Piero moved down the aisle and saw how the light widened as he approached the altar. The
chiesa
seemed an entirely different place to him from the one he'd come to so often to pray: a large room with an elaborate dais and a few expensive lamps. Still, the thought of leaving it was unbearable. He felt for the piece of parchment inside his shirt, the blunt declaration he'd kept against his skin throughout the exhausting labor of the last two days. It had been soaked through with his sweat, it had stiffened at its folds, its edges had curled, its surface had stained and yellowed. But when he drew it into the light, and opened it, and read it, its words were as clear and strong as when he had written them.
He knelt down. He closed his eyes. To whom could he pray if those words were true? He opened his eyes and looked at the face of the Christ child. The Madonna. The fish. He looked up over his head at the polished beams in the roof, followed them across to the pale stone walls, down those to the darker-colored stones in the floor, and back over the pews to the straw-covered spot where he knelt.
The work of God.
The work of man.
Piero couldn't say. There in the hallowed half-light of the chapel the presence of God once more seemed undeniable, and little seemed left to him beyond silence and simple prayers. But he'd written the words, and they'd changed him. He would have to wait and see.
He rose and walked to the stand of tapers where Piarina stood and placed the piece of parchment in the flames. He watched as it crackled, and smoked, and finally caught fire. Then he lifted up the basket that held Nicolo, took Piarina by the hand, and together they left the chapel.
When they reached the docks Piero suggested they take Giuseppe Navo's smallest fishing vessel, as it was light and swift. Piarina stepped in first, and Piero handed down the items they'd brought to take with them. When he lifted the bag of
pignoli
Piarina had gathered, it felt cumbersome and inordinately heavy; when he opened it he found a pair of sleeping turtledoves and a fresh beef pie perched on a bed of coins. He looked at Piarina, who blushed. Then he closed up the bag and lowered it in.
When he'd handed down everything — including Nicolo — he stepped in himself and began loosening the ropes that held them to the shore. As he was about to release the final one, he heard a grunting sound and looked up to see the Guarnieris’sow staring hopefully down from the edge of the dock. Piero turned to Piarina; Piarina giggled; so he motioned to it to hop in and they set off.
The lagoon was as still as one of the graves Piero had just dug. The sun cast a white sheen over the surface, which was interrupted only by an occasional bird diving down for food and the ripples that spread from the wake of their boat as they moved out into the water. When they'd traveled beyond the familiar shape of the cemetery island — beyond the rusted gates and the sunken frame of Albertino's now abandoned room — Nicolo suddenly let out a great cry. It was his first cry since the hour of his birth, and it rang out over the water with an unfettered sorrow. Piarina shuddered at the sound of it — but she reached into the basket and lifted him into her arms and stroked him gently the way Ermenegilda had taught her.
If one of the old birds of the lagoon had swooped down over the island — one who'd lighted upon the fish stalls from time to time or pecked a bit of grain left out by the Vedova Stampanini — it would have seen nothing more than an empty expanse of land with a few hovels, a few wells — some gardens, some fields, some bridges — a
palazzo
— a
chiesa
— a
campanìl,
a
campo,
and a monument. Only if it flew in very close would it have noticed the diaphanous shadows of a group of villagers dancing gaily in the center of the
campo.
Only if it soared up very high would it have noted that the entire island was nothing more than a wrinkle in the seascape: a scrap of seaweed, a strip of bark. And only if it followed away toward the south-southeast would it have spotted the tiny
barca da pesca
with the man, the child, the infant, and the pig, as it gathered speed, and struggled toward the horizon, and scratched its presence against the light of the still-rising sun.