The Fiery Alphabet

by Diane Lefer

Synopsis

It's dangerous for a girl to be a mathematical prodigy in eighteenth-century Rome. Daniela Messo and her father withdraw from the world, but Giuseppe Balsamo arrives with his occult magic and the claim that Daniela has inherited the secrets of a long-dead Jewish mystic. Posing as wonder-working pilgrims, they swindle their way across Europe, ever further east, en route perhaps to Jerusalem or to an ambiguous salvation. Daniela's struggle to find a woman's place in the world for her body, mind, and soul tells us how far society has come and how far we still must go. "... philosophical and deeply sensual... Diane Lefer writes with fire on every page, taking the reader straight to the molten core of life." -Gayle Brandeis, author of The Book of Dead Birds "... enchanting and wondrous ... In a voice as unique and thrilling as any I've encountered in literature, Daniela Messo seeks the secrets not only of her past, but of life itself." -Robin Oliveira, author of My Name Is Mary Sutter

 

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Release date: September 5, 2013

Publisher: Loose Leaves Publishing

Print pages: 322

Sample

The Journals   Rome, 1764

If I had not been raised to be a genius and if Pope Benedict had lived a few more years, my father would not have suffered a stroke on the afternoon of April 14, l760, my thirteenth birthday. If not for the events of that day, we would not have cut ourselves off from the world, here behind these walls.

If Papa had been in good health four years later, when you first asked to be admitted to our home–a stranger, a Sicilian, without introductions or name–I suspect he would have said no. Instead, he heard your request and looked up for a moment. “Library?” he repeated. “Uh, yes,” and returned to his breakfast, a mush of bread and eggs.

If we had not been trying to save my father's life and restore his lost youth, we would not have stood before one another naked. Perhaps I should never have reached the point of knowing I would do whatever you might ask.

“Give yourself to me,” you said, and it was as though one of Leibniz's monads, independent and oblivious to every other monad moving through space–unaware that Pope Benedict and my father, the integral calculus, the deadly man in scarlet cap were all part of the harmony–should suddenly step back and see the entire pattern that brought you to me and made you my destiny. Balsamo.

 

Give yourself to me, you said. But how is it done? I am willing, don't you see? I stepped into your arms as easily as I would hand Fiammetta a shawl, and yet I saw you weren't satisfied. How does one give?

You can give someone a plate of noodles, but then the noodles must be eaten. It is not enough for the gift to offer no resistance–I offer none to you–but it must be offered in a form in which it can be consumed.

The problem: I am not a serving of pasta, nor a pair of lace cuffs that I can give you and even help to fasten at your wrists, an ornament to accompany you in the world.

The solution: I give up my suspicions, I hold you first in my heart and in my mind. I have entertained your friends and I have trusted you with my father's life. And yet none of this is useful, none of it in the proper form. I have failed you.

This morning, I went to your room.

So much has happened in these short months since you first appeared. I remember you, a slight figure in threadbare clothes, a Southerner, and not quite civilized. Your dark curling beard, your hairy frame made me think of a malnourished satyr. I remember I felt sorry for you then, you were so ugly.

This morning I sat on the edge of your bed. “I love you, Balsamo.”

“Dani,” you said, “you are so innocent.”

“Ignorant.”

“No. Innocent,” you said. “Who are you, Daniela? I want to know you.”

And I started to cry, because you do know me. No one knows me as well as you.

“You keep your secrets, Daniela.”

I have no secrets. I stood before you naked. Not even I have seen myself as you have seen me. I have looked at my arms, my thighs; I have studied my breasts as they grew. But I have never seen myself whole. Only these fragments, this part, that. My face in the mirror. Balsamo, no one but you.