The Life of Elves (18 page)

 

André Faure, however, did not seem ready to leave the cemetery. He motioned to the priest; Maria was also looking at the sky as it grew strangely darker—the clouds were not obscuring the light but making it dark and dazzling. The priest turned around and looked in the direction André was pointing. On the southern horizon, beyond the wall of flat stones, a black column of smoke or rain was forming. It was moving slowly but in unison with the clouds as they sank lower toward the earth, and it was as if the horizon and the firmament were drawing in, and they would all have been surrounded were it not for the village backing onto the little mountain: they could still escape that way if the sky continued to fall upon the fields. Maria stood closer to her father and they exchanged a look. What did he see there? No one could say. But it was clear that there was no more time for wondering—the hour had come to learn to prepare for combat. The men—at least those who, in these parts, had a certain authority—formed a circle around André, while the rest of the assembly waited in the wind. Father François stood to his right and this meant, or so everyone understood it, without surprise:
I support him.
André began to speak, and they knew these were grave times.

A few minutes later each man went on his way, to carry out his prescribed task. Those who were headed north, east and west hurried down the road without a backward glance. The others split up among the farms, or congregated in the sanctuary of the church, where before long they were brought mulled wine and thick blankets. Finally, a dozen or so men escorted the little girl, the mother, and the three grannies to Marcelot's farm; they thought it might be more defensible because there was a wall around it, and it was set high in the village and afforded the best view over all the surrounding countryside. They sat the women and the child around the same table to be found in every farm, and they busily began to cover it with everything that might ensure the business of their physical and spiritual recovery.

 

The hour before battle is a short one, and Maria knew this, and smiled at Lorette Marcelot. She was an imposing woman who bore her stoutness proudly before her, with a majesty owing to the slowness of her gestures. From her splendid youth she had kept a face without a wrinkle, and copper hair arranged in a chignon that caught everyone's eye like a beacon, and one never wearied of gazing at this fine countrywoman; her muted, endlessly rolling gait was restful to hearts that were cut to the flesh by the boundless hardship of the land. Maria loved to cling to her petticoats, where she breathed in the lemon verbena Lorette carried in little pouches sewn under her skirts; it wafted a romance of trees and pantries, enough to make you wonder what more could you possibly desire in the way of refinement round these parts, for all that they were filled with simple folk.

“Well, lassie, that were a fine funeral,” she said to Maria, giving her a smile.

Those were the appropriate words and, for being embroidered on the smooth skin of that milk-white face, they brushed sorrow with an ease that erased its darkness. Lorette set before Clara a hunk of cheese from her cows, and a bowl of steaming milk. Maria smiled back. The room smelled of coffee, mingled with a predominant aroma of roasting fowl; the men had stayed outside while the three old women and the mother recovered in silence from the day's emotions; they looked at Goodwoman Marcelot who spread her arms in an arc as she prepared to slice the bread, with a languor that made every movement more valiant and proud. It was a time for women. The time for women who know what men must find at home before the fight. So they inhabit every inch of space in the home, they embrace every joist, every deepest recess, and they multiply until the home is nothing more than a throbbing breast where one can feel the purest declensions of their sex. And the farm is filled to bursting with this womanly radiance as they stretch their bodies to the very ceiling beams, which seem rounder and more welcoming as a result; the farm at last assumes that incarnation wherein all who enter will know that woman is sovereign there, and offers all the pleasures and joys on earth.

O
n the dawn that followed the night of the great healing, Alessandro, Paulus, and Marcus set off together for France. Clara had not slept. It was Eugénie's last day on earth and it was raining in Rome when they all said farewell. On the steps outside the house Leonora embraced her sadly. Pietro, by her side, was silent and impassive. Petrus seemed more rumpled than ever.

“I don't know what you will find in the village,” said the Maestro, “but along the way you must be invisible.”

“Invisible when all of Rome is under surveillance?” asked Leonora.

“Pietro's men are waiting for them outside,” he replied, “they will leave the city in secret.”

Everyone embraced. But before leaving, Sandro knelt in front of Clara, and, his eyes level with hers, he whispered, “Some day I'll tell you the story of a woman I knew called Teresa.” He looked up at the Maestro. “I wonder . . . ” he murmured.

They went away in the rain. But before they disappeared around the corner of the lane, Alessandro looked back and waved. Was it the power of the ancestor? It seemed to Clara she was seeing him for the first time.

 

Clara stayed at the villa with Petrus; ordinarily, he would doze off the moment they were on their own. But that morning he looked at her dreamily and she thought he was more sober than usual.

“Who is Teresa?” she asked.

“What do you know about ghosts?” he asked in reply.

“They live with us,” she said.

“No,” he answered, “we live with them and we don't let them leave. For that reason, we have to get the story straight for them.”

She didn't reply. Something about him had changed.

“I can't tell you about Teresa today,” he said, “but I will tell you a story that will lead to hers.” He sighed. “But first of all I need a little drink.”

“Maybe it will be better if you don't,” she said.

“I don't think so. Human beings fall apart when they drink, but I become stronger.” He got up and poured himself a glass of a deep red wine. “I must be the only one whose gifts are revealed by amarone,” he said. “Why is that? Mystery and mists.”

“But what are you all?” she asked.

“What do you mean, what are we?”

“The Maestro, Paulus, Marcus and you. You're not men, are you?”

“Men? Of course not,” he said, dismayed. “We are elves.”

“Elves?” she echoed, stunned. “There are alcoholic elves?”

He looked hurt.

“I'm not an alcoholic, I'm just intolerant of alcohol. As are we all, anyway. Must I, for all that, deprive myself of something that is good?”

“Does everyone drink in your world?”

“Of course not,” he said, looking rather lost. “That is why I am here.”

“You are here for the moscato?”

“I am here for the moscato and for the conversation of human beings.”

“Don't elves have interesting conversations?”

“Of course they do,” he said. He wiped his brow. “It's more complicated than I thought,” he said.

“What do you elves do during the day?” she asked, in a noble effort to help him.

“A lot of things, of course, a lot of things . . . Poetry, calligraphy, walks in the woods, stone gardens, fine pottery, music. We celebrate twilight, and mists. We drink tea. Rivers of tea.” This final remark seemed to fill him with sadness. “I cannot tell you how much tea we drink,” he concluded, drowning in melancholy.

“And conversation?”

“Conversation?”

“Is it like with the Maestro?”

“No, no. Most of us do not have such lofty aspirations. We are ordinary elves. There are feast days, too. But it's not the same.”

“What isn't the same?”

“No one tells stories. We recite pages of poetry, we sing hymns in abundance. But there are never stories about ghosts or truffle hunting.”

He seemed to find new vigor in the reference, made the previous evening, to an endless story, begun by a kitchen boy, that was set in the forests of Tuscany.

“So you're here for the wine and the stories about truffle hunting?”

“The Maestro made me come because of the stories. But wine also helps things along.”

“Were you bored up there?” she continued.

“I wouldn't exactly call it
up there
,” he muttered. “And I was a little bored, but that was not the most important thing. For a long time I was a good-for-nothing. And then one day the Maestro asked me if I wanted to come and be among you. I came, I drank, and I stayed on. I am made for this world. That is why I can tell you Alessandro's story. Because we are brothers in dissatisfaction.”

“The Maestro asked you to tell me Alessandro's story?”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “In fact, I'm the one who suggested we tell you your own story, which implies a lot of other ones, too, and if you would just stop asking questions, I will start with Alessandro's.”

And elegantly sitting himself down in the armchair where normally he would be snoring, he poured a second glass and began his story, while an unusual steeliness was visible beneath the roundness of his features, and his voice took on a velvety-smooth tone she had never heard.

“Alessandro's story begins a little over forty years ago in a fine house in L'Aquila, where he lived with his mother, a singular woman who was born for travel and who was wasting away from the sadness of having no horizon beyond her own garden. Her only joy came from her youngest son. Because Alessandro was more handsome than heaven and earth. In all the province no one had ever seen a more perfect face, and it would seem that the boy's character was the reflection of his complexion, because he learned to speak splendid Italian, with a phrasing no one had ever heard in that region, and from earliest childhood he displayed a natural talent for music and drawing that far exceeded what the teachers were in the habit of seeing. By the age of sixteen he could learn nothing more from them. When he was twenty, he left for Rome with his mother's hopes and tears, and went to stay with Pietro: he had heard about him through his late father, who sold the Oriental carpets brought through the Abruzzi by the northern route to rich Romans.”

He paused and poured a third glass.

“You are good at telling stories.” said Clara.

“Better than your old housekeeper?”

“Yes, but your voice isn't as nice.”

“It's because I'm thirsty,” he said, taking another sip of amarone. “Do you know the secret of a good story?”

“Wine?” she ventured.

“Lyricism and nonchalance with the truth. However, one must not trifle with the heart.”

Then, looking affectionately at the ruby color of his glass, he continued: “So Alessandro headed for Rome, in the fire and chaos of his first youth.”

“I can see an image,” she said.

“Can you see into my mind?”

“I can see what you are talking about.”

“How extraordinary. And without drinking.”

“It is my father's power?”

“It is your father's power, but it is also your gift. This painting is the first one Alessandro showed to Pietro, who had never seen anything like it. He knew the art market and he knew that he was in the presence of a miracle. The canvas did not represent anything. Ink was tossed in elegant lines that rose toward the upper edge of the canvas like a fork with three uneven prongs, lower on the outside and connected at the base. The strangest thing was that when you looked carefully at the prongs it was possible to see that the lines could only be drawn in one direction. So Pietro saw that it was a particular form of writing, and he wondered how Alessandro had learned the language. But when he asked him, he saw that he didn't understand. You wrote
mountain
just like that, without knowing what your calligraphy meant? he asked. I wrote
mountain
? replied Sandro. He was stunned. He came from L'Aquila and had only the vaguest idea of the outside world. But he had drawn the sign for mountain and Pietro knew how to read it, because he had been to the country of these signs and he knew how to decipher some of them. Just the way all our people can decipher it, because it's a language we adopted a long time ago, and because the mountain stones are very important for us. Pietro asked Sandro if he had any other canvases. He did. And in the months that followed, he painted many more. They were magnificent.

“He had come to Rome a poor man, but two years later he was richer than his father had ever been. And everyone adored him. The women with love, the men with friendship, and he was the most charming guest and companion. I don't know when he got any sleep. You never saw him leave the dinner table. He would talk with Pietro until the early hours of the morning, and by daybreak he was at his easel, giving birth to miracles of ink and charcoal. He did not need a big studio; he lived at the Villa Volpe and worked in your room on the patio—the painting you know wasn't there yet; he only used a corner of the room, where he left his brushes and where he painted, staring at the white wall. Of course he was already drinking a great deal. But everyone always drank a lot in those circles, and Sandro was painting and laughing and no one saw any end in sight. Then he met Marta.”

Clara saw a woman in Petrus's mind, a gaunt face with dark circles under her eyes: oddly enough, this gave her composure and grace. Her curls were a very pale Venetian blond and her eyes a gentle Delft blue; in her clear gaze was a boundless melancholy.

“She was older than he was, and married to someone else. Sandro had loved many women, but Marta was a kindred spirit. In spite of her love for this splendid young man, however, she was languishing from a sorrow she had known all her life, and many people saw this as the explanation for what happened. But I don't believe the cause was what they think it was, because it was also during this period that Pietro showed Sandro the painting that is now in your room. Later he would recall how Sandro stood there, speechless, and in the month that followed, he did not paint. He shut himself away in his studio and never picked up a brush. It was as if he no longer believed in what he was painting. At night, he drank.”