July 23, 1987

 Saint Apollinaire

Even though Thursday was his day off, Fausto rose at a quarter to six. He left the house without waking Tiziana or Gabriella and went to the garage where he dressed in his red cycling tights. The air was fresh and clear but it would not stay that way for long; the day was promising murderous heat. He turned the corner to go to the tobacconist’s on the main street leading out of town to Faenza. It seemed strange that there had been no cars or much movement at all and when he got to the tobacconist’s, it was closed tight. On Thursday morning? He turned and looked down the street. Everything was closed: the gas station, the supermarket, and the cafes. Even the baker’s was clamped shut. Then he remembered. Today was not only his day off; it was also Saint Apollinaire, the patron saint of Ravenna. He would be lucky if he found cigarettes at the train station. So he pedaled off down the street on his bike.

The riffraff at the station was never out this early in the morning unless they were horizontal, and the iron shutters of the café were half raised. Just by chance, the cross-eyed tobacconist had gone in to get some cash so she could enjoy a little fish fry at the beach today; Fausto walked up to her just as she was closing up. Though she did not know Fausto’s name, she recognized him and offered to sell him the cigarettes; this was enough for Fausto to start his day right.

Well, there wasn’t going to be much to do this morning except cycle to the beach and through the countryside. It was going to be too hot to stay in the house and he had made no plans. Saint Apollinaire always crept up on him at the last minute, even when it was not on his day off. Fausto, like everyone in Ravenna (except for the shop owners), never could remember the date of Saint Apollinaire even if he knew the Byzantine labyrinth of opening and closing days for all the shops by heart: closed all day on Monday, barbers and hairdressers; closed on Tuesday afternoon: supermarkets and food stores; closed on Wednesday afternoon: hardware stores; closed on Thursday afternoon: everything except for hairdressers, barbers, and hardware stores; Closed on Friday afternoon: the township offices: closed on Saturday morning: professional offices; closed on Saturday afternoon: hardware stores. You could only be sure everything would be open the mornings on Tuesday through Friday. That was why he had established Thursday as his day off and he always ran all of his errands before going home and fixing a nice, big, plate of pasta with sausage and cream for Gabriella and little Tiziana.

As he cycled back to the house and lit up his first cigarette of the day, he thought he might see if his daughter and wife wanted to cycle to the beach with him. He even thought of taking Gina for a little outing to the pine forest. When he got home, he packed his ditty bag in the garage. He took one look at Gina and abandoned the idea of taking her anywhere. He quickly put on his biking crash helmet and wheeled out of the garage, locking Gina inside. Fausto forgot about his wife and daughter.

Microbes. Bacteria. Viruses. Dust!

The deadly trinity was all borne by dust: they looked like dust themselves, and dust was everywhere. There was no escaping the dust. The dust fell from the sky, it rose from the earth, it crumbled off your plate, from your skin, out of the roof above you. The dust entered you, bringing disease and madness: plague, malaria, cholera, and now AIDS. The dust came in through your nose as you constantly inhaled and exhaled unfiltered air and with it, all the microbes and viruses and bacteria of the world into your lungs: from the dead viruses of bubonic plague to the microbes chickens stirred up as they scratched in the farmyards, to the bacteria that clung to the pistols they used to shoot the pigs. Everything came in through your nose and lodged in your lungs. Then your heart sprayed blood over it, and the microbes and bacteria and viruses got into your lymphatic system, your nervous system, your muscles and respiratory tract, bringing mortality and disease with it. And madness!

Microbes. Bacteria. Viruses. Dust!

There was only one way to avoid them: wrap a sterile woolen scarf tightly around your face from the nose down to your Adam’s apple, and keep it closed by raising the collar of your shirt or jacket or overcoat to seal your body off from the outside air. Wash your eyes and ears regularly, shower three or four times a day, and eat royal jelly, bee pollen, and propolis before every meal. You might, just might protect yourself against the worst of the dust. Microbes. Bacteria. Viruses. Dust!

Purbia looked at his gray balding hair in the hall mirror as he wrapped a gray cashmere muffler around his neck and face and then put his gray felt hat on. He was almost ready to go out. He looked through the peephole in his door and opened it.

When he stood outside and turned around to lock the door, he looked at the thermometer he had placed next to the jamb. It read 85 degrees. He locked the door and looked up at the sky. The sun was shining through a light haze. That would prevent the stardust from falling too quickly, but the microbes and the bacteria and the viruses and the dust would all be trapped in the water in the droplets of evaporated water in the air itself. OOooh that was dangerous! The sun would heat up the microbes and the bacteria would multiply in the air. Purbia thought about what he had to eat in the kitchen: his jar of royal jelly and his jar of bee pollen and his jar of propolis and half a loaf of bread and two tomatoes and canned tuna. Could he get by on that until this evening? There was no telling. But he could just go to the supermarket and buy some tea and milk. That wouldn‘t take more than fifteen minutes, and then he could get back to the house and clean himself carefully with gasoline. That would take care of any microbes that might fall on him while he was shopping. He would have to be careful about the air though, so he wrapped his woolen scarf tighter around his nose and mouth.

He pulled his hat low down over his eyes and started to walk towards the little supermarket on the corner. The young girl who lived next door was sitting in the shade of the linden tree in her front yard and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Tiziana was trying to figure Purbia out. Tiziana’s mother had told her that he had lived there all her life, as long as her mother could remember and that he was not dangerous. He looked so hot in all that clothing though. Purbia had a problem, Tiziana knew that, But his problem only affected him. He always stopped to speak to her, even if he never seemed very comfortable about it. He usually said hello and then gave her some kind of advice and it was almost always about staying clean or using honey instead of sugar. And of course, he often said something about the dust.

“Buon giorno! Isn’t it a beautiful day?”

“Tiziana, ciao!” came Purbia’s wavering voice through his woolen muffler. “Yes, it is, but you can almost see the dust. You be careful about playing in the open air. There are drafts you know, and you could catch your death of pneumonia. And stay out of the sun.”

“Oh I will Mr. Carli.”

Tiziana went back to reading her preteen magazine under the linden tree and watched Purbia/Mr. Carli as he shuffled down the street in his scarf and overcoat and hat. Tiziana knew he was strange and she hated the way the boys teased him in the streets. They played mean tricks on him: they shot spitballs at him and grabbed at his scarf and his hat (they knew what frightened him). They had even given him, his nickname: Purbia, the Romagnol dialect word for dust.

But Mr. Carli was actually a very gentle person. He might not have all the salt he needed in the pumpkin between his shoulders, that was definitely true, but he would not hurt a fly. Tiziana imagined he was probably even afraid of flies.

“Tiziana! Titti! Are you ready to go to the beach? Well, come on! It’s a beautiful day; they’ve organized big fish fry at our bathing establishment, and I’ve packed some watermelon to eat after afterwards.”

“Coming Mamma, coming.”

Gina would have preferred not to be pregnant with all this heat, but it was done and that was that. She woke up as the first crack of light came through the shutters and she could feel that the day was going to be hot in her scalp. She tried to roll over and get up but her stomach was so distended she had to rock back and forth a couple of times. She got a drink of water and then returned to her bedding.

Fausto had not been good to her about her pregnancy. Skinny as she was, it had been hard to hide her swelling abdomen and she really did not know what he would do when she gave birth. He hadn’t said anything about it, but he did give her belly a glance and then looked her sternly in the eye. She was afraid he would do the same thing he had done the last time.

At least he was giving her more food. She knew the days would come when the weather cooled and he would all but stop letting her eat until he took her out to wander around in the pine forest and get  her to do her tricks. Even then, when she looked up at him triumphantly after returning and completing her “task,” he gave her little more than a nibble from his groin. But Gina never complained; she loved her Fausto and would do anything for him. Anything he asked. Even if it meant giving birth and never even nursing.

Fausto walked into the room, whistling. He bent over, caressed her cheeks, and then got something for her to eat and put it on a plate.

“Well Gina old girl, it’s too hot for tricks in the pine forest today. We’ll just let you sit around the garage; you’ll be all right, I think. Now, you stay right there and be a good girl. I’ll be back in the afternoon and take you out for some air. He bent over and kissed her as she gobbled her food down. She did not bother to look up from her plate, but she heard the garage door click as Fausto locked her in. It was all right. She did not want to get out anyway, and if she had to go, well, she would just do it on the floor. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Purbia had planned to get to the grocery store just as it was opening; there would be fewer microbes. But the door was locked, and the gate was down over it and locked. He could wait.

Purbia looked around. None of the shops was open yet, although the grocery store was usually the first one to open. Tiziana and Gabriella Liverani came rumbling by in her little Fiat 124.

“Signor Carli! Hello there! What are you doing in front of the grocery store?”

“Good morning Signora Liverani! Waiting to get some tea and Ultra High Temperature milk to sterilize for my breakfast.”

“Don’t you remember? Today is Saint Apollinaire. Everything’s closed. And please, please call me Gabi! ‘Signora Liverani’ makes me feel like my mother; that’s what you used to call her.” Gabriella raised her glasses, cocked her head and shot him a winning smile.

Purbia kicked his calf through his heavy woolen trousers. Saint Apollinaire sneaked up on everyone except for the shopkeepers.

“I always forget.”

“Oh don’t worry about that, I do too. If you want milk today, I think the only place you’ll find it is in Marina or at the ice cream stores. Well, we’re off for a picnic at the beach. I tell you what Mr.  Carli; if I remember, I’ll pick you up a liter or two of milk in Marina. Ciao!”

Purbia thought Gabriella Liverani looked just like her daughter, or was it the other way around?

Well, there wasn’t much use in standing in front of the grocery store that  was not going to open until tomorrow, so Purbia went back home.

When he looked at the thermometer outside the door, it now read   90 degrees. Purbia unlocked his door and went inside.

Before taking off his coat and scarf, he checked to make sure all the plastic tacked around the windows was in place and that no breeze was coming through. The thermometers beside both windows registered somewhere between 82 and 84 degrees, so he was obviously keeping the warm summer air and dust, filled with dangerous bacteria and viruses and microbes, out of his house.

Purbia put a big pot of water on to boil and undressed, dropping his clothes in the pot as he took them off. Stark naked and only wearing his hat, he turned the oven on and waited for it get to 400 degrees. Then he took his hat off, placed it on the rack, and closed the oven for three minutes. That would kill the microbes and viruses and bacteria in his hat. When he took the hat out, it was smoking hot, and he left it on the chair by the oven. Now he would take a shower to wash off anything he might have picked up outside. He would use cold water, since any microbes outside would have been thriving on the 92 degrees and the cold water would denature them immediately.

Oooh, That water was cold! Next Purbia swabbed his body down with gasoline to kill any last microbe that might be left. He never looked in the mirror or at anything other than a few square inches of flesh as he meticulously cleaned every flap and fold of his skin. Finally, he rinsed his mouth with antiseptic mouthwash and walked over to the wardrobe. He took out a sealed plastic pack and put on a wool and cotton blend undershirt and shorts, a clean pair of woolen trousers, and a tight old lambswool turtleneck sweater. The wool had stopped irritating his skin decades ago. The gasoline rubdowns had tanned his hide into something like belt leather. When he started to realize how dangerous the microbes were, he had taken to swabbing down with acetone but it had gotten so expensive that he alternated it with gasoline.

After carefully dressing in shades of grey, he went to the cupboard and got out a bottle of royal jelly and tinned tuna. He ate a big spoonful of the jelly and then screwed the cap back on tightly. The water for his clothing on the stove was boiling, so he turned it off, and placed the pot in the corner. Next, he opened the bottle of propolis and poured out a big spoonful and ate it. Then he put the can of tuna in a small pot and put it back on a small burner with water until it boiled. Not only did this kill any possible microbes left, it also heated his food. Then he opened the bottle of pollen and poured out a spoonful and ate that too. That would boost his immune system that would give him all the vitamins and minerals he needed for the day. That would ward off the ill effects of any microbes, bacteria or viruses that had entered his mucous membranes or skin before he had a chance to wash them off.  He wouldn’t have to prepare anything else since the tuna would be his protein for the day

Purbia turned the radio on: “Yes folks, the heat wave is on! Temperatures are expected to rise to close over 100 degrees today, and the Ministry of Health is telling everyone to check up on their elderly relatives, since they usually suffer the consequences worst of all. Before you all race off to the seaside today, give your old mother a call to see how she’s doing.”

Purbia thought of his mother at his sister’s house. She was always cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. There was one thing about Purbia’s mother: she was certainly clean. From an early age, she had instilled in him the fear of microbes and viruses and bacteria. They were everywhere. Purbia’s grandmother had instilled hygiene in his mother; Nonna Amelia had lost her first husband during a tiny outbreak of cholera among the sluggish canals of Comacchio. Nonna Amelia’s mother, Purbia’s great-grandmother had lost half her children to malaria and she was convinced that the dust which came from the swampy air of Comacchio had killed them. But Lister came along and told the world that disease and microbes could be cleaned away with carbolic acid. Nonna Amelia was convinced Lister was right and even convinced her mother. They both set about cleaning away all microbes and saved their children from tuberculosis. Purbia’s mother studied some science before she graduated from the eighth grade and was convinced the conveyance of disease all boiled down to bacteria, and now Purbia knew it was the air and the microbes and the bacteria, along with viruses. What they all realized was that disease and madness and sorrow were all borne through the dust that carried the bacteria and microbes and viruses.

Air and wind brought it, and that dust was filled with microbes, bacteria, and viruses. The dust had to be swept out, cleaned and avoided because if it wasn’t, that was the end. Nothing was supposed to change, because if it did, then you died. The people around you died, and after death, there was nothing else to do. The Madonna of Corba herself had told Purbia.

She appeared in Purbia’s bedroom on Sunday April 30, 1950, the night before the procession that would take her and Baby Jesus around the city. There she sat under her golden crown, holding her basket and Baby Jesus in his golden crown. 

“Olindo. Olindo. Olindo.” Her voice was soft and sweet and soothing. Olindo sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.

“Olindo.”

“Oh, Holy Mary, Mother of God!” Purbia leaned back and looked at the blue and gold mandorla of light surrounding her and Jesus on her throne of gold and blue.

“Olindo. Listen to me! Disease has taken your great-great grandmother, and great-grandfather and great-uncles and now even your father. You will never have them back. But you can save your Mother and your sister.”

“How! Oh only tell me Holy Mary and I will obey your every word.”

  “You must leave Comacchio and its brackish waters and move to a drier place where you will avoid the noxious air of the canals and swamps and marshes. Comacchio is filled with microbes and bacteria and viruses, an dust. Move to a holy city, move to a city with two patron saints. One will watch over you during the day, and one will watch over you during the night. You will only have one task: you must avoid the dust. Peace be with you.”

At that, Baby Jesus disappeared, the Madonna disappeared, the throne and basket disappeared and then the empty mandorla of gold and blue faded into the wall of Purbia’s bedroom.

Purbia was eighteen and his father had passed away from an infected wound he had neglected. If they had had the means to get to Ferrara, they might have saved his father with something called penicillin, a new drug that the Americans had discovered, made from moldy bread or so they said. But his father would not hear of it, trusting as he did, the local doctor who had seen him born, and mistrusting the newfangled ways of the Americans.

They had buried his father and now Purbia was the head of the family. He arose and dressed and walked along the canals in the darkness to the church where old women were holding a vigil at the feet of the Virgin and child before they transported her in the procession on the next day. The priest, old Don Bartolo was there, his head nodding, and his rosary clasped in his hand.

“Don Bartolo. I’ve got to speak to you. I must.”

“Oh my son, what is it?”

“Our Lady has appeared to me and commanded me to move, to save my mother and sister from infection here.”

“Where to?”

“A city with two patron saints. But that’s impossible. What city has two patron saints?”

“Nothing is impossible when the Virgin intercedes. There are two cities with two patron saints: Ravenna and Milan. But Olindo, you mustn’t tell anyone, tell no one about this apparition. Tell your mother and tell your sister that you heard a voice in prayer but not that the Madonna actually came to you in your bedroom overlooking the canal. If you do that, I will help you, I will find a priest in Ravenna that will help you move from your home here, to a new home, a clean home, an undiseased home there.”

“Yes, Father, I will do your will.”

Olindo told his mother and sister they were moving to Ravenna.  They posed no resistance. His sister Ivana actually jumped for joy; she had come to hate Comacchio. Don Bartolo found them a small house in a new section of town outside the walls of Ravenna and they all lived there very happily. Ivana was young and good looking and vivacious. She quickly found a husband and Purbia’s mother moved in with her after she and her husband had spent the flames of their passion three years after their marriage.

Don Bartolo bought the Carli home in Comacchio and turned it into an infirmary; his niece had studied nursing and she needed a place to live and work. Don Bartolo had been keeping his eye on the Carli place for a while.  It was ideally situated for receiving people, and perfectly laid out for an office and living quarters on the ground floor that could expand as his niece’s life grew from being single to finding a husband and then having children. She named her first son for Don Bartolo.    

Tiziana and her mother rumbled off toward the beach. Their windshield was not perfectly clean and the sun caught on it like lint on a mohair sweater. The occasional fly had also died there, but the windows were completely down and the air was blowing through the car most marvelously. Tiziana put her feet up on the dashboard and Gabriella lowered her Jackie O sunglasses and glanced at Tiziana, mockingly arch in disapproval.

“I just washed them!”

Gabriella smiled and stared straight ahead at the line of cars driving to the beach and smiled. Tiziana was a good girl, and today was a holiday, and Gabriella might as well loosen up.

“Mamma?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course you can and you just did.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. But you can always ask me as many questions as you want. That doesn’t mean I have to answer them right then and there, but you should always ask me any question that comes to mind. Now, what is it?”

“Why doesn’t Daddy ever come to the beach with us?”

Gabriella sighed and rolled her eyes. She thought for a second and gave Tiziana the true answer. Tiziana was getting old enough to know

“Because he would make us miserable and he knows it. He would be miserable, first of course. Your father has a great many qualities, Titti and I love him dearly, but he is not good at staying still when the sun is high in the sky. I don’t know what it is, but he just has to move around. Why do you think he never takes a promotion? He likes delivering mail door to door. He likes being outdoors, walking around, talking to people, and doing things. If they ever put him in an office, it’ll be the end of him. So, he doesn’t come to the beach with us because he wouldn’t sit still for more than five minutes and he would make us miserable because he would want to get us to leave and do things with him.”

“Well, why don’t we do something with him?”

“Puff up and down Romagna on a bicycle and root around in the pine forest! No thank you, Missy!”

“But I might enjoy it!”

“Then you should do it. Your father would like nothing better.”

Fausto pushed his bike off towards the south, followed the beach road through one township to another, over back roads and meandered around abandoned copses of pine forest until he came to the dead end in Lido Adriano, the ugliest of the towns along the coast. He turned right and headed back towards town.

Fausto took the long road up from the pine forest and came up against the apse of the Basilica of Saint Apollinaire in Classe. Streamers had been stretched from the parish priest’s sixteenth-century rectory in the back, all the way across the yard to the apse, and picnic tables had been set up underneath them. Fausto pedaled along around the side of the church, as the twelve alabaster glazed arches passed into and out of view, one by one. When he got to the front of the church, he saw Gino on his bike and pulled up beside him.

“Ciao, Gino. What’s going on here?”

“Well, you know that today’s Saint Apollinaire. The Parish Priest has got this wacky Frenchman in there with a television camera doing a broadcast for the national television. This guy’s just rambling on and on and on about beauté this and beauté that. But it hardly makes you want to shake your beauté. Take a look.”

Fausto dismounted, took his cyclist’s cap off, and pulled his biker’s shirt down over his private parts and then his biker’s pants down past his knees. He gingerly entered the welcome coolness of the portal and poked his head inside the door. Standing in front of the apse was a withered little old man who looked like a cicada molt on a tree. He was gesturing with large, elegant movements towards the apse and speaking to the camera about Saint Apollinaire’s purple mantle.

“And the bizarre thing is he is covered with bees. Golden bees! What is the meaning of this cloak of bees? Could they bear the stings of death? Could the swarm of bees be the eloquence of honeyed lips? Could this lush pattern of bees represent the assiduousness of nature working together for a common good, unlike the sheep scattered through this picture of earthly paradise, which must be led, for sheep are hardly likely to cooperate? The only people, who think that sheep could cooperate, have never spent five minutes with a sheep, let me tell you! No, I think the bees here are the symbol of the Christian community, of the fact that we all live together, we all work together, and fly together towards heaven, we all collaborate to make sweet honey from the flower of our earthly paradise!”

Fausto looked at the French professor, beaming under the apse of the church. Fausto’s gaze rose to Saint Apollinaire’s purple mantle. It was studded with golden designs, but they hardly looked like bees. They were way too big to be bees, to begin with.  Fausto walked back out

“He sounds like some wacko fanatic who’s changed his red Communist ass for some white Christian Democrat ass.”

“At least he’s still got a hold of his ass. Bees? Who ever thought of bees in Romagna?”

“Well, anyone who raises fruit trees! Something’s got to fertilize the blooms. Bees. Ain't that strange? He’s wearing a cloak covered in bees.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have a nice small grey truffle than a whole jar of honey.”

“You can say that out loud and twice.”

“Fausto, how’s Gina by the way? When are you going to let me take her out for a little spin?”

“Oh, she’s alright. There’s no need to take her out in all this heat, though. She’d do you no good.”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve found a sweet little spot in the pine forest and I wouldn’t mind taking her there and watching her butt twitch while she buries her nose in the dirt.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. The only reason you’re even slightly interested in Gina is …”

“Oh, drop it. I was just teasing. Anyway, where are you off to, now?”

“The beach. I’ve been out all morning and I think I’ve had enough of the sun. Plus, I really should get Gina a little something to eat.”

“Mami, can I ask you another question?”

They were now in line at the top of the bridge over the railway going to Marina. Though the sun beat down on the car, a nice breeze blew threw the windows and Gabriella lit up a cigarette and shook her beautiful black hair.

“Tell me honey.”

“What’s Purbia’s, I mean Mr. Carli’s story?”

Gabriella looked at her daughter in the eye. Thirteen years old with the smooth limbs and beautiful skin of childhood, but the eyes and endocrinal system of a young woman. And yes, the brain of a young woman as well. The very young brain of a very young woman, but still the brain of a woman. The time had come for Gabriella to make sure that the basic precepts she had tried to teach Tiziana in childhood: kindness, courage, and fairplay, would be turned into the proper behavior of a modern young lady. Here was Gabriella’s chance, before the idiocy of a group of unleashed adolescent girls superficially perverted Tiziana’s ideas with the selfishness, mockery, and laziness that typified teenagers. First Gabriella tested the waters.

“Okay. I’ll tell you everything I know: total disclosure. That means you’ve got to keep it only for yourself. You mustn’t tell anyone else. This is not a secret Tiziana, because lots of people know it. But it is a private matter between Mr. Carli and the people who have known him these last thirty-some years. Are you ready for that? If I find out you’ve been blabbing about this to anyone, this is the last time I trust you with private information. Because what I’m going to tell you won’t hurt me and it won’t hurt you, but people could use it to hurt Mr. Carli.”

“Oh Mami, just tell me. I can keep a secret, can’t I? Like how much your ‘bargain’ earrings really cost?”

Gabriella laughed gently. Not only could Tiziana keep a secret, she could pull it out at just the right time to make her point.

“All right Tiziana. Total disclosure from you to begin with. First, what do you think? Everything, and tell me very honestly. All the bad things and all the good things about Mr. Carli.”

Tiziana looked at her mother.

“Well, he’s definitely bizarre. I don’t know how he can go round on a day like today, hot as it is, wrapped up in a hat and overcoat and scarf around his face. I’d just melt. It doesn’t bother him in the least. But you know what: he never bothers anybody. He keeps his house and yard neat, he doesn’t seem to have any friends and he obviously doesn’t have a job since he’s always at home. He’s got these old fashioned manners. He doesn’t go out much, but if I run into him, he’s always formal, like I were some great lady and then he always tells me to be careful about something. Like sitting in the sun today. What’s the use of summer if you can’t sit in the sun?”

Gabriella thought of the Bain du Soleil she was dying to try at the beach today and the nice tan she was working on. “Not much except for fruit and swimming I suppose. But do you think Mr. Carli is a good person or a bad person?”

Tiziana reflected for a moment. “Well, he’s not a bad person. I hate it when the boys throw spitballs at him or yell:

‘Purbia Purbia,

Ghost of Suburbia,

Woolen scarf, Woolen coat,

Woolen hat, loves a goat!’

It’s just plain mean.”

 “And what does Mr. Carli do when they taunt him?”

“Oh, he turns and looks at them and says something no one can understand behind his scarf and then he walks away. But I don’t think he’s a coward. I think he just wants to be left alone. So, he’s good enough I suppose since he doesn’t try to hurt people.”

Tiziana had a basic grasp of Mr. Carli’s personality. She might as well know his story at this point.

Purbia decided to call his mother. He wiped off the receiver with alcohol and dialed his sister’s number. The phone rang and rang and rang. Then someone picked it up.

“What do you want?”

“Mamma, it’s Olindo.”

“Olindo, are you inside?”

“Yes Mamma. How are you today?”

“I’m not doing so badly but I’m so worried about your sister. She wears the same pair of underwear all day long. She’s going to get sick.”

“Mamma, you can only take care of your own hygiene. Don’t worry about her. If she dies, you can come and stay with me.”

“Olindo, you don’t mean that. You’ll need to get married soon, won’t you?

“Mamma, no living creature can put up with me for more than five minutes, no one wants me, and everywhere I look I see microbes and viruses and bacteria. And dust!”

Gabriella stubbed out her cigarette.

“Mr. Carli and his mother and his little sister moved into that house five years before I was born. You know your grandfather built our house, even if you don’t remember him living here with us; you were just a baby when he died.

“The Carlis are a very peculiar family, from a very peculiar place: Comacchio. Do you remember we went there when you were a little girl?”

“No, but I’ve heard about it. The Romagnol Venice or something like that.”

“That’s right. It’s a miniature version of Venice except it’s right in the middle of a pine forest. You drive along and suddenly there it is: a dark city with canals and bridges just like Venice. It’s still very isolated and the inhabitants there don’t usually migrate or leave it very much. They just kind of stay there. (Gabriella did not need to tell Tiziana about the consequences of intermarriage at this stage of her sexual education).

“But there’s something in the air, something that’s not quite right in Comacchio. Whenever one person gets sick there, the whole community gets sick too, and Mr. Carli had just lost his father before they came to Ravenna. He was the only person in his family who realized that they needed to move away if they were going to survive. So, they moved.”

Gina felt the pain deep in her womb. She lumped up her bedding and tried to get into a comfortable a position and waited for the next wave of pains to come. At least she was alone; if Fausto had been there and seen what was going on, he would have cuffed her.

The garage had no window, and the only light Gina could make out was the line of light under the door to the garage where she kept her eye out to see Fausto’s approaching feet. He was the only person allowed in the garage. Gina had seen his daughter Tiziana several times on the threshold, and Fausto severely reprimanded her to get back. Fausto’s wife never bothered to see how Gina was doing. Gina knew she was jealous.

But Gina stopped thinking about that now. Her first contraction had arrived, and she slid down on her bedding on her side, then she crouched over her stomach and tried rolling on her back. There was no way to avoid the pain. Here it came.

When Gabriella was finally stretched out on her chaise longue at the beach with all of her creams and oils spread and glistening all over her body, and her sunglasses on and her fashion magazine to read, Tiziana had another question.

“Certainly darling. Whatever is on your mind?”

“It’s about Gina.”

“That’s one subject that we don’t talk about. I’ve told you time and again I don’t want to discuss her: I want nothing to do with her. You can try talking to your father about her, when I’m not around. Leave me out of it. Totally! Have you got that?

“Yes Mamma.”

Fausto was riding back to the house to get some lunch. He knew his wife and Tiziana would spend their lunchtime at the beach, and he had half an idea he would go ahead and surprise them. So he did. He drove along the sandy asphalt that took him to center of the beach town, each bathing establishment named for some imaginative idea: Charlie Brown, Kon Tiki, Rosetta. Finally, he arrived at The Dune of the Bears and pumped his way down the sandy lane that led to open sheds where row after row of cars and mopeds and bicycles were parked. The low-slung building was square and white, with hoses and showers for washing off the sand and a café that seemed to be open to the entire universe. He could smell them frying fish when he walked up to the counter. His spindly legs looked like they belonged to Bugs Bunny, sticking out of his tight red cyclist’s pants that made his butt look about as a big as a squashed peach, but he didn‘t mind at all.

 His cleats clack clack clacked on the sandy tiles at the café of the bathing establishment as he asked where Mrs. Liverani was.

“We’ll call her if you want…”

“No, I want to surprise her.”

“Third row from the front, all the way at the end on the left.”

Fausto took off his cycling cap and sauntered out down the sand strewn pathway to reach his wife. Gosh, it was hot! He looked left and right, and saw more than one lady sunbathing bare breasted but it did not do much for him. Fausto liked a nice warm butt and really did not know what to do with breasts except keep them out of the way.

He arrived to find his wife asleep under her fashion magazine and Tiziana off in the distance building something in the sand with the boys at the water’s edge. Fausto almost woke Gabriella up, then thought better of it and walked back to get on his bicycle. He really could not stand still for very long.

When Fausto finally returned home in the heat of the day he saw that Tiziana and Gabriella had not returned yet. They could not be far behind him, though. He opened the garage door to put his bicycle away and immediately smelt what had happened in the muggy heat of the garage. Fausto was furious. He slammed the door and took a long look at Gina, cleaning up her newborn.

“Oh, so that’s why you were looking so fat you tricky little bitch! Well, you know what this means old girl. Let me take this worthless piece of shit away from you right now before you get attached to it. I mean, don’t you know it’s not the right time to do this? Don’t you know how long it would take to train this little cunt you’ve brought into the world? Gosh! Bloody fucking God! What am I going to do with you?”

At that moment, Fausto heard Gabriella’s car drive up with Tiziana in it. The windows were down, the radio was turned up full blast and his wife and daughter were both singing “Volare” at the top of their voices. Gabriella took one look at the garage door and knew there was trouble. She easily imagined the trouble was Gina since Fausto was standing right beside the garage door, still in his tight red cycling shorts and purple jersey.

“Fausto! Have you had a nice day?”

Tiziana jumped out of the car and ran up towards him.

“Tiziana, stand back. Your father had been pedaling all over Romagna and he’s bound to smell like old goat that’s been dancing in the rain.

“Gina’s been …”

“Don’t tell me Fausto. I don’t care about the goddamned bitch. I told you when you brought her here I wouldn’t have anything to do with her. So, when you get cleaned up, come on in and I’ll fix you a cup of coffee. Come on Tiziana, let’s go in.”

Fausto grimaced. Gabriella had been pretty patient about putting up with Gina, not going into the garage or interfering in any of their outings in the pine forest. He couldn’t really blame Gabriella so he went back in to face Gina and put her offspring to eternal rest before she became attached. Any sentiment she might feel for another being would be deadly and the end of his lucrative business and all their hunting around.

Tiziana noticed that her mother was on edge, slamming the cartons of milk and her beach bag down on the kitchen counter, lighting a cigarette and putting some coffee on.

“Mamma, what’s the matter?”

“Well, your father and I had decided not to tell you. You know I don’t care for Gina and I’m not wild about keeping her in the garage.”

“Well, why don’t we let her in the house?”

“No! That isn’t even possible in the antechamber of my brain. She’s filthy, starving, and mean-tempered with everyone except for your father. But I suppose the time has come for you to know what’s going on. You’re old enough. Gina’s pregnant and she’s probably spent the morning and the afternoon in labor. Your father is going to have to get rid of her latest trick. He’ll probably drown them in the truffle bucket he keeps in the garage. So there.”

“He’s going to kill Gina’s puppies?”

“Honey, it isn’t the first time and there isn’t much else he can do with them: we can’t keep them, I certainly don’t want to take care of them, and one dog is really all your father needs for truffle hunting. They’re being born in summer and that’s the wrong season for training truffle dogs, so nobody wants them. Believe me; drowning Gina’s puppies immediately is the most humane solution.”

“Humane! This is BESTIAL! I’m going to go out to the garage and rescue them.”

“Tiziana!”

“I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it!”

“Honey, listen just ten seconds and then you can go. If your father slaps you across the room, and he’s likely to do that, don’t you come running in to me. You know what you’re getting into; it’s your responsibility. Go! Go ahead! And take this milk to Mr. Carli before you come back.”

Tiziana didn’t care. Her heart was aching at the thought of the newborn little puppies drowning. She grabbed the bag with the milk in it and tiptoed up to the door of the garage. When she looked in, she saw her father was filling up his truffle bucket with water. He already had a burlap bag at his feet to put the puppies in before he drowned them.

“Papi?”

“Tiziana, scoot! Leave me alone now!”

“Papi, I know what you’re going to do.”

“Do you want to watch?”

Tiziana knew this was her only way into the garage. “Yes, I do. I want to help you.”

Fausto’s head snapped and jiggled. Tiziana was going to help him kill the puppies? Well, if she wanted to, he’d let her. This might be the start of their going truffle hunting together. Fausto lifted the door to the garage and let Tiziana in. She walked over to her father and gave him a kiss. Then she looked at Gina, who had just given birth to her third puppy. It was so tiny it had to be the runt, with closed eyes. Its still wet, dun-colored fur, looked just like the dogs she saw on the Dukes of Hazzard.

Tiziana started to cry but held back.

“Okay, you can hand over the first two if you like.”

Tiziana picked the blonde puppy up and cradled it against her chest. This was not going to be easy and she had to think fast.

“Papi?’

“Yes, what is it?”

“Hand me the bag, and I’ll put it in myself.

Fausto thought this was a little weird, but he gave her the bag and she just held it to her chest.

“Papi, can’t we save just one?”

“NO! I can’t believe you. Give me that puppy right now and get out of here!”

Fausto reached out his hand for the puppy, but Tiziana threw the burlap bag at his face, jumped and ran out of the garage into the blistering sunlight. Where could she go? Not into the house, her mother was waiting there. Not into the garden, her father would find her there. She put the puppy in the plastic bag with the milk carton  and ran into the empty street. Fausto was standing at the door with his hands on his hips, bellowing at her to come back. She turned quickly and saw he wasn’t going to follow her as he turned and walked back into the garage.

What was she going to do with the puppy? She definitely couldn’t take him back to the garage or the house for that matter; she certainly couldn’t leave him on the street. She turned to look at the garage again and thought about what was happening inside it. She opened the bag looked down at the puppy and said: “What am I going to do with you?”

As her gaze rose, she saw Purbia looking out of his window at her. He quickly closed the curtain and went back inside.

That was it. She would give the puppy to Purbia. She walked up to his front door and rang the bell.

Purbia saw it was Tiziana from down the street. No one rang his doorbell, unless it was the Christian Scientists or the Mormons. He had seen the bag and knew she must have his milk for him. Gabriella had always been a very kind girl and now she had become a kind woman. He smiled for the first time in a long time and wrapped a scarf around his face and opened the door.

“Yes?”

“Oh Signor Carli, I’ve got your milk.”

Purbia put his hand out of the crack in the door to retrieve the milk. Tiziana started speaking.

“Mr. Carli, I’m in big trouble.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Can I come in?”

Tiziana saw Purbia hesitate. “The sun is so hot on my head; it can’t be good for me to stand here.”

Purbia thought for a second and then decided he could let her in. He kept his scarf on and spoke to her. Tiziana handed him the bag with the milk in it.

“Thank you Tiziana. Now, what’s the matter, Tiziana?”

“Gina just had puppies and Papi is going to drown them all. I only managed to save one and I don’t know what to do with it.”

Purbia looked down at the bag and opened it up and jumped. Tiziana caught the bag, walked over to him, put her hand in the bag and pulled out a little puppy, golden and tawny. Its eyes were closed and the animal was still wet with amniotic fluid. Purbia groaned as he picked up the bag with the milk in it.  He would have to wash the entire house now, floor to ceiling with gasoline!

“Why don’t you take it?”

“Microbes Tiziana, microbes! It’s bound to be covered with microbes and viruses and bacteria. Dust!”

“Dust? Mr. Carli, this little puppy is still wet. There isn’t no dust on it. This puppy came straight from Gina’s butt into this bag, believe me. (Tiziana had to think fast, very fast or she would lose Mr. Carli). As for microbes and viruses and bacteria, I know that she’s as sterile as she is ever going to be. We’ve just studied the biology of all kinds of babies in school.  Nothing is cleaner or more sterile than amniotic fluid even if the mother is sick. Unless there is blood, and Gina is such an old dog, she doesn’t bleed any more when she has puppies. The mothers have an extra powerful immune system that kills everything. This little puppy will never be as clean or as sterile as it is right now.”

Purbia thought for a moment. Tiziana was right. The puppy wouldn’t ever be sterile again. Unless Purbia kept it sterile.

Tiziana looked at Purbia hard in the eye. She could see he was wavering and about to give in so she rushed up to him, grabbed the milk out of his hands and placed it on the counter. She thrust the blind puppy into his woolen-gloved hands. Tiziana grabbed Purbia's neck impulsively and pulled him down to give him a peck on the cheek. Part of her dreaded kissing him, part of her realized she needed to do it, and the rest of her expected him to smell bad. Instead, kissing his cheek was like walking into the hospital. She smiled bravely at him and then ran out the door into the hot July afternoon after closing the door carefully behind her.

No one had kissed Purbia in years. Not even his mother.

Purbia looked down at the poor puppy. Its eyes were closed, its mouth was opening and closing as it breathed its first breaths of life. He poked his finger at the muzzle and lips grabbed the tip of his glove and held on.

The little beast must be hungry. What could he feed it? He had that ultra high temperature sterilized milk now. He could try that. But first, he would have to clean the poor animal.

Purbia went to the kitchen counter and pulled a big pink bottle of alcohol from under the sink along with a new bag of cotton balls. He swabbed down the sink carefully with the balls, and then put the puppy in the sink ran warm water over it and then swabbed the entire animal down with rubbing alcohol. The puppy even seemed to like it. Once the puppy had been perfectly sterilized, Purbia opened a carton of milk and poured it into the small saucepan and heated it up. He even added the tip of a spoon of Royal Jelly. That would give the little dog all the power in the world to fight off microbes and viruses and bacteria.

 He dipped his gloved finger into the milk when it was warm, and then rubbed the puppy’s nose with it. The puppy’s jaw clamped onto his finger as if it were a teat and sucked! Purbia could not remember the last time he had experienced this much physical contact with another living being. He felt the tiny ribs expanding and contracting and then dipped his gloved finger into the warm milk again. The blind little puppy sucked for dear life, and Purbia cradled him in the palm of his other hand and brought the animal to his chest. Purbia even decided to take his other glove off. The puppy after all was as clean as the inside of an alcohol bottle and at this point, no source of microbes or bacteria or viruses. Purbia pulled his arms in toward his chest and felt the puppy breathing up against him through his overcoat. The tiny brown-fringed eyes were shut tight and the poor animal whimpered when the milk ran out of the sopping finger on his glove.

Purbia stood there for the next ten minutes, marveling with awe at the wonder of such a small dog, so clean, and in his house. A bee bumped into the kitchen window. The little bee hit the window again and again and again and again until Purbia walked over to it and tapped the window jamb to make it go away. Purbia looked up at the calendar over the fridge. Saint Apollinaire, that was today. He could name the puppy for today’s patron saint: but he couldn’t give the dog such an important the Christian name. No, the Madonna of Corba wouldn’t like that. Purbia was inspired as looked out the window into the warmth of a long setting sun as it clanged off bits and pieces of trees and flowers in the hot air. Pollen! Small and biological and clean and yellow, like his royal pollen, just like his dog.  The name honored the Day of Saint Apollinaire too, but not the Saint himself. That was settled.

Tiziana had turned the corner of Purbia’s house and watched him from the window as he bathed and fed the dog and then walked to the window. She had saved at least one little puppy. One: that was a start. She would tell her father she had given it away and if he wanted her to find homes for the others next time, she would do it. She would get in his good graces and Gina’s too. She would play with Gina the way her father did, hiding a small truffle somewhere in the garage and rewarding her with a treat when she found it. Tiziana would go out with her father after the rain, when he took Gina to the pine forest and they would all three hunt for truffles together in the cool grayness of October, early in the morning. Tiziana would get to know her father, because she would learn to keep up with him, they would talk, and they would come home with truffles. Tiziana would even get her mother to like Gina.

The next time Gina had puppies and Tiziana couldn’t find homes for them, she would drown the puppies herself.

That’s what she told her father, that’s what she did. She found each puppy a home, usually with someone they met in the pine forest when they went truffle hunting. Gina was indeed, a champion truffle dog. After the second litter however, Tiziana learned to lock Gina in the garage when the dog went into heat. That made things easier for everyone.

No one was happier than Fausto.

Except Purbia.