Read Online The Madonna of the Almonds by Marina Fiorato - Free Book Online
Authors: Marina Fiorato
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that, unfortunate as her circumstances were, the fight was what was keeping her going. This survival instinct, that she had not known she had, was the only opposition to her other temptation, which was to end it all by falling on Lorenzo’s sword. If the Jew wanted to eat her alive, let him. If her Christian God could not help her, very well. Let the other side try.
She took her fingers from the star and knocked at the door – hard enough to graze her knuckles. She hoped, andthen feared, that there was no one within. But at length, the ornamental grille set into the door above the star slid open and a pair of eyes appeared. Simonetta cleared her throat and said what she had been instructed. ‘My name is Simonetta di Saronno, and I am here on the business of Oderigo Beccaria.’
The grille slid shut and she was about to despair of entry when the door creaked open. She was met by the owner of the eyes, a lady wearing a purple robe and golden jewellery more costly than the ones she herself had sold. Simonetta took her for the lady of the house until the woman ushered her within. Simonetta marvelled as she followed the maid through cool courtyards where fountains played, through ornamental arches and between tall slim pillars. Everything was coloured and patterned with strange but regular shapes, but to a tasteful, not gaudy, effect. It was warm in the house, for all that it was so great, and a spicy incense hung in the air. It was all so alien and opulent and very seductive. She had headed into something rich and strange indeed.
Simonetta began to fear again, as the stories of her servants returned, and she felt that she was walking into the lion’s mouth. But she saw a sight to revive her spirits – through an archway to her left she spied two small blonde boys playing with their nursemaid. The lady wore three long dark plaits and a scarlet robe, and was rolling a silver ball between the little boys. The ball held a bell within, and the laughter of the boys echoed its tinkling sound. Simonettasmiled at the scene. The laughter of children, and the tender look on the nursemaid’s face, gave her courage. It seemed the Jews loved their children too.
The fear returned as she was led deeper into the house and she perceived a figure seated at a tavola writing with a quill. Simonetta’s notion that she had truly entered another world was only compounded when her nervous brain registered that the figure was writing in a ledger from right to left, not from left to right in the Christian manner. Nor were the black characters like any that she had been taught by the good sisters of the Pisan convent that directed her education. The fellow’s bulk seemed massive as he leant over his work, and he wore a berretto all’antica in the Milanese style, the velvet of the hat obscuring his face. Was this, then, the Devil she had come to dance with? Yes, for the maidservant ushered her into a chair of gold filigree opposite the figure. He continued to direct the quill with a hand that looked the same as most men’s – and his bulk was an illusion in that he wore a heavy fur cloak indoors, but Simonetta began to dread what she would see when he looked up. At length Manodorata laid his pen aside and raised his head to his visitor. He had not, after all, the face of the Devil, but yet there was something to fear. His eyes were a cold grey that flickered with fearsome intelligence. His lips were unusually full, but were set in a dangerous line. At a time when the fashion was for a clean-shaven face he wore a beard that was oiled and cut into a point as sharpas a knife. His hair and beard were dark but his face looked old – he could have been fifty or more. When he spoke it was in fluent Milanese, but in accents which betrayed that his tongue was accustomed to another language altogether.
‘You have business to transact for my friend Beccaria? But I may not call him a friend; nor yet a foe. He may as likely spit at me as ask me for
She took her fingers from the star and knocked at the door – hard enough to graze her knuckles. She hoped, andthen feared, that there was no one within. But at length, the ornamental grille set into the door above the star slid open and a pair of eyes appeared. Simonetta cleared her throat and said what she had been instructed. ‘My name is Simonetta di Saronno, and I am here on the business of Oderigo Beccaria.’
The grille slid shut and she was about to despair of entry when the door creaked open. She was met by the owner of the eyes, a lady wearing a purple robe and golden jewellery more costly than the ones she herself had sold. Simonetta took her for the lady of the house until the woman ushered her within. Simonetta marvelled as she followed the maid through cool courtyards where fountains played, through ornamental arches and between tall slim pillars. Everything was coloured and patterned with strange but regular shapes, but to a tasteful, not gaudy, effect. It was warm in the house, for all that it was so great, and a spicy incense hung in the air. It was all so alien and opulent and very seductive. She had headed into something rich and strange indeed.
Simonetta began to fear again, as the stories of her servants returned, and she felt that she was walking into the lion’s mouth. But she saw a sight to revive her spirits – through an archway to her left she spied two small blonde boys playing with their nursemaid. The lady wore three long dark plaits and a scarlet robe, and was rolling a silver ball between the little boys. The ball held a bell within, and the laughter of the boys echoed its tinkling sound. Simonettasmiled at the scene. The laughter of children, and the tender look on the nursemaid’s face, gave her courage. It seemed the Jews loved their children too.
The fear returned as she was led deeper into the house and she perceived a figure seated at a tavola writing with a quill. Simonetta’s notion that she had truly entered another world was only compounded when her nervous brain registered that the figure was writing in a ledger from right to left, not from left to right in the Christian manner. Nor were the black characters like any that she had been taught by the good sisters of the Pisan convent that directed her education. The fellow’s bulk seemed massive as he leant over his work, and he wore a berretto all’antica in the Milanese style, the velvet of the hat obscuring his face. Was this, then, the Devil she had come to dance with? Yes, for the maidservant ushered her into a chair of gold filigree opposite the figure. He continued to direct the quill with a hand that looked the same as most men’s – and his bulk was an illusion in that he wore a heavy fur cloak indoors, but Simonetta began to dread what she would see when he looked up. At length Manodorata laid his pen aside and raised his head to his visitor. He had not, after all, the face of the Devil, but yet there was something to fear. His eyes were a cold grey that flickered with fearsome intelligence. His lips were unusually full, but were set in a dangerous line. At a time when the fashion was for a clean-shaven face he wore a beard that was oiled and cut into a point as sharpas a knife. His hair and beard were dark but his face looked old – he could have been fifty or more. When he spoke it was in fluent Milanese, but in accents which betrayed that his tongue was accustomed to another language altogether.
‘You have business to transact for my friend Beccaria? But I may not call him a friend; nor yet a foe. He may as likely spit at me as ask me for
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