Simple Prayers (31 page)

“Come,” said Ermenegilda as she drew herself away. Then she turned and ran off toward the graveyard. Albertino glanced over at the barrow full of boxes — the coffer of ivory, the caddy of quartz — but they seemed only an accumulation of handles and hinges, a mountain of metal and wood. So he leapt over the wall and followed hotly behind Ermenegilda.

They passed through the stone entrance with the rusted-open gate, they passed the parcel of rosebushes and the palm trees and the pines, they passed the florid marble of Silvana Zennaro and the fluted granite of Guido Bo, until they once again faced the simple grave of Cherubina Modesta Colomba Ernesta Franchin. Ermenegilda got there first; she stepped up onto the flat stone marker set snug into the earth and turned to watch as Albertino approached. When he reached the edge of the grave, however, she raised her hand to stop him before he could step forward to join her. Then slowly — ribbon by ribbon, clasp by clasp — she began to remove her clothes.

Albertino stood there trembling as she revealed her flesh: soft and abundant and covered with hideous sores. Her breasts were striated with hot pink welts, her belly was a
campo
of harsh black kisses, her arms and legs were covered with blisters and boils. For Ermenegilda the ritual was essential. She was offering Albertino her soul, but her price was that he take her in full awareness of the contagion that had ravaged her body. If he could see how she looked and not turn away, she might forget the anger that had enveloped her so completely when he'd abandoned her after their first encounter.

Albertino was horrified — but he was also aroused. And his greatest desire was to somehow ease her pain. So when she'd removed the last stocking he tore off his tunic, peeled down his tights, and pulled his muslin shirt over his head to stand equally naked before her. His body too was covered with death, but the signs of life that stirred beneath his belly made Ermenegilda shiver with desire. As Albertino stepped forward she lay back upon her gown and drew him down on top of her. The contact of their bodies only intensified their pain, but they bore down against it as Albertino moved inside her. It began as a slow movement — a delicate fugue — but it built and it built until it became a violent frenzy. They screamed as their bodies thrashed together; pain flooded into pleasure and poured back into pain.

Ermenegilda reached the end of it first. She dug her fingers into Albertino's back and then lurched into a fiery, sweet convulsion. Albertino responded instantly, meeting tremor for tremor as the savage wave passed through him.

When the final spasm came, it was impossible to tell whether it was the spasm of love or the spasm of death. But to Albertino and Ermenegilda it made little difference. They were now but a pair of bodies entwined upon a grave. A heap of rotten flesh gone slightly rosy with the last faint traces of ecstasy.

Chapter 19

W
HEN PIERO WOKE to silence — no cries, no moans, no whispered pleas to God — he knew that the horror had ended. The light that streamed in through the lone window in the hovel no longer trembled in its path. The smell that for days had grown sharper and fouler was suddenly tempered by the salt in the air. Only the faint gurgling of Nicolo, in the basket beside him, forced him out of his reverie and reminded him of what lay ahead.

On the morning after he'd left Miriam's alcove in pursuit of Gianluca and found him, howling, at the height of the
campanìl,
Piero began making hourly visits to Maria Luigi's hovel. Around
mezzogiorno
he found Maria Luigi slumped beside the hearth. Shortly after dusk he found Miriam, prone before her altar, with Nicolo lying beside her in the straw, staring up at the glowing tapers. He laid Miriam out on the streak of blue satin and closed her eyes; then he picked up Nicolo, wrapped him in his seaweed blanket, placed him in the cod-barrel cart, blew out the tapers, and headed back to Beppe Guancio's hovel.

Piero had never handled an infant before. He was surprised at how tiny he was, and how flexible, and how light. He was not sure what to give him to replace Miriam's milk, but Nicolo was even-tempered and easy and responded well to small spoonfuls of the
brodo corto
Piero had been living off since the sickness had come. Now, as he gazed down at him lying peacefully in his basket, he tried not to think about the responsibility he represented and to simply try to gain the child's trust.

“
Bon dì,”
he said.

Nicolo flapped a bit and made a sound like a midge hen. Piero lifted himself up off the straw and went to the corner, where he splashed some water on his face, urinated, and put on a fresh shirt and tunic. Then he unswaddled, cleaned, and reswaddled Nicolo, placed him back in his blanket in his cod-barrel cart, and headed outside to examine the condition of the island.

As he crossed the field that lay between Beppe Guancio's hovel and the Calle Alberi Grandi, he became aware again of the quiet that had greeted him upon rising. It was not an absolute quiet — there was the sound of birds and the subtle breathing of the new spring landscape — but what struck Piero was the absence of conflict in the air. At first he thought it was merely the absence of the past week's painful struggle against death, but he soon realized that it was also the absence of the conflict of daily life upon the island: the effort to churn the butter; the argument over the weight of a fish; the struggle to see the day. It was a peaceful quiet, but it was also an empty quiet. There were no more villagers in the village of Riva di Pignoli.

When he reached the Calle Alberi Grandi, he discovered the body of Maria Patrizia Lunardi. She was lying face up in the mud with a look of astonishment on her face. A few paces farther he found Brunetto Fucci sprawled across the path, his body seeming to intend in two different directions at the same time. Yet it was not until he approached the new village center that he came upon the figure that truly startled him: there, in the patch of path that wound through the clutch of pine trees, was Piarina —her dress black with smoke, her cheeks singed, her hair fleeced and speckled with bits of wood and straw.

“Piarina!” he cried. “You'e alive!”

Piarina froze at the sound of Piero's voice. Then slowly she turned and in a series of stumbling steps began to move toward him. When she reached the point where he stood she stopped and peered down into the cart that held Nicolo. Piero knelt beside her; then she turned, laid her forehead against his chest, and began to cry. It was a naked weeping, filled with more understanding than a child her age ought to know of. And though Piero placed his arms around her and held her tight, he did not join in. He knew that once he started he might not be able to stop.

When her gentle keening had run its course, Piarina untangled herself from Piero's arms, traced a pair of grimy streaks across her face with her fists, and stepped back to look into Piero's eyes.

“What do we do?” she asked.

Piero was amazed to hear her speak. “We go away,” he said. “We try to find others.”

He looked out past the pines toward the clearing in the road; he could see another figure lying off in the grass, but he could not tell who it was. “But first I want to bury them,” he said. “In the cemetery. It may take a while, but I want to bury them all.”

Piarina picked a charred piece of pinecone from her hair. “What can I do?”

Piero thought for a moment. “I could use the baby's cart,” he said. “It's small, but it's strong and easy to maneuver. We could take him to my hovel and you could stay with him until I'e finished.”

Piarina nodded and stepped in behind Nicolo's codbarrel cart. Then Piero led the three of them down the Calle Alberi Grandi and across the fields until they reached Beppe Guancio's hovel. He did what he could to settle them in, making certain that Nicolo was reswaddled and that Piarina felt comfortable and safe. Then he traveled back out to the
campo
to find Gianluca.

His howling had lasted three days and three nights; it had echoed across the island with a blood-filled rage that spoke for the entire village. On the third night, however, with most of the villagers having succumbed to the sickness, he cried his last cry and fell in a heap against the window of the belfry. Now, as Piero gazed up at his lifeless form — much as he used to gaze up at Piarina — he decided that he would bury him first, and that he would bury Miriam beside him.

He fetched a ladder from the garden of the
chiesa
and propped it against the tower; then he climbed up to where Gianluca lay slumped in death. He was quite heavy — it took a great deal of effort to lift him up over the ledge of the belfry window and carry him down the ladder to the ground. As he descended, step by step, he was surprised at how good it felt to have Gianluca's weight against him. The power of his flesh was still palpable; he understood what Miriam had felt.

When he finally managed to reach the ground, he lowered Gianluca into the cod-barrel cart — his arms and legs dangling over the sides — and then wheeled him out to the western docks and transported him across the water to the graveyard. At the edge of the docks he passed the Vedova Scarpa; in the heart of the cemetery he found Albertino and Ermenegilda. But he kept to his task until Gianluca was buried with Miriam fast at his side.

Next he buried Albertino and Ermenegilda, placing them in another joint plot directly opposite Gianluca and Miriam; then he returned to the main island and, one by one, gathered the other villagers. The Guarnieris, who lay huddled together in the corner of their smoke shed; the Tortas, who lay clasping their crosses in their strippeddown beds; Siora Bertinelli beside her pastry oven; Beppe Guancio and Romilda Rosetta in the aisle of the Chiesa di Maria del Mare; and all the other bodies lying festering in doorways, beside the hearth, clutching a pair of hair combs, a bright ribbon, mouths open, gestures arrested, life snuffed out. He carried each as carefully as the next, dug each grave as deeply, laid each body in as gently and respectfully as he could. He worked all through the day and all through the night and into the following afternoon. And when he'd buried the last one — Armida Barbon, in a plot between Gesmundo and a sturdy pine — he headed back across the water to the north rim of the island, dug up what was left of that first swollen corpse, and buried it, for the very last time, alongside the others. Then he headed back to Beppe Guancio's hovel, where Piarina waited with Nicolo.

As he approached the hovel he heard the faint rhythm of a flutelike voice pouring out on the air; as he entered the door he heard the words beneath the rhythm.

“You'e got to heat it long enough to let the sediment rise to the top — if you do it right, it's like a skin you can scrape off. With good wax it doesn't matter, but you won't get much good wax, so you might as well learn what to do with what you'l get.”

Piarina was standing with her back to the door, melting a stack of tapers in a shallow pot hanging over the hearth. Nicolo was propped up beside her on a mound of straw on Beppe Guancio's cutting table, eyes fixed upon her as she spoke.

“You mustn't add the lye until it cools a bit. That's the tricky part. But you'l get it right, I know you will. You'e a smart one.”

Piero crossed to the hearth and placed his hand upon her shoulder. “I'e finished,” he said.

Piarina wiped her hands against her sooty dress and looked up at him.

“I'm awfully tired,” he said. “Is there anything to eat?”

“There's some pease pudding,” said Piarina. “Lie down. I'l bring it to you.”

Piero lay down on his bed while Piarina lifted the pot of wax off the hearth and replaced it with another, which contained a watery pease pudding. When it had warmed through she brought him a large helping and a glass of ale. Piero ate it eagerly and then closed his eyes and slept. His dreams were deep and intense, a series of strung-together images of blackened bodies and faces stamped with horror. A silent figure kept appearing with a look of accusation on his face: Piero was required to explain why he had been spared the pestilence, but when he opened his mouth a flood of
sardine
rushed forth. When he woke, quite early the next morning, Piarina was standing in the doorway looking out across the dirt field.

“Is it a clear day?” he asked.

Piarina nodded.

“We should get an early start,” said Piero. “We may be traveling for days.”

Piarina turned to face him — her dress freshly laundered, her cheeks and hands now a raw, clean pink. “Where will we go?” she asked.

“I don't know. I suppose we'l find out when we get there.”

Piarina gathered several handfuls of pignoli into a burlap sack and lifted Nicolo into the straw basket. Piero took his spare pair of boots; his copies of Dante, St. Augustine, and Marcus Aurelius; Beppe Guancio's lantern; and his sculpting chisel. Then they headed out across the island toward the western docks. The air was sweet and fragrant as they moved through the fields and gardens; Piero found it difficult to believe that the stench of death could have vanished so quickly.

When they reached the Chiesa di Maria del Mare, Piero turned to Piarina. “Would you like to go inside?”

Piarina nodded, and Piero led her, with Nicolo beside her in his basket, into the
chiesa.

As they stepped across the threshold and the door closed behind them, Piero became aware once more of the unearthly quiet that seemed to characterize his last days on Riva di Pignoli. A warm light was beginning to filter in through the thick windows beside the Correlli Madonna and Child, but the chapel still shimmered with the dimness of dreams and sleep.

Piarina went immediately to the stand of tapers that stood in the corner by the entrance. There were only three left, and they had wasted down to less than half their height, but there was a match beside them, so she lit them. The light they cast was weak and frail — nothing like the magnificent blaze Piarina had lately burned with. But Piarina found them reassuring and instantly dubbed them Ermenegilda, Valentina, and herself. She knew that both her friend and her mother were gone from her. But as she stood before the tapers, she felt — for the first time in her life — that her, little flame glowed independently, and that she could survive without either their affection or their abuse.