‘I can believe it, my lady,’ he said slowly. ‘You have my sympathy – and my understanding, for I am in the same case.’
‘You are?’ said Bontempi, shocked for the first time in memory.
‘Indeed, madam,’ said Slovo, favouring her with a charming show of teeth. ‘It is a full five years since I commanded a warship, yet still they call me Admiral.’
‘Most Blessed Father, I have been turned out of the Palace today by your orders, wherefore I give you notice that from this time forward, if you want me, you must look for me elsewhere than at Rome.’
‘You have incurred our gravest displeasure,’ said the Pope. ‘It is in our thoughts to have you dispatched.’
‘To Capri?’ asked Admiral Slovo.
‘Pray banish the Island of Capri from your mind, Admiral. To put it plain, my proposal is to send you on your way by means of an inserted blade. Do you now grasp my … thrust?’
‘Entirely, Your Holiness.’
The Pope looked wearily at Slovo, resting his overburdened head on one gaunt hand. A moment of rare silence passed in the state room and ebbed out to quieten the entire Vatican.
‘Admiral,’ said Julius, at long last, ‘do you recall when you first put on that invisible mask?’
‘Not with any precision, Your Holiness: my study of the Stoical tradition started early.’
‘I can well credit it. But rest assured, Admiral, I will provoke you to a show of emotion one day.’
‘I am at Your Holiness’s disposal.’
‘That’s right; you are. Meanwhile, whilst one finds much to commend in these ancient Stoics and dead Pagans, I must remind you that there is no fullness in them. If, on that “one day” I have referred to, I should actually proceed to shorten your years, for say … abusing my companion of the moment as a “whore”, or perhaps killing an over-witty Perugian poet of our acquaintance (oh, yes, we know of that), then, Admiral, on that day, you may find yourself short of the price of salvation. I should be distressed to think of you in Hell.’
Admiral Slovo bowed his grateful thanks for this display of concern. ‘Even that, Your Holiness, I could bear,’ he said, ‘for our parting would be but brief.’
An English Cardinal tittered behind his jewelled hand – alas, too loud – and thus earned himself, one year hence, the Primacy of the ‘Mission for the Conversion of the Turks’.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Julius, with furious gravity, ‘some wretch of a Florentine sculptor has fled our employ without discharging his commission and having learnt what he should not. The details of contract and correspondence are with one of my tribe of secretaries. Take a Swiss captain to back up your silver tongue and fetch back this—’
‘Michelangelo,’ prompted the English Cardinal, vainly hoping to escape the martyrdom he somehow sensed in store.
‘—the same,’ said Julius.
‘Alive?’ asked Admiral Slovo.
The Pope considered the matter. ‘Yes, I think so,’ he said eventually. ‘If it’s not a lot of extra trouble.’
‘There was something else I do not wish to communicate; enough that it made me think that, if I stayed in Rome, that city would be my tomb before it was the Pope’s. And that was the cause of my sudden departure.’
‘And after the mockery of the “Disputation”, said Rabbi Megillah, ‘they formally burnt the Torah scroll in front of the Ghetto gates. I could hold my tears no longer – but what is this to you; forgive me for troubling …’
‘Job 32: “I will speak of my troubles and have more room to breathe”,’ said Slovo. ‘Taanith 15: “A worthy person must not be crestfallen.”’
The Rabbi, in the midst of revisiting his sorrow, found a smile. Especially when Slovo spoke again.
‘Proverbs 31, 6 to 7: “Give strong drink to him who is perishing and wine to those in bitter distress. Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.”’
‘Ecclesiastes 10: “Wine makes life joyful”,’ echoed the Rabbi, studying the wine flask but making no move towards it.
‘There is no need to restrain the joy referred to,’ added Slovo. ‘The vintage is kashrut; purchased from the ghetto by my servants this very day.’
As they ate and drank sufficient to be sociable, Rabbi Megillah told Admiral Slovo about his recent doings, his family and the razor-edge life of the ghetto. Slovo listened carefully and chatted back.
‘And your wife, Admiral; how is she?’
‘Quite well, I understand. A mutual acquaintance brought me news of her quite recently. However, Sanhedrin 7 remains applicable: “When love was strong, we could lie on the edge of a sword; but now, when love has diminished, a bed of sixty ells is not wide enough for us.”’
A little pause followed this conversational derailment until the Rabbi coughed to clear the air and said, ‘Well, my old friend, I am indebted to you for your hospitality. Is there anything I can do for you?’
Stretching his smile to the appropriate length, Slovo named his price. ‘Since you mention it, might I allude to Yebamoth 122?’
‘“Do not bar your door to the borrower,”’ recalled Megillah. ‘Of course, it is not right or politic for me to refuse you but … well, remember Baba Metzia 75, Admiraclass="underline" “One that complains but finds no sympathy is he who lends money without witnesses.” To so extend my credit to one especial Christian, well – it marks you out, you know.’
Admiral Slovo acknowledged gravely that this was so.
‘And it also jangles my last thoughts of the day, Admiral. You … extend me: my position grows tenuous. Tomorrow, I and my people might be banished beyond the sea …’
‘Or be called home by the Messiah,’ suggested Slovo.
‘Indeed. That may be so, although it occurs to me that money will be of no account on that happy day.’
‘This is possible,’ said Slovo. ‘Meanwhile, Rabbi, I am called upon to deal with some artist type on behalf of His Holiness. Money will do the trick, in that I find it is often the case that the true hunger firing creativity is a desire for gold and the security it brings. Such is my plan with the fellow in question. I’d rather pay your usury, dear Rabbi, than listen to any more wearying talk of “art”.’
‘As you say, Admiral,’ concurred Megillah, slipping gladly into the old, familiar coinage.
‘And,’ continued Slovo, ‘it occurs to me, in the circumstances, that your reluctance might be overcome; your interest rate acceptably low …’
Rabbi Megillah expressed surprise at this presumption. Then Admiral Slovo explained his meaning to him awhile and, at the end, the Rabbi gladly, happily, extended him unlimited credit.
‘Michelangelo, the sculptor, who left us without reason, and in mere caprice, is afraid, as we are informed, of returning, though we for our part are not angry with him, knowing the humours of such men of genius. In order then, that he may lay aside all anxiety, we rely on your loyalty to convince him in our name that if he returns to us he shall be uninjured and unhurt, retaining our apostolic favour in the same as he formerly enjoyed it.’