“Monna Teresa,” she began, referring to the woman with the fan, “wants to know if you have a twin sister, Giannozza? For hundreds of years it has been tradition in the family to call twin girls Giulietta and Giannozza.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said. “I wish she was here tonight. She”-I looked around at the candlelit hall and all the bizarre people, swallowing a smile-“would have loved it.”
The old woman erupted in a wrinkly smile when she heard that there were two of us, and she made me promise that, next time I came to visit, I would bring along my sister.
“But if those names are a family tradition,” I said, “then there must be hundreds-thousands-of Giulietta Tolomeis out there apart from me!”
“No-no-no!” exclaimed Eva Maria. “Remember that we are talking about a tradition in the female line, and that women take their husbands’ names when they marry. To Monna Teresa’s knowledge, in all these years, no one else was ever baptized Giulietta and Giannozza Tolomei. But your mother was stubborn-” Eva Maria shook her head with reluctant admiration. “She wanted desperately to get that name, so she married Professor Tolomei. And what do you know, she had twin girls!” She looked at Monna Teresa for confirmation. “As far as we know, you are the only Giulietta Tolomei in the world. That makes you very special.”
They all looked at me expectantly, and I did my best to appear grateful and interested. Obviously, I was delighted to learn more about my family, and to meet distant relatives, but the timing could have been better. There are evenings when one is perfectly content talking to elderly ladies with lace ruffs, and evenings when one would rather be doing something else. On this particular occasion, in all honesty, I was longing to be alone with Alessandro-where on earth was he?-and although I had happily spent many wee hours absorbed in the tragic events of 1340, family lore was not what I felt most like exploring on this particular night.
But now it was Monna Chiara’s turn to grab my arm and talk to me intently about the past. Her voice was as crisp and frail as tissue paper, and I leaned as close as I could to hear her and avoid the peacock feather.
“Monna Chiara invites you to come and visit her,” translated Eva Maria, “so you can see her archive of family documents. Her ancestor, Monna Mina, was the first woman who tried to unravel the story of Giulietta, Romeo, and Friar Lorenzo. She was the one who found most of the old papers; she found the trial proceedings against Friar Lorenzo-with his confession-in a hidden archive in the old torture chamber in Palazzo Salimbeni, and she also found Giulietta’s letters to Giannozza tucked away in many places. Some were under a floor in Palazzo Tolomei, others were hidden in Palazzo Salimbeni, and she even found one-the very last-at Rocca di Tentennano.”
“I would love to see those letters,” I said, meaning it. “I’ve seen some fragments, but-”
“When Monna Mina found them,” Eva Maria interrupted me, urged on by Monna Chiara, whose eyes were aglow in the candlelight, yet strangely distant, “she traveled a long way to visit Giulietta’s sister, Giannozza, and to give her the letters at last. This was around the year 1372, and Giannozza was now a grandmother-a happy grandmother-living with her second husband, Mariotto. But you can imagine what a shock it was for Giannozza to read what her sister had written to her so many years earlier, before she took her own life. Together those two women-Mina and Giannozza-talked about everything that had happened, and they swore that they would do everything in their power to keep the story alive for future generations.”
Pausing, Eva Maria smiled and put a gentle arm around the two old women, squeezing them in appreciation, and they both giggled girlishly at her gesture.
“So,” she said, looking at me meaningfully, “this is why we are gathered here tonight: to remember what happened, and make sure it never happens again. Monna Mina was the first one to do this, more than six hundred years ago. Every year on the anniversary of her wedding night, for as long as she lived, she would go down into the basement of Palazzo Salimbeni-into that dreadful room-and light candles for Friar Lorenzo. And when her daughters were old enough, she would bring them, too, so they could learn to respect the past and carry on the tradition after her. For many generations, this custom was kept alive by the women of both families. But now, to most people, all those events are very distant. And I’ll tell you”-she winked at me, revealing a sliver of her usual self-“big modern banks don’t like nightly processions with candles and old women in blue nightgowns walking around in their vaults. Just ask Sandro. So, nowadays we have our meetings here, at Castello Salimbeni, and we light our candles upstairs, not in the basement. We are civilized, you see, and not so young anymore. Therefore, carissima, we are happy to have you here with us tonight, on Mina’s wedding night, and to welcome you to our circle.”
I FIRST REALIZED something was wrong at the buffet table. Just as I was trying to pry a drumstick off a roasted duck that was sitting very elegantly in the middle of a silver platter, a wave of warm oblivion rolled onto the shore of my consciousness, gently rocking me. It was nothing dramatic, but the serving spoon fell right out of my hand, as if the muscles suddenly all went limp.
After a few deep breaths, I was able to look up and focus on my surroundings. Eva Maria’s spectacular buffet had been set up on the terrace off the great hall, underneath the rising moon, and out here, tall torches defied the darkness with concentric semicircles of fire. Behind me, the house shone brilliantly with dozens of lit windows and external spotlights; it was a beacon that stubbornly held the night at bay, one last, refined bastion of Salimbeni pride, and if I was not mistaken, the laws of the world stopped at the gate.
Picking up the serving spoon once more, I tried to shake my sudden wooziness. I had only had one glass of wine-poured for me personally by Eva Maria, who wanted to know what I thought of her new-growth sangiovese-but I had tossed half of it into a potted plant because I did not want to insult her wine-making skills by not finishing my glass. That said, considering everything that had happened that day, it would be odd if I did not, at this point, feel mildly unhinged.
Only then did I see Alessandro. He had emerged from the dark garden to stand between the torches, looking straight at me, and although I was relieved and excited to have him back at last, I instantly knew something was wrong. It was not that he seemed angry; rather, his expression was one of concern, perhaps even condolence, as if he had come to knock on my door and inform me that there had been a terrible accident.
Filled with foreboding, I put down my plate and walked towards him. “‘In a minute,’” I said, attempting a smile, “‘there are many days. O by this count I shall be much in years ere I again behold my Romeo.’” I stopped right in front of him, trying to read his thoughts. But by now, his face was-as it had been the very first time I met him-completely void of emotion.
“Shakespeare, Shakespeare,” he said, not appreciating my poetry, “why does he always come between us?”
I dared to reach out to him. “But he is our friend.”
“Is he?” Alessandro took my hand and kissed it, then turned it over and kissed my wrist, his eyes never letting go of mine. “Is he really? Then tell me, what would our friend have us do now?” When he read the answer in my eyes, he nodded slowly. “And after that?”