Simple Prayers Read online

  Piero was as accustomed to seeing visions as the rest of the island was accustomed to seeing duck shit, pig shit, and rooster shit. His mother had died bringing him into the world, but as soon as he could speak Piero began holding lengthy conversations with her. Unlike the usual imaginings of a motherless child, Piero's conversations had an eerie reality that made Piero's father extremely uncomfortable; when the young boy sat on the stool by the bed and spoke in gentle tones to the thin straw matting, Umberto Po could smell his poor wife's odor in the room. When these tender visitations were replaced by encounters with the baby Jesus, he bundled the boy up, took him to the monastery island of Boccasante, and left him there to be raised by monks. The brothers of Boccasante were deeply impressed with Piero's religious fervor. They taught him Latin grammar, the rudiments of the vernacular, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics. They imagined a splendid future for him in the arms of a benevolent God.

  When he was nine, Piero began seeing dragons. They raged across the ceiling of his tiny slope-roofed cell at the rate of two per week, inspiring more awe in the other members of the monastery than a thousand visions of Christ combined. The brothers of Boccasante were convinced they had a prodigy. When Piero reached puberty, however, all previous apparitions were suddenly replaced by visions of the phallus. He saw them rising in the chapel, and lurking in the gardens, and hovering over the cloisters during matins. To Piero they were a symbol of man's yearning to rise up and out of himself and reunite with God. But here the brothers were less supportive. No matter how much hope the monks had placed in him, nor how much teaching they had invested in his future, once Piero began to shout about “the penis of God” they sent him back to Riva di Pignoli as fast as they could drop oars into water.

  By the time Piero returned to the island his father had died, but the people were so impressed with his spirituality that they welcomed him back with arms open wide. Beppe Guancio was so taken by his intensity, he offered to lend him half his tiny dwelling and to share with him the little he earned cleaning fish for Giuseppe Navo. Beppe Guancio felt Piero should give sermons in the Chiesa di Maria del Mare; he was convinced the glint in Piero's eyes was the light of God. Piero, however, discovered a different focus for his energies: he transformed his corner of Beppe Guancio's hovel into a workshop and began making tiny sculptures out of the fragments of granite and scraps of marble Giuseppe Navo gathered for him on his trips to Venezia. Piero found in sculpting a place to lay his reverent heart. His subjects varied: he sculpted swans and churches and fishermen — with an occasional dragon or phallus thrown in — but even the most conventional of the island's inhabitants had to concede that his work contained a strange, evanescent beauty.

  As the years went by, Piero settled into his place in the community. Where Albertino was a patch of moist earth, Piero was a cryptic inscription on a stone tablet. Where Gianluca was a series of lithe and powerful curves, Piero was taut and lean and jagged. As the fortunes of Riva di Pignoli grew more bleak, however, Piero's nature took on a darker tone. When the spring didn't come he knew it was more than just forgetfulness. It was an omen. But like the grizzled, swollen body he was now in the process of burying, he could not interpret its meaning.

  Piero worked steadily until there was barely a sign that the ground had ever been disturbed. A faint wind had come up; it brought in the welcome smell of salt off the water. By the time he had finished it was fully dark, and he had to move slowly and carefully to find his way back across the dry fields to the Calle Alberi Grandi. He was exhausted from his labor, and the thought of sleep was enticing, but he'd promised himself that he would find a way to bring the spring, and he was not going to wait until morning.

  The only choice was to go to Boccasante. Though the monks had thrown him out, their doors were always open; over the years Piero had visited often and had managed to maintain a strong friendship with a kind-hearted monk named Fra Danilo. It was doubtful that this round-faced soul could do anything to help him, but perhaps he could point him in the direction of someone who could. He returned to his hovel to fetch a cloak and a torch; then he went to where his father's boat lay moored along the western docks and silently guided it toward the shores of the monastery island.

  PIERO'S BOAT PASSED close by the dock where Albertino sat waiting for Ermenegilda, but Albertino, who was staring at the water past his dangling feet, did not notice him. At night the lagoon shone black as a fish's entrails; even with a sorcerer's moon hanging high overhead, Albertino could not see a thing beneath its smooth, glittering surface. As he gazed down into the darkness, Albertino felt a faint twinge of longing behind his knees. Why hadn't he been born a fisherman? To live at night, in love with the sea, safe in a world where nothing was fixed but the slim line of the horizon? Sometimes he imagined what it must feel like: that first clean catch of early morning. To spar with the sun. To forget your name. To cast out your spirit on the strands of a fishing net and carry home the secrets of the sea. To be always a bit detached, a bit distracted, a bit alone. Had he been born to it, it might have been the ideal life for him. Albertino the fisherman. Master of the crabbed and shallow waters. King of the catch.

  But he hadn't been born to it. Even with the smell of salt in his mother's nostrils and the seaweed that clung to his cradle, Albertino had been born to the soil. To the hoe, and the plow, and the poor man's pride of bringing home the vegetables.

  The vegetables. That was why he stood on the dock at midnight, staring out at the black, black water. His love for Gianluca, and for the vegetables. For eleven years now he'd tended the vegetables, like his father, and his father, and his father before him. As much as he loved anything, as much as he loved his room that wasn't a room, or sleeping late, or his magical, gleaming boxes, Albertino loved the vegetables. So if the spring had decided to go away this year and had taken with it the turnips and the onions and the apples and the strawberries, Albertino would do whatever Ermenegilda wanted him to to make it come back. Ermenegilda loved him, and he loved the vegetables — it was a simple equation. So he tried not to cross his toes inside his boots or bite down upon his back teeth or think at all about what he was certain was coming.

  A few minutes before midnight he heard the snap and sputter of voices and saw a tiny spot of torchlight appear on the opposite shore. Shifting his body to face the light, he watched as it traced a drunken trajectory across the slender width of water that ran between the two islands toward where he sat. As the light grew larger he began to distinguish a tiny boat with two passengers: Romilda Rosetta, wrapped in a linen shawl, clumsily handling a pair of wooden oars, and Ermenegilda, swathed in deep, burgundy satin, perched on the seat plank behind her. As they reached the dock, Albertino stood and brushed off his torn, dirty leggings; it occurred to him that perhaps he should have worn his cleaner pair. After steadying the boat and tying it to the post, Romilda Rosetta scurried up the washed-out ladder so that she could give Albertino a hand in helping Ermenegilda up. It was a difficult maneuver — for a moment Albertino envisioned her sprawling into the water, blood red satin spreading out like a sail, fish leaping high into the torchlight to save their lives — but together they managed to hoist her up.

  “Bona sera, Albertino,” she said breathlessly.

  “Bona sera, Ermenegilda,” he responded.

  Ermenegilda turned and glared at Romilda Rosetta, prompting the hapless servant to scurry down the ladder as quickly as she had scurried up, and soon the orange torchlight was receding in the distance, a tremulous firefly hurrying off into the night. When they were alone and all was moonlight again, Ermenegilda slipped her fingers through Albertino's and squeezed his hand tightly.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  Albertino nodded. He could feel the inevitable moving toward him like a steady fog, feel it creeping over the lagoon and descending around his shoulders with its damp, cold breath. Ermenegilda began to lead him off the dock and across the little island; when they reached the edge of the radicchio patch, he stopped.

/>   “Where are we going?”

  “To your room,” she said, pulling him toward the four stone walls that sat across the deadened garden.

  Albertino stopped again, this time yanking his hand out from Ermenegilda's hot grasp. In all the time he had known her, in all the time he had walked down the Calle Alberi Grandi with her, and had listened to her stories, and had taken her boxes, he had never let her inside his room. Like the deepest, cleanest place inside his heart, his room was off limits to her. And if he could manage it, he was going to keep it that way.

  “You don't want to go to my room,” he said.

  “But, Albertino — carissimo — I do.”

  “Oh, no, believe me, you don't. It's very damp, what with no roof and all. And the wind can be awful. The rats usually take all the covers.”

  “The rats?” she said, thinking of her usual safety on the second floor of the Ca’Torta.

  “They rarely bite, but it does get rather crowded. I know a much better place we can go.”

  Ermenegilda slipped her hand back into Albertino's and followed him into the night. She was grateful to avoid the rats, but beyond that she didn't really care where they went. She cared only that Albertino was leading the way, that he was guiding her across the choppy earth of his little island, that the moment she'd dreamed of for so very long was actually at hand. She could barely stand the weight of the dark burgundy satin that clung to her legs as she followed him. She could barely stand the throb in her breast that pounded so loudly she was certain Albertino could hear it.

  It never once crossed her mind that Albertino was taking her to the cemetery. When she saw the stone entrance, with its iron gate rusted permanently open and its marble cross perched high overhead, she could think only that she was finally entering paradise. Albertino, for his part, had nowhere else to take her — and he figured that if he had to do what he was about to do, having never done it before, he might as well do it in the company of those who would never be able to talk about it.

  The graveyard lay before them like a sleeping village. Since most of the fishermen had died at sea, there were only about a hundred or so graves, but in the intimacy of their arrangement they felt more like a real town than the huts and hovels of the main island. Many of the graves were so close they touched; others seemed to have been positioned so that the occupants could read Tarot or share a glass of hot ale. Sloping palm trees slanted down over the markers, their corrugated trunks providing a post to lean on, their floppy ears creating a canopy to read under. Pine trees stood like sentries on the wall, their pockets overflowing with pignoli for the dead. Near to the entrance sat a parcel of stunted rosebushes, their closed heads thrusting forward like blind graveyard beggars. The roses reminded Albertino of the absent spring and gave him the courage to continue on with what he was doing.

  They moved through the gates and in past the first markers; then suddenly Ermenegilda's vision of the angelic host gave way to reality.

  “Albertino!” she said. “This is the cemetery!”

  “It's the best place, Ermenegilda,” said Albertino. “You'l feel yourself with God.”

  Ermenegilda wasn't concerned with God, and she was far too inflamed with passion to suggest going elsewhere. Without a warning she pulled up Albertino's tunic and thrust her hand down into his tights. Albertino let out a yelp that threatened to raise up anyone who had been buried less than seven years — but Ermenegilda managed to raise Albertino up before he could let out another. Holding on tightly to his inflated manhood, she led him along past the florid marble of Silvana Zennaro and the fluted granite of Guido Bo, until they finally reached a plain stone marker set flat into the earth at the edge of the northwest corner, and she lowered them onto the chiseled surface of Cherubina Modesta Colomba Ernesta Franchin.

  Albertino was amazed at what the contact of her hand could do to his brain. He watched in bewilderment as his own hands pushed her skirts aside, and reached beneath her buttocks, and guided his captured sex into her body. For the most part he kept his eyes closed; only for an instant did he peer out of the dense fog that filled his brain to see what was truly happening.

  Ermenegilda kept her eyes open wide. She wanted to imprint this moment in her mind with every star, every shadow, each strand of hair on the palm tree bark and on Albertino's head. With the coolness of the marker beneath her, and the heat of his body on top of her, she felt caught between two worlds, two different Ermenegildas. The good daughter of Enrico Torta and the lusty wench with her legs spread wide in the graveyard. The naive girl who'd imagined this union as an abstract glory, all puffs of smoke and the scent of lilacs, and the now knowing woman who had never expected so much pain.

  If he could have forgotten that she was Ermenegilda — if he could have felt only the soft cream of the inside of her thighs and the tickling warmth of her breath against his throat — if he could have somehow let his heart be his body — let it mingle with the thrills that tightened his calves and the light that expanded his head —he might have thought it was love. But he couldn't. And so, what was excruciating for Ermenegilda was joy to her soul, and what was exquisite for Albertino was anguish to his.

  It lasted longer than either of them had expected. When it was finished, and their bodies lay tangled together on top of Cherubina Modesta Colomba Ernesta Franchin, Albertino wondered how the hard marble beneath his knees, and the damp creases of her skirt against his stomach, and the cold sweat running rivers down his back, could all reappear so suddenly. He wondered at how much breathing had been involved, and how much kicking, and at how selflessly Ermenegilda had given herself to the task. But most of all, if this was what it took to bring the spring, he wondered how on earth or in heaven —year in and year out — God could possibly bear the foolishness.

  Chapter 3

  THE CHIESA DI MARIA DEL MARE had no transepts, no dome, no pointed rib vaults, no flying buttresses. But to the people of Riva di Pignoli it was everything a place of worship should be. The members of the second generation had decided that it was too much trouble to go to Ponte di Schiavi or Pescatorno for every birth and death and wedding. So they'd gathered their skills and built a simple stone chapel with a plain timber roof and a single, free-standing altar. All told, from the cornerstone to the iron cross-and-banner, it took thirteen years to complete (counting two eighteen-month periods in which no one did anything at all), but Giovanni Sardo managed to mount the cross-and-banner three weeks before he died, at the age of seventy-three, and the Chiesa di Maria del Mare became Riva di Pignoli's first landmark.

  The walls, which were pale and evenly textured, reflected the sunlight that poured down over the lagoon. The only ornamentation was the marble archway that framed the main doorway: here, in two-thirds relief, was the story of San Nicolo, patron saint of fishermen, virgins, children, thieves, and practically every home on the island. Inside the church were ten pews, five on the left side, five on the right. They faced the altar, which was separated from the rest of the chapel by a brief step and a low wooden railing. There wasn't much marble in the Chiesa di Maria del Mare — Giacomo Navo, Giuseppe's grandfather, had managed to obtain a few choice pieces from a wealthy Veneziana who particularly liked his baccala — but what there was was wisely saved for the altar. The top was a single sheet of Tuscan pavonazetto; the facade consisted of two rose diamonds, a strip of cobalt blue, and a yellow circle surrounded by six cream-colored cliptei. The altar was so beautiful it was kept covered with a piece of white cloth; the people of Riva di Pignoli couldn't bear such ravishment on a daily basis.

  Behind the altar, framed by two bas-relief columns, was a painting of the Virgin and Child. It was by Massimo Correlli, the Vedova Stampanini's father, and it was cherished by everyone on the island for its soft tones and its deep, luminous light. There were only three complaints hurled at the Correlli Virgin and Child: first, that the Virgin looked too much like the Vedova Stampanini's mother; second, that the Child looked too much like the Vedova Stampanini (even as an infant t
he Vedova Stampanini had had a delicate look of sensuality that many found disturbing in a depiction of the baby Jesus); last, that instead of the traditional golden globe, Massimo Correlli's Child held a flounder in its hands. The Riva di Pignolian painter could think of no greater symbol of God's love for man.

  Piarina loved many things about the Chiesa di Maria del Mare. She loved the way it was cool inside when the summer days were hot. She loved the way the door would mutter as she closed it behind her, but how the walls would never, ever utter a sound. But most of all Piarina loved the candles. Whenever she could she would creep into the little chapel to sit in the shadows and stare at the flames. The whole world stilled when Piarina sat before the candles—as long as they were burning, her trampled heart felt calm. Often she had to restrain herself from putting her fingers into the flames; she knew the fire would burn her, but then there was something inside her that longed to burn.

  There were no clergy on Riva di Pignoli — no priests, no prelates, no clerics, no monks. In moments of great inspiration someone might give a sermon, but for the most part worship was between villager and God. Everyone on Riva di Pignoli had his own way of worshiping. There was Piero's path of obsessive idolatry and Romilda Rosetta's path of humiliating servitude. There were the evening prayers of the island's widows and the dawn conversations the fishermen held with the images of Santa Maria they tacked to the prows of their boats. There was no question of believing or not believing in God. On Riva di Pignoli, God was a fact.

  To Piarina, God was in the candles. If she went to church and found them low, she would scamper across the meadow to Beppe Guancio's hovel and tell him they needed tending. Beppe Guancio had become severely depressed one February late afternoon when he went into the chapel and was not able to distinguish the Christ Child from the flounder; from that moment on he took it upon himself to check the candles every day, before and after his work cleaning fish for Giuseppe Navo and just before he went to bed at night. He took his job quite seriously and needed no reminding, but whenever Piarina rapped at his door he pretended she'd come to him just in time, seeing how much pleasure it gave the child to think she'd saved the light from going out.