Garden of Salt and Stone

by A. L. Burgess Jr.

  “We’re not going that fast,” Peter replied. “See?” He let go of the steering wheel and held his hands in the air. The car drifted in the lane and ran onto the dirt shoulder with a frightening thud.

  Renée screamed as the car neared the outer edge of the roadway and an irrigation ditch with a steep embankment beyond.

  Peter seized the wheel and anxiously returned the vehicle back onto the paved surface.

  “Yeah—see?” Renée scoffed, narrowing her blue eyes at her husband. “You’ve always been a bad driver. I don’t know why I ever let you talk me into—look out!”

  Emerging from a blind corner, the convertible ran a stop sign and continued headlong into an intersection. A single car, slowly making the turn onto the country road, blocked most of the thoroughfare and forced the racing convertible into the oncoming lane of traffic. Peter turned the steering wheel hard, causing the vehicle to lose traction and spin uncontrollably, narrowly avoiding a collision. The convertible screeched to a halt, coming to rest in its original lane of travel, but pointing in the opposite direction.

  The driver of the turning vehicle slowed down to gesture and scream out what was undoubtedly an unkind observation of Peter’s lack of driving prowess. Satisfied with his retort, the driver rolled up his window and continued past the unmoving convertible.

  “You almost killed us!” Renée shrieked. “We won’t be able to see much of Italy if we’re dead!”

  Peter knew all too well that his wife was correct, but he tried to fend off her comments with a semi-assertive, “Give it a rest.”

  Renée glanced back to the intersection and eyed the connecting road that led to a small town about half-a-mile off the main highway. “Let’s go over there for a while and give your poor driving a break.”

  Peter quietly accepted his fault. “Maybe we can find something to eat?”

  “Whatever, as long as I don’t have to sit in this car with you anymore.”

  Peter chose not to respond. In all their years of marriage, he often found himself on the losing side of arguments. Whether this instance classified as righteous ground was not the issue; Peter did not have the interest, nor the stamina to continue their years-long battle. Making his point, as it were, had lost its luster. He sighed and turned the car around for the short drive into the small town.

  San Cielo was a quaint tourist trap nestled in the foothills along the lower Alps region of Italy. Train tracks divided the town into two distinct portions: a much smaller section had the old-world charm of several centuries’ worth of buildings interwoven by haphazard and narrow cobblestone streets, while the other gave off a more modern, industrial type of feel with its structured blocks and paved roads reminiscent of the twentieth century. Adventurous inhabitants had long ago appropriated the forested landscape around San Cielo, dotting it with homes and small farms.

  Closest to the main highway were three mid-century merchant homes renovated into commercial shops. They had big windows that opened onto the feeder street heading into downtown San Cielo. Two of the shops were empty, but the rightmost of the three was overflowing with goods. Stacks of old magazines and vinyl records sat prominently on the sidewalk near the concrete stairs leading up to the entrance of the building.

  “Park right here,” Renée said, pointing to an empty parking space in front of the establishment and trying to contain her excitement. “We’ll start with this one.”

  “It’s a junk shop,” Peter said. “Don’t you want to start over there—where’s it’s nicer?” He motioned to the more populated downtown area.

  “These smaller dealers always have better stuff,” Renée answered, commandeering the rearview mirror so she could straighten her sunhat and reapply lipstick. “Besides, we’ll get over there soon enough.”

  Peter parked the car and realigned the mirror. “Look, I’d like to be in France before nightfall. We can’t be messing around here all day.”

  “Relax, I’ll be quick and you can stuff your face,” Renée said, staring back at Peter with a wry smile. “Deal?”

  Peter nodded.

  Renée giggled with glee and gathered her large purse. She leapt out of the car and made a beeline for the front door of the antiques store, her white and yellow sundress billowing in the slight breeze.

  “Remember, we’re not staying forever,” Peter called after his wife.

  In a show of dismissal, Renée merely waved her free hand in the air and continued through the doorway, out of sight.

  Peter scowled. Although he was hungry, he did not like the idea of stopping to shop, but as usual, he decided to bite his tongue. The small town was at least pleasant and perhaps he could find something that interested him enough to make it worth his while. He unbuckled his seatbelt and exited the vehicle.

  Peter wore an old, white collared golf shirt and a cheap pair of brown pants. His sneakers were new, but sensibly off-brand. He reached into the open convertible, grabbed his small gray daypack from the rear seat, and slung it over his shoulders.

  Peter’s stomach growled. He scanned the area looking for a restaurant or something to sate his hunger, but the upper end of San Cielo catered to small shops and was devoid of eateries or street vendors. He found himself with a choice to make. He could wander off and enjoy a few hours alone, marveling in the town’s history, or he could follow his wife into the junk shop and wait for her to accompany him to a restaurant. Peter’s appetite diminished at the thought. However much he wanted to delight in the bliss of solitude, tempering his wife’s spending habits, especially on an already over-budget trip, was a more pressing need. Reluctantly, Peter resigned himself to his fate and climbed the steps into the store.

  Inside the door, an old greeting foyer found a purpose as the shop’s main counter area and exhibit location for the smaller, more valuable items. A hodgepodge of different-sized display cases lined the walls of the room, and sunlight streaming through the plate glass window illuminated the various knickknacks contained therein. A wide doorway at the back of the vestibule granted access to a larger, poorly lit portion of the antique store where a crushing amount of merchandise was stacked and shoved so tightly into every inch of available floor space that navigation through the disorder was nearly impossible.

  Peter was aghast at the ill-managed mess. “Look at this place.”

  “Yeah, isn’t it great?” Renée quipped, eyeing the sparkling merchandise in the display cases.

  Peter rolled his eyes.

  “Welcome, welcome!” a soothing, female voice called out from the back room. “Welcome to San Cielo,” said the grandmotherly woman, gingerly making her way through the aisles of junk.

  She was a large lady, tall and big-boned. The woman looked to be in her sixties and wore a faded flower-print dress rubbed practically see-through near the pockets. A soiled, full-length apron around her waist did its job of distracting the casual observer from the woman’s threadbare attire, while scuffed white loafers, with neatly tied laces, adorned her feet. Peter thought she was wearing her own stock of mid-century clothing, but after a long look, he concluded the outfit was probably her regular, daily garb. She seemed friendly enough. Her short, graying, curly hair and pleasant smile was enough to disarm the surliest of patrons. Peter respectfully acknowledged the purveyor with a nod.

  “Please call me Edda,” the woman said. “You like beautiful jewelry, no?” Edda surmised from Renée’s interest in the display cases at the front of the store. She walked to the opposite side of the case and fumbled the latches open.

  “Oh yes,” Renée responded, throwing a sardonic smile back to her husband. “I’m particularly interested in that piece there,” she said, pointing through the glass at a rather odd-looking, tarnished bracelet.

  “Unbelievable,” Peter muttered, shaking his head disapprovingly at the nuances and rituals required in prelude to a sound fleecing.

  Renée relished in her husband’s misgivings. “I’m Renée,” she said to Edda, extending her hand to shake. “That’s my husband,
” she added, gesturing indifferently to Peter.

  Peter nodded at the slight, but unwilling to concede his demotion to a mere bystander, replied, “I’m Peter.”

  “Peter, very nice to meet you,” Edda responded warmly, slowly migrating back to her primary mark. She retrieved the desired bracelet from an array of clunky jewelry and presented it to Renée. In an attempt to show her patrons the worldliness of her store, Edda brought out a jeweler’s glass and inspected the piece.

  Peter scoffed and approached the case to see what exactly piqued his wife’s curiosity enough to warrant wasting time in an establishment such as this.

  The bracelet appeared to be made of silver and was black from years of tarnish. It was wide, very wide for a women’s bracelet. Along its face were three raised fleurs-de-lis with coarsely-set semi-precious stones in between.

  Renée slipped the heavy bracelet onto her skinny wrist. “I like it,” she said, waving her arm to show Peter. “It looks very old,” she said as if trying to conjure the spirit of an ancient pharaoh.

  “Yes, quite old,” Edda assured. “San Cielo was on a crusader route during ancient times,” she added in a studious tone. “It could be that old, no?”

  Peter took hold of his wife’s arm and studied the bracelet.

  “Let go,” Renée huffed. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  Peter let his wife’s arm drop. “It’s not that old. Turn of the century—probably Victorian reproduction. It’s real silver though.”

  “Oh,” Edda sheepishly said. “You must be a student of history?”

  “Professor, actually.”

  “Actually,” Renée interrupted, “he teaches at a junior college, and I always ask forgiveness for his rude behavior—especially when he butts into things that don’t concern him,” she said, glaring at her husband.

  Peter knew when he had said too much. He decided to spare the proprietor the ugliness that would surely ensue if he stayed his present course. “Can I look around?” he asked Edda.

  “Please, please,” Edda replied, gesturing to the back of the store. “Everything is for sale, no?”

  Peter stepped quietly into the darkened back room. Behind him, he could hear the store owner and his wife discussing an appropriate price for the gaudy piece of jewelry. He tuned them out and reached for a light switch near the archway. Peter turned the small knob several times back and forth, but to no avail. He studied the high ceiling and the incandescent bulbs hanging by strands of electrical cord. Peter could clearly see bare spots in the exposed wiring where the insulation had rotted away long ago. The lights were so old he thought it likely they were no longer functioning. It was probably for the best.

  The long, rectangular room was not much to look at. A small window placed high along the back wall was the only source of illumination save the ambient light spilling in from the front of the building. The merchandise crowded the wood floor and continued in haphazard piles for the entire length and breadth of the space.

  Peter waded into the mass of goods and took note of the household furnishings placed against the walls of the room. None of the furniture was very old and most required repair of some sort to be of use. A desk sat nearby, covered in old newspapers, while another was home to several discolored brass lamps. A dresser had a rather ornate and interesting looking mirror on it, but the glass was broken and the frame cracked. Along the back wall were various dresses hung on a rack. The clothes were so worn and the patterns so stale they reminded Peter of the owner’s personal wardrobe—no coincidence really. The rest of the store contained the usual odds and ends of people’s lives. No real finds. He lifted a price tag from one of the more interesting looking desks—no real bargains either.

  In one corner, close to the back of the room, an ornate hand railing peeked out above a few boxes of magazines. Peter would not have given it a second thought, but the railing appeared to be standing on its own and not resting against anything. His curiosity got the best of him and he ambled his way through the merchandise to examine the oddity.

  Indeed, the old railing was attached to a staircase that led down to a basement. A faint light from the cellar illuminated the rickety staircase, and a musty smell wafted up to greet Peter. A rope that had barred access to the stairway now hung limp from the nearby newel post. He bent down to get a good view of the basement, but the angle was wrong. Peter could hear the lively conversation coming from the front room and, interested in the architecture of the old building, did not see any harm in having a quick look.

  The splintery treads of the staircase creaked as Peter gingerly descended the steep flight. Once he got below the level of the floor, he could only see small portions of the basement in the dim light. It was a crude, unfinished cellar. Stone walls, cobwebs and several areas of rotten wood in the subfloor of the main room above gave the basement a forbidding air. The area was obviously being used as a storeroom. Cardboard boxes and wooden crates were stacked haphazardly along with broken or unsalable items. His curiosity satisfied, Peter turned to trudge back up to the main floor when a sharp noise from the wall of the basement caught his attention. He squinted through the shadows and saw several blocks of the foundation’s supporting wall lying on the dirt floor of the cellar.

  For the most part, Peter did not care about the establishment’s crumbling underpinnings, but as he studied the exact source of the noise, he noted the workmanship and quality of the stone was reminiscent of architecture much older than the structure it supported above. The falling blocks left a hollow within the wall and even if the old building were about to collapse, Peter could no longer contain his interest. He descended the stairs and approached the broken wall.

  The cellar proper was only half as big as the floor above. The beams and supporting structures of the main living area receding toward the front of the store where the ground level rose to nearly the same height in that area. It appeared that a newer building with a bigger footprint had been erected over the smaller existing basement many years ago.

  Peter neared the broken wall and examined the edges of the hole. He tested the ancient lime mortar by breaking it between his fingers. The hollow itself was several feet deep, and he had a difficult time seeing the bottom of it in the dim light. As he adjusted his glasses for a better view, a lens flare temporarily shone on something trapped within the confines of the wall. He reached down into the hole and pulled out an old, leather-bound manuscript.

  The book was about the size of a modern hardback, with a crude, leather cover that contained no discerning title or marks of any kind. Peter hefted the manuscript and thumbed through its pages. He was immediately intrigued. The book contained handwritten Latin text on a very early form of parchment. The paper was of a thick and heavy, hand-beaten stock. There were about fifty pages in all with evenly-spaced lettering written on every page. The lines of text were perfectly spaced from page to page as well as letter to letter from top to bottom. It was a magnificent piece of work produced by what must have been a well-trained scribe.

  The sound of rustling cloth and shifting footsteps startled Peter. He turned to find the source of the noise and struggled to see in the tenebrous basement. The area nearest the stairway was sufficiently illuminated to see the floor, but further away, the cellar was obscured by darkness. Peter concentrated his search in the direction of the front of the building. He tried to discern the odd shapes of storage items from the more regular form of the building’s architecture and then gasped at the sight of two eyes peering back at him.

  Standing in the dark on the far side of the basement was the silhouette of an individual. At first, Peter thought it was a mannequin, but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a middle-aged man. The short-statured individual stood quietly behind a broken display counter. He wore a dusty brown overcoat with a dark gray undershirt that was barely visible at the collar and sported a full head of unruly graying hair that gave him the look of a beleaguered mad scientist. He nodded curtly, acknowledging Peter’s less-than-forthrig
ht entry into the cellar.

  Embarrassed at being caught rummaging in the walls of the basement, Peter returned a guilty smile and said, “Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was down here.” He started to leave and then remembered the manuscript. Peter presented it in the dim light and set it down on the derelict display case in front of the man. “Here, this is yours,” he said, pointing to the wall. “I found it over there.”

  Peter turned to leave, but the man motioned for him to come closer. His first instinct was to withdraw, to go back to the more comfortable surroundings of his berating wife and her narcissistic habits, but some primal curiosity in the book propelled him forward to stand across from the man.

  “I’m sorry,” Peter started, shaking his head, “I don’t speak much Italian so I’m not—”

  The man held up a hand and laid it on the leather-bound manuscript that rested on the glass case between them. He gestured for Peter to pick up the book.

  Peter accommodated the request. He flipped the manuscript over in his hands several times and thumbed through a few pages, trying to make a good show of it for his audience. “It’s well put together, probably late medieval period.” A few of Peter’s academic interests were old languages and dead cultures. He studied the ink of the Latin text and made a serious attempt to read it. After a few lines, he stopped. “It doesn’t make sense; it could be some kind of practice book or something.”

  The man nodded as if he understood the issue at hand.

  Peter flipped the manuscript over and studied its binding and page attachment. “It could be an early puzzle book, I guess.”

  The man shrugged.

  “The style is definitely consistent with the 12th or early 13th centuries.” Peter began to set the book back down on the table, but the man stopped him and motioned for Peter to take it. “What?” he said. “You want me to buy it?” As had been his experience, anything was for sale in these junk shops, even something recently found. He shook his head. “I can’t afford this. Even as a simple curiosity, you can get much more from a book dealer.”