiently. “Maybe he has better vision. What do you see, my son?”

“I see a strange bird, an eagle with two heads and two bodies,” the little boy replied.

“That is the Este double eagle,” Papa explained. “Now turn the coin over and tell me what you see on the other side.”

“I see a picture of the Duke, the one who taught us how to play —” He stopped short before uttering the cursed word.

“So we have the Duke’s emblem and the Duke himself. Now, Madonna Grazia . . .” He turned to me, still stern. “Why do you suppose the Duke’s picture is on the coin?”

“Because he is vain,” I answered, which earned me a smile.

“That picture stands for the Duke himself, who guarantees personally the amount of gold the coin contains. Now reverse the metaphor. When I tamper with the Duke’s currency it is akin to tampering with the man himself.”

This line of reasoning baffled me and I must have shown it, for Papa once again turned irritable. “Sit still, Grazia, and listen carefully. The Emperor himself granted to the Duke’s ancestor the privilege of minting Ferrarese coins. From that time on, the Estes’ lifeblood — their credit — has depended upon the integrity of the coinage. Do you know what that means?”

“It means that the coin is exactly what it pretends to be — no more, no less. Like a man of integrity,” I replied readily.

“That is why I tell you that to clip the Ferrarese ducat is like taking a piece of flesh out of the Duke himself,” Papa explained. “Do you understand now why my crime is so serious?”

I did. But what he called my “lawyer’s mind” began to search for a loophole in his logic. And, to be sure, I found one.

“But Papa, even a stern jurist like Seneca makes it a condition of any crime less than murder that the first offense is to be treated lightly. For, having not committed the crime before, the perpetrator should be given the benefit of the doubt that he did not, the first time, understand the gravity of his offense . . .”

He held up a hand to silence me. “Unfortunately for your case, daughter, this is not my first offense,” he advised me in a much gentler tone.

“You have clipped coins before?” I asked.

“No, daughter. But I have gambled before to excess and, in my passion, caused untold havoc for myself, my family, and for all the Jews in Ferrara. They forgave me then. But to allow the same passion to drive me into crime for a second time — that is not forgivable.”

“What did you do that other time, Papa?” I asked. And when he remained silent, I added, “We must know.”

“Very well.” He nodded. “Since you share my disgrace, it is only just that you should share my secrets. Come.” And he led us up the staircase to my sleeping room, where he settled us on the bed, one on each side. Then he began his confession.

“The events I speak of took place in Ferrara when you, my daughter, were still a babe in swaddling clothes and you” — he drew Jehiel closer to him — “were only a hope in my heart. It was that season when
carnevale
fever takes hold, those weeks before Lent when even princes give themselves over to feasting and wenching and whatever else satisfies their appetites.

“Now, Duke Ercole d’Este never was a womanizer. Nor a glutton. Nor a brawler. But, as you children have cause to know, he does have one besetting vice . . .”

“Gambling,” I whispered.

Papa nodded his confirmation and continued: “How else does such a man choose to indulge himself during
carnevale
but in an orgy of gambling? And what better place for it than on his golden bucentaur, where the guests can be sequestered from the eyes of the curious?

“We gambled for three days and three nights. As the gilded boat wound its way slowly up the Po, the stakes gradually mounted,” Papa continued. “On the final day hundreds of ducats were being wagered on each throw of the dice. By the time the ship sailed into port one man, a merchant named Ambrogio, had been ruined. And a young Jew ‘with golden hands’ had won three thousand gold ducats.”

Papa paused to allow us to digest the magnitude of the numbers. Then he continued.