Simple Prayers (24 page)

On the morning of the second day after the lightening of the pressure, Miriam awoke from a horrifying dream in which she'd given birth to a child with a pair of bright blue wings. She was so disturbed that the Vedova Stampanini had to brew a vat of mulled wine to sedate her, and it was as the Vedova sat by the hearth, stabbing dried figs with cloves to drop into the cauldron, that Armida Barbon suddenly cried out that the process had begun.

“
L'aqua
!” she shouted as Miriam's waters soaked the bed linens. “It could start any time now!”

The hovel swiftly prepared itself for action. Siora Scabbri began rubbing an ointment of chamomile and verbena on Miriam's belly; Maria Luigi loosened Miriam's hair; Armida Barbon ran about the hovel opening doors and drawers and cupboards to encourage the opening of Miriam. By late morning the contractions had begun — from the way Miriam grasped the Vedova Stampanini's hand, the old woman knew that the pain was tremendous, but Miriam did not let out so much as a whimper. For the remainder of the afternoon, as the pains came and went, she slept and read and sat propped up on pillows, helping the Vedova pierce dried winter fruit with spice.

Around dusk the women helped her from the bed and began walking her, in small circles, about the hovel. The pressure grew stronger; there was less and less time between contractions. And as her body hurtled forward toward the moment of release, Miriam suddenly began to fear for her baby.

“I'm frightened,” she whispered to the Vedova Stampanini as Siora Scabbri and Maria Luigi began to rub her arms and legs with clover oil.

“It's normal,” said the Vedova. “Your body's about to do something it's never done before.”

“My baby's going to die!” she cried. “It's going to be born with a pair of bright blue wings and die!”

“If that's what God decides,
cara,
there's nothing you can do to prevent it. But it's not going to help your labor to keep thinking about it.”

“I have to think about it,” she said as she gripped the Vedova's hand more fiercely. “Tell me. Tell me so I can survive it.”

“Keep moving, Miriam,” said Siora Scabbri. “It's getting close now.”

“What do you mean, child?” asked the Vedova Stampanini.

“Your children. Tell me how you lost them.”

“We have to move her to the stool,” said Maria Luigi. “The pains are coming faster.”

“It's not the time,
cara,”
said the Vedova. “I'l tell you about it after.”

“No!” cried Miriam as the three women led her to the birthing stool. “I want to know now. Tell me now — so I have the strength to face it if it comes.”

As Maria Luigi and Siora Scabbri helped lower Miriam upon the stool, the Vedova Stampanini let go of her hand and clasped her bony arms about her waist. She stared off into the distance as if she were trying to visualize the separate sections of a huge tapestry that time had torn to shreds. Then she drew a deep breath that seemed to weave the pieces back together again, and spoke.

“First there was Bernardo. He had a thick head of curls and a cry that woke the entire village. The cry lasted six days; so did Bernardo. We buried him before the sound was out of the roof beams.”

Miriam gripped the two women's hands as she went into another contraction.

“
Spingi
!” cried Maria Luigi.

“Tommaso was next. He lasted a whole year. Time enough for six teeth, three chins, and a wonderful fat bottom. I used to love to pinch that bottom — I'd sing,‘Tommaso, Tommaso, a baby made of clay!’He was bit by a rat. Six times, in his bed. He died within the hour.”

“
Spingi
!” cried Siora Scabbri.

“Next came a spate of girls. GiovÀna, with her black shining hair, who died of San Vitus’dance when she was four. Isabella, so delicate and frail, who couldn't stand the harsh winters. And Laura — such a strange child, with a bubbling laugh one minute and a face to the floor the next — who simply announced one Pentecost that she was through with eating and was gone before Tutti Santi.”

“
La testa
!” cried Maria Luigi as the head began to crown. “
Spingi,
Miriam!
Spingi
!”

Miriam's body was now bathed in sweat, her gown unfastened, her face clenched tightly with her efforts.

“That's enough,” said the Vedova. “You have to concentrate now.”

“Tell me all of it,” gasped Miriam. “Please — tell me the rest.”

The Vedova cast a glance at Maria Luigi, who shrugged, and Siora Scabbri, who nodded, so she closed her eyes and continued on.

“Egidio came next. He lasted the longest. Sixteen winters to watch the baby become a boy and the boy become a man. To watch the tiny hand I used to hold between my finger and thumb grow big enough to swing a sledgehammer. It was hardest to lose Egidio — we'd given ourselves over to him. And all from a bad tooth —”

“
Spingi
!”

“But then Mario and Agosto were difficult, too. Drowned in the lagoon. That was when I began to accept it. That was when I stopped sitting in the garden eating bitter herbs and crying myself to sleep at night.”

“It's coming,” cried Maria Luigi. “Don't stop now!”

“Go on,” panted Miriam. “Go on.”

“The next to last was Orlandino. Stillborn. His father didn't even want to name him, but after nine months inside me I knew him as well as I'd known the others, so I insisted.”

“It's almost there!”

“The last was a baby girl. We named her Maria, hoping that maybe the Blessed Virgin would intervene and allow us to keep her, but she was gone before we could lay her in her cradle.”

“That's it, Miriam! You'e doing it! Here it comes!”

A silence came over the hovel as the tiny infant sprang out of Miriam's body and into Siora Scabbri's hands. There was a moment of prayer — and then a great, healthy wail filled the room.

“It's a boy!” cried Maria Luigi. “A beautiful baby boy!”

“Has he got wings?” whispered Miriam. “Has he got bright blue wings?”

“No wings,
cara,
” said the Vedova as she reached down to lift up the slimy newborn to view it. “Just a milky-white caul over his head.”

“A caul!” said Armida Barbon.

“That brings luck, Miriam,” said Siora Scabbri.

The Vedova drew the sticky substance off the infant's head with the heel of her hand; then she lifted him up to Miriam's breast, where he eagerly sought the nipple.

“No wings,” murmured Miriam. “No wings.”

Siora Scabbri guided Miriam and the baby back to the bed. The Vedova Stampanini cut the umbilical cord with a sharp knife and placed a pair of sewing clips on the end. Then Maria Luigi took the baby into the other room, where she rubbed him from head to toe with salt, cleansed his palate and gums with acacia honey, and wrapped him tightly in swaddling bandages before returning him to Miriam.

“
Grazie,”
Miriam said to the Vedova, her cheeks damp and glistening.

The Vedova Stampanini said nothing. She merely sat by Miriam's side until both she and the newborn had fallen asleep. Then she went to the hearth and began dropping the studded figs into the kettle of dark wine — where they splashed like bits of sweet hail and then floated, calmly, to the surface.

Chapter 15

T
HROUGH THE COLD
gray months of January and February the people of Riva di Pignoli did their best not to think about the spring. They worked on the reconstruction of the new village center, they stumbled through the fog up the Calle Alberi Grandi, they hunkered beside their hearths over bowls of pease pudding and plate after plate of dried
baccala.
The spring was a fancy — a memory — a dream. After last year's game of hide-and-go-seek, they knew better than to count on its arrival.

As March eased the chill, however, and licked away the clouds of mist that swirled along the footpaths, they began to hear a faint singing. It started in the lagoon: beneath the surface of the winter waters the sea grass began to chant. The docks along the western shore began to stretch and sigh; if you listened closely in the early morning, or the hour between dusk and dinner, you could hear them creak a dry, plaintive melody upon the salty air. But clearest of all — if you paused beneath a pine tree for a quick rest or happened to wander into one of the sleeping fields, away from the voices of the village — was the low, rolling resonance that rose in a gentle arc from beneath the soil.

It gave a lilt to Siora Bertinelli's step as she moved about her hovel making pastries in the shape of swans. It caused Anna Rizzardello to do a shin dance as she scraped the salting racks, and it turned Gesmundo Barbon's daily ritual of untangling the fishing nets into an interpretive fisherman's ballet. When people passed on the Calle Alberi Grandi, they linked arms and did a quick jig; Giuseppe Navo sneaked into the Vedova Stampanini's twice a day to do a turn and a low dip before the broth pot. The spring might not arrive with all the whirring and popping and fierce drama with which it had exploded upon the villagers the previous year, but the urge to dance that came over them made it clear that it would come.

Albertino was determined that it come on schedule. So as the second construction of the
campanìl,
the
campo,
and the monument moved toward completion, he suggested to Piero that they arrange a special event to attract the fickle season's attention.

“Perhaps we could light a bonfire,” he suggested. “Or ring the new bells until at least a blade of grass appears. We can't take the chance that this year it might not find us at all.”

Piero needed no convincing. The completion of the new village center, after so much difficulty, was a milestone in Riva di Pignoli history. Spring or no spring, he intended to honor it with as lavish a celebration as the island had ever seen.

Piero had worked hard the past two months. While the village had married itself to the reconstruction of the
campanì l
and the
campo,
he'd burrowed himself away in his corner of Beppe Guancio's hovel and devoted himself to resculpting the statue of Miriam. Where the first statue had expressed his passion, however, this one expressed his piety: he carefully fashioned an elegant Madonna and Child, with Miriam and her newborn infant as his models. He had not actually seen the baby, as Miriam was still in her postpartum confinement, but he'd received detailed descriptions from Maria Luigi of the long, slender body, the abundant curls, and the slightly almond-shaped eyes, and he was sure that combined with his careful rendering of Miriam, his intentions would be unmistakable. How could the villagers reject an infant who graced their village center in the image of the Savior? How could Miriam reject a man who commemorated that village by dedicating it to her and her child?

The people of Riva di Pignoli had no money to pay for entertainment to be brought to the island, so Piero went to Fra Danilo to ask for his usual assistance.

“I want something the people have never seen before,” he said. “I want music, and storytelling — a real public festival.”

“Easter's coming,” said the monk. “I'm sure I can arrange for a donation of services with the promise of a few paid engagements throughout the lagoon.”

“Do you have a particular group in mind?”

“It depends on what you'e looking for. I know a number of local guilds that provide excellent entertainment. There's a group of goldsmiths in Eraclea who do a splendid Adoration of the Magi. There's a carpenters’guild in Pellestrina that offers a wonderful version of Noah's Ark. And there's a wine merchants’guild in Treviso that tells a riveting Marriage at Canaa.”

“What about the Story of the Virgin?”

“The Story of the Virgin …” Fra Danilo pondered. “I believe there are some mummers from Padova who do that. They'e primarily street performers — jugglers, acrobats, that sort, of thing — but I'e heard they do a very good Story of the Virgin.”

“Perhaps they could do it all,” said Piero. “We'e never had a real festival on Riva di Pignoli. Perhaps they could do a bit of singing and dancing along the Calle Alberi Grandi and then present the Story of the Virgin on the new
campo.”

“I'e never seen you so enthusiastic, Piero! What's come over you?”

“It's a time for celebration,” said Piero. “After all the troubles we'e weathered this past year, I feel we should acknowledge our good fortune.”

“You'e perfectly right,” said Fra Danilo. “I'l send word to Padova this afternoon and see what I can arrange for you.”

Piero returned to Riva di Pignoli and sent word about the village: in celebration of the new village center and the coming of spring, the First Riva di Pignoli Street Festival — to take place on the only Riva di Pignoli street — would be held on the first day of spring.

Everyone invited. Wear masks. Bring pipes and tambourines.

That night Piero worked well into the darkness on the last touches of the monument: the folds in Miriam's hood, the curve of her wrist around the infant's belly, the traces of their lips and eyelashes. When he could work no more he laid down his chisel, crept to his bed, and fell asleep.

A short time after, he was awakened — or so he thought — by the sound of drums. They started in the distance like a heartbeat and grew louder, and more passionate, as they moved across the island toward Beppe Guancio's hovel. There were pipes and psalters, and there was singing, too, and a strange, dry clacking noise that Piero could not identify. When the sounds were just outside his walls there came a loud rapping at the door; Piero could not help but laugh thinking that the mummers had come too soon, that they had not been able to wait until the coming of spring to begin their joyful revels. He rose from his bed and went to the door, trying to formulate what to say to them; when he opened it, however, his words lodged in his throat. For there before him stretched a band of grinning skeletons — dancing wildly in the pitch of night and returning his own bright laughter note for note.

MIRIAM TOO HEARD MUSIC
while she lay in bed at night. It came in through the tiny window that let a bit of air into Gianluca's room at the back of the Vedova Stampanini's hovel. For Miriam, however, there was no need to go to the door to identify the sounds; even in her sleep she knew the searching, tortured-goat quality of Gianluca's singing.