31
Staying Behind
“Mama,” Luciana pleaded, “he is too ill. He cannot come to the burial. And you are exhausted from so many nights at the bedside of Grandmother. The two of you should stay here.”
The family sat around the den planning the next twenty-four hours. Adelaide sighed.
“So Georgie, again you find a way to bring me stress. Why does it seem impossible that you cannot be there for us when you’re needed?”
“Mama,” Luciana broke in, “don’t say such a thing. He cannot help how sick he is.”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Pier Giorgio said from the couch where he lay. Sweat dripped down his forehead but he shivered beneath a sea of blankets. “You can leave me and go, I’ll be alright.”
“No,” Luciana said from across the room. “You seem to be getting worse, not better. Someone must stay here with you. We should phone for Dr. Alvazzi.”
“That man has been here long enough in the last days because of Grandmother Ametis,” Alfredo said sipping on his brandy. “Give him a rest. If Georgie is not better by next week he can come back. Take another aspirin, son.”
“You’re giving in,” Adelaide said to Pier Giorgio. “You’re incapable of making an effort on your own. If you want to get better, you must make the effort.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Italo, the family driver, did call for a doctor later in the day. Pier Giorgio confessed that his body hurt so much it was difficult for him to sleep. Dr. Alvazzi gave him several sleeping pills that would help him rest through the night and promised to check back in on him the next day. He had not seen a fever quite like this and was worried for the boy. He asked that someone in the family check on him throughout the night.
Alfredo and Adelaide remained silent.
“I had a difficult trip getting here,” Luciana confessed. “I’d like to get some sleep before the long day tomorrow.”
Just then, Mario Gambetta, a cousin staying in the house from out of town, entered the room. “I’ll check in on Pier Giorgio. It’s no bother.”
Throughout the night, Mario walked down the hall to check on his cousin. Only once was he awake, staring at the ceiling. “Are you okay, Georgie?”
No reply came.
“Georgie, can I get you something?”
His head lifted in the moonlight cascading through the window. “Ah, dear cousin, how sweet you are to check on me. If you could just hand me my rosary, I’d be very grateful.”
Mario searched the desk across the room for the Rosary.
“No, it’s here, on the bedside.”
He walked across the room and grabbed the black beads not a foot from Pier Giorgio. As he handed them over, he noted the odd movements of Pier Giorgio’s arm and hand as he went to accept the Rosary. His moves were stilted, as if he were a wooden doll.
“Thank you, Mario. You’re too kind. Now return to your rest. You’re on holiday right now and should be sleeping. I’ll be fine. Don’t bother checking on me again.”
In the morning, the cortege of cars arrived to take Grandmother Ametis to Pollone. The house hummed with activity as the family and servants prepared themselves for the day ahead. Adelaide went into Pier Giorgio’s room, finding him still in bed despite the late hour. His appearance startled her—skin stretched tightly across his bones and as white as the sheets, eyes sunken within his skull, strands of hair fallen onto his pillow, and a foul smell hanging in the room.
“My dear child, do not be so ill. I’m afraid.”
“I’m alright, Mama. But I believe Luciana is right; I’m too weak to go today. Oh, please will you and Grandmother forgive me. I have never felt such guilt in my life.”
Adelaide looked him over, stricken with worry. She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a voice from the hallway. One of the servants needed a question answered about the food for the wake.
“I’ll be right there,” she hollered. Turning back to Pier Giorgio, she said, “I’ll stay here with you. Someone must stay here with you.”
“No, Mama, you must go. Mariscia is not attending the funeral; she’ll stay here with me.”
“I’ll hear nothing of it. I’m staying with my son.”
After she left, Luciana poked her head through the door.
“We’re leaving for the funeral. I’ll see you when we return, alright?”
“Please double your prayers on account of my absence.”
Everything within Pier Giorgio wanted to hug her, but he withheld from requesting that she walk across the room to see him. Instead, he remained silent. She left from her perch in the doorway and fell from sight.
Pier Giorgio dove into a sea of dreams, awaking for several minutes at a time but struggling to grasp consciousness between his moments of slumber. His mind’s grip on reality began to loosen, letting go of simple matters—where he was, what his name was, why he was lying in bed—then, as if a switch was flipped, it would all return to him.
Mariscia came in an hour later to check on him, taking his temperature and dabbing his head with a damp cloth.
“When was the last time you ate?”
Pier Giorgio coughed.
“Not long ago, perhaps late last night.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I wouldn’t dare it,” he said with a smile. “Where is Mama?”
“She is in your grandmother’s room.”
“No, you must get her out of there. Her sadness will overwhelm her. Tell her to come see me; perhaps I can cheer her up. This must be the reason the Lord kept us both from the funeral, so I can keep her mind occupied and cheerful.”
Mariscia fetched her.
“Poor Mama,” Pier Giorgio said as she entered the room. “Such a difficult time you’ve had, and here I am bringing you more worry. What a horrible son you have, dear Mama.”
“I’m fine; just a little rest is all I need.”
She sat at the chair before the desk.
“Mama, have you painted much lately?”
“No, very little, even before Grandmother Ametis fell ill.”
“Why?”
“I’ve not felt the spring of inspiration, I suppose.”
“Mama, you must start to paint again. I can see this is when you are at your happiest. What can I do to give you inspiration? Can I tell you that I love you and you’re the best mother in the world?”
She smiled. “Yes, Georgie, I am filled with inspiration now.”
And so they sat together, mother and son, speaking of everyday matters for over an hour. It was the longest the two of them had spoken in years. Pier Giorgio told her all about his most recent trips into the mountains, and bemoaned his struggles with the studying he still had left, hoping that he could get an extension from his teachers on account of his poor health. She reminisced on memories of her late mother, touching on parts of her childhood that Pier Giorgio had never been privy to, and mused about the future and what awaited her and Alfredo.
“I must lie down,” she finally said when their conversation found a pause.
She moved toward the bed and sat on the edge, leaning her head down toward the pillow.
“No!”
She shot back up, alarmed at the volume and energy in his voice which had been absent in the last days.
“You mustn’t get so close to me. You might catch this horrible fever.”
“Mothers do not catch sicknesses from their children; they are immune.”
“Even still, Mama.”
She stood back up. “I’m phoning Dr. Alvazzi again.”
An hour later, the doctor joined them in the room. He talked to Pier Giorgio about the latest climb into the mountains he’d taken with his son. Pier Giorgio listened with a smile, offering to take them up even further into the clouds as soon as he had recovered.
“If you climb with me, you will look down upon heaven,” he claimed.
The doctor laughed. “That may be. Now, let’s examine you to see if we can get you well.”
&
nbsp; Dr. Alvazzi asked him a series of short questions, noting the answers on a notepad. Adelaide listened intently from the other side of the bed. She asked, “What does that mean?” with each answer Pier Giorgio gave, but Dr. Alvazzi fiddled with his mustache and ignored her.
He stopped with his questions and examined Pier Giorgio, peering into his ears, eyes, and mouth. He then pulled the sheet down and began to squeeze his legs. Pier Giorgio winced and Dr. Alvazzi noticed his pain.
“Get up,” he commanded of the young boy. Pier Giorgio remained still. His eyes began to water. “Get up, son.”
“Georgie,” his mother said, baffled by her son’s resistance to such a simple command, “stand up.”
“I can’t, Mama. I’m sorry, I cannot move.”
And he cried.
32
Waiting out the Storm
Luciana sat beside her father at the Pollone cemetery, listening to the priest bless the body of her grandmother. She felt guilty as her mind wandered back to trivial matters and tried to refocus on the ceremony. She thought of the request of her brother to pray twice as much on account of his absence, but soon her mind floated away again, lost in the haze of the Latin prayers flowing from the priest’s mouth.
She peered about the cemetery at the tombstones dotting the land and the forest surrounding the grounds like a shell of foliage. Other than the priest, all she could hear was the chirping of birds across the way.
But the sight of a man in a dark suit walking briskly from the parking lot caught her attention. He walked without hesitation past the mourners toward her father.
“Probably an important political matter my father must know about,” Luciana thought to herself. She watched as the man pulled Alfredo aside, taking note of his shaken expression. Alfredo remained on the outskirts of the gathering until the ceremony ended.
Luciana walked to him at once.
“Papa, what is it? What’s happened?”
Dazed, he stared toward the ground.
“Papa?”
He snapped to attention.
“Luciana, we must return to Turin at once. It’s Pier Giorgio.”
Next, her father’s voice slowed and landed like a bomb when he uttered the word “poliomyelitis.” The world fell silent, only filled by the slight ringing in her ears caused by the shock of what she had heard.
As the world returned, she screamed in horror and nearly fell to the ground, caught only by the arms of her father. Others passed by unfazed, thinking her sorrow stemmed from the death of her grandmother.
They walked to the car and drove straight back to Turin. Specialists and nurses had descended upon the house, blitzing it with their knowledge, medicine, and opinions. Alfredo had made several urgent calls around the country asking what could be done, demanding that his son be given everything necessary for his recovery.
Luciana ran upstairs and entered Pier Giorgio’s room just as several doctors were leaving to deliver Alfredo their report.
“Georgie, this can’t be so!”
She fell to the ground, kneeling by his bedside. He turned his head, slowly, toward her and smiled. He attempted to speak but faltered.
“Don’t, save your strength.”
Luciana rubbed his hair, brushing it back from his eyes.
“No,” Pier Giorgio managed to say, his voice scratchy and barely intelligible. “Don’t touch me.”
“Stop it. Stop, let me help you.”
She ran to the bathroom to rewet the cloth, dabbing it on his forehead. He shook his head and pointed toward the desk.
“What? What is it, Georgie?”
“My coat pocket … please …”
She grabbed the coat, checking in the pocket and finding a receipt from a pawn shop and several medical injections.
“What is this?”
“A dear friend of mine, Signora Costa, she …” he stopped to cough. “She sold her wedding ring to obtain money to feed her children. I was angered she did not come to me for this, but to fix things I went to the pawn shop to repurchase it. If she takes this receipt there, they will return it to her. Will you take it to the St. Vincent de Paul Center? They’ll get it to her, … and these injections, they are for a sick man I know, Converso, take them as well to the center. With your help, I’ll write a note explaining all this.”
Luciana, overcome further in her grief from such a routine yet profound request, began to sob even more as she walked to the desk to retrieve a pen and paper. She placed it in his hands and watched him struggle to find the strength to write just a few simple words. In the end, she helped him sign his name.
“So you will deliver this?” he asked.
“Yes … alright, I’ll do it, Georgie.”
She left to find her parents and discover what would come of her brother. They sat in the den with Mariscia and several doctors.
“Mama, Papa, what will happen? Will he be okay?”
“We may have some good news,” Alfredo said. “The stage of his polio is very far along, but my friend Arturo Ferrarin is set to fly to the Pasteur Institute in Paris to fetch anti-polio serum.”
“Is there not any here? Why must someone fly to Paris?”
One of the doctors spoke up. “This serum is very rare and expensive, and there’s no guarantee it will work at this point; his sickness is very far along. If we’d been here days ago we may have had more options.”
“How on earth did this happen?” Luciana asked. “How did he get it?”
“He spends so much time in the slums and helping the sick,” Mariscia offered. “It’s likely he could have contracted it from someone there, no?”
One doctor nodded, but another said, “It doesn’t matter how he got it, we must focus on the serum. That’s our only hope right now. All we can do now is wait.”
In the passing hours, news of Pier Giorgio’s sickness spread across Turin. Dozens of visitors came hoping to give their condolences and well-wishes, but Adelaide forbade all of them, even the Archbishop, from seeing her son. She feared contagion and perhaps the small possibility of a common germ being the final catalyst to his death.
“Why won’t all these people leave my son alone?” she cried. “Who are they all? How do they even know him?”
A group of young Catholic students led a prayer vigil outside the home, led by Father Carlo, the priest of the Catholic Men’s Club at the Polytechnic. It seemed all of Turin sat in waiting, hoping for a miracle. But hours later a violent storm swept across the city, pounding the streets with sheets of rain and ripping the sky apart with lightning. Those amongst the prayer vigil scurried away like insects as they searched for cover.
Inside, the phone rang. On the other end of the line, a somber voice informed Alfredo Frassati that the weather would prevent any planes from taking off this evening. He hung up the line and began to cry.
33
A Final Prayer
Pier Giorgio opened his eyes. The world was hazy. A darkness hung over his room, lit up only on occasion by the flashing of lightning outside. Rain pounded against the window pane. He searched the room, seeing his family sitting in chairs around the bed. They all smiled.
“We’re here with you,” Luciana said quietly. “Can we get you anything?”
He shook his head. Adelaide grabbed his hand.
“Georgie, you always told us to offer up our suffering to God to atone for our sins, but I’m not sure you have any sins; won’t you offer this suffering up to him on behalf of the three of us. Will you do this for us?”
“Of course,” came his tired reply.
“You must let him rest,” a nurse said from behind them. Her habit showed she was a religious sister as well, Sister Michelina. “I’ll come find you if anything changes.”
Luciana and Adelaide blew him a kiss and walked toward the door. Alfredo stood over his son, peering down at his emaciated body. He wiped at his eyes.
“I love you, son.”
“I love you too, Papa.”
He rubbed his head
and left as well. Now alone with the nurse, Pier Giorgio said, “Sister Michelina, won’t you hand me that crucifix off the wall?”
She walked toward the far wall and lifted the wooden cross off a nail, bringing it to him and placing it in his free hand; the other already held a rosary.
“Now, will you help me make the sign of the cross?”
She hesitated before slowly reaching for the hand holding his rosary. She lifted it to his head, then heart, and each shoulder as he uttered the names of the Blessed Trinity.
“Thank you, sister. Now please, could you leave me for a moment? I appreciate your care, but would like to pray in solitude.”
She nodded and left the room.
And so, as the dark hours of night faded by and a storm pounded the Frassati home, Pier Giorgio began a final prayer, gripping his rosary and crucifix:
Oh, dear Lord, won’t you please forgive me for my sins? Bless me and ensure that I will rest in you in these near hours. Watch over my family, ignite them with the fire of your love, which all their life they have not felt. You must take them down the path that leads to you. Take this suffering I have endured, and through it, bring them blessings of peace. Bless my friends, whom I love so much. Ensure that they grow in faith. Oh, Blessed Mother, how I love you so. Intercede for me at this, the hour of my death. Your loving and maternal light has protected me throughout my mortal days; now, let it lead me in these final steps to your Holy Son. Jesus, I commend to you my spirit. Your love is the cure of all. How I long to finally see you. Look not on the shadows of my soul, please, I beg of you.
Oh Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine. Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
34
Cortège through the Streets
Alfredo and Adelaide Frassati waited for the word to be given when they could make their way outside. They sat in the den with their only remaining child, Luciana. Silence consumed them, all stunned at the rapid decline of their beloved Pier Giorgio who rested outside in an oak casket, waiting to be carried to the Church of La Crocetta.
To the Heights: A Novel Based on the Life of Pier Giorgio Frassati Page 18