Simple Prayers

by Michael Golding

  “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.

  The spring, this year, had come precisely on time. But what it brought with it made the people of Riva di Pignoli wish that it had stayed away for good.

  Chapter 16

  THE VILLAGERS did not know what to make of the collapse of the Blessed Virgin. The young boy was bundled up and taken to Brunetto Fucci's, where a poultice of barbasco and black mustard seed was applied to his hellish swellings, which not only lined his armpits and sides, but were embedded like stony apples in his groin. When it was explained that Riva di Pignoli possessed neither physician nor surgeon nor barber-surgeon, the mummers gathered up the boy; packed their trunks, their baskets, their platforms, and their poles; and set off into the lagoon to find him aid.

  At first the villagers felt only concern for the poor lad, whose bitter wailing as the poultices were applied had sliced through the air like a cautering knife. Concern, and curiosity, and the subtle scent of something they did not yet recognize as fear. Reluctantly they removed their masks and returned to their various hovels. They cooked simple suppers over moderate flames and thought more about the excitement of the early part of the day than about the sudden disturbance of the latter.

  Except for Piero. He alone among the people of Riva di Pignoli could not shrug off the sight of the dark swellings nor forget the image of the boy collapsing in pain. They were the same dark swellings he'd found on the body that had washed ashore a full year earlier, and he was horrified to see them again.

  He had to talk about it with someone — but the only person who knew about the body he'd found before was Fra Danilo. So that night, while the other villagers tried to forget the ugly marks entirely, Piero took his boat and set out for Boccasante. There was not a trace of moon to guide him, and a low blanket of clouds blocked out the stars. Only a small torch and the frequency of his travel between the two islands over the years made his passage across the darkened water possible.

  As he moved past the tiny cemetery island, he thought of how distant and foreign that place had always seemed to him. No matter how many times he'd visited there — including his recent journeys to bury and excavate the swollen corpse — he'd always passed through its shadowy confines as if he were moving through a dreamworld. Now, in the silence of the moonless night, the graveyard seemed as coldly real as any other part of the lagoon. Either that, or the rest of the world had grown as phantomlike as the graveyard.

  He rowed on toward the shores of the monastery island. He knew Fra Danilo would be able to advise him; the monk knew something of everything and was sure to understand what the black markings meant. He paddled slowly, careful to keep his direction clear in the blackness of the night. When he came to a distance of about three leagues from the monastery, however, he noticed a tiny spot of light floati
ng over the water. It hovered, stationary, in the darkness — and it was only as he approached it that he could see it came from a torch, much like his own, which was fixed to the prow of a boat in which sat Fra Antonio.

  “Stay back!” cried the elderly monk as Piero's boat drew near.

  “It's Piero, Fra Antonio! I'e come to see Fra Danilo!”

  “Piero?” said the monk as he lifted the torch up overhead. “Piero who?”

  “Piero Po. I used to live at Boccasante. Don't you remember me?”

  Fra Antonio squinted into the darkness. “Go away.”

  “But I have to see Fra Danilo.”

  The monk's hands trembled, and the torchlight wavered wildly. “Fra Danilo is sick. The entire monastery is under quarantine. Go away.”

  “But ––”

  “Go away!”

  Piero stared into the elderly monk's eyes and saw terror. He tried to look past him toward where he knew the monastery lay, but the blackness swallowed everything beyond the small circle of his flame.

  “Will you tell him I need to speak with him? It's very important.”

  “There's no point in speaking with him. Go back to where you came from.”

  Piero tried to comprehend what Fra Antonio was saying. He'd seen Fra Danilo only the week before; the monk had been in perfect health, as had been all the brothers. Piero longed to press on and visit the island anyway, to see what was happening for himself. But he did not have the heart to upset Fra Antonio any more than he already was. So he thanked him for the information and then headed back through the darkness to Riva di Pignoli.

  OVER THE NEXT few days the incident at the spring festival faded from the villagers’minds. With the campo completed and the spring at their door, the people were far too joyful to dwell on the illness of a veritable stranger. There were mattresses to be aired; there was planting to be done; there were violets and rose petals to be strewn across strawcovered floors. On the third morning after the festivities, however, a number of the villagers felt a weakness come over them. It started in their heads and spread down through their bodies until their limbs felt weighted with mud. Siora Guarnieri had to lie down under the smoke table and prop hunks of prosciutto beneath her neck, her knees, and her shoulders. Gesmundo Barbon could barely drag himself from his boat and had to stop six times on his way from the docks to his hovel.

  “It's like I drank a case of grappa,” he told Armida, “but forgot to take the pleasure of getting drunk.”

  When Siora Scabbri and both the Rizzardello twins discovered small greenish black marks on their sides, the villagers began whispering about “the sickness.” Not everyone made the connection to the boy at the festival, but the apprehension in the air increased.

  Piarina knew without being told that illness had struck the island. She leaned forward in her bed and groped the air and stammered out her cures with new conviction. Ermenegilda and Valentina could not help but notice the change. For the past six weeks, as they'd settled into a pattern of cleaning and feeding and caring for the child, they'd become almost deaf to the endless litany that poured from her mouth. For the first time there was a sort of harmony in the hovel: Piarina knew that as long as Ermenegilda was there she would not try to murder Valentina; Valentina knew that as long as Ermenegilda was there she would not try to murder Piarina; and Ermenegilda knew that, though her heart still pined for Albertino, her love for Piarina was as selfless and true as anything she had ever known. It was therefore somewhat disturbing when Piarina began to behave in this new way. Not only did she lean forward and speak with increased ardor, she began to isolate items in her train. Her tongue would catch on a consonant, then she'd return and repeat herself until a single object emerged from the lengthy list. When this was clearly identified she would lapse again into the flood. But as the days went by, she gradually began to shift from a random ranting to the specific voicing of a closed sequence of objects. And eventually Ermenegilda and Valentina began to recognize their pattern:

  “A scrap of seaweed … a strip of bark … a peacock feather … a flask of mercury … a wasp's wing … six pignoli … a bowl of sorbs set out in the midday sun.”

  Over and over again — as they stirred the morning broth, and swept the straw, and dusted Albertino's boxes — the list of articles came tumbling from Piarina's tongue:

  “A scrap of seaweed… a strip of bark… a peacock feather… a flask of mercury… a wasp's wing… six pignoli… a bowl of sorbs set out in the midday sun.”

  Eventually it became imprinted on their brains, until they too began to chant it, until their three voices began to merge in a curative round:

  “A scrap of seaweed… a strip of bark A scrap of seaweed … a peacock feather a strip of bark (A scrap of seaweed) … a flask of mercury a peacock feather (a strip of bark) … a wasp's wing a flask of mercury (a peacock feather) … six pignoli a wasp's wing (a flask of mercury)… a bowl of sorbs set out in the midday sun six pignoli (a wasp's wing)… a bowl of sorbs set out in the midday sun (six pignoli) … (a bowl of sorbs set out in the midday sun).”

  But what Piarina intended did not occur to them until she grabbed Ermenegilda by the bodice as she was leaning over her to brush her hair, shook her as vigorously as her tiny arms could shake her, and shouted out the items one by one:

  “A scrap of seaweed! A strip of bark! A peacock feather! A flask of mercury! A wasp's wing! Six pignoli! A bowl of sorbs set out in the midday sun!”

  And then, in that old familiar voice, that trickle of steam, that strangulated weightless whisper, she added:

  “Find them… bring them… now!”

  Valentina, who was stitching together the pieces of a moth-ruined blanket, pricked her finger with the needle and screamed. Ermenegilda, whom Piarina still grasped by the bodice, nearly lost her balance and tumbled into bed beside her.

  It was the first thing Piarina had said that was not a stick or a wing or a stone or an herb since that day Valentina had dragged her speechless from the well. And though Valentina and Ermenegilda still had no idea what they might be for, they immediately set out to gather the things she'd requested.

  THE FEELING OF FATIGUE raced over the village like a blast of sullen heat; in a matter of days nearly a quarter of the islanders had developed some sign of the sickness. The greenish black marks turned to swellings overnight. Fausto Moretti woke to the sound of his own screaming.

  In spite of his visit to Boccasante, Piero tried his best to keep from panicking. There was no reason to believe that the sickness was serious; the reappearance of the ugly black swellings might well be just a gruesome coincidence.

  “It's most likely some kind of blood fever,” he said to Beppe Guancio as they sat by the fire eating bread and black olives. “The pain can be terrible, but it usually only lasts about a week.”

  “I'e never heard of a blood fever that spread so quickly,” said Beppe. “And I'e never seen anything like those lumps.”

  “Whose have you seen?”

  “Gesmundo Barbon's. He's got three of them in his left side — hard as rocks and black as soot. Armida says that if she stands there long enough, she can almost see them growing.”

  A chill ran through Piero; he wondered if this was the condition of Fra Danilo and the others on the monastery island. “It's the body purging itself,” he said. “It's as it should be.”

  Beppe poked at the sticks of the fire with a pine branch. “You ought to tell that to the rest of the village.”

  “The people will see it for themselves.”

  Beppe looked up. “The people are scared, Piero. You should talk to. them.”

  Piero stared into the fire. “What can I say?”

  “What you'e just said to me. Tell them not to be frightened. Tell them to have faith.”

  “Will they believe me if I do?”

  Beppe placed his hand on Piero's arm. “I'l believe you,” he said. “Tell me it'l be all right, Piero.”

  Piero looked at Beppe, at the fire, at the plate of blac
k olives that sat on his crossed legs. He reached for an olive, but it suddenly repulsed him — so he placed his plate in the straw on the floor and turned back to his friend.

  “Send word around the island to meet at the campo tomorrow at mezzogiorno. When mezzogiorno comes, ring the bells. I'l be there.”

  “Grazie, Piero. Grazie tanto. The people will be grateful.”

  Beppe reached for Piero's plate and then took it, along with his own, to a broad bucket that sat in the corner; Piero remained seated before the fire, frozen in thought. He could tell the villagers not to be frightened. He could say what he had to to raise their spirits and bolster their wavering faith. What he wondered was who would take away his own fears. And who would convince him that what was spreading through the village was merely a passing horror.

  MIRIAM HAD BEEN GRATEFUL to remain in Gianluca's room after the birth of Nicolo. The bed was soft, there was light from the small window, and the Vedova Stampanini was close at hand to take care of her when she needed. As she had regained her strength, however, she had begun to miss her tiny altar. So on the morning of the spring festival, while the villagers were pouring out along the Calle Alberi Grandi, she placed Nicolo on his blanket of seaweed in Beppe Guancio's cart, wheeled him out through the gardens that lined the eastern shore, and settled back into the alcove in Maria Luigi's hovel. The cave of cloth was just as she'd left it; she paused only to empty out a basket of ribbons to make a bed for Nicolo before heading out to the campo for the dedication of the new village center.

  When she returned to Maria Luigi's hovel in the late afternoon — after the disturbing interruption of the Story of the Virgin — Miriam wanted to pray for the boy who had fallen. In her alcove she knelt before the altar and lit a pair of tall tapers on either side of the Virgin. When she closed her eyes to pray, however, the tapers went out. She relit them carefully; again they went out. Only as long as her eyes stayed upon them would the tapers remain aflame.