Chapter 25
25
Now that the clocks had changed, darkness fell swiftly over the clay roofs of Cividale. The last rays of the sun were reaching over the mountains as Jules cycled across the Ponte del Diavolo on the evening of Halloween after a day of pruning grapevines.
Pumpkins and withered ears of corn had appeared on the windowsills and the yellows in the trees had turned towards orange or red. The bite in the air had returned and Jules was wrapped up in both her thick cardigan and Laura’s jacket.
Although the pumpkins and scarecrows had brought to her mind excited children with buckets knocking on doors, Maddalena had explained that the gnot dai muarts – the night of the dead in Furlan – was an ancient tradition of honouring spirits who were said to parade through the town at midnight.
The celebration was also to mark the end of the harvest season and the coming of winter, which only made Jules conscious that her time here was ticking, even as she struggled to imagine a life where she didn’t go to Due Pini every day and come home to the white courtyard with the laden persimmon tree every evening.
Hurrying inside when she got home, she called out, ‘Sorry I’m late! Are you ready to go?’
Alex appeared in the kitchen door, licking his finger. ‘Yes, let me turn this off and I’ll put my coat on.’
She drifted to the kitchen, drawn as usual by the thick warmth of the stove and the scent of garlic and herbs. Attila sat on the windowsill, his tail flicking as he disparagingly observed his human’s activities. When Arco followed Jules in, Attila shot to his feet, back arching, and fluffed up into an angry white ball. Alex gave the cat a withering look and stroked his hand down Attila’s back.
‘That smells amazing,’ Jules commented. ‘Do we really have to wander around town looking for spirits when we could just eat that straight away? And I could have a shower,’ she said, looking down at herself thoughtfully and wrinkling her nose.
He gave her a tolerant smile as he moved the saucepan off the stove and padded into the hallway to slip into his shoes and coat. ‘Berengario will never forgive you if you don’t come.’
Picking up Arco’s lead, she frowned at Alex as he hefted his accordion case and locked up. Passing under the old archway, they hurried along the narrow lane to the main piazza where a small crowd had gathered. Alex left his accordion by a group of old men who were enjoying tiny glasses of schnapps. The jumbled buildings on the square were lit by the wavering flames of lanterns, and next to the fountain with the lion heads stood Berengario in his felt hat and a dark wool cape, holding a flaming torch.
‘It’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?’ she whispered to Alex. The sky had darkened to slate and with the lights of the square switched off and all the lanterns, the effect was decidedly creepy.
‘Do you need to hold my hand?’
She was glad to hear him joking. Apparently she was the only one thinking about his wife on the night of the dead. ‘Are you sure? Everyone’s watching.’
Leaning down to speak into her ear, he said, ‘They already think we’re sleeping together.’ He took her hand, slipping his fingers through hers, and between the shivers from his breath on her skin and the firmness of his grip, it took Jules a moment to be able to respond.
‘With that logic, there are a few other things we could be doing,’ she mumbled, but she didn’t let go of his hand.
Berengario called out to get the crowd’s attention and then spoke a brief introduction in Italian, repeating himself in English. ‘Here in Fri?l, we remember our Celtic roots from pre-Roman times, lingering in the striis and sbilfs and particularly our abundant aganis – our witches and elves and the spirits of the waters. Around this time, too, in our tradition, we remember the souls of the people who have died, by sharing bread with our friends and neighbours.’
Jules didn’t think she’d imagined Berengario’s gaze flicking to Alex. He didn’t react, but she was glad her hand already held tightly to his.
‘Tonight you will see the magic of Cividat, our ancient city of Celts and Romans and Lombards. Follow me!’
In the darkness, the contemporary touches faded and Jules could almost imagine the centuries of past inhabitants joining them on the leisurely walk under the archways of the city. They passed the mediaeval red-brick house Jules remembered from her first night – with Alex – and he squeezed her hand as they passed the spot where they’d first kissed.
Berengario produced a key and the group shuffled through the back gate of the historic convent tucked along the river. Ducking through a small wooden door in a humble brick wall, they soon discovered the treasure inside, as they spilled into the chapel that was the pride of Cividale, a rare example of pre-mediaeval architecture with stuccoed floral patterns and reliefs of saints in ornate detail.
The light of Berengario’s torch flickered on the walls and the high-relief images appeared to move, looking down on the gawking visitors from their positions several metres higher – and fourteen centuries in the past.
‘Who were these “Longobardi” he keeps talking about? It sounds like long beards. Or would that be barbo .’
‘Barb a ,’ he corrected. ‘But it does come from a Germanic word for long beards. They invaded this region in the sixth century after the retreat of Roman influence. They were a little like the Vikings, as I understand it – a northern tribe.’
‘Ah, okay. So what about the short beards? Would they be the “Cortobardi”?’ she asked, stroking his chin.
He snatched her hand away with a chuckle.
Berengario led them to a lookout over the river, where a persimmon tree stood guard. Like the one in Alex’s courtyard, it was heavy with plump orange fruit, but almost entirely bare of leaves in its exposed position. Then the walk continued to another strange little door in an inconspicuous wall in one of the many narrow lanes of the town.
The sign above the door read ‘Camera funeraria dell’ ipogeo celtico,’ which made Jules frown doubtfully. She wasn’t sure about ‘ipogeo’, but the first part sounded like a funeral room.
‘Here is the real Celtic history of Cividat,’ Berengario said. ‘These underground tunnels have had many uses over the centuries, although their original purpose is unknown. Stay close. It will be very dark inside. And watch your step.’
‘Watch your head, more like it,’ Jules said with a grimace as she ducked low under the door. Alex had to bend nearly in half. Inside, the tunnels were claustrophobic, carved into the rock by the hands of people and not machines, with crooked walls and uneven ceilings. As Berengario gathered his charges around the rough-hewn image of a face in the rock, he ushered Alex and Jules back into a corner to make room.
‘I know you two have the height of the northern Lombards and not the ancient Celts, but if you stand back, there will be room for everyone. Further back. Pull Arco with you.’
When she found herself stuffed into a tiny stone niche with Alex at her back, Jules eyed Berengario and suspected he was stifling a smile at their predicament. When Alex’s hand crept around her waist and his chin settled on her shoulder, she didn’t begrudge the old man his scheming.
After Berengario’s dramatic tour of the Celtic tunnels, the group wandered back to the main piazza, where music was playing and a contemporary dance troupe swirled and leaped in black capes while an ensemble of drummers kept time. The scent of roasting chestnuts reached Jules’s nose and she noticed a woman in a scarf standing behind a roasting drum, a little tower of paper cones next to her.
‘I have to—’ Alex gestured over his shoulder to where Berengario was beckoning to him. ‘The choir is singing.’
‘Oh,’ Jules said, finally putting together Alex’s ‘rehearsals’ and the atmospheric harmonies from Sunday night. ‘Okay. I’ll get some chestnuts and come and listen.’
He scrunched up his nose. ‘I hope you like old army songs.’
As he walked away, he pulled a crushed felt hat out of his jacket and shoved it on his head as he joined the semicircle of older men gathered around Berengario. One of the drummers stood ready to accompany them.
Armed with her warm parcel of chestnuts, Jules found a position directly in front of the choir and enjoyed Alex’s discomfort as she watched him intently. He tugged at the collar of his shirt as they picked their starting notes and then Berengario launched them into song.
Jules couldn’t help but grin. The song was a jaunty a cappella number, complete with ‘pum-pa-tum-pums’ and lively bass ringing out from Alex’s deep voice. There weren’t many members under fifty and she imagined Alex might never have joined the choir if it hadn’t been for Berengario. But he seemed to be enjoying himself and his rich voice, a firm foundation for the harmonies above, would definitely have been missed while he was away in London.
For the next song, Alex accompanied the choir on the accordion as well as singing, his fingers lively on the keys as he finessed the bellows to match the dynamics of the voices. Jules studied his instrument – the same one he’d been playing the day they’d met. The brand name in silver letters near the keyboard read ‘Victoria’. She wondered how old the instrument was and wished she could have seen him play in London.
They sang four songs to raucous applause and some audience participation and then the low-key celebration came to an end, people drifting through the Venetian arcade on the square to find dinner at an osteria, or heading home along the lanes.
Jules snatched Alex’s hat before he could stow it back in his coat. Tugging it over her ears, she grinned at him.
‘You have a lovely voice.’
‘And you didn’t save me any chestnuts,’ he said with mock censure. When he grasped her around the waist and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth, she forgot anything she might have quipped in return.
‘Are we really doing this now? Kissing in public?’
‘It would appear so,’ he said with half a smile. ‘Come on, let’s eat dinner.’
Bolstered by creamy pumpkin soup and a glass of wine and lulled by the fire in the stove half an hour later, Jules leaned her elbow on the table and asked, ‘What’s the story with the choir? Is it connected to Berengario’s accordion classes?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s our local coro alpino, the choir of the voluntary association of the Alpini, the alpine troops. It’s a very traditional repertoire. I could sing these songs at the Fogolar Furlan – the Friulian club – in every city I visit. I even sang them in a pizza restaurant in London a few times. But they’re well-known in Veneto as well, and all across the north.’
‘So it is an army thing?’
‘Yeah, the motto of the association is “Onorare i morti aiutando i vivi.” Honour the dead by helping the living. I’m not involved so much with the association, but it’s a cultural institution around here and the veterans and volunteers do all kinds of work.’
‘Did it…’ Jules began, not sure if she should ask the question or not. ‘It doesn’t bother you when people talk about those who’ve died? There’s a lot of remembering going on in this place. Earthquakes, wars, famines…’
She waited to see if he’d withdraw, but it seemed he’d given up on that since Saturday. But he did stare pensively into his soup for a few moments before answering. ‘You’re right about remembering. It’s a culture. But it’s not the same as the way I remember Laura.’
‘How is it different?’
He glanced at her, as though measuring how much she truly wanted the answer. ‘The acts of remembering are planned and scheduled and carried out with tradition. But I don’t have to make myself remember her. I just do. Maybe other people make themselves remember her, but I can’t help it.’
‘I suppose that’s where nights like this gnot dai muarts come from,’ she mused. ‘Because it feels like people we love can’t really be gone.’
Alex’s response was a dark laugh that suggested she’d said the wrong thing. ‘Laura is gone. She doesn’t whisper to me in the shadows or come to me in dreams. She’s very gone.’ He leaned on the table and hung his head, rubbing his hand over the back. ‘Sorry about this.’
‘I brought it up, Alex,’ she said gently.
Lifting his head, he pinned her with an unexpectedly penetrating look. ‘Do you think if I’d told you all of this that night at Salvino’s bar, we would still have slept together?’
Memories of that night surfaced and twisted together with this broken Alex, who’d tried to spare her what he’d been through. There was so much behind his question: guilt, a little desperation, a need for vindication. But after the past few days of honesty and casual affection that felt anything but casual, her answer could determine what happened next, how far they were willing to bend towards each other. A reckless answer now with the truth of all the feelings that bubbled up in her when she looked at him could bend her so far she might break.
Recklessness had always been her weakness.