Beyond the Ghetto Gates Read online

  Dolce always laughed away questions about her looks. “My aunt was blond; so was her mother, and many of my cousins,” she’d say. “All with blue eyes. Probably some Austrian nobleman found his way into my family tree.”

  Once, Mirelle had repeated Dolce’s theory about her porcelain doll looks to her mother.

  Mama set her lips in a thin line. “She talks too freely,” she scolded.

  Mirelle suspected that Mama only agreed to the girls’ friendship because of David Morpurgo’s continued investment in the workshop.

  “Thinks her wealth allows her such liberties,” Mama continued. “A girl her age, from a prominent household, shouldn’t entertain such thoughts in decent conversation. We certainly raised you better than that.”

  But Dolce’s outrageousness was exactly what Mirelle loved about her. Being with her gave Mirelle a sense of freedom and adventure, a liveliness lacking elsewhere in the ghetto. She would not trade Dolce’s friendship for a score of dull, modest girls, no matter what Mama wished.

  Mirelle pulled the bell chain and a footman opened the door. The Morpurgo villa, where Dolce lived with her widowed father, was four times larger than any other Jewish home in Ancona, filled with beautiful paintings and statuary, floors and fireplaces of pink marble, and chandeliers that twinkled with crystal raindrops and took one of their many servants an entire day to dust.

  The footman said Dolce was still in her bedroom. Mirelle climbed up a grand stairway and entered her friend’s spacious room.

  Dolce was lounging on a daybed, wearing a plum-colored silk bed jacket, reading a leather-bound volume.

  “Not dressed yet?” Mirelle leaned over to kiss her friend on the cheek.

  “Mirelle! Thank goodness you’ve come.” Dolce dropped the tome on the floor. “I was longing for something to divert me from this dull book.”

  “Dull?” Mirelle seated herself on a low chair. “My own life’s suddenly turned horribly dull.”

  Dolce’s eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?” “Rabbi Fano forbade me to work with Papa, and Mama agrees. Do you believe it?”

  Dolce leaned back, resting her blond head against a bank of silk cushions. “Oh, Mira. To be honest, I never liked you working in that workshop. All those dusty desks, and that awful, cramped office, and the smell . . .” She shuddered delicately. “Your mother is right about that, at least. No man wants a woman like that as a bride.”

  “A woman like what?”

  Dolce gave her a long, level look. “You know what I mean. Covered with ink and buried in numbers. Surrounded by other men all day long. People don’t think it’s decent.”

  Mirelle bristled. “You’ll inherit your father’s fortune, won’t you? What’s the difference?”

  Dolce sighed. “The difference? I don’t visit his office, don’t tend to the details of his business concerns. I’m not friendly with the help. And I don’t ever plan to be. My husband will take charge of my fortune when I marry, or I’ll hire a manager. But you? You want to be the manager.”

  “So what? I’m better than any manager Papa could hire. And I care a lot more, too.”

  “Listen to yourself! You sound ridiculous. I realize you’re angry, but the way I see it, the rabbi’s done you a good turn.”

  Mirelle leapt to her feet. “You’re like every other woman in the ghetto.”

  Dolce waved her back down. “Ha! Hardly. But you, you think that a woman working, when she has the choice not to, is acceptable. No one else thinks so. So it can’t be right. Look. Papa promised to hire a dancing master. Take lessons with me. In a few weeks, we’ll convince him to throw us a ball and we’ll turn the heads of every young man in Ancona.”

  “Is that what I’m going to spend all day doing? Dancing?” “Mira.” Dolce sighed. “I know how you feel—really, I do. But it won’t last. You’ll fall in love and forget all about the workshop. You know what you need? You don’t need to work, my dear. You need a man.”

  Mirelle rolled her eyes. “My mother plans to take care of that. She told Jacopo this morning that she and my father would find me the right husband.”

  “No, no, no.” Dolce waggled a jeweled finger, rings sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. “Your mother? She’d find you someone stolid. Dreadful. Like Baruch, Menachem Goldsmith’s firstborn, the most boring man in town. No, you need someone handsome. Dashing. With a hint of adventure. Haven’t you always said you want more adventure in your life? We’ll find him together.”

  Mirelle couldn’t help laughing. “Now you sound ridiculous. Someone dashing? For me?”

  “Of course someone dashing. You’re prettier than you think, you know.”

  Mirelle, smiling at the compliment, knew no one would look twice at her when her friend was in the room. Dolce had been courted almost from the cradle. Jewish men desirous of a rich, beautiful wife—rabbis’ sons and merchants, community leaders from Ancona and other cities—had lined up at her door, danced with her at balls, took her riding. She’d spurned them all. Of course, Mirelle thought, Dolce has plenty of dashing suitors. But Mama and Papa want me to marry someone wealthy.

  Her parents often told her they hoped she would marry a man whose marriage settlement would allow her father to buy the ketubah manufactory outright. Since Dolce’s father was their primary investor, this wasn’t something Mirelle could admit aloud. But Dolce was smart enough to intuit the truth.

  “You know,” Dolce spoke up, interrupting her thoughts, “if you object to dashing so much, why don’t you tell me what you do want? This man you’d like to marry. What’s he like?”

  “The man I’d like to marry?” Mirelle replied.

  Dolce leaned forward, fixing her brilliant blue gaze on Mirelle’s face. “Tell me.”

  Mirelle closed her eyes. She thought of her sweet father—so quick to surrender to the rabbi’s demands. “If I could choose—and I know I can’t—I’d want a man who knows his own mind, who acts, who doesn’t care if people disapprove of him—not a scholar, not even a merchant.” Her lips curled into a smile. “And handsome, of course.”

  Dolce chuckled. “He sounds marvelous. Be careful I don’t steal him away from you.”

  Mirelle’s lips twisted. “But most important, he should adore me, make me his reason for living. Put me first.”

  Listen to me, she thought, suddenly embarrassed. What a thing to say out loud.

  “But that goes without saying!” Dolce exclaimed. “Oh, Mira. You’ll find him—or he’ll find you—and it will fix everything! You’ll see.”

  Will it fix everything? Mirelle wondered. Could a mystery man—a handsome, confident suitor—really be the answer to her troubles? She wanted to believe it. Things always seemed to work out for Dolce; the universe bent to her will. But it never quite seemed to do the same for Mirelle. Maybe she would meet her perfect man, only to have Dolce snap him up. Maybe she would never meet him at all.

  And maybe, she reflected, he didn’t exist. Which meant the only way to deal with her problems was to solve them herself.

  5

  APRIL 4 ANCONA

  “You have everything?” Francesca Marotti asked, placing a hand on the slight rise of her stomach. “You’re sure, caro mio?” “How could I not be?” grumbled her husband, Emilio, as he slung the last bundle onto the donkey cart. “You’ve asked me the same question twenty times.” He tied rope around the bundles.

  To Francesca’s dismay, he’d backed the cart right up next to the outdoor altar to the Madonna, with no regard for the Lady’s sanctity. But she knew better than to protest.

  Barbara emerged from the henhouse, her skirt and black hair a mess of hay. Francesca bit her tongue at her daughter’s beet-red face and disheveled appearance, but Emilio just grinned. The girl flung her arms about his neck, hugging him tightly. “What will you bring me, Papa?” she wheedled. “I want some Turkish delight and a string of glass beads from Venice. Promise me?”

  “Don’t tease your father,” Francesca said, pulling her daughter back by the arm. “Nin
e is too old to be demanding sweets. And couldn’t you have stayed tidy long enough to say a proper good-bye? He may be gone for two years or more.”

  Barbara groaned, rolling her eyes. “Papa, why can’t you take me with you?”

  Her father laughed, picking some of the hay from her hair. “I wish I could too, bambina. But a merchant vessel is no place for a young lady.”

  “She’s no young lady.” Francesca sniffed. “Don’t encourage her.”

  Emilio put a hand on Francesca’s stomach. “I want a boy this time,” he told her, staring straight into her eyes. “I could take a boy with me.”

  Francesca saw her daughter’s face droop. “I’m glad Barbara is staying here.” She reached a hand out to the girl. “I’d miss her if she left.”

  Barbara evaded her touch and turned to hug her father a second time. “Turkish delight,” she whispered loudly. “And Venetian beads. Yes, Papa?”

  His arms wrapped around her and he looked over her shoulder, winking at his wife, who smiled despite herself. “And what should I bring for your mammina?” he murmured into Barbara’s hair. “And for the new bambino?”

  Barbara pulled away, glaring at her mother’s midsection. “The baby won’t want anything until it’s older. And Mama will be happy with anything you bring.”

  “Mama will be happy just to have you back home again, safe and sound,” Francesca said, stroking the arm of her husband’s new uniform. The short blue serge jacket sat snugly on his broad shoulders, a dashing red sash cut across the blousy white shirt. He looked proud and tall in his striped quarter-length pants, his dark hair swept under his cap, his broad, swarthy face split in a rare grin. Just as handsome as on their wedding day. She remembered kneeling in the cathedral, full of gratitude that he had selected her—her—out of all the girls in Ancona. She’d trembled as he looked her over, the expression in his black eyes unreadable. She hoped not to be found wanting, but the mysteries of the wedding bed made her quake. Surely he would be gentle, she’d thought. And he had been, that first night, as tender as a frisky puppy, despite all the grappa he’d downed at the feast.

  Unfortunately, his gentleness hadn’t lasted beyond their first month of marriage.

  “If only you didn’t have to go.” She wished the words unsaid the moment they escaped her mouth.

  “This, again?” Emilio shook his head, frowning. “Just as I’m about to leave?”

  “I’ll miss you, that’s all.”

  Francesca knew they had no choice. Russo had finally tracked Emilio down and threatened to break his fingers if he didn’t pay him back. It had taken every penny secretly stored in the flour bin to satisfy him. And there were other debts, still unpaid.

  “It’s not like two years is forever,” Emilio said, hugging his daughter again. “I’ll earn enough in the merchant marine to take care of the debts and buy us a shop on the quay. No more stinking chickens or drooping fig trees or sunflowers wilting in the sun.”

  Francesca shut her eyes. Emilio’s dream had always been to own a shop of his own. Just like the one his father had when he was a child, filled with fantastical objects of glass and copper and wood. Francesca remembered visiting it when she was young, a wonderland of cups and vases and glass animals all glinting in the beams that shone through the large plate window. But Emilio’s father had borrowed money to pay for his own gambling debts, and had put the store up as collateral. He’d lost everything to Jewish moneylenders when Emilio was seventeen. Emilio’s brothers and sisters had been parceled out to relatives far from Ancona like so many bundles, while she and Emilio, already married, had been forced to live off her meager inheritance.

  Her husband despised farming, even though the patch of land at the foot of Monte Guasco, just outside Ancona, was the best part of her dowry. They kept chickens, selling their eggs, and grew sunflowers, figs, and whatever root vegetables they could raise to sustain themselves through the winter. But Emilio resented every moment he had to scratch in the sandy soil, blaming the Jews for the loss of his family’s home and business.

  Two years! Could she bear it? Francesca watched Emilio plod away, praying he’d be a happier man when he finally returned.

  6

  MAY 2 ANCONA

  Mirelle’s family always celebrated her father’s birthday with a party at the workshop. Each year, the men’s families, along with the Morpurgo family and other friends and neighbors, were bidden to an after-hours feast. Mama and Anna spent days in the kitchen, preparing goose sausage minced into a rich risotto, dredging artichokes with flour and frying them to a luscious crispness, and making a savory casserole of spinach, raisins, and pine nuts. The dessert was a rich fig pudding, Papa’s favorite. Mama made marzipan treats for the children, too, cleverly shaped like the flowers and animals that adorned the ketubot.

  This year, Mirelle had been pressed into kitchen duty, rolling and cutting. Her arms ached from shaking a burlap bag of pine cones to release the stubborn nuts; the sweetness of almond paste lingered on her fingers for hours after her work was done. Lines of the proverb Papa recited to Mama every Shabbat—she tends to the affairs of her household and eats not the bread of idleness—played in Mirelle’s head as her mother bustled about the kitchen.

  The day of the party dawned fair, small clouds chasing one another in the bright blue sky. Mirelle, a heavy apron protecting her lilac-colored muslin dress, packed baskets and sat in Mama’s sewing room to finish her father’s present. She’d braided a chain as a watch guard for his favorite pocket watch. Selecting the softest bits of burgundy, buff, and green-colored leather and delicate glass beads she’d bought from a Venetian trader, she’d woven the chain into a taut double loop. He’ll love it, she thought as she sewed the loose ends tight, smiling at the image of her father always searching his pockets for his watch.

  When they arrived, Anna directed four of the men to lay white cloths on the long tables in the back. Papa fussed that she didn’t need so many helpers; Mirelle knew he wanted his men to keep working until the last minute. But he was fighting a losing battle. The rest of the men were already putting away their paintbrushes and inks and lounging in the doorway, watching for their wives and children.

  Mirelle stood on the threshold, breathing in. The sharp, stinging smell of ink, paint, parchment, and glue, which had always made her eager to sit down to work, now served only to remind her of what she’d lost. But she forced a smile to her face, unwilling to ruin her father’s celebration by sulking.

  The men eagerly helped unload the cart, setting out the warm food. One of the tables was designated for gifts—so far, one shared present from the workmen; something from the Morpurgo family; and a package that had arrived several days earlier from Simone’s widowed sister-in-law in Rome, Prudenzia Fermi.

  Mirelle placed her gift in the center of the table, looking pointedly at her brother.

  Jacopo winked at her. “I do so have a gift,” he whispered, even though she hadn’t asked.

  “Where is it, then?”

  He reached into his waistcoat, pulled out a parchment scroll with a crushed ribbon awkwardly tied around it, and tossed it on the table.

  “I can retie that for you,” Mirelle offered.

  “Don’t touch it. I don’t want you peeking.”

  “It’s messy. Let me.”

  But just as she reached a hand out, Mirelle heard a familiar voice call her name.

  Dolce was at the door, arms full of sunflowers, her face as bright as the blooms. Dolce’s father, aunt, and uncle crowded behind her.

  Papa greeted them, welcoming them to the workshop as honored guests. “B’ruchim ha’baim,” he intoned in Hebrew. “Welcome, welcome!” He ushered them inside. “I know this isn’t Sukkot, but you are my ushpzin, my sacred guests. As the Bible commands us: ‘You shall rejoice on your festival.’ I’m delighted you are here for mine.”

  “Blessings of the day, Simone,” David Morpurgo said.

  “Health and prosperity,” his brother, Ezekiel, chimed in.

>   “That sounds like a toast,” Simone said. “Come, help yourselves to some wine. Pinina bought a nice Sangiovese.”

  The men walked off. Dolce and her aunt turned to Mirelle’s mother.

  “What beautiful flowers, dear Dolce,” Mama said. “I’ll ask Anna to find a vase.”

  “No need,” Dolce said. “My footman brought several. I thought we might divide them around the tables.”

  Quick annoyance rippled across Mama’s forehead, but was swiftly wiped clean. Mama was always sweet to Dolce—at least, to her face.

  As Mirelle glanced about the room, one of their neighbors, a widow, sidled over to Dolce’s father, chattering, plying her fan coyly, putting a possessive hand on his arm. Mirelle bit back a chuckle. This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to entrap Signor Morpurgo with feminine wiles. The moment Dolce’s mother, Sarella, had died of a lingering illness when the girls were twelve, wealthy David Morpurgo had become the most eligible widower in the ghetto. But he was adroit at avoiding the snares of widows and mamas, and often told his daughter and her friend that he preferred the thrill of commerce and politics to a life hemmed in by a demanding wife. Besides, Mirelle suspected that he’d truly loved Dolce’s mother, whose fulllength portrait still hung in the villa entranceway. She remembered Sarella’s softness and gentleness—qualities that had clearly escaped her forceful, sharp-tongued daughter. For years, Mirelle had watched Dolce conspire against any woman who encroached too close.

  “Why don’t you want your father to marry again?” she had asked once.

  “Why do you think?” Dolce replied, as if surprised by her friend’s naivete. “If he marries again, who do you think will control our home and his fortune? And then, if there’s a boy . . .” Dolce had dismissed at least two governesses, requesting male tutors instead. She was adept at unearthing nuggets of gossip that tarnished the most irreproachable maiden. When Mirelle chided her, wondering if her friend was standing in the way of her father’s happiness, Dolce shrugged and replied, “We’re fine as we are.”