The Miracles of Santo Fico (7 page)

Leo abruptly left the bar and crossed the room to the table. He deliberately cleared his throat, bowed slightly, and spoke in excellent English overlaid with a charming accent and just a bit too loud.

“Excuse’a me. I could’a not help but’a overhear your conversation.”

“I . . . I beg your . . . your pardon,” sputtered the poor fellow, choking more on the moment than on his lunch.

“I heard’a what you said about’a our town.”

The room instantly became as quiet as the proverbial tomb. Indeed, at that moment many English souls may have wished they were in their tombs and the expression of horrified mortification on the faces of the horsy-looking trio at the table told Leo that he had probably come off a bit less charming than he’d intended. In fact, what he saw was fear. He’d been told all his life that he sometimes affected people that way—it had something to do with his smile being too much of a sneer and his close-set brown eyes looking vaguely dangerous. The scar across his broken nose didn’t help either. But it was all purely unintentional—he truly meant to be charming.

Now, all around the room, he recognized that same anxious reaction as English minds raced, straining to recall what they too might have said that may have been offensive. English eyes darted around the edges of the crowd, studied the weathered faces and rough farmer hands, the provincial clothes and the innocent stares—how many more of these enigmatic Italian peasants secretly spoke their language?

Then there was this tall, dark fellow standing at their table. To the English, Leo looked like he might be willing to hurt someone. Stories about hot-tempered Italians with their exaggerated masculinity, their fierce national pride, and their knives were common knowledge. Their congenial lunchroom had suddenly become uncomfortable and frightfully awkward.

“You all wonder why this’a village even exists at’a all.” How mortifying to be overheard insulting their village. Still, the question was a fair one. Why would anyone choose such a remote and inaccessible promontory—surrounded on three sides by steep climbs of cactus and rocks and on a fourth by jagged sea cliffs—to build a town? Who, in their right mind, would ever build a village in such an insane place? It was all like some master builder’s mistake—and it was.

One summer day in 1555, shortly after conquering his rival city-state, Siena, after a terrible two-year siege, Cosimo I de Medici, the Duke of Firenze, was playing with his children in one of the smaller fountains of the Boboli Gardens when a minister approached with some maps. The Grand Duke knew he had decisions to make about his new holdings in Toscana, but playtime with his children was rare. The minister pressed the point—if he would just decide where they should invest their efforts for a defensible port.

Whether the error was due to Cosimo’s refusal to forgo his game of tag or bad eyesight or because he momentarily couldn’t remember the name of the correct town—his finger slammed down on a spot on the map with a decisive, “There!” To the minister’s surprise the wet fingerprint was on the tiny promontory of Santo Fico. To the best of his knowledge all that was there was an insignificant monastery, and the befuddled minister politely pointed out that there were probably no reasonable roads to that spot.

“Well, there should be,” roared Cosimo as he leapt back in the fountain. “And make it a fit place for my family. We want to summer there.” Then his wife, Eleonora, who was watching from the shade of a lime tree and whom he loved, teased him about the gray in his beard—and the splashing and laughter began again. So, without further protest, the adviser went off to write notes for the creation of a port, and a road, and a summer villa at . . . Santo Fico.

On that clean, warm morning neither the minister nor the Grand Duke realized his hurried finger thump missed the intended mark by a full two inches. But there was a day some years later when, exhausted with intrigues and worried about a war with France and an uneasy alliance with Spain, Cosimo requested a particular architect be sent to Livorno to inspect the harbor fortifications. When he was informed that the architect was unavailable because he was in Santo Fico picking mosaic patterns for the villa, Cosimo’s reaction was unexpectedly confused.

“Where?”

“Santo Fico, sire.”

“Where the hell’s Santo Fico?”

No matter how hard his memory was jogged, the great Duke could not remember giving any orders to build a road, or a port, or a summer villa “on some godforsaken crag, on a totally useless stretch of Tuscan coast!”

On that day his irritation quickly turned to rage when he discovered that this project had been going on for three years. And he became almost homicidal when he was told how much had already been spent on one misdirected finger. Work would stop immediately. Buildings would be deserted before completion; roads abandoned before they could be widened or even arrive at a destination. But it would all be too late, because even as Cosimo canceled his orders, his little mistake by the western sea was already a reality. Destiny had decreed a small port with a fine road up to what might have been an excellent little cathedral, the beginnings of a handsome villa, and almost a road to the outside world . . . and houses, and people, and a village called Santo Fico.

Of course, Leo Pizzola knew nothing about Cosimo’s inability to read maps. And even if he had he wouldn’t have mentioned it, because his version served his purposes better. There’s a time for facts and a time for stories. So, Leo let his observation “You all wonder why this’a village even exists at’a all” hang like a shroud over the room, and he waited and tried out a couple of different smiles—hopefully something a bit less threatening.

At last the flustered Englishman he’d approached sputtered painfully for an apology. To the Englishman’s surprise, instead of pulling a knife, this dangerous-looking Italian stranger presented a generous smile.

“No, no. Please’a, do not apologize. You are quite’a correct. It is’a most odd for many of the villages in this region. Many times we also ask’a ourselves, how come?” And he threw his hands up with an exaggerated shrug and a laugh.

All of the relieved English visitors joined him in his joke as they realized his intention was not to brawl or even to rebuke. He was actually being congenial and the fact that he spoke English implied that if he wasn’t completely cultured, at least he was civilized—and even possibly semiliterate. He was, after all, wearing a suit and tie—such as they were.

They quickly asked him to join their table, and just as quickly Leo declined. He wasn’t about to give up his command position at center stage. He did, however, graciously accept their offer of some wine, and then right on cue someone at another table asked where he had learned such wonderful English. Leo explained about his years in America. He was disappointed that none of his audience had been to Chicago or knew anything about baseball, but he quickly reasoned that although talk of Chicago and baseball would be wonderful, it would only distract from his greater purpose. Business was business.

The older villagers had guessed where all this was leading when Leo had entered the room and it made them proud to see one of their own socializing with this battalion of strangers—even though they had no idea what was being said. Leo was speaking for them all and proving that they were smart and worldly and had good manners and some even wore linen suits and ties. Really, the only person having any problem right now was the guide. He was wondering why, if Carmen liked him so much, had she just poured a small pitcher of Chianti in his lap?

Leo addressed the crowd.

“I did not mean to interrupt’a your lunch, but I thought’a your question was a good one. Why? Why Santo Fico? Why here? Well, the answer is’a strange. It happened a long time ago, hundreds of’a years. It is, in fact, a sort of . . . magical story about faith and blessed saints, and noblemen, and wars, and miracles . . . If you would’a like to hear . . . ?”

The response was unanimous and sincere. Not only was this pleasantly disheveled character not going to make trouble, he was actually offering them a marvelous diversion—a history of the region.

Amid this hail of approval, Topo made his way to the last empty stool at the bar and gave Leo a quick wink and thumbs-up. It was just an instant of recognition, but Carmen noticed it and recalled how Topo had raced out of the hotel earlier. Something was going on and she didn’t like it. Leo watched Carmen make her way toward the kitchen door and thought— Oh God, she’s going to tell Marta. But there was nothing he could do now, as the room was already hushed in anticipation. Leo closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and became strangely distant—as if he was recalling some blurred memory.

“It was’a over four hundred years ago . . . this month. The great Cosimo de Medici was the Duke of Firenze, what-you-call . . . Florence. It was a time when Firenze was at war with the great city of Siena. Now, this’a war lasted many years and like all terrible wars, it was the cause of many regrets, many tragedies, and even a few miracles . . .”

Leo moved through the room, weaving a stirring tale of how the courageous Duke Cosimo was a flame that lit the fire of the final terrible battle of Siena. He described how Cosimo’s exhausted troops, so far from their home and for so long chancing death, grew discouraged as, day after day, they threw their bodies against the stubborn walls of Siena. Leo thrilled them with his account of how, on one fateful day, astride his valiant white stallion, Cosimo inspired his forces with a heroic speech—though more than a few in this English audience found it surprisingly similar to Henry the

Fifth’s call to arms before the battle of Agincourt.

Leo described how Cosimo recklessly charged his proud horse ahead of his troops and, brandishing his broadsword as if it were a dagger, fought back the startled defenders. The hearts of the listeners pounded when Leo, as if he had been a witness to the fateful moment, described how a lone archer shooting from a distant tower loosed a shaft that caught the great Cosimo full in the chest.

Neither breath nor breeze dared to stir; all were captured by the mortal plight of the great Duke in the very city that they had visited just one day earlier. Many found it amazing that in their time in Siena not a single tour or guidebook mentioned any of this wonderful history. Even the local villagers, who didn’t understand a word of what Leo said, still recognized a few things—they knew he spoke of the great Duke Cosimo, they knew he spoke of Siena and probably a great battle, and they were sure he was telling a wonderful story extremely well.

Leo’s voice became an emotional whisper when he told how Cosimo’s officers carried their beloved Duke to the Siena Duomo and gently laid his dying body on the black and white marble floor beneath the great dome, so he could receive the last rites. But with a wounded gasp the noble Duke abruptly stopped them—

—And Leo also abruptly stopped.

From the back of the dining room two dark eyes burned into him like black firebolts. Without warning, Leo was facing the glare of Marta Caproni Fortino, and he knew instantly from the set of her jaw and the curve of her brow that her quiet fury was profound. Like a frozen Medusa, lightning shot from her dark eyes, seared his brain, and for a moment he was turned to stone. His words became like dazed soldiers who stumbled into one another as they scrambled to rediscover their place in the line of his story, but mostly he was just drowning in her sea of fury. As an Italian, Leo understood Marta’s seething rage—but he’d been living in America for so long that he was unused to it. Americans have never learned what the Italians have perfected—that is, the value of full-blown, for-all-the-world-to-see Righteous Indignation. And because, at that moment, Marta was boiling over with it, Leo was almost knocked to his knees by its full force.

Meanwhile, his rapt English audience was oblivious to his dilemma. In fact, most found Leo’s hesitation poignantly dramatic. The poor man was obviously quite moved by Duke Cosimo’s plight. On the other hand, the moment was not lost for the natives of Santo Fico. They were silent witnesses to an intense battle of wills that was both frightening and fascinating.

Finally, when the tension between the two contenders was pushed so far that half the room was ready to scream at them to stop and the other half was ready to scream at him for the finish of the story—Marta blinked. Then she sighed. She would allow him to continue.

For his part, Leo recovered as deftly as a cat that had slipped from a table. He knew exactly where he was in his improbable fiction, and like any great actor, he knew just exactly how to turn this awkward moment to his advantage. He simply began his description of the dying Duke’s last wish with a slight catch in his voice—and suddenly that long pause, which had actually only been a few seconds, took on a whole new meaning. This sensitive storyteller had needed that moment to master his emotions—and in a twinkling, Leo was rolling again as the tragedy of poor Duke Cosimo continued to unfold. He was so relieved that he even allowed himself a fleeting smugness that he was so much better at this than he was at hanging drywall.

Marta, of course, knew nothing about his years in Chicago hanging drywall (whatever that was). She was only thinking, How dare he do this in my hotel? How dare he wait until my restaurant is crowded with customers and then play his childish scheme?

Although none of the townspeople were foolish enough to openly stare at her, Marta could feel their eyes nonetheless, and so with a practiced response that she was no longer even aware of, she automatically closed off her heart and her mind to any feeling. She allowed nothing in and nothing was allowed to escape, because she knew what they were waiting for, what they wanted—and she was pleased that they would not get it today. This was not the day she would confront Leo Pizzola. Besides, too much of her life had already been a topic for their gossip. Too many times her grief had become nothing more than another whispered scandal or exaggerated rumor for the amusement of her neighbors. They acted as though they understood her life better than she did—and perhaps they did. They certainly knew enough secrets about her and Franco, and maybe even Leo too. But there would be no show for their amusement today—not unless Leo Pizzola cost her business. Then she would pound him like a cheap steak and she didn’t care who saw.