Thursday, July 9, 2020

Father Aloysius (F)


His daily habit was to come to the Plaza di Anime Perdute and stop for his morning conversation before going on to a 400-year-old bakery around the corner on the way to the university. The scene became part of my daily life when I was away from home during my college-abroad semester in 1974 while a junior at Tennessee.

I saw him one morning, the first time, walk to the middle of the small piazza and settle himself in a manner that seemed very precise. The stones chosen to stand on seemed to be felt through his worn shoes, and as I watched this ritual unfold over the next several months, I began to think that the stones chose him.

He removed his felt fedora and held it in his hands in front of him, and with a few measured breaths, he began to let go of the world. His frame—already showing the signs of his age, a life lived—almost collapsed with the air taken in and then released. And with each breath, his chin dropped lower so that until it was nearly at his chest.

Then, the rocking began. He shifted his weight almost wholly down into his shoes to the balls of his feet and then back to his heels, slowly. Although I was too far from him to hear his words, I could see his lips moving in a way that told of a conversation—often, he stopped to listen—and his face reflected the various turns of concern and even urgency he felt as he spoke. 

No, he prayed. Clearly, the old man prayed.

The rocking forward and back was nearly as steady as a metronome—his end of the conversation mostly was just a word or two, and then at times seemed a full monologue, too. The conversation lasted for more than five minutes. When he stopped, his body straightened up—and yet he was still stooped at the shoulders. He put his hat back on his head, and with unsteady steps shuffled across the square and disappeared into the crowd at the corner.

My landlady Signora Balcone told me the old man was Father Aloysius who was badly beaten by three drunk Black Shirts in 1941. The three thugs were taunting a young Sicilian woman when he tried to intervene. They left him for dead in the street. In 1967, he retired from the Church and never put on his collar again. In a whisper, the Signora’s 12-year-old son Paulo told me that Father was a crazy man who talked to pigeons and stole apples when walking through the market. 

The morning of November 1 that year was even colder than the preceding three or four, and the air was damp and the deep gray clouds hovered just above the hills that surrounded the city. Just as I came into the piazza, Father Aloysius was just settling into his spot, anchoring as if preparing for the winter storm that was forecast to come from the north in the next twenty-four hours.   

Even as the old man took off his hat, snow began to fall. True to his routine, his body began to slump, but that morning it seemed as his knees were even beginning to buckle. And his voice was not so quiet.

His voice began to sound more like a wail than words. A fellow student who had lived in the city his whole life joined me just at the moment Father Aloysius cried out.

“What’s he saying?”

“He has called out to God. He has called out for a shield.”

“Why?”

“I cannot tell you.”

The old man appeared to let his body cave in on itself. One or two other witnesses started toward him, but he drew himself up in a fashion I had never seen before. He seemed taller. Appeared stronger than at any time.

But again, the body began to falter, and the moaning started—I could almost use the word wail, but that would not be quite right. Again he drew himself up, dropped his hat to the stones, and extended his hands. His old fingers stretched out, and he began to beckon as if he were coaxing someone, as if he were leading a person to him. The movements were small at first, but the hands became more insistent.

Now his arms were part of the movement, a bringing in as if to embrace.  His eyes were closed and he leaned forward. He kept urging the someone to him, his voice soft, pleading.

“He is saying to come to the door.”

“What door?  Who’s he talking to?”

“I do not know.”

Aloysius stooped forward as if he would topple onto his face. Nearly everyone in the piazza appeared to be leaning as if with him in a headwind.  Up he stood, and his arms were in front of his chest—did he believe himself holding a child? He shifted the weight into his left arm, and reached out his right hand and made a downward motion like one if stroking the long hair of a woman. 

His voice became soothing and gentle without the rasping we always heard between coughs. He clutched the infant—obviously a small child--close and with each stroke of the woman’s hair, he smiled with great contentment.

“What’s he doing?”

“I have never seen this before.”

The old man straightened up and spread his arms wide. Without opening his eyes, Father Aloysius looked upward. “Dio Dio Dio!” Eyes opened, he smiled, and picked up his hat and put it firmly on his head, and with not a glance left or right, he strode off in the falling snow.  Ladson 2014





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