I can’t say that the tale made much impression on me. In comparison to the tales from Grimm that had so enchanted me as a child it seemed thin and colourless. But Larry saw it differently:
On first hearing this story eloquently told by a simple woman who had learnt it at her mother’s knee, I was immediately struck by the familiar motif of the midnight sun. Where had I come across it before? In the mysterious eleventh book of The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, of course, that ancient picaresque novel, more commonly known as The Golden Ass, where we are given the fullest account we possess of the secret rites of Isis as they were once practised in the Graeco-Roman world.
Driven by his desire to acquire the powers of witchcraft, Lucius, the narrator and central character of the story, is transformed by mistake into an ass. Only after many scabrous adventures is he restored to human form by the goddess Isis, into whose sacred rites he is subsequently initiated. Though the narrative does not disclose the exact nature of those rites, Apuleius does permit Lucius to make this cryptic revelation: “I approached the boundary of death and returned from there, having crossed the threshold of Proserpine and been carried through all the elements. I saw the sun shining at midnight with a brilliant light, and stood in the close presence of the gods below and the gods above to worship them.”
Now, to an African such as Apuleius (he was a citizen of Madaura in what is currently Algeria), the Arctic phenomenon of the midnight sun would have been quite unknown. His narrator Lucius is alluding, therefore, to an experience outside the usual realm of the senses. A transformative experience. An experience of rebirth such as is obtainable only at death’s door, and which evidently depends on the reconciliation of opposing principles.
A moment’s thought will show us how the story of the Revenant of Fontanalba moves along a parallel trajectory to that followed by the ancient mystai of Isis in the course of their initiation. The philosophical shepherd is preoccupied with the mystery of light at the heart of darkness. Where, he wonders, does the sun go at midnight? To solve that mystery he climbs upwards to the sky only to fall to his death in the earth. When he is reborn it is in female form, and from his death flows a new access of the waters of life. A transfiguring mysterium has been performed. As surely as was the case with Lucius the Ass, the shepherd has undergone a rite which ushers him beyond the blind world of the senses into the midnight light of spiritual vision. Considered in that light, what might otherwise be dismissed as a mere fancy of the peasant imagination emerges as a faint, but faithfully preserved, folk memory of rites that were once performed in the sacred places of these Umbrian hills. That those rites were Isiac rites may further be adduced from the town’s abiding devotion to the icon of the Black Madonna which stands in its little Romanesque church – African Isis comfortably ensconced as a curiously androgynous Virgin Mary!
I snapped the book shut. My head felt heavy: sleep tugged at me again. Yet my mind was turbulent. Larry might be excited by fantasies of seeing the sun at midnight, but my world was still thick with darkness at noon. In place of Larry’s comforting black Madonna, I saw a woman in a yellow turban howling over the small, mutilated body of her child. Around her lay the dead in the streets and compounds of Fontonfarom, toppled among hibiscus bushes and canna lilies, dumped in the storm drains, wallowing in the sluggish waters of the Kra. I saw the peevish flap of vultures against the heat haze overhead.
When I dozed, I dreamt fitfully of Gail, unable to tolerate any longer the pain of living with me as I was – going away, beyond recall, leaving me lying on our bed in Camden with rain falling through the ceiling onto its rumpled sheets.
A sense of utter loss then – my life bereft and desolate – from which I woke briefly only to be pulled back into sleep, where I found that my mother had moved out of the cellar in Cripplegate to live on some remote landmass. I needed to visit her there, but the journey meant crossing a wide desert like no desert I had ever seen – a torrid, undulating plain composed of some igneous ruby-red substance, as though the hot melt of lava from a volcano’s mouth had covered the surface of the earth and congealed in its flow before the colour could fade. It was like walking on vitrified fire. When I reached my mother’s house and looked back, I saw a vivid light drifting across the mountain range beyond the desert, tinting all things in its progress until the whole world was rinsed in its rainbow tide.
Waking, I lay with my eyes closed, yearning to be back in that vanished country; but my heart felt lighter when I rose. I showered, changed, decided to ring Gail, sure that I could talk her round. There was no answer. But it was about Marina I was thinking as I drove out to the villa.
Oddly, I felt more optimistic than at any time since my arrival in Umbria.
9
Music
Far to the east the evening sky was shot with silent lightning as I parked the car at the villa. Orazio took me through to the terrace, where I sat over a gin-and-tonic, watching the bats scud through silky air. He had made it plain that the Contessa would shortly join me. Meanwhile, a moonflower fragrance on the dusk left me feeling closer to Africa than England.
After a time I heard the engine rasp of a motor scooter echoing through the valley. Gabriella had still not appeared when a rowdy bray of laughter came from the house. Turning my head to look for its source, I recognized Fra Pietro chatting with a large woman in a dress of shiny black bombazine. The fat shimmied on her arms as she waved him away. Smiling bashfully, the friar stepped through the arched doorway and came to join me at the table.
“It sounds as though you were having fun,” I said.
“Angelina, Angelina!”
I saw a scrap of tissue unpeeling on his chin where he must have cut himself while shaving. “She is the cook here. I think she was born beneath a laughing star. She calls me Fra Asinello, which is to say Brother Donkey! I cannot think why!” He widened his eyes. “But now I am at last here to keep you company, Mr Crowther – Martin, if I may?” While he was speaking he unslung a leather case from his shoulders. “Allegra is with the ladies.” He made primping gestures with his hands. “Soon they will astonish us with their beauty.”
“I see you’ve brought your guitar. Do you and Allegra make music often?”
“Not a guitar,” he corrected me, “but a lute. And no, we do not play together so often as I would like. But whenever Allegra is here in Fontanalba.”
When I asked if I might see the instrument, he threw the clasps on the case, took out the lute and held it out before him like a parent presenting a new child for admiration. Wide-necked, deep-bellied as a pear, it was painted a dusky blue fretted with stars, and felt so delicate and expensive that I held up a hand declining his offer to let me hold it. With an amused shrug, he sat down, strummed his hand across the strings and began to tune them.
“It’s good that you are here.” He glanced up at me as he twisted a peg. “I think Marina will be very happy that you have come.”
Not sharing his confidence, I said, “But there’s no word of Adam yet?”
“Not that I have heard. In his own time he will arrive.”
“I hope he won’t take too long about it. I’d like to see him before I go.” I took in his amiable nod before adding, “May I ask you something? You called Adam one of God’s fools earlier. I’ve been wondering what you meant by that?”
Fra Pietro stroked the crown of his head while he considered how best to answer me. “Are we not all God’s fools,” he smiled, “when we think we understand ourselves and our place in His world?”
“I had the feeling you meant more than that,” I pressed. “Something particular to Adam. I’m interested because I’ve known him a long time and I’ve often despaired at his talent for throwing his life away.”
Again Fra Pietro widened his eyes. They were long-lashed, a little troubled now. He said, “You speak as though you saw in him only some kind of failure.”
“Does that surprise you?”
The man’s bony shoulders shrugged beneath his habit. “Perhaps
you mistake his scorn for the things of this world,” he suggested, amused by my air of perplexity. “It can be extravagant, yes. But his heart is also large. He has a big capacity for love.” Putting the lute aside, he reached into the wallet at his belt for a box of matches and the half-smoked cheroot he’d stubbed out earlier. “I think perhaps he is making his heart big enough that it can hold the soul? And in ways which have pained him many times.” He lit the cheroot and contemplated the brilliance of the risen moon. “Perhaps they have also made him seem a failure to those who have not understood the true nature of his seeking?” If a reproach was intended, his voice softened it. “No, I do not believe that Adam has thrown his life away like a wasted thing, but perhaps he wishes to give it away, which is very different.”
“To what?” I asked. “To whom?”
“Perhaps that is the question that most torments him?”.
“You’re very fond of him.”
“Of course. I have also much concern for him.”
“Despite what you said to Allegra?”
“Perhaps because of it. God may have a special affection for those who go the Way of the Fool, but it is sometimes a hard and dangerous way.”
“Can you say more?”
And he too furrowed his brow. “How shall I explain? It is to undertake the…” – he sought and found the word he wanted – “the ordeal – yes? – of the spiritual quest without the protection and discipline that comes from membership of an order? That is what I mean by the Way of the Fool. On such a way one can get lost many times. One may come to harm.”
“And you think that’s what may have happened to Adam?”
Fra Pietro meditated over the burning tip of his cheroot before answering. “Sometimes I see in him an avidity to make himself a sacrifice,” he said quietly, “such as one finds more frequently among the young. But Adam has arrived there – how shall I say it? – after a maturity of pain. Perhaps he is still seeking the proper manner of his sacrifice? Perhaps also its occasion? And not as an escape from pain, I think, but as its only consummation.”
“That sounds very gloomy,” I said, wondering into what kind of language I would translate any of this for Hal.
“Yet he would like us to rejoice for him in the end. I trust that we shall. Also I pray for it.”
The last words seemed uttered as an afterthought, for we had both heard the sound of women chatting as they came along the corridor and Fra Pietro was already stubbing the cheroot and pushing back his chair to stand. Allegra came out of the house first, followed by Gabriella and a white-haired woman in a simple, lavender-blue dress, who tilted her head towards the stars as she breathed in the fragrant night air. I got to my feet, expecting to be introduced. Only then did I see how the neckline of her dress revealed the coral-pink blazon of a birthmark.
Fortunately she had not looked my way. In contrast to Gabriella’s dark, henna-tinged curls, that astonishing white fall of hair made Marina seem the older by at least ten years. I reminded myself that she was, by now, some five or six years older than her own mother had been at her death, and that Grace’s dark hair had only ever been lightly sprinkled with grey. But Marina had always been her father’s daughter, in appearance at least.
“Hello, Marina,” I said, “it’s good to see you again.”
She turned her head my way and nodded in calculated, mute acknowledgement, like royalty, before responding warmly to my companion’s greeting. “Buonasera, Fra Pietro,” she said. “Tell me, how is Fra Rufino? Is he quite recovered yet?” They moved away in conversation together. From inside the house music floated across the air. I guessed at Cimarosa or some other composer with a heart more serene than mine. Orazio, who had brought out a tray of drinks, muttered something in Italian to Gabriella. I saw her glance at herwatch as Allegra sat down in the ornate chair next to mine.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” she said.
I remembered that night long before at High Sugden, the muffled sounds along the landing, the haunting radiance through the door cracks.
“Your mother sometimes has that effect on me.”
“Must be guilt,” she smiled. “Particularly as you have her at a disadvantage. You knew you were coming to Umbria, after all. She had no idea.”
“You mean I’m the ghost at the feast.”
“You’re not a ghost,” she replied, “you’re a guest. And Marina’s promised Gabriella that she’ll be polite.”
I glanced across to where Marina was laughing with Fra Pietro, indifferent to my presence, or wilfully oblivious of it. “If not exactly friendly?” I said.
“That rather depends on you, I suspect.”
“So, Mr Martin Crowther,” Gabriella said, approaching us, “welcome again to my house. I see you are already enchanted by my god-daughter?”
“She’s been putting me in my place. With great charm, of course. I hardly felt a thing!”
Gabriella arched her brows at Allegra. “You must beware of this man. He has stories to tell that will make your heart sore. Also he has much to prove.”
“I thought Guerino was the one at risk,” I said.
“But it was not he who was rejected.”
“Who are you talking about?” Allegra asked.
“Another adventurer,” Gabriella explained, “a wretch who came to Umbria on a quest for the lost father.”
“Gabriella also has stories to tell,” I said.
“But my stories are true.”
“Especially the part about the snake.”
“Oh yes,” she answered, “especially that.” At that moment we heard a car pulling up at the front of the villa. “Ah, that will be Lorenzo at last. I think he takes longer than me to make himself beautiful. I understand he too is your friend?”
“Sort of,” I said. “I didn’t think he was coming.”
“Oh yes, he very much insisted to be here with you.”
“He invited himself?”
“He is an old friend here also. He understands this house very well. Lorenzo is always welcome.”
Stromberg embraced everyone else on the terrace, and halted before me with a demonstrative gesture of his hands, as though his bulk had just materialized on the evening air. Then he puckered and smacked his lips in emulation of a kiss. “Here will we sit,” he announced, taking the seat to my left, “and let the sounds of music creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony. Don’t you so agree, old soul?” And before I could place which of Shakespeare’s plays he was quoting, he turned away and began to speak to Marina in Italian.
I drank too much at dinner, listening to a conversation in which anxiety over Adam’s absence was carefully suppressed. From the opposite end of the table to Gabriella, Larry kept it moving with such verve that I guessed he’d been invited for just that purpose. I had been placed on Gabriella’s right with Allegra beside me and Fra Pietro directly across the table. Marina sat between him and Lorenzo, avoiding all contact with my eyes. She drank little, lifting her gaze every now and then to the ceiling, where a rousing scene from classical mythology had been painted – the rape of the Sabine women perhaps? At moments when our eyes might have met she seemed to stare right through me, and for the rest of the time her gaze drifted away from mine. I didn’t know whether I was more hurt or affronted by her studied refusal to countenance my presence.
Meanwhile Larry and Fra Pietro were lightly engaged in dispute. Stromberg was saying, “But my dear fellow, the Bible is such a relentlessly solemn read. Surely there must have been a celestial paroxysm of relief when you Franciscans came along and dared to make God giggle?”
“Lorenzo, you are disgraceful,” Gabriella sighed. “In which circle of the Inferno will you end up, I wonder?”
“Fairly deep, I should think,” he pondered. “Somewhere among the fortune-tellers and fraudsters in the dingy pouches of Malebolge perhaps? Certainly not so deep as those who betray their friends.”
“I should hope not!” Gabriella excla
imed.
“Besides,” Marina added quietly, “that place is already reserved for someone else at the table.”
Like an event long dreaded and finally arrived, her remark brought silence. With it came an uncertain stillness in which everyone looked at her, only to find her gaze fixed on the wineglass she had hardly touched.
Allegra dispelled the silence. “I don’t think I believe in hell.”
“Oh but you should, you really should,” Lorenzo rallied in protest while enjoying my discomfiture. “By refusing to believe in hell, we give it leave to prosper everywhere. It becomes hell on earth, my dear, absolute hell on earth! Martin will tell you that. He’s one of its principal cartographers.”
Turning to me, Fra Pietro said, “You must explain for me what Lorenzo means by this.”
“I’m a journalist,” I answered, “mostly covering wars. For television.”
“Ah, now I understand.” As though I had confessed to an illness, Fra Pietro studied me with a troubled and compassionate gaze. “Then you have indeed come close to the Inferno, my friend.”
“Things like that don’t happen because people no longer believe in hell,” I said. “It’s because they no longer believe in man.”
“Which is another way of saying the same thing,” Marina said, with such cold authority that again the table fell silent round her. She put down her napkin, pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “I’m sorry, but Martin and I have to talk. Will you excuse us, everyone?” Without so much as a glance my way, she walked across the marbled tiles of the floor and out of the room.
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