A Brush of Memory(S. Jones) (Note that the author was 17 years old when she wrote this story.)


I open my locket and peer at the tiny photograph of my youthful parents. Fighting tears, I kiss the locket and close the clasp. My mind wanders back in time to 1980, when I was five years old. I can hear her sweet soothing voice even now, like a gentle rush of familiar wind in my ears, "Antonietta!"

She loved to say my name, for she had named me after her own mother. She always used to sit me on her knee and tell me how beautiful I was and how proud she was to have me as a daughter. Forces that were out of her control had made her unable to bear any more surviving children, but she was content with me. Even after all these years I was able to relive the loveliness of her features; the feel of her smooth olive flesh as she stroked a strand of hair from my face, wiped my cheeks after I'd fallen in mud, or held me close to her on a cold winter's night.

The Medici Duchess possessed exotic Mediterranean features. She had a perfectly rounded almost childlike face, full lush red lips, a nose that was subtly hooked at the end and a mass of hair so thick and delightful that I couldn't keep my child fingers away from the dark auburn strands. But what I remember the most are her eyes. Those deep, majestic, thoughtfully oceanic eyes. Eyes on me with a mother's pride as I performed well at my piano recital. Eyes guarding my every movement and activity. Eyes filling with tears whenever she witnessed neglect and suffering.

She was the enigma....my mother. A woman of clandestine and compassionate nature, who never turned her back on a person in need, and who never used her royal position as an excuse for greed. She was always giving, giving, giving. She took pleasure in knowing that she made someone feel better.

My father, the Medici Duke, was a fervent patron of the arts. He had made much of his fortune through his paintings. He was a tall ,handsome gentleman with dark gelled black hair, a pointedly protruding nose and a deeply set stare. He was rarely seen without a cigar between his fingers. Every day after work he'd call out, "Bambina! Come look at what I brought for you!" before presenting a box of biscotti biscuits before my widened eyes.

I turn my mental clock forward to five years later, when my life changed forever. I had been in the company of my nanny when the news arrived. She came into the lounge where I was lying, watching cartoons. "Antonietta darling, there is something I must tell you." I'll never forget the look she had on her face for as long as I live.

"Perhaps you should sit on my lap", she said. That's when the news was relayed to my ten year old ears. My nanny dissolved into tears as she began to speak, but I understood her perfectly. And yet, I did not cry. Even while the double homicide made headlines for weeks I could not shed a tear. Instead, I resorted to months of silence and seclusion. At the funeral I sat with the rest of the household, diddling my fingers without a word. During the wake, I followed our relatives to the open coffins and gingerly touched my father's cheek. He seemed as though he were sleeping peacefully. He did not look like someone who had suffered a tortured demise. I stepped over to mother and stared down at her with a passive face. She had the features of an angel. But for some reason, I could not bring myself to touch her face. I don't even think I said goodbye.

In the months that followed, all of Italy had slipped into melancholia. People cried in the streets and masses were conducted every day at cathedrals throughout the country. On the first anniversary of my parents' murder, the Vatican in Rome observed a long moment of silence in memory of the much loved royal couple.

For me, life went downhill after that. I was placed in the care of the nanny that had been with me when I learned of my parent's death. But when the royal treasury dried up, and the expenses of the household became too much, she was no longer able to properly care for me. Yearning to get away from it all, I left Italy for good in search of a new beginning.

Standing atop the tallest rolling hill I could find, near my new home in America, I vigorously move about my canvas, trying to capture the landscape before me. The hearty woodland is fresh and healthy. The trees stretch tall and dominantly above me, presiding over the lush green vegetation that surrounds me, and the fertile soil beneath my feet. I watch a flock of birds as they fly harmoniously across the sky. A little bluebird, who has been watching me paint for hours from high up in the trees, ruffles its feathers, perks its head upright, and spreads its wings to join them.

With a heavy heart, and a knot of that all too familiar loneliness churning in the pit of my stomach, I watch them as they disappear into the grey blue above me. I am reminded of a verse I knew as a child in Italy. "Although on earth we are plagued with suffering, we shall someday know that realm of blissful eternity where all deserving souls take flight".

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