The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (46 page)

Midway up the path, swaying from side to side as one does on muleback, Judah turned to me and announced, “He is dead.” How he knew, I cannot guess. But his intuition was verified by the servant who met us at the portal. The brightest ornament in the humanistic diadem had lost his light that morning in the thirty-second year of his life. “Too young. Too soon,” Judah muttered as we passed into the
sala grande
where the body lay.

Savonarola was not present. No doubt he and his cohort were occupied honoring the triumph of their hero, the Sword of God, Charles VIII. So the members of the Platonic Academy had their Phoenix — as Pico was called by his intimates — all to themselves. They stood around the bier like a coven of Platonic witches dressed in black
luccos
talking of Pico, extolling his virtues and mourning his loss, while the flickering candles caught the glint here and there of the jewels that adorned their expressive fingers.

When Judah conducted me forward so that we might pay our respects, I noted that at the foot of the coffin stood a bust of Plato mounted on a plinth where the Count might contemplate it through his dead eyes.

Seeing his face — the noble forehead, the straight nose, the golden hair spread out on the pillow — I could not help but feel a pang. I had not expected him to be so young, nor so beautiful . . . nor so benign in death. But even as I sighed, a small voice in me inquired what this Pico della Mirandola was to me that I should weep for him. And I left the bier dry-eyed.

Once all were assembled, various members of the Platonic circle rose to give account of the dead man’s last days and of his great deeds. The first to speak was Marsilio Ficino, come from a distance to be with his beloved Phoenix in his final hours. It was his fourth bedside vigil in a year. First, Lorenzo
il magnifico
, dead at forty-three. Then, Barbaro. Then, only two months previous, Poliziano, age forty. And now, Pico. Humanists die young. Except for Ficino.

The revered graybeard spoke of the past sentimentally, of how this beautiful, good, and learned being had dropped into his
studiolo
one day like an angel from heaven. “He praised my translation of the
Dialogues
and urged me to crown my labors by performing the same office for Plotinus as I had for Plato,” the old man recalled in his deep resonant voice. “I was weary. But I felt that the visitation of this angel must be a divine monition and I undertook to begin a translation of Plotinus at once.”

He stopped a moment to clear his throat, then continued in his perfectly articulated Italian. “I was to him in years as a father, in intimacy as a brother, in affection as a second self,” he went on. “Now he is gone from us, our Phoenix of the Wits, as Poliziano truly dubbed him.” He heaved a deep sigh. “For he will rise from the ashes. He will never be forgotten as long as men treasure learning, wisdom, and goodness.”

Then he pronounced a long Latin benediction and sat down.

Next came members of Pico’s family and finally Judah, seeming much at home among the party in spite of the little Jewish cap which set him off as not one of them. He did not stand beside the bier as the others had done. He merely glanced for one poignant moment at the beautiful face and then looked away, as if he could not bear the sight. But what a world of love there was in that look.

“I sat at his side for three days before the end, I whose profession it is to sit at the side of the dying and to comfort them,” Judah began. “And I am witness that his dying was like no other I have ever seen. For he lay always with a pleasant and merry countenance, embarrassed almost to be causing inconvenience to others by his leaving, as a gentleman would be who must make an awkward or precipitous exit. Not once did he cry out. Nor did he speak of pain except to reassure me that he felt none. How can one describe so kindly and modest a spirit? If there are words, it needs a poet, not a physician, to voice them. Even with the coming of those twitches and pangs which foretell the end, he never spoke of despair or fear but only the opposite. Yesterday, after an exhausting seizure, he whispered to me that he beheld the heavens opening to receive him. Today he is with the angels. But he is with us in spirit. He lives in our hearts, may God bless his soul.”

After that, someone said a prayer in Latin and then the group dispersed, leaving Judah to sit the night out in watch, as he had requested. I left him hunched over a slim morocco-bound volume of the
Phaedrus
, his lips repeating the words so dear to his young patron and himself, more shrouded in his black cloak than the bright figure on the bier in his white linen.

A maid saw me to my room, a chamber stripped bare of all excepting the essentials. There were no furnishings beyond the bed, a single
cassone
, and the candles. No furs, no hangings, tapestries, or wall decorations, not even rushes. But what little was there was of the finest quality, the coverlet woven of a linen thread so fine that it felt like satin to my hand, the candles pure white and smokeless, the crucifix on the wall facing my bed studded with large rubies and emeralds. The floor beneath my feet was bare. But it gleamed as wood will that is lovingly polished with beeswax. And the single pillow was stuffed to its limits with softest down — no feathers or other cheap stuff here. And I was brought two bricks wrapped in towels to warm my hands and feet.

In such a fresh, luxurious surround I ought to have drifted off at once. The silence all around told me that everyone else in the household had done so. Yet, much as I wished to lose myself in sleep, I could not. The body below haunted me. The rumors of Pico’s comeliness had not prepared me for the great beauty of that face. In every way this Pico had been the perfect model of a prince, a stunning contrast to the live king I had seen earlier that day propped up on his charger.

My mind wandered back to the procession, to the Florentines shouting “Francia! Francia!” to welcome their conquerors. What awaited us there on the morrow? Thus far the French had behaved well. But how long could such a motley collection hold together? The Scottish bowmen especially had frightened me. So tall and so savage. I needed to see Judah — to get his reassurance that all would be well with us. That we would not be seized, robbed, tied, raped . . . Throwing off the quilt, I quickly dove into my
gamorra
and crept out into the corridor.

It was a long, cold, unfriendly space lit only by a flickering candle positioned to illuminate a small panel of the Virgin in the Sienese style. A forbidding sentinel of the staircase, her wide, unseeing eyes stared out at me from her niche at the end of the corridor. Instinctively I crouched down as I passed beneath her, as if to avoid that reproachful gaze.

Down the staircase I crept, stealthily so as not to wake the dead, across the vast reception hall hung with ghostly tapestries that muffled all sound, and cold enough to chill your blood. At the portal of the room where Count Pico’s body lay, I hesitated for a long moment, reluctant to violate the eerie silence that enveloped the place. But I had come too far to turn back.

I thrust aside the heavy drapery. The scene drew me toward the bier, closer and closer, unable to resist the sight: Judah, unconscious of my presence, on his knees at Pico’s side, his tears falling unchecked on the dead face like a soft salty rain. He was mumbling, muttering, keening, clasping and unclasping the dead hands in his own, swaying back and forth over that dead body as Jews do when they recite the prayer for the dead. But what Judah was whispering was no prayer for the dead.

“My beloved . . .” I heard. “There is no sun without you and no moon. Only grayness. And tears.” And, sobbing: “Speak to me one last time. Tell me I am forgiven. That you love me. Oh, speak . . .” And I saw him raise one of those dead hands to his lips and cover it with kisses. Then, as if the hand was not enough to feed his great hunger, he laid it aside and fell upon the face, covering it with kisses, lifting the head to gaze into the closed eyes and kissing the dead mouth as passionately as if he held a woman in his arms.

He saw me then, turned and saw me. And with an agonized groan, he heaved himself to his feet and staggered from the room, clutching his head in his hands like a great wounded beast.

31

S
ilence hung over Judah and me like a heavy cloud as we plodded homeward from the Fiesole heights. Even the horses became sullen and skittish. Judah came close to being thrown when his mount unaccountably shied at a crossing. And twice he had to dismount and lead the neighing horse across the stream on foot. That animal has caught the contagion from us, I thought. He knows we are descending into some kind of hell.

But Judah, who must have been gathering his courage all through the tortuous descent, finally found the will to break the silence when we stopped outside the city walls to water the horses.

“Grazia, I understand how you feel. You feel lied to, betrayed. But I swear to you there has been nothing between him and me since our marriage.”

I felt the pressure of his hand on my arm and shook it off. “Don’t touch me!” The words leapt from my throat.

“Very well. But may I speak?” The question was put in a pitifully suppliant voice I had never heard before.

I nodded my assent.

“I swear by all that is holy to me that when I married you I believed it was over. But then the fever got its hold on him and I thought he might die . . .” He hesitated, hoping no doubt for an encouraging word from me. But I had no encouragement to give him.

“This passion was not a thing that either he or I pursued,” he went on. “Like the Furies, it pursued us.”

“When men succumb to weakness, they blame the gods,” I told him. “I thought you were above such self-deception.”

“Have it any way you wish,” he replied. “Call me a weakling —”

“Worse, a deceiver,” I cut in, showing my anger now. “The deception is what hurts the most. Calling me your little wife when you never meant to make me wife. Blaming my youth for our barren bed when it was your love for another that kept us apart.”

“But I did believe we would take up a life as man and wife someday . . .”

“Someday,” I echoed.

He buried his head in his hands, and only after a long wait did he lift his eyes to meet mine. “My nature is flawed, Grazia, deeply flawed. I am a sinner. A deceiver. But I never meant you harm.” Again he touched my arm, but this time he withdrew it before I could throw it off. “I am what lam, Grazia. Knowing that, will you still have me for your husband?”

“No!” My pride had been stomped on and I could not rise above my wounds. “No,” I repeated, “I will not be your wife.”

“Do you wish a divorce, then?”

“No.” As before, the words issued from my throat unwilled.

“What then?”

“At this moment I do not feel you are my friend. Friends do not lie to one another. And love does not betray,” I told him, speaking the words just as they came to me. “After what I saw last night the role of wife seems to me a travesty. I am no wife to you nor are you husband to me or ever have been. But I have known you as friend and perhaps I can again. Let us go back to the time before our marriage. You spoke to me then of being loving friends and nothing more. Maybe we can regain that friendship. I will try. But this time, no lies, Judah.”

In that understanding we took up our life together once more. But now it was Judah who moved toward me at night in bed, looking for warmth, while I turned my back and retreated into my own world of dreams. And he was the one who kept his vow to be a loving friend whereas I, in spite of my resolve, found myself dishonoring my pledge every day. Sometimes I betrayed myself with a bitter word, sometimes with a look, often with a gesture of dismissal if Judah dared even the slightest evidence of tenderness toward me. An ice crust had formed around my heart that would not melt.

Servants are the most accurate gauge of domestic discord, the first to know when it heats up and when it cools down. So it was not entirely surprising to me when one day in the midst of our perusal of Boccaccio, my pupil, Medina, broke off his translating and asked, “Is something wrong, madonna? You speak so coldly these days. Is it my fault?”

I had become so flooded with bile that even this boy could sense it. “I do not hate you, Medina,” I answered softly. “But I am very sad. I have suffered a deep disappointment.”

“I know, madonna.”

What did he know? I bent down, lifted his chin in my hands and set his face at a level with mine. The almond eyes were half closed as usual. His breath smelled of cloves, an expensive remedy against the garlic breath I had complained of.

“Where did you get the cloves, Medina?” I asked.

“From the master, madonna.”

“Four of those must have cost you a month’s wages.”

The long, curled black lashes swept over his face coquettishly. “They were a gift, madonna.” Then he added, “The master loves you more than his own life, madonna.”

There it was again, that insinuating intimacy, as if he had been present at Fiesole.

“Leave me now, Medina,” I ordered him. “There will be no lesson today.”