His mother was making pizzas, shaping each pie carefully. She stood there in her black dress and did not turn around. And yet Giorgio felt her motherliness spread over him like wings over a young bird.
“Giorgio,” she began, then corrected herself. “My boy is now Vittorino. He has the wished-for name, and in his keeping he has the wished-for mare. Yet he does not understand the workings of the Palio, and so he is unhappy.”
“That is the way of it, Mamma.”
“You are not alone in this, Vittorino. Many things of history I do not understand. Nor does your Babbo. But the part that torments you, maybe it is a thing to pull out of the dark and into the light. Maybe then . . .”
She stopped short, choosing silence for urging the boy on.
Giorgio blurted out: “Mamma! It is the secret arrangements between the contradas. The Palio is a religious festival. Is it right, do you think, to hold your horse back, to make her lose? What if”—the words came tight and strained—“what if for Gaudenzia another fantino should be chosen? And I should have to strike her?”
The shaping of the pies went on in silence.
“I had to ask it! Everyone in Onda is happy. And the Chief is happy. And Gaudenzia is happy. But I, I am sad! Some nights, for hours I do not sleep. How can I be a fantino so soon again if in my heart there is a heaviness? How can I?”
The mother sighed deeply. Why is it, she thought, that always children have questions like knots which they throw into the lap of the mother? Little children, little knots; big children, big knots. Always it is so. She thought a long time and the room grew so still that the whir of a hummingbird at a flower in the window sounded big and loud.
“I think there is someone,” she said at last, “who could ease your burden.”
Giorgio was hearing with every fiber. “Tell me! Who is it?”
The mother seemed to be talking to herself, convincing herself. “Yes! He would be the one; he is wise in the mysteries that trouble the heart.”
“Who, Mamma?”
“He is a thoughtful, listening man.”
“But who is he?”
“He knows especially boys; he believes they deserve to be heard.”
“But who?” It was a cry for help.
“His name,” the mother said with a little glow of wonder, “his name is Monsignor Tardini.”
“Monsignor Tardini!”
“Si.”
“Why, he is a great man at the Vatican. He stands next to the Pope himself!”
The mother went to the cupboard and took out plates and cups to set the table. “Soon now the pizzas will be done,” she said, “and Babbo and the children will come from the farm, and we eat.”
“But why does the Monsignore understand especially boys?”
“Because, in a pine grove on the skirts of Rome, there sits a beautiful villa for orphans. It is called Villa Nazareth, and Monsignor Tardini, he is the guiding spirit. Even the grown boys, after they go out into the world, bring their troubles to him.”
“But, Mamma, how do you know all this?”
“I know because young Arturo, a boy from the Maremma, is there. He says so.”
“You mean I should go all the way to Rome? To the Vatican?”
The mother nodded. “You should go, even if it costs dear. In the sugar bowl there is money. Yours and Gaudenzia’s,” she smiled, “from the victory of Onda.” She stopped to pinch off a few faded flowers from the pots in the window. Then she went back to the stove. “There comes a time,” she said, turning to look right at Giorgio, “when to make a pilgrimage is necessary for peace of the mind.”
A far look crept into the boy’s eyes. Suddenly he burned with the urge to go to Rome.
Chapter XXVIII
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME
Two days later, back in Siena, Giorgio dressed at dawn and went to say good-bye to Gaudenzia. She gazed steadfastly at him as if he had made the morning sunbeams slant westward for the day, as if he had made the grain she ate, and the air she breathed. “Do not have fear,” he told her. “I return presto, pronto, subito. I return this night.”
Already he felt better. The mere prospect that today he could unburden his worries was like strength in his blood. He filled Gaudenzia’s hayrack and water pail. He stripped her stall of bedding and swept the floor. He brought in sheaves of bright straw and shook them and padded them and banked them around the walls.
A friendly groom came in as he was putting the fork away. The man was big and brawny with sad, red-rimmed eyes like a hound dog’s. He clapped Giorgio on the back.
“Ah, Roma! Bella, bella Roma!” he sighed, rolling his eyes heavenward and kissing his fingertips. “My favorite of cities! You will see the catacombs and the Colosseum and the Castle of San Angelo. But why,” he puzzled, “do you go now when the manifestation of the Palio already makes the air crackle?”
“I cannot explain. I must hurry. Soon my train leaves. Please, Signore, kindly do me the favor to look in on Gaudenzia twice before nightfall.”
• • •
The seven o’clock train chugged out of the station at the exact stroke of seven. Giorgio, his hair combed so carefully the teeth marks showed, sat in a second-class compartment filled with soldiers sleeping. They paid him less attention than if he had been a fly. He was glad. He could read again the exciting note in his pocket.
“The Right Reverend Monsignor Tardini,” it said, “will see you at the Vatican at twelve-thirty on Thursday next.” And it was signed, “Angelina Ciambellotti, leader of work with children, Siena.”
Having nothing to do, he read the few words again and admired the signature of this woman he hardly knew. The pen strokes were strong and sure. Did she ever worry about things, he wondered; or was her path laid out straight as a piece of string? Maybe working for orphans as she and the Monsignore did was like holding a compass in the hand; always you knew the way. He folded the letter and put it back in his pocket, alongside the light race shoe of Gaudenzia which he was taking as a gift for the Monsignore. His fingers closed about it for comfort.
The soldiers were still sleeping, grunting and twitching as if they fought imaginary battles. Giorgio wished he could sleep, too, but he had never before been to Rome and he might miss the junction at Chiusi where he had to change to an express. When he finally reached it he was in a panic for fear he would get on the wrong train. He asked a dozen people to make sure.
“You have much time,” they laughed. “Why not have a coffee?”
Remembering now that he had forgotten to eat breakfast, he gulped a tiny cup of coffee and bought a sugared roll. When at last the express to Rome roared into the station, he crowded in with the others and found a seat beside a gangling American student.
The rest of the trip was a succession of dark tunnels and hairpin curves, of haystacks and strawstacks, and boys herding sheep, and oxen pulling plows between rows of grain.
Calmer now, Giorgio leaned back against the high cane seat. The train went no farther than Rome, so he closed his eyes and let the flowing countryside and the warm August air lull him to sleep.
It was the young American who, tugging at Giorgio’s sleeve, woke him up. “All roads lead to Rome!” he said in Italian with a strong American accent. “We are here!”
Giorgio thanked him and burst out of the train. He hadn’t meant to sleep. Suppose he had overslept and missed his appointment with the Monsignore! He ran through the station, skirting a big bed of pansies, darting his way through the surge of people, past the food and drink vendors, past porters trundling mountains of baggage. Out in the street he stopped a policeman.
“The Vatican!” he gasped. “Monsignor Tardini, he awaits me!”
The policeman smiled, then laughed. “Is it urgente?”
“Si, si! Urgente!”
The white-gloved hand made a wide circle in the air. “My boy,” he bowed, “to go by carriage is best. Then the sights you see, and quickly you get there, too.”
Nearby, the driver of a carr
iage, a sparrowy man with a tall hat, dropped his newspaper and was at Giorgio’s side in an instant. “For one thousand lire I take you to the Vatican,” he offered.
“One thousand lire!”
Suddenly the driver saw in the young boy a pilgrim come to the Holy City, a boy all alone with trouble. A strange resemblance to his own grandson made him say, “Jump up! You sit here beside me. We fly together.” He waved Giorgio onto the high front seat, slapped the lines over the rump of a bony mare, cracked his whip, and the cart took off with Giorgio sitting alongside the grinning driver.
Up and down the streets of the great city the gaunt creature clattered at a lively pace. The time clock in her head told her it was almost time for the nosebag. The sooner she delivered her passenger, the sooner she could plunge her muzzle into a bagful of cut-up greens. Onlookers laughed and cheered them on as if they were in a race. Nearing St. Peter’s Square, the driver tried to pull her down to a sedate walk, but she was no respecter of religion. And so, lathered and blowing, she swung at breakneck speed through the gates of the Holy City.
The wide piazza of St. Peter’s with its obelisk and gushing fountains was alive with movement—nuns sailing in their starchy wimples, priests billowing in black robes, sailors and soldiers and pilgrims from everywhere clicking cameras, feeding the pigeons, gazing up at the great dome of the church.
The driver pulled up in front of the basilica. He shook hands with Giorgio as with an old friend. “Boy,” he directed, “that way you go! No, not up the center to the church. To the right wing! Up the steps and through the bronze portal. To you I wish best luck; and now, arrivederci, my son.”
Inside the grilled door two Swiss Guards, resplendent in striped livery, blocked Giorgio’s entrance with their halberds.
“I—I—” Giorgio stuttered miserably. He was no longer Vittorino, the brave fantino who had won the July Palio. He was only Giorgio, shrinking in size, getting littler and littler until once again he was the runt of Monticello. Suddenly he thought of the letter in his pocket and presented it to the imposing guard, wrong side up.
Unsmiling, the man turned it around, read the single sentence carefully, and with a formal nod motioned him inside the Papal palace.
Afterward Giorgio never remembered how many footmen in gray and how many officials in black and how many Palatine guards read the letter and said, “Come this way,” or “Go that way.” Nor did he remember how many frescoed passages he walked, nor how many glass-enclosed elevators he rode, nor how many grand staircases and minor staircases he climbed. He moved as one in a dream, through marble halls, and around and around, and up and up and up, until he found himself in a magnificent courtyard open to the sky. He crossed its immensity, feeling antlike beside the gigantic statues of the apostles towering above him. Then he was ushered into an empty chamber that seemed a trinket in size, yet was more beautiful than any he had ever known.
“You may be seated,” the guide said, and disappeared.
Perching gingerly on the edge of a settee, Giorgio felt less secure than if he were riding bareback on a runaway horse. He mopped his brow and folded his handkerchief. He looked about him. The room was all red and gold. The gold chairs were covered in a rosy red, like the colors worn by the Ram in the Palio. And the walls were the same rosy red.
Everything was quiet. Occasional wisps of conversation drifted in, but these only emphasized the stillness. For a moment he wanted to bolt. He knew now how Gaudenzia felt when left all alone, with no familiar hands or voice.
And just when the silence grew terrifying, a young clerk beckoned him across the hall and into a room with half-closed shutters. It was pleasantly dark and cool. “The Monsignore will see you now,” the young man said.
And there, coming to meet Giorgio, was Monsignor Domenico Tardini, Pro-secretary of State for Extraordinary Affairs.
Giorgio looked up at him, tongue-tied. The face was all faces in one—kindly and penetrating, old and very young, smiling and stern—and the eyes, dark and deep-set behind the thick glasses, were both fiery and serene.
Seeing the worry in Giorgio’s face, the Monsignore waved him kindly to a row of chairs against the wall, and he himself pulled one out and sat facing the boy.
“I congratulate you,” he began with a gentle smile. “Signora Ciambellotti has informed me about you. It is a happy occasion to salute a new star of the Palio.”
Giorgio could not answer; he only gulped.
The Monsignore went on, talking more to himself than to the boy. “Vittorino,” he spoke the name slowly, elegantly, precisely. “ ‘Victory of the Small One,’ it means. I have many boys at Villa Nazareth who look upon you as their hero. To ride in the Palio is to them like riding through the gates of heaven.
“Now,” he said, running his hands through his short-cropped hair, “I am truly glad you came. You see, today there are affairs of state which prevent me from going out to visit those boys. But you have come to see me in their stead. Even in their sheltered life they have many problems. Do you, too, have a problem?”
“Monsignore?”
“Yes, my son.”
Giorgio plunged one hand into his pocket and his fingers clutched the thin horseshoe. “Do you have enough time for me? With affairs of state and all?”
“As much as you need. You see,” he smiled, “I am in charge of extraordinary affairs, and this just might be an extraordinary affair.”
“It is!” Giorgio sat up straighter, and suddenly the floodgates opened. “Monsignore! In the Palio of August the Contrada of Nicchio might not draw Gaudenzia.”
“And why is it you wish Nicchio to draw her?”
“Because they asked me last year to ride for them.”
“Then why did you ride for Onda in July?”
“Because then Nicchio was one of the seven contradas that did not run.”
“Ah, yes. Of course. So it is one chance in ten that your mare should be assigned to Nicchio?”
The boy nodded. And again his questions flew like arrows to a target. “Monsignore! The Palio is a religious festival. Why then is it right for the captains to make the secret agreements? Why is it right for the fantinos to help other horses win and hold back their own? Why is it?”
The voices out in the halls faded away. The room seemed to contract. There were just the two of them—the man thinking, and the boy with the eager hope in him, sitting . . . watching . . . waiting out his answer.
“It is an honest question, Vittorino”—the words came slowly—“and only half the answer do I know.”
“Yes?”
“Suppose we turn back some pages into history. Suppose we remember that before the year 1721 all seventeen contradas were allowed to race. Is not that true?”
“Si, si.”
“The course is very narrow, is it not, Giorgio?”
“Si.”
“When all seventeen raced, how was the departure from the starting rope?”
“Monsignore! How could they all get away at once?”
“They couldn’t! Some fell and were trampled. So now the contradas draw lots for the honor of competing, and only ten horses run. Is not that better for the horse?”
“Oh, si.”
“And the people do not wager any money on the race. That is good, no?”
Giorgio nodded, wishing the Monsignore would get to the core.
“And now mattresses are placed upright about the dangerous curves to protect horses and fantinos both. Is that not better than in days of old when heads of man and beast cracked against the walls?”
“Si!”
“And the contrada that wins makes nothing, but spends much. Is not that so?”
“It is.”
“And at their banquets the rich and the poor, the rulers and the workers sit at table in happy contact, and no one feels diminished or humiliated. Is it not good?”
“It is.”
“But if a contrada draws a poor horse, then it can try to help a friendly contrada? Is that so?”
Giorgio winced. “That is the part! That is it! What if I have to hinder Gaudenzia? She will not understand. A whole year now she trusts in me. On her open cuts I put salt and alum. Under her belly she lets me walk to sew her blanket in place. It is me who nursed and trained her.”
The Monsignore knew he had touched the sore spot. He tried to put himself in the boy’s place. “Can you get along without being a fantino? Can you live without taking part in this Palio, and the next, and . . .”
“No, no, Monsignore,” Giorgio interrupted. “Ever since I was a little boy, there is no other world for me.”
“Then, my son, what your captain tells you to do, that you must do. The Palio is war. Contradas form alliances as countries do, to help each other fight a common enemy.”
Giorgio sat silent at the desolating words.
“But of course”—the Monsignore took off his spectacles, and now he spoke eagerly, earnestly—“the unforeseen can happen! Have you forgotten,” he asked, “the grand element of uncertainty? The horse knows nothing of the clouds of intrigue gathering while he eats happily his grain. He knows only that he is the servant of man, who sometimes betrays him.”
The Monsignore had not finished. His gaze went past the boy’s head, through the walls and beyond. “Perhaps that is why the humble St. Francis of Assisi wished to be Protector to Animals.”
His eyes then came back to Giorgio and flashed warmly. “As fantino, you must know that the probability of winning the Palio is based on the speed of the horse, the skill of the fantino, and the diplomacy of the captain. But it cannot be said that even with all these favorable, the victory is secure. Man tries to fix and arrange, but ah, the horse . . . he knows only the one law, and that is to win. It is the most beautiful and bittersweet lesson of the Palio.”
A young clerk came into the room and placed a sheaf of papers on the desk. Giorgio sensed that affairs of state were piling up.