Marta tried to talk about trivial things, but she was so anxious about Carmen that every sound seized her attention and she strained to hear the obnoxious sputter of a motor scooter. So, by the time Father Elio innocently asked about Carmen, poor Marta’s nerves were as strained as her flood-gates and the tears began to flow before her words did. He was Marta’s uncle, but he was also her priest and it wasn’t difficult for him to get her to talk. It was, however, difficult to tell which torment was filling Marta most—fear or anger. She was angry with Franco for dying so stupidly on that motorcycle with that woman riding with him, her arms locked around his chest. There was no reason to speak of her. She paid. She died too.
“But that damn Franco should be here now!” she railed. “His daughter needs her father. Carmen won’t listen to another woman, especially her mother. She needs a man to lay down the law. She needs her father! That damn Franco!”
And so it went for some time.
Father Elio listened. There was nothing for him to add. Marta was right. Franco was selfish; he always had been. And Marta was right about Carmen. It was obvious that the girl was dancing on tiptoes along the edge of a cliff with her eyes closed, just to prove she could do it. A father’s stern voice or understanding love might help, but Franco was gone. Elio had an idea, but he knew Marta’s feelings on this particular subject and so he remained silent while Marta fumed for close to an hour without rest. Then, when she finally stopped to take a breath, Father Elio ventured a thought.
“There might be one man Carmen would listen to.” Marta had a feeling she knew where her uncle was going with this and she dreaded hearing what her heart already knew. But she asked anyway. “Who?”
“Leo Pizzola.”
Marta replied with a short but heartfelt scream of terror as Leo Pizzola’s face suddenly appeared in the window right over Uncle Elio’s head.
Elio almost jumped out of his chair. He knew she might not react well to the mention of Leo Pizzola, but he hadn’t expected her to scream at him.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
Leo gave Marta a quick wave and then he was gone.
“No, Uncle Elio, I’m sorry. That was silly. I guess I’m just tired.”
“Maybe I should go home.”
“It is getting late. Should I walk with you?”
“No. I’m fine. You wait here for Carmen.”
They exchanged kisses and an embrace and Marta sent her uncle out the back door to face alone whatever new miracle had been concocted for him. She knew that she should follow him. This whole miracle thing was her idea. She should try to protect him more. She should have questioned Leo more. But tonight she somehow didn’t care and so she sat at the table with her cold coffee and waited. She wanted Carmen home. Where was she? Please, God, bring Carmen home safely.
The piazza was dark and empty and Father Elio’s shuffling steps echoed around him. He hadn’t been out this late in a long time. No wonder he was so tired. He couldn’t let go of the image of Marta and her fears, so he stopped in the middle of the piazza to say a fervent prayer for Carmen’s safe return home, and soon. Then, as the old priest groped his way up to the kitchen door at the back of the church, the oddest thing happened.
“. . . Elio Caproni . . .”
He thought that maybe it was the wind in the trees. It sounded like the breeze called his name. It was soft, almost inaudible, whatever it was. He shook his head. He was tired and hearing things—and he started back inside the kitchen door.
“. . . Elio Caproni . . .”
There it was again. Again, it sounded like his name, but it wasn’t the breeze. Who would whisper his name so softly, this late at night?
“Is someone there?”
He listened so carefully he was almost afraid to breathe. Silence. Just as he was giving up again, “. . . Elio Caproni . . .”
“Who’s there? Who is it?”
He’d heard it for sure. Someone was whispering his name from the grove of trees behind the church. He crossed himself quickly and cursed all devils and evil demons. But what if someone needed him? What if someone was in trouble? Father Elio would never forgive himself if someone were hurt or in need and he turned his back on them out of fear. So the frightened old priest walked slowly toward the dark grove of trees—and the voice.
Leo moved back up the trail as silently as he could, pulling the old man deeper into the shadows of the forest. He stopped often to make sure Father Elio still followed and it occurred to him that this might not be such a good idea. His eerie, whispered calls through the mysterious forest were spooky even for him and he hoped he didn’t give Father Elio a heart attack. It would not be good if their miracle was so effective it killed him.
“. . . Elio Caproni . . .” he whispered again.
Father Elio fearfully worked his way along the dark path he’d walked thousands of times, but always in the daytime. It was strange and a little ghostly at night. His legs were shaking and his mouth was dry, but with a trembling voice he managed to call out reassuringly, “I can hear you, but I can’t see you. Where are you? . . . Are you there?”
By now, Leo was crouched in the bushes beside Topo and he leaned into the darkness, straining to make out the figure of Father Elio approaching the stump. The old man was moving slowly, but Leo could see that he was almost there. He turned to Topo and whispered softly, “Get ready.”
There were only two things that were different this time from when they had so effectively practiced their little pageant earlier. The first difference was a minor adjustment, hardly worth mentioning. It seems Topo had been troubled by Leo’s offhand judgment that perhaps the projector had been a bit too loud. He knew he could do better. So he took the opportunity, while Leo was leading Father Elio up the forest path, to wrap the blanket just a little bit tighter around the projector—a minor thing.
The second factor was not so minor. In fact, it was life altering. While Leo went off to signal Marta and then lure Father Elio back up the path and while Topo rewrapped his projector, Angelica Giancarlo stood quietly in the dark at the top of the rise and waited. She waited patiently at the foot of the three pine trees and thought about the words she had just said and would shortly say again. And she thought about her life.
. . .
All mankind has sinned
. . . Angelica thought of her miserable years in Roma, years spent doing shameful things, just to get insignificant roles in embarrassing little movies . . .
Think not on the sin
. . . She thought about all the disgusting men she had been with for money. They all told her she was pretty . . . They all deserted her . . .
Turn your heart to the mercy of the Father
. . . She thought of the letter from her mother begging her to come home because her father’s heart was broken . . . But she never saw him again after that day in the rain, when he turned his face away from the window . . . He died of his broken heart . . .
God loves you, as he loves all his children
. . . She thought of her baby, the baby she was carrying when she ran from her home, the baby she held in her arms only once before they took it away from her forever . . . It was a little girl . . .
God forgave your sin ere you had the courage to ask it be forgiven
. . . Angelica had wanted to wear her life like a beautiful ball gown of satin and lace. Now she saw that it had been a cheap and gaudy garment, crudely stitched with threads of vanity, selfishness, illusions, stupidity, and lies . . .
Do not despair
. . .
No matter your sin, it is already forgiven . . . Do not despair . . . Dear . . . Angelica Giancarlo . . .
Father Elio shuffled along the dirt trail, finally reaching the stump. Leo turned to Topo and whispered softly, “Now.”
Topo flipped the switch. A brilliant light burst silently from the projector and was both softened and defused by Topo’s fingers weaving hypnotically in front of the lens. This magical effect, however, lasted about two seconds before the new and improved blanket wrap jammed some cloth in the projector’s gears. Then the film slowed to a crawl as the gears pulled the edge of the old blanket deeper and deeper into the machine. The film abruptly ground to a halt, freezing the action of
La Strada
on a single image. Topo’s magic fingers left the lens uncovered as he clawed frantically at the blanket. The undiluted image shone brilliantly up the rise and framed poor Angelica Giancarlo like truck headlights capturing a helpless doe on a dark road. The projector’s beam pitched and rolled as first Topo and then Leo ripped and tore at the blanket.
The sight at the top of the rise was, in the truest sense of the word, fantastic. Angelica’s shimmering gown and bleached hair glowed white in the naked glare of the light. Her arms reached up to the sky, as if she wanted to grip heaven and pull it down around her. Two huge and wet circles of black mascara filled the hollows of her eyes, making them bottomless holes, and from them black rivers streaked down her cheeks. Her red mouth was contorted into a cry of pain and her whole body was wracked with sobs. The image that flashed in that instant might have been the closing scene from
Oedipus Rex
and all the words Angelica could manage was an anguished wail of—
“God forgive my sins . . . !”
Then, just as the frozen image in the projector began to bubble and melt into a brown goo, this shrieking Angel lurched unsteadily down the hill toward the terrified priest. And the bloodcurdling cry began again—
“God forgive my . . .”
But Angelica didn’t finish her second plea because her foot got caught in the extension cord that Topo had strung in front of her. In her blindness and desperation, Angelica’s foot managed to pull the cord from the projector and everything suddenly went black. For its part, the extension cord managed to pitch poor, plump Angelica forward, sending her tumbling and rolling down the hill and into the bushes in front of Father Elio.
As for the effectiveness of Topo’s miracle, Father Elio was well convinced that he’d seen an Angel—an Avenging Angel come for his soul. So, whether the old priest bravely stood his ground, or whether he was just too petrified with fear to move, will never be known. Whatever the case, he was still standing in the middle of the trail by the broken stump when Angelica Giancarlo crawled out of the bushes begging the forgiveness of God.
Father Elio helped the poor distraught thing to her feet. “My goodness . . .” he stammered, “it’s . . . little Angelica Giancarlo!” He had known her all her life. He had christened Angelica. He had comforted her family through . . . the trouble. And he had buried her father. Now here she was, wandering through the dark forest in the middle of the night in her . . . my goodness . . . her pajamas? . . . babbling and crying and begging God’s forgiveness. The whole thing astounded Father Elio. First the voice summoning him into the woods and now this. And that startling flash of summer lightning! Summer lightning this late in the season in weather that’s turning cool is one thing, but to have the summer lightning appear as an enormous, grinning face of Anthony Quinn . . . Incredible! But Father Elio didn’t have time to dwell on these phenomena. He had to get Angelica back to the church where he could calm her, and comfort her, and hear her confession. So the old priest led the sobbing woman back down the trail toward the church.
Leo and Topo crouched in the bushes and patiently waited for Father Elio and Angelica to enter the church before they quietly gathered up their miracle-making equipment and went home.
Later that night, upstairs at the Albergo di Santo Fico, terrible things were said. It was almost 2:00 A.M. before Carmen finally sneaked in the kitchen door, holding her shoes and tiptoeing across the tiles to the stairs. She was so intent on being quiet in the darkness she didn’t notice the figure at the kitchen table watching her.
Earlier in the evening, shortly after Uncle Elio left, Marta grew tired of sitting in the kitchen and went upstairs—she thought she would be able to hear the motor scooter better from the balcony that wrapped around the southern end of the building. And so she was there, sitting outside, when she heard the commotion coming from somewhere in the trees behind the church. There was a brief flash of light that lasted only a few seconds and was accompanied by some wild shrieks; then nothing. Something told her that she’d witnessed yet another botched miracle, and her attention returned to the dark plain to the south where she strained to hear the sound of a scooter.
It was after eleven o’clock when she went back inside and prepared for bed. She left her bedroom dark because she wanted to undress in front of her open windows. She wanted to hear that scooter chugging up the narrow road into town.
By eleven thirty she lay down on her bed to wait. But soon her eyes were becoming heavy and she wanted to stop herself from falling asleep, so she went back down to the straight-backed chairs at the kitchen table. These guaranteed enough discomfort to keep her awake and she was still sitting at the kitchen table when her vigil finally ended.
As she watched her firstborn skulk through the kitchen shadows, Marta was filled with such joy and rage that she wanted to both weep and strangle the girl—simultaneously.
“Where have you been?”
Marta’s voice reached through the darkness like an icy hand that gripped the girl by the scruff of the neck and jolted Carmen almost halfway up the stairs in one leap.
Carmen smelled of cigarettes and alcohol, her makeup was smeared, and her clothes were disheveled. When Marta asked her about it, Carmen told her mother that she’d been to Grosseto and her words slurred with drink as she declared defiantly that she was going to go again, any time she wanted. The argument escalated quickly into a fight. Marta warned her about the bars in Grosseto, about boys like Solly Puce, and about the price of stupidity. But Carmen laughed and told her mother that she could handle Solly Puce or any other boy and Marta believed her and was ashamed.
The things that Carmen and Marta shouted at each other were those terrible, cruel things that are said when a family battles—lies and truths twisted together with guilt and pain. They accused each other of crimes from years past, both real and imagined, and they each prophesied barren, loveless futures for the other. They said things that, in time to come, both would apologize for, both would forgive, and neither would ever forget. They could hear Nina crying in her bedroom, begging them to stop, but they didn’t; they couldn’t—their blood was raging too hot. It ended only when Carmen called her mother a disgraceful name and Marta slapped her daughter so hard her hand stung. But it wasn’t Carmen who cried. Instead the girl glared at her mother with her chin high, daring her to slap again. It was Marta who burst into tears, ran down the stairs, and out into the night.