MORE THAN A MONTH LATER, ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, DON Giovanni stretched out on the ground in the center of the courtyard of his villa, surrounded by the porticoed colonnade, and closed his eyes.
Cani flopped down beside him. The dog had been out running since dawn, so he panted noisily. His breath came in warm bursts over Don Giovanni’s nose. It offered respite from the damp chill of the air.
Zizu and Giancarlu and Kareem had gone off to Holy Mass in their new clothes. Kareem wasn’t even Catholic, but he enjoyed the spectacle, he said. And they all wanted to show off their new station in life. Exactly what that station amounted to was hard to say. They slept in a room of the villa. On their own beds. They came and went whenever they wanted. They had food and clothing. These three boys had tended to Don Giovanni’s needs for his two months on the streets of Palermo, when no one else would help him. As far as he was concerned, they could live here as long as they liked.
The mistress of the maidservants who had worked for Don Muntifiuri quit immediately after the sale of the villa. All the maidservants under her left, as well. No other maiden, young or old, could be found to take their places. But a young man had finally agreed to be cook. Ribi. He was a quiet sort, who entered rooms only after Don Giovanni had left them. If Don Giovanni needed something from him, Zizu carried the message. Ribi was competent in a number of ways. Not only was his food delicious, he’d managed to rid Don Giovanni of worms with a week’s regimen of garlic and hot peppers. And he never mentioned it. Don Giovanni appreciated that discretion.
Right now Ribi was in the kitchen preparing the holiday feast for Don Giovanni, the three beggar boys, and Cani. Once it was on the table, he was free to go home, to pass the rest of the day with his family, about whom Don Giovanni knew nothing.
The menservants from Don Muntifiuri’s days had stayed on, since Don Giovanni doubled their salaries. They kept the stables and falconry in order; Don Muntifiuri had been quite a hunter. They watched over the terraces of olive trees and repaired the supporting rubble walls, for the property had a large and prosperous olive oil mill. They would tend the small field in spring. And they maintained the villa and answered the door.
In the first weeks, answering the door was a task. Guests came to welcome the new baron to the area. Some of them were genuinely friendly. Some nosy. Some were opportunists. It turned out that both Don Muntifiuri and the lawyer, Don Cardiddu, had engaged in gossip: everyone had heard of the inn room overflowing with gold sovereigns.
The rush of activity surprised Don Giovanni. The announcement of each new visitor made his cheeks hot with hope. The potential for friendship, no matter how unlikely, was at its maximum, given all these new people.
And when an invitation came for a feast in Palermo on December 8, Don Giovanni felt dizzy. Someone had somehow discovered his birthday! His twenty-first birthday. Indeed, it was only proper that it be a grand event.
But it was just the Feast of the Conception of Saint Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for Mary, being the mother of God, had been conceived without original sin. It had nothing to do with Don Giovanni’s birthday. He should have known. Four years before, Emperor Manuel I Comnenus of Constantinople had declared this new holiday for the eastern branch of the church. The Greek population of Messina celebrated it, but not the Roman Catholics. In Palermo, though, everyone celebrated it, because the Norman royalty had taken a fancy to it.
Don Giovanni hadn’t gone to the feast. Not because of his disappointment in its purpose, but because the man who issued the invitation quickly withdrew it upon meeting him face to face. Once people actually saw Don Giovanni, their reaction varied only in the degree of their rudeness. Some called him vile. Others gasped and covered their mouths before brutal words could burst out. None stayed to chat.
News spread rapidly, and only curiosity seekers came after that. Fewer all the time. No one at all had come this past week. Just as well: Don Giovanni didn’t relish being a spectacle. The villa was quiet.
Today, Christmas, was particularly quiet. Don Giovanni had let his servants go home for the festivities. Right now the only other person in the villa was Ribi.
Having a home meant safety. Warmth. Having a cook meant regular meals of whatever he wanted.
What it didn’t mean, though, was companionship. No one wanted to talk with Don Giovanni. No one came close. He wasn’t even welcome in church in his present state.
But for Cani, he’d be entirely alone. The beggar boys didn’t count; they didn’t act like friends. How could they? You couldn’t know someone you never talked with.
The courtyard air was frigid. Inside a fire played in the hearth. He could be in there. So why was he out here?
Storm clouds came. Even with his eyes closed, Don Giovanni could sense the darkening. He wasn’t surprised. The sky had been dismal when he woke this morning. Yet he’d come out to the courtyard, anyway. Or maybe precisely because?
It started as slow, heavy thumps. It drummed on his hands and through his thin rags of clothes. But on his head the beat was dulled by hair. He pushed his hair back until the rain met his bare forehead. He pressed on his facial hair until the rain laced his bare lips.
All summer long he had prayed for rain. Not in a conscious way. He never let himself actually think about warm water washing him from a benevolent sky. He knew that would make the act of being in the rain a violation of the wager terms. So he had cleared his mind and randomly chased the few storm clouds he saw, only to find, twice, that the brief rainfall had ceased by the time he got there.
Rain.
Sicily had plenty of it, but only in the winter. Summer rain was a phenomenon. That’s why his mother used to celebrate it with a dance. Never had he understood her better. A bare-breasted dance.
Rain. Cold rain.
Now it turned icy. It came faster, pelting him.
Did he dare strip?
No, no. That would be too obvious.
Could he pull up his trousers and sleeves, at least?
He lay still, immobilized with fear and longing.
Had he known it would rain? Even though he’d kept his mind from thinking about it, had some inner part of him known? Was he giving up? Losing the wager?
Cani whined.
Don Giovanni opened his eyes and pushed himself to a squat.
From every side sleet slashed like the thinnest knife blades.
Cani ran around and around Don Giovanni. He cried. He barked. Frantic eyes. Violent shivers. Poor dog. And it was Don Giovanni’s fault.
“Sire. Sire, are you all right?” Ribi stood under the portico, wringing his hands. What an effort it must have been for the shy young man to address Don Giovanni directly. Everyone was suffering for him.
The sleet came so fast, it was hard to see now. Don Giovanni’s rags stuck to his skin. The soaked mat of his hair weighed on his shoulders. The pounding outside his body was met by the pounding inside his head. He stretched his hands out and watched a small spot of clean skin appear on the back of one. An impossibility. A stranger born there. A miracle. The spot grew. Another appeared on the back of the other hand. Don Giovanni was there, under that dirt. He was there. He was the stranger. He still existed as a physical being in this world.
Cani ran under the portico and howled at him from that shelter. The dog shook so hard, his legs flew out from under him.
“Come out of the rain, sire,” pleaded Ribi. “You’ll catch your death of cold.”
Was that what he was doing? Greeting death? Dying into damnation?
Don Giovanni got to his feet. He leaned forward and let the rain beat on his back and his buttocks. His rags stuck like a second skin now, particularly to the open sores. The dirt turned to mud under his feet. A puddle covered his toes. He pulled his hair up off his neck so the water ran in circles around and down his front. Let all the fetid rot go. Let it go, go, go. If this was the end of life, so be it. Off, damn dirt, damn filth. Off, off. Black passed before his eyes. He pressed his hands to his knees to steady himself, but the rain was too strong to stand up against. It buffetted him. It whipped him. In the end it beat him senseless.
He knew he was falling. He couldn’t stop. He would die. He would lose.
The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was Ribi, sitting against the wall, staring at him. The man’s eyes registered terror. He was wet. Mud smeared across the front of his usually spotless smock and trousers.
“Did you carry me in from the courtyard on your own?” Don Giovanni’s voice came out as a croak. “You’re small. Did you drag me?”
“You’re coherent again,” Ribi said softly. “Good.” His voice soothed. “Would you like me to help you out of those wet clothes?” His nostrils flared.
“You don’t have to make an offer that disgusts you.”
“I should have done it already.” Ribi crawled forward. “You’re shivering, despite the fire.”
“No, no. You did right. Don’t come closer. I can’t take my clothes off. Never.”
“Is that delirium speaking again?” Ribi perched back on his heels. “I should feel your head.”
“Was I delirious before?” Don Giovanni sat up. “What did I say?”
“Things about the devil.”
“What things?”
“Nonsense. Just nonsense. Are you feverish?”
“I don’t think so.” Don Giovanni had talked about the devil. But the devil wasn’t here. Only Ribi was here. Maybe the devil had missed Don Giovanni’s little attempt at cleanliness. Pathetic flirtation, given that he was now caked with mud. The devil’s fire was narrowly avoided. Again. But this couldn’t keep happening; the next time he would fall into the abyss. So there couldn’t be a next time. “No, I’m not hot at all. I’m cold, Ribi. Rip down that tapestry and drape it over my back, would you?”
Ribi stood up and looked doubtfully at the wall. “That wall-hanging?”
“Yes.”
“It’s expensive.”
“I hate it,” said Don Giovanni. “Rip it down.”
Ribi pulled on the tapestry hard. It came away easily, and he stumbled backward. He spread it over Don Giovanni’s back.
“Thank you. Is the meal on the table?”
“Yes.”
“Then go. Have a good holiday with your family.”
“Are you . . . ?”
“Go.”
“Thank you, sire.” Ribi left.
Don Giovanni pulled the tapestry around himself and sidled over closer to the hearth. Gradually his shivers subsided. This ugly tapestry was good for something, after all. It lay so heavy across his shoulders that for the moment they didn’t itch.
He got up and paced.
The boys didn’t come home. Well, of course not. It was still sleeting. They’d stay in some public hall, dry. Singing. Drinking. Enjoying the company of friends—new friends, since their old ones resented their changed station in life. The boys were probably feasting. It didn’t make sense for Don Giovanni to wait for them. He’d only be disappointed when they showed up already sated.
He sat at the table and ate neatly, with spoon and knife. Bowls of clove-scented water for washing fingers were set beside each plate. Polite people, of any class, kept their fingers clean when eating. Don Giovanni didn’t use his bowl, naturally, but he was glad it was there. Ribi was a lucky find, a thoughtful soul to persist in putting the bowl there even when it wasn’t touched. Someday Don Giovanni would use finger bowls again.
He would not lose.
He finished his meal, then walked through the villa. Don Muntifiuri had covered most of the walls in tapestries as ugly as the one wrapped around Don Giovanni now. This was a custom common in the northern lands he hailed from—Don Giovanni knew that. Still, nothing could justify them here in Sicily. They had turned moldy and musty in the humidity. Anyone could have predicted that. The entire villa had taken on a somberness in conflict with the joy of the Sicilian sun.
It was time for a change. Don Giovanni would give the place the exuberance that was its heritage by virtue of being built on this soil. He would refurbish the whole place. That’s what he’d done when he’d taken over his castle in Messina. That’s exactly what he should have started the very day he moved into this villa.
Oh yes, he would personally supervise all redecorating jobs, which he should start immediately with the new year. Tomorrow he’d get his servants to seek out artisans. He’d interview each personally.
But he wouldn’t tell them to find only famous artisans. He’d put out the word that he was looking for new ideas. Any talented artist had a chance.
If there was one thing Don Giovanni understood it was that even the least likely characters deserved a chance to show their stuff.
Already his imagination was coloring the walls. Mosaics would be perfect. Little ceramic tiles, yes. But also lapis lazuli, jasper, and any other rare stones he wanted. And agate. Of course agate. Saint Agata must have been named for it. Maybe she loved it. Agate on the floors, on the walls. An eruption of jewels.
And the ceilings could be of honeycomb, with glimmers of gold. This villa would be more impressive than a cathedral. And more welcoming. Anyone who wanted Don Giovanni’s company could enter.
Well, who would want his company? He wasn’t a fool; he’d lost so much, but not his reason.
Still, he could pay for company. Not prostitutes—even the most desperate girl would refuse—but storytellers. Musicians. Theatrical groups.
The whole atmosphere of this place would change. His whole outlook on life, as well. This was a plan he could live with. The very sight of this villa would firm his resolve in moments of doubt.
He would not fall again.
He would not lose.