The Life of Elves (14 page)

Raffaele Santangelo glanced one last time at Clara and shrugged his shoulders with the nonchalance of a ballerina, as if to say,
We have plenty of time.

“Adieu,” he said, and vanished in a movement of great elegance which gave a glimpse, beneath his black clothing, of the perfection of his fighter's body.

As if there were a gem of light in a dark crystal-clear water, Clara sensed a strange aura lurking behind the angelic servant of the state before he left and took his shadows with him. But like a trace left on the retina long after the passage of an image, one of these shadows struck her and, as she recalled the encounter with Raffaele, she saw again the expression that, at a certain point, his face assumed as she played her composition. And just as she had been frightened by the contrasts in the voice of death, now she was submerged by a wave of beauty that was instantly destroyed by a wave of ugliness. There was so much nobility, so much rage and pain in that fleeting gaze, and so much splendor in the image that invaded her inner perception . . .

A stormy sky rose over a valley of mists, and gardens of stones could be seen beneath the clouds that sped into the blue. On her tongue was the taste of snow and violets, mingled with an essence of trees and galleries of woods, both unimaginable and very familiar, as if the savor of a vanished world had come alive in her mouth and by running her fingers over the exposed contours of her open heart, she had seen the blood welling there for the first time. Such a mixture of ecstasy and sorrow; an endless sadness sharpened by the blade of suffering; and the nostalgia of an ancient dream where hatred was growing, rumbling. Finally in the sky she saw birds set loose by invisible archers, and she knew that she was seeing through Raffaele's eyes what he had lost, so much so that the aversion she felt for the road to disaster and death was mixed with the rush of a feeling not unlike love.

In fact, during those moments when the two men were confronting one another, the tension had grown without words or movement, as if they were practicing a martial art at such a level of mastery that the outcome of the fight required no contact, and she had seen the metabolic center whence the same solar wave of power came, the one that taught her that they both belonged to the same world. But while the Maestro radiated an aura of rocks and riverbanks, the Governor rose up in an arrow, whose clear fletchings turned into charred feathers at their extremities, and in his heart there was a distortion that distanced him from himself and resembled an open wound where once there had been magnificence.

 

After the Governor's departure, the Maestro's friends continued to converse into the night, and from their discussions Clara was able to obtain a clearer picture of Rome's political chessboard. She was not surprised to learn that, although he did not have any official position of authority, the Maestro was a pillar of the city: but she was astonished to find that they all knew he traded in a mysterious side of reality.

“The Governor no longer has any doubt,” said Pietro, “he is certain of his victory.”

“But he is still trying to win you over to his side,” said Roberto, the orchestra conductor, addressing the Maestro.

“It was a threat, not a request,” said Alessandro. “He has already released his dogs all across the country, and he is leaning with all his strength on the Council. But Italy is only one pawn in the greater war.”

“Alessandro Centi, you may be a doomed artist but you are a fine strategist,” said one of the female guests, with both bitterness and tenderness.

Everyone laughed. But in this laughter mingled with friendship and fear Clara detected the same determination she had sensed in Alessandro, and it frightened her in proportion to the ardor it aroused in her. She looked at the faces of these men and women, the suave mannerisms of those whom fortune had favored, and she saw in them an awareness of the deep disquiet in which the flame of their art was flickering—so much so that fate hung between the soul's euphoria and exhaustion. She also saw a community of peace-loving people who concurred that the times called for battle-readiness, and their determination engendered a gravity that made the hour magnificent. And she understood that no one present was there by chance, that the Maestro had used the pretext of Leonora's birthday to assemble the phalanx he had constituted much as he chose her music and placed both peaches and beloved women in her path. But she wondered what it was that made them a fighting elite, because none of the members of this amiable battalion belonged to the ordinary species of soldier, those who go of a morning to fields that will be red by nightfall; yet they were the Maestro's field officers, forming a family with weapons and powers hidden beneath the table where they dined. Proudly, she felt she belonged to that family, too.

 

“The first battle is behind us,” said the Maestro, “and we have lost it. We have no more influence on the Council; they will hand over their powers before the end of the winter.”

“We must make ready,” said Ottavio, a man with white hair and an intriguing gaze; Sandro had told her he was an important writer.

“It is time to find shelter for your people,” said Pietro.

“What sort of protection will you provide for Clara?” asked Roberto, and she saw that they all agreed she was to play a decisive role in the war.

“Those who protect are protected,” said the Maestro.

Finally, with the exception of Pietro, Alessandro, and Petrus, the guests departed.

“You are visible now, you cannot return to the patio,” said Leonora to Clara. “You'll sleep here tonight.”

Then she embraced her, and left. Pietro and Alessandro poured a glass of liqueur and sat down for one last nocturnal conversation. Petrus vanished, then came back with a bottle of moscato, pouring himself a glass with tender solicitude.

“Does the Governor see what I see?” asked Clara.

“He saw it at the end,” said the Maestro, “even though I stayed by your side. But I don't think he understood it clearly.”

“I saw the tunnel of light between you,” she said. “There was a path of stones, with the same trees as in your garden.”

“The stones are at the center of your life,” he said. “You will often see that path.”

And from the sound of his voice she understood that he was proud of her.

“I listened to the singing of your stream,” she said.

Pietro's smile was like the smile he gave after searching in vain for the poem on the musical score.

“You will stay here from now on,” said the Maestro. “Raffaele will want to know before he acts, so we still have some time ahead of us. But we must reinforce our surveillance.”

“I'll deploy some men,” said Pietro, “but we are overwhelmed. Raffaele was informed, in spite of our watchmen.”

“Who is the other little girl?” asked Alessandro. “It would seem that the Governor already knows about her. It's her you want to tell us about this evening, I think.”

“I want to talk about her to you in particular because you will soon go to meet her. It's a long journey, and it will be dangerous.”

“May we know her name?”

“Maria,” said Clara.

But she did not have the leisure to say more, because a powerful alarm was sounding inside her; she stood up abruptly, followed by the Maestro and Petrus, who had leapt up from his cushions.

 

Oh, what a night of agony! On the distant farm, Marcel awakes to his inextinguishable pain, and the entire household heads toward his sickroom. Clara watches the procession of old women on their way to the unfortunate man's bedside; Maria and her father are already there, having sensed before the others that death is in pursuit of one of their own; she sees Marcel writhing in agony and, like the others, she realizes he is about to die; and she sees Eugénie, who was shaken from her torpor by the sight of the dying man, as if she'd been slapped in the face, now standing tall in her thick woolen socks. Gone is the little granny burdened by age and chores; duty has left a glow on her worn face, which expertise has transformed into a blade, and it is another woman who goes over to the dying man, a woman so beautiful that the little Italian girl feels a pang of anguish on seeing this vision of passing beauty, irrespective of the iron that has forged it. Then she follows each act of healing in succession, while time is suspended and the sense of danger grows ever stronger. When Maria places her hand on Eugénie's shoulder, Clara feels herself sinking into a great magma of power, and she is afraid of drowning and becoming lost in it forever. But she knows that her place is with these women who have come to cross the border of the visible together, and she hunts feverishly for a way through the storm. The Maestro's words—
the Pavilion where our kind can see everything—
again assail her memory and she tries to cling to them as if they were a raft in the middle of the ocean. Then she sees, and her entire life is there. Such peace, suddenly . . . As the mists lift, a red bridge drifts toward her with the majesty of a swan; as it comes closer, she can see a figure on the highest point of its arc, and she knows it is her father, in his priesthood as a ferryman, providing passage. Then the figure vanishes, the bridge is motionless on the thread of an enchanted song and Clara controls all the visions. She can leave Maria to catalyze the powers; she has passed on the message and is maintaining the harmony of the visible.

“Prodigious,” murmurs the Maestro.

Alas, before long they see the iris that Maria cannot see. Clara looks at the invisible flower with its indescribable petals of childhood; at the far end of the vision, Eugénie accepts the pact of the exchange, and in Rome two men appear out of nowhere and come into the room just as the Maestro says to Alessandro, “You will leave with them at dawn.”

Then, to Clara: “She must see you now.”

P
rodigious,” said the Council Head. “The alliance of vision and powers in the world of humans.”

“Maria is the catalyst,” said the Guardian of the Pavilion, “and Clara is the ferryman, providing passage.”

“There is a change in the bridge's force field.”

“There is a change in the mists' force field. The configuration of the passage is not all they alter.”

“But there has been an exchange,” said the Bear, “and Aelius sees what we see.”

“It will upset the entire landscape of the action,” said the Squirrel. “It is time to move.”

“So soon,” said the Council Head. “I hope we are ready.”

“The bridge is open,” said the Guardian of the Pavilion. “You may cross.”

B
eneath the red duvet Maria was weeping.

For several weeks now she had felt in her gut the premonition of an ordeal much greater than any the people she loved had ever known, and this was as terrifying to her as what she knew about the grievous events still burdening them, even years later. Moreover, it was the end of January and they had hardly seen any snow. It was very cold, and the nights froze into icy dawns transfixed by the blade of the air. But the fine snow had not come, either before or after the solstice, and Maria wandered through the frozen lowlands, where the animals were frightened by shadows whose impalpable threat grew more acute with each passing day. The music continued to disappear sporadically, as it had done during the twilight in March, and Maria dreaded these eclipses of the chanting as if they were lethal attacks, particularly as she had seen neither the fantastical wild boar nor the tall silver horse. It's too soon, she thought, with ever-increasing anxiety, all the while yearning for a life still enchanted by the eternal etchings of her trees.

 

Therefore, when she went into the little room where a feckless man lay dying, paying a hundredfold for his guinea-hen, a sudden flash of intuition enlightened her, telling her that the first catastrophe had just struck. She had touched Eugénie's shoulder twice, and admired the art with which the healer went about her task. Maria knew Eugénie had seen the bridge and understood the message, and she had seen how the old woman turned her back on war and left the front to attune herself to the music of the trees. Maria had not needed to think or to concentrate—on the contrary, she had surrendered to the vibrant sensation of the completely new lines rippling through the old auntie's heart, and she had played on the waves, captured them like coiled ropes, which she then stretched out at length, first simply by untying them, a second time by spreading them wide open to all possibilities.

It was not very different from what she ordinarily did with the animals; what she merely twisted slightly when she wanted to address the hares, she had now simply stretched toward infinity, the difference being that the animals in the woods had not broken with nature the way men had, for men could not hear the grand hymns, nor could they see the splendid pictures. So she had shown Eugénie the bridge of harmony, the image that had come to her just as she had laid her hand on her shoulder. Where had that image come from? She did not know. But everything had been so easy and so quick, it had been so simple to set these forces free and unleash the natural flow, and it was utterly incomprehensible that to heal and provide relief in this way was not the daily lot of human beings.

 

At the very moment she saw the bridge, Eugénie heard voices chanting a celestial hymn. But unlike Maria she had not heard the words.

 

on a day slipping between two clouds of ink

on an evening sighing in the lightest of mists

 

The transparency of the world in these moments of song was dazzling, and she was hollowed out by a dizziness of frost and snow, their silkiness sparkling intermittently through the drifting mists. Maria knew this canto of passing voices and clouds. It came to her at night time, in her dreams, but also during the day when she would walk along her paths. Then she would stop, gripped by such marvelous fright that she almost wished she could die of it that very instant—then the song and the vision moved on, and she set off in quest of a hare that might offer some comfort, for there was always an instant, after the voices had fallen silent, when she thought she no longer desired anything, apart from that song and those mists. At last the world was clear again and her trouble was eased by violets and leaves.