МЕДИЧИ. Начало. Рассказы 1-4

Giulio Morandi

МЕДИЧИ. Начало. Рассказы 1-4

BON APPETIT

If, by any chance, you had happened to wander into the streets of Firenze on a certain April afternoon in the year 1954, you would have doubtless noticed that those streets were rather overpopulated by chappies of a somewhat conspicuous aspect, some long-haired, the others not. And what would have struck you most, had you subjected those coves to a closer inspection, was that over those assorted specimens hung an air of distinct gloom, almost despair.

Passers-by, when catching sight of those long faces, did their best to pass by as rapidly as possible, but you, dear reader, could have pondered what the reason for this despondency was. Were those chappies immigrants, unemployed or orphans, you might have thought. What misfortune had caused these faces (some rather good-looking ones, mind you), to become pale and drawn? While strolling on and meditating in such a way you would have spotted another of those chaps kicking a garbage can viciously… A bum, no doubt, you would have said to yourself.

In reality, they were none other than the younger members of the Medici family, and what had driven them out into the street was the prosaic fact that on that particular afternoon Mother Medici had announced her intention to clean out the family cupboard. Those who were of a delicate age tried to exclaim ‘what, again?!’ as a sign of protest and received hard stares which, had the recipients been of a less resilient family, would have gone through them like the better type of stiletto.

So, not having apparently been presented with a choice, the family trudged out while the trudging was good, as the house gave the distinct impression of a joint shortly to be filled with such a bouquet of arsenic, cyanide and other jolly substances that have made the name of Medici so well-known in the course of history that the gang knew even they would have found the mixture too rich.

Now that you’ve got the solid facts before you, only the toughest reader would not agree that the unfortunate fish were justified in feeling peril not far ahead. And the sense of doom intensified closer to 8 p.m., as such had been their sense of rightful indignation at that time that it had completely slipped the throng’s mind that it was Mother Medici’s turn to cook dinner.

But what made them think she would certainly slip some poison or other in the minestrone, you ask? Surely she wouldn’t do it to her own kin? This kin knew she wouldn’t and was nevertheless worried. During the cleaning it was Mother’s customary practice to brew a concoction of some kind from the ingredients that were past their sell-by date, if such substances do have one. And so strong would this concoction be that it was predestined to make inroads into any dish Mother happened to touch.

Another thing at the recollection of which some of the younger Medicis barked like seals was that though she insisted she was as attentive as anyone of the family, Mother sometimes had her bad moments, and during these moments labels were likely to be swapped from sheer over-enthusiasm. The sinister story of Lorenzo was the elephant in the room, or, to be more accurate, in the street, now that the members of the clan were at large in such numbers. Lorenzo Medici, it must be recalled, in his last year made a practice of taking some mint extract before retiring to bed, as it used to do so much good for his headaches. This healthy habit continued for some time, until after one particularly strenuous cleaning a bottle with the sign ‘mint extract’ (actually containing some species of little-known poison) found its way into Lorenzo’s sleeping quarters. And that, if you follow me closely, was that.

What initially caused Mother, who was proud of her cooking, to choose that particular date was that all the restaurants (and other similar institutions where you could get a meal without sitting down to write your will prior to it) were packed due to the Festa Della Liberazione, and it was practically impossible to dine there. Nevertheless, on that day two of Mother’s chicks, Enzo and Luigi, managed to squeeze in at Giuseppe's by bribing the head waiter and stupefied themselves with antipasti, ravioli and gelato.

This caused a hundred too many black looks to be cast in their direction, and a good half hour was spent cursing those lucky stiffs. After some time, though, the cursing was transferred to the address of still other fellow chickabiddies, Luciano and Matteo, who, having found they hadn’t used up all of a certain newest toxic substance, managed to get into signor Bucelli’s residence and proceeded to trade the stuff to him, impressing it on his mind that you never knew when it would come in handy (and simultaneously praying that he would not notice they hadn’t provided any antidotes). Yet what provoked a liberal amount of muttered oaths from those who had not visited the Bucelli residence that day was that, seeing his guests were reluctant to go and, keeping in mind the calzone his housekeeper cooked was not fit for his digestion (being rather on the overburnt side, as, apparently, the ancestors of the housekeeper used to mix a lot with chappies who led the Inquisition, and that, without a doubt, affects one's style considerably), signor Bucelli rather generously invited them to join him for dinner, during which the genial host consumed only half a bottle of champagne, while feeling that inside glow which comes to all of us when we watch the foodstuffs we  have long been wanting to get rid of devoured with an unprecedented appetite by others.

Though a great degree of animosity was displayed towards the persons mentioned above, the blood of those who displayed this animosity reached the boiling point when it was announced by a reliable informant that Giacomo, that loathsome double-crossing skunk who had actually had the effrontery to declare there would be no casualties during this dinner (‘it’ll be O.K.’, the blighter had actually said), had done a bunk on the 7-15 and was now headed for Milano or a similar destination, doubtless sniggering to himself and calling the rest of the crowd names. In fact, the only thing that prevented the gang from intercepting the train and lynching Giacomo was that the conservative old Italian families, with whom the Medicis were forced to mix, did not approve of these modern aggressive tendencies.

It also must be mentioned that great resource was shown by Alessandro, who, having ascertained that agente Massimo (the rozzer notorious for his low opinion of practical jokes) was on duty, having procured a smoke grenade, immediately paid a visit to the police station and was in due time scooped up. When told that he would be detained until the following morning unless a fine was paid, Alessandro, while trying to hide a grin of such breadth that it seriously threatened to put its owner in the same class with his overseas comrade, the Cheshire Cat, insisted that he had, unfortunately, no money on his person.

And the above Medicis (except, of course, Alessandro and Giacomo) heard it from their spies that Giovanni, that champion chump, was actually proposing to eat Mother's dinner, saying that it could possibly do no harm to him.

The throng was cheering him on, as they had never liked Giovanni. He, they felt, was too radical in his methods, his idea of breaking the ice after a somewhat straining quarrel being to casually drop a couple of white pellets into the party of the second part's evening milk.

Yet when one really came down to it, it turned out that life was not joy, jollity and song for everyone. Riccardo, for one, was feeling that if Hamlet had wandered into his midst at that moment, he would have sniffed contemptuously at the prince of Denmark, as the latter did not know a darned thing about real brooding.

What caused Riccardo to express himself so strongly, you ask? Well, for one thing, he was twenty-five, and, being the eldest in the immediate family beside Mother, he had not only to sit next to her at meals, but also try all the dishes and sometimes even order a second helping.

Why was there such a noticeable shortage of adults in the gang, you want to know. Noone is sure about that. Many of those left over from the late unpleasantness had been eliminated due to the doings of the Borgias or some political opposition having taken not a very kind view of them, but Riccardo's theory was that they had once eaten Mother’s after-cleaning dinner without taking an antidote first.

And the other thing was that he, like all of us, was young and full of plans in life, to the fulfillment of which he was rather looking forward. One of these plans, for instance, was to renew his complaints about the noise Federico Borgia’s automobile made, and this time say it with cyanide.

Meanwhile, a strange scene presented itself in front of that new restaurant, Marco's. Two cars were being loaded with some peculiar contraptions containing, it could have been deduced, zuppa toscana, second courses, and other provisions of a similar nature.

And had some of the youngest members of the Medici family not been among those present at that particular moment, it is doubtful whether the clan would have survived until tomorrow in the same contingent.

By an immense stroke of luck, it so happened that Leonardo (13) and Vincenzo (12) caught sight of the proceedings and were enterprising enough to find out the cause of the mass gathering outside Marco’s. It turned out that the owner, an inventive bloke (whose name, by an odd coincidence, was Marco), had set up something closely resembling a takeaway.

And not only did those two happen to overhear it was the Borgias who had decided to order that meal (good enough for an army of soldiers that had been systematically starved for two weeks), but also they had the necessary amount of money on them to give it to the driver and order him to make a stop at the Palazzo Nuovo Medici, where, by showing their ready intelligence again, Leonardo and Vincenzo told Mother it was the ideal moment of ‘putting one over on the Borgias’.

Mother Medici did not approve of it being put that way, as she considered what she was about to do a simple thing to teach those pains in the neck (who, she was strongly inclined to think, had especially moved from Rome to Firenze in order to make the world a sweeter place with fewer and better Medicis) that life is stern and life is earnest; however, she gave her consent to introducing an appetizing brew with an almondy smell (called prussic acid, by the way) into the meal.

Though eager to continue with her cooking after instructing her subordinates what to do, Mother found herself being persuaded to take a rest and leave everything to them, as everyone could do without dessert just for once. ‘Look what sweets do to your figure,’ Leonardo pointed out, indicating Vincenzo as a vivid illustration. In driving the point home, the pair, having settled the minor misunderstanding by a couple of mutual brotherly kicks, went so far as to push Mother out of the kitchen, carry her upstairs and place her on a sofa with a cushion under her feet to make her even more comfortable.

Pleasantly surprised, Mother took off her shoes, stretched a bit and took up a magazine. It was one of those fashionable journals, to be more precise, Posh Poisons, and Mother soon became so immersed in the rubric Selection of Poisons According to the Zodiac that she didn't notice how the cooking-pots from the kitchen had been swapped with those in the automobile waiting outside.

Riccardo was sitting in his room, pleasantly mellowed after a nourishing dinner consisting of zuppa toscana, cannelloni, panna cotta and other assorted foodstuffs. Life, he thought, was topping, and who could have accused him of doing so? So topping, in fact, was life that two or possibly three (or maybe even four) glasses of that excellent champagne were indicated. So thinking, Riccardo sauntered over to the cupboard where the glasses were kept, and, as he opened it, heard a scrambling noise.

Life, though, in Riccardo’s view, was too grand to notice any such petty things, and, instead of ascertaining the source of the sound, he leaned out of the window to admire the stunning sunset, which he noted to be in colour not unlike a glass of red wine of good vintage (with a drop of something in it, perhaps).

Having turned back, Riccardo gave a start. Only now did he realize how wrong he had been in letting his uplifted spirit run away with him. The bottle was gone with the wind; so gone, indeed, that it might not have been there at all. Somewhere upstairs a door slammed, a key turned in the lock, and after a while came the popping of a cork. The sound isolation was pretty good in the Medici home, but the words ‘Enzo, you're a brick!’ and ‘Just think of the look on old Riccardo's face!’, floated to Riccardo’s ears.

Those two blighters, Enzo and Luigi, who thought of nothing else than their own dashed selves, having recovered from the antipasti, ravioli and gelato, came to the conclusion that the thing needed to make the evening simply unforgettable was champagne.

After a couple of minutes the feeling of having been swindled significantly diminished. Riccardo had just remembered that old Lorenzo had left him a whole cellar of the right stuff, and the thing to do now was nip downstairs, procure the key and, as he did not think he would be able to say at the end of the hour, voila!

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

The sun had just started shining brightly upon the streets of Firenze, illuminating the Museo di San Marco, the Piazza della Libertà, and what used to be the city fountain until the pigeons, during a delay in the city authorities in setting the water pump going, converted it into a sort of boarding-house. The Santa Croce, that prominent cathedral among the most famous features of which are its Gothic architecture, Giotto’s frescos, the nasturtium bushes surrounding it and, most importantly, Padre Clemente, was receiving the daily dose of sunshine as well.

However, near the Palazzo Nuovo Medici, the stately house the family had purchased in the middle of the previous century, the sun stopped rapidly advancing on the city, as if questioning itself whether it was wise to disturb that noble family at such an early hour. In a moment or so, the heavenly body seemed to feel that when Paris and Madrid and what not were counting on it to provide the life-giving rays, the Medicis would just have to grin and bear it.

‘Let ‘em eat cake’ was the popular motto as a singularly aggressive beam of light muscled in and attacked the opposite wall. Oddly enough, this unexpected intrusion did not disturb Mother Medici, who at the moment happened to be sleeping in the manner popularized by logs. Upon her strikingly beautiful face, as she moved a bit to the north, was a slight frown which, as we are told, is the inevitable result of the inability to poison Lucrezia Borgia’s lipstick in one’s sleep.

As the clock on the Santa Croce struck ten, the sun continued shining brightly on the streets of Firenze. All the populace was shaking a leg and going about its daily duties. The pigeon-boarding house was receiving visitors from neighbouring districts. Cars with the sign Marco’s could be seen, delivering appetizing dishes to the more well-off members of the public. Padre Clemente was watering the nasturtiums.

Mother Medici, now wide awake, was lying on the sofa in the living-room and re-reading a magazine article. It was about the ideal way of preparing seafood, and if you're interested in why Mother needed an article about seafood, let me assure you that she did not care whichever way it was prepared at all, provided it could on demand be zipped up with some vegetable alkaloid.

And frankly, it was not so much the article than the name of the author that had grabbed her attention. This sprightly column was signed ‘Amalia Medici’, and the fact that irked Mother was that she was blowed if she could remember anyone of her large circle of relatives with such a ghastly first name.

Further research (despite the fact that there was no Internet at the time, Mother was a quick worker) brought to her knowledge that Amalia Medici was actually a nom de plume of a blighter really called Rafael Rossini. This, in Mother’s view, was an extremely disquieting phenomenon. To her great distress, she had not long ago heard that changing names, especially last ones, had become a trend, and it so happened, by the way, that the name Medici at that time was among those most in vogue. The worst thing about it, Mother reflected, was that her little chickabiddies, if she was not gravely mistaken, would rush to alter their names as soon as they found the city crammed to bursting point with assumed Medicis. O tempora, o mori! – thought Mother. How easily children forget to honour their past and the deeds of their ancestors, not to mention the current achievements attached to the proud name. These feelings were merely a reaction to events that had already taken place and not a prediction. The exact goings-on were that at 9 o'clock Mother had received a telegram from Riccardo informing her he would not be back for some time:

Gone away brief visit Milano. Say best fair in country.

Riccardo Mariani

Mother Medici knew Milano was housing the Grand Gastronomical Fair and was glad about Riccardo’s being able to attend it, but the chap having so suddenly dropped the Medici made her not a little infuriated. That's why in a moment of rightful indignation she dispatched the following answer:

And STAY there, confound you!

Love

Mother

(In all honesty, none of the younger Medicis knew what relative precisely Mother was to them, so everyone for the convenience of it called her Mother and, as an unavoidable consequence, had to comply with her every whim).

In an attempt to soothe her nerves, Mother picked up a magazine. It was one of those fashionable periodicals, but not Posh Poisons. Mother, it must be mentioned, was no longer a subscriber to that sheet, owing to the editorship having been taken on by Lucrezia Borgia, who, as might have been expected, had made a dog's breakfast of the whole thing.

Mother Medici did not study Lucrezia’s stuff. News reached her that in the latest issue Ma Borgia had spoken freely of using rat poison for purposes of rubbing out some of our two-legged counterparts, which Mother considered the paragon of degradation. And she strongly suspected Lucrezia of having applied the same substance to bump off the editor, knowing the vacancy would be instantly offered to her.

No, Mother firmly declined to read tripe of a dilettante class. The worthy journal she was inspecting now was none other than the Medici Home Companion, edited by her cousin Gianni. She had been an eager peruser of the paper for some weeks already, and what interested her more and more with every edition was the crossword puzzle. The Tips for Housewives and Don’ts for Poisoners were hot stuff, too, but how Cousin Gianni managed to think up the crossword was completely beyond Mother's scope of imagination. She was engrossed in solving it when there was a sheepish knock on the door, and a tall, fair-haired cove shambled in.

‘Good morning and all that, if you know what I mean,’ began this cove, shuffling his feet.

‘Good morning, Matteo dear! You haven’t by any chance heard what poison acts directly on the nerve centers, disabling them when the recipient starts laughing?’

A suggestion of a smile manifested itself on Matteo’s features.

‘Sounds like mirumvenenum.’

‘Thank you, dear. I’ve always thought you bright as a child. It must be a rare sort of poison, no doubt.’

Matteo now was definitely grinning.

‘It is. I – well, as it were – invented it last week.’

Mother's face lit up. She had brought up a worthy follower of the family trade.

‘My dear Matteo, what were you saying yesterday about not being able to use the library for your research? If I can tidy up any space-‘

Matteo blushed, flattered.

‘I say, that’s awfully white of you. But –‘ ( here he stood on one leg and fingered an invisible tie). ‘If you want to do me a good turn, one thing I've been terribly short of lately – in a nutshell, could you spare me an ounce of barbiturate?’

‘Help yourself. The second shelf on the right,’ Mother eyed the movements of her disciple indulgently. ‘Yes, there's been trouble with rising costs lately, so I purchased the large economy size. Surely you'll have no trouble finding a smaller phial for it? The small ones nearby are arsenic. Now they can hardly be of any use to you, can they?’

‘I rather think I could do with both. Thanks awfully and all that sort of rot,’ said Matteo, quickly pocketing the whole lot and dashing from the room, as if worried Mother would change her mind.

Mother lay back on her sofa. Yes, Matteo was a good sort. Many a time during his boyhood had she helped him with difficult terms from the Encyclopedia of Poisons and Antidotes. From the adjacent room came the sound of a telephone call. Matteo's voice could be heard.

‘Matteo Fiori speaking.’

Mother sprang up from the sofa, as if bitten by a crocodile, and a large and officious one at that. A slipper detached itself from her right leg, and, having been taken up and thrown with careful aim, smashed against the door, followed by a torrent of descriptive language Italians usually resort to in moments of mental anguish.

Silence ensued. The skunk had apparently dropped the receiver and was attempting to lie low.

‘Don't you dare to return for dinner!’

Still no answer.

‘Gimme back my barbiturate! And the arsenic!’

Footsteps clattered down the ladder.

‘I'll poison your dessert!’ bellowed Mother, hoping the scoundrel would hear her.

Mother Medici closed her eyes. Her eyelids were feeling heavy. It was getting on for four o'clock, and a few hours of repose after all Mother had been through were indicated. Yet that was not to be. Mother's slumbers were interrupted by the entrance of the butler Rovere.

‘A note for you, signorina. And the Chanel you ordered’, he said, placing the celebrated perfume on the table.

Mother dismissed him with a graceful inclination of the head. She would now deal with the correspondence briefly and try to take a stab at the dreamless. In a delicious anticipation of what awaited her after that she unfolded the paper, and, examining the contents, uttered a snort of indignation of such volume that the numerous carafes with poison in the cupboard behind her rattled with some intensity.

Of all the dashed nerve! Of all the gall! Of all the blasted impudence! The letter contained a sort of unofficial petition from the Assembly of the Old Italian families. And written in it as the principal subject was the monstrous demand for the Medicis to finally reconcile with the few assorted Borgias whom Firenze was still housing in spite of the fact that the Medici gang, it can be remembered, played a large part in ensuring the taste of the zuppa toscana that family was to partake a month ago was completely in harmony with that of the prussic acid in it.

Modern Thought, the families persisted in saying, was turning towards the non-violent, and the Medicis were offering themselves as ready targets for disrespect by omitting to make peace with the Borgias.

Blast Modern Thought, was Mother’s view. Not that she wasn’t against violence, mind you. Her choice of weapon clearly showed that. Yet where that crazy Borgia clan was concerned it was all right with Mother if Modern Thought tripped over a pacifist and broke its bally neck. Actually, she would then be the first one to come hopping about like a sparrow that has received good news from home and strewing roses from her hat. It is fortunate the youth movement of the 60s had not emerged yet, otherwise in Mother’s merciless judgement the Assembly would have gone down as a bunch of old hippies.

Further news came, and Mother felt no better. She suffered heavily from the loss of Giovanni, who on being seen last had turned Fontana. True, Giovanni's methods of work could do with a bit of polishing, but at least he was eager and had the right stuff both in him and on him, and now this awful last-name matter. This, Mother maintained, was by far the heaviest biff of Fate to endure.