The door closed, and Father Giacomo
placed the long stone in a small, felt-lined case before shuffling back up the
hallway. His feet ached already, and the day had barely begun. But at
ninety-three years old, he felt he was lucky to feel his legs, much less
balance on them.
He attributed his continued
mobility to the 76 push-ups he did each morning. He had once heard that the
American actor Don Ameche did 75 push-ups each morning, and Father Giacomo knew
a man of God should be able to outperform an actor. Hence, 76.
His nights were broken affairs,
with frequent trips to the bathroom for a bladder that no longer held as much
water as once it had. I need the Venetian
government to come and inflate a support below my belt, he mused.
He was always a-musing, and often
amused. Having worked in the Vatican for fifty years, holding the same
thankless, ridiculous, yet priceless job, he could not have survived without a
sense of the absurd. Other men scoffed at him.
He’d had assistants once. But when
those men rose to become bishops and cardinals, while he remained doggedly in
place, he had declined to have any more. He couldn’t stand being pitied, or
mocked, or looked down upon. In his small way, he was restoring sanity and
beauty to the world. A task he had undertaken over fifty years before. And if
he died before his work was done, well, that was God’s will.
Here was the first one. Opening his
small felt-lined case, he lifted the stone up and saw at once that it was not a
match. A different colour stone altogether, alabaster, not dusty grey. Yet he
still tried, knowing that the stone had been locked in that chamber for nigh-on
five hundred years, without light or polish, covered in the dust of ages. He
turned it this way and that, from every conceivable angle before concluding
that, no, it would not fit.
Already there was a giggle from
down the hall. Tourists. They always laughed when they saw Father Giacomo. He
normally tried to visit each gallery when it was closed to the public. But this
hall was always open, and it was best to get through it before the flood of
visitors engulfed it.
Tucking the stone away in the
felt-lined case, he moved on to the next one. He had long ago memorized the
location of each monument, and there was something comforting about his routine.
Each morning he would take a stone from the room and set out, like a pilgrim,
to make his circuit, not just of this museum, but of the whole of Vatican city.
Museum,
he mused as the morning wore on. A
fascinating word. A repository of Muses, a place for them to gather. Muses
inspired art, they said. Euterpe for Music. Erato for Love poetry. Urania for
Astronomy.
Once more tucking the stone away
and shuffling to his next station, Giacomo wondered which muse guided his life.
At once he gave himself a mental yellow card, for his life was guided by Christ
and his Apostles, not the pagan muses. But the question interested him, so he
reframed it. Were his life guided by
a muse, which muse would it be?
His fellow priests would all
clearly say Thalia, the muse of Comedy. And on most days Giacomo might be seen
to agree. He was an agreeable man.
But he was also devout, and
devoted. He had undertaken this monumental chore in 1962, never suspecting it
would become his life’s work. Risible, mockable, yet dogged and indefatigable.
Perhaps his muse was Melpomene, the muse of Tragedy. Fifty years, for one
unfinished chore. One that could have been finished years ago, had the Vatican
cared enough to actually devote some resources to this.
But
then, thought Giacomo wryly, what
would I have done with my life?
At noon he carefully lowered
himself onto a bench out in the yard. Setting the felt-lined case between his
feet, he opened the satchel that hung at his belt. Besides the tools of his
trade, he also had a bag of apple slices, and a small juice-box, the kind
children are given with their meals. As
men begin, so they end, he mused.
Will I die a child? Just please, no diapers.
He also had a small container of
peanut butter. He spent the hour quietly chewing, careful of his dentures,
watching the people go by him.
I
see more art in a day than men see in their lives. I see more people in a day
than live in most towns. I may not be the most respected man within these
walls. But it is possible that I am the most blessed.
His afternoon carried on as his
morning had, until he reached the second floor of the east wing. Opening his
small felt-lined case, he experienced one of those rare moments where his heart
began to race. The colour was a perfect match. Careful not to let the stone
slip from his shaking hands, he raised the stone into the gap just above his
head. It only took a moment before he had it fitted perfectly. There was almost
no seam, even.
Lowering the long stone in his
hand, he looked about him with proud satisfaction. He was quite alone, save for
the other statues. But he imagined they approved of his task, his care, his
skill.
Skill.
Yes, no time for crowing, peacock. Placing the stone back in the felt, but
not closing the case, Father Giacomo opened the satchel at his belt and began
to work. He dusted, he examined, he dusted again. Then he opened the apoxy,
carefully filling the vacant end with a coat that was neither too thick nor too
light. Too light and it would fall off. Too heavy, and there were be a sign.
Raising the stone again, he
carefully, lovingly, set it in place, restoring what had once been piously
lost. He still held his brush in his left hand, and now swooped it around the
seam, adding a layer of glue to the outside. Invisible, yet firm. Like the hand
of God.
Now came the awkward part –
standing here and holding the broken stone in place. How often had he been
doing just this when the doors opened and tourists entered, only to laugh at
him. Many women were scandalized. There had been complaints, even. But his was
a spiritual task – restoring what once was lost. Making the world whole.
After ten minutes he gently
released his fingers and stepped away. Looking at the whole, it was like seeing
something new. Like Venus stepping out of the sea foam that had birthed her.
Though this was as far from Venus as was possible. This was Adonis – or could
have been. His right arm was still missing, and his left hand. His hip was
cocked to one side and his head canted down and to the right. But, in Father
Giacomo’s mind, he was whole.
Though his feet ached terribly,
Giacomo did a little dance. In that moment, he knew which muse guided him. Not
Thalia, not Melpomene, but Calliope – the muse of Epic poetry. For he had
laboured longer than Odysseus, harder than Hercules. His was an epic task, and
today he had conquered, traveled one more step towards victory.
He could have gone home then. A
success was all too rare. Another man might have proclaimed his work complete
and gone back to savour his triumph. But Giacomo knew that God favoured work
and rewarded dedication. Tucking away his brushes, glue, and picking up his
now-empty case, he hobbled back across the whole of the Vatican to where he had
started. Opening the door, he turned the knob for light.
There before him, in a pile that
reached for the ceiling, were countless stone penises. Father Giacomo selected
one at random, a bulbous one with spidery veins of grey through the chalky
marble. Dusting it off, he placed it in his felt-lined case. Then,
extinguishing the light, he shut the door and shuffled off once more to make
the rounds of ancient stone men longing to be whole once more.
