Lives of the Saints (17 page)

‘
Grazie
,’ my mother said, but she didn’t reach out to take the
tray. ‘Why don’t you offer some to the children?’ Giuseppina’s husband still hovered near the doorway, cap in hand, his children grouped around him awkwardly, as if for a photograph.

‘Come in and sit down,’ my grandfather said gruffly. ‘Cristina, get a glass for Alberto.’

‘It’s so nice what Father Nicola did with the church this year,’ Giuseppina was saying. ‘The wise men and the little animals and the baby. I went up after and even the diapers were made of silk. Silk diapers! The whole thing must have cost a fortune.’

‘You paid for it,’ my mother said.

But now there was another knock at the door and Di Lucci burst into the room, his wife and one of his sons (he always left the other at home on Christmas, to tend the shop) hanging back behind him.

‘Oh,
buon natale!
’ he called out, plunking a bottle of brandy on the table. ‘
Bicchieri
, Cristina, glasses for everyone! A Christmas toast!’ And he immediately helped himself to one of the
ostie
.

‘Sit down, Andò,’ my grandfather said. ‘Cristí, bring us some more glasses.’

And so our home, which for months had known only a lenten silence, was once again filled with a little life and conversation. Some consensus had been reached, it seemed, at dozens of houses across the village, my mother’s presence at church, debated and discussed over Christmas dinner, finally taken perhaps as some kind of a sign, the sign of the repentance and guilt which the villagers had no doubt long been waiting for; and now they felt free to flock to the sinner like comforters to Job, for the matter had passed out of their hands and into the hands of God. If anyone had noticed the cold defiance with which my mother had walked down the aisle of the church and taken her place at her pew, they had chosen to ignore it; what
my mother thought, after all, was her own business, but the people had to have a sign. It was as if my mother had simply written a character in the air, a cipher, and those who looked on it were happy enough to give it the meaning that suited them.

As the afternoon passed our house began to fill. Alfredo Mastroantonio came by, former head of the
comitato
and, it was rumoured, a candidate to fill the position of mayor my grandfather had vacated; though he stopped in only to offer an overly hearty
buon natale
, straining to force a little gaiety into his usual stiff formality, and to drop off a bottle of
amaretto
for my grandfather. But several of the neighbours stopped in too, as well as my grandfather’s nephews and nieces; and soon the tray of
ostie
was empty, everyone taking a ritual one as they entered the house, to be replaced by plates full of
cancelle
and other pastries, children flitting between the grown-ups like ghosts to dart a quick arm towards the kitchen table and then retreat to a corner with their catch. A dozen conversations buzzed at once, swelling to a peak and then lulling suddenly to build again, borne along by some secret rhythm; babies in their mother’s arms cried just loud enough to be heard above the din, until a mother interrupted herself suddenly to cry ‘Oh,
basta!
’ and her baby retreated into a brief whimpering silence.

The room had gradually divided in two, the women standing near the side counter, where my mother was constantly pouring drinks and washing glasses, the men grouping around the kitchen table, straddled backwards over chairs. But a strange shift seemed to have happened since that morning: the women had dropped their straightbacked rectitude, as if they had suddenly remembered some sin or crime for which they themselves had gone unpunished, now openly solicitous towards my mother, offering to help pass out drinks and pastries, to wash glasses, even though my mother refused them each time with
the same tired smile; but the men, when my mother came round to serve them, made way for her with a casual indifference, as if she were invisible, and wrapped up in their own conversations they did not bother so much as to glance up at her as they took a drink or pastry from her proffered tray. It was as if something in my mother’s misfortune had made them suddenly feel invulnerable and strong, and they joked with each other in a way that seemed strangely candid and coarse, all their timidness gone. My grandfather, though, sat by saying little, downing glasses of brandy in quick gulps. He reached an arm out feebly once to draw Giuseppina’s little girl Rosina to him as she reached out to the table for a pastry; but Rosina shied away from him, and he quickly withdrew. From a corner of the room Marta watched over us all like a fate, nibbling on a host, and when I followed her eyes they seemed always to light away from the centre of things—on my mother scrubbing glasses at the sideboard, her back to the room, her shoulders working with a restrained violence; on my grandfather turning suddenly to spit into the fire.

But as twilight descended, the light from the fire casting long flickering shadows across the room, the guests began to take their leave. Soon the last of them had gone, leaving the same air of desolation as the village square had after the festival, the kitchen quickly reverting to its familiar heavy silence. My grandfather sat staring silently into the fire while my mother lit the lamp that hung above the table and set out some bread and cheese. She poured out a glass of wine and my grandfather reached back to take it up, his hand trembling.

‘They came here,’ he said, still staring into the fire, ‘to laugh at us.’

My mother sat down at the table and took up a slice of bread, tearing it in half with a quick pull.

‘They’re idiots,’ she said finally. ‘It was only for your sake that I didn’t chase them out of here with a whip.’ But my grandfather wheeled round suddenly and slammed his glass onto the table.

‘For
my
sake! Was it for my sake you behaved like a common whore? Do you think you’re better than those people?
They
are my people, not you, not someone who could do what you’ve done. I’ve suffered every day of my life,
per l’amore di Cristo
, but I’ve never had to walk through this town and hang my head in shame. Now people come to my house like they go to the circus, to laugh at the clowns! You’ve killed me Cristina, you killed your mother when you were born and now you’ve killed me, as surely as if you’d pulled a knife across my throat. In all my days I’ve never raised a hand against you but now I wish to God I’d locked you in the stable and raised you with the pigs, that you’d died and rotted in the womb, that you hadn’t lived long enough to bring this disgrace on my name!’

My grandfather had taken up his cane and risen from his chair, his face flushed. My mother flinched, as if she expected him to raise up his cane against her; but without looking back at her he crossed the room to his bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him. But the silence was broken again now by muddled sounds from his room—a crash, a thud, a cry of pain. In an instant my mother was at the door; but when she had opened it a crack it wedged up against some obstacle.

‘My leg,’ my grandfather said, his voice tight with pain. He had fallen, his bedroom table toppled onto him and one leg stretching up at an awkward angle towards the door, blocking it. My mother knelt and reached a hand into the room to move the leg aside; but my grandfather let out another cry of pain.

‘Don’t move it.’

My mother rose and stood a moment undecided, her eyes
wildly searching the room till they alighted finally on the axe by the wood pile.

‘Stand back, Vittorio.’

She had the axe now. She clicked the bedroom door shut again and swung the axe hard against the door frame near the bottom hinge, the wood there splintering with a sharp crack.

‘Go get Di Lucci,’ she said. ‘And tell him to bring the rack from the church. We’ll need it to carry him.’ But I stood for a moment frozen, awed by the force of my mother’s swings—she nearly had the bottom hinge free—until finally she turned to me and shouted, ‘Hurry,
per l’amore di Cristo!
’ and in a flash I was out the door and running once again up to Di Lucci’s bar.

By the time I returned, Di Lucci and Father Nicola hurrying behind me with the rack from the church, my mother had axed the door off its hinges. We had picked up a small crowd
en route
, and all along the street now the word was going round that
lu podestà
had been hurt; within minutes half the village had gathered, crowding into the kitchen and around the front doors, craning for a better view. Father Nick, in his black cassock and wide-brimmed cleric’s hat, stood next to my mother and me at the doorway to my grandfather’s room, rubbing his hands against the cold, while inside Di Lucci issued instructions to two of my mother’s cousins, Virginio Catalone and his brother Pastore, who had elbowed their way through the crowd and were struggling now to wedge the rack into the tight space between the bed and my grandfather’s prone form. Virginio and
Pastore, identical twins, sullen and thick-set, had kept clear of our house since my mother’s troubles had started; but they had not hesitated to push their way to the front of the crowd when the word had gone out that my grandfather was hurt.

‘Try to slide it under him, like a spoon,’ Di Lucci was saying. But finally the two men, ignoring Di Lucci, tilted the bed up against the wall with a single thrust and laid the rack flat on the floor. My grandfather let out a grunt as they lifted him onto it, his jaw clenched with the pain.

‘Careful,’ my mother said sharply. ‘Can’t you see you’re hurting him?’

‘He’s broken his leg,’ Father Nick said.

‘
Grazie, dottore.
’

We stood aside as Virginio and Pastore carried the rack through the crowded kitchen and into the street, where a few thick flakes of snow had begun to fall. But now it was suddenly obvious that there would be no way of getting my grandfather into Di Lucci’s cramped Fiat in his present state. Someone suggested that the front and back windshields be smashed away, and the rack slid through them.

‘Don’t be crazy,’ Di Lucci said, paling. ‘And anyway how would I drive, tell me, squashed under that rack like a worm?’

‘Vittorio,’ Father Nick said, standing by with a look of forced calmness, ‘go inside and get a blanket to cover your grandfather.’

When I had come out again with a blanket, my mother was coming down the street trailing Mastronardi’s mule and cart, a lantern swinging from one hand.

‘At this rate you’ll be here all night,’ she said, pulling up in front of the house. ‘Load him into the cart, there’s no other way. Has anyone thought to cover him?’ Then, seeing me standing with the blanket still in my hands, she took it from me and bent
to drape it over my grandfather, brushing away the snow that had already begun to collect on his clothes.

‘
Ma
, Cristina,’ Di Lucci said, ‘it’ll take you half the night to get him to Rocca Secca on that cart. In this weather.’ It had begun to snow in earnest now.

‘Do you have any other ideas?’

‘At least I could drive to Rocca Secca and see if they’ll send out the ambulance.’

‘You know as well as I do that ambulance hasn’t left the garage since the war. And on Christmas night? They wouldn’t come out here for Christ himself. But go on, if you want to, see what you can do. In the meantime I’ll start out on my own. Someone bring some more blankets,
per l’amore di Cristo
.’

Di Lucci stood by hesitantly for a moment.

‘
Dai
, Andò, smash out the windows,’ someone suggested again. ‘They’ll freeze to death before they get to the hospital in that thing.’

‘
Sí
, smash the windows,’ Di Lucci said, already moving to the door of his car. ‘You and your foolish ideas.’ And in a moment he had heaved himself into the driver’s seat, gunned up the engine, and sped off into the snow.

My mother had already motioned Virginio and Pastore to lift my grandfather onto the cart. His eyes were closed now, but he was muttering softly to himself, as if in troubled sleep, his face beaded with droplets that may have been sweat or melted snow. With a single discreet finger Father Nick made a quick sign of the cross over him as the two men slid the rack onto the cart. Several women had come forward now with blankets; my mother covered my grandfather with a thick layer of them, then draped one around her own shoulders and moved up to the head of the cart.

‘Go back to your suppers,’ she said to her cousins, ‘I can
manage on my own from here. There’ll be someone at the hospital to help me carry him in.’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Virginio said, moving up to take the reins from her. ‘Pastore and I will take him in.’

‘No. This is my affair.’

‘Let Virginio take him in,’ Mastronardi said, eyeing his cart proprietorially. ‘The woods are full of thieves. And in your condition—’

‘I can take care of myself,’ my mother said quickly. And while Virginio and Pastore still hovered uncertainly near the cart my mother heaved herself onto the bench and gave the reins a quick jerk, the cart lurching suddenly forward as the mule raised up his head and thrust himself against his bridle.

‘Wait, Cristina.’

It was Father Nick. My mother pulled back on the reins.

‘What is it?’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Father Nick said. ‘Thieves won’t harm a priest.’

‘You?’ My mother stared at him hard a moment. ‘All right, then, let’s go,’ she said finally. ‘Put a blanket around yourself, that padding on your belly won’t be enough to keep you warm.’

There were a few muffled laughs, quickly suppressed. Father Nick blushed and hesitated a moment, but finally he took a blanket that was offered to him and draped it over his shoulders. He hiked up his skirts and walked briskly up to the cart, pulling himself onto the bench with surprising nimbleness.

‘I’ll take the reins,’ he said, suddenly stern. ‘You can get back in the cart and keep the snow off your father.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Father Nick jerked the reins and the mule set off with a snort, the cart wheels creaking, flattening the snow beneath them with a soft crunch. The snow was falling heavy and thick now, and
shortly the cart had been swallowed into its white hush; but for a long while we could still make out the haloed haze of my mother’s lantern. Finally this too faded into the snow and night, and the villagers still gathered in front of our house brushed the snow off their shoulders and moved quietly back towards their unfinished suppers, and home.