Read Online The House at the Edge of Night by Catherine Banner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Catherine Banner
Ads: Link
treating them all by Friday, no doubt. Always, children everywhere on this island. It gave him a pain in the chest, so that he could hardly look at them directly. Disinfecting the small, hot backs of the youngest Rizzus, comforting their tears at the sting of the iodine, he felt dizzy for a moment in the unseasonable heat, when really it was his own longing for a child that all at once overwhelmed him.
He went to Pina’s house and walked in without knocking. Pina was at the stove, her hair pinned up, preparing a chicken. He waited, dry mouthed, attempting a polite smile. At last, he knelt at her feet (she had no living father or brother to ask for permission), and asked her to be his wife. “Or at least consider it,” he said, his courage failing.
Pina, to his surprise, consented immediately and with tears in her eyes: “I don’t need to consider; I already have my answer; oh, Amedeo!”
They agreed to be married at once. On the last day in November, Father Ignazio bound their hands before the statue of Sant’Agata and the whole island.
—
IT WAS PINA WHO was responsible for the first recorded photograph of Amedeo. A few days after the wedding, she ambushed him with the folding camera at the top of the stairs. “Stand still!” she cried. “Stand still! Let me capture you!” Amedeo, startled, posed a little self-consciously with one hand on his waist. Just back from his morning rounds, he had yet to put down his medical bag. He had with him also his book of stories—the widower Donato, whom he had treated that morning, had just finished recounting to him a tale about his aunt’s visitations by the saint during the festival of 1893. In the photograph Amedeo seemed aflame with happiness, possessed by it, his whole being angled toward the woman behind the lens. For Pina, it turned out, possessed within her the depth of passion he had been lacking all this long while. He had not found it in Carmela. He had found it in the schoolmistress with a face like a Greek statue; it was here.
They had made no wedding journey, though in honor of his new bride he had set aside all work except emergencies for five days. After the wedding, Pina, with her small neat trunk of belongings, her crates of books, had followed him to the House at the Edge of Night, which was now beginning once more to be habitable. The house was fragrant with the purple scent of bougainvillea, its rooms sonorous with the noise of the sea. Happiness hung in the air, hummed inside the walls; now it seemed a thing that was attainable. That first night, Pina had climbed through the house, exploring every half-forgotten, dust-sheeted room, throwing open every window. Amedeo followed in her train, picking up the pins that fell from the rope of her black hair. Then, at the top of the house, suddenly mischievous, she removed her bridal crown of oleander and set the rest free. The glossy ropes of it filled the room with their perfume, and he found himself seizing them in great handfuls. They pursued each other through each room of the house. It seemed for the first time to be a place of joy again, as it had been before the war.
By some good fortune, there were no serious illnesses that week, and they passed it blissfully undisturbed. He was thankful that he had never brought Carmela to the House at the Edge of Night, that he had now broken all ties with her. He resolved to be a better man. And to his gratification he found that as his passion for Pina grew, during those wondrous days of makeshift honeymoon when they ate their dinner off old cracked saucers and out of coffee cups like fishermen at sea, and never opened the shutters until noon, and made love wherever they found themselves—on the newly sanded floorboards, on the dust-sheeted sofa in his study, on the straw mattresses in the spare bedrooms—during those days, the memory of Carmela became smaller, less significant, like something seen through a gray veil, belonging to another time, to his life
He went to Pina’s house and walked in without knocking. Pina was at the stove, her hair pinned up, preparing a chicken. He waited, dry mouthed, attempting a polite smile. At last, he knelt at her feet (she had no living father or brother to ask for permission), and asked her to be his wife. “Or at least consider it,” he said, his courage failing.
Pina, to his surprise, consented immediately and with tears in her eyes: “I don’t need to consider; I already have my answer; oh, Amedeo!”
They agreed to be married at once. On the last day in November, Father Ignazio bound their hands before the statue of Sant’Agata and the whole island.
—
IT WAS PINA WHO was responsible for the first recorded photograph of Amedeo. A few days after the wedding, she ambushed him with the folding camera at the top of the stairs. “Stand still!” she cried. “Stand still! Let me capture you!” Amedeo, startled, posed a little self-consciously with one hand on his waist. Just back from his morning rounds, he had yet to put down his medical bag. He had with him also his book of stories—the widower Donato, whom he had treated that morning, had just finished recounting to him a tale about his aunt’s visitations by the saint during the festival of 1893. In the photograph Amedeo seemed aflame with happiness, possessed by it, his whole being angled toward the woman behind the lens. For Pina, it turned out, possessed within her the depth of passion he had been lacking all this long while. He had not found it in Carmela. He had found it in the schoolmistress with a face like a Greek statue; it was here.
They had made no wedding journey, though in honor of his new bride he had set aside all work except emergencies for five days. After the wedding, Pina, with her small neat trunk of belongings, her crates of books, had followed him to the House at the Edge of Night, which was now beginning once more to be habitable. The house was fragrant with the purple scent of bougainvillea, its rooms sonorous with the noise of the sea. Happiness hung in the air, hummed inside the walls; now it seemed a thing that was attainable. That first night, Pina had climbed through the house, exploring every half-forgotten, dust-sheeted room, throwing open every window. Amedeo followed in her train, picking up the pins that fell from the rope of her black hair. Then, at the top of the house, suddenly mischievous, she removed her bridal crown of oleander and set the rest free. The glossy ropes of it filled the room with their perfume, and he found himself seizing them in great handfuls. They pursued each other through each room of the house. It seemed for the first time to be a place of joy again, as it had been before the war.
By some good fortune, there were no serious illnesses that week, and they passed it blissfully undisturbed. He was thankful that he had never brought Carmela to the House at the Edge of Night, that he had now broken all ties with her. He resolved to be a better man. And to his gratification he found that as his passion for Pina grew, during those wondrous days of makeshift honeymoon when they ate their dinner off old cracked saucers and out of coffee cups like fishermen at sea, and never opened the shutters until noon, and made love wherever they found themselves—on the newly sanded floorboards, on the dust-sheeted sofa in his study, on the straw mattresses in the spare bedrooms—during those days, the memory of Carmela became smaller, less significant, like something seen through a gray veil, belonging to another time, to his life
Similar Books
