Bless Me, Father

by Neil Boyd

  I gathered we were expected to open the proceedings with a prayer. Everyone turned towards the wall where I saw what I took to be a pair of horns and, nearby, a shelf with a red votive lamp alight under an old print of the Madonna and Child. The Virgin was bejewelled and smiling against a rural background and wearing a golden crown. The Child was at her breast also crowned, and in his hand were three ears of corn symbolizing, I supposed, fertility. In the ornamented silver picture frame were sprigs of lavender.

  Fr Duddleswell intoned the Pater Noster and Ave Maria which all present rattled off in Latin. And then, ‘Nostra Signora di Custonaci.’

  ‘Prega per noi,’ all responded. I said, ‘Pray for us.’

  As we sat down, Fr Duddleswell explained to me that Our Lady of Custonaci was the patron saint of Sicilians.

  ‘That peecture … over the sea come … from Alesandria,’ said Signor Bianchi.

  Giorgio, the eldest son, a real mafioso-type if ever I saw one, fat, greasy and black, added, ‘It was pain’ed by San Luke evangelista, but the faces is pain’ed by the Gabriel Archangelo.’

  Letterío took up the story: ‘La Madonna di Custonac’ preserva us from drought and pestilenze and terremoto, ’ow you say? earfquike, and from the milioni of locusts.’

  When Domenico contributed his piece, I realized I was listening in on a Sicilian saga, like the Jewish Passover, in which all the males had a traditional part to play.

  ‘On the festa of la Madonna,’ said Domenico, ‘nobodies swears on the island.’

  ‘A truly grand’ miracolo,’ put in Fr Duddleswell without a smile.

  ‘Dawero, Padre,’ said Domenico. ‘No stealings, also, and even the thievers are buoni Cattoloci for one only die.’

  Finally, the youngest, Peppino, a fine-looking young man, took his turn: ‘This is why the wedding has been fixed a year ahead for next 25th August, the festa of the Madonna di Custonaci.’

  Peppino’s English was easily the best of the five, which I presumed was due to the fact that, having lived all his life in London, he couldn’t escape English influences altogether. But for some reason his brothers seemed not to approve of what he’d said. They glowered at him. I wondered if he had spoken out of turn when it was old Signor Bianchi’s privilege to name the wedding date.

  The patriarchal Signor Bianchi then clapped his hands and in came his wife smartly, carrying a tray with a flask of red wine and seven beakers.

  ‘Please,’ said Signor Bianchi, holding the tips of his fingers together in prayer, ‘please to take to drink a cup of marsala. It do mucha good to the spireets and the stomaco.’

  After a few swigs, the bargaining began.

  Signor Bianchi asked with ample gestures:

  ‘Quanto, ’ow mucha for the compana?’

  Fr Duddleswell said, ‘The bell? It costa five shilling.’

  Signor Bianchi thought about that for a bit before nodding. ‘Va be’,’ he said, and signalled to Giorgio to write it down, ‘Scrive, Giorgio,’ which he did in a big leather-bound family album. ‘And the organo, padre?’

  ‘One pound ten shilling.’

  ‘Misericordial Troppo, padre.’

  ‘Not too much,’ Fr Duddleswell insisted, waving the palm of his right hand from side to side.

  ‘A li’l bit troppo,’ pleaded Signor Bianchi.

  ‘Va bene,’ conceded Fr Duddleswell, ‘one pound only.’

  I had never witnessed simony at such close quarters before. I confess I was too fascinated by the whole mercenary process to be as scandalized as I should have been.

  ‘Flowers for the sanctuario, padre, e confetti?’

  ‘Confetti?’ exclaimed Fr Duddleswell in a shocked tone. ‘Dio mio! Impossibillissimo! Flowers, sì, confetti, non.’

  ‘Padre, padre,’ said Signor Bianchi in a perfect whimper, his joined hands stretched out before him in imprecation.

  Fr Duddleswell sipped his wine, pouted and said:

  ‘Un po’ di confetti.’

  ‘Grazie, padre.’

  ‘Prego,’ said Fr Duddleswell, and, holding his left finger and thumb together to make a circle, repeated, ‘Un po, only a lettle beet.’

  Signor Bianchi turned to Giorgio, ‘Scrive a li’l beet,’ and then to Fr Duddleswell, ‘’Ow mucha?’

  ‘Two shilling.’

  ‘Scrive, Giorgio, two sheeling.’

  So the bargaining went on to the accompaniment of gestures so magnificent I could follow most of what was said without difficulty. Each time agreement was reached, the glasses were clinked in salute and a toast drunk.

  Then came the momentous question of the cope Fr Duddleswell was to wear at the wedding.

  Domenico said, ‘The golda cop, padre, we musta haf the golda cop. That is what says our adorata mamma.’

  Fr Duddleswell slowly shook his head discouragingly.

  There was alarm in Signor Bianchi’s eyes. ‘For Gelsomina, padre. For our carissima Gelsomina.’

  Fr Duddleswell maintained his stubborn stance.

  ‘’Ow mucha, padre?’ Our host’s shoulders slanted forward as if, should the need arise, he would part with all he possessed for such a favour.

  ‘Too much, Signor Bianchi.’

  ‘Plen’y mucha money?’

  ‘Sì, signor.’

  ‘Fiva pounds? I expect with anxiousness your responso.’

  ‘Va bene,’ said Fr Duddleswell grudgingly.

  ‘Three pounds, will that be enough?’ asked Peppino hopefully, and, for no reason I could fathom, aroused again the silent wrath of the fraternity.

  ‘Three pounds?’ mused Fr Duddleswell. ‘Va bene.’

  ‘Scrive, scrive, Giorgio, t’ree poun’s for the golda cop.’ Signor Bianchi was triumphant. ‘All feeneeshed.’

  And all the brothers cried out, ‘Evviva.’

  Giorgio, on his own behalf, said, ‘Padre, you pay the seesters in the convento to pray for our Gelsomina?’

  ‘Certamente,’ replied Fr Duddleswell.

  ‘We give our Gelsomina,’ Giorgio said, ‘lots of indulgénces, t’ousands of days of indulgénces.’

  He made it sound as if the Church’s system of indulgences was a protection racket invented by the Mafia.

  Another clap of the hands from our host and his wife, right on cue, brought in biscuits and sugared almonds and a huge decorated flask of chianti.

  For the next half an hour, it was all ‘grazie’ and ‘prego’, as they filled my glass whenever, like a fool, I drained it.

  I remember Signor Bianchi saying in exultant mood, ‘Ah, Padre Duddleswell, the matrimonio, is it not the only vendetta blessèd by the Church?’

  ‘The only vendetta benedetta,’ said Fr Duddleswell with an uncustomary giggle.

  ‘Sì,’ said Giorgio, ‘when I marry my Teresa, my mamma she say to me, “Giorgio, why you wanna marry tha’ signorina? If you be married, you will not love any more tha’ lady”.’

  The mamma smiled like the Mona Lisa, but tradition forced her to hold her peace.

  ‘Women,’ Giorgio went on, ‘don’t be thinking of nothing but the bambini.’

  ‘The matrimonio,’ Letterío said, ‘is like what is called in Sicilia, “una tassa sull’ignoranza”,’ and, translating for my benefit, ‘“a taxes on the stupidità”. But, Padre Neil,’ he said, looking at me fixedly, ‘I advertise you not to never pay in your ’ole life this taxes.’

  At this everybody laughed and I said a trifle unsoberly: ‘I no pay no taxes.’

  ‘It is mucha better,’ Domenico said, ‘to be free as the salt.’

  ‘Grazie, cara,’ Signor Bianchi said pointedly to his wife, motioning her to leave. ‘You too mucha busy to remine.’

  I inferred from this the talk might become too indelicate for women’s ears.

  ‘I wanna you,’ said Signor Bianchi confidentially to Fr Duddleswell after his wife had departed, ‘I wanna you to be telling Signor Christini my Gelsomina is very gooda girl for ’is boy.’

  Fr Duddleswell nodded agreement.

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p; Signor Bianchi went on: ‘My Gelsomina is pura as the Madonna but not pregnanted in the slightest, capisc’?’

  ‘Capisco. I understand,’ said Fr Duddleswell.

  ‘Scrive, padre,’ insisted the proud father, ‘scrive,’ so that Fr Duddleswell had to take out his diary and write in big letters: ‘Gelsomina is not pregnanted.’

  ‘In the slightest,’ said Signor Bianchi, concluding his dictation, and he made Fr Duddleswell write that down too.

  ‘But after the matrimonio,’ said Fr Duddleswell with a wink.

  ‘Then,’ Signor Bianchi said, ‘plen’y pregnanted.’ This seemed to jog his memory for he added: ‘The benediction at the matrimonio.’

  ‘Yes?’ asked Fr Duddleswell.

  ‘In Italiano, yes? If to don’t bless in Italian, per’aps no bambini.’

  ‘To make sure, the benedizione will be in Italiano.’

  Signor Bianchi sighed with the pleasures of grandpaternity to come.

  ‘Now to see the bride,’ he said.

  He clapped his hands and this time his wife led in Gelsomina. The shy young woman was about nineteen, with long black hair and dark lashes. Blinking to clear my vision of a pink haze, I saw she was pretty, though she moved in a slightly lame fashion and had a definite cast in her left eye.

  ‘Padre Duddleswell,’ urged our host, ‘you tella Signor Christini our Gelsomina is bella also pura. She worth all the mucha money I you pay for the matrimonio. I no wanna ’im to robba me of my Gelsomina for nuttin’. Capisc’?’

  ‘Sì,’ Fr Duddleswell assured him, ‘and I tella that to Signor Christini.’

  ‘Now, padre, un fervorino for Gelsomina.’

  I gathered Fr Duddleswell was expected to preach a little sermon to the future bride.

  ‘Gelsomina,’ said Fr Duddleswell, sipping his chianti, ‘Gelsomina …’

  ‘Un fervorino, per piacere,’ repeated our host.

  ‘Gelsomina,’ said Fr Duddleswell, ‘do not quarrel the first time.’

  Everybody applauded and Fr Duddleswell expanded his thought thus: ‘Do not quarrel the first time with your marito, your husband. If you do, it will never end. If you do not, it will never begin.’

  Such priestly wisdom brought a gasp of appreciation from all the male Sicilians present and a plum-like blush to the face of the bride.

  Signor Bianchi drove home the point. ‘Gelsomina, Padre Duddleswell is to you telling to don’t be quarrelling.’

  Fr Duddleswell blessed Gelsomina and she left, limping a little, with her mother.

  Our business at the Bianchis was nearing its end. It was agreed that Giorgio would represent the family and come to the presbytery at eight o’clock to seal the contract with the representative of the Christinis. With many exchanges of addio, arriverderci and ‘’appy days’, we staggered to the door.

  When we made the fresh, scented summer air, I began to sober up.

  ‘Lovely people,’ enthused Fr Duddleswell, even their religion does not seem to do them any harm. They liked you, Father Neil.’ And ignoring the passers-by, he proceeded to sing:

  For you might have been a Roosian

  A French or Turk or Proosian

  Or perhaps Sicili-an.

  But in spite of all temptations

  To belong to other nations

  You remain an Englishman

  You remain an Englishman.

  There were many questions I wanted to ask him. ‘What about those horns on the wall?’ I said for a start.

  ‘Their religion does not much interfere with the superstitions either, I’m afraid, Father Neil. They are first and foremost Siciliani, are you with me? Those horns are on the wall to ward off the Evil Eye.’ Seeing I had only the vaguest notion of the Evil Eye, he explained. ‘’Tis a subtle, malign influence which they break up by hanging horns on their walls or wearing them on their persons. Made of coral or mother of pearl.’

  ‘Where is this evil influence supposed to come from?’

  ‘Ah, Father Neil, many Italians think that Pius IX himself, their beloved Pio Nono, had the Evil Eye.’

  ‘Really!’ I exclaimed in horror.

  ‘Yes, indeed, even some cardinals, when they had an audience with His Holiness, used to make horns at him with their fingers under their robes.’

  ‘That’s true?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘True as true. I would not joke on so serious a matter. And do you know how the Sicilians account for Britain’s victory over the Nazis in the war? ’Twas due, they say, to Winston Churchill foiling Hitler’s Evil Eye with his Victory sign.’

  It took me some time to recover from the insult to the Holy Father. When I did, I said, ‘I didn’t like that bargaining over holy things.’

  ‘Father Neil,’ tut-tutted Fr Duddleswell, ‘what a puritan y’are.’

  I accepted the rebuke as meekly as a Christian should.

  ‘Father Neil, if only you had troubled to add up all the “charges”, you would realize they come to £10 exactly, which is the standard fee for all weddings of this sort.’

  ‘But the indignity of it.’

  ‘Indignity, my eye!’ he said, still doubtless the worse for drink. ‘’Twas to save the old man’s dignity I dealt with him in the way I did, the traditional Sicilian way, you follow? He needed to assure the Christinis that he paid a notable price for the wedding and his own family that he struck a good bargain. I saved his lovely old Sicilian face on both scores.’

  ‘And the gold cope?’ I spoke more diffidently this time.

  ‘I wear it at all weddings without exception.’

  ‘Do they know that?’

  ‘Of course they know it. They are not fools.’

  ‘I’m not sure anyway that I approve of arranged weddings, Father. It might be all right for Asians and Sicilians on their medieval island, but here, in the middle of the twentieth century …’ I broke off in a chianti-induced scorn.

  ‘I will talk to you about that later,’ he sighed, as if I’d never learn. ‘For the present, let us conclude the pact with the Christinis, shall we?’

  The Christinis lived in a semi-detached house on Eastside.

  ‘We were expecting you intensely,’ said the petite Signora Christini at the door.

  Here we go again, I thought.

  Signor Christini, though in his sixties, had a full head of black hair and an enormous brush for a moustache. He looked like a benign bandit. After seeing me, he promoted Fr Duddleswell to Monsignore as a mark of distinction.

  The Signor had only two sons present—Mario, the groom, was kept out of sight—one was Enrico, the other Umberto.

  Once more, a litre of marsala was produced and I regretted I had drunk so much on our first port of call.

  Fr Duddleswell extolled the beauty and innocence of Gelsomina in the kind of terms usually reserved for the Blessed Virgin in her litany.

  ‘Gelsomina is as pura as a pine tree,’ he almost sang, ‘innocente like the spring, and the eyes … the eyes are the eyes of Dante’s Beatrice.’

  ‘And she walks with dignità?’ inquired the eldest son, Enrico.

  ‘She walkas,’ responded Fr Duddleswell, with a touch of sibilance, ‘soft-foot like the stars in the skies of night.’

  ‘She no walka under them stars with other men, Monsignore?’

  ‘Fedele sempre, always faithful she ’as been and willa be,’ said Fr Duddleswell, becoming more and more ample in tone and gestures, ‘fedele to Mario, ’er ’usband.’

  ‘Va be’,’ said Signor Christini, much relieved. ‘Scrive, padre, “sempre fedele.”’

  Fr Duddleswell wrote this in Enrico’s big ledger and it reminded him to take out his diary and read: ‘Gelsomina is not pregnanted in the slightest.’

  Signor Christini was fully satisfied, especially when Fr Duddleswell said: ‘He paid plen’y much money.’

  In came Signora Christini with biscuits, sugared almonds and chianti, and, in time, we were allowed to see Mario, a nice, quiet, ordinary-looking lad a few years my junior.
r />   To him, Fr Duddleswell was made to repeat his injunction, to equal acclaim, about not quarrelling.

  When we left, Enrico promised to be at the presbytery at eight o’clock. For my part, I couldn’t get home soon enough to rest my fiercely pumping head on a pillow.

  That evening, Giorgio Bianchi and Enrico Christini arrived at the presbytery together. Now almost recovered, I was awaiting them in Fr Duddleswell’s study.

  ‘Come in, George, you too, Henry,’ he said.

  I was pleased that this time the Sicilians shook my hand and didn’t lick it all over.

  Giorgio said: ‘It really was frightfully good of you, Fr Duddleswell, to help us out again as you did this morning. Splendid show.’

  Instead of being knocked sideways by the extraordinary change in Giorgio’s accent, Fr Duddleswell answered calmly, ‘Not at all, George, pleased to be of help.’

  ‘I don’t know how you manage it, Father,’ put in Enrico in the same cultured tones, ‘but be sure your efforts on our behalf are highly appreciated by the entire family.’

  Once again, Fr Duddleswell shook off the praises being showered on him. ‘I have made out two identical documents in Italian, if you would both sign and countersign them, I’m sure your fathers’ minds will be put at rest.’

  After the signings, Fr Duddleswell added his own name, stamped the parish seal on the papers, shook hands with the young men—they each gave him £10—and walked them to the door. I remained behind scratching my head.

  When Fr Duddleswell returned, I thought it about time I stood up to him. ‘So it was another game, was it?’

  ‘Game. Not at all. Serious business.’

  ‘But what about that nonsense in their homes, all of them talking like Italian organ-grinders.’

  ‘Respect makes them adopt the language of their fathers. Remember, with Sicilians the family is the only country they recognize and they are usually very loving families.’

  ‘The Bianchi boys didn’t look too lovingly on Peppone.’

  ‘That,’ said Fr Duddleswell, ‘was because Peppone was getting careless. His bad English was not nearly as good as his brothers. They feared their father might become suspicious.’

  ‘And all that writing down of the bargains, that too …’

  ‘That too was for their father’s sake. You see, neither Signor Bianchi nor Signor Christini can read or write. They are both what Italians call “analfabeti”.’