Simple Prayers (20 page)

MIRIAM SPENT
much of the month knitting a blanket for her baby, a blanket made of bright, iridescent seaweed. She'd been out one morning for a walk along the eastern shore when she came upon a great deposit of the stuff, its slick green tendrils snaking in toward her feet. When she bent down to touch it, it felt wonderfully strong, so she gathered up as much of it as she could and carried it back to Maria Luigi's hovel.

Miriam had tried doing countless things to win back the affections of the people of Riva di Pignoli. She took water to the Guarnieris when their well ran dry. She brought fennel cakes to Armida Barbon when she came down with the grippe. She worked extra hours at the henhouse, she read scriptures to the Vedova Stampanini, she swept the Calle Alberi Grandi from its southernmost tip to where it ran out past the Rizzardellos’salt shed. But eventually she realized that those who had truly taken her into their hearts were not going to turn her out because she was expecting a child, and those who were inclined to judge her were not going to change their minds no matter what she might do.

Miriam accepted these judgments — and reaffirmed her desire for self-sufficiency. But as Christmas approached, she found herself returning to thoughts of Piero and Gianluca. Her plan to ask them both to father her child had backfired; Gianluca's rage had shown her that she was tampering with dangerous emotions. What confused her, however, was the complexity of her own emotions: she found herself thinking of Piero one day and Gianluca the next, when she did not wish to be thinking of either one of them.

So she sat before her altar and knitted her blanket. Maria Luigi insisted that it could not be done. Seaweed turns brittle when left out of water, how could a pile of dried grass keep a baby warm? But Miriam's seaweed did not turn brittle as it dried. It turned into soft, ropelike strands that felt like goose-feather down and held like links of iron. While the villagers followed the feast of San Nicolo and the celebration of Santa Lucia, Miriam knitted her blanket for her baby. So that no matter how few or how many fathers it had, it would always be warm, and always be safe, and always belong to the sea.

A QUIET JUBILATION
built throughout the month. There was more eating than usual, more laughter, more song. Yet it was only when the Novena began, those nine nights before Christmas, that the joyfulness spilled through the cracked chimney pots and spread out over the fields and docks and canals. It was as if the spirit of Saturnalia still buzzed in the air: that atmosphere of blissful, giddy abandon. The Vedova Scarpa and Armida Barbon walked up and down the Calle Alberi Grandi singing shepherds’carols. Ugolino Ramponi and Armando Guarnieri tied their livestock to a series of posts behind the Chiesa di Maria del Mare to create the mangerlike effect of a
presepio.
Candles were placed in the hovel windows; torches were lit by the docks; tarragon and bay laurel were burned in the hearths to send a musky perfume out over the island.

The Christmas revelry even penetrated the walls of the Ca’Torta. Enrico managed to remain in Verona for the better part of the month, but he sent partridges and pheasants, enameled vials of perfume, and enough silks and satins to make holiday gowns for Orsina, Ermenegilda, and the three Marias. The women of the Ca’Torta were planning a Christmas Eve celebration. Each of the girls was to invite an available member of Venetian society to an elaborate midnight supper. But while Orsina and the three Marias sat together in the main
salone
trying to choose among the span of wealthy bachelors, Ermenegilda sat propped before her loom in a state of despair. Ermenegilda had found that her recent acts of enmity toward Albertino were not nearly as satisfying as she had anticipated. It had been different when he had ignored her and rebuffed her; she cherished the destruction of the vegetables as one of the high points of her life. But ever since their encounter in San Marco, when his bitter indifference had been transformed into uninhibited yearning, she found that her attempts at humiliation and revenge left an acrid, unpleasant aftertaste. So unpleasant, in fact, she could not eat the ringlike breakfast pastries that lay stacked before her on the loom — nor the
sopa di ghiozzo,
nor the pheasant with cinnamon sauce, nor the special Advent cake Romilda Rosetta had brought her from Siora Bertinelli. Her appetite had become as erratic as her emotions: she would eat and not eat, starve herself and gorge herself, and had little control over whether she did either one.

Now, while her mother and sisters were conferring about the selection of suitors and the choosing of fabrics for the dresses they would wear, she sat propped behind the loom playing games with her vegetable dolls. Ermenegilda had fashioned tiny likenesses of Albertino, Piarina, and herself from the vegetables she once set flame to. There was not much to work with in mid-December, but she managed to gather some carrots, a few turnips, some dried figs, and a handful of beans and lentils and worked them into vegetable versions of herself and her two loves. She spent hours creating fantasies between them, not unlike the fantasies of Piarina atop the tower: she and Albertino selecting furniture for their country villa; she and Piarina taking boat rides about the lagoon; the three of them chasing peacocks across the garden of the Ca’Torta. They were always gentle and kind with each other, and the Ermenegilda doll always went to great lengths to see that the Albertino doll and the Piarina doll were happy.

Today they were out hawking, the Ermenegilda doll graciously allowing the others to take their turns first. Their play was so pleasant that Ermenegilda tried to extend its contentment into reality by reaching for something to eat. When she lifted the nearby
miel-pignole
pastry to her lips, however, its sweet fragrance nauseated her, and she was reminded of the falseness of her game. She was grateful when Romilda Rosetta's rap on the door interrupted her.

“Your mother is waiting for you,” she called through the door. “I told her you'd be right down.”

Ordinarily Ermenegilda would trounce the tiny maid for saying anything that went against her will. But she was so relieved to avoid the taste of the pastry, she thanked her and went down to join the others.

The four women were engrossed in discussion when Ermenegilda entered the room.

“What about the Count Capocchio?” said Maria Seconda as she held a bolt of lemon silk up to the light.

“Too vain,” said Maria Prima. “All he ever talks about is himself and that ridiculous villa he has in Favaro.”

“I'm inviting Francesco Montanaldo,” said Maria Terza as she tested the strength of a rippled chiffon between her clenched fists.

“Francesco Montanaldo!” cried Maria Seconda. “He'l never come to Riva di Pignoli!”

“Oh, yes, he will. Papa arranged for him to borrow twenty thousand florins from a bank in Siena on the condition that he be my dinner companion.”

“Papa always makes the best arrangements for you,” said Maria Prima, tossing down a bolt of turquoise satin. “I hate being the oldest; everyone expects me to do everything myself!”

“Stop it!” said Orsina. “Your father has never failed any one of you yet — at least when it comes to coercing people to dinner. Have a seat, Ermenegilda. There's a case of fabric by the fireplace that hasn't been opened yet.”

Ermenegilda took a place in the circle and began absent-mindedly fingering a bit of gold-and-cerulean brocade.

“Then I'm inviting Teobaldo Spumi,” continued Maria Seconda.

“Teobaldo Spumi!” cried Maria Prima.

“And I just might tie him to one of the supporting columns in the
androne
and never let him leave.”

Ermenegilda winced at Maria Seconda's words; her fantasy about trussing up her dinner guest brought painful memories to her mind.

“What do you think of this?” asked Maria Prima, stretching an olive-and-cream-striped silk across the broad landscape of her bosom.

“Terrible,” said Maria Seconda.

“Try the marbelized magenta,” said Orsina. “You can never go wrong with magenta.”

The women continued to shuffle and compare, holding up bolt after bolt of the fabulous material to flatter themselves. But though Ermenegilda nodded, and smiled whenever it seemed appropriate, it soon became evident that her heart was not really in it.

“What about you, Ermenegilda?” asked Maria Terza as she coiled a bit of lavender ribbon in her dark, aggressive hair. “Who are you going to invite?”

“Are you going to ask that banker you met on your trip to Venezia?” asked Maria Prima. “The one who kept you out so late?”

“I don't know,” said Ermenegilda. “I haven't decided yet.”

“Well, you'd better choose soon,” said Orsina. “It's only a week away, and you know how precious these noblemen become during the holy season.”

“You choose, Mama,” said Ermenegilda. “You choose for me.”

“Ermenegilda!” cried Orsina. “It seems hardly like you to let me make such an important decision!”

“It's fine, Mama. Just choose someone. I'm sure he'l be handsome and rich, like all the others.”

“You must be ill. Maria Prima, call Romilda Rosetta. She must be ill.”

“I'm not ill!” cried Ermenegilda. “I just don't really care who I have dinner with on Christmas Eve. Pick someone and then stop talking about it already!”

And she threw down the brocade she'd been holding in her lap and hurried out of the room.

“What's the matter with her?” asked Maria Prima.

“She's getting ruder every day!” said Maria Seconda.

“I'l bet she's just jealous that I'm inviting Francesco Montanaldo,” said Maria Terza. “She probably has her eye on him herself.”

But Ermenegilda — who had fled to the pantry to see if there were any
crostini alle olive
left over from lunch — simply could not bear to think about dining with a stranger when Albertino was so close at hand.

WORK ON THE
village center tottered toward completion amid healthy breaks for
vin marzamìn
and the Vedova Stampanini's
bagna cauda.
Only Piero remained hardworking throughout the holiday revels, laying the last of the mosaic and adding the final touches to the monument. The
campo
now resembled the smoky plains of his darkest nightmare; without Miriam at their center, the ruby-lipped dragons and glittering snakes seemed an awfully hellish way to praise the island. But when Piero moved the statue into place on the morning of Christmas Eve — with the help of Beppe Guancio and Paolo Guarnieri and with a canvas tarpaulin snugly shielding it from view — he felt a quiet sense of completion and pride.

With over six months of work behind him and the unveiling not due until Epiphany, Piero decided to pay a visit to Boccasante. There was always a particular feeling about the monastery around Christmas; he felt the need to sit, for a few hours, in the gentle company of his former brothers. He arrived at the great gates as the vesper bells were chiming. Fra Antonio informed him that Fra Danilo was in the scriptorium, and as Piero knew his way, and Fra Antonio was expected in the chapter hall, he allowed him to climb to the second-floor chamber unescorted.

Piero was grateful to have a few moments alone within his solemn childhood home. His work on the new village center seemed strangely unreal when set against the abstract nature of the world in which he'd been raised. As he ascended the stone steps that led to the chamber where the manuscripts were kept, he felt the breeze of other Christmases blow over him. When he was eight, and Fra Matteo had allowed him to light the candles for the midnight mass. When he was twelve, and Fra Rinaldo had placed a sculpture he'd made of the Holy Family in an archway of the northern corridor. Even the chastisement that followed the discovery of his obsessions and his not-long-after eviction from the order produced a sudden feeling of warmth and a tender wistfulness.

When he reached the scriptorium he found Fra Danilo poring over a series of intricately detailed illuminations.

“I'e come to wish you the good blessings of the season,” he said.

“Piero!” cried Fra Danilo. “How good to see you!”

“Are you busy?” asked Piero. “Should I wait for you downstairs?”

“No, no,” said the monk. “I'm just trying to decide which manuscript to use for tonight's mass. Fra Teodoro has done some extraordinary figurework in the gospels this year. His use of gold leaf is extraordinary. But we'e always used Fra Crispino's manuscript — which is, of course, magnificent, though in a less spectacular way. It's a difficult decision.”

Piero looked at each of the manuscripts that lay open on the rosewood stand. “They'e both beautiful,” he said. “Perhaps it's time to honor a new vision.”

“Yes,” said Fra Danilo. “I tend to think that myself.” He studied the manuscripts a moment longer, then shifted his attention to Piero. “Come. Help me get my mind off it for a little while. Tell me how you'e been.”

“I'e been well,” said Piero, pulling up a bench and sitting. “Busy and well. We'e finished the project.”

“Finished!”

“On the morning of Epiphany we'l unveil the monument. And then it's done.”

“Are you pleased with it?”

“Very. If Sior Bon could see it, he'd have a completely different opinion about the‘existence’of Riva di Pignoli.”

“That's wonderful, Piero. I must come see it myself. As soon as the holidays are over — I give you my word.”

“Thank you, Fra Danilo. You'e always been a great supporter of my work. It would mean a lot to me to have your opinion of it.”

“You have a great talent, Piero. I'e always said that. I hope the people of Riva di Pignoli appreciate what you'e given them.”

“Yes,” said Piero, picturing his vision of dragons and demons. “I hope so, too.”

Fra Danilo turned back to the manuscripts, lifting the newer of them up toward the light. “And in other respects,” he said, “has it been a good season for you?”

“It's been a time of challenge,” said Piero. “And a time of warnings.”

And with careful attention he proceeded to tell Fra Danilo the saga of the dead body: his chance discovery of it in the springless spring, his rather hasty burial of it in the field of wild thyme, and his recent transference of it across the darkened water to the sacred ground of the cemetery.