I sat down on the nearest chair. It had no seat, but I didn’t care. “That was my father. He translated the journal into English. I am reading it right now. It’s all about her”-I nodded towards the painting-“Giulietta Tolomei. Apparently, she is my ancestor. He describes her eyes in his journal… and there they are.”
“I knew it!” Maestro Lippi spun around to face the painting with pleased agitation. “She is your ancestor!” He laughed and turned again, grabbing me by the shoulders. “I am so glad you came to see me.”
“I just don’t understand,” I said, “why Maestro Ambrogio felt he had to hide these things in the wall. Or maybe it was not him, but someone else-”
“Don’t think so much!” warned Maestro Lippi. “It puts wrinkles on your face.” He paused, struck by unexpected inspiration. “Next time you come, I will paint you. When will you be back? Tomorrow?”
“Maestro-” I knew I had to grab hold of his consciousness while its orbit still touched on reality. “I was wondering if I could stay here a bit longer. Tonight.”
He looked at me curiously, as if it was me and not him who was showing signs of insanity.
I felt compelled to explain. “There is someone out there-I don’t know what’s going on. There’s this guy-” I shook my head. “I know it sounds crazy, but I am being followed, and I don’t know why.”
“Ah,” said Maestro Lippi. Very carefully, he draped the fabric over the portrait of Giulietta Tolomei and escorted me back into the workshop. Here, he sat me down on a chair and handed me my wineglass before he, too, sat down, facing me like a child expecting a story. “I think you do. Tell me why he is following you.”
Over the next half hour I told him everything. I didn’t mean to at first, but once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. There was something about the Maestro and the way he looked at me-eyes sparkling with excitement, nodding now and then-that made me feel he might be able to help me find the hidden truth behind it all. If indeed there was one.
And so I told him about my parents and the accidents that had killed them, and I hinted that a man named Luciano Salimbeni might have had a hand in them both. After that I went on to describe my mother’s box of papers and Maestro Ambrogio’s journal, as well as my cousin Peppo’s allusion to an unknown treasure called Juliet’s Eyes. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?” I asked, when I saw Maestro Lippi frowning.
Instead of answering, he got up and stood for a moment, head in the air, as if listening for a distant call. When he started walking, I knew I had to follow, and so I trailed behind him into another room, up a flight of stairs, and through a long, narrow library with sagging bookcases from floor to ceiling. Once here, all I could do was observe as the Maestro walked back and forth many, many times, trying to locate-I assumed-a particular book that did not wish to be found. When he finally succeeded, he tore it from the shelf and held it up triumphantly. “I knew I had seen it somewhere!”
The book turned out to be an old encyclopedia of legendary monsters and treasures-for apparently, the two go together and cannot be separated-and as the Maestro began leafing through it, I caught sight of several illustrations that had more to do with fairy tales than with my life until now.
“There!” He tapped a finger on an entry. “What do you say to that?” Unable to wait until we were back downstairs, he switched on a wobbly floor lamp and read the text out loud in an animated mix of Italian and English.
The essence of the story was that Juliet’s Eyes were a pair of abnormally large sapphires from Ethiopia, originally called The Ethiopian Twins, which were-allegedly-purchased by Messer Salimbeni of Siena in the year 1340 as an engagement present for his bride-to-be, Giulietta Tolomei. Later, after Giulietta’s tragic death, the sapphires were set as eyes in a golden statue by her grave.
“Listen to this!” Maestro Lippi ran an eager finger down the page. “Shakespeare knew about the statue, too!” And he went on to read the following lines from the very end of Romeo and Juliet, quoted in the encyclopedia in both Italian and English:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold,
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
There shall be no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
When he finally stopped reading, Maestro Lippi showed me the illustration on the page, and I recognized it right away. It was a statue of a man and a woman; the man was kneeling, holding a woman in his arms. Except for a few details, it was the very same statue my mother had tried to capture at least twenty times in the notebook I had found in her box.
“Holy cow!” I leaned closer to the illustration. “Does it say anything about the actual location of her grave?”
“Whose grave?”
“Juliet’s, or, I should say, Giulietta’s.” I pointed at the text he had just read to me. “The book says that a golden statue was put up by her grave… but it didn’t say where the grave actually was.”
Maestro Lippi closed the book and shoved it back in the bookcase on a random shelf. “Why do you want to find her grave?” he asked, his tone suddenly belligerent. “So you can take her eyes? If she doesn’t have eyes, how can she recognize her Romeo when he comes to wake her up?”
“I wouldn’t take her eyes!” I protested. “I just want to… see them.”
“Well,” said the Maestro, switching off the wobbly lamp, “then I think you have to talk to Romeo. I don’t know who else would be able to find it. But be careful. There are many ghosts here, and they are not all as friendly as me.” He leaned closer in the darkness, taking some kind of silly pleasure in spooking me, and hissed, “A plague! A plague on both your houses!”
“That’s really great,” I said. “Thanks.”
He laughed heartily and slapped his knees. “Come on! Don’t be such a little pollo! I am just teasing you!”
Back downstairs, several glasses of wine later, I finally managed to steer the conversation back to Juliet’s Eyes. “What exactly did you mean,” I asked, “when you said that Romeo knows where the grave is?”
“Does he?” Maestro Lippi now looked perplexed. “I am not sure. But I think you should ask him. He knows more about all this than I do. He is young. I forget things now.”
I tried to smile. “You speak as if he is still alive.”
The Maestro shrugged. “He comes and goes. It is always late at night… he comes here and sits down to look at her.” He nodded in the direction of the storage room with the painting of Giulietta. “I think he is still in love with her. That is why I leave the door open.”
“Seriously,” I said, taking his hand, “Romeo doesn’t exist. Not anymore. Right?”
The Maestro glared at me, almost offended. “You exist! Why wouldn’t he exist?” He frowned. “What? You think he is a ghost, too? Huh. Of course, you never know, but I don’t think so. I think he is real.” He paused briefly to weigh the pros and cons, then said, firmly, “He drinks wine. Ghosts don’t drink wine. It takes practice, and they don’t like to practice. They are very boring company. I prefer people like you. You are funny. Here”-he filled up my glass once again-“drink some more.”
“So,” I said, obediently taking another swig, “if I were going to ask this Romeo some questions… how would I do that? Where can I find him?”
“Well,” said the Maestro, pondering the question, “I am afraid you will have to wait until he finds you.” Seeing my disappointment, he leaned across the table to study my face very intently. “But then,” he added, “I think maybe he has already found you. Yes. I think he has. I can see it in your eyes.”
III.IV