The Miracles of Santo Fico (17 page)

The thick garden wall showed no signs of buckling. It appeared as though most of the eastern section had simply gotten tired and decided to lie down. Leo climbed through the gap in the broken wall, afraid of how he would find the ancient fig tree on the other side. But the twisted old treasure was safe. The sudden slide of tumbling masonry had avoided the withered fig completely and the black stump and branches gleamed in the lamplight. Unhappily, the side of the cathedral that had been in the path of the toppling wall wasn’t so lucky. Great chunks of its exterior had been cruelly battered and now the weight of much of the old garden wall rested against the side of the northern transept. With just the feeble light of his lantern, it didn’t appear to Leo as though there was any serious damage, although from where he stood, much of the lower wall did seem to have taken on an unnatural, warped sort of posture. Leo pictured the other side of that wall and felt an involuntary shudder. He quickly groped his way across the brittle garden and entered the sanctuary.

Leo wasn’t used to the cathedral at night. It was dark, and the cavernous space was alive with unnerving little noises. And instead of his lantern illuminating, its feeble light was swallowed up by hungry shadows, making it even more alien.

The largest pile of debris was mounded just inside the front doors and extended a full ten meters into the sanctuary. Beyond this heap, the wreckage gradually diminished, but still spread in every direction almost all the way to the altar. The mountain of debris on the floor was shocking, but what was even more astonishing was above him. Overhead, bright stars shone and twinkled against the clear black sky. Almost a third of that magnificent ceiling lay in ruins while what was left hung precariously, threatening with each aftershock to crash down on him. But still Leo gazed upward, bewitched by the serenity of the night sky. Of all the elements in the church, Leo had loved the ceiling the most. Now that it was spoiled, he was overwhelmed by the oddest sense of release. There was something strangely fulfilling about this yawning hole that joined the inside of the sanctuary to the expanse of creation that had always existed just outside, but never seemed to be considered. Churches were sanctums intentionally removed from the real world. They were meant to be more than just an earthly refuge; they were reflections of a promise that we might glimpse, but not attain—not in this lifetime. Now, as Leo stared up at the night sky, it occurred to him that he actually preferred the sanctuary this way. It was peaceful, and there was something wonderfully demystifying about it all.

He doubted if Father Elio would share his feelings, though; the old priest was going to be heartbroken. Too bad, he thought. Life is disappointment. Everyone else has to deal with the careless wounds life hands out, so why should Elio Caproni be any different? Because he’s a priest? Leo figured out a long time ago that a person can run, or hide, or ignore the havoc of life for only so long. Permanent sanctuaries aren’t allowed in this world—not in the obscurity of Milano, or across the sea in Chicago, and certainly not here in insignificant Santo Fico. Calamity will find its way to you and, with an unforgiving fist, pound your door down— or in this case, your ceiling. This will break the old man’s heart, but he’ll survive. Leo had.

The floor trembled slightly beneath his feet. It wasn’t much of a shake, just a tiny shudder. There had been a dozen small aftershocks in the last hour since the quake and although they weren’t enough to do damage, they were certainly enough to set everyone’s ragged nerves on edge. A few bricks dropped out of the darkness and crashed to the church floor, sending Leo scrambling out of the center of the room and back to the safety of the walls. Even for all of its irreverent spiritual implications, perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to stand under that portion of the ceiling right now.

He was at the entry to the northern transept when either the flickering shadows of his lantern played tricks with Leo’s eyes or he was struck with a horrifying sight. The blanket had fallen from the fresco and the faces on the wall stared out at Leo from odd angles and with expressions of what looked like mild surprise. The fresco had always possessed the remarkable ability of appearing three-dimensional, but in the dim light of his lantern the painting looked . . . well, rearranged. It was as if the earthquake had taken a few of the characters, shaken them around, and then set them down again in new positions, leaving them all slightly askew.

Leo crept slowly back into the small room, picking his steps carefully in the dim lamplight. He had to see the fresco more closely. A fine dust filled the air like a faint fog, but that didn’t explain why the characters seemed so cockeyed. It was obvious that his assessment had been mistaken when he looked at the wall from the garden side. Outside, and in the darkness, it appeared as though the wall had taken a hammering, yes, but was still essentially sound. From the inside, even in the glow of the lantern, he could see that the lower wall had fractured and the weight of the upper section was slowly crumbling inward. The fresco wall was shattering before his eyes.

Another aftershock trembled beneath his feet and the fracture in the wall poured a stream of crumbling mortar onto the floor. Small rivulets of plaster dust rained down. Holding the lamp over his head, Leo discovered an ugly, gaping crack in the ceiling that ran the length of the short room. The transept was splitting in two from above as the supporting wall deteriorated. Every now and then the ceiling actually groaned, as if it could barely manage the strain of holding itself up. The faces in the fresco seemed to cry out to him, as though they also knew that the transept was doomed—maybe only minutes away from total collapse. Leo had visions of ending up like Nonno.

Nonno! He’d forgotten about Nonno! He had promised the old man he would stay. He should be back down at the pier right now. The faces on the wall were covered with dust and surprise, just like Nonno had been, but they couldn’t be helped. The room was doomed and so were they.

As Leo turned to leave, a loud buzzing and a blinding flash of light startled him. The electric lights that pointed toward the fresco had unexpectedly burst on and then, just as quickly, they died. Father Elio must have tried to turn them on as he made his escape. After only seconds they glowed feebly again. They flickered several times, then slowly brightened until, after a few faltering surges, the two bulbs were shining steadily. The beams were nowhere near full strength, but at least he had light. From the cheers echoing in through the missing ceiling Leo concluded that the power, however feeble, was apparently back on in the whole village.

When he faced the fractured wall shining under the muted glare of the lamps, what he saw made his breath catch. He could feel his heart beat and in his ears was a buzz louder than the hum of the electric bulbs. His guilty dream had become substance. The buckling and bulging of the wall was forcing the top layers of the mural to pull away from their base. Like an aged photograph peels away from a yellowed page as it turns, both the thin
intonaco
and the thicker
arricio
layers of plaster were lifting away from the ancient weave of lath. The individual sections were separating like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle spreading across a strangely expanding table. Although a few smaller pieces had already broken away, fallen to the floor, and shattered like china, the major sections still clung to the cracked and splintered lattice by what appeared to be either sheer willpower or force of habit.

It was obvious that one of two things was shortly going to happen. Either a substantial aftershock was going to collapse the ceiling and destroy the fresco, or it was going to shake the damaged panels from the wall and they would be destroyed. In either case the fresco, like the ill-fated chamber that had been its home for over four hundred years, was doomed. If anything was going to be saved, Leo would have to act quickly.

There are some temptations that are so overwhelming that they don’t require deliberation. We know the outcome before we ever begin the debate, but still we go through the mental gymnastics because we know that we should—we must, to continue living with ourselves. In the days to come, it would be these flimsy rationalizations that Leo would cling to in his attempts to justify what he knew he was about to do. In point of fact, he thought, it probably wasn’t even his fault. It was all the fault of those two damn fat men from Roma who talked too much. This moment was merely harvesting the fruit of a seed that they had planted in his heart over twenty years ago.

It was the summer of his fourteenth year the day that an unfamiliar Lancia sedan pulled into the square. Leo and Topo were sitting in the center of the piazza with their feet dangling in the empty fountain, disputing the pros and cons of stealing some of Topo’s father’s cigarettes, taking them down to Brusco Point, and practicing smoking. The argument was going nowhere when the strange car circled the two boys and stopped in front of the hotel. Four fat passengers climbed out, spread a map across the hood, and stared at it. At last they folded it and entered the hotel. Although Topo begged Leo to let him do Franco’s part, Leo knew that he would have to do it on his own. He did, however, agree to let Topo hang around—a decision he would forever regret.

Leo, dogged by Topo, found the party sitting at a table in the restaurant. As expected, the two bookish men (both short, round, and bald) and their wives (equally short and round, with mounds of spray-lacquered hair) were just another car of confused tourists headed for Follonica that somehow ended up in their dusty piazza. Leo was delighted to discover that they were actually rather eager to see and hear about the Miracle and the Mystery.

Everything remained monotonously usual until Leo took them inside the church to view the Mystery. He had barely begun his patter and turned on the lights when both men gasped. In unison, eyeglasses appeared from their pockets and they moved Leo out of the way for a better view. The confused boy didn’t have a chance to tell them the full, miraculous story he had created because the two men became engrossed in their own hushed conversation. They asked Leo hard questions and he had trouble keeping up with their enthusiasm. They made him repeat certain sections of his story and then they would ignore him, brusquely turning their attention back to their own fervent discussion. They talked about things like “three-point perspective” . . . “naturalness of curve” . . . “tone and hue” and other things that Leo didn’t understand. At last their impatient wives gave them an ultimatum that could not be ignored and the quartet left the cathedral, paid Leo his fee plus a modest tip, climbed in their car, and drove off headed north.

That was the last Leo ever saw of them, but they had left something behind. They had spoken a great deal about “the great Giotto”—a name that Leo and Topo immediately recognized as famous, but neither knew why. The fat men had also called the fresco “an undiscovered treasure.” Most important, he had heard them use the phrase, “could be worth a fortune.”

When the car had at last disappeared down the road, Topo burst into a whoop and a dance that Leo was certain would end with his friend wetting himself. Much to Leo’s disappointment he realized that everything he had heard, Topo had also overheard, and Topo wanted to tell Franco and Marta immediately. Worse than that, he wanted to tell Father Elio and then run and tell his mother. The little blabbermouth couldn’t wait until everyone in the entire village had heard the news—from him, personally.

But Topo suddenly discovered himself pressed back against the cool plaster wall of the church, his feet no longer quite touching the ground and Leo’s fist pressing into his cheek. Leo’s voice was low and, for a fourteen-year-old, remarkably frightening.

“If you ever tell anyone about this— One word, to anyone—and I’ll kill you.”

Now, Topo didn’t ever think that Leo would actually kill him. And Leo knew that he certainly wouldn’t ever actually kill Topo, but both boys also knew that Leo meant the spirit of that threat probably more than he had ever meant anything in his life.

From time to time, Topo would try to talk to Leo about that phrase, “could be worth a fortune,” but Leo always refused. It stayed a puzzle to Topo as to why Leo wouldn’t discuss it. It was only later, after Leo was gone, after Topo had also become discontent with the meager life Santo Fico offered, and after he had become cynical enough to understand the hopelessness of his future that he began to understand the phrase “could be worth a fortune.” It was hope. It was escape.

The floor shivered again and the room moaned, and over Leo’s head, with sickening cracks and snaps, more dust rained down. If he was going to do it, it had to be now. He placed the lantern next to the wall and prayed that the wavering electric lights would stay on. Then, kneeling on the floor like a disciple at worship, Leo reached out and gently wrapped his fingers around a slab of broken plaster. The plaster was cool to the touch, and the painted surface, covered with a layer of fine dust, felt as smooth as velvet to his fingertips. It was a strangely thrilling sensation to actually touch a section of the vulnerable fresco and he discovered his hands were trembling. He felt as if he were touching a woman he had spent a lifetime longing for, but who was always out of reach and somehow beyond him. He thought of Marta, and he knew that if he hurried things, if he was clumsy or stupid, the moment would be over—spoiled forever. The fresco would reject him, crumble in his hands, fall and shatter on the floor. His hands were shaking.

“Slow down,” he told himself.

Wiping his sweating palms on his jacket, he again carefully gripped the panel that appeared to be in the most danger of falling—the center panel, the blessed Saint Francis himself reclining beneath the miraculous fig tree—and he pulled. The face of Saint Francis seemed to stare into Leo’s eyes with what he had always felt was a strange look of perhaps sorrowful gratitude or maybe understanding or maybe just patience. But today what Leo saw was simply disappointment.

Unfortunately, as Leo pulled and the slab tore away from the wall, he was surprised that the panel’s grip was so tenuous and he wasn’t prepared for either its sudden release or its weight. He almost dropped it, but instead clutched it to his chest. He had it. He was holding it. Leo forgot to breathe as he caressed it and studied it in the dim light—not quite a meter wide and just over a meter tall—his own “undiscovered treasure” that “could be worth a fortune.” Cradling the slab of broken plaster like an injured child, he quickly made his way out the transept and around the corner to the garden door.