The Miracles of Santo Fico (8 page)

As for the English audience, they fully expected to hear about Duke Cosimo’s last moments on this earth, but it seemed he had another destiny . . .

“Like everyone in’a those days, the Great Duke had heard the tales of the tiny monastery hidden somewhere on’a the coast of Toscana. This monastery was’a built because so many miracles happened on that spot, and according to legend, a certain, powerful miracle still lived there—along with a wonderful’a mystery. And Cosimo sensed that if he could’a only stay alive long enough to get to that blessed site, he might’a yet live.”

Leo told his enthralled audience how a devoted squad of anxious soldiers rode for three days through the heat of the Toscana summer while the poor man’s life teetered between this world and the next. Finally they arrived at the blue Tyrrhenian and climbed the steep cliff crags to a tiny, almost inaccessible monastery perched on the farthest point of a sheer promontory.

“When the humble Franciscan monks saw the Great Duke, of course they took’a him in and gently laid his’a weak body on a cot in front of their hallowed shrine—the Miracle of Santo Fico. But poor Duke Cosimo, even in his’a feverish state, he was able to look across the courtyard and’a there, shining out of the darkness, as if it had’a some Inner Light, was the Mystery of Santo Fico. And all through that long night, with the divine Miracle on’a one side and the beautiful Mystery of Santo Fico on’a the other, the holy friars held their vigils with prayers and secret medicines.

“Can’a you even imagine,” Leo sighed, “how shocked those loyal soldiers must’a have been when they came into the church in’a the morning and found that their Duke’s fever was all gone and the infection of his wound was’a healed? He would live! Well, maybe that was’a miracle enough for his soldiers, but not for a Great’a Duke who had just returned from the brink of’a death with . . . a vision!” With a sense of quiet wonder and awe Leo told them how the blessed Saint Francis had come to Duke Cosimo in the night and gently kissed his fevered brow and touched the fatal wound. Leo allowed his voice to lift in exaltation as he told of the Duke’s resolve to create a town on that very spot . . .

“. . . So weary pilgrims from around’a the world, like yourselves, could come and witness the shrine of the Miracle and the splendor of the Mystery of Santo Fico. And that was’a how Santo Fico came’a to be.”

The room was silent for a long time. To Leo’s way of thinking, perhaps too long. After all, he hadn’t told the story in many years, and never in English. He may have lost his touch. But, at last, a universal sigh was expelled. Then someone was inspired to applaud (actually it was Topo) and the ovation quickly became enthusiastic. Leo smiled and offered a modest bow—quite pleased with how much he’d remembered of the original version and also how many poignant details he had been able to fabricate on the spot.

There wasn’t a lot of time to bask in the afterglow. He caught a glimpse of Marta marching in his direction so he hurried back to the bar—away from his fans. Carmen was refilling his wineglass when suddenly her mother was at her shoulder, and it took only the slightest jerk of Marta’s head to make her daughter disappear.

Marta looked Leo up and down—this would not be like their first meeting in the piazza six weeks ago when she’d been so shocked at seeing him. That day she hadn’t been prepared and her emotions had attacked her with a ferocity that she couldn’t control. This was different. This time Leo was in her hotel and this time she was in control.

For the first time since his return, she had a chance to look closely into Leo’s face. He’d changed. This was a man’s face. There were more lines and more scars—probably from fights. The eyes were the same even with the wrinkles, but now the nose was broken in a different way and a jagged scar crossed the bridge. Marta wondered if she’d done that the night before her wedding when she had grabbed up a water pitcher from off the nightstand next to her bed and hurled it at him. She had intended for it to crash into the wall next to him, but in the darkness of the night and blinded by her own tears, she missed. The water pitcher smashed into Leo’s face and knocked him backward out of her second-story bedroom window. He came to earth in the garden below, among the radishes . . . Marta remembered thinking he was lucky. He barely missed landing in the tomatoes where he would have been impaled on the stakes.

She had watched him from her window as he limped out of the moonlit garden holding his face . . . Eighteen years ago last month. That broken, scarred nose may have been her work, she thought—at least, she hoped it was.

For his part, Leo had never considered landing in the radishes a particularly lucky break. He often felt his life would have been so much simpler if he’d just landed on the tomato stakes and that thought occurred to him again as he too had a chance to study a face he hadn’t been close to in eighteen years. The girl he grew up with was gone. It was a woman’s face that stood before him now, but it still took his breath away. It was a face that should have been chiseled out of stone centuries ago and celebrated through the ages as beautiful. There had always been that beauty, Leo thought, but now there was something more. Around the corners of her dark eyes and taut mouth were the tracings of small wrinkles some people call laugh lines, but Leo had a feeling that they weren’t caused by years of excessive joy. Marta had always been filled with a certain intense determination and there was no denying it was still there, but that wasn’t all Leo saw today. He also recognized regret and resignation. He knew them because they were such old companions in his own life.

From his place at the bar, Topo prayed like a zealot that Marta wouldn’t spoil everything—they were so close to success. Even now a few members of the English tour group were asking their guide questions and pointing at Leo. It was going perfectly, and now Marta was going to spoil everything because of some silly . . . What? Even he didn’t know. He, Guido Pasolini, who’d been there eighteen years ago still wasn’t sure what had happened to drive such a terrible wedge between his three best friends. He just knew that after the night of Franco’s awful bachelor party he was never allowed to mention the name Leo Pizzola to Marta again. He’d discovered that much the next day at the wedding. Franco was angry too, of course, because of the fight in Grosseto the night before. But eventually Franco had let go of his anger. Once, when they were drunk and melancholy, Franco had even confessed to Topo that it had been his fault. Sometimes he and Franco would reminisce and wonder what Leo might be up to. They knew he was in America . . . somewhere, and they would occasionally pretend that someday they would get out of Santo Fico too. They would join Leo in America, just like they used to dream of doing when they were boys . . . someday. But they could never talk like that when Marta was around. When Marta was around, Leo’s name was not to be mentioned. Neither Topo nor Franco ever knew about Leo standing at Marta’s window the night before the wedding. She never told anyone. So, of course Topo didn’t understand. He just knew that the English tourists were now talking among themselves and pointing at Leo and nodding. Sometimes Marta’s bitterness made things damn inconvenient.

Leo and Marta continued to stare at each other in silence. Leo was waiting for Marta. It was her hotel, after all. But at that moment Marta was busy hating Leo’s battered Panama hat, and his wrinkled suit, and his stupid mustache, and everything else about him. He looks ridiculous, she thought, in that shabby suit, with that ugly green tie, and that stupid yellow hankie—he looks like a faded Italian flag.

Marta called down the bar, “Carmen, did he pay for this wine?”

“Yes, Mama,” Carmen lied without hesitation.

She eyed him for another moment. “Nice suit.”

He nodded a bit too smugly, and for an instant thought he was about to get slapped as Marta’s hand shot toward him. But, to his embarrassment, she merely pulled a long blade of razor grass out from under his coat lapel.

“What’ve you been doing, crawling through a field?” His common sense argued with his panic—there was no way she could know about him crawling through the field! Leo struggled to control the nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth as Marta pressed on.

“Have you asked Uncle Elio about this?”

From the cloud of guilt that crossed Leo’s expression, Marta read the answer. The idiot hadn’t so much as spoken to Father Elio. He’d simply plowed ahead with this whole elaborate thing without having spoken even a word to the old priest.

“I didn’t think so,” she chuckled mirthlessly—and Leo fought the image of Marta cackling with laughter as she gleefully shoveled dirt on his grave. In less than a minute and with about three short sentences, she had established her authority over him, identified a secret sin, and pointed out the major flaw in his scheme. The thought occurred to him that if it were only a hundred years earlier, he could have her burned as a witch, no problem. She was frighteningly correct about one thing though—there was a chance Father Elio wouldn’t give his permission.

Fortunately for Leo, the guide was approaching and their exchange was to be cut short. Marta spoke quickly, biting her words under her breath.

“I know what you’re doing and I don’t like it. If I didn’t have these people . . . I’d tell you how much! You’ve got two minutes, then you get the hell out of my hotel.” She turned smoothly and smiled to the guide just as he stepped up, “Signore, the desserts are ready. Zabaglione and coffee. We’ll bring them right out.”

“Good . . .”

And Marta disappeared into the kitchen without giving Leo another look.

The guide was delighted to hear about the desserts, but that wasn’t why he’d come over.

“It seems that some people in my party liked your story.” He smiled broadly and quoted Leo, “
The shrine of the Miracle and the splendor of the Mystery of Santo Fico
—That was good. These people, they’re interested in seeing these sights. . . If you’re not too busy . . . Maybe you could give them a personal tour?”

Leo’s brow furrowed with concern. He rubbed his un-shaven face wearily and sighed. “This is difficult.”

The guide leaned in and whispered, “I think they’d be willing to pay . . . Maybe a few hundred thousand lire?” and he encouraged Leo with a sly wink.

Leo raised himself to his full height of indignation (which was actually quite tall) and fixed the guide with a glare that struck the poor man with cold fear to his very bowels. It was obvious to everyone in the room that Leo was deciding whether or not to strike this impudent rascal. Those locals who remembered the wild days and the violence that often surrounded Leo and Franco recognized the potential seriousness of the guide’s situation.

In truth, although Leo really didn’t like this
pazzo,
his mind was racing. Until that moment he hadn’t given any thought to exact figures. The guide’s approach and subsequent proposal were, of course, expected, but now Leo was thankful for this moment of bluff because he had to do some fast calculating.

He glared at the round man like the great Duke Cosimo himself and frantically tried to work out the numbers in his head . . .
Twelve people . . . maybe 20,000 lire a head. That’s, eh . . . 200,000 lire and . . . something. But, twenty-five percent to Topo, and another twenty-five percent to Father Elio . . . that means about 100,000 lire and, eh . . . something . . .

His brain longed for a pencil and paper and just one minute alone. Should he ask for 400,000 lire . . .
400,000 lire! Too much!
He tried to remember the rate of exchange for a dollar and his brain screamed,
Who cares about dollars? You need pounds . . . !
He lost track of what he was trying to figure out and now people were staring at him. He needed to have an amount in mind before he spoke and everyone was waiting.

The tourists could not, of course, discern the meaning of the unintelligible Italian words that had passed between their cloddish guide and this congenial native. But, to every English eye it was obvious that this good-hearted man who had enthralled them with his story had again been offended—and again it was their fault. The poor British invaders felt a massive stab of national shame for the distress that they seemed to continually cause these kind people.

The local villagers, on the other hand, felt a huge surge of communal pride at how well Leo was directing the ebb and flow of this scene, especially after so many years with no practice. And although they had absolutely no idea what he had said to the English or what was going on right now, they supported his current mood by politely lowering their eyes in respect of the monumental faux pas—whatever it was.

Up to this point everything had gone perfectly. Leo couldn’t recall it ever going this well—even when he and Franco had worked together as boys. But now he needed someone other than the guide to speak, and yet the room remained silent. It occurred to him that maybe he’d over-played it. Maybe all those years ago it had only worked because he was a child.

At the bar Topo wiped his sweaty forehead on his sleeve and also prayed that someone would speak. Leo might actually have to slap that fellow or worse—leave! What was wrong with these heartless English? But the silence remained abysmal.

Leo had just concluded that he would have to cut his losses when the two horsy ladies at the table he’d first approached prompted their gentleman companion and Leo heard the sound he’d been longing for. The man cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, sir, eh . . . signore . . .”

Leo turned.

The Englishman stepped forward and stuttered, “Signore, I, eh . . . that is, we aren’t quite sure what the . . . difficulty is, but we certainly did not intend to give you any offense. Please, accept our apology.”

“No, no, no, no, no, my friend.
You
did not offend.” Leo gave a certain edge to the word
you
and turned a special frown toward the confused guide. The English tourists turned and frowned at him also. Then the villagers turned and frowned at him. But, for the first time all day, Carmen smiled at him. The poor guy stared dumbly at them all.