Simple Prayers Read online

  Piero thought of his hasty shuffling of the carcass beneath the sandy soil at the edge of the island, and he suddenly knew why he had not been able to shake off the shadow of its death.

  “Of course,” he whispered.

  “Are you all right?” asked Miriam.

  Piero looked up. “Yes,” he said. “I'm fine.”

  They walked a few paces farther; then Miriam paused and looked out toward the water. “I have to ask you something,” she said.

  “Anything,” said Piero.

  She turned to face him. “Stop following me,” she said.

  “I'e tried to stop.”

  “Try harder. We can speak again if you like. But I need my shadow to be my own.”

  Piero flushed at the thought that they might meet again, speak again — possibly even touch. “All right,” he said. “I promise.”

  They continued on until they reached the low wall that bordered the edge of the garden.

  “It's time for me to return to work,” said Miriam.

  “I understand.”

  “Thank you for the walk. I hope we can speak again soon.”

  She held his eyes for a long moment — that thrilling, tempting farewell — and then turned to walk away through the sun-drenched fields. Piero watched as her golden form grew brighter and brighter, until, like a spark before a flame, she was absorbed into the light. Then he went back to the broccoli patch to see what Marcus Aurelius had to say on the subject of a proper burial.

  FOR THE FIRST hour or so, Albertino buried himself in the spinning, chattering mob that thronged the merceria. He followed up and down bridges, moved left and right over smooth cobbled calli, as an endless line of shopkeepers urged him to buy everything from satin hose to sanitary tubing to salt fish and cheese. The streets remained crowded even though it was lunchtime; Albertino stopped to have a roasted sausage, a hunk of bread, and a glass of exceptionally good ale at a small stall that was wedged between a fertilizer concession and a shop that sold hand-painted scarves.

  After lunch he doubled back across the Ponte di Rialto and headed toward Campo San Polo, home of the city's best fruit and vegetable market, which Albertino always liked to examine to see if he could learn anything. Today the stalls seemed less overwhelming than usual because of the endless abundance of the Riva di Pignoli spring, but he still noted that eggplants had more brilliance when placed beside pale summer squash, and that carrots stacked horizontally created an impression of unusual elegance. For a while he sat in the grass near the stout stone pozzo, munching a handful of sorbs and medlars and enjoying the splintered music of the passing conversation. Then he shuffled back out into the streaming crowd and set about to do what had propelled him to accept Piero's offer in the first place: to find himself a new box.

  As with everything else Albertino did, there was a perfect science to finding the right box. One dared not be impetuous. One dared not rush headlong into a purchase based upon the excitement of the moment or a quick rush of the senses. (That was how he'd ended up with that hideous monstrosity with the squat gnomes for feet and the sad little sacrificial lamb perched piously on top. He'd paid a whole summer's wages for that one, only to give it away to the Vedova Stampanini, who placed it in her garden to scare away the hedgehogs.) He began with a slow scanning of the city's central zone; the finest shops tended to be scattered along the eastern side of the Ponte di Rialto and out beyond San Marco. When he passed a window that held something of interest, he made a mental note of it. If he turned and retraced his steps in order to look at it again, he tied a piece of colored ribbon, which he'd purchased from a milliner, around his finger. No matter how much it attracted him, however, he would not enter the shop and ask to see it until he'd beribboned every last digit from pinky to thumb back to pinky again.

  By three o'k his fingers were rainbow strung. By five he'd managed to narrow the field to three particular boxes: a cask of brass with the story of Noah carved into the lid, a coffin of pewter etched over with flowering hieroglyphics, and a chest of rosewood with a group of sowers and a group of reapers painted lovingly on the front and back. He returned to each shop three times, each time asking the keeper to draw the treasured object from the curtained window and place it on a square of velvet on the shop counter. But even as he traveled back and forth on his methodical tour, he knew which one he would ultimately take. The reapers and sowers seemed to be rejoicing in the Riva di Pignoli spring; how could he refuse such a delightful reminder of what had so miraculously happened on his island?

  When he'd bought the box and had it carefully wrapped, he found that there was still a good bit of time left before his appointment at the Ponte di Rialto — so he used the opportunity to wander off the main pathways and explore the coiling, twisting, mind-changing, labyrinthian side streets. A whole other facet of Venetian life disclosed itself to him as he followed down shoulder-width calles and under low, jutting sotopÒrteghi. The clatter of children playing games in hidden courtyards. The curses of the boatmen, stripped to the waist and sweating at the squeri. The conversation of tunics and tights stretched taut over narrow canals. It was as if the great city wore a rough, peasant face beneath its glamorous public mask, which Albertino found all the more charming for its simplicity.

  He reached the Ponte di Rialto with the seven o'k bells and seated himself, near the leafy plane tree where the horses were tied, to watch the last of the light fade from the last-of-the-summer sky. It was gray-violet black when the half-hour chime struck; Albertino could barely make out the design of the del Ponte crest on the flag that rose from the slender gondola that was gliding toward him like a ghost upon the water.

  A gondola!

  On Riva di Pignoli one spoke of gondole the way the educated Venetian spoke of the coaches of Prague or the camels of Jerusalem. It was one thing to cross the canal, standing, with a pack of bored Veneziani, on a traghÈto; it was another entirely to be guided down it like a doge in the cushioned splendor that awaited him now.

  Albertino stepped down into the hull and placed his box and himself upon a satin pillow. The torches that were being lit along either bank cast a series of nervous reflections upon the water; Albertino was grateful for the open sky and the familiar stamp of the stars above him. As the boat made its rhythmic passage down the curving length of water, he abandoned himself to the shadowy impressions that moved in and out of his sight: doorways that opened on moonlit water risen up to flood what it entered upon; side canals leading like secret tunnels toward realms that vanished by day. To Albertino, the canal at night was both beautiful and ominous. He felt lost in the grips of a fabulous whim that might lead him almost anywhere.

  They approached a great building streaming light from every window, set with blazing torches against the water. Albertino knew instantly that it was the Palazzo del Ponte and that — to his horror — there was a celebration going on. At least two dozen boats were lined up between the massive poles that stood at varying paces beside the central portcullis. From the second-floor windows he could see the candles of an enormous chandelier glow brightly and could hear horns and flutes and voices tumble out upon the cool evening air.

  The gondolier took him not to the front gate, but to an entrance farther on that led to a small chamber, where he was instructed to change his clothes. He was met by a servant who gave him a crisp linen blouse and a pair of blue silk tights, a lavender tunic and a pair of soft black boots — all of which made him feel not so much elegant as simply not Albertino. The servant escorted him out into a lavish garden with billowing fruit trees and a great fountain, and then up a wide stone stairway to where the revelry awaited. Albertino felt as if he'd stepped into a ballad: ladies dressed in marbled silks stood languorously beside exquisite tapestries; peacocks wandered past strolling lute players; great goblets of wine were offered up like draughts of well water. But what dazzled him the most was the long, satin-draped table overflowing with a variety of foods that went beyond anything Albertino could ever have imagined: miniatu
re fish pastries in the shapes of the figures of the Tarot deck; gilded meat tiles arranged in a bold mosaic; roasted capons, sliced venison, papered partridges, poached pike, glazed duck, grenadined geese, pit-charred quail, split lobster; beets in a green sauce, beans in a pink sauce, peas in a yellow sauce, leeks in a white sauce; custard and jelly and aspic and pudding and muffins and junket and fruit.

  “I see Your Grace admires the table,” came the voice of Sior del Ponte from just behind Albertino.

  “I was expecting something simpler,” said Albertino. “A lot simpler.”

  “I suppose I forgot to mention that we were having a few others to dinner. But it's common custom here: the Palazzo del Ponte has been host to members of every profession, and to citizens of no less than fourteen different countries. Your Grace does not by any chance possess a trace of foreign blood, does he?”

  “I don't think so,” said Albertino.

  “Well, even if you were a marauding Hunsman, you'd be welcome at our dinner table. At the Palazzo del Ponte, tolerance is the byword.”

  Albertino was about to say that it would require at least a tolerant stomach to contain all the foods he saw before him, but he was interrupted by the sudden sounding of a great gong.

  “Ah!” said Sior del Ponte. “Time to tear oneself away from gazing at these delights and take oneself in to taste them. Please follow the others into the next room. You'l find a place marked for you at the table.”

  Albertino joined the rest of the group as they oozed into an adjoining chamber that centered upon a magnificent table set for at least forty. As he made his way down the length of it, he was transfixed by the play of the candlelight upon the spun-glass bowls of fresh-cut flowers and the tiny platinum-and-ebony moors’heads clasping the names of each of the guests. As “Albertino” was the only word Albertino could read, it was not difficult for him to find his place among the dozens of otherwise indecipherable scribblings; he eased out his chair in the hope that with so many people at the table he would not even be noticed. But just as his strangely swathed bottom made contact with the hard wood seat, his fantasy crumbled into a tiny heap of ashes before him. For there, on the seat directly across from him — strapped in satin and steeped in candlelight — sat none other than Ermenegilda Torta: guest of the tolerant del Ponte graces and Albertino's apparent dinner partner for the evening.

  WHILE ALBERTINO had sat waiting at the Ponte di Rialto for the boat that would guide him, unknowingly, toward Ermenegilda, Gianluca stood bent over the empty fruit bins at the market, securing their muslin covers. It was early evening. The same light that Albertino had watched fade away over the Canal Grande was still softening in the Riva di Pignoli sky, and most of the market sellers had packed up their wares and gone home. The pastries were wrapped in cloth, the hacked torsos of goats and pigs slung over tired shoulders, the dresses folded, the eggs placed in straw, the fish toted off in barrels of ice or left to the grinning cats. Gianluca, however, had decided to wash down his stalls before closing up, so he was still there, alone, when Miriam came to find him.

  He neither heard her footsteps nor saw her splendid figure as she softly approached him — he knew she was near only from the sudden pounding inside his chest. When she paused just a few paces behind where he crouched over the boxes, and actually addressed him, he felt that newly identified, weightless part of himself rise up with a cry to relinquish all ties to reality. Only the ludicrous distension of his tights drew him firmly back to earth.

  “I'd like to thank you for the delicious gifts you'e brought me,” said Miriam. “I was embarrassed until now. But the melons are sweet. And the music is lovely. So — thank you.”

  Gianluca, like Piero, was so surprised that he could not speak. With a startling aggression he gave a sharp squeeze to his swollen member, draining it instantly of its vigor, and then stood to face his angel in the fading light.

  “I was hoping we might walk together,” she said. “It's a beautiful night.”

  Had Miriam's words been one shade less simple —less perfectly transparent and light emitting — Gianluca would have thought that she was mocking him. Her manner, however, was so direct that he could find no way to interpret it other than as it was presented. Still without speaking — without even bothering to finish covering the strawberry bins — he nodded and followed her out through the fields toward the western shore.

  “How long have you worked the market?” asked Miriam.

  “Fourteen years,” said Gianluca.

  “That's a long time.”

  “It doesn't seem it. It hardly seems any time at all.”

  “It must suit you.”

  “I like the noise. And the arguing. And I like the work. We'e done well this year; the crops should bring us more than the last two summers put together. But it isn't the money that matters. It's the work.”

  “‘Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished; but he that gathereth by labor shall increase.’”

  The formality of Miriam's words cut short the sudden, genial flow of Gianluca's. He felt too rough, too uneducated, to rise to the level of her righteousness.

  “What is it?” she asked, sensing the change in his manner.

  “You — aren't like the other women I'e known.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “When I'm near you — it's — hard to explain. You make me feel …”

  “Yes?”

  He paused. “Holy.”

  Miriam lowered her eyes, and they continued walking in silence. In time they reached the western docks, but Gianluca was so dazzled by Miriam's presence that he could not fathom how they had got there. Had they floated on a breeze? Had they disappeared within the flames of their exchange to rematerialize, halfway across the island, as the smoke cleared? He only knew that the sun was gone behind the horizon, that the sky was cracked with pink beneath the lowering darkness, that the golden hairs on Miriam's upper lip were traced with tiny pearls of perspiration.

  “There's a part of you that craves what any man craves,” said Miriam. “A dry bed. A plate of sardines in the evening. A woman. But there's another part — the part that stops when you'e carrying a heavy load and listens for the sound of crickets, and finds it, and follows it. That part craves something else. That part is holy.”

  “You'e watched me?”

  “I'e watched everyone, these past months. It's a small island. A difficult place, I think, to keep secrets.”

  “I don't have any secrets,” said Gianluca. “Everyone here knows me for what I am.”

  “And what is that?”

  Gianluca studied the planes of her face, washed of color now as the light escaped from the sky. “I'e been with many, many women,” he said. “I never gave it a thought until you arrived.”

  “‘There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and maidens without number, My dove, my perfect one, is only one.…’”

  Gianluca raised his hand and placed his fingertips against her cheek; for the first time, Miriam felt a trace of the same desire he felt for her.

  “I must go,” she said. “It's late.”

  “I was going to sing you a new ballad tonight. I'e been working on it for over a fortnight.”

  Miriam realized then that she had been about to leave without saying what she'd come for. “I don't want any more ballads,” she said. “And I don't need any more cantaloupes. We can meet again. But you must stop coming to see me every day.”

  “But what will I do when the song starts rising up in my throat?”

  Miriam smiled. “Swallow.”

  Gianluca smiled, too. And though he wanted to protest, he gave in to Miriam's request. “All right,” he said. “No more ballads.”

  “And no more cantaloupes.”

  “Not even a honey melon?”

  “Not even a honey melon.”

  Gianluca shrugged and nodded, then escorted Miriam back to Maria Luigi's hovel. They did not say much as they walked, and they did not touch again. When they reached Maria Luigi's door,
Miriam whispered a soft “Bona notte” and then crept to her darkened alcove to prepare for bed.

  No more cantaloupes. No more ballads. But the feel of Gianluca's hand against her cheek would remain in her mind for days and days to come.

  FOR ERMENEGILDA, the evening was just beginning. From the moment she looked across the table and saw Albertino, trimmed in bright silks and satins like a wayward capon, she knew her carefully laid out plan for revenge would travel toward its ultimate end. There was no accident in his suddenly appearing on the seat opposite her at the del Ponte supper; Ermenegilda had been responsible for every step that had guided him toward his fate.

  Once a month Beppe Guancio came to the Ca’Torta to get a fresh supply of candles for the Chiesa di Maria del Mare. On his latest visit Ermenegilda informed him that he could only have them if he helped her find a way to ensnare Albertino. At first Beppe refused — but when Ermenegilda threatened to have her father take back the marble he had donated for the new village monument, he gave in. The following day he came to her with the news that Piero was looking for mosaic tiles for the campo, and Ermenegilda sprang into action. She went to visit Eduardo del Ponte, who was a client of her father's, and deftly arranged his visit to Fra Danilo, his offer of tiles to Piero, and the elaborate supper to which she would lure Albertino. Getting Albertino to the supper was the most difficult part; Ermenegilda was depending on her sense that Piero would not wish to fetch the tiles himself. Her instincts proved correct — so on the night after he'd spoken with Sior del Ponte, when he was trying to decide whom to send in his place, she crept to his bedside and patiently repeated “Albertino” from midnight until dawn. Piero awoke with the name echoing in his head, and the rest went according, to schedule.

  Albertino knew none of this and so did not know what to make of Ermenegilda's presence before him. That she would be invited to dine at an elegant Venetian palazzo didn't surprise him. That she would appear, however, directly opposite him, at the only such dinner to which he'd ever been and most likely ever would be invited, seemed a joke too malicious for anyone he'd ever have considered to be an inhabitant of heaven. For the first three courses — the pastries, the pike, and the goose — he kept his eyes upon his plate in an effort to block out her presence. When the raspberry ice arrived he prayed that his torment was over, but it proved to be only an interval before the quail, the lobster, the partridge, the venison, and an assortment of purees Albertino could not identify. It became more and more difficult, amid the chatter and the music, to ignore the silent fire that burned across the aspic. But somewhere around the partridge he was aided by a rumpled, fluty voice that piped up to his right.