The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi Read Online Free Page A

back and waited, the way hunters wait for their dogs to flush out the prey. And after not too many moments, the Jews began to emerge, choking, from the fiery furnaces that moments ago had been their homes. As they came out, the Christians cut them down one by one. It is said that no one there got out alive. Women, children, the old, infirm, all perished.”
    He leaned back, exhausted.
    And I kept silent, thinking that the same preacher who had exhorted the people of Trento to a crime too vicious to imagine would, this day, be preaching in my town, in my square. And I knew why a roomful of people had lowered their heads in desperate prayer and why Papa shivered at the mention of the name Trento.

2
    A s I write of the old days in Mantova, the people appear to me like characters in a masque. My brother Jehiel becomes a little boy again. My father is young and handsome and hopeful, unpricked by Fortuna’s poisonous arrows. My mother glides gracefully through the scene, always dainty no matter the extra girth her pregnancy has brought her. And Zaira . . . ah, Zaira . . . my nurse, my comfort, my friend. She had arrived at our gate only a few weeks before, forced to flee from her town of Modena by the same threat that now menaced Mantova: Fra Bernardino.
    Papa, always ready to help a coreligionist in trouble, introduced her into our famiglia , explaining to us that her profession — she was a dancing teacher — made her a prime target for those ignoranti who use the death of their Savior as an excuse for riot and violence. Later, I asked Zaira why the ignoranti picked on dancing teachers in particular. I suppose I expected a show of emotion when I mentioned the subject . . . anger, distress, even tears. Instead, she favored me with a perfectly composed countenance and, without a trace of bitterness or malice, explained the behavior of her persecutors.
    “It has to do with what they call consanguinity — closeness. When we teach our pupils to dance, we lay our hands on them, like so,” she explained, clasping my waist to illustrate the point. “And from there it is but a short step to casting spells, laying down curses, and other witches’ tricks, you see.”
    I knew enough about the punishment inflicted on witches to find the thought terrifying. But Zaira was not easily frightened. In her, nature had combined two qualities not often found together: an ability to see the world without illusions and, along with it, a readiness to accept the misery and injustice of that world without complaint or cynicism.
    The ladies in my mother’s sewing circle saw none of Zaira’s virtues. A bird of exotic plumage, she was completely out of place in Mama’s nest of brown wrens. No matter how diligently she plied her needle or how high she buttoned up her chemise, she could not hide the curve of her breast or the length of her legs or the girlish dew of her complexion. She made them all seem doughy and pale and for that they could not forgive her.
    But my mother befriended and defended Zaira and thus gained her undying loyalty. Beset by the fevers and ague of a difficult pregnancy, my mother sorely needed a nurse. And in quick time Zaira fell into that role, warding off the least hint of ill humor, bad tidings, or any other threats to Mama’s peace of mind.
    But even constant vigilance cannot prevent domestic calamities on feast days. Shortly after dinner a loud crash from the top of the house followed by a terrible cry alerted the household that disaster had struck the kitchen.
    Now my mother was not a woman given to sudden fits and tempers. Yet it was exactly in such a state that we found her when we dashed up to the kitchen. All activity had ceased. The roasts had stopped turning on the spit. The broth boiled over onto the fire, unstirred. The servants stood transfixed by what lay on the floor at Mama’s feet — a small pile of shards which I recognized at once as the shattered remains of a dish from the gorgeous blue and yellow