I came
to my feet
so quickly my
chair fell over.
I grabbed his throat
in both hands and said,
“You lie. Her father would
never allow her to accept such
a gift from a godless blackamoor.”
But
another
friend said
the Arab trader
was godless no more.
Lithodora had taught Ahmed
to read Latin, using the Bible
as his grammar, and he claimed now
to have entered into the light of Christ,
and he gave the bracelet to her with the full
knowledge of her parents, as a way to show thanks
for introducing him to the grace of our Father who art.
When
my first
friend had
recovered his
breath, he told
me Lithodora climbed
the stairs every night
to meet with him secretly
in empty shepherds’ huts or in
the caves, or among the ruins of
the paper mills, by the roar of the
waterfall, as it leapt like liquid silver
in the moonlight, and in such places she was
his pupil and he a firm and most demanding tutor.
He
always
went ahead
and then she
would ascend the
stairs in the dark
wearing the bracelet.
When he heard the bells he
would light a candle to show her
where he waited to begin the lesson.
I
was
so drunk.
I set
out for
Lithodora’s
house, with no
idea what I meant
to do when I got there.
I came up behind the cottage
where she lived with her parents
thinking I would throw a few stones
to wake her and bring her to her window.
But as I stole toward the back of the house
I heard a silvery tinkling somewhere above me.
She was
already on
the stairs and
climbing into the
stars with her white
dress swinging from her
hips and the bracelet around
her ankle so bright in the gloom.
My
heart
thudded,
a cask flung
down a staircase:
doom doom doom doom.
I knew the hills better
than anyone and I ran another
way, making a steep climb up crude
steps of mud to get ahead of her, then
rejoining the main path up to Sulle Scale.
I still had the silver coin the Saracen prince
had given her, when she went to him and dishonored
me by begging him to pay me the wage I was properly owed.
I put
his silver
in a tin cup
I had and slowed
to a walk and went
along shaking his Judas
coin in my old battered mug.
Such a pretty ringing it made in
the echoing canyons, on the stairs,
in the night, high above Positano and the
crash and sigh of the sea, as the tide consummated
the desire of water to pound the earth into submission.
At
last,
pausing
to catch my
breath, I saw
a candleflame leap
up off in the darkness.
It was in a handsome ruin,
a place of high granite walls
matted with wildflowers and ivy.
A vast entryway looked into a room
with a grass floor and a roof of stars,
as if the place had been built, not to give
shelter from the natural world, but to protect a
virgin corner of wildness from the violation of man.
Then
again it
seemed a pagan
place, the natural
setting for an orgy hosted
by fauns with their goaty hooves,
their flutes and their furred cocks.
So the archway into that private courtyard
of weeds and summer green seemed the entrance
to a hall awaiting revelers for a private bacchanal.
He
waited
on spread
blanket, with
a bottle of the
Don’s wine and some
books and he smiled at
the tinkling sound of my
approach but stopped when I
came into the light, a block of
rough stone already in my free hand.
I
killed
him there.
I did
not kill
him out of
family honor
or jealousy, did
not hit him with the
stone because he had laid
claim to Lithodora’s cool white
body, which she would never offer me.
I
hit
him with
the block of
stone because I
hated his black face.
After
I stopped
hitting him,
I sat with him.
I think I took his
wrist to see if he had
a pulse, but after I knew
he was dead, I went on holding
his hand listening to the hum of the
crickets in the grass, as if he were a
small child, my child, who had only drifted
off after fighting sleep for a very long time.
What
brought
me out of
my stupor was
the sweet music
of bells coming up
the stairs toward us.
I leapt
up and ran
but Dora was
already there,
coming through the
doorway, and I nearly
struck her on my way by.
She reached out for me with
one of her delicate white hands
and said my name but I did not stop.
I took the stairs three at a time, running
without thought, but I was not fast enough and
I heard her when she shouted his name, once and again.
I
don’t
know where
I was running.
Sulle Scale, maybe,
though I knew they would
look for me there first once
Lithodora went down the steps and
told them what I had done to the Arab.
air and my chest was filled with fire and then
I leaned against a gate at the side of the path-
you know
what gate-
and it
swung open
at first touch.
I went through the
gate and started down
the steep staircase beyond.
I thought no one will look for
me here and I can hide a while and-
No.
I
thought,
these stairs
will lead to the
road and I will head
north to Napoli and buy
a ticket for a ship to the U.S.
and take a new name, start a new-
No.
Enough.
The truth:
I
believed
the stairs
led down into
hell and hell was
where I wanted to go.
The
steps
at first
were of old
white stone, but
as I continued along
they grew sooty and dark.
Other staircases merged with
them here and there, descending
from other points on the mountain.
I couldn’t see how that was possible.
I thought I had walked all the flights of
stairs in the hills, except for the steps I
was on and I couldn’t think for the life of me
where those other staircases might be coming from.
The
forest
around me
had been purged
by fire at some time
in the not so far-off past,
and I made my descent through
stands of scorched, shattered pines,
the hillside all blackened and charred.
Only there had been no fire on that part of
the hill, not for as long as I could remember.
The breeze carried on it an unmistakable warmth.
I began to feel unpleasantly overheated in my clothes.
I
followed
the staircase
round a switchback
and saw below me a boy
sitting on a stone landing.
He
had a
collection
of curious wares
spread on a blanket.
There was a wind-up tin
bird in a cage, a basket of
white apples, a dented gold lighter.
There was a jar and in the jar was light.
This light would increase in brightness until
the landing was lit as if by the rising sun, and
then it would collapse into darkness, shrinking to a
single point like some impossibly brilliant lightning bug.
He
smiled
to see me.
He had golden
hair and the most
beautiful smile I have
ever seen on a child’s face
and I was afraid of him-even
before he called out to me by name.
I pretended I didn’t hear him, pretended
he wasn’t there, that I didn’t see him, walked
right past him. He laughed to see me hurrying by.
The
farther
I went the
steeper it got.
a light below, as if
somewhere beyond a ledge,
through the trees, there was
a great city, on the scale of Roma,
a bowl of lights like a bed of embers.
I could smell food cooking on the breeze.
if
it was
food-that
hungry-making
perfume of meat
charring over flame.
Voices
ahead of me:
a man speaking
wearily, perhaps
to himself, a long
and joyless discourse;
someone else laughing, bad
laughter, unhinged and angry.
A third man was asking questions.
“Is
a plum
sweeter after
it has been pushed
in the mouth of a virgin
to silence her as she is taken?
And who will claim the baby child
sleeping in the cradle made from the
rotten carcass of the lamb that laid with
the lion only to be eviscerated?” And so on.
At
the
next
turn in
the steps
they finally
came into sight.
They lined the stairs:
half a dozen men nailed on
to crosses of blackened pine.
I couldn’t go on and for a time
I couldn’t go back; it was the cats.
One of the men had a wound in his side,
a red seeping wound that made a puddle on
the stairs, and kittens lapped at it as if it
were cream and he was talking to them in his tired
voice, telling all the good kitties to drink their fill.
I
did
not go
close enough
to see his face.
At
last
I returned
the way I had
come on shaky legs.
The boy awaited me with
his collection of oddities.
“Why
not sit
and rest your
sore feet, Quirinus
Calvino?” he asked me.
And I sat down across from
him, not because I wanted to but
because that was where my legs gave out.
Neither of us spoke at first. He smiled across the blanket spread with his goods, and I pretended an interest in the stone wall that overhung the landing there. That light in the jar built and built until our shadows lunged against the rock like deformed giants, before the brightness winked out and plunged us back into our shared darkness. He offered me a skin of water but I knew better than to take anything from that child. Or thought I knew better. The light in the jar began to grow again, a single floating point of perfect whiteness, swelling like a balloon. I tried to look at it, but felt a pinch of pain in the back of my eyeballs and glanced away.
“What is that? It burns my eyes,” I asked.
“A little spark stolen from the sun. You can do all sorts of wonderful things with it. You could make a furnace with it, a giant furnace, powerful enough to warm a whole city, and light a thousand Edison lights. Look how bright it gets. You have to be careful though. If you were to smash this jar and let the spark escape, that same city would disappear in a clap of brightness. You can have it if you want.”
“No, I don’t want it,” I said.
“No. Of course not. That isn’t your sort of thing. No matter. Someone will be along later for this. But take something. Anything you want,” he said.
“Are you Lucifer?” I asked in a rough voice.
“Lucifer is an awful old goat who has a pitchfork and hooves and makes people suffer. I hate suffering. I only want to help people. I give gifts. That’s why I’m here. Everyone who walks these stairs before their time gets a gift to welcome them. You look thirsty. Would you like an apple?” Holding up the basket of white apples as he spoke.
I was thirsty-my throat felt not just sore, but singed, as if I had inhaled smoke recently, and I began to reach for the offered fruit, almost reflexively, but then drew my hand back for I knew the lessons of at least one book. He grinned at me.
“Are those-” I asked.
“They’re from a very old and honorable tree,” he said. “You will never taste a sweeter fruit. And when you eat of it, you will be filled with ideas. Yes, even one such as you, Quirinus Calvino, who barely learned to read.”
“I don’t want it,” I said, when what I really wanted to tell him was not to call me by name. I could not bear that he knew my name.
He said, “Everyone will want it. They will eat and eat and be filled with understanding. Why, learning how to speak another language will be as simple as, oh, learning to build a bomb. Just one bite of the apple away. What about the lighter? You can light anything with this lighter. A cigarette. A pipe. A campfire. Imaginations. Revolutions. Books. Rivers. The sky. Another man’s soul. Even the human soul has a temperature at which it becomes flammable. The lighter has an enchantment on it, is tapped into the deepest wells of oil on the planet, and will set
fire to things for as long as the oil lasts, which I am sure will be forever.”
“You have nothing I want,” I said.
“I have something for everyone,” he said.
I rose to my feet, ready to leave, although I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t walk back down the stairs. The thought made me dizzy. Neither could I go back up. Lithodora would have returned to the village by now. They would be searching the stairs for me with torches. I was surprised I hadn’t heard them already.
The tin bird turned its head to look at me as I swayed on my heels, and blinked, the metal shutters of its eyes snapping closed, then popping open again. It let out a rusty cheep. So did I, startled by its sudden movement. I had thought it a toy, inanimate. It watched me steadily and I stared back. I had, as a child, always had an interest in ingenious mechanical objects, clockwork people who ran out of their hiding places at the stroke of noon, the woodcutter to chop wood, the maiden to dance a round. The boy followed my gaze, and smiled, then opened the cage and reached in for it. The bird leaped lightly onto his finger.
“It sings the most beautiful song,” he said. “It finds a master, a shoulder it likes to perch on, and it sings for this person all the rest of its days. The trick to making it sing for you is to tell a lie. The bigger the better. Feed it a lie, and it will sing you the most marvelous little tune. People love to hear its song. They love it so much, they don’t even care they’re being lied to. He’s yours if you want him.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I said, but when I said it, the bird began to whistle: the sweetest, softest melody, as good a sound as the laughter of a pretty girl, or your mother calling you to dinner. The song sounded a bit like something played on a music box, and I imagined a studded cylinder turning inside it, banging the teeth of a silver comb. I shivered to hear it. In this place, on these stairs, I had never imagined I could hear something so right.
He laughed and waved his hand at me. The bird’s wings snapped from the side of its body, like knives leaping from sheaths, and it glided up and lit on my shoulder.
“You see,” said the boy on the stairs. “It likes you.”
“I can’t pay,” I said, my voice rough and strange.
“You’ve already paid,” said the boy.
Then he turned his head and looked down the stairs and seemed to listen. I heard a wind rising. It made a low, soughing moan as it came up through the channel of the staircase, a deep and lonely and restless cry. The boy looked back at me. “Now go. I hear my father coming. The awful old goat.”