Beyond the Ghetto Gates Page 3

  “Who?” Sebastian asked now. “You mean the new general?”

  Christophe nodded. “I was on guard duty,” he said, sprawling on the ground next to Daniel. “Outside the generals’ tent.”

  They were talking about the new commander, just arrived to lead France’s Army of Italy, a scrawny fellow with a beaky nose.

  “The other generals didn’t think much of the newcomer,” Christophe said now. “You should have heard them grumble.”

  “Who was there?” Sebastian asked.

  “Augereau, Laharpe, Masséna, and Sérurier.”

  Daniel nodded. These four were well known—and disliked—by the men. All battle veterans, all bred in the old king’s service. Many of the general staff were still loyal to the royal family, and Daniel supposed it wasn’t easy to just replace them. But it still didn’t seem right.

  “They were saying how much they held this upstart in contempt.” Christophe gestured grandly with both hands. “How he was born on some island outside France and barely blooded. Someone claimed the only reason he got the post was because he married Director Barras’s mistress.”

  “I’ve heard that, too,” Pierre said, reaching into the empty pot for any food stuck to the sides. “Both Barras and his lady friend were aristos, you know. Barras wanted to be rid of her. I hear she’s a tasty enough piece. But old. With two grown children, no less!”

  “I was standing by the flap of the tent,” Christophe continued. “He strode right by me and stood before the old generals. They refused to budge, wouldn’t even remove their hats.”

  “Damn rude,” said Sebastian. “Respect the rank, even if you don’t respect the man.”

  Christophe looked amused. “The general went up, his small, simple bonnet tucked under his arm, and stared each one in the eye. Without a word, he forced them to introduce themselves and remove their great plumed hats. Then he put his own hat on his head and pelted them with questions. Where was each of the divisions? How much manpower did they have? What condition were the munitions in? What was the condition of the men?”

  “He asked about us?” Daniel was surprised. Despite his slight army experience, he already knew generals rarely interested themselves in the welfare of the troops.

  “And our morale. Were we in good spirits? Were we ready for the campaign?”

  “The campaign! Ha!” Sebastian spat into the fire. “We’ve been stuck here for months. I don’t see how some bantam cock of a general can change that.”

  “He thinks he can,” Christophe said. “He told the generals that we would be marching on the enemy in four days.”

  Sebastian spat again, this time onto a rock near the fire.

  Marching on the enemy in four days? What would that be like? Deep down, Daniel knew he’d only enlisted to escape the tedium of the printshop. In line at the National Guard office, he and Christophe had laughingly imagined their army service as a grand adventure. Daniel’s stomach grumbled again, this time with a hint of fear. Would the adventure feel so grand when facing live bullets and cannonballs?

  “That’s just posturing,” Sebastian said. “When you’ve been in the army as long as I have, boys, you’ll learn not to trust new brooms that claim they’re going to sweep clean. They only end up hanging in the corner.”

  “I don’t know,” Christophe mused, eyes intent on the fire. “This one seems different.”

  Daniel thought about that for a moment. Christophe, like his uncle, had a canny sense of people. He was rarely wrong.

  The men’s talk subsided. Sebastian brought out his pipe and filled it with a tiny bit of the tobacco his wife sent every month. Daniel settled back on the grass.

  Without warning, one of the aides de camp appeared before them. “Formation in five minutes,” he barked.

  “What’s going on, sir?” Sebastian asked, rising and doffing his tall shako cap. Like many of the men, he’d pinned the tricolor rosette of the Revolution next to his upturned brim.

  “Get into formation and you’ll find out.” The aide de camp moved briskly onward.

  Christophe carelessly waved his hand and marched over to his own unit. Not for him the slog of an artillery company. Daniel smiled, remembering how his friend had convinced the recruitment officer to assign him to the cavalry. If Christophe was going to be a soldier, he’d damn well be a dashing one.

  Daniel settled in line next to Pierre, two men back from Sebastian. When the general inspected his men, he would find them a tattered, barely booted, dirty bunch, famished for food and hungry for some kind of action.

  The general stood before the men, legs spread wide. He wore a simple jacket distinguished only by the gold leaf embroidery reserved for generals. He’d left his collar open.

  Disappointment twisted Daniel’s stomach. Someone in Paris must think the Italian campaign is a joke.

  But when the general spoke, he seemed to grow two feet. His voice boomed out over the ranks. “You are naked, you are underfed. The government owes you much, yet can give you nothing. Your patience in supporting deprivation, your bravery in facing every danger, makes you the pride of France. You have neither shoes, nor clothes, nor bread, and our storehouses are empty. Enemies who boast that they will crush our young Republic abound on every side. I will lead you to the most fertile plains in the world, and there you will find honor, glory, and riches.”

  He turned and walked away, the other officers trailing behind him. A buzz of excitement rustled through the camp. No one had ever spoken to them like this before.

  Then the general swiveled around. “Finally!” he shouted, facing the men again. “Officers, enlisted men receive their portion first!”

  Daniel’s pulse raced as the food carts rattled up. A cheer rose from the troops, and rumors flew through the ranks like wildfire. It seemed the new general had searched out the wagons before he arrived at camp and made sure the soldiers driving them knew where to go. There was enough food, the men exulted, to last at least a week.

  “Small portions, men,” cried another officer, to boos and catcalls. He turned to the general. “Too much food after so many days’ privation will make them sick, sir.”

  “Bread and cheese tonight, meat tomorrow!” the general ordered.

  Daniel scrambled into line, eager to grab his small loaf of bread and cheese. After receiving his portion, he closed his eyes and muttered the prayer for bread, inhaling its fresh yeasty smell, along with the cheese’s sharp, pungent tang. Then he twisted off the crusty end and crammed it in his mouth. Nothing had ever tasted so good.

  “Looks like your friend Christophe was right.” Pierre poked Daniel in the side, spraying crumbs as he spoke. “Maybe he’s different after all, this General Bonaparte!”

  4

  MARCH 28 ANCONA, ITALY

  Mirelle woke to the sound of her mother’s footsteps. Mama flung the heavy curtains open and a sliver of light teased Mirelle’s eyes.

  “Mmmpf,” she muttered, squeezing her eyes shut. What was the point of getting up, after all? Her hand moved over her quilted coverlet, tracing the swirls of embroidery, fingers snagging the loose threads.

  Her mother’s fingers closed over hers. “You’ll tear it,” she scolded. “And it’s time to start the day.”

  Mirelle pushed her feet under the covers and stretched, eyes still stubbornly closed.

  Mama reached down and turned back one corner of the heavy quilt. Groaning, Mirelle slipped from bed, her cotton nightgown dropping about her ankles. Ignoring her mother’s pointed glance at her slippers, she moved barefoot across the wooden planks, grasped the pitcher on her dresser, and poured some water into the ewer beside it. She paddled the tips of her fingers in the water, then plunged her hands in and splashed her face. Looking at the mirror on her dresser, her face still flushed with sleep, she grimaced at her chestnut brown hair and reached for a comb to untangle the long curls.

  So Mama thinks marriage is all I’m good for? What would a suitor think? She stared at her reflection. High cheekbones; a small,
pointed nose; delicate lips. She pursed them in the glass, pondering what Papa would have been offered for her in Biblical times. Two camels and a goat? Making a face, she turned from the mirror and reached for her pale blue walking dress and matching pelisse. It brings out the pink in your cheeks, Dolce had told her once.

  Once dressed, she went downstairs. Papa was preparing to leave for work. He placed long fingers on her shoulders, his worried eyes scanning her face. “I suggested to Mama that you should visit Dolce this afternoon. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  Mirelle nodded, forcing a smile, studying her own hands. She had inherited his fingers, but little else. Papa was tall, balding, and looked at the world through a pair of pince-nez. Mirelle had often watched him at work, his nose nearly touching the parchment as he carefully applied ink or paint.

  Papa sighed, then looked around, impatient. “Your brother is late, as always.”

  Twelve-year-old Jacopo darted into the room. He was dressed in his brown school uniform, his black hair mussed like he’d just risen from bed, schoolbooks strapped together and dangling over one shoulder.

  He winked at Mirelle. “I’ll wager you and Dolce will spend the afternoon plotting to entrap worthy young men,” he teased. “Who’s the unlucky—er, lucky—man going to be, Mira?”

  “Hush,” their mother chided. “Your father and I will find your sister a suitable groom.”

  “Just think, it could be a man you’ve never met.” Jacopo feigned an exaggerated shudder. “He could be fat like a frog, or speak with a lisp, or chew with his mouth open.” He laughed aloud, then grew serious. “Don’t think anyone will make me wed a girl I’ve never seen.”

  “Who would want to marry you, anyway?” Mirelle retorted.

  “Me? The girls will fight over me.” Jacopo spread his arms dramatically. “I’m heir to the famous d’Ancona ketubah workshop, which creates the most exquisite wedding contracts in all of Jewish Europe. And I’m a Torah scholar of distinction.” Jacopo laughed. “Isn’t that right, Mama?”

  Mama glanced at Mirelle’s clouded eyes and shot Jacopo a dark look, but said nothing.

  “You flatter yourself,” Mirelle said. “And you’re wasting Papa’s time.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss her father’s cheek, then turned and cuffed her brother’s shoulder. “Have a good day, Papa. You behave yourself, marmocchio.”

  “Mirelle!” Mama shook her head. “Don’t call your brother a brat.”

  “Come on, Jacopo,” Papa said, already halfway out the door. “We’re late.”

  Jacopo rolled his eyes at his sister. She looked away, smiling wryly despite herself.

  After helping Mama with the morning chores, Mirelle busied herself with her music, practicing scales in their small drawing room where the family’s pianoforte sat in a corner near the window. Mirelle loved listening to good music, discerning the intricate patterns of melody. She especially enjoyed when Dolce performed, for her friend was magnificent on both pianoforte and harp. Sometimes, though, Mirelle grew jealous of her friend’s musical talent. Maybe now, she thought, with so much extra time, she might improve. Mama insisted that music was an accomplishment every young woman should possess. Mastering the keyboard was one way to keep her happy.

  But as Mirelle played, her fingers kept sliding from the keys, her glance wandering out the window to the busy side street. The moment she heard the door slam, she jumped up and opened the piano bench to grab the exercise book secreted there.

  Turning the pages of the book, she realized with a sharp pang that she had nearly completed the last of the equations Professor Ricci had left her.

  Three years ago, Mirelle was visiting Dolce when Signor Morpurgo, her father, had informed her he’d paid a princely fee for a mathematics tutor.

  “Mathematics!” Dolce had exclaimed, wrinkling her nose. “Why mathematics, of all absurdities?”

  “I shouldn’t have to explain,” Signor Morpurgo had said brusquely. “You’re my only child, heir to my businesses.”

  “Yes, but you don’t expect me to manage them, do you? Isn’t that my husband’s job?”

  “Of course.” Signor Morpurgo laughed. “But you should understand the rudiments, sweetling. You know that I don’t trust anyone, not completely. I’ll select a husband for you with a good business head, but the wise woman—and I know you to be wise in all things, pet—should know just enough to make sure nothing goes awry.”

  Flattered by her father’s praise, Dolce agreed to mathematics lessons. But she chafed under the rigors of the problems demanded of her. One day, she thrust the pages toward Mirelle, complaining, “No one could figure this out.”

  Mirelle found that the equations that stumped her friend came naturally to her, solutions arranging themselves in neat columns and tallies in her mind. The tutor—a professor who primarily taught struggling university students—quickly apprehended that someone else was solving Dolce’s problems. Mirelle found his eyes upon her one day as she sat in a dark corner of the room, drinking in his lessons like a doe at a pond, absorbing every word. From then on, it became his delight to challenge her with more and more difficult calculations while Dolce looked on with a derisive smile.

  After two years, Dolce, hiding her profound relief, bid her tutor a final farewell. Before he took his leave, he presented Mirelle with a thick book of exercises. “I hope you find these problems worthy of your attention, signorina,” he said, bowing before her, a narrow hand pressing his heart. “You will enjoy solving them. So few of us share a deeper appreciation of the elegance and magic of numbers. And it is as rare as buried treasure to find a woman with a head for them.”

  The magic of numbers. The phrase stayed with Mirelle long after the professor had pocketed his wages and left Ancona. She had never heard something so plain, so artless, described in such a way. Numbers, magical? But the more she thought of it—the more time she spent with her nose in the book, scribbling out solutions—the more enchanted she became with the notion.

  Something about numbers mesmerized her, made the world fade away. The bustle of the ketubah workshop, the messiness of the artists’ desks, the fanciful decoration and sketch work she had no gift for were replaced by a world that seemed logical and fixed, firm around the edges. Opening the exercise book now, Mirelle told herself that she could always count on numbers. More than people, certainly. Math had a clear problem, a strategy, a solution. People? They were a mystery she couldn’t always solve.

  She seated herself in the window alcove to take advantage of the morning light and watched as her mother, straw basket tucked under her arm, halted in the middle of the road to greet some neighbors. Mirelle stared at the women, wondering if she might find the key to what puzzled her if she studied them long enough. They stood in a cluster, shadowed by the tall ghetto buildings, thick walls blocking the sun. The expression on her mother’s full face made Mirelle shake her head. How could she be so happy? And why did the impossibly tedious daily rounds satisfy her—satisfy every other woman of the ghetto? She noticed Anna, their servant, leaning out of a window above her, sleeves turned up to her elbows, pinning laundry to the clothesline that stretched across the narrow street. She watched, wondering if Anna had ever wanted more from life than an endless round of cleaning and cooking. Where was the magic in that?

  Around noon, Mirelle left the house and turned left into Via Astagna, the only true avenue in the ghetto. The Jews of Ancona had eked out a living up and down Via Astagna since the 1550s, when Pope Paul IV forced them to live on a single street behind closed gates. The street originated near the mouth of Ancona harbor and traversed the hillsides, cutting through the packed alleyways and half-paved culsde-sac housing the overflow of Jewish families. Their population had grown, but the area where they were allowed to live had not.

  Mirelle knew she was luckier than most ghetto dwellers. Her father’s income from the workshop had provided her family a better home than many of their neighbors. But if she were a Christian, she’d live in a larger house still, fill
ed with air and light, next to a park or in the mountains overlooking the harbor.

  She found it difficult to reconcile her comfortable life with the nightly imprisonment to which she and her neighbors were subjected. Rabbi Fano often spoke of the covenant the Jews had with God, how the Almighty made them the chosen people out of all the nations. But why, then, she wondered, were they ridiculed, forced to wear ugly trappings, locked in at night?

  Dolce’s family lived in the first building inside the ghetto gates, and as Mirelle walked past the open stone archway, her mind drifted again, wondering what it would be like to walk where she wished at any hour, without Jewish insignia, like anyone else. To board one of the ships now at the harbor and set sail to those exotic addresses to which messengers carried her father’s ketubot: the steppes of Russia, the sophisticated capitals of London and Vienna, the wilds of the New World.

  She shrugged, dismissing her thoughts. What good would come of such dreams? Life in the ghetto was all she had ever known. And soon she would marry the man her parents chose and find a new home on these same streets, trapped within these crowded city blocks for the rest of her life.

  Not like Dolce, she thought. Dolce was born with the gift of making her own choices.

  The girls had been friends since they were five years old. Dolce’s father was a substantial stockholder in Simone d’Ancona’s business, and her mother, Sarella, had arranged for the girls to play together. Mirelle was nothing like the bold, vivacious girl she had met that day. Flamboyant as a peacock, Dolce’s Austrian roots showed in her alabaster skin, glorious golden curls, and startling blue eyes, as well as the vivid flush that lit her cheeks when she was excited.