The Family - Mario Puzo [133]
Her fall from innocence was a devastating time. For she had lived and loved in magical, mythical realms, but that had now come to an end. And, oh, how she grieved. She tried to remember how it began, and yet it seemed always to be. There was no beginning.
When she was just a babe, her father, sitting in the living quarters with her upon his lap, had regaled her with exciting myths peopled by Olympian gods and Titans. Was he not Zeus, the greatest Olympian god of all? For his voice was the thunder, his tears were the rain, his smile was the sun that shone on her face. And was she not Athena, the daughter-goddess who sprang full-grown from his head? Or Venus, the goddess of love, herself?
Her father read, with flying hands and eloquent words, of the story of creation. And then she was both the beautiful Eve, tempted by the snake, as well as the chaste Madonna, who gave birth to goodness itself.
In the arms of her father she felt shielded from harm; in the arms of the Holy Father she felt protected from evil; and so it was that she never feared death, for she was certain she would be safe in the arms of the Heavenly Father. For were they not all the same?
It was only now that she wore the black veil of the widow that the dark veil of illusion had been lifted from her eyes.
When she had bent to kiss the cold, stiff lips of her dead husband, she felt the emptiness of mortal man, and knew that life was suffering, and death would someday come. To her father, to Cesare, to her. Until that moment, in her heart they were immortal. And so now she wept for them all.
Some nights she was unable to sleep, and in the day she spent hours pacing her chambers, helpless to rest or find a moment’s peace. The shades of fear and shadows of doubt seduced her. Finally, she felt herself losing her last remnant of faith. She questioned all she had believed. And so she had no ground on which to stand.
“What is happening to me?” she asked Sancia, as for days she fell into terror or despair. Then she stayed in bed and grieved for Alfonso, and grew frightened for herself.
Sancia sat on the bed next to her and rubbed her forehead. She kissed her cheeks. “You are becoming aware that you are a pawn in your father’s game,” her sister-in-law explained. “Not more important than the conquering of your brother’s territories for the advancement of the Borgia family. And that is a difficult truth to bear.”
“But Papa isn’t like that,” Lucrezia tried to protest. “He has always been concerned for my happiness.”
“Always?” Sancia said, with some sarcasm. “That is a side of your father, and the Holy Father, that I am unable to see. But you must get well, you must stay strong. For your babies need you.”
“Is your father kind?” Lucrezia asked Sancia. “And does he treat you with worth?”
Sancia shook her head. “He is neither kind nor cruel to me now, for since the invasion by the French he has become ill—gone mad, some say—and yet I find him kinder than before. In Naples he is kept in a tower in the family palace, with each of us caring for him. Whenever he is frightened, he screams, ‘I hear France. The trees and the rocks call France.’ Yet for all his madness, I fear he is kinder than your father. For even when he was well I was not his world, and he was not mine. He was only my father, and so my love for him was never great enough to weaken me.”
Lucrezia wept even more, for there was truth in Sancia’s reasoning that she could no longer deny. Lucrezia swaddled herself in her blankets again. And tried to discern the ways in which her father had changed.
Her father told of a God who was merciful and joyous, but the Holy Father was an agent of a God who was punishing and often even cruel. Her heartbeat quickened when she dared to think, “How could so much evil be for good, and for God?”
It was then that she began at last