The Other Language(51)
“There. You can fit right in there.”
There was another long pause during the parking maneuver.
“And then?” Lara kept checking her rearview mirror, pretending to be only half interested.
“I told him I was on holiday,” Mina said bitterly. “I gave him the address of Jolanda, in Ortelle. She’s not as good as me, no. But she can make their clothes.”
Slowly, gingerly, they made their way with the crowd down the steep winding road that led to the small harbor. Whole families marched together, fathers carrying their children on their shoulders, old ladies holding on to the arms of their daughters, kids eating their gelati. They walked briskly, with festive smiles, grown-ups and children equally eager for the music and the fireworks that were to follow. Below, on the small piazza by the water’s edge, there were stalls selling sweets—caramelized almonds, chocolate nougat and Nutella crepes—and Chinese-made toys that lit up, buzzed and shrieked with Star Wars sounds. The local band in their uniforms was tuning the trombones and the tubas under the pagoda-shaped gazebo set up in the piazza. In a few minutes the door of the white church would let out the procession bearing the statue of the Virgin. The oldest and strongest fishermen decked out in their Sunday clothes would bring her down to the pier, haul her onto one of the boats. Mina’s gait wobbled on the steep descent. She grabbed Lara’s arm, making her slow down.
“I am not stupid,” she hissed. “If one’s name is printed in that American magazine—whatever it’s called—one becomes famous all over the world. Why couldn’t he say, ‘Write this down: all my clothes were made by Mina Corvaglia from Andrano’?”
“He totally should have told the magazine,” Lara agreed. Part of her was rejoicing. She was going to recount it all to Leo, word for word.
“Perhaps he thinks he doesn’t need to give my name because I am just a—a peasant, from the sticks,” Mina said, shaking her head. “But we don’t live in mud huts here.”
Mina knew exactly where they needed to position themselves in order to get the best view of the boats and the fireworks. She stopped on top of a stairway that went steeply down all the way to the square, unfolded a large handkerchief and spread it on one of the spotless steps. She sat on it with care, and kept brushing her pleated skirt, making sure it wouldn’t touch the pavement. Lara sat next to her and remained quiet for a few minutes, as the procession slowly approached the harbor. They watched as the statue of the Vergine della Tempesta was carefully placed inside a palanquin on the prow of a larger boat adorned with flowers and candles.
“What about the house he’s buying?” Lara finally asked.
Mina was busy making sure her skirt was in place. She then closed her arm around her knees.
“My cousin, he changed his mind. He’s decided to keep the house for now.”
“Really? How come?”
“Too much confusion. Paparazzi will come to steal photos, more foreigners will come to buy property, prices will go up. We don’t need that kind of pandemonium here.”
The evening light was dimming and turning everything into a watercolor with runny edges of lavender and blue. The boats had grouped around the biggest one, the one that carried the Virgin, and they started to move away from the shore in the twilight. The big boat led the way with its palanquin in a triumph of tiny lights and the fishermen’s boats followed with their flickering lanterns. Somewhere, someone was lighting small hot air balloons made of paper that ascended in a slow, billowing flight, one by one. They were dotting the sky with their orangey glow, illuminated by the boat lights below, forming a dazzling constellation.
Just then the moon emerged from the strand of haze sitting on top of the horizon. A big, apricot moon, pinned against a lilac background. Everything went quiet, the band, the birds, the children’s voices, the Chinese electronic toys. It was as if for a moment everyone felt what it was like to be present, all together, and alive.
Lara held her breath. She had hoped for this feeling for so long. And now, without her aiming for it or practicing toward it, here it was, epiphanic, timeless. She knew the feeling would last only another handful of seconds. But somehow, hadn’t she earned it? From now on she’d at least be able to call it back and it would unfold, replay itself.
She looked at Mina and their eyes met. For whatever seconds were left of that knowing, they were together in it and nothing needed to be said. Then the first of the fireworks sprang up in a cascade of gold that streaked the darkening sky, then fell with a soft crackling noise into the water.
After two hours of fireworks and deafening explosions, their lungs and eyes filled with so much acrid smoke it was as if they’d just escaped a battlefield, Lara suggested it might be time to leave. They’d eaten pork sandwiches and Nutella crepes, bought the nougat and a plastic parrot on a branch that chirped every five minutes, which Mina was planning to hang on her lemon tree. Her digestion upset, but nevertheless satisfied and happily exhausted, Lara steered Mina up the hill, back to where the car was parked.
“Does it get very cold in the winter months here?” she asked, as she drove them back, breaking the sleepy silence in the car.
No answer came, so Lara took her eyes away from the road and turned to Mina, who shook her head, her eyes half closed.
“You know, I was thinking …,” Lara went on. “How much do you think it would cost to rebuild the forno at the house?”