Simple Prayers (18 page)

The only thing that managed to take the villagers’minds off the subject of Miriam's baby was the need, now that the
campanìl
was finished and the sonorous bells were in place, to begin the work of laying the foundation for the
campo.
Over the next few days the field was razed and the earth beneath it beaten flat; a wooden frame was erected, and a thick layer of rubble was laid down; a mixture of powdered brick, lime chalk, and linseed oil was spread evenly over the rubble, scored and crosshatched so that it could receive a second layer into which the bits of colored glass would be set.

When Piero finally opened the twenty-seven boxes of tile that Albertino had brought back from Venezia, he felt like an Arabian sultan before a store of looted gems. They were not so much tiles as they were cubes, or fragments; they shimmered in the sunlight with a thousand glittering winks. When he thrust his hands down into them, however, they cut him like tiny knives — which sent a flicker of pain to his heart and made him think of Miriam. For close to a fortnight Piero had holed himself up in Beppe Guancio's hovel, amid the smell of cod and the sound of dripping fat, trying to translate his smoldering vision of Miriam and the dragons into two-dimensional form. After studying the elaborate tilework at both San Marco and Torcello, he realized that it was easier to create a harmony of geometric patterns than successfully to depict the human form; he was nevertheless convinced that with attention to gradation of color and the balance of light and shade, he could come up with an image that would be as satisfying to the soul as to the eye. When the design was complete he divided it into a hundred equal sections, enlarged each section to its actual dimensions, and then divided each enlargement a hundred times again, carefully indicating, in the end, where each and every tile should be placed.

The people of Riva di Pignoli were as fascinated by Piero's diagrams as they were meticulous about adhering to them. Since few of the villagers could read, Piero marked the squares with tiny dots of wine and blood and strawberry juice, of indigo and crushed pansies, of mustard seed, of cabbage pulp, of mud and dung and pitch. As the diagram for each day's work revealed only a small portion of the overall design, the project soon became a guessing game: someone could always be found peering over the shoulder of whoever was working to announce the discovery of a snout, a claw, or a wing. The
campo
-in-progress became a gathering place; the villagers set up chairs on the unfilled spaces and waited to see what the workers would lay down next. The Vedova Stampanini brought her broad beans to snap. Maria Luigi brought her sewing. Siora Bertinelli set up a stand by Piero's stump and began selling capon pastries and cod-liver crisps.

And every so often, when no one was looking, Piarina would slip down into the belfry and ring the bells. She had not left her perch upon the tower since the morning of the
pranzo della vendemia,
despite the repeated threats and the ever-louder shouts of Valentina. Each morning Piero would climb up to leave her a plate of salt herring and a cup of dandelion tea, twice a day she would call out her cryptic cures, but mostly she either sat stone still or rang the bells. She rang them in no particular pattern and for no particular length of time. The people never knew when their work or their meals or their slumber would suddenly be interrupted by the round, ringing peals of Piarina's impulse. Beppe Guancio became convinced that an evil demon had taken over her soul; he began strewing bones and rubbish around the base of the church in an effort to protect it from her influence.

About ten days into the laying of the tiles, as the eastern and southern edges of the design were beginning to piece to life, Piero looked up to find Miriam standing beside him. He had not seen her since the
pranzo della vendemia,
but as he looked at her now he could not imagine that only a few weeks earlier he had failed to see that she was pregnant. It shone from her like the faint scent of milk-wood or the heat of a summer night. It whispered from the strands of her fire-bright hair and sang from the tightened fullness of her rounded belly.

“I need to speak with you,” she said.

Piero tried to hide the obvious passion she aroused; it seemed unfair that while bearing another man's child she should be so beautiful.

“What do you wish to say?”

“I can't tell you here.”

“Where, then?”

“Wherever we can speak in private.”

For a moment Piero actually imagined that she was going to tell him the child was his — that in a sleeping trance he had come to her, and lain with her, and left himself inside her. But Piero knew no trance could have been so deep that upon the touch of her skin he would not have awakened. He knew it was only a fantasy. He knew the child was Gianluca's.

“Perhaps we could use the
chiesa,”
she suggested. “What I have to say is as well said there as anywhere.”

They moved across the field and entered the little chapel. After the bright sunlight it offered them a shadowy intimacy: the altar was covered, the candles were half-burned, the walls smelled damp from the fog still trapped between their stones. A breeze that entered behind them shuffled a few dry leaves in at their feet, where they were likely to remain until they'd resolved themselves down into a faint winter dust.

Miriam moved down the aisle and stood before the altar. The piece of white cloth was in place, and someone had strewn a few pinecones along its surface. As she looked at the image of scattered dark against light, she thought about the reaction of the villagers to her announcement that she was going to have a baby. For herself she did not mind the fall from grace; it was easier to be considered human than to be thought of as an angel. But for her child, who had no place in the community — who might be thrust from the island as the bastard of a
straniera
— she was concerned. So she waited until the talk had died down and then came to see Piero.

“We haven't spoken since the
pranzo,
” she said, reaching out to pick up one of the pinecones. “I imagine you must be upset about what I said.”

“Not upset. Confused would be a better word.”

“I don't blame you. A stranger comes to your village, makes herself a part of the life of that village. And then you find she's not what you thought she was.”

“I haven't made any judgments, Miriam. It's just — confusing.”

“Then I should explain it as clearly as I can,” she said, turning now to face him. “I'm going to have a child. I'm going to have it on Riva di Pignoli. I want it to be accepted as a member of the community.”

“If that's what you wish, I'm sure it will happen.”

“I need to be certain,” she said. “I'm a stranger here. If anything should happen to me, I need to know my baby will be taken care of.”

“The people will treat your baby like any other child of Riva di Pignoli. I assure you.”

Miriam looked down at the pinecone in her hand. Each segment held a tender, pale
pignole.
“What about you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“How will you feel toward my child?”

Piero flushed at the question. “What does that matter?”

“It matters to me,” she said. “A child needs a father.”

“The entire village will be its father,” he said, flustered. “Every one of us will be its father.”

Miriam paused for a moment, looking down at the straw-covered stones at Piero's feet. When she looked up again, her eyes were filled with a new radiance.

“I want you to be my child's father,” she said. “You — and Gianluca.”

“Me — and Gianluca!”

“I want my child to learn everything,” said Miriam. “To read and write. To plant and fish. If it's a girl, I want her to learn sewing and astronomy and architecture. If it's a boy, I want him to write poetry and chop down trees. No one can teach all those things by himself. But together you and Gianluca can offer my child the most extraordinary education in the lagoon. Say you'l do it, Piero. Say you'l be my baby's father with Gianluca.”

Piero did not know how to respond to Miriam's words. He could have imagined almost anything, and he never would have come up with what she was suggesting to him now.

“What does Gianluca say about this?”

“I haven't spoken to him yet. But I'm certain he'l understand what I mean. I'm certain you both will.”

Piero was astonished at Miriam's offer. He was certain that the child was Gianluca's, and he could not fathom why she would ask him to share its fathering. Yet he could not help but think that it would offer him a chance to remain close to her, and that it might even help to lead him back to the piety he'd strayed from since Miriam had first arrived upon the island.

“It's a big decision,” he said. “You'l have to let me think about it.”

“Of course,” said Miriam. “The baby won't be here for several months yet.”

Piero nodded, and they left the chapel; then he quietly returned to the laying of the tiles while she went back to her various chores in the henhouse. That evening, however, when he prepared himself for sleep, he found that he could no longer bear his place beneath the stars beside the Chiesa di Maria del Mare. So he returned to Beppe Guancio's hovel and asked if he could once more make his bed upon the thin pile of straw that lay in a mound in the corner.

For a scholar, or a sculptor, an exposed tree stump was a fine place to slumber. But for an expectant father, it simply wouldn't do.

UNLIKE PIERO
, Albertino was content to face the damp November nights without a roof over his head. Lately, however, he found his bed to be unbearably lonely. He cursed the times he'd forbade Ermenegilda to enter his room and lay beneath his blankets; perhaps if he'd let her, a trace of her odor would still be trapped between the chestnut and the azure or wound around the emerald, the rust, and the gold. His only solace was the knowledge, each evening, that when morning finally came he could go to her door and wait for her to reject him again.

One night he decided he could not wait until morning. He kicked down his blankets, threw on his clothes, and made his way across the water and over the fields to the gates of the Ca’Torta. In the generous glow of the three-quarter moon, the great house rose up like a temple; as Albertino moved toward it, he felt as if he were being drawn by some elaborate ancient spell.

When he reached the door, he looked up to Ermenegilda's window. He imagined her deep in a comforting slumber, eating sliced beef with horseradish sauce and a soup made of pulverized almonds. He heard the rustling of the satin coverlet he imagined lay beneath her, and the faint whisper of his name as she wished him to her side. And though he knew the difference between what he imagined and what was real — and that any attempt to be with her might well be met by his execution — he could not resist his impulse to climb to her window and find his way into her dreams.

He continued looking up, the cold, predawn mist wetting his cheeks and throat and seeping into his light wool tunic. From his vantage point beneath the first-floor
terrazza,
it seemed an easy enough maneuver; Enrico Torta had built his jewel box to dazzle and had given little thought to protecting it from intruders. First he stood upon one of the marble pigeons that flanked the columns that flanked the doorway; from there he stepped up on the moor's-head knocker and hoisted himself to the ledge above the doorway by clasping the small bas-relief of the Virgin and Child that jutted out just beneath the
terrazza;
from the Virgin and Child he lifted himself to the
terrazza,
and from there it was just a toehold on the Lamb of God to the casement of Ermenegilda's window. He knew which one was hers from the dozens of times she'd pointed it out on their walks up the Calle Alberi Grandi. She'd shown it to him in the very hope that he might someday do precisely what he was doing now — though the irony of that went completely over Albertino's head.

When he reached Ermenegilda's window he pressed at the bubbly glass, but Ermenegilda had sealed it tight and it wouldn't budge. The damp air was beginning to soak into his skin, so he drew up his courage and rapped sharply upon the window several times. Ermenegilda's sallow face suddenly appeared — but the irregular glass so distorted it in the moonlight, he could not tell whether she was angry or elated. After a long moment she opened the window, leaned out over the ledge, and sank a soft, wet kiss onto his lips. Then she drew back, heaved the contents of her night bucket over his head, and slammed the window fast against his face.

Albertino crouched there for a moment, caught between horror and bliss; then he slowly began to work his way back down the facade of the building. He lowered himself to the Lamb of God and from there to the first-floor
terrazza.
But when he reached the Virgin and Child he misjudged his footing and fell flat upon the hard stone entrance, bruising his right shoulder and breaking his left leg in three places.

Ermenegilda dispatched Romilda Rosetta to attend to him before his howls of agony woke the entire island. The maid ladled half a bottle of
grappa di radiccbio
down his throat and then went and fetched Gianluca, who carried him back to the Vedova Stampanini's, where he was trussed up tightly and coddled into sleep.

In his dreams Albertino felt himself falling again and again and again. But never for a moment did he blame Ermenegilda, nor wish to undo the climb that had led to the kiss that had led to the slime that had led to the fall.

IT SOON BECAME CLEAR
that Albertino would have to remain in bed until at least the Immaculate Conception of Maria the Virgin, leaving Gianluca to do both their labor himself. By this time there were only the parsnips and a bit of lettuce left to lift, but with the digging and the manuring that had to be done before the ground became too hard, and his regular market tasks, he found that he needed to rise two hours earlier and continue working until well after nightfall. He was so busy, in fact, he almost managed to drum Miriam out of his mind — until the Vedova Stampanini stopped him with a message that proved such efforts were hopeless.