Nun (9781609459109) Read Online Free PDF Page A

narrow alleys. Two lines of altar boys, caparisoned in brocade vestments, marching shoulder to shoulder in compact rows, filled the street: the vanguard of Our Lady of the Assumption.
    At the shout of “
La Vara
!” the guests poured out onto the balconies. Then silence fell. The tension was unmistakable. The façades of the aristocratic houses seemed to have been garlanded with the colorful dresses of the women on the balconies. The grated windows of the monasteries were all aglitter with dream-glazed eyes. The Vara would appear at the crossroads where it would make the only deviation from a straight line in the course of the entire procession: a ninety-degree turn. A thousand eyes were fixed on the intersection. Music, chants, and shouts of invocation grew to a deafening roar.
    The first ones to appear around the corner were the men carrying bucketfuls of water: the “machine,” which had no wheels, rode, as if on a sledge, on a smooth wooden log, and it was their job to wet the pavement in order to make it slippery. They cast the water in all directions, as if sowing seed in an open field. Then silence fell. No music, no litanies, only the humming voices of the faithful. At the intersections, the haulers appeared, barefoot, pulling the cart by sheer force of forearms and faith. This was the moment of the procession’s greatest intensity. It was also the most dangerous moment. Rapidly the haulers took their places along the two ropes in accordance with an order that had been clearly established for centuries. Some of them went on pulling to keep the Vara from slowing to a halt. Others, clustering along their ropes, waited for the right moment to exert their strength. Others still waited in line, hands on the rope, ready to haul. Precise. Attentive. Synchronized. At that moment, even the buzzing died away: like a single body, the faithful held their breath. You could hear, faintly, the wailing of the little angels on the Vara. Rhythmic tugs, then one decisive yank from the cluster of haulers: the turn had been completed. As tall as a two-story building, shaped like a narrow pyramid, and immensely heavy, the Vara appeared at the corner. It was vibrating and tottering. For a second it seemed as if it was tipping over. Another yank and it went back to sliding along the wet pavement, solid, erect, accompanied by a gust of applause for the haulers, heroes of the day.
    Ever since the late Middle Ages, the Messinese had been the uncontested masters of the whole island in the creation of those ephemeral constructions, unrivaled not only in terms of sheer beauty, but also in terms of mechanical technique: inside the “machine” there were manually operated gears that allowed a variety of movements. When the Vara moved forward, it was unstoppable. Every year, the decoration changed, but the structure and the chief elements remained the same: large circles at the base that grew progressively smaller, narrowing toward the top, upon which celestial bodies were poised, each with its own rotating movement. From each of the circles, wheels projected, also in movement. There was a time when all the characters were live people, and there were more than a hundred of them, but with the passing of the centuries, the adult figures–the Apostles that surrounded the coffin of the Virgin Mary at the base, the angels of the three circles, and Jesus Himself–had been replaced by brightly painted papier-mâché statues. The only remaining humans were the Virgin Mary, at the summit of the pyramid, and dozens of tiny angels, tied to the rays of the Sun and the Moon and to the wheels that spun at the side of each of the circles: these were infants or small children volunteered for the occasion by their families. The circles, wheels, and all the other contrivances would spin in alternating directions for the entire seven hours of the procession.
    Because the cart was so dizzyingly high, the Padellanis’ guests