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

service that was the pride of her dowry. Zaira had her arms around my mother and was waving a small vial of smelling salts under her nose, while off to one side stood the culprit — our Tartar slave girl, Cateruccia — her arms folded, chin thrust out, more defiant than penitent.
    Behind her on the plate rack was lined up the set of portrait plates of heroes and heroines of the Pentateuch. David was there. And Noah. And Miriam. Moses, of course, and Joshua with his trumpet, each of them identified by his name in Latin script. We were a very advanced Jewish family to name our heroes in the language of the humanists rather than the language of our ancestors. And, indeed, to go beyond the first five books to search out suitable subjects for the maker’s superb portraiture.
    I always tried to position the plate of Judith holding up the head of Holofernes next to my place when the Passover table was laid. It was my favorite. And now it lay in a hundred pieces, the general’s severed head watered by Mama’s tears.
    Once I knew the cause I did not wonder at my mother’s distress. The dishes had been ordered by her papa from the Castel Durante kiln of the elder Giovanni Maria, surely the finest maker of tin-glazed ware in the peninsula. The brilliance of the blue that came to life in Messer Giovanni’s kiln was enough to make the sky sigh with envy. Indeed, it was said that no one in Mantova save the Gonzagas themselves owned more elegant tableware than Rachel dei Rossi.
    What happened next needs little explanation. Mama was not herself, being within weeks of her lying-in. Cateruccia had to be gotten out of the kitchen before she caused more damage. Also someone had to watch over Jehiel and me. I spoke up for Zaira as our child minder, but a piteous look from Mama told her she could not be spared. So, in a moment of rash expedience, Mama sent us away in care of the slave girl with strict orders not to venture out into the street. How could she have known that Cateruccia had other plans for herself, plans which she neatly expanded to include us?
    When the time came to fetch the matzoh from the communal forno , the slattern ordered us to come along. She was a strapping Tartar with a bullying way that we found hard to resist. Besides, the bakehouse was only two houses away from ours. Such a brief passage hardly seemed to fall under Mama’s interdiction to stay off the street. And, indeed, our vicolo — more of a lane than a street — presented the perfect picture of serene seclusion when we walked out into the crisp March day.
    At the forno , an equal tranquillity prevailed, if anything an unaccustomed tranquillity. Generally the place buzzed like a hive with the gossip and greetings of servants, slaves, and housewives. But that afternoon we were the only customers.
    Zoppo, the lame baker, greeted us with his usual disagreeable wheeze, muttering as he removed the round, flat biscuits with his long-handled paddle. What vexed him today was that his customers were tardy in picking up their matzoh. No one ever considered the baker, he grumbled. He too had a family, he reminded us. He too must make preparations for the seder. It would serve them all damn right, he snarled — blasphemy on the eve of Passover! — if he shut up shop there and then and left them without.
    Thinking back, it strikes me that the reason Zoppo’s customers hadn’t picked up their unleavened bread for the evening service was that many of them had heard about Fra Bernardino’s permission to preach and were already on their way out of town.
    When we had filled our hamper with matzoh and climbed up the steps of the forno onto the vicolo , we were once again subjected to Cateruccia’s blandishments, this time sugar-coated. “They say there is a juggler in the piazza today who throws balls of fire in the air and catches them with his bare hands,” she coaxed. “And a dancing bear who performs the moresca in time to a drum.”
    I might have been able to