Stigmatatina

Stigmatatina

         It is a well-known fact these days that cities are entirely lacking in literary character. All of the good urban stories have been told and the sea of interesting personalities that once littered the streets of every big city have all but disappeared. A friend of mine, a well-known writer and journalist, was lamenting this fact and felt a certain desperation for the future of his career. “What am I to do?” he complained, “Where do I find inspiration in such monotony, such sterility?  Everyone has become so dreadfully predictable, such philistines. I am finished, absolutely finished if I can’t find some good characters to write about.” I suggested to my friend that he come to the south a bit and spend a little time in our small village. I was pretty certain that we had something here that he might use in his stories. He agreed without much optimism but figured that at least he might get some much-needed rest. On the second day of his stay we went walking through our village in search of characters.
         “Who is that character?” my friend asked as we crossed our little piazza.
         “To whom are you pointing?” I replied.
         “There, that one standing in the doorway of the café, the man with the blue spots on his face.”
         “Oh yes, his name is Gregorio Buffaloni, better known locally as Gasolio or Gas to his friends,” I smiled, “He is one of our village heroes; you see ten years ago he drank a liter of gasolio and survived which alone was enough to make him a local legend. He spent an entire summer in a motionless coma. Doctor Gambini assured the family that the boy would soon die. So, Don Felice, our priest, gave him his last rites, as a nice funeral was prepared. He was sent home from the hospital to die in the family house, but Gregorio was apparently a very stubborn boy and didn’t die. He simply turned blue and lost 30 kilos. After weeks of holding vigil over the wasting blue body people became just a little impatient. Preparing for death is a very big work you know; mourning takes a good deal of time and effort on those whose duty it is to suffer for the dying.
          Don Felice was particularly annoyed by the stubbornness of the boy as he was called to his bedside daily and had therefore to suffer the smelly wasting body covered with blue splotches that seemed to make a mock of his holy office. However, one day, as Don Felice was staring at the boy’s face with considerable resentment, he noticed that the very large blue mark across Gregorio’s right cheek looked very similar to the coastline of North Africa and part of the Mediterranean. He even seemed to think that he could see Sicily floating above it with the faint outline of Calabria just beginning to form to its right. As Don Felice recited the Pater Nostre—mumbled is perhaps the correct word—he stared at the map on Gregorio’s face and began to wonder if he wasn’t hallucinating.  He could not take his eyes off of the strange markings as he tried to remember his geography. It seemed that the island of Ischia was just a little far too the north for accuracy, so he made a mental note to check the old yellowing map folded in the bottom desk drawer in his study when he returned. All of these thoughts swirled in Don Felice’s head while he continued his recitation.
         The priest returned the following day to see that indeed Ischia was in the correct location and that Calabria was now wholly formed on the boy’s cheek with a small bit of Bascilicata and a section of Puglia taking shape nicely. Before long the whole of Italy was neatly stretched under the boy’s eye with Sardinia sloping up across the bridge of his nose. Soon Southern France and Spain followed along the boys left cheek with Portugal just touching his left ear.  Don Felice could not get the strange markings out of his mind; what poison could this be he wondered? In spite of the smell, he began to visit the boy by his bed each morning so that he could check the progress of the blue map. Gregorio’s family naturally took a special pride that their dying son was deemed worthy of Don Felice’s daily vigils and prayers. Of course in our village there isn’t much for a Priest like Don Felice to do anyway, but pride has its own laws. 
         One day the Priest arrived a bit early for the daily blessing of the dying boy and found Filomina Benucci there cleaning the limp body and changing the linens on his bed. This was the first time that the priest had seen the boy without clothes and the true extent of the damage made by the poison. When Filomena rolled the flaccid body over Don Felice was struck by an enormous blue mark descending down the pale shoulders of the boy’s skeletal back. He looked closely and stared for some moments as Filomena left the room.  He began to make out the clear outline of Turkey across the right scapula made by the deep blue discoloration of the boy’s skin. Gently, he placed his finger on the Dardenelles and traced the path through the Bosporous to the Black Sea Port of Odessa. The priest was startled when Filomenia returned with the clean bed linens and quickly removed his hand. Shortly, the priest and the maid kneeled beside the boy’s bed and prayed as Filomena held the limp hand of Gregorio. But before Don Felice took his leave he asked Filomena to look at the boy’s face for a moment and tell him what she saw. Filomena, was a pious woman who had been present at the boy’s birth and had every intention of being there at this death, looked down at the boy’s expressionless face and said, “Father, I see a lamb of God.” Don Felice shrugged.
         “Yes, yes, of course, but I mean the blue marks across his face. What does it look like to you?” Filomena realized at that moment that the Priest was asking deeper, more profound question that required careful consideration. The woman placed her fingers on the boy’s face and gently began to trace the outline of blue. Her fingers paused for a moment and the expression on the woman’s face changed.  Don Felice noticed the sudden excitement in the woman’s eyes when her fingers reached the boarders of Spain. Her hand quickly retracted as though she was touching a hot iron and she gasped.  “Father, I see it! It is a miracle. What does it mean?”
         “Well, I don’t know that it means anything,” said Don Felice, “It is just amazing coincidence.
         “No, Father, it is a sign, a miracle. What else could it be?  The perfect image of Our Savior!” The Priest was stunned. He looked at the boy’s face to double check. The image of Christ he thought. Is this woman crazy?
         “Filomena this is not the image of Christ.”
         “Father, “ she interrupted “it is the holy image of our savior – see his mouth.” She said pointing to the mark on his cheek. 
         “That is Sicily,” insisted the priest.
         “And look here, his nose,” continued Filomena.
         “Sardinia.” He exclaimed.
         “His eyes.” She said tracing her finger across the boy’s face, “and the forehead of Our Savior.”
         “Southern France and Spain” the exasperated priest insisted. And so the conversation went for sometime. Before long the whole village had heard of the miracle and began to make unannounced visits to see the dying boy as he slept, making it necessary for Uncle Nino to post visiting hours. A controversy began to take shape locally between those who saw the image of Christ in the deep blue patterns that disfigured the boy’s face and those who were sure that they could make out the clear contours of the Cote d’Azur.  The village was pretty evenly divided over the question until Beppe Tozzini announced that he was absolutely certain that it was the beautiful image of Romina Power in an evening gown. But, Beppe, it seems, was the exception.
         The local pilgrimage continued throughout the summer; some left rosaries, flowers and crucifixes and others left maps to compare for accuracy. The disagreement between Don Felice and Filomena intensified when Turkey expanded to include the whole Indian subcontinent all the way to the north coast of Maylasia. At the same time, Filomena could clearly see the formation of three of the twelve disciples stretching across the boy’s back and watched daily for the appearance of Giacomo, Pietro, and Tommaso. Don Felice awaited the appearance of Burma, Laos and Thailand. Towards the end of summer when the excitement had waned a bit, Doctor Gambini advised the family that the boy would likely not make it through the end of the week. Indeed, the boy’s breathing had become so shallow that the frail body took on a rather evanescent quality like the uncorrupted body of a saint. There immediately followed a new surge of mourning and a last minute effort by many of the villagers to view the mysterious blue markings on the child. New flowers replaced the old ones and the maps, crucifixes and rosaries were put in order. Don Felice and Filomena, who by this time claimed a special relationship with the boy, finally insisted that the visitors leave the boy’s room so that final preparation for the long anticipated death could be made.
         Don Felice sat quietly in the corner of the room whileFilomena cleaned the boy and prepared his bed with fresh linens. That afternoon the hot August sun sent shards of light through the shutters into the dark room casting an enigmatic glow along the floor tiles. Don Felice stared at the glowing patterns and sank into brooding contemplation. He envied Filomena, her simplicity, her loyalty, her unquestioning faith in God, and her fatalism. Try as he might he never saw the image of Christ in the boy’s markings, only the growing map that would soon turn Gregorio into a human globe. In this he felt a sense of remorse, perhaps even a sense of failure. Like many priests, Don Felice had not succeeded in the finite world as it was, so, like many before him, he threw in his lot with the infinite. But, now, even the infinite had escaped him. Perhaps God was speaking through the images on the boy’s body but he was unable to hear the message. In some ways he envied the boy, motionless and passive, yet he had become the mysterious glue that bonded the entire community. It was the role that Don Felice had imagined for himself but was helpless to attain. Filomena could see that the Priest was troubled but sat quietly beside the boy so as not disturb his thoughts.
         In time Don Felice joined Filomena by the bedside and asked her to show him the face of Christ once again. Once again she traced the blue image with her fingers but the priest could only see the map. Filomena could see the tears in the man’s eyes. “Father,” she said, “you can only see the map?” He nodded. She paused and put her hand on his. “Father, I see the face of Christ and you see the world, it is a miracle just the same.”
         “Thank you Filomena.” The two sat for some time in silence, lost in their own thoughts, when Don Felice suggested to the maid that it was time to call the family to the bedside of the boy to prepare for the last rights. Shortly the Priest and Filomena reentered the room together with the family when, to her dismay, Filomena saw that the bed was suddenly empty and the linens thrown back. She gasped and made a vague sign of the cross before she fell into unconscious heap on the floor. Don Felice shuttered and felt himself dizzy as he grabbed a chair to hold himself upright. There followed a chorus of screams and unholy exclamations, followed quickly by more signs of the cross and more exclamation, when suddenly everyone stopped and looked at the priest. The room was silent. Don Felice, stunned, lowered his head as if in prayer. The mysterious light from the shutters was now illuminating the empty bed like a burning flame.  Perhaps this was the greatest miracle of all; perhaps this was the moment that had been anticipated by the mysterious blue markings, perhaps God…. Unexpectedly, in the midst of this collective reverie, came the sound of a toilet flushing.
         We don’t really know what each was thinking at this particular moment but we can assume that what happened was not what was imagined. Gregorio stood in the doorway of the bathroom naked to the toes and said quite matter-of-factly, “Porcamisera, I’m starving! Anyone gotta cigarette?”
         That is pretty much his story. For ten years now everyone has been expecting his death and for ten years the blue markings have been slowly shifting in subtle ways with meanings only apparent to those who can see. The boy knows who sees the holy images and who can see the blue boarder crossings on his face, and with uncanny finesse, he is able to respond in kind. He makes his appearance in the piazza once a week in part to assure the village that he lives. People long ago stopped asking why the troubled youth drank the gasolio in the first place and people no longer argue about the meaning of the blue spots. It seems that now with each passing week, Gregorio reminds us how near death is to each of us and how very brief is our allotment of time here in this world.” “Oh look.” My friend exclaimed. “He is coming our way.” “Ciao, Gas.” I yelled across the piazza. When he approached I noticed my friend studying his face with great intensity.  “How have you been? I haven’t seen you in weeks. You know we were a bit worried.” I assured him.
         “Gambini didn’t believe I would make to the end of the month, but as you can see…” He gestured to himself. “Have you seen the newest part of the map?” He knew that I was a map person. 
         “No.” I said with interest. “What do we have now? 
         “Texas!” he boasted with great pride. He began to unbuckle his pants. “Let me show you.”
         “Maybe some other time.” I interrupted
         “Well, it is here if you ever want to see it.” He said, slapping his rear several times to indicate its location. With that he left our company and made new salutations in the piazza. I saw my friend staring at the boy as he disappeared in the crowd. 
         “You looked at his face closely? “ I asked. My friend silently nodded. “ And what did you see?”