139
Florence
October 10, 1503
“It is an exceptional privilege for me,” said Mauricio rising from his chair with a solemn expression, “to be able to celebrate with you all, our first twenty-five years of marriage.”
Looking touched, Lorena gazed at all those gathered around the table. Mauricio, her husband, Flavia, her mother, Michel, her father, Maria, her only sister, Cateruccia, the person who had looked after her from the day she was born, and Bruno, who had not wanted to miss such a special occasion. The bonds that united them were very precious, interwoven as they were with the invisible thread of life, joined together by a needle capable of tearing apart and separating but also of uniting and joining, creating a fabric sewn together with the passing of time. The result was a marvelous, many-colored tapestry of which she felt proud to be part of.
Lorena felt that their children were also with them, as if their souls had flown down from their bedrooms where they lay sleeping and were sharing the atmosphere of that family reunion, while their bodies rested after the busy bustle of the daytime celebrations. Alessandro, her brother, had been unable to join them for the festivities being in Milan, attending to important business matters, and Bruno’s wife had asked to be excused, exhausted after a day of dancing, games, and high emotion. The truth was that Lorena was pleased to finish such an extraordinarily moving day with an intimate supper. In a way, she knew that life had invited just the right guests around that table, precisely the members she valued most in her private circle.
“Our life,” continued Mauricio, “has been very special. When I arrived in Florence, my highest aspiration was to make enough money to rise out of the poverty I was in. My friend Bruno enabled me to see the opportunities that were within our grasp and I shall always be grateful to him for that. But had I not met Lorena, and had risen to become the richest man in Florence, I would still have remained a poor man.”
As she listened to him, tears came to his wife’s eyes. They had gone through so much together … Their crazy, youthful love, her family’s lack of understanding, her fear of being confined to a convent, the loss of their first child, the plague, the false accusation of treason, prison, the threat of financial ruin … They had come through all this successfully and feeling strengthened. Together they had discovered the truth concerning their past and had risked their lives traveling to France, taking with them the legendary emerald. Together they had experienced love for the first time, together they had suffered wounds, and together, had known how to cure them. Together they had conceived four wonderful children. They had grown together and would continue to do so. She was so happy to share it all with Mauricio … Lorena cried as she remembered the first time they had bathed together in the pond. So much had happened … And yet, it was all there, in that first kiss, in the promise of love that followed love …
Mauricio was standing, hardly able speak. The guests, red eyed and waiting expectantly, kept silent, aware that these moments were sacred.
“I can never be grateful enough for what sharing my life with you has meant to me,” said Mauricio, finally turning toward Lorena, “but at least I have the satisfaction of being able to offer you something truly unique to commemorate our silver wedding anniversary.”
The dining room door opened and Carlo, helped by another servant, entered holding with enormous care an object that appeared to be a tray, wrapped in beautiful paper embroidered with gold thread. Lorena looked at Cateruccia, trying to discover in her expression what the present could possibly be. They knew each other so well that one look was enough to guess each other’s thoughts. Was it perhaps a cake with a sweet message written in melted sugar and in whose center would be two rings commemorating their anniversary? Cateruccia, her eyes fixed on Carlo, smiled happily. Lorena was so pleased that Cateruccia had at last found love with Carlo, the cook they had engaged years ago. A shudder ran through her when she remembered how her faithful Cateruccia had refused to leave the family mansion when Mauricio had contracted the plague. There was no doubt that love was stronger than fear in that exceptional family.
Lorena’s face showed amazement when a third servant deployed an easel on which the tray was carefully placed. Carlo produced some scissors and cut away the wrapping paper. And then at last, the dinner guests were able to see a panel, covered by a cloth.
She was speechless when her husband rose from the table and removed the cloth, revealing a painting seemingly the work of an extraordinary angel. The canvas, which had been painted in oils, was set in an elegant poplar wood frame. The masterly rendering of the face, combined with the fascinating play of light and shade, left no doubt in anyone’s mind: the painter was Leonardo da Vinci. However, even though it was absolutely astonishing that her husband should have made her the gift of a portrait by the great Florentine master, there was an even more incredible element: the woman in the painting was actually her!
Lorena leapt from her seat and into an emotional embrace with her husband as all those present broke into cheers and cries of “Long live the happy couple!” as if it were their wedding day. Lorena stayed in her husband’s arms for a long time, crying tears of joy. That ceremony felt more authentic and happier than the actual day they had married.
With the protocol now broken, the guests left the table to hug and congratulate them, also to take a closer look at the masterly painting.
Lorena recognized herself immediately, although the image was suffused with a strange feeling of timelessness. Her likeness, surrounded by hazy, rocky mountains, blended into the background in such a subtle way that she seemed to merge effortlessly into the dreamlike landscape. Not a wrinkle marked her face, although it had been a year now since she had passed beyond her fortieth year. The maestro had been generous in this, for despite scrutinizing her features, it was impossible to guess her age. True to his style, Leonardo had taken various liberties when he mixed the pigments of his palette. Her clear forehead, for instance, followed a round shaped curve and was framed from the crown of her head by a mass of wavy, ochre hair, which matched the tone of the stones in the landscape. The artist had also made her eyes darker and lightened her eyebrows in such a way that they appeared translucent. What was one to say of the delicate smile that disappeared if one observed the lips exclusively and ignored the rest of the face? So typical of Leonardo, thought Lorena: where the maestro was concerned, nothing was ever what it seemed, every new examination appeared to conceal another secret. In the end, it all depended from which point of view one contemplated things.
What better way to see than through the eyes of love? They had been sharing their lives together now for twenty-five years and Mauricio was more in love than ever, in such a way that every detail, each word, and even every silent glance was a paean to the joy of being together. That love was like a mysterious lake that seemed to get bigger and deeper with every passing day, providing that each could make the other one happy. The intimate union that bound her to Mauricio usually allowed her to guess his reactions, in such a way that he rarely managed to surprise her. Yet on the day of their silver wedding anniversary, her husband had amazed her with an absolutely unexpected gift.
“How was it possible that the great Leonardo da Vinci agreed to paint my portrait?” asked Lorena at last, drying tears of happiness.
“It is a well-known fact,” intervened Maria, not bothering to hide her amazement, “that since his return to Florence, the maestro has become deeply absorbed in complex mathematical and geometrical studies and has put aside his paintbrushes, to such an extent that in two years he has only executed one drawing, the Virgin and Child with Santa Anna. Not even Isabella d’Este, the powerful Marchioness of Mantua, has been able to get Leonardo to accept painting her portrait, despite all the pressure that was put upon him.”
“The truth is that good fortune allied with a certain amount of boldness made this little miracle possible,” explained Mauricio. “Three years ago, during a walk to San Miniato, I asked Leonardo
if in memory of our old friendship with Lorenzo, he would honor his word and paint a portrait of Lorena. He made no promises but assured me he would consider it.”
“I remember perfectly,” said Lorena, “that when Leonardo visited our house he did some charcoal sketches of me, just as he had done once during our wedding day. I felt extremely flattered, but attached no importance to it, for he often jots things down when anything catches his attention, in one of those sketchbooks he always carries around with him.”
“Well, it was precisely when he saw you that he decided that he would like to paint you on your own, with no one else in the picture and no actual reference to our wedding day.”
“What prompted him into making such a decision?” enquired Lorena.
“Destiny, chance, or the Muses who inspire geniuses,” answered Mauricio. “It seems that Leonardo had been brooding about the nature of time and its mysteries. Incapable of finding any rational explanation, the maestro thought of letting himself be taken over by the unutterable and express his intuitions through painting a portrait of a woman.”
That answer was extremely flattering, but hardly explained why the most celebrated painter of the moment had chosen her in particular, out of all the women in Florence. Lorena fancied she caught a smile in her father’s eyes. Michel had stated in the cave that the emerald could help the conscience to travel into the past and even into the future. If time was Leonardo’s main preoccupation, she considered, nothing could have pleased him more than to personally examine the emerald in Michel Blanch’s possession. What if it had been her father who had helped him gain access to the emerald and its mysteries in exchange for painting her portrait? This last possibility would explain better than any other, his decision to comply with her husband’s request. Lorena looked again at Michel, whispering something in Flavia’s ear and looking amused. Together they made a magnificent couple in which serenity and elegance went hand in hand with tenderness and complicity. She hoped she could be like them after another twenty-five years of marriage with Mauricio.
“This is truly the most extraordinary present I have ever seen!” exclaimed Maria enthusiastically.
Lorena was especially grateful for her sister’s presence. Maria was so generous that she sometimes seemed like an angel, oblivious of worldly things. Any other woman, young and widowed, would have felt uncomfortable surrounded by the happy couples gathered there that night, a constant reminder of what was missing in her life. The death of her husband and the discovery of his dark machinations were a heavy load, difficult to bear. Maria had been sufficiently humble to accept the truth, and furthermore, wise enough to continue giving her heart out to others. In many ways, she was the kindest and most courageous person Lorena knew.
“It is a real privilege,” affirmed Maria “to belong to a family that harbors in its midst a person immortalized in a painting by the great Leonardo da Vinci himself.”
“And I feel extremely honored,” said Michel, raising his goblet with the same solemnity he would have shown holding a sacred chalice, “that you have all accepted me as one of yours. I never had a family before and had no hope left in finding one, now in the autumn of my life. If it is true that God ‘took his time’ before conceding me this great happiness, it must also be said he could not have chosen a finer family. I want to propose a toast of gratitude for having welcomed me into your midst with such warmth.”
“Having you among us is a blessing,” Mauricio raised his voice once the goblets had stopped clinking together. “Not only do I understand your feelings, but I also share them completely. Without parents, grandparents, or brothers and sisters, I had barely arrived in Florence when, by chance, in a shop, I met the woman who is now my wife. Already at our first meeting, she stopped me from getting cheated. Since then, she has saved me from the plague, prison, and from myself. She has given me four children and a happiness that even in my dreams I would have believed to be impossible. You are now my family and I am so proud to belong to it, but none of it would have happened had it not been for my beloved wife. For this reason, I wish to offer another gift to Lorena, perhaps more modest than the other, but also more personal.”
Lorena, thanks to that strange magic that now, with even more frequency, seemed to merge her thoughts with those of Mauricio, guessed what her husband was about to give her.
“It must be that book you have spent all these years writing, am I right?” she asked emotionally.
“Indeed it is. I wanted to give you something more personal besides this portrait, which despite its immense value, is nevertheless only a commission that someone else has executed. I believe that in some way, the two works form part of the same gift, although Leonardo’s is far superior to mine, both are a voyage through time and share the same title.”
“Which is …?” asked Lorena expectantly.
“Your name. Not the one your mother chose, but the mysterious one by which my soul recognized yours, the very first time I ever saw you.”
“And what is it, my love, this name?”
“The Florentine Emerald.”
About the Author
Agustín B. Palatchi (b. 1967), a native of Barcelona, earned a law degree, had his own practice, and now works as a lawyer for the Spanish government. A passionate student of history and psychology, he is convinced that without knowing our past, we cannot understand ourselves or the world in which we live.
His first novel, La alianza del converso (The Florentine Emerald, 2012), was well received by the critics and the public in Spain. It has been published in Italy and Brazil, and is being translated into other languages. His next book, El gran engaño (The great deception), was published in 2013. Palatchi is currently working on a historical novel set during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Original Title: La alianza del converso
Copyright © 2010 by Agustín Bernaldo Palatchi
Translation: The Florentine Emerald: The Secret of the Convert’s Ring
Copyright © 2014 by Michael Merchant & Judy Thomson
ISBN: 978-1-4804-8267-8
Published in 2014 by Barcelona Digital Editions, S.L.
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The Florentine Emerald: The Secret of the Convert's Ring Page 47