I, Mona Lisa Page 9

  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?”

  He shook his head. “A girl so young, so full of such brazen disrespect. Listen to me: You will stay at home, by your mother’s side, all week. You are not to go to Mass or market. Do you not know how serious this offense is? Do you not know how terrified I was, to come home and find her gone? Do you not feel at all ashamed that your selfishness has hurt your mother so? Or do you care nothing for her life?”

  His tone steadily rose throughout his discourse, so that by its end, he was shouting.

  “Of course—” I began, but broke off as my mother’s door opened, and she appeared in the doorway.

  Both my father and I were startled and turned to look at her. She looked like a wraith, clutching the doorjamb to keep her balance; her eyes were heavy-lidded with exhaustion. Zalumma had taken down her hair, and it spilled darkly over her shoulders, her bosom, and down to her waist; she wore nothing but the billowing camicia, with its long, puffed sleeves.

  She spoke in nothing more than a whisper, but the emotion in it could be clearly heard. “Leave her be. This was my idea, all of it. If you must shout, shout at me.”

  “You mustn’t be up,” I said, but my words were drowned out by my father’s angry voice.

  “How could you do such a thing when you know it is dangerous? Why must you frighten me so, Lucrezia? You might have died!”

  My mother gazed on him with haggard eyes. “I am tired. Tired of this house, of this life. I don’t care if I die. I want to go out, as normal folk do. I want to live as any normal woman does.”

  She would have said more, but my father interrupted. “God forgive you for speaking so lightly of death. It is His will that you live so, His judgment. You should accept it meekly.”

  I had never heard venom in my gentle mother’s tone, had never seen her sneer. But that day, I heard and saw both.

  Her lip tugged at one corner. “Do not mock God, Antonio, when we both know the truth of it.”

  He moved swiftly, blindingly, to strike her; she shrank backward.

  I moved just as quickly to intervene. I pummeled my father’s shoulders, forcing him away from her. “How dare you!” I cried. “How dare you! She is kind and good—everything you are not!”

  His pale golden eyes were wide, bright with rage. He struck out with the back of his hand; I fell back, startled to find myself sitting on the floor.

  He swept from the room. As he did, I looked frantically about for something to hurl after him; but all I had was the cape still about my shoulders, a gift from him of heavy alessandrino blue wool.

  I bunched it in my hands and threw it, but it went scarcely farther than an arm’s length before dropping silently to the floor—a vain gesture.

  And then I came to myself and ran into my mother’s room to find her on her knees beside the bed. I helped her up into it, covered her with a blanket, and held her hand while she—once again half asleep—wept softly.

  “Hush,” I told her. “We didn’t mean it. And we will make amends.”

  She reached up blindly, looking for my hand; I clasped hers. “It all repeats,” she moaned, and her eyes at last closed. “It all repeats. . . .”

  “Hush now,” I said, “and sleep.”

  XIII

  I sat at my mother’s bedside the rest of the day. When the sun began to set, I lit a taper and remained. A servant came bearing my father’s request that I come down and sup with him; I refused. I did not want to be reconciled yet.

  But as I sat in the darkness watching my mother’s profile in the candleglow, I felt a stirring of regret. I was no better than my father; out of love and a desire to protect her, I had permitted my rage to overtake me. When my father had lifted his hand, threatening her—though I did not believe he would actually strike her—I had struck him, and not once, but several times. This, even though I knew our fighting broke my mother’s heart.

  I was a bad daughter. One of the worst, for I was vengeful and plotting against those who harmed the people I loved. When I was ten, we had a new servant, Evangelia, a stocky woman with black hairs on her chin and a broad red face. When she first witnessed one of my mother’s fits, she proclaimed—like the priest in the Duomo—that my mother was possessed of the Devil and needed prayer.

  That claim alone would not have provoked my hatred, only my dislike: As I said, I was still undecided as to whether it was true, but I knew such statements embarrassed and hurt my mother. But Evangelia gelia would not let the matter rest. Whenever she was in the same room as my mother, she crossed herself and made the sign to avert the evil eye—two fingers pointing outward in a vee at the level of her own eyes. She began to wear a charm in a pouch hung round her neck, then at last did the unforgivable: She left a second charm hanging from my mother’s door. It was supposedly to keep my mother confined to her room; when other servants confessed the truth of it, my mother wept. But she was too kind and ashamed to say anything to Evangelia.

  I took matters into my own hands; I would not tolerate anyone who made my mother cry. I stole into my mother’s room and took her finest ring, a large ruby set in delicately crafted gold, a wedding gift from my father.

  I hid it within Evangelia’s belongings, then waited. The predictable occurred: The ring was found, to everyone’s horror—especially Evangelia’s. My father dismissed her at once.

  At first I felt a sense of satisfaction: Justice had been served, and my mother would no longer weep with shame. But after a few days, my conscience began to pain me. Most of Florence knew of Evangelia’s supposed crime, and she was widowed with a small daughter. No family would hire her. How would she survive?

  I confessed my sin to the priest and to God. Neither brought relief. At last I went to my mother and tearfully told her the truth. She was stern and told me outright what I already knew—that I had ruined a woman’s life. To my relief, she did not tell the full truth to my father, only that a terrible mistake had been made. She begged him to find Evangelia and bring her back, that her name might be cleared.

  But my father’s efforts were futile. Evangelia had already left Florence, unable to find employment.

  I lived from then on w
ith the guilt. And as I sat watching my sleeping mother that night, I remembered all the angry outbursts of my youth, every vengeful act I had ever committed. There were many; and I prayed to God, the God Who loved my mother and did not want her stricken with fits, to relieve me of my dreadful temper. My eyes filled; I knew my father and I added to my mother’s suffering every time we fought.

  As the first tear spilled onto my cheek, my mother stirred in her sleep and murmured something unintelligible. I put a gentle hand on her arm. “It’s all right. I am here.”

  The instant I uttered the words, the door opened softly. I glanced up to see Zalumma, a goblet in her hand. She had removed her cap and scarf, and plaited her wild hair, but a halo of untamed curls framed her white face.

  “I brought a draught,” she said quietly. “When your mother wakes, this will let her sleep through the night.”

  I nodded and tried to wipe my damp cheek casually, hoping Zalumma would not notice as she set the goblet beside my mother’s bed.

  Of course she noticed everything, even though her back was to me at the instant I accomplished the act. She turned to me, and with her voice still low, she said, “You mustn’t cry.”

  “But it’s my fault.”

  Zalumma flared. “It’s not your fault. It’s never been your fault.” She sighed bitterly as she looked down on her sleeping mistress. “What the priest in the Duomo said—”

  I leaned forward, eager to hear her opinion. “Yes?”

  “It is vileness. It is ignorance, you understand? Your mother is the truest Christian I know.” She paused. “When I was a very young girl . . .”

  “When you lived in the mountains?”

  “Yes, when I lived in the mountains. I had a brother. Closer to me than a brother; he was a twin.” She smiled with faint affection at the memory. “Headstrong and full of mischief he was, always making our mother wring her hands. And I was always helping him.” The faint, wry smile faded at once. “One day he climbed a very tall tree. He wanted to reach the sky, he said. I followed him up as far as I could, but he climbed so high that I grew frightened, and stopped. He crawled out onto a limb . . .” There was the slightest catch in her voice; she paused, then resumed calmly. “Too far. And he fell.”

  I straightened in my chair, aghast. “Did he die?”

  “We thought he would; he had cracked his head and it bled terribly, all over my apron. When he was better and could walk, we went outside to play. Before we went too far, he fell and began to shake, just as your mother does. Afterward, he could not speak for a while, and slept. Then he was better again until the next time.”

  “Just like Mother.” I paused. “Did the fits . . . did they ever . . . did he . . . ?”

  “Did the fits kill him? No. I don’t know what became of him after we were separated.” Zalumma eyed me, trying to judge whether I had grasped the point of her tale. “My brother never had fits before he hurt his head. His fits came after his injury. His fits came because of his injury.”

  “So . . . Mother has struck her head?”

  Zalumma averted her gaze a bit—perhaps she was only telling a story, calculated to soothe me—but she nodded. “I believe so. Now . . . do you think God pushed a little boy from a tree to punish him for his sins? Or do you think he was so craven that the Devil possessed him and caused him to leap?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “There are people who would disagree with you. But I knew my brother’s heart, and I know your mother’s; and I know that God would never be so cruel, nor allow the Devil to rest in such sweet souls.”

  The instant Zalumma said it, my doubts about the matter vanished. Despite what Evangelia or the priest said, my mother was not host to demons. She attended Mass daily at our private chapel; she prayed constantly and had a shrine to the Virgin of the Flower—the lily, symbol of resurrection and of Florence—in her room. She was generous to the poor and never spoke ill of anyone. To my mind, she was as holy as any saint. The revelation gave me great relief.

  But one thing still troubled me.

  There is murder here, and thoughts of murder. Plots within plots once more.

  I could not forget what the astrologer had told me two years earlier: that I was surrounded by deceit, doomed to finish a bloody deed others had begun.

  It all repeats.

  “The strange things Mother cries out,” I said. “Did your brother do that, too?”

  Zalumma’s fine porcelain features reflected hesitation; at last she yielded to the truth. “No. She spoke of such things before the fits came, since she was a girl. She . . . she sees and knows things that are hidden from the rest of us. Many of the things she has said have come to pass. I think God has touched her, given her a gift.”

  Murder, and thoughts of murder. This time, I did not want to believe what Zalumma said, and so I chose to believe that, in this case, she was being superstitious. “Thank you,” I told her. “I will remember what you have said.”

  She smiled and leaned down to put an arm around my shoulder. “No more vigil; it’s my turn now. Go and get something to eat.”

  I looked past her at my mother, uncertain. I still felt responsible for what had happened that morning.

  “Go,” Zalumma said, in a tone that allowed no argument. “I’ll sit with her now.”

  So I rose and left them—but I did not go in search of the cook. Instead, I went downstairs with the intent of going to pray. I wandered outside into the rear courtyard and garden. Just beyond, in a small separate structure, was our chapel. The night was bitter cold, the sky clouded and moonless, but I carried a lamp that I might not stumble over my skirts or a stepping-stone.

  I opened the chapel’s heavy wooden door and slipped inside. The interior was dark and gloomy, lit only by the votives flickering in front of small paintings of our family’s patron saints: the woolly John the Baptist in honor of Florence; the Virgin of the Lily—Santa Maria del Fiore—my mother’s favorite, for which the Duomo was named; and my father’s namesake, Saint Anthony, who bore the Christ child in his arms.

  Most private Florentine families’ chapels were decorated with large murals, often portraying members as saints or Madonnas. Ours lacked such embellishment, save for the paintings of the three saints. Our grandest adornment was suspended over the altar: a large wooden statue of the crucified Christ, his expression as haunted and mournful as that of the aged, repentant Magdalen in the Duomo’s Baptistery.

  As I entered, I heard a soft, low moaning. And as I lifted the lamp toward the direction of the noise, I saw a dark figure kneeling at the altar railing. My father was praying earnestly, his forehead pressed hard against the knuckles of his tightly folded hands.

  I knelt beside him. He turned toward me; the lamplight glittered off the unshed tears in his amber eyes.

  “Daughter, forgive me,” he said.

  “No,” I countered. “It is you who must forgive me. I hit you—a horrible thing for a child to do to her father.”

  “And I struck you, without cause. You were only thinking to protect your mother. And that was my intent, yet I find myself doing the opposite. I am older, and should be wiser.” He looked up at the image of the suffering Christ. “After all these years, I should have learned to control myself. . . .”

  I wished to coax him from his mood of self-reproach. I rested a hand on his arm and said lightly, “So, I inherited my ill temper from you, then.”

  He sighed and ran the pad of his thumb tenderly over the contours of my cheek. “Poor child. This is no fault of yours.”

  Still kneeling, we embraced. At that instant, the forgotten medallion chose to slip from my belt. It struck the inlaid marble flooring, rolled in a perfect circle, then fell flat on its side.

  Its appearance embarrassed me. Curious, my father reached for the coin, lifted it, and examined it—then narrowed his eyes and drew back his head slightly, as if threatened by a slap. After a long pause, he spoke.

  “You see,” he said, his voice low and soft. “This
is what comes of anger. Dreadful acts of violence.”

  “Yes,” I echoed, eager to end the conversation, to return to the warmer feeling of conciliation. “Mother told me about the killing in the Duomo. It was a terrible thing.”

  “It was. There is no excuse for murder, regardless of the provocation. Such violence is heinous, an abomination before God.” The piece of gold, still held aloft, caught the feeble light and glinted. “Did she tell you the other side of it?”

  I tried and failed to understand; I thought at first he referred to the coin. “The other side?”

  “Lorenzo. His love for his murdered brother drove him to madness in the days after.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “Eighty men in five days. A few of them were guilty, but most were simply unfortunate enough to have the wrong relatives. They were tortured mercilessly, drawn and quartered, their hacked, bloodied bodies heaved out the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria. And what they did to poor Messer Iacopo’s corpse. . . .” He shuddered, too horrified by the thought to pursue it further. “All in vain, for even a river of blood could not revive Giuliano.” He opened his eyes and stared hard at me. “There is a vengeful streak in you, child. Mark my words: No good can come of revenge. Pray God delivers you of it.” He pressed the cold coin into my palm. “Remember what I have said each time you look on this.”

  I lowered my gaze and accepted the chastisement meekly, even as my hand closed swiftly over my treasure. “I will.”

  To my relief, he at last rose; I followed suit.

  “Have you eaten?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Then let us find Cook.”

  On the way out, my father picked up my lamp and sighed. “God help us, daughter. God help us not to give in to our anger again.”

  “Amen,” I said.

  XIV

  Before Zalumma retired that night, I sought her out and coaxed her into my little room. I closed the door behind us, then jumped upon my cot and wrapped my arms around my knees.