Simple Prayers Page 10

  “Everyone in Venezia, I'm sorry to say, is out to imitate my salone,” explained Eduardo del Ponte. “If Your Grace does not take the tiles, I will simply have to dump them into the Canal Grande. Besides, it will be amusing to imagine a tiny splash of del Ponte color at the outskirts of the lagoon.”

  All that Piero need do, he continued, was send someone to Venezia to pick them up — and it was this that Piero was contemplating as he circled the Chiesa di Maria del Mare on the following morning. He could not go himself; with Gianluca's obvious intentions toward Miriam, he would not allow himself to be away from Riva di Pignoli for more than three hours at any given time, and a trip to Venezia would take at least half a day, or even more. He could ask Giuseppe Navo or Gesmundo Barbon to get them on their rounds of the lagoon, but he feared that with their rough manners either one of the old fishermen might say something to spoil the entire affair. It had to be someone innocuous. Someone honest, and trustworthy, and easy to deal with. And the name he'd awakened with on his lips was Albertino.

  Piero had no question as to where he might find him: since the violation of the radicchio heads, Albertino had begun sleeping in the vegetable garden. With the exception of the time he contributed to the construction of the campanìl, he could always be found between the onions and the celery, beside the turnips and the broccoli, beneath the almonds and the pears. Now Piero found him upon a ladder, picking apples from one of the five trees the Tonolo brothers considered their orchard. To his consternation, however, Albertino was not alone. Stretched out against the trunk of the tree was Gianluca. And Piero felt certain, from the light in his gaze and the dreamy fluidity of his gestures, that the subject he was discussing was Miriam.

  “Buongiorno, good brothers,” said Piero, eager to interrupt the conversation before he could hear what was being said.

  Albertino and Gianluca both turned to him with a start, Gianluca's expression twisting from rapture to malice.

  “Buongiorno, good brother,” he said with sarcasm. “Lost the way to heaven?”

  “I'e come to speak with Albertino,” said Piero.

  “With Albertino!” said Gianluca. “Little brother! I never knew you entertained such holy guests!”

  “Be quiet, Gianluca,” said Albertino. “Piero's done nothing to harm, you.”

  “In nomine Domini Dei,” said Gianluca, rising into an elaborate bow. “Say what you like. I won't stop you.”

  “I'd like to speak to Albertino in private,” said Piero. “If you don't mind.”

  “If I don't mind!” said Gianluca. “If I don't mind being kicked out of my own fields! And what if I do mind, my little builder monk? What if I mind very, very much?”

  “Oh, stop it, Gianluca,” said Albertino. “You'e late for market anyway. Get going.”

  “Do you hear that, good brother? My good brother suggests I go to market and leave you two alone. Well, as I always follow my good brother's instructions, I won't argue.” He bowed again, quite deeply, to both Piero and Albertino; then, slipping into his usual, arrogant posture, he sauntered off.

  As soon as he was gone Piero began to describe his encounter with Eduardo del Ponte and the offer of twenty-seven crates of mosaic tile with which they would be able to ornament the campo.

  “But why me?” asked Albertino as he climbed down the ladder.

  “I need someone I can depend upon,” said Piero. “Someone I can trust as I trust myself.”

  “Why not go yourself?”

  “It's a question of propriety,” said Piero. “Sior del Ponte thinks I'm a member of the order at Boccasante. It would seem undignified for me to go. It's terrifically important, Albertino. It would be a tremendous favor.”

  Albertino rested the basket of apples he had been carrying on the ladder and offered one to Piero; Piero declined, so Albertino took it himself.

  “I don't know, Piero. As it is, I'e been giving an awful lot of time to this project of yours. And it's been an exceptionally busy season for us. I just don't know if I can sacrifice a whole day to go into Venezia.”

  Piero saw the concern in Albertino's face as he looked out over the vegetable garden. “I'l look after the vegetables for you,” he said. “I promise that nothing will happen to them.”

  Albertino slowly chewed his apple. “But twenty-seven crates? How can I possibly carry twenty-seven crates in my boat?”

  “They aren't large crates,” said Piero. “They aren't really crates at all. They'e more like boxes, really. Boxes filled with tiny mosaic tiles.”

  Albertino stopped chewing. “Boxes?” he said.

  “Boxes,” said Piero.

  “When would I have to go?”

  “The day after tomorrow — the last day of summer. He'l be waiting at the Ponte di Rialto at midday.”

  Albertino thought hard before giving his answer. “All right,” he said. “I'l go. Gianluca won't like it, but I'l go.”

  “Grazie, Albertino,” said Piero. “Grazie tantissime.”

  Piero took a few moments to explain carefully to Albertino the particulars of his mission; then he thanked him again and began to make his way back to the Chiesa di Maria del Mare. His spirits were very high as he walked through the low fields that backed the vegetable garden and led, in a graduated curve, toward the Calle Alberi Grandi. As he looked up, the sky seemed to shimmer in a great mosaic of blue and gold and white. Just at the edge of his sight, however, he noticed something quite peculiar: high above the north rim — above the field of wild thyme where he'd buried the swollen body — a black bird hovered motionless in the faint wind. Piero blinked his eyes and shook his head, but the bird remained hinged on the horizon, poised like a dark star over the island.

  Perhaps the day after tomorrow wasn't soon enough. Perhaps they should begin the campo while they were still finishing the campanìl. Piero could not help feeling, as he stepped up onto the trodden path that led through the clutch of pine trees, that there wasn't a moment to waste.

  Chapter 8

  ON THE MORNING after the morning after Piero had come to see him, Albertino set out for the great city of the winged lion. He left at dawn, dressed in his best tunic and his cleanest pair of hose, a feeling of hopeful anticipation perched lightly in his breast. As he rowed out into the open waters of the lagoon, he tried to push all thoughts from his mind — the needs of the vegetables, his strife with Ermenegilda — and concentrate only on the cleansing impressions that widened in the white morning light. The soft streaks of cloud against an azure sky. The continual changing of the pale green water, its moment-to-moment transformation from shade to shade to shade to shade to shade. The expanding and contracting of a speck into a boat or a bird into a speck, the hushed illusion, as his movements became mechanical, that rather than him moving across the plane of these images, they were passing, at their own perfect pace, past his motionless form. In time he lost all sense of being separate from what surrounded him. It was he who was rising, and widening, and warming—he who was humming, like a mill wheel, on the surface of the day.

  To Albertino there was nothing quite like the smell of the lagoon. Flavorful, expansive, slightly sour, it gave him the feeling that the waters were as rich and fertile as the soil that nourished his vegetables. He imagined himself a farmer of sea vegetables, submerged beneath the green-gold surface, at work with a shovel and hoe on the floor of the lagoon. He felt a pleasant awareness that beneath the water the islands were connected, that even while moving through liquid he was passing over land.

  Albertino could have stayed in his boat forever. Yet as he moved past Burano and Mazzorbo, past Ponte di Schiavi and Borgomagnolo, past Puntalupa and Pescatorno and Terra del Pozzo di Luna, he began to feel the excitement of Venezia luring him to land. Past San Cortino, as the pale outline of the churches and palazzi grew more and more distinct, past Murano, and San Michele, until the energy of the throbbing metropolis washed over him like a sudden wave. Approaching the city from the north, he circled out around the eastern edge of the island — past th
e Quartiere di Santa Elena — past the vineyards and the orchards and the pastures that lay along the outskirts of the isle — past the Lido, and the Isola di San Giorgio — until at last he entered the basin of San Marco and the open arms of her piazza. Albertino was always dazzled by the city's entrance. The twin columns that rose like the frame for a puppet-show masquerade. The Palazzo dei Dogi, which seemed like one of Siora Bertinelli's Christmas pastries: so light, so airy, you doubted it had substance until you felt its flaky sweetness on your tongue. And San Marco itself, that splendid apparition that at any moment might shrug its shoulders and slip, laughing, beneath the foam. That was the trick of Venezia's beauty to Albertino: he was never entirely certain she would not suddenly disappear.

  Aware that the hour of his appointment was nearing, Albertino continued on toward the Punta della Dogana and into the curving passage of the Canal Grande. As he headed up the waterway, past the countless glittering buildings, he heard the campanili strike the chorus of mezzogiorno: heavy bells responding to light bells, the myriad overlapping voices brightly sounding out the hour. His appointment with Sior del Ponte was for mezzogiorno — at the western foot of the Ponte di Rialto a red boat with a yellow flag displaying the del Ponte crest in black would be waiting for him. Sior del Ponte had given Piero a handkerchief with the del Ponte crest stamped into its silk: an enormous bird with the head of a dog devouring a tiny rabbit. Albertino now spread that handkerchief upon the floor of his boat, convinced that such an odd insignia would be easy to spot, and before the bells had returned with the dry clang of the half hour he came upon the great pontoon bridge and the bright red, flat-bottomed rig piled high with wooden boxes that awaited him. Two men stood on the dock beside the rig: a rough-looking fellow with a ruddy complexion, a nose that made a sharp turn toward the Lido, and a gaily striped scarf tied loosely around his throat; and a robust gentleman with a well-formed stomach who, despite the heat, was swathed in a velvet robe and whom Albertino took to be Sior del Ponte.

  “How good of Your Grace to come within the hour,” called the latter as Albertino tucked his boat into an adjacent slip. “We were fully prepared to wait until sunset.”

  Albertino was surprised at the gentleman's respectful, almost reverential tone; he spoke to him as if he were someone quite other than Albertino.

  “I left just when I needed to,” said Albertino. “It generally takes as long to get here as it takes.”

  “Your Grace speaks like a man of God,” said Sior del Ponte.

  Albertino was convinced that the man was confused, but nevertheless he adjusted his hose and climbed up onto the dock beside him. There was so much color spinning past his eyes, so much maddening, dizzying movement, he could barely concentrate on what he had come for. The canal was swarming with boats either loaded down with cargo or carrying passengers from one bank to the other. People flocked across the bridge in gaily patterned silks and pointed-toed boots, their laughter following behind them on the tails of their pet monkeys. It was hard for Albertino to believe that such a festival went on each day while he went quietly about his business on Riva di Pignoli. It seemed too fantastic — too animated — not to wear itself out.

  Albertino asked if the boxes on the rig were the ones he was to transport back to Riva di Pignoli; Sior del Ponte confirmed that they were. But when he stepped down onto the floor of the rig in order to begin loading them into his own boat, the wealthy merchant insisted that “His Grace” leave the labor to “the servant.” The rough-looking fellow seemed to resent this: Albertino gave off not even a whiff of the Holy Spirit to his well-trained, workaday senses. But one by one he transferred the crates from the rig to Albertino's boat, while Albertino answered Sior del Ponte's questions in his direct, inimitable way.

  “Your Grace has a remarkable manner,” said the merchant after several minutes of conversation. “Such a cryptic, almost Oriental way of expressing himself. I would be so pleased if he would come and dine at my palazzo this evening.”

  Albertino looked up at Sior del Ponte, not comprehending. “But it's only midday,” he said.

  “All the better,” said Sior del Ponte. “Venezia is the most ravishing city in the world. You'l have all day to explore her charms.”

  “But what about the tiles?”

  “I'l have my man take Your Grace's boat to my palazzo. It can remain there until you'e ready to leave.”

  “But how will I get there without my boat?”

  “I'l send someone to fetch you — say half-past seven?”

  Albertino stared down at his barca da pesca, now laden with the boxes of tile. He could not think of any other impediments, but he still felt reluctant to accept Sior del Ponte's offer; it was a long time to stay away from the vegetables, and he would most likely be required to speak with Sior del Pontes wife, if not his son or his daughter as well. On the other hand, a free afternoon in Venezia sounded delightful — and he was sure that there would be either meat or fish with dinner — so he shrugged his shoulders and agreed to the plan.

  “Splendido!” said Sior del Ponte. “It shall be an honor!”

  Albertino was now certain that Sior del Ponte was mistaken as to his true identity; surely such fuss could not all be for him. But as the decision was made, and Albertino could not see that there was anything else to be said about it, he confirmed the hour for half-past seven and then hurried off into the teeming midday throng.

  BACK ON RIVA DI PIGNOLI, Miriam was preparing for a very different sort of assignation. For she'd promised herself that if Gianluca's and Piero's attentions did not cease by the end of summer, she would have no choice but to stop them herself. Now, on the final day of that languid, liquid season, she gathered her resolve and set out across the island to find them.

  Piero, who was faithfully fulfilling his own promise to keep watch over the vegetables, was propped against a fig tree, reading a copy of Marcus Aurelius and trying to shake away the insistent image of the bloated, blackened corpse, when she quietly entered Albertino's and Gianluca's gardens. So engrossed was he in what he was reading, he did not notice her until she bade him “Bon di” — and when she did it so stunned him, he forgot to stand up.

  “I hope I'm not disturbing you,” she said. “Beppe Guancio told me I would find you here.”

  Piero was too startled by her presence to speak. So Miriam took a step closer and continued.

  “What are you reading?”

  “Marcus Aurelius.”

  “Is it interesting?”

  “It's sublime.”

  “I'l have to borrow it, then,” she said. “If you'l allow me.”

  Seeing that he was not going to rise, Miriam lifted her skirts and joined Piero on the ground; Piero felt grateful to have the book in his hands to keep him from reaching out to touch her.

  “Do you read?” he asked.

  “A little,” said Miriam.

  “How extraordinary. Here on Riva di Pignoli most people can't even recognize their own names.”

  “There was a man in my village, a very old man named Obediah Bocconcini, who offered to teach anyone who wished to learn how to read. Most of the village came at first, but only a few stayed on. I stayed for five years. When Obediah died he gave me this.” Miriam drew a small, pearl-encrusted volume from a pocket in her skirt: the second of the objects contained in her mysterious bundle. “I carry it with me wherever I go.”

  “The Praise and Glory of the Virgin,” read Piero, opening the ornate cover to reveal the elaborately scripted title page. “It's very beautiful.”

  “It's the only thing I read,” said Miriam. “Besides the scriptures, of course.”

  Piero was distracted, as Miriam spoke, by the almost imperceptible swelling of her lips. They seemed to expand with her devotion in a way that he found devastatingly erotic; it took every bit of his will to keep from kissing her.

  “May we walk?” she asked, slipping the book back into the folds of her gown and turning to face him.

  “Yes,” said Piero. “Of
course.”

  She drew herself up. Piero followed. Then together they walked in silence along the ordered lines of Albertino's handiwork. The sun was penetrating; it burned away the last of the dew and the carefulness between them.

  “Why do you follow me?” she asked.

  “I can't help myself,” said Piero. “Which disturbs me terribly. I'e always been able to place mind before body. That's the way to God.”

  “Sometimes the body has a mind of its own.”

  “Perhaps,” said Piero. “But how can I allow myself to listen to it when my spirit is so diseased?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I reach for good, but my grasp falls short. I fail again and again.”

  “But the tower you'e building — your concern for the people —”

  “You don't see what lies beneath those things. Vanity … desire … fear.”

  “You'e too hard on yourself,” she said. “You'e a good man, Piero.”

  He closed his eyes at the sound of it: the first time she said his name. Yet despite the pleasure it gave him, he could not keep his thoughts from circling back to the body. It was like a stone upon his conscience, a weight that pressed down as if he'd murdered the poor fellow himself.

  “Is it good,” he said, “to conceal a death?”

  “It's neither good nor evil. You cannot conceal a death from God.”

  “What about a body?” Piero hesitated for a moment. “One of the brothers from the monastery where I was raised found a dead body washed ashore. He buried it quickly, without telling anyone. Except me, that is.”

  “If he gave it a proper burial, he did all he could.”

  “A proper burial?”

  “The appropriate sacraments, a placement in hallowed ground. I'm sure your friend knew what to do.”