The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park Read Free Book Online

ye who enter here.”
    Only Papa kept countenance. He detached his borsa from his belt, withdrew from it a thick rope of gold, and held it out to the captain. Grabbing it, the captain lurched off.
    Moments passed. Then, out of the fog, a second craft emerged looking for all the world like the ghostly boat that Dante tells us plied the River Styx. This one had sails, but they were so tattered and frayed that I could not believe them capable of containing any wind stronger than a breeze. However, the barque also possessed a skimpy canopy, and because of that slim protection, Papa selected it.
    Thus our pathetic armada set sail for Governolo, the town just beyond that crotch where the Mincio joins the Po, and where, Papa reassured us, we would most certainly find a comfortable bucentaur to carry us the rest of the way to Ferrara. But, from the looks on the faces around me, I could tell that nobody believed him. And I wonder if any of the party besides me were haunted by Dante’s vision as we set sail across the foggy vastness of Lago Minore under the venomous gaze of that drunken navigator. Wrapped in a gray shroudlike cloak, he did indeed resemble the dreaded boatman, Charon, as he thrust his head into the fog, red-eyed and blinking. It took very little power of invention to imagine that the water washing across our bow was that of Dante’s river and that this ghostly craft was heading straight for the ninth circle of Hell.
    I could feel the presence of spirits all around us in the water — a flash here, a leap there. I even saw the spirit of Fra Bernardino rising out of the water, his magic cloak floating behind him. And, floating in his train like a school of sea monsters, his white-clad boys drifted by brandishing their knives.
    I must have screamed, although I had no awareness of it. For I felt a hand across my mouth and, looking up, saw the face of Monna Matilda, for once not angry but kindly.
    It was but a flash. The very next instant, the old puckered-up frown returned. “Ser Daniele . . .” She plucked at Papa’s cloak and whispered loud enough for all to hear. “I fear that the Lord is not looking kindly on this craft.”
    Surely she was not going to blame that on the dei Rossis!
    “And just what,” Papa inquired with more than his usual asperity, “would you suggest we do about that, respected madama?”
    “I would suggest,” she replied, bold as ever, “that we complete our ritual of thanks, so rudely interrupted by these distressing events.”
    “Here? In this boat?”
    “Here is where the good Lord has placed us. Here is where we must complete our prayers. Is that not what the Jews did during their flight from Egypt?” she asked, quite mildly. “And are we not also in flight from a cruel oppressor and saved from destruction by the grace of God?”
    Her logic was, in a certain sense, unassailable. And it did have the virtue of taking our minds off our troubles. I, for one, had quite forgotten my fears, so intrigued was I by the proposal to conduct a seder on a barge in the middle of the night.
    “But we have no —”
    Without allowing Papa to finish, Monna Matilda pulled out of her tattered borsetta a small, misshapen piece of tallow.
    “I have brought this candle. It will stand for two,” she announced firmly. “The Lord will understand.”
    At this, Rov Isaac, who had remained quite speechless with astonishment, rose to his feet to object. But the virago was not to be gainsaid.
    “Abraham! Jacob!” she called out to her boys.
    From somewhere deep in the pocket of his cloak, Jacob drew a folded napkin and handed it to his mother. The afikomen!
    A ragged cheer went up.
    Rov Isaac reseated himself.
    Papa’s eyes crinkled. “We have indeed been saved through the Lord’s goodness, Monna Matilda,” he said. “And we owe Him thanks. Yes, we will say our last blessing and eat our last morsel and then . . .” Here, he took a breath and looked straight at the lineup of cowed women huddled