“Of course she did!”
“Ah, but the story does not end there. The now-beautiful lady informs her husband that he has a choice: ‘I can be beautiful at night or during the day, not both,’ she explained. ‘Which do you prefer?’ Lucrezia sat down beside her former husband. “Which would you prefer, Morgan? What would you say?”
Morgan thought for several moments. “A Solomon’s dilemma, indeed,” he said. “I guess I would choose the day, when she would be seen both by me and others. I would hide from her at night.” He grinned at his cleverness.
Lucrezia sipped her coffee, watching Morgan closely over the rim of her cup. She continued, “The wise Sir Gawain pondered the question, dropped to his knees, took her hand, and replied: ‘It is your choice to make, my lady.’ ‘You have broken Sir Gromer’s wicked spell,’ she told him excitedly. And the now continually beautiful lady and her young knight lived happily ever after. Women still desire free and conscious choice above all else, Morgan.”
Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell me this story years ago?”
“Because there was more involved than my sovereignty, wasn’t there? More between us that couldn’t be repaired.”
“You mean our son?” An expression of pain washed over his handsome features.
“Our son. Yes,” she said.
“I was in graduate school. The opportunity to work on the excavation in Guatemala was an extraordinary offer. I really had no choice,” he pleaded.
“But you didn’t have to insist that I go with you. I was in my second trimester and not feeling well. I realize that a great deal of the responsibility lies with me, Morgan. But I was young, naïve. I told you that I had a premonition that we might lose the child, but I let you choose. I shouldn’t have.”
Morgan dropped his head toward the table, enfolding his arms across his sunken chest. “Justine doesn’t know, does she?”
“No. Justine will never know,” she said. “I put the blame, but not the pain, behind me some time ago. The folly of youth. We were both responsible.” She walked behind him and put her arms around his neck and hugged him for several moments.
“Do you think it could ever work for us again, Creta? It might be worth a try,” he said repentantly. “Justine would be pleased.”
“No,” she said releasing her grasp on his shoulders. “Too much has happened between us. We’re different people now.”
Justine leaned hard against the wall in the hallway outside the kitchen. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her labored breath came in short spurts.
As Morgan walked to the door and slowly turned around, Justine shrank back into the shadows in the hall. “The letters, Creta,” he said. “They are by one of the world’s greatest writers. They deserve to be made public. They must be published. Give Cambridge a call.”
Lucrezia did not pause or turn around. “Never,” she said.
Justine placed her hand over her mouth to muffle a gasp.
CHAPTER 29
A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange sun rays
And dares to claim the sky.
—Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
THE ELDERLY MAN BENT into a question mark moved slowly around the corner from Piazza dei Donati onto via Santa Margherita, then stopped at the heavy wooden door to the stone apartment building. Justine followed. Standing before the door with his iron key in hand, he tilted his head awkwardly to let his eyes travel the full length of Justine’s body, regarding her with a mixture of appreciation and fear.
She had encountered this expression once before when she’d gotten out of a car in Morocco to talk with a short Bedouin. Smiling, she backed up and waited for the man to enter the building and close the door. She wanted him to know that she actually belonged here now, so chose to use her own key. Stepping into the darkened hall, Justine permitted her eyes to adjust to the absence of light and locate the stairs.
It was almost evening now, and the medieval Torre della Castagna nearby blotted out whatever meager winter light had remained over the piazza when she had parked her Spider and walked the short distance around the House of Dante to number two. She slowly ascended the two flights of stairs to the second floor and found another key on the same chain, the one belonging to her new apartment.
Justine stepped into the open space that would be her living quarters in the months ahead, placed her satchel against the east wall of the living room, turned on the lights, and explored her new home. Now she noticed the predictable signs of neglect: peeling, discolored wallpaper and baseboards, warped doors that didn’t quite close, two small holes near the corners of the living room floor, undoubtedly eaten away to host mice. The one bedroom was larger than her own in Fiesole, which wasn’t saying much, but the kitchen was a disappointment. She would miss her mother’s lavish cooking area and the opportunities it offered to visit while cooking together. The white and black tile in the bathroom, three squares missing, told of ’70s modernization. The two closets were adequate; the one in the entryway she would use for guests and her running clothes. The living room was spacious enough, with a small fireplace that looked as though it hadn’t been used for a century. Her furnishings, a motley collection of antiques, a few prized discoveries from her mother’s attic, and several items from IKEA, would arrive tomorrow. Unwelcome mildew made her throw open the two windows, which she fairly easily unstuck. She stood and surveyed the apartment once again. At least it was hers.
Returning to the living room, Justine turned off the lights, pressed her back to the east wall, slid to the floor, and sat there lotus-style. Outside the western window, a lit glass box rose and fell—the modern elevator attached to the Casa de Dante. Not really the house of Dante Alighieri. This house-museum had been built more than a century ago at the location of the thirteenth-century home of the famous poet. But she could pretend. Others did.
She was momentarily transfixed by the glass elevator, then allowed her eyes to close and her mind to mull over the past two weeks. Her mother had been disappointed, but not surprised, when she’d announced that she was moving to this apartment next to Dante’s house. “The apartment let by D.H.?” her mother had asked. So she had been told.
The conversation she’d overheard between her parents had increased her desire to create some distance from them. Everyone had secrets, she knew. She also knew that secrets ate away at relationships. She opened her eyes and noticed that the magic box had stopped on the third floor, probably to pick up staff at the end of the workday.
Marco De Marco had persuaded her to accept a new job at the Etruscan Museo in Fiesole. While her father had originally asked her to work with him, an appropriate niche never seemed to materialize, even though she had remained on the team. Fortunately, Marco didn’t see conflicting loyalties there. The trip back up to Fiesole entailed a challenging commute, but Guido had convinced her to buy a Vespa, which she could wheel into the lobby of the apartment house. She had rented a nearby garage for her car.
Justine had seen Guido twice in recent weeks. Once when she’d delivered new samples to the Florence Museum of Archaeology lab on Piazza Santa Maria Maggiori. Another when he came for dinner in Fiesole. She was still mesmerized by his green eyes that stared so intently into her own, his spirited manner, his playfulness. He had asked her to dinner tonight and had arranged to pick her up at her new apartment.
The chilly air, as well as her own reservations, caused her to shudder. Andrea. Amir. Her parents. She had e-mailed Andrea asking that she bring the full translations of the codex with her on her next visit. While Justine had the copy of the codex, the translations were with Andrea, and she couldn’t write the Archaeology article or carry out the next phase of her plan until she had the translations in hand. After that, she would confront Andrea.
She pulled her satchel toward her and extracted a small CD player, placed her laptop computer
beside her, and removed a CD of Gregorian chants from a side pocket. She sat back again and closed her eyes as the melodic ascent, descent, and repeat of the solo cantor, and the chorus, calmed her. Soon a trance/calm permeated her consciousness, her muscles relaxing to the chanting vibrations that seemed to use her bones as tuning forks. Serene colors flooded her mind, now cleared of chatter. Quiet descended like an angel’s silk blanket. Street sounds gave way to ethereal voices.
In these moments of altered awareness, recurring dilemmas began to refigure themselves into understandings. Justine reflected once again on her desire for independence and what it had required of her. She had always framed it as “freedom from” . . . freedom from parents, from male domination, from cultural expectations. Now she realized that, for her, real freedom was recognizing self-imposed expectations. How many of her decisions in the past had been about pleasing others? Or about fear? Fear of displeasing others, of being controlled by others? But she was different now. Matured. In charge of her own life.
Justine slid her hand into her satchel once more, reaching for the small bundle of remaining letters, leaning back, chants accenting Lawrence’s words . . .
My Isabella, I arrived last night, after a brief stop in Forte dei Marmi, a sea town near Lucca. You know it? A gay little place. So happy to be back in Florence, for I can feel you nearby. I needed to escape the interminable Prussian atmosphere of possessive, insistent women—except for you, my love, who never lays claim to my soul and therefore owns it. I am not afraid of you; I am not afraid when I’m with you. Women are capable of causing men agony and you have no such will, my love . . . I watch the sea swallow the orange orb, casting golden ribbons across my bare feet. Such a glorious sight that I was imprudent. Should be up and around in a couple of days. Will you join me at the little apartment near Dante’s?
This apartment? My own communion with Isabella and Lawrence? By not laying claim to one’s soul, do we therefore win the souls of others? Only mutuality, reciprocity work, never fear? She didn’t desire ownership of anyone, and would not grant license to her own. She read on.
I want you to have my Dance sketch. If I can retrieve it from England, I will leave it in the Dante house. Know that it is yours. Remember when we lay under the lemon tree in your yard and blew the delicate swords of lion’s teeth from the dandelions into the warm air? Such a rare day—alone on the grass.
Justine’s eyes darted around the room, searching for the sketch that surely hung in this room. She grinned at herself. Had she really expected it to still be hung on the wall?
. . . I recall meeting Georgia and Ansel Adams briefly at a party hosted by Mabel in New York, back in ’25, I think. As you know, Georgia is a painter, mostly of landscapes I believe. And sensuous flowers. Adams photographs similar subjects. At first I thought, another boring evening with the “realists.” Then Georgia said, “Nothing is less real than realism . . . it is only by selection, elimination, emphasis, that we get to the real meaning of things.” I began to see my writing as the personal and physical landscapes that I’ve selected. That’s also how I evoke my inner visions of the characters that inhabit my writing! They spring from my intuitive consciousness. A palette of sorts. Colors and shapes, contours. New metaphors abound.
Transmutation was surely at hand. Personal, professional, cultural. “Nothing is less real than realism?” Look below the surface, Justine. She reached over and turned up the volume on the Gregorian chants, pulled a green crepe dress and brush out of her satchel, and headed for the bathroom.
Three hours south in Vatican City, Rome, two officials in flowing robes, one red, one black, sat in the parlor of the Roman Curia, the official offices of Pope Benedict XVI. The elegant room was adorned with rich burgundy, leather, and gold. The back wall of bookcases held the treatises of St. Constantine the Great, the Letters of Paul, and volumes of decisions made throughout the years by the Holy See. “The pontiff is concerned about this diary business,” said the deputy cardinal, stretching his gnarled hand out from his flowing scarlet sleeve and touching his left ear, a habit signifying that his anxiety level was elevated. “What do you think is behind it?”
The cardinal’s subtle signals did not escape the sensitive young bishop. “A young woman trying to make a name for herself,” he replied unconvincingly.
“The Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art doesn’t pay five million euros for a document unless there is substantial verification of its authenticity,” insisted the cardinal, settling himself into an armed leather chair.
“When we heard of the impending purchase, our press release was quite clear: ‘Scoperta: diario della Beata Vergine - una truffa! - secondo il Vaticano.’ We declared the diary a fraud. But I will look into it further, your Excellency.”
“I remember the headline, Bishop Juan. A delaying tactic at best,” said the deputy cardinal, clearly unimpressed. He grasped the mahogany arms of his chair. “If such a diary exists, the Vatican, not Egypt, must have it.”
CHAPTER 30
“My course is set for an uncharted sea.”
—Dante Alighieri, Paradise
JUSTINE AND GUIDO stepped out through the heavy door of her new apartment, and she motioned for him to turn right from the small piazza into the narrow cobblestone street leading to a small church. Justine tried the locked handle. “This is where Dante first saw Beatrice.”
Guido finished her sentence, “His great love, an unrequited love.” He placed his hand gently on her shoulder. “The worst kind,” he said.
Justine wondered if he had been wounded by an unresolved passion. “You know the story . . .” It wasn’t a question.
He took her hand and they began walking toward the end of the street. “Where are we going?” He had asked her to choose a nearby restaurant, so she had consulted her mother, whom she considered an expert on Tuscan cuisine.
“Mother suggested the Restaurant Enoteca Pinchiorri. The Chef, Annie Feolde, is a friend of hers,” she explained, taking great care that her heels didn’t catch in the cobblestones. She wished she had brought a flashlight.
They approached the elegant restaurant at Via Ghibellina, number eighty-seven. Lights from the columned villa entrance of sweeping arches emitted a glow that flooded the alleyway and the stone buildings nearby in cinematic radiance. More formal than Justine would have liked. She would have preferred a more intimate place.
“Good evening, Professore Barbujani,” said the maître d’, escorting them to a table adorned with pink linen and situated under a portrait of Renaissance dancers. Guido nearly knocked his head on a hanging potted plant. The location afforded them privacy, although they were the only ones in the room at 8:00 p.m. Indecently early for dinner in Italy.
“Stunning,” he said as the green crepe dress appeared from under Justine’s cashmere stole.
Justine looked down at her attire. “Thank you,” she said casually. “You’ve been here before.”
“A couple of times with my friend David Caramelli from the University of Florence. He loves the place. Great food, but a bit straitlaced.”
“We could go somewhere else,” Justine offered as she observed the stiff waiter in formal attire, “although my mother and your friend may both have good taste. I say we give it a try.”
“Excellent,” he agreed, glancing at the wine list. “They have some of my favorites. A good list.”
Justine nodded with pleasure at his assessment; her eyes moved to the Renaissance dancers. “A lovely painting, so elegant and graceful.”
“It reminds me of some of my father’s paintings.”
“Were you close?”
“We were. He was a scientist and often shut himself up in his lab, but when he was with my sister or me, he was fully present. Do you know what I mean?”
“I could say the same of my parents. I felt them stoking my curiosity.”
“That’s the kind of parental attention I plan to provide for my own children.” Guido let his voice drift lower, realizing that he had entered p
ersonal territory, territory that he wasn’t ready to explore.
This wasn’t the direction she wanted the conversation to go either. “You know, Guido, I’ve been thinking a lot about the sarcophagus we found in Cerveteri,” she said. “What kind of culture do you think could have produced it?”
He was comforted by her abrupt diversion. “As you know, sarcophagi, at least later on, were manufactured. We don’t know if this one is unique. It may be one of many that look exactly alike. Remember the ‘married couple’ sarcophagus—the one in the museo at Cerveteri? There are many of those,” he said.
“Granted. But no one has ever found a sarcophagus quite like this one—right? I think it reveals the presence of a goddess culture.”
“Does it?”
Even as he asked the question, he dismissed it. “Sarcophagi were usually adorned with mythology narratives. Perhaps your goddesses are merely an aesthetic expression—décor. Nothing more.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But I think there is ample evidence that the role of women in Etruria was significantly different than those in Greece—and then Rome. More equal, more independent, more partners than subordinates.”
“Inferential at best,” he said, studying the wine list closely.
“Inferential? Let me see . . . just what kind of evidence do you require?” She smiled. He doesn’t need to please or agree with me—or seduce me, for that matter, she mused, relishing the confrontation.
Guido now studied the sparks in her amber eyes and her smile. He was amused and aroused, yet before he could respond, the sommelier was at their table.
“I prefer reds,” she said simply.
The Italian Letters: A Novel (The Justine Trilogy Book 2) Page 21