Simple Prayers (25 page)

“Such a terrible voice, Nicolo,” she whispered to her baby, “in such a beautiful man.”

Miriam had decided to name her baby Nicolo, after the patron saint of the island. He was a serious baby. He hardly ever fussed, and he never cried. The women who attended the birth were quick to report that he resembled neither Piero nor Gianluca, but the truth was he did not even resemble Miriam. He resembled only himself. Nicolo. And even at a few days old he seemed to know it.

Nicolo delighted Miriam beyond measure — his perfectly shaped nostrils, his inquisitive gaze, his lean and noble toes. But he did not remove her longing. It sat like a sack of peas beside her heart as it always had. It still called for something to quench its fire, it still rolled back its edges and laid itself out in her prayers. And since Miriam now knew she could not expect anyone to take it away, it seemed harmless to allow herself her feelings for Gianluca. They'd barely spoken since that afternoon he'd bolted from Siora Scabbri's hen yard. But Miriam had seen the change that had come over him — how he'd practically chained himself to the Chiesa di Maria del Mare in order to rebuild the village center — and she was delighted to find him once again singing ballads beneath her window.

Gianluca's ballads soothed Nicolo to sleep. The moment he heard them he would close his eyes and begin a soft, mewling counterpoint that eased him into dreamland. So after a few weeks had passed, and Miriam had regained her strength, she asked the Vedova Stampanini to invite Gianluca in.

“Tell him Nicolo wants to meet him,” she said. “And tell him — God help us — to bring his lute.”

The Vedova delivered the message to Gianluca, and Gianluca entered the hovel.

“Nicolo likes your songs,” said Miriam.

“I'm glad,” said Gianluca.

“You must be nearly finished with the reconstruction if you have time for singing.”

“We should be done any day now. We hoist the bells tomorrow, and spring isn't due for another week yet.”

“You must be proud of what you'e done.”

Gianluca shrugged.

“You should be, Gianluca.”

Gianluca stepped closer and began to study Nicolo. “He's a fine-looking boy,” he said.

“He's very strong. He can already lift himself up.”

“I suppose I'l have to teach him how to use an ax. People say there'l be a lot more building now that we'e finished the campo.”

Miriam looked up at him and thought about their conversation that day in the hen yard. “I think he can wait a few more months,” she said. “For now I think he'd prefer another song. Do you know any lullabies?”

“I'l have to write some,” he said. “What do babies like to hear about?”

“Nicolo would like to hear about the invention of the watermill or the discovery of the compass or the travels of Sior Polo in distant lands. Things which will stir challenge, and adventure, in his heart.”

Nicolo yipped a little in agreement.

“I'l take him on a journey, then. To Malabar for pepper. To Tunis for wax and silver. Is tomorrow night all right?”

“Tomorrow is fine,” said Miriam. “Come whenever you like.”

Gianluca could not hide the blush that rose to his cheeks, but he bowed, and said, “
Bona notte,”
before Miriam could see the rising beneath his tunic. Miriam, for her part, was content with the thought that she would see him again the next evening, and that he'd finally offered to care for her child. The only thing that bothered her was that Piero had offered to do the same thing; that she'd asked him to do it; and that he waited across the island for an equal chance to prove his affection.

ALTHOUGH ERMENEGILDA
spent her days at Piarina's side, she made certain each evening to return to the Ca’Torta for supper. She knew her mother's temper; staying away from dawn to dusk might press it to its limits, but staying away for good would send it hurtling over the edge. Yet no matter how much Orsina nagged her, Ermenegilda would not disclose how she was spending her days. The hours she passed at Piarina's bedside were like pieces of another life; once she was back behind the walls of the Ca’Torta, she refused to taint them with discussion.

The women of the Ca’Torta, however, could hardly complain about the change in Ermenegilda's manner. Her appetite had returned, which relieved Romilda Rosetta; she no longer stamped and quarreled, which delighted Orsina; and she virtually acquiesced to every command of her astonished elder sisters. She would sit at the candlelit table like a painted screen image, neither flinching at the assorted digs that were hurled in her direction nor seeming to even notice when, in contrast, she was ignored. She ate her meals at a patient pace and went eagerly to bed the instant they were finished. The sooner she slept, the sooner she returned to Piarina.

Orsina was convinced she'd finally given herself to Albertino. She imagined them rolling over the dry fields where the carrots poked their crowns or heaving away in the brush on the eastern shore. The three Marias decided she was going off to Venezia to spend their father's money on potions and charms in order to win herself a suitor. Romilda Rosetta was half-certain she'd found an order of overweight nuns, as the glow she exhibited could only be the result of fanatical spiritual pursuits.

Romilda Rosetta came closest to the truth. For though Valentina and Piarina's hovel was hardly an abbey for prioresses, Ermenegilda's daily ventures there were softening something inside her. To care for her little friend was unlike anything she'd ever done; to watch her strengthen, to see her smile, was better than a dozen plates of red-deer stew. And though she was hardly aware of it, she even began to bear her loss of Albertino. Only now and then — as she traveled up the Calle Alberi Grandi at dusk or settled into her goose-down quilt before she drifted off to sleep — would his lopsided face appear to remind her that the world was a terrible place.

ON THE MORNING
of the celebration the sun rose slowly into a pure, cloudless sky. As it lifted up above the lip of the lagoon, its light first struck upon the tiny cross on the roof of the completed
campanì l
and then continued down over the arches of the belfry and the walls of the tower and the shrouded monument at the center of the
campo,
until it spread in a glinting wash over the finished mosaic. The griffins grinned, the circle of snakes expanded and contracted, the dragons and hell-sprites bristled down their fur as the river of light ran over them.

In the huts and hovels across the island, the villagers had risen and were preparing for the day's festivities. Most had nothing more than a clean tunic or a slightly less used gown to wear, but they donned them with pride and left their feelings of abandon to their masks. Siora Scabbri pasted chicken feathers to a matte of straw and fastened it to her head with red ribbons. Brunetto Fucci shaped a face from wet plaster and sprinkled it with an array of exotic spices. Maria Luigi wound a series of silk veils into the headgear of an Arabian princess. More than a few of the villagers harbored the secret fantasy that their mask would be so impressive, the mummers would invite them to join their troupe.

Albertino would have been willing to wear a boar's head if he thought it would help bring the spring, but in his heart he feared that all the fuss was for nothing. When the sun rose up over the east wall of his room, however, and shot across the floor to where he and Gianluca lay sleeping, it brought with it the unmistakable smell of hyacinth — and when he looked out over the
radicchio
patch he saw patches of green poking up through the dry March soil. So he quickly gathered some carrots, some pressed figs, and a handful of dried lentils and made the most euphoric piece of vegetable facewear anyone could ever have imagined.

When the sun had risen a slight head's tilt above the roof of Siora Bertinelli's hovel, the mummers arrived at the docks on the western shore. They poured from a series of large transport vessels dressed in bright masquerade. There were jugglers and fiddlers and acrobats; there were trunks of costumes and baskets of colored ribbons; there were children and monkeys and a few surreptitious rats. Piero met them, in a skeleton mask made from the bones of a dead goat, and led them to the base of the Calle Alberi Grandi. As they started their procession, the people of the island rushed out of their huts to join them: the Vedova Scarpa in a mask of bright coins; Fausto Moretti with his beard painted blue; Maria Patrizia Lunardi with her hair full of grain-stuffed larks. They moved up the rough pathway in a state of exultation. One of the mummers juggled a trio of baked breads while another did a lively horn dance. Silvano Rizzardello tossed handfuls of salt into the air, and Gesmundo Barbon did an elaborate routine that involved slapping a pair of codfish against his shins, his thighs, and his belly.

When the boisterous procession finally reached the village center, Piero began to look around for Miriam. The Vedova Stampanini had assured him that she would make the celebration her first public appearance since the birth of Nicolo, but Piero couldn't find her anywhere. Just as he was about to give up hope, however, a whisper ran through the crowd — and as a pair of mummers walked the rim of the
campo
on their hands, the eyes of the villagers turned back toward the Calle Alberi Grandi and from behind the clutch of pine trees she appeared. She was wearing a mask made of seashells and swan feathers, and she was pushing a small cart, which Beppe Guancio had fashioned from an old cod barrel, in which Nicolo sat wrapped in his blanket of seaweed. He too had a mask — a scattering of
pignoli
on his cheeks and forehead — and together they managed to silence the revelry.

“
Che helo
!” cried the Vedova Scarpa.

“Our little king!” said Gesmundo Barbon.

Piero, who was no less dazzled by the impression they made, took advantage of the suddenly focused energy. Moving to the center of the
campo,
he stepped up on one of the mummers’trunks and called for the villagers’attention.

“My friends,” he said, “we are here today to celebrate the completion of a long labor.”

“You aren't kidding!” shouted Ugolino Ramponi.

“Only a year ago,” continued Piero, “our little island was so insignificant it took the spring an extra month to find us. We had no center, no identity. We hardly seemed to exist. Now we have a
campanìl,
a
campo,
and a monument, and the spring has come to us right on time. I don't think it will ever forget us again!”

The villagers burst out in a great cheer.

“Show us the monument!” shouted Paolo Guarnieri.

“We want to see it!” cried Siora Bertinelli.

“Before I unveil the statue,” said Piero, “I have to thank someone. Without his efforts we could never have recovered from the Christmas Day storm, and we wouldn't be celebrating today.”

“Gianluca!” cried the crowd. “Gianluca!”

Gianluca, who was wearing a satyr's mask carved from a piece of pinewood, stepped forward to acknowledge the tribute; when his eyes met Piero's they were not without a certain humility.

“Let's just hope it stays standing this time,” he said. “I don't think we could do it a third time.”

Piero and Beppe Guancio approached the monument.

“I commemorate the new
campo
of Riva di Pignoli,” said Piero. “May it guard us over demons and disaster.”

They removed the canvas covering, and a second hush fell over the crowd. This time it was a silence, however, like the silence before the spring, which contained within it a singing. The villagers had not expected such a tender, reverent vision; they could hardly believe that Piero had sculpted it himself.

Miriam, who had remained until now at the back of the crowd, lowered her mask and moved through the hub to stand, with Nicolo in her arms, before the statue. Though the likeness of her was striking, she barely noticed it for the likeness of Nicolo. It brought tears to her eyes she worked hard not to shed and made her indecisive heart swing back toward Piero.

While the crowd absorbed the splendor of the new impression, the mummers began to set up the space for the presentation of their play. A wooden platform was wheeled into the
campo,
a pair of poles were set into its upstage corners, a large red curtain was draped between the poles. A few pieces of scenery were set out: a pair of large candelabra, a wooden palm tree, a mound of twigs and straw, a lavish-looking throne. The leader of the troupe had suggested that they also use something known as “the mouth of hell,” a great dog's head that spouted fire and smoke (“It's our most popular piece,” he insisted. “We always manage to work it into the story”), but Piero felt that there were more than enough images of hell in the floor of the
campo
and discouraged him from using it.

There were two actors for the role of the Virgin: a young boy to play her as a child and a teenage one to play her as a woman. They were dressed in light gowns and decked in simple wigs, the younger a pair of golden braids, the older a set of darker, free-flowing tresses. And though the former had a decidedly boyish ebullience and the latter a few traces of down upon his upper lip and cheeks, from the moment they stepped on stage they became the incarnation of the beloved Virgin to the people of Riva di Pignoli.

“A very long time ago,” began the leader of the troupe, “a girl was born in the land of Israel.”

The villagers settled quickly into a spontaneous semicircle around the edge of the platform as the players entered in single file. They placed themselves at even intervals before the curtain at the back and then one by one stepped forward to enact the simple scenes. Piero, who had seen such presentations at Boccasante as a boy, gazed over the other villagers as they watched the proceedings: Albertino, behind his carrots and his peas, tilted forward like a child at a boat race; Gianluca, behind his satyr's broad grin, astonished at what his efforts had wrought; Miriam, mask still lowered, rapt at the beauty of the story unfolding before her. They watched as the chronicle proceeded through the Virgin's childhood and youth, through the Annunciation, the Visitation with Anna, the Journey to Egypt, and the preparation for the Birth of the Lord. They listened to the rolling sounds of the actors’voices and watched the flashing colors as they bent and bowed and gestured. But as the actors moved toward the manger, and the narrator began to describe the clarity of the night and the brilliance of the lone star overhead, the villagers noticed a change in the Virgin Maria. At first she swooned, which they took to be the coming of the child. But then she turned a distinctly unhealthy shade of greenish gray, lurched forward, shouted “
MalediziÒn
!” clutched her side, and fell before the manger in a heap. Even those islanders who thought this was meant to be a slightly grotesque representation of childbirth realized something was wrong when the other actors rushed forward, removed the boy's wig, and tore open his costume to give him air — revealing a battlefield of angry blotches on his pale, youthful skin and a pair of fistlike swellings in his side.