away in the cubbyhole where they have been hidden. He will revisit these, they burn in him, but, of course, he can say nothing. What can he say? He is a voyeur. He has seen what he should not see. The reward being silence, suspicion that can be neither placed nor dismissed nor spoken aloud as he watches now his cool, austere father filing jet in his workshop, or in the dining room, ladling out the stew. The father a stranger now, the beautiful small works, beautiful corallines, unexplained. Objects of desire. Warming to the touch with borrowed warmth. Emilio’s creations.
For a year he carries the secret inside him. It is a raw place, an irritation that can be neither nacred over, nor expelled and forgotten.
In the end it is his father’s cousin Giorgio who tells him, a visitor from the foreign homeland of which he knows nothing. For Emilio has told him nothing.
Did he never tell you why he came here, why he left Italy to come to this place that is nothing but two rocks above the sea? In Ascoli Piceno he was a successful man, a very successful goldsmith. He was very talented. He loved to work with colored stones, the most beautiful he could find, but in the simplest of cradles, so that the stone was all. He worked very hard, was always there, at his wheel, at his bench, cutting, polishing. Emilio was as he is now, very steady, very methodical. But then he made a mistake—he got carried away. That is how we are, we Dell’oro! But your father, Emilio, thought that he was different.
But he was no different. For he began despite all a secret project. It seemed harmless at first; but then, so do they all. He had begun to work with corals, and these are most different from other gems, the hard, faceted gems with which he was accustomed to work. For corals, like jet, are porous, they breathe, like jet they are not alive but are the remains of living things. Maybe that is why, in his exile, he has chosen to work with jet, because it reminds him of the other, which he so loved.
He was fascinated by this new material, for by polishing it he could bring out all sorts of colors, all sorts of rich pinks and reds, which, it one day occurred to him, were like the pinks and reds of life itself, of the living flesh. Perhaps this is where the danger began, in this one simple realization. For soon he could not resist, he began carving figures, figures so tiny they could be set on a ring, or in a pendant, or on a brooch. To see these in the glass case in his shop was to wish to touch them—for they looked as if they might be warm to the touch, even though they were without life. Some might argue that they did live, in a way; a very particular kind of life—
He worked, at first, on traditional and religious subjects: the three Marys, the Christ Child, the thieves on their crosses—
Being beautiful, his things became very popular. Soon he began to receive special requests, some of which he would not like to share with your mother; for the special little corallines became very popular with a certain sort of gentleman, who liked to have them as secret watch fobs, carved in the likeness of the woman, pink, naked, and warm, whom he dreamed of loving . . .
And into it all the Dell’oro disease, all unseen, had already begun to creep.
Emilio found himself carving, for his own pleasure, again and again, the face and figure of the same woman, a woman of fantasy, a figment of his imagination, whom he regarded, because she was not real, as being of no real consequence. This despite the fact that he was spending a great deal of time with her, was even, indeed, a little bit in love with what he had created; but harmlessly so.
But then one day
,
as he was passing through the town square, he saw her: there she was, the woman whom he had carved, emerging from the lace shop, with a child, a little girl, by her side. Emilio could not help himself, but followed her, as far as he could, through the narrow, winding streets of our capital city,
For a year he carries the secret inside him. It is a raw place, an irritation that can be neither nacred over, nor expelled and forgotten.
In the end it is his father’s cousin Giorgio who tells him, a visitor from the foreign homeland of which he knows nothing. For Emilio has told him nothing.
Did he never tell you why he came here, why he left Italy to come to this place that is nothing but two rocks above the sea? In Ascoli Piceno he was a successful man, a very successful goldsmith. He was very talented. He loved to work with colored stones, the most beautiful he could find, but in the simplest of cradles, so that the stone was all. He worked very hard, was always there, at his wheel, at his bench, cutting, polishing. Emilio was as he is now, very steady, very methodical. But then he made a mistake—he got carried away. That is how we are, we Dell’oro! But your father, Emilio, thought that he was different.
But he was no different. For he began despite all a secret project. It seemed harmless at first; but then, so do they all. He had begun to work with corals, and these are most different from other gems, the hard, faceted gems with which he was accustomed to work. For corals, like jet, are porous, they breathe, like jet they are not alive but are the remains of living things. Maybe that is why, in his exile, he has chosen to work with jet, because it reminds him of the other, which he so loved.
He was fascinated by this new material, for by polishing it he could bring out all sorts of colors, all sorts of rich pinks and reds, which, it one day occurred to him, were like the pinks and reds of life itself, of the living flesh. Perhaps this is where the danger began, in this one simple realization. For soon he could not resist, he began carving figures, figures so tiny they could be set on a ring, or in a pendant, or on a brooch. To see these in the glass case in his shop was to wish to touch them—for they looked as if they might be warm to the touch, even though they were without life. Some might argue that they did live, in a way; a very particular kind of life—
He worked, at first, on traditional and religious subjects: the three Marys, the Christ Child, the thieves on their crosses—
Being beautiful, his things became very popular. Soon he began to receive special requests, some of which he would not like to share with your mother; for the special little corallines became very popular with a certain sort of gentleman, who liked to have them as secret watch fobs, carved in the likeness of the woman, pink, naked, and warm, whom he dreamed of loving . . .
And into it all the Dell’oro disease, all unseen, had already begun to creep.
Emilio found himself carving, for his own pleasure, again and again, the face and figure of the same woman, a woman of fantasy, a figment of his imagination, whom he regarded, because she was not real, as being of no real consequence. This despite the fact that he was spending a great deal of time with her, was even, indeed, a little bit in love with what he had created; but harmlessly so.
But then one day
,
as he was passing through the town square, he saw her: there she was, the woman whom he had carved, emerging from the lace shop, with a child, a little girl, by her side. Emilio could not help himself, but followed her, as far as he could, through the narrow, winding streets of our capital city,
Similar Books
