* * *
The next morning I spent a futile six hours filing a police report that I was fairly sure would never go anywhere other than a sergeant’s file cabinet. As I walked out of the station, I decided it was time to distract myself from my brush with Tuscan criminal justice by engaging in some tourist activity—I’d been in Siena for a month and hadn’t done anything recommended by the guidebooks Nathaniel had given me.
I started with the biggest thing around: the Torre del Mangia, the bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico. Why am I paying good money to climb three hundred steps? I wondered as I bought the ticket. Maybe I’d regret it later, but I’d heard the views were fantastic. The small entrance doorway to the tower was in the corner of the Palazzo Pubblico’s inner courtyard. It was marked by wordy signs and a small light that turned from red to green at apparently random intervals. If it’s red, you can’t start the climb; if it’s green, you can. Or at least you can try.
My ticket read 9:30 a.m., sounding very official, and the stony-faced guardian of the entrance was equally official and quite strict about counting the number of eager tourists (twenty-five, and that’s it) going through for each time slot and green light, and a mandatory bag check too. Once I’d started up the staircase I realized why the rules were so unbending. One staircase ascends the 102 meters—335 feet—getting narrower and narrower toward the top, with hardly any room to turn or pass. The square spiral went on and on, winding past narrow window slits that offered no view and little air. Then the stone steps turned into rickety steep wooden ladders that led to successively more terrifying platforms; each one seemed like a very good opportunity to change my mind, or plunge to my death. Then my legs started to ache, then burn, and I had to press myself hard against the wall as the descending tourists squeezed past. Finally I was at the top, with a view of the red-brick campo spread out—crazily far below, surrounded by a sea of terra-cotta rooftops, then the city walls, then the green glittering contado beyond them. Climbing down was even harder: not as much effort, but more fear of falling. I wasn’t eager to try it again soon.
Siena, June 30
Dear Linney,
Thanks for your letter; it was nice to see your handwriting somewhere other than a medical chart. It’s looking like I’ll be using the full three months of my sabbatical here. It’s just as well I’m not spending too much time in the OR anyway—you know it’s time for a break when you start losing it over an episode of V Tach. I’ll tell you a secret—I’m writing a book—the book Ben left notes for. I may not be the most erudite scholar out there, but this job is mine. Don’t tell anybody; neurosurgeons aren’t supposed to spend time daydreaming about illuminated manuscripts and poring over medieval frescoes. At least not publicly.
Love, B
* * *
On the evening of July 1, the day of the Palio-eve banquet, I ran downstairs to join the Guerrini family. They gathered solemnly around me on the sidewalk.
“We have a gift for you,” Donata said, and nudged Felice forward. She held out a clumsily wrapped package in her hand, the wrapping clearly her own handiwork. But the contents trumped even the lovingly constructed wrapper—my own Civetta scarf. I bent my head and Felice draped it over my neck; I could feel her warm breath on my cheek as the silk slid over my shoulders. I hugged her tightly.
“It’s perfect.”
“Welcome to the family, Civettina,” Donata said, kissing me on both cheeks. We continued our walk to the banquet through the darkening streets.
Felice wanted to hold my hand as we walked. I shortened my steps to match hers and we dropped behind the rest of the family. Glowing torches and lanterns bathed the buildings in gold, and white-clothed tables filled the piazzas. Felice, usually ebullient and silly, hardly spoke at all, and I could feel tension in her arm through our joined hands.
“Last year my papà cried after the Palio,” she said, unprompted. “They call Civetta ‘La Nonna’ because we haven’t won in so long.” She frowned, clearly not liking the “Grandma” title applied to her contrada. “Mamma said Papà cried because his heart hurt.” She paused again, looking at her sandaled feet silhouetted against the brick pavers. “I was sad too, but I didn’t cry because I didn’t want to make him sadder,” she said matter-of-factly, and then her shoulders relaxed and she let go of my hand. She bolted ahead, yelling, “Chiocciole—andiamo!”
I watched her braids bounce against her back as she ran to join her family, happy to have been included as one of the snails. We stayed late at the cena, eating sweet and sour wild boar at long tables set in the candlelit streets. Ilario and Donata managed to sneak in a brief embrace when their children were otherwise occupied. Seeing them together made me acutely aware of how uninterruptedly single my life had been.
The week before I’d left New York, Nathaniel and I had gone out to a tapas bar for some very nice Serrano ham and even nicer sherry. We’d discussed my perpetually single state.
“Why do you think I’ve never been in love?” Nathaniel had smiled at my question indulgently. I always welcomed his incisive perspective, even though it wasn’t always exactly comfortable.
“Do you want to hear my answer?” he asked. “Or do you want to enjoy your sherry?”
I swallowed the last sip of the Manzanilla that had gotten me to the point of being able to discuss this.
“I’m ready.”
He took a breath and began.
“First: you insist that you want to work less, but there is no evidence to support this assertion. Second: you stubbornly resist being known. Third: I suspect this is because in fact you do not wish to be. Fourth: you sometimes intimidate people.”
I opened my mouth to protest—I don’t think of myself that way—but Nathaniel held up his hand to silence me. I closed my mouth again.
“Fifth: ideally, you would find someone at least as strong as you are, and that is quite difficult.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a little sick. “Now what do I do?”
“Your best option at the moment is probably to go home and go to bed, since, as you told me at the beginning of our lovely dinner, you have a spinal decompression to do tomorrow.” I nodded, since it was true. And with that, he took my hand and ushered me out of the restaurant. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.
* * *
The next entry in Gabriele’s journal was short, but disturbing.
Midwinter 1344
My little Paola is ripe with our first child, and the midwife tells us her time will be soon. I see her illuminated from within, as if she bears a brilliant sun that will shed its warmth and light on our new life. There are times though when the light seems almost cold, like a low moon through clouds, a supernatural and uneasy brightness. I have not spoken of this to the priest who takes confession in the contrada church, preferring my private prayer. I look forward to the day when I can hold the baby in my arms and put these visions to rest.
I paged ahead in the journal to look for an entry announcing the child’s birth but found none. In fact, there was no more mention of Paola either.
* * *
There are not a lot of places where a horse defecating in a church is considered a good thing. Siena, it turns out, is one of them. I squeezed into the crowded Civetta church to watch the blessing of Civetta’s horse before the race. The air was thick with incense from swaying censers when the Civetta jockey walked in, holding his horse’s reins in his hand, closely followed by the comparsa—the official delegation of the contrada. The horse flicked his ears restlessly, dark gray above his lighter gray head, and shied from the crowd as he was squeezed into the tiny church. The contradaioli kept the onlookers back, clearing a space around the horse and jockey, and I maneuvered to see from the side pews.
“Our help is in the name of the Lord,” intoned the contrada priest, holding a cross over the horse’s elegant head.
“Who made heaven and earth,” the congregation answered.
The horse shifted and defecated onto the marble floor, and the crowd let
out a cheer of delight.
“Guard, protect, and defend your servant from the dangers of the race to come . . . let your blessing fall upon him and upon this horse . . . and may they be safe from the approaching dangers . . . through the intercession of blessed Saint Anthony . . . amen.”
And then a cry went up from the priest and the hundreds of Civettini packed shoulder to shoulder:
“Vai e torna vincitore!” Go and return a winner! I joined the yelling crowd and tried to stay on my feet as we pushed out of the church and emerged into the hot sun, thoroughly blessed and heading fast for the piazza. Someone must have stayed to clean up the floor afterward.
Donata guarded our places in the packed Piazza del Campo with all the ferocity of a Palio-charged Sienese art history professor. People crowded on rooftops, leaned out windows decorated with contrade banners—owl, unicorn, goose, caterpillar, all seventeen proudly flying their colors—and thousands, like us, pressed close together down on the ground. The huge bell of the Torre del Mangia began to ring, bells that had rung their warning for centuries. Then, to screams from the crowd, the horses entered the piazza with their jockeys. I tore my Civetta scarf off my neck and waved it frantically in the air like everyone around me. When the cannon fired the horses exploded forward, tearing around the piazza, hooves thundering on the yellow earth.
Ninety seconds—that’s all it took for the ten horses to run three times around the piazza—the most breathtaking ninety seconds I had ever witnessed. Within the first turn one horse had slammed into the wall, and his rider was thrown to the ground, then rolled to escape the horses pounding past him. The horse kept running, riderless. At the San Martino corner, two horses went down, along with their riders.
“OCA OCA OCA!!” the goose contrada fans screamed. Their horse was in the lead, head free and low, with the jockey flat against his horse’s neck, green, white, and red silks flapping. Civetta was in the middle of the pack, edging forward around the second turn, but Oca crossed the finish line first. Screams of joy broke out from Oca’s contradaioli, and despair from Civetta, La Nonna again. The Ocaioli poured onto the terra, crying, laughing, praising God, and hugging the winning horse and jockey.
“Daccelo, daccelo, daccelo. . . .” The chant of the Oca contradaioli rang through the Campo: “Give it to us!” and the Palio banner descended into their eager hands, rippling with the image of the Virgin Mary.
“Next year, Papà,” Felice said, wrapping her plump arms around her father’s bent neck.
* * *
That night, just before I went to sleep, I snuck in a quick read from Gabriele’s diary. For the first time, I imagined his voice, reading the passage aloud. Through him, the saint’s story came alive for me in a way it never had in my years of Catholic school.
Feast of San Pietro Martire, 1346
I have been fortunate to be granted a commission to decorate a section of the new city gates. I will paint Saint Christopher, protector of travelers, patron of ferrymen, and guardian of good death. A good death—not too sudden to pray for redemption. Since the commission was confirmed I have spent many nights awake, as I often do at the beginning of a project, staring at the beamed ceiling above me as my head fills with images starting to take shape. I have always been deeply moved by his story—in seeking to serve his holy Master he took on the task of ferrying travelers across a dangerous river. One day he found himself carrying a young child, a child who became heavier and heavier as the waters became more turbulent, so that Christopher bowed with the struggle, unsure he could continue, saying, “I feel that I carry the world on my shoulders.” In fact, he did, as the child confided in him, “I am not only that world, but its Creator, whom you serve through your efforts,” and vanished. It is a tale worthy of depicting. All who enter or leave our gates will set their prayers by his image, and though I am certainly no saint, I take this weight seriously.
The next afternoon, I threw on my favorite sleeveless white linen dress, shouldered Ben’s leather backpack with the journal in it, and took an afternoon to walk out the Porta Camollia through Siena’s medieval walls and down the Via Francigena, the ancient trade route between France and Rome. I stopped to look at the inscription over the Porta as I left. Cor Magis Tibi Saena Pandit: “Wider than this gate, Siena opens its heart to you” the Latin read. So far, I’d found that to be true, and secretly was imagining a second, if only sentimental, citizenship. I wondered whether Gabriele’s painting might once have decorated these walls. After a few hours’ walk I made my way back to the Porta, then I went to the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, on the site of what should have become the new cathedral.
Later, I would try to remember every detail of what happened next, but at the time I did not know how important that would be. A set of paintings depicting the life of Saint Christopher caught my eye, and when I saw them, I stopped short. The saint’s face was filled with intense determination to ferry the small child safely across the frighteningly rough river, and the final scene, where Christopher and the child gaze into each other’s eyes, was so intimate and beautiful I almost understood, for a brief moment, the power that pulls ordinary human beings into sainthood.
I glanced at the placard on the gallery wall: “Studies for frescoes thought to have decorated a portion of the city gates, tempera on panel. Attributed to Gabriele Beltrano Accorsi, Martini School, 14th century.” My Gabriele, I thought, and I felt the hair on my arms rise. And then I caught a detail at the edge of one of the scenes, almost small enough to miss. On the distant riverbank, a small crowd of anxious travelers stand, and among them is a woman in a green dress, with black hair braided in the shape of a crown. The painting was more than 650 years old. But the woman’s face was mine.
I must have walked out of the Museo, because I was standing in front of the Duomo, surrounded by tourists. I ducked through the huge bronze doors into the cool of the cathedral, where the striped columns rose spectacularly to the high arches of the vault. The dome soared above me, decorated with golden stars gleaming against a dark blue background, and sunlight poured through the glass-paned oculus at the top, blindingly bright.Crossing myself reflexively, I counted the busts of popes along the cornice at the top of the nave, trying to calm down. It’s just a coincidence. I have a common Italian face: it just happens to have been shared by someone in fourteenth-century Siena.
In the transept a circle of marble lions held up the columns of the octagonal pulpit. When I reached out to touch one, the marble of the lion’s back was cool and worn smooth by many hands before mine. I took out Gabriele’s journal, opened it at random, and bent my head to read the words of this artist whose writing had started to encroach on my modern existence, and whose art, for some inexplicable reason, depicted me.
July 1347
I find my paintings haunted by a persistent image that I cannot dispel, and whose origin I cannot fathom. One day as I knelt in the Duomo, my senses were overtaken by a strange quiet, and my surroundings—the Te Deum ringing around me, the church bells calling our citizens to prayer and chasing the night’s demons away, the creaking of benches on which my neighbors knelt and shifted—went silent. At that moment I saw a figure of a woman, dark hair loose over her simple white shift. She appeared beside the lions of Pisano’s pulpit, but when I leapt up to see the apparition it had vanished. I find the mysterious figure hovering at the edge of my paintings, watching the events unfold in the scenes I depict. It is as if she were seeking a path through my paintings and into this world.
This time as I read, my vision went abruptly dark, and I heard the last words I’d read reverberating in my head, as if someone had said them aloud.
. . . a path through my paintings and into this world.
And then I stopped hearing at all.
PART II
WIDER THAN THIS GATE
This episode did not fade like the others—I couldn’t see or hear. Seconds passed, and I started to panic. What if I stayed like this forever? Finally sounds started to filter back, and I bega
n to see shapes again, then details. My fear receded. It’s just nighttime and the lights are off, I told myself. But the comfort of that explanation faded fast. It wasn’t nighttime a minute ago.
Faint moonlight came through the cathedral windows. I’d been reading in the bright light of the afternoon. How had I lost hours without realizing it? I ran through possible diagnoses. Complex partial seizure? Bad. Transient global amnesia? Not as bad, since that was, by definition, transient.
I was still standing next to the marble lion and I put my hand out to touch its back, steadying myself. It felt different now, rougher under my fingers. Other than the lion, my hands were empty—Gabriele’s journal was gone. I was still wearing Ben’s backpack though, the straps cutting into my shoulders. I bent my arms and legs, making sure I still could. Now I had a strange headache at both temples. Could it all be a complicated migraine? I’d never had a migraine before. Occipital aneurysm? God, I hope not. I staggered over to a wooden choir stall and sat. From somewhere in the dark, a single disembodied voice began to chant the night office in Latin.
Then I noticed something very odd. Along the high cornice that ran the length of the nave, the busts of the popes I had just counted were missing; the space below the clerestory was empty. My heart pounding, I made my way to the great front doors of the cathedral, my footsteps echoing in the empty nave. The rose window in the facade had disappeared, leaving a gaping hole in its place, with the night sky beyond.
The Scribe of Siena Page 5