“Yes!” cried Cecilia. “Gallerani! My family name. His Lordship can never forget who I am.”
“I hardly think that is a risk, signorina,” the painter said.
For a long moment, Leonardo looked at the painting in progress. Cecilia was certain he was about to argue and possibly paint the dog anyway. But instead, he ran his palm over his beard as if it helped coax the nuances from a complex idea.
“The ermine,” he said. “Its coat turns white in the winter so that it may be better hidden from the enemy. They say that, faced with a hunter, the ermine would rather die than soil its beautiful white mantle. It is therefore a symbol of purity. It can also be a sign of fertility. Even pregnancy.”
Cecilia watched the artist’s cheeks turn pink in embarrassment when he realized what he had just said. The three of them sat in awkward silence as the painter pondered the problem. He did not want to offend her, she was sure.
“But,” Cecilia said, “think of it! The King of Naples himself honored His Lordship with the Order of the Ermine. This will so please Ludovico. I am certain of it.” Suddenly his face lit up and she saw that familiar enthusiasm that she had grown to enjoy. Quickly Leonardo began to sketch the requested ermine on a piece of vellum at his side.
“My dear, you are nothing short of brilliant.”
Back in their rhythm of subject and painter, Leonardo and Cecilia settled into their comfort again. She ran her hands over Violina’s white head while Leonardo worked out the ermine on the piece of parchment.
The door to the study opened and Cecilia turned to see Marco, the duke’s official court musician, rush into the room, his unruly locks of hair falling over his eyes.
“Have you heard the news?” he asked, nearly tripping over Master da Vinci’s collapsible table cluttered with pigments and brushes. “Happiness! A remarkable celebration is upon us! The date has been set for the marriage between Our Lord and the lovely Beatrice at the Castello di Pavia.”
Cecilia swallowed hard.
“A spectacular winter celebration!” he cried. “Fewer than thirty days away. There is so much to be done!”
35
Edith
Munich, Germany
November 1939
ON THE BROAD AVENUES BORDERING THE PARK, ENORMOUS flags bearing swastikas were being hung in advance of a military parade. A winter celebration.
“You walk fast.”
Edith suppressed a grin. “I’m sorry, Papa. We are in no rush.”
Edith grasped her father’s arm as he shuffled down the sidewalk. In the other arm, her father clenched Max, the matted, stuffed dog, tightly to his side. She slowed her pace, trying not to think about that small telegram, another slip of paper that would, once again, change her life. In two days, she would be leaving home again, back into the line of fire. How could she tell her father?
Winter had arrived in a blast of cold wind that rattled the windows and bent the brittle limbs of the trees lining the park. Across the Isar River, men in uniforms were filling the streets, marching in formation as the people of Munich looked on from their windows.
In the time that Edith had been away from home—mere weeks that seemed like a lifetime—the city of Munich had transformed into the capital of the Nazi world. Everywhere, tremendously sized flags flapped and men in field jackets and greatcoats lined the streets. Tanks blocked some of the main thoroughfares to allow for frequent parades. Around the city, preparations were being made for works of German painting and sculpture to be carried through the streets as the citizens chanted and sang patriotic songs.
In spite of the fanfare, Edith knew that during her weeks in Poland, there had also been an attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life. According to the newspapers, the Führer had stepped down from the speaker’s podium at a popular beer hall when a timebomb exploded, narrowly missing its target but killing eight others standing nearby. To Edith, the tanks blocking the main streets of Munich seemed less of a show of patriotism and more of a show of defense.
No matter the strange atmosphere of her home city and its bitter temperatures, Edith had vowed to get her father walking outside as much as possible. She knew it was good for him, and she could not bear to think of how she had found him upon her return.
When Edith had arrived in Munich, she was dismayed to find that her father was gone from their apartment. In her absence, he had been entrusted to the care of a sanatorium on the outskirts of the city. Her neighbor, Frau Gerzheimer, had apologized profusely, but needed to prioritize the care of her own sick mother, who had come from the countryside so that her daughter could care for her.
At the sanatorium, Edith had found Herr Becker slumped in a chair in a dim room, his clothes and teeth dirty, more rawboned and frail than when she had left just weeks ago. He looked like a hunched-over child, clutching his stuffed dog tightly to his side.
Edith quickly signed his discharge papers and secured a nurse from the sanatorium: a middle-aged, auburn-haired hen of a woman named Rita who had worked for some three decades with elderly who had turned forgetful.
“Better you should take your papa home as soon as possible,” Rita had whispered to Edith when she arrived to find her father. “They have instructed us to cut back on food for patients like him. It’s not right. The numbers of deceased here are increasing. There are many empty rooms here now. No one dares to ask questions. If he was my own father, I would have taken him home long before now.” Edith saw Rita’s eyes filled with fear.
“Are you free to work with us directly?” Edith had whispered, out of earshot of the other nurses. “Please . . . come home with us. I will make it worth your while.”
Now, Edith gave Rita a much-deserved break. Edith and her father walked another long, slow stretch of the park, watching the last of the autumn leaves swirl and skip across the paths toward the pond. The walkway opened onto a grove of trees along the water’s edge. Edith led her father to a park bench and settled herself next to him.
She took the daily newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, from the crook of her arm. Rita had told Edith it was important to read to patients who no longer remembered the past; it helped stimulate their minds, she said, sometimes even helped them recall memories. Besides, Edith was constantly poring over the papers for news of Prince Czartoryski and his wife, feeling anxious for what had become of them.
Edith scanned the headlines. GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY WILL CONQUER ENGLAND’S MONETARY DOMINANCE. TIME TO CLEAN UP THE JAPANESE MESS. THE FÜHRER REVEALS HIS LATEST SECURITY PLAN.
“NO MORE MORAL HYPOCRISY,” Edith muttered another headline out loud.
“Moral hypocrisy . . .” her father repeated. “Ha! Arschlecker!”
“Arschlecker, indeed, Papa,” she said. Her father’s uncharacteristic profanity struck her as suddenly hilarious. The two of them sat on the park bench for a minute, laughing so hard they could hardly catch their breath. She suspected that her father didn’t have any idea of what the headline was about, or why they were both laughing so hard, but who cared? When was the last time the two of them had had a spontaneous laugh?
“Papa,” she said, dabbing her eyes. “I need to ask you something. Something important. Do you remember working with students at the university, during the Great War? Helping them with a printing project?”