The Miracles of Santo Fico (27 page)

As Topo dramatically described the scene, Leo felt goose bumps roll down his arms. By the time the excited little fellow reached the story’s denouement, he was having difficulty speaking because of the catch in his voice and even Leo found himself choking back a tear. When Topo was finished and they sat silently beneath the olive tree, Leo was convinced of two things: first, this was a good plan, perhaps the best—and second, if Guido Pasolini had grown up in Hollywood, he might have ruled the world.

For the plan to work, a number of things had to happen and quickly. Topo talked about costumes and makeup, about special lighting, and a script—he would take care of all of these things. The one thing he couldn’t do for the production (and he actually called it “the production”) was cast the role of the Angel. For that he needed Leo. The Angel was critical. She had to be angelic—which was to say, beautiful. She had to be someone that Father Elio wouldn’t recognize—which was to say, someone who didn’t attend church much. And, she had to be an actress. They both knew there was only one person in Santo Fico who could possibly fit this bill.

SEVENTEEN

A
small bell above the door rang as Leo entered and reminded him that he had been in Angelica Gian-carlo’s beauty shop before. Many years ago he had once delivered a message to his aunt Sofia, who used to have her hair straightened there when the small shop was still run by Angelica’s mother. The delivery was hasty. There would have been no need for him to hang around, since Angelica had deserted Santo Fico a couple of years earlier. But now, so many years later, he still recognized the equipment: those turquoise and pink vinyl chairs with the chrome arms, the strange sink with hoses and a depression in the front, and those stands with helmets that looked like something out of an old science fiction movie. A caustic chemical odor still hung in the air and stung his nostrils and made his head light and his stomach heavy. It smelled like something that was probably harmful if you inhaled it long enough.

But his strongest memory of this place happened many years ago, outside, on the street. It was a thing that Leo would remember forever and yet he also knew that he would never mention it to anyone—even Angelica. He wouldn’t know what to say.

It was November. A cold north rain had been battering the village for a week and for some forgotten reason Leo was late for school. Racing down the narrow, rain-slick streets he turned a corner and was met by an extraordinary sight. On the far side of the street a strange car was parked in front of the Giancarlo house. Any unknown car in Santo Fico was an event to be investigated, so naturally Leo slowed his pace. The small brown Fiat took up most of the street and even from where he stood, Leo could see that the back seat was loaded with luggage. A stranger wearing a dark suit and sporting a thin waxed mustache waited uncomfortably behind the wheel. Leo had no idea who he was, but he knew instantly that he hated him as much as he had ever hated anyone.

At the door of the house Angelica and her mother stood motionless in the biting wind and stinging rain, locked in an embrace that neither of them was willing to release. They wept bitterly. At last Angelica broke away, turned to an upstairs window, and stared at the streaked glass. Leo found it odd that she would stare at a black, empty window, but as he moved down the street, he became aware of a faint figure framed there. It was Angelica’s father and the look on his face stopped Leo in his tracks. It was a face carved in stone; a face that only knew regret and it existed only to carry a pair of bottomless, anguished eyes. Leo had never seen such pain, and like a nightmare apparition, it made him think of death. He prayed he would never have anguished eyes look at him the way those eyes cried out to Angelica. But of course he did when he broke his own father’s heart.

At last the statue face turned away from the window and then Angelica turned away too. She was climbing in the passenger door of the Fiat when she suddenly looked across the street—and there was Leo. He hadn’t realized that he was so openly, shamelessly, staring at her, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was Angelica was leaving and she was obviously unhappy. Both of these things filled the thirteen-year-old with longing and confusion, because at his age there was no difference between childish lust and love. He wasn’t sure she even knew his name, but still he wanted to run to her and take her in his thin child’s arms and protect her. And in the instant that their eyes met Leo pledged silent volumes concerning passion, acceptance, and forgiveness. Then she smiled at him. It was an adult smile of acknowledgment and gratitude for what his child’s heart had declared. A moment later, the car door slammed shut, the brown Fiat sputtered to life, and Angelica disappeared down the narrow street in a haze of exhaust.

This was all that Leo was to know of Angelica Giancarlo’s puzzling departure. He often wondered if she remembered that day and him being there. And now he wondered what she might say to discover him standing in her beauty shop. He needn’t have worried.

A moment later, when she swung through the sunflower print curtain that separated her small shop from the rest of the house and discovered Leo Pizzola smiling at her, Angelica’s jaw dropped and she briefly lost all power of speech. Her mind raced—What on earth was he doing here? This was a grievous breach in the etiquette of their unspoken arrangement and for an instant she wanted to run from the room, but decided instead that she must face it out. She also decided that if he said anything, even the slightest hint of their secret and unacknowledged rendezvous at the swimming beach, she would slap his face and order him out of her shop. And she would never swim there again.

To her great relief, Leo was polite and respectful. He even called her “Signorina Giancarlo” until she demurely gave him permission to address her as Angelica. He held his hat in his hand and stood respectfully, until she graciously invited him to sit. His eyes looked only at her eyes or at the floor and she never caught him glancing hungrily at other parts of her body, like most men did. He was more than polite; he was charming.

She did have a moment of serious misgivings when, completely out of the blue, he asked, “Do you attend mass regularly?”

Could she possibly have misread Leo Pizzola that drastically? Was he here to convince her to repent? Maybe he wanted her to go to church with him. So she cautiously admitted to him that, no, she didn’t attend church on a regular basis . . . And yes, it had been some years since she had been to confession . . . And no, she would not say that she was close to Father Elio, although, of course, she had known him all her life and respected him greatly. In fact, she hadn’t had an occasion to see Father Elio since she returned to Santo Fico some seven years ago.

“Our paths just don’t seem to cross,” she said with an uncomfortable giggle.

Two people in Santo Fico not crossing paths in seven years is quite a feat, thought Leo, and he wondered if he could learn her secret.

When Leo explained to her about poor Father Elio’s crisis of faith, it was obvious that her heart was touched. When Leo explained, in strictest confidence, the plan he and Guido Pasolini had in mind (“Who?” . . . “Topo?” . . . “Oh, Topo!”), she was inspired. And when Leo told her that they needed a beautiful actress to play the part of the Angel, she actually wept. He sat next to her on the tiny chrome and vinyl sofa for what seemed like a long time until Angelica was finally able to tell him that she would “be honored to take on the role of the Angel to save dear Father Elio’s faith.” And she meant it.

Leo assured her that Guido . . . er, Topo was taking care of all of “the production” details and he would get a script to her that afternoon. She and Topo could discuss costumes and makeup then. Leo could only imagine how much they would both enjoy that. He told her that the “performance” would be that night in the grove behind the church, and then, after an odd exchange of bows, Leo departed.

If anyone in Santo Fico had a crisis with a toaster, radio, power drill, or any other appliance or contrivance that particular afternoon, they would have discovered the Pasolini Fix-It Shop closed for the day. Topo was a man finally following his true calling, but what worried Leo was his friend’s sense of spectacle. What they needed was a poignant, uncomplicated little miracle. A Divine Being quietly appears in the forest and restores the simple faith of a defeated old priest. Leo feared Topo’s approach fell somewhere between
Quo Vadis?
and
Ben Hur
. He also found a few things downright confusing.

“Why do you need all the extension cord?”

“To plug in the movie projector.”

“Why do you need a movie projector?”

“To run the movie.”

“Why are you going to run a movie?”

“To create the
unearthly light
, the
angelic glow
.”

“Won’t it just look like a movie?”

“No. We use something black and white. Then we run the projector at a slow speed and blur the focus so everything’s all fuzzy. Then, I slowly wiggle my fingers in front of the lens and that distorts everything more. Remember, we’re projecting on tree branches and bushes. Nobody’ll recognize anything. I still haven’t picked what film to use. Something black and white. No subtitles, of course.”

“Oh, of course.”

“This needs a classic.
La Strada
! What do you think?” Leo thought he liked the idea better when Topo was describing it under the olive tree. He weighed his words carefully. This was, after all, Topo’s miracle and he didn’t want to get in his way. Just because Leo didn’t understand, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work.

“Doesn’t the movie projector make a lot of noise?”

Topo spun completely around and clapped his hands in the air. “Blankets!”

“Blankets?”

“We wrap the projector in blankets. It’s done all the time. All this stuff is done all the time.”

Leo shrugged and nodded as if he understood.

“Have you written anything for Angelica? She’s expecting you any time now and she’s nervous.”

It seemed to Leo that every time he mentioned Angelica Giancarlo’s name, Topo became noticeably tense. And earlier, when he’d questioned Leo—in great detail—about his interview with her at the beauty shop, Topo had suddenly developed an uncharacteristic stutter. But now he just reached in his pocket, handed Leo a crumpled sheet of paper, and went back to digging through his film canisters. Leo read what was written and immediately felt better about the whole thing.

“Topo, this is . . . This is . . . good. This is kind of beautiful.” Topo grunted and tore through more canisters looking for his Fellini section. “Yeah. I’ll take it over to Anga-Anga-Anga-elica’s in a little bit . . .
La Strada
. . . That’ll do the trick. You need to talk to Marta . . . Where’s my Fellini!”

Going to the hotel wasn’t nearly as foreboding as it had once been. Leo still wasn’t sure what kind of reception he might receive, but Marta rarely greeted him with shocked outrage and shouting anymore. As he walked up the hill from the fix-it shop, he tried to understand why she had become so thoroughly sour. Why she felt the way she did about him was, of course, all too clear, but it was more than that. Since he’d been around her, he’d seen that it went well beyond just disdain for him personally. She was bitter about life, and that troubled him.

As he passed a
vicolo
, the narrow passageway between two buildings, something caught the corner of his eye that made him stop and step back. At the other end of the tight alley Carmen was leaning against a wall while that strange greasy kid who brought the mail over from Grosseto leaned in on her. It wasn’t a big mystery why she was hiding in the
vicolo
. Not only was she smoking, but also she was letting that boy put his hands on her. It was all done as adolescent trifling with lots of joking and pushing, but still, she was letting him touch her. In the brief moment that Leo observed them he could see that Carmen felt she was in control, but when she saw Leo watching her, her first reaction was fear. That passed quickly though and then she boldly returned Leo’s gaze and puffed the cigarette. Her look was defiant, daring him to do or say something. Leo wasn’t close enough to see that Carmen had been crying. Solly Puce looked over too, and when he saw Leo coldly staring at him he stepped away from Carmen, hitched up his pants, went through an odd gyration that Leo didn’t understand, and shouted something unintelligible.

For all of the hard feelings and disappointments Leo felt about Franco Fortino, still they had once been best friends and this was Franco’s older child. Leo knew in his heart that he should walk down the alley and beat the crap out of that creepy kid, just because that’s what Franco would have wanted him to do. But before he could move, Carmen tossed her cigarette down, grabbed Solly by the shirt, and pulled him around the corner. He could hear their laughter.

At the hotel Leo stood in the kitchen door and waited. Marta wasn’t there. He knocked and called her name and was about to leave when Marta appeared at the top of the stairs. She had the distracted manner of someone lost in looking for something important.

“Oh, it’s you. What? What do you want?”

“May I come in?”

“Sure. Yeah. What do you want?” She was agitated about something and this time it wasn’t him.

“I need you to bring Father Elio to the hotel tonight and keep him here, away from the church, until about ten o’clock.”

“Ten o’clock? That’s late for him. I don’t know . . . Why? What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry. But tonight, sit at the table so you can see the window. When we’re ready, I’ll come to the window and wave at you. Then you let him go home.”

“How am I going to keep him here until ten o’clock?” The question was rhetorical. There was something else on Marta’s mind and as she walked him through the kitchen to the back door Leo hoped that she’d heard all he had said.

“Tell him there’s something important you need to talk to him about.”

“Yeah. Okay. Talk about something important. Hey! Have you seen Carmen?”