Chapter 75
PAUL HAD DUTY the night of the Feast of Santa Maria Magdalena, so Francesca and Bernardo invited me to tag along with them. “We are not particularly religious,” she explained as we wandered through the throngs of people on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. “But this is not to be missed.”
When we arrived at the little piazza in front of the church, my mouth dropped.
It had been converted into the equivalent of an outdoor amphitheater, with rows upon rows of folding chairs facing the church.
On the steps, someone had constructed a temporary altar, wired for sound and decorated with extravagant bouquets of flowers and strings of twinkling blue lights.
“This is beautiful,” I said to Francesca.
“Just wait,” she said, and nodded in the direction of the Piazza Rossa, where a procession of clergymen and city officials was assembling in front of a giant statue of a woman whom I could only assume was Mary Magdalene.
I tried to dredge up what little I’d learned about Mary Magdalene in Sunday school.
I knew she had been a follower of Jesus and that the prostitute thing was likely a myth.
That she had witnessed Jesus’s crucifixion and also his resurrection.
And that she had gone on to share the message of his salvation.
But what I didn’t know was why the Maddalenini liked her so much.
Francesca said it was because Mary Magdalene had been delivered from evil, but I’ve heard other explanations over the years.
She was born and raised in Magdala, a tiny fishing village on the Sea of Galilee, and at one time Magdala was referred to as Magdala Nunayya, which literally translates to Tower of Fishes.
I suspect that the fishermen who settled La Maddalena in the early seventeen hundreds knew their Bible and wanted a guarantee that the fish would keep biting.
Regardless of why the island had been named for her, Mary Magdalene was revered, and I watched four portatori carefully hoist her statue, which had been installed in the center of a small wooden platform teeming with fresh flowers, onto their shoulders.
“Do you want to sit?” Bernardo asked Francesca, but she shook her head, saying it’d be better to remain standing in case Bianca and Matteo joined us.
“I invited Teo to come, too,” she said, looking at me.
“He’s in town?”
“I know,” she said. “I was surprised.”
The procession began, and the three of us watched as the clergy and the portatori plodded past, carrying crucifixes, thuribles of incense, and at least a half-dozen banners bearing Mary Magdalene’s likeness.
When the statue of Mary Magdalene floated past us, I was pleased to see she had long red hair not unlike my own.
She held a jar of ointment, as was custom, and someone had rigged up battery-powered fluorescent lighting behind her so that she appeared to glow.
As she was carried up the church steps, the crowd filled in behind her, and a bell rang.
The parish priest, Father Guglielmo, indicated that all should rise, and everyone made the sign of the cross, as they would have at the Church of the Nativity back at home.
“Preghiamo,” said Father Guglielmo, and I knew without having to ask Francesca that he had said Let us pray.
Teo arrived in the middle of the gospel reading. He didn’t say a word, just took his place next to me. Immediately, I felt more alert, as if someone had run their fingernails along my arm.
We watched as eight or nine women carried baskets of bread and wine, part of the presentation of gifts, up the steps and laid them in front of the altar.
Father Guglielmo said the Eucharistic Prayer, and then everyone recited the Lord’s Prayer, which sounded so much prettier in Italian.
“La pace sia con te,” said Father Guglielmo, and the crowd said, “E con il tuo spirito.”
The sign of peace was awkward because the islanders apparently preferred a kiss over the handshake I’d grown up with.
Francesca turned to kiss Bernardo, which left me with no one to kiss but Teo.
We leaned in, both of us a little apprehensive to make the first move, but it was fine.
His lips landed on the corner of my mouth, and the kiss was so light I barely felt it.
“Pace,” he whispered into my ear, and I repeated the word back to him, although I couldn’t look him in the eyes while I said it.
When it was time to receive communion, not one of us moved. “You won’t take communion?” I asked Teo, and he shook his head.
Francesca whispered, “Italian men don’t like taking communion because it’s like publicly admitting that they haven’t been with a woman since their last confession.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised and slightly mortified.
“Much better,” said Francesca, “to remain back here and let everyone think you just came from a beautiful girl’s bed.”
Had Teo just come from a beautiful girl’s bed?
I hadn’t considered the fact that Teo might have a girlfriend, but now that Francesca had planted the idea in my head, I found I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Teo hadn’t talked about anyone, and neither had Francesca, although I reasoned that, as his aunt, she might be the last to know whom he was or wasn’t seeing.