The Book of Madness and Cures (21 page)

“Signora!” he called out. “There you are…” He was breathless as he approached me. “Where…where are you going?” Lorenzo kept an eye on me far beyond call of duty, as if I were the daughter he’d lost so long ago, the baby with the caul who’d lived barely a day.

I couldn’t find the words to explain why I had left. All at once I was very cold. I took his arm in silence as he led me to the gateposts.

As we walked back toward the house, I was astonished to see the whole aspect of the town altered from solitary to festive. How long had I been gone? No more than an hour, surely! But here and there along the canals, bonfires had been kindled. Bundled children looking like animate loaves tested the ice with long sticks and tossed stones that either punctured the surface or skipped across the white rind like mice. One boy taunted his fearful younger brother, pushing him down the bank onto the congealed crust. The younger boy, red eyed and puffy faced, lay sprawled and motionless, while the older boy strode back and forth across the ice-covered canal, bragging, “I can go anywhere I want, I can walk on water!”

I stood near one of the bonfires with Lorenzo, my arm hooked through his, as we watched the little spectacles play out up and down the canal. Someone passed us small mugs of aquavit, pungent with caraway and pepper. How odd I felt, warmed by a sudden affection for Lorenzo. How upended my life had become! I was at the bottom of Fortuna’s wheel now, hanging on by my ankles. And yet fatherless, was I not also free?

The bells sounded—it was six o’clock in the morning.

We had been outside for hours.

The next morning I determined to find Signor Gradenigo, to reward him and inquire about the red thread. Was the intent gift or guile?

When Lorenzo located his lodgings, he left my invitation to a simple supper at the cottage, though later I thought it foolish of me. What if they enforced a curfew on the Jews in the city? But when I located the caretaker, who was raking pruned twigs in the winter garden, he assured me, “No such law exists for Jews here in Hollant.”

“Ah, that’s fortunate,” I said, explaining to him the edict of the Jews in Venetia. “They must be careful, or they’ll be locked out of the Ghetto and into the dungeon.”

“Deplorable!”

“I don’t understand it myself,” I agreed. “The council, you know, must draft its edicts, must convert all the little fears into dictates, or God knows”—I threw up my hands theatrically, delighted to speak so openly—“chaos will surely envelop us all!”

“Houses will collapse!” added Lorenzo, who’d been listening nearby as he filled a bucket at the well.

“Families will go hungry!” said the caretaker, joining in the spirit.

“Women will sprout tusks!” joked Olmina at the door. Then she looked to me to finish the game.

“Men will crawl about on all fours!” I said, imagining the guild and the council in that position, and—remembering their censure of my work, which had first sent me on this journey—it was not without some pleasure that I reveled in this vision.

When Signor Gradenigo arrived at the door that evening in his black coat and broad hat, he carried a small wooden box. It gave off a faint scent of cedar and something else I couldn’t identify, although I could call it moldering, ancient leaves. Lorenzo welcomed him into the entry adjoining our humble kitchen and dining corner, and asked, “What’s in the box, my good man?”

The merchant’s eyes shone as he waved us away from it. “This is a surprise for all of you, but we’ll not enjoy it until after the meal. I’ve had excellent profits today and I’m glad to share my good fortune with you.” He set it upon a wooden shelf in the kitchen near the cobalt-blue jar of flour.

“Is it some kind of rare sweet?” asked Olmina, her interest piqued. She stood near the little iron stove, stirring the soup in a black pot.

“Loukum!” guessed Lorenzo, for he loved the chewy Ciprian sweet of honeyed nuts and oranges that we sometimes savored in Venetia.

“Oh no, unfortunately not. But that would be delectable, wouldn’t it?” Signor Gradenigo laughed. “I regret to say I always devour my store of that delight long before I travel this far north.” He removed his coat, hung it on a bent nail by the door, and patted his rotund belly beneath a rich brocaded doublet.

“And in spite of our longings, it doesn’t smell sweet,” I added. “But please have a seat at our plain table, Signor Gradenigo.”

He nodded his head. “Call me Vincenzo, and I hope you don’t mind my calling you Dottoressa Mondini, for I do hear that you are well versed in medicines and the humors.”

I smiled. “Thanks to you, signor, I have my means of treatment back now. Though there is something unusual in my medicine chest—”

“Thanks be to the saints, supper is ready!” Olmina interrupted. She set bowls of soup and a board of spiced herring upon the wooden table laid with a dun linen cloth, along with a basket of fresh bread. The turnip and onion pottage smelled pungent with thyme and marjoram.

As I sat down next to her on the bench opposite the men, I asked, “Where did you find the lovely herbs?”

“Ah, in the Hortus under the snow, tender and fine as you please, once revived in warm water,” she answered.

“And wouldn’t that be theft of the cooking garden?” I prodded her.

She shrugged. “Who’s out in this cold to catch me?”

“No one, apparently, and we are the lucky beneficiaries!” said Vincenzo as he dove into the soup with a large pewter spoon.

The room steamed with the fragrance of Olmina’s soup, as if she’d infused it with the last ripening days of autumn. For a long while our conversation yielded to her talent. After we’d finished the meal, Vincenzo rose with mock ceremony and brought his box to the table, where he undid the brass clasp and lifted the lid. We were greeted by the most delicate smell, suggestive of old light and the faint scent of water in a still pool.

“Here we have the uncommon Yunnan tea that the Dutch nobles enjoy for over a hundred silver ducats a pound!” He circled his hand smartly. Inside, dark leaves were compressed into small round cakes. He passed the box to Olmina, who sat directly across from him.

Olmina set her sharp eyes upon him. “And why would you bring this tea to us, if you don’t mind my asking?”

The merchant gave us a distant smile, though his eyes remained somber, as if he were thinking of some other place, a tea drinker’s pavilion, perhaps, in a more temperate clime. He said, “Because it’s a melancholy thing to drink tea alone. I’d rather share my tea with good company.”

Olmina’s face softened as she sniffed the rare cakes.

“Thank you, dear sir,” I said. I closed my eyes when the box came to me. Yes, it was the smell of leaves, light, and water. They suggested something sweet and, even though shadowy and rich, still luminous, like a tree at the edge of water, reflected and reflecting. “This is the kind of tea that could help someone find a lost memory,” I said, and I opened my eyes. I didn’t want to let go of the scent and reluctantly passed the box along to Lorenzo.

“Mmm,” he murmured as he stuck his nose into a tea cake.

Olmina set an iron kettle on the stove. When the water rolled to a boil, the merchant got up and moved the kettle to the back of the stove, lifted the lid, and carefully flaked a tea cake straight into the hot water, then quickly set the lid on again.

“I’ve heard that it’s excellent for a clear mind and heart,” he announced, obviously enjoying the simple preparation. He poured the tea into our mugs and we cupped our hands around the brew, enjoying leaves from the mountains of China. Outside, it began to snow, and we sat quietly for a while, alone and yet companioned in our thoughts, as if the tea’s gift were not just its glorious scent but also this silence in common.

“Mens sana in corpore sano,” I said, recalling Juvenal.

“And to ‘Sound mind, sound body’ I might add ‘sound heart,’ ” said Vincenzo, smiling slightly.

“Ah, sound heart,” I repeated. The snow fell harder now, making a muffled pelting sound on the roof. “I’m curious, to return to my medicine chest, about the needle and red thread. Do you know where it came from?”

“Hmm, yes, I noticed that after Tübingen.” Vincenzo hesitated. “For I confess, Dr. Mondini, that I examined the chest a few times. It was of utmost interest to me, for though I’m not a doctor, the study of cures has been my avocation.”

“And did you write upon the drawers, then?”

“Yes, I identified some of the medicaments in German. For I thought I might not find you… I hope you’ll forgive me.” He looked down into his tea.

I sighed at my own foolish indignation, letting it go as quickly as it came. “Well, it’s no matter,” I said. “So… the thread?”

“I can only guess, Dottoressa. When I reached Tübingen, I asked about you, and my innkeeper referred me to a student lodger down the way from the inn. I met the gentleman, Wilhelm Lochner, and we shared supper for several nights, getting on quite well. One evening I invited him to my room to see the medicine chest—it is rather a marvel, as you well know. I lent it to Wilhelm for a few hours, as he wanted to make a list of the remedies within, being the avid student. I stayed there in the room with him, recording my transactions for the day in my account book.”

I clenched my mug, nodded, and sipped, but said nothing.

“I didn’t see him slip anything into the chest, but I wasn’t watching the whole time either. I must tell you that it was his express intention to follow you. I believe, Dr. Mondini, that he thought very highly of you and your cure, for his leg was no longer marred by the ulcer.”

Everyone stared at me now, anticipating some kind of response, but I wasn’t sure what to make of this. Did I want to see him? Yes, a little. But no, I didn’t want to become entangled. “I’m not certain I wish to see him,” I said carefully at last. “If you should encounter him here, I’d appreciate your discretion.”

“You shall have it, but I must say the red thread may be a binding charm such as you can find sometimes from the traveling Romani. Maybe he meant it as a kind of message?” Vincenzo suggested.

Lorenzo snorted at this. “Why wouldn’t he come right out and speak his mind?”

“The signorina left without seeing him,” Olmina said. “How could he?”

“The Greeks say Atropos, the Fate who cannot be turned, snips the thread,” I mused.

“And some Gypsies do come from the lands of Macedonia and Thrace,” the merchant said.

“Then it may be a curse,” I said uneasily.

“Or a charm, especially for a doctor, don’t you think? For one must always bow to the goddess of necessity,” the merchant said. “The Fates alone spin, measure, and sever our red vigor. Perhaps your little needle and thread is a reminder of this.”

“But none of the Fates holds a needle—the
doctor’s
art is in sewing, drawing things together again, closing the wound.”

“If you can,” Vincenzo said, in a solemn tone. “Some wounds, like some wrongs, can never be righted.”

Olmina rose to clear the dishes and said quietly, “No doubt it’s a love charm from Wilhelm, if you ask me.”

I glared at her. “We need speak no more of this.”

Vincenzo glanced away to spare me embarrassment.

“But I have another question for you,” I said.

He turned his sharp brown eyes to mine.

“In all your travels, have you ever encountered another Dr. Mondini, my father?”

“Not exactly. That is, I didn’t meet him myself, though I overheard a gentleman in Edenburg speak of his book…something about a vast taxonomy of diseases, though…”

“Though what?”

“I don’t like to repeat rumors.”

“Go ahead. I’ll accept it as such.”

“He said it was a very sorry thing when such a doctor had compiled a work of great breadth and excellence and yet was secretly unbound himself. Forgive me, but those were his words.”

“And if that were true, how could that man create such a fine encyclopedia of diseases?” I asked rather heatedly.

“We often flirt with the very thing we create, don’t you think? I myself create an appetite for beautiful bolts of cloth, which I may also be prone to love too much.” He unbuttoned his doublet and patted an elegant violet and silver-wrought waistcoat.

“Ah, it’s wonderful!” cried Olmina with admiration, for she understood quality cloth far more than I did, since she’d worked it into so many garments for our household.

“And you, Dr. Mondini, what edge do you play?”

“I am single-minded to a fault, perhaps, in my need to heal others, to heal my father, to find him.”

“And your own ailment?”

I laughed a little. “I’m overly stubborn. I don’t know.”

“Not stubborn, oh no, Gabriella,” said Olmina. “Unrelenting, hooked as a fish on a line!”

“Really? I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Hooked on what?”

“On your father, other doctors, the universities. What about your own instincts?”

“I know my own talents, don’t worry. And I’m bringing them to the tasks at hand.”

Lorenzo spoke up. “Of course you are. Olmina misspoke, didn’t you, my dear?”

She folded her hands on her lap. “Yes, yes, I did. I just wish…”

“What?”

“I want to go home.” She began to cry.

I put my arm around her. “Forgive me for dragging you on this journey. I am so grateful. And I too grow weary with the insubstantial traces of my father. But I must exhaust every lead, every place.”

“Of course you must.” She bent her head to my shoulder.

Vincenzo stood up. “And I must be on my way if I’m not to lose it in this snowy night. A wonderful repast, dear ladies and gentleman.” He wrapped himself up tightly in his coat and pulled his hat down snugly upon his balding head.

“Just a moment,” I said, and I quickly ran upstairs. I descended with a small purse of florins. “This is for your trouble, Vincenzo. Thank you for the chest and the message.”

He pressed my hand kindly and nodded, saying, “I wish you good fortune in your journey, Dr. Mondini. May you find what you are seeking.”

Lorenzo opened the door to the thick and darkening night.

Vincenzo raised his hand. “Good night to you all,” he said. Then he turned and immediately vanished into the snowfall, even with his conspicuous black coat, as Lorenzo held up the lantern.