The Unfinished Angel (8 page)

L
IZARDS

S
pring and summer is lizard time here in the mountains. The lizards are small and narrow, like green worms with feets and tails. No, cuter than that. Tiny heads that turn this way and that, watching, listening. Tiny feets, so dainty. Slender tails, so wispy. The lizards sun themselves on the rock walls, dartling into slim crevices when peoples or animals near.
Zip. Zip.
Freeze.
Zip.

In the middle of the night, Paolo summons Zola.

“Rosetta ate a lizard.”

“She did what?”

“She ate a lizard.”

Rosetta is curled in a ball on her bed, sobbing. “I die, I die.”

“Now, now,” says Zola. “You won't die. What happened?”

Manuel kicks the side of Rosetta's bed. “She ate a lizard. They going to cut her open to get it out.”

Rosetta shrieks.

Zola says, “Rosetta, did you truly eat a lizard?”

Manuel answers for her. “She did, and they going to cut her open to get it out.”

Rosetta shrieks and sobs.

Zola scoots onto the bed and cuddles Rosetta. “Rosetta, tell me. Why did you eat a lizard?”

“Not whole lizard,” Rosetta says between sobs. “Just tail.”

Manuel feels it necessary to explain to Franz and Terese, who have been awakened by the noise, that Rosetta has eaten a lizard and will have to have her stomach cut open.

“Really?” they say.

Rosetta sobs.

“Rosetta, please tell me. Why did you eat the lizard?”

“Not whole lizard. Just tail. Because it was so cute and little.”

“They cut your stomach open,” Manuel insists.

Zola says, “Nonsense. A little lizard tail won't hurt anyone.”

Terese leans over and throws up on the orange rug.

Zola says, “Did you eat some lizard, too?”

Terese is gagging. She cannot answer.

“Anyone else in here eat lizard?” Zola asks.

Franz puts his hand to his stomach. “I ate some wax.”

Josef has crawled out of bed to see what is happening. “I ate a spider once.”

I retreat to my balcony. It's just a normal night with childrens.

T
HE
M
AYOR

T
oday everyone—Zola and her family and the childrens and the villagers—gather at the old Pita building, which soon will be the School of Pomodoro. In each room, peoples are painting or cleaning or hammering, and there is much clanging and banging and whooping.

Vinny has brought his drums. “Entertainment!” he says, but I think maybe he doesn't want to work. He only wants to play the drums. Rosetta, the lizard eater, hangs by his side, tapping her fingers on the windowsill.

Signora Divino, with a jauntly pink scarf around her neckle and a blue ribbon on her wrist, is slinging pits and pots in the new kitchen of the school, and while she is slanging and clattering, she is telling Zola's mother in zoomzoom Italian that the Pomodoros should talk with her son, Massimo, and his wife, Bette, and all of them should open the school together, and that way Vinny and Massimo and Bette could stay right here.

“This is where they need to be,” Signora Divino says. “Here! You agree? Of course you agree.”

I am feeling most hopeful watching these peoples. I don't know what to say about this feeling. I don't eat food, but if I did, maybe it is as if I was hungry, so hungry, and I didn't even know it, and then I found a mountain of food and I ate and ate, and then I sat back contentful and there was still more mountain for the next day and the next day. Maybe it is like that. I don't know. Since I don't eat food, it is hard to say.

Into this merry confusion of peoples painting and cleaning, struddles Mayor Zapino, home from his vacation. He is a round man: round head, round eyes, round nose, round belly. He carries thick envelopes with him, which he wivvles in the air as he demands to see Mr. Pomodoro.

“The children must go!” he says. “The school no opens!”

“Pardon?” says Mr. Pomodoro.

“No permissions! No
passaportos
! No
scuola
!” Mayor Zapino's cheeks poof out importantly.

Mr. Pomodoro squinches his face. “We have permissions, Mr. Mayor.”

The mayor flickers his fingers at his collar. “Zapino! Mayor Zapino!”

Signora Divino rushes into the room, waving a pot. “Idiot!”

The childrens are afraid. They creep out the door, one dribble, two dribble, slinking along the side of the building. I flish in their heads: to the rock, to the tower, my tower.

Soon they are all gathered in the lower tower room. They are huddled and quiet. Nicola stands stubbornly in the middle of the room, her arms crossed.

Zola clabbers up through the trippy-trap door. “Angel!” she says.

“I know, I know,” I say. “‘Do something!' That's what you're going to say, right? Why do
I
always have to do the somethings? Why don't
you
do something?”

And just then, right that moment, there is a gray flutter and on the ledge of the tower balcony lands a pigeon.

Yes. A pigeon.

Zola looks at me. I look at Zola. We both look at the pigeon.

It is sleek and smooth, with iridescent (is that the word for the sparkly shine?) feathers: gray on top but luminous red and green underneath, and when the pigeon moves its head, you see those colors flashing, and the light spickles off the smooth feathers so that the bird appears to glow. There seems to be, I almost hate to say this, but there seems to be a blue-white light around the pigeon.

“Do something!” I say to the pigeon. The pigeon cocks his head so that I can see the powerful red and green shimmery feathers. Then I am a bit worried. What if this pigeon is my superior? What if it is a chief angel?

And even though I do not believe that pigeons are angels, in that minute, beholding that pigeon, I am not so sure, and so I say to Zola, “I will see what I can do. You and—and—the pigeon stay here and watch the childrens, hokay?” And off I zip, in my most commanding way, swoosh, a blaze of light. I am hoping the pigeon will be impressified.

L
UIGI

S
ignora Divino slaps Mayor Zapino on the arm. “What would your nice mama think of you now? You stop this.”

I am ready to flish in the heads, but before I can do this, Eugenia Pomodoro enters, carrying a rolling pin in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. She peers at the mayor.

“Luigi? Is it you?”

Mayor Zapino, who is rubbing his arm from Signora Divino's slap, turns red in the face cheeks. “Who is this?”

“Luigi! It
is
you!”

The eyes of the mayor look as if they will roll out of his head. “Eugenia?”

“Luigi!”

“Eugenia!”

Mr. Pomodoro raises his hand as if he needs permission to speak. “Eugenia?”

Mrs. Pomodoro does not see the raised hand of her husband. She is so happy to see the mayor. “Luigi, Luigi!”

“Eugenia, Eugenia!”

Mayor Zapino and Mrs. Pomodoro hug and kiss each other three times on the cheeks: right, left, right.

Mr. Pomodoro repeats, “Eugenia?”

And then Eugenia Pomodoro, with her chippy-choppy hair, introduces her old school chum, Luigi Zapino, to her husband. “Luigi was in Geneva three years when my family was there. Luigi, Luigi! My dear Luigi!”

Mayor Zapino is now many colors of red in his face and neck. “This Pomodoro is your husband?”

“Yes,” Eugenia says.

“You own this building?”

“Yes. Auntie Bedenia left it to me.”

“Ah, Auntie Bedenia,” the mayor says, with a soft beam in his eye. “She gave us the licorices when we visited her, remember?” The mayor suddenly seems to recall his duty. He makes himself taller by stretching his neck. “I am sorry, but the orphan children, they are not legal, they must return . . .”

Zola enters from the side door, swinging her arms. She is determined about something. Paolo follows her.

“Mr. Mayor,” Zola says.

Paolo echoes Zola. “Mr. Mayor.”

The mayor continues speaking to the Pomodoros.

“As I was saying, since the orphan children are not legal . . .”

Zola steps forward. “Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor.”

Paolo also steps forward. “Mr. Mayor.”

“What? What
is
it? What do you want?” The mayor's round red cheeks are puffing in and out.

“I am Zola.”

“I am Paolo.”

The mayor is most flustered. “What? You are interrupting. I am busy here.”

Zola's eyes flash from ceiling to floor, from Mama to Papa, from villager to villager.

“Mr. Mayor,” Zola says. “It is most important that we ask you this question.”

“What? Get on with it! I have business—”

“Mr. Mayor, would you like some ravioli?”

“Ravioli?”

Zola turns to Signora Divino. “Signora Divino, this morning you made the best ravioli. Don't you think the mayor would like some?” Zola wizzles her eyebrows at Signora Divino in a most significanting way.

Signora Divino waves her pot in the air. “He stay for ravioli, or I knock him on the head.”

S
UCH A
D
AY

S
uch a day, such a day!

The Pomodoros and Signora Divino and the villagers stuff Mayor Zapino so full of ravioli, and Mrs. Pomodoro stuffs him so full of good memories of being childrens together that the mayor feels surely all the permissions for the school and the childrens will be in fine order, absolutemento! I only do a small amount of flishing in the mayor's head; mostly it is the peoples who do the flishing. I am impressified.

The childrens are so perlieved to hear that they will not be sent away to live in a ditch that they all start drumming—with sticks and hairbrushes and spoons and whatever they can find—in a loud song of celebration. “Yay, we stay!
Glocken, glocken, glocken!
Yay, we stay!” It is most noiseful, the air full of
booms
and
clangs
and
pomps
and
clacks.

And
I
am perlieved to report that Zola does not think I look like a pigeon. The pigeon that came to the tower is gone, leaving behind only a stray feather and some white slopping. If it was an angel, it must have decided that we were doing finely on our own, and if it was not an angel, it was just a pigeon that was free to go whenever it liked. I think it was just a pigeon.

W
HAT THE
A
NGEL
K
NOWS

S
kirtling along one side of the paths and lanes cut into our mountainside are stone walls. These stone walls keep clumpy mud and rocks from falling on the paths and the peoples. Spaced here and there in the walls, in a pleasingful pattern, are holes. Am I saying this right? Holes in the walls. Each the size of a brick maybe. Here and there. Can you see it?

I like these holes very much. When too much rain pours down, the water has a place to sneak out. When peoples approach a lizard sunning himself on the wall, the lizard has a place to run and hide. When the peoples want surpleases of blossoms in those hard stone walls, they plant violets and other dainty purple and blue and white flowers. But childrens love these holes most of all, for there they can hide the secret notes and the tiny treasures. And the big peoples like this because they can be walking along and peek inside a wall hole and see a folded note or maybe a bracelet of colorful plastic beads or a stash of pinecones or smooth pebbles.

Who thought of these holes when building these walls? I am liking those peoples.

For the last years, ten or twenty, the holes have been dried up and empty except for dirt clogs and lizards. Today, though, I notice a folded note inside one hole and a piece of red cloth inside another. I see near Signora Pompa's house the bluebells sprouting out, draping down the gray stone wall. I see Josef and Jakey with Vinny Divino, peering inside a hole, poking with a stick. I see Franz the
glocken
boy pick up a dead mouse and gently tuck it inside a wall hole and then carefully place thick, green leaves over the opening. He then removes one leaf and with a twig carves a cross on it and returns it to the wall hole.

The childrens, they are spickling up the sleepy village, teasing it awake again. It is like the dust of magic drifting down over the mountain.

And while I am feeling contentful watching the wall holes being filled with treasures, I get a sudden sorrow feeling, missing all the childrens and their mamas and papas and grandmas and grandpas who have come and gone, come and gone. It is hard work watching over the peoples and flishing and wishing them safely.

Sometimes I feel that I have to be like the mountain, rock strong, and on the inside I have to have the arsenal ready to fight invaders who might hurt my peoples. And I don't even have a sword.

And then, how this happens is always a surprisement, but I see something that makes me feel like a softly melting mountain. It might be Nicola, crossing the lawn of Casa Rosa, pumping her little arms, dressed in a yellow skirt and a blue one and a turquoise blouse too big and a red scarf around her waist. She is pumping along, heading for the path, and she is singing a song: “I hate zucchini, zucchini, zucchini. I hate green glop, green glop, green glop,” and in her hand she is carrying green glop in a wet napkin. She places this glop in the nearest wall hole, wipes her hands on her skirt, spots a lizard running along the wall and follows it until it slips into another wall hole.

Childrens.

There is Paolo, strutting along the alleyway and up the stone drive, running his hand along the wall, casually peering into each of the holes. He stops, glances around, and removes a folded white paper from his sleeve. Again he glances this way, that way, and then his hand darts into the hole, depositing the paper.

How can I
not
look? On the paper one name is written over and over and over:
Zola Zola Zola Zola Zola Zola.
Ah, Paolo.

Further up the path, Zola is dancing along, looking for just the right wall hole. Not this one. Not that one. Ah, there is one, up there. From her pocket, she pulls a white something and quickly stuffs it into the hole. She snatches a clomp of moss and plugs the hole with it.

Hokay, so I am nosy. After Zola leaves, I take a look. It is a small white statue of an angel with broken arms. I have seen this on the long table in the alley, when the villagers gathered items for the childrens. Poor little broken-armed angel.

 

I am in my tower that overlooks the village: all the stone buildings and walls and casas and peoples and animals. I am mostly sure this is my territory, and I hope I will not get transferred. I will be flishing in the minds if I need to so the childrens can stay here and go to school and be warm and not hungry. I will visit the old peoples in the night and calm them, and I will watch over Signora Divino and Vinny and throw pinecones when needed, but I hope
il beasto
gets hit by a truck. No! I do not mean it. But I do wish he would lose his
arf.

I am gladful Zola came to my tower. I like to be in her energy. Sometimes a people needs an angel and sometimes an angel needs a people. I am also gladful the childrens came to our village. Sometimes old peoples need young peoples and young peoples need old peoples.

Of course there will still be the
pocketa-pocketa
and the
boom-boom-boom
and the talking all the time and the painted feets of the peoples.

Peoples: so unfinished!

Ah. Peoples! Angels!