The Last Notebook of Leonardo (4 page)

Hot chocolate.

“We might have a long night of walking, Jem,” my dad said, sipping at his chocolate. “We should try to get out of the city as fast as possible. I don't like the way people keep looking at us. Once we get into the countryside we can go easier.”

“Are we going anywhere in particular?” I asked.

“That's an important question,” my dad said. “I want to head north of the city and explore around. It's important for my next project.”

“Uh oh,” I said. “I hope you're not going to turn
me
into anything.”

“Don't be silly. I hope I'm turning you into a creative and imaginative person. The next project will be a wonderful and amazing adventure, Jem. I always wanted to visit the final resting place of Leonardo.”

“You want to drag our wagon to Italy? Won't the Atlantic be hard to get over?”

“Very clever, smarty. He didn't die in Italy. He died in America.”

“Dad! He died in Amboise in 1519.”

“Jem, you're amazing. You remember me telling you that?”

“You only told me about thirty times,” I muttered.

“Oh, ha ha. The truth is, Jem, I've been studying notebook 217A, and I think he staged his own death in Amboise, and came over to America. Here, look. . . .”

He slid his foot out of his boot to take hold of one of his drinks. The toes on his feet, of course, were flexible and almost as good as fingers. Then with his free hand he reached behind him into the wagon and rummaged in one of the boxes of papers, which he had packed conveniently close to the edge in case a sudden inspiration came over him.

“Look.” He smoothed a piece of paper on his lap. It was a photocopied page of one of Leonardo's notebooks. “Plain as plain. Can't you see? Look at that line scribbled in the corner.”

“I can't read it,” I said.

“Of course you can't,” he said. “It's mirror writing. He always wrote in mirror writing. Bizarre, isn't it? If he was alive today, how fast do you think he'd get fired from his job? Here, I always keep a mirror handy.” He rummaged in the box again and took out a little vanity mirror. “Now take a look.”

“Sorry, still can't read it.”

“Well sure,” he said. “It's in Italian. But I never go anywhere without my Italian English dictionary. Let's translate the thing word for—”

“Dad, just tell me what it says.”

“Right. It says, ‘A farmer, who looks just like me, has died and his body has been brought to me for anatomical studies. In my examination of this body,' get this Jem, he says, ‘In my examination of this body, the amazing coincidence of similarity has brought to my mind a new plan.' That's all he says. But what else could the plan be? It's perfectly clear. He staged his death. He propped the farmer up at his desk, dressed him up in his clothes, his hat on his head and his pencil in the man's hand, shoved a carrot stick down the man's windpipe, just to make the thing look plausible, and then snuck out the back door. That's what happened. I'm telling you. He was only sixty-seven. He had ten more years in him, at least.”

“I can see your point,” I said, “but Dad, it seems like kind of a stretch. Maybe he only meant to play a joke on a friend. Maybe that was the plan. Was he into practical jokes a lot? Because he might have—”

“Jem! Practical jokes? Lenny? You think he had time to worry about practical jokes? He was too busy trying to figure out how the world worked. I'm telling you. He saw his chance and got out of dodge.
He went sight-seeing. And he filled up another fifty notebooks that nobody's found yet.”

“Well,” I said skeptically, “it's interesting all right, but, to be honest, it's not a lot to go on.”

“It isn't,” my dad admitted. “And a year ago when I read that sentence, I didn't think too much about it. I filed it in the back of my mind. I decided it probably meant nothing. But it had a way of coming back to me now and then, when I was going to sleep at night. I'd gaze up at his picture. ‘Leonard,' I'd say to him, ‘Leonard, what—' ”

“Okay Dad, I get the idea. You found something else in the meantime.”

“That's exactly right. Last month I found this.” He rummaged around in the box again and took out a stack of papers, photocopies of what must have been an old and crumbling book. “Now!” he said, slapping the papers onto the curb between us. “Take a look at
that
and see how far your practical joke gets you. Huh?”

“Is that in his mirror writing too?”

“Mirror writing? No! It's Spanish. It's a ship's log. The Santa Torpedo. It sailed from Spain in 1519, the year that Leonardo died. Or pretended to die. Spooky coincidence, isn't it? Look. A list of the sailors, with a brief description of each one. Notice this fellow. ‘Old but immensely strong Italian.'
That's the description. His name? ‘Leonardo Vince.' What do you think of that, Jem?”

I began to see what he meant. A prickle went down my spine. I couldn't read Spanish, but I could read the name all right. “You think he signed on as a sailor?”

“Of course he did. He wanted to see the world from a new perspective. His mind was wide open, I tell you. The Santa Torpedo landed just north of Manhattan Island. It wasn't called that at the time, of course. I've only just started to translate the log, but I expect there's a lot more information in it. Jem, we're going to explore around, do some detective work, and track down Leonardo's final resting place. We're going to hunt for his last notebook.”

“Dad,” I said, “I like it. I do! I think we should start right away. Especially since it's, um, getting kind of cold here on the curb.”

We drained the last of our hot chocolates into our gullets, Dad pulled his boot back on his foot, and we set out on our journey, Dad pulling the wagon, rolling side to side because of his orangutan gait, me striding along beside him, the snow sifting down around us, and the city gradually falling as quiet as it ever gets at night. To tell the truth, I didn't believe a word about Leonardo in America. I thought it was just my dad being nutty. But a quest is a quest, and I was as happy as a ten-year-old boy could be.

Into the snow.

We walked and we walked. At first we sang Christmas carols together, my dad taking the base notes beautifully. But my throat got chilled from the cold air and I had to wrap a scarf around my face, which put an end to the singing. Then we trudged in silence, one step after the next, the wind in our faces or hitting us from behind depending on the way it was channeled by the buildings around us. The snow kept falling, and after a few hours it was as deep as my ankles. My dad didn't mind the snow, but I found it exhausting to walk through, so he picked me up and put me on top of the wagon. I took a rest up there sitting ten feet off the street, my legs dangling over the front. The wind was stronger up above, but I was wrapped up in my arctic survival suit and I didn't mind it, except on my hands and face. It did blow right through the knitting of my scarf.

After a while my dad made a harness out of some extra rope and harnessed himself to the front of the wagon, so that he could walk more easily and swing his long arms. Sometimes he even went on all fours, just for a change. He didn't seem to feel the weight at all, and I held up an umbrella to keep the snow from his head.

We traveled all night. Sometimes I came down and walked beside my dad, to warm up my legs, and sometimes I perched on top to take a rest. Around two in the morning the snow stopped and the sky cleared up. I lay on my back on top of our pile, and I could see the stars up above me very bright and very deep, and my breath rising up in puffs. I wasn't used to seeing stars, because the city lights tend to out-glare them. But we were outside the city already and walking along a dark back road. It was nice to feel the vibration of the wagon under me and listen to Dad's footsteps in the snow and to his enormous breathing. After a while I felt so comfortable that I dozed.

When my dad woke me, we were in the middle of nowhere on the side of a road and it was seven in the morning. I sat up and a load of snow slid off of my arctic suit. The snow had started falling again. It was coming down fast, and everything was covered in gray. The bushes on either side were humps and
the road was just a kind of long depression softened with snow. You couldn't tell if it was a paved road or a backcountry gravel road. It didn't have any street-lights; the only light came from the sun that was lost somewhere up above the snow clouds. In the gray light, I could see our wagon tracks trailing back along the road until they disappeared to sight, but I didn't see any other tracks. We must have been the only ones to travel along that road in the past hour. My dad helped me down and we stood by the side of the wagon.

“We did pretty well,” my dad said, checking his watch. “I bet we made thirty miles. But I can't go anymore; I need a break.”

“You should have stopped sooner Dad,” I said. “You must be frozen.”

“It 's sweaty work pulling that thing,” he said. “Now that we've stopped, though, the sweat is beginning to freeze on me. Ugh! Let's get off the road and make camp.”

Dad pulled our wagon behind some bushes and low trees that were banked with snow. He didn't know if it was legal to camp on the side of a public road, and so he thought it was better to keep out of view. Also, the bushes gave us some shelter from the wind.

I wasn't much use. I couldn't do much except stand
nearby and keep my mittens over my nose to stop it from freezing and falling off. My dad was astonishing to watch. He was getting used to his new shape, I think, and he took off his boots and set in with all four endings so to speak, both hands and both feet. He flew over our wagonload, undid the ropes, unpacked everything, and in about four minutes he had built a shelter for us. He used the kitchen table on its side for one wall, the wagon on its side for another wall, and the artic survival quilt, and the tent, and some blankets, for the roof, and made what was practically a cabin. I could stand up in the center, but my dad had to go on all fours because he was so tall. He fixed down the sides by filling our plastic garbage can with snow, packing it in hard, and then upending the can, so that a big solid cylinder of snow came out. With those cylinders as building blocks all around us, we had pretty good protection from the wind.

Inside, he lay the shower curtain down as a floor, and set up our chairs, and turned the wooden drawer upside down as a table, and placed some candles on the table to give us light, but he said we had to be careful not to knock over the candles or we'd catch on fire. Then we ate dinner. Or breakfast, I suppose. I had a bologna and mustard sandwich. Dad had an entire sack of raw sweet potatoes, and some
strawberries. The strawberries were frozen, but he didn't mind. He said they were like a frozen dessert. We also melted some snow in a pot to drink. By that time, the inside of our tent had warmed up from the candles and from our own body heat. I had to take off my arctic coat, I got so hot, and I sat around in a sweater with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

“Take a look outside, Jem,” Dad said, so I untied the flap and stuck my head out. All I could see was gray. The air was full of snow going all directions and I couldn't see more than about two yards from our front door. I got chilled from ten seconds of looking, and I had to duck back inside and tie the flap closed again.

“It's a real snow storm,” I said, brushing the flakes off the top of my head. I wasn't worried at all, because we were snug in our tent. I was happy. I couldn't remember the last time I had had so much fun. “How long do you think it'll last?”

“No telling,” my dad said. “But I feel like I could sleep for about three days, Jem. Maybe it'll be over by the time I wake up.” He rolled up in his blankets, his face to the wall, and started snoring right away. He had a soft snore, but it was also a very low, rumbly snore, and it set the whole tent vibrating. That and the wind outside were the only sounds. I was used to a city life with traffic and sirens and shouting, and
this rising and falling sound of the wind made me feel lonesome.