Home > From Sand and Ash(15)

From Sand and Ash(15)
Author: Amy Harmon

Now they stood side by side, Eva’s arm wrapped around his as Rabbi Cassuto offered what little explanation he could for something inexplicable. Eva herself had had little to say. She had not been far from Angelo’s side since the moment he’d arrived, and though she’d clung to him, letting him know she needed him, she’d been silent—she even wept quietly—as if Felix had taken sound with him. The maestro was gone, and the music was too.

Camillo wanted her to play at the service, but she just shook her head, and he’d seemed to understand. He found another student of Felix’s to play something by Mendelssohn, something Felix would have appreciated, and the matter was dropped.

Before the service began, they ripped Felix’s shirt, a ritual called keriah, or tearing, symbolizing their separation and the loss in the fabric of their family. He had been torn from them, and as each of them rent a piece of the garment, they recited the passage from the Book of Job. God has given, God has taken away, blessed be the name of God. They would wear the strip of cloth attached to their clothing and would keep it there for the seven days of shivah.

God had not taken Felix away. Felix had chosen to go. And though suicide was treated as seriously in Judaism as it was in Catholicism, there was no judgment, and Rabbi Cassuto was the first to add, “Baruch atah Adonai, Dayan Ha-Emet”—Blessed are you, Adonai, truthful judge. Felix was a casualty of war, Rabbi Cassuto said, and that was the end of it.

Angelo had conducted his first funeral a month before. A beloved mother and wife in his impoverished parish who’d died unexpectedly. He’d been terrified of failing the family in their time of need but found that as long as he kept his focus on the deceased and on her loved ones, and stopped worrying about himself, he was fine. He’d conducted the funeral service in Latin and Rabbi Cassuto spoke in Hebrew—Eva had to translate what she knew—but the sentiments were mostly the same. We are made in his image, and to him we return.

After the service, they’d joined the long procession to the grave site, stopping seven times as if to show the difficulty of the task, the pain of the ordeal. And when Felix’s casket was eventually lowered into the ground, they shoveled dirt over his final resting place, committing him back to the earth. It was beautiful and painful. Just like life. Just like coming home. Just like seeing Eva again.

They went back to the villa and spent the rest of the day welcoming a steady stream of friends and neighbors, until eventually, just like the other rituals of the day, that too had come to an end. Now he sat next to Eva on a stool so low that his prosthetic stuck out in front of him, his eyes on the candle that had been lit the moment they returned and had been burning ever since.

“What does shivah mean?” he asked, wanting to pull her from the solitude of her silence. She was so withdrawn he was worried about her.

“It means ‘seven,’” she answered immediately.

“Ah, I see. We stopped seven times today. And you will sit shivah for a week. Seven days.” Strange. It had been seven months since he’d been home.

“Yes.”

“Why is seven significant?”

“It’s from Job. When he lost everything, his friends sat with him for seven days and seven nights, grieving with him and for him.”

They fell into silence once more, and Angelo was at a loss, sick at heart, helpless to the point of tears, frustrated that he couldn’t hold her and make her laugh, that things between them couldn’t be easy and comfortable, the way they once were. He fisted his hands in his hair and found himself confessing.

“I can’t stay, Eva. I would like to. But I have responsibilities that can’t wait.”

“I know,” she said softly. “Thank you for coming.”

“I would take it away from you if I could. I would take it with me. I would take your pain and bear it for you.” He would happily endure her sorrow if it meant she wouldn’t have to.

“I know,” she said again, as if she truly believed him. “I know you would. But sadly, that is not how pain works, is it? We can cause pain, but we can so seldom cure it.”

“Talk to me. Maybe that will ease it. Tell me what all of this means.” He swept his hand around the room, including the candle and the covered mirrors, the low stools and the meal of condolence that the family had eaten. It had been a strange mix of eggs and bread and lentils—not the kind of comfort food he would have chosen. “Tell me about the candle,” he suggested, giving her a starting point.

“A member of the family lights the candle immediately upon entering the home. It’s called the shivah candle, and it burns for the entire seven days.”

Angelo nodded, encouraging her.

“The candle reminds us of the soul of the one who has gone, and also of God’s light. After all, he created our souls with his light. It’s from a psalm, I think.”

“The light of God is the soul of man,” Angelo quoted.

“Yes.” Eva nodded. “That’s the one.” She stopped talking, a contemplative expression on her face, and Angelo pressed her, not wanting her to slip away again.

“And these stools?”

Eva looked startled, as if she’d forgotten he was there for a moment. “Oh. Well, we are closer to the ground. Closer to the loved one who is now in the ground.”

Symbolism. He was a Catholic priest. If he understood anything, he understood symbolism.

“And the mirrors?” he prodded. The mirrors were all shrouded in dark cloth.

“Grieving is not a time to worry about appearances. There should be no judgment in grief. People should be allowed to grieve in any way they need. It is a kindness to the mourners. Shivah is about those left behind.”

He reached over and took her hand in his, needing to give comfort, and they sat, staring at the flickering candle, holding hands across the space between their odd little stools.

“I sat shivah after you were ordained,” Eva blurted out suddenly. “I didn’t realize that was what I was doing. But for a week I didn’t leave the house. I couldn’t. I covered the mirror in my room so I wouldn’t have to look at myself. And I slept on the floor. You left me behind, and I was grieving.” She laughed hollowly and let go of his hand. Angelo didn’t know what to say, but somehow she’d given him some of her pain to bear, because all at once his heart was heavy with shared sorrow.

She had come to his ordination. She, Camillo, Felix, Santino, and Fabia. His family. He had wondered often about her impressions of that day. What had she thought as he lay, prostrate on the floor, his arms folded beneath him, his forehead pressed to the ground, his eyes closed, letting the litany of the saints roll over him, through him?

Kyrie, eléison. Lord have mercy. Christe, eléison. Christ have mercy.

O God, make me worthy. Make me better. Help me to be a valiant servant. Help me to be more than I am, he had silently prayed, wanting only to be better, to be worthy.

Donatello’s Saint George had risen in his mind and moisture had fallen from his eyes. “Help me slay my dragons,” he had whispered. “Help me resist the serpent. Help me resist. Help me. Help me.”

“O God the Father of Heaven, have mercy upon us. O God the Son, Redeemer of the World, have mercy upon us. O God the Holy Ghost, have mercy upon us,” the voices around him had intoned.

His hands were anointed and bound, consecrating them, sanctifying them, that whatsoever they blessed would in turn be blessed by God. The bishop had placed his hands upon his head, asking him if he could swear obedience. He had said yes. Yes to obedience. The bishop asked him if he could give his life to God and forsake personal wealth. He had said yes. Yes to poverty. And finally, he had said yes to celibacy. Forsaking the pleasure of the flesh for the joys of the kingdom of God. He had said yes. He had promised his life and his heart and his loyalty.

Yet still, he had wondered. He had wondered if, as Eva watched, she felt the same stirrings that moved him whenever the Eucharist was raised and voices were lifted in worship. He wondered if she saw the beauty and understood. He had wanted so badly for her to understand. And he desperately needed to stop caring.

She leaned toward him suddenly, and Angelo thought for a moment that she was reaching for his hand once more. Instead, she tugged on a loose thread hanging from the sleeve of his cassock and tore it free. She held the little string between her fingers, smoothing it over and over.

When he left for Rome the next morning, the string from his cassock was tied around the piece of fabric from Felix’s shirt and pinned to her blouse.

In August, two months after Felix’s death, Eva’s father took her to the beach—a day trip, he called it. That’s all they were allowed anymore. Day trips. They couldn’t stay at the resorts or rent a cottage. So they took the train from Florence to Viareggio, walked the ten minutes from the train station, and kicked off their shoes and walked in the sand, pretending it was all the vacation they really needed.

Camillo’s ankles were skinny knobs sticking out below his rolled slacks. He took off his hat and let the breeze sift through his salt-and-pepper hair as the sun glinted off his spectacles. Eva shouldered their lunch and tucked her shoes inside the hamper so she wouldn’t have to carry them. The beach was crowded, a forest of umbrellas and laughing children, and Eva longed for the beaches of Maremma with stretches so isolated you could walk and never see another soul.

Eventually, they found a place to sit and spread their lunch on a blanket, watching everything and nothing, trying to enjoy the change of scenery, if only for each other. The wind kicked up once, spraying them with sand and surf, and their lunch became decidedly crunchier.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Camillo said vaguely, his eyes on his feet.

“What’s funny, Babbo?”

“There is sand in my sandwich and sand between my toes.” He shook one foot and then the other, as if verifying that there was, indeed, sand between his toes.

“That isn’t terribly funny,” Eva teased.

“It is irritating me. Sand everywhere, in my food, in my clothes, rubbing against soft skin, every crack and crevice. I don’t think I like eating on the beach. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to avoid it.” His voice was thoughtful, like he was puzzling something out, solving a riddle. Eva just waited, accustomed to her father’s roundabout way of expressing himself.

   
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