Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXV

This one time, per favore, mia cara,” I begged, “we can dress you up as a messenger boy and sneak you in and out in under an hour. No one will know you were there.”

“No,” Marghertia replied. Even with her jaw set, she’s beautiful.

“I need the love of my life to see my greatest work.” I flashed a smile that usually moves anyone in my direction.

But she was unwavering as marble. “I won’t risk my life or your career to see some painting.”

“It’s not just some painting.”

“Basta, puppy.”

I tilted my head and said, “There’s this cardinal who’s trying to get me to marry his niece. He said she’d be happy to see my paintings.”

With that, Margherita got up out of bed. “Get dressed.”

I pursed my lips. That tactic had been all wrong, hadn’t it? Ah well. What do you do after stepping into a pile of excrement? You try your best to clean it off, don’t you? “Mi dispiace, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“We’re going out.” She pulled on her dress.

Outside, she marched ahead as I dutifully followed—not a word, not a grin, nothing to further upset her—down one street then another and another until we came to a narrow side street by the Tiber. The dirt of the road was packed hard with deep grooves from wagon wheels and horse hooves. It smelled of manure and garbage. The buildings were shabby storefronts: a cobbler, haber-dasher, blacksmith. A group of soot-faced children played knucklebones on a stoop. A hollow-cheeked maid dumped a chamber pot. “Where are we?” I asked as we reached the end of the street where two little boys leaned in a window, arms perched on the sill, staring up, mouths open as if witnessing a miracle. I peered in. That was no miracle. They were only watching a loaf of bread rise. Margherita pushed open the door to that shop. A bell tinkled as she led us inside.

The bakery was cramped—low ceilings, tables too large for such a small space—and hot from all the ovens. But that shop smelled of yeast, creamy butter, and melted sugar, and had a wonderful feeling of creation—flour dust, rising dough, rolling pins. “Hello?” called Margherita, and there came a great crash—pans, knives, Mary-knows-what—from some other room, and then a back door burst open, and in barreled a short, round man with flour smearing his nose, cheeks, and hair—or perhaps his hair was graying, it was difficult to tell. “Ah, there you are,” he exclaimed as if we’d been hiding from him for hours. He hustled over to Margherita and took her hands and held them wide—“Let me look at you”—and then he turned to me and said, “You must try this and this and this,” and as he shoved loaves and buns and rolls into my arms, I laughed—it’s impossible not to when faced with such exuberance—and was starting to wonder why it had taken me so long to visit such a magical shop owned by such a magical man, when Margherita sighed, “Please, stop, Papà.”