I still don't see what you got wrong.
Joe smiled.
You don't now? Well nothing more than myself of course. That's always it. Whatever you do or don't do, you're the one who's done it. Did you know the O'Sullivan Beare clan used to have a lovely legend?
What's that?
A saying, a motto. Love, the forgiving hand to victory. That's the legend and none was ever better. It says everything that has to be said. Well I've always known the words, but when I was younger I didn't really understand them. I took people for what they said and did, and that's not enough in this world. You also have to take people for what they don't say and don't do. Sounds simple, but it's not until you learn it.
I think I've already begun to learn it.
Bernini's face was serious, intent. Joe nodded.
How's that, lad?
Well I don't listen to people's words so much. I listen to what's inside.
What's that now? What you call inside?
Bernini put his hand in the sand. He pushed it back and forth, making a trough. All at once he seemed faraway.
What's inside, lad?
Have you ever seen the fishermen throwing those little octopuses against the rocks by the harbor after they catch them?
I have.
The octopuses are so small, you wouldn't think they could be that tough. But they have to keep smashing them against the rocks over and over before they're ready to be hung up to dry. But then later when they're grilled over charcoal and cut in little pieces with olive oil over them, aren't they the best thing in the world?
They are, the very best. A feast in themselves.
Yes, said Bernini, beginning another trough in the sand Joe watched the trough grow.
But now I think I've missed your meaning, lad. What was it you were telling me about what's inside?
Just that. That's all. That even though the octopuses are small, someone has to work very hard to make them good to eat. But when they do, they're the best thing in the world.
Joe smiled. He drew a line in the sand and capped it with a shorter line, then made a loop at the top.
Know it?
A cross with a circle on top of it?
Well it's not quite a cross, is it, not quite a circle either. It's an old mark, called an ankh. In ancient Egypt it was the sign for life, or maybe the sun, same thing. My friend Cairo told me about it, and he had it from a living mummy called old Menelik.
Are there really living mummies?
It seems so. Why?
Because I've always wanted to think so.
Have you now. And why is that?
I like the idea of people not dying.
Do you? Then I think you're going to like the story of my friend Cairo being brought up by his foster father, who was in fact a living mummy.
Wait a minute. Cairo's a city, not a person.
Things can be different for different people. For me, Cairo will never be a city but a man, a great huge black man who's so strong and friendly he lifts you right up off the ground when he greets you. Puts his arms around you and hugs you, and all of a sudden you find you're up there dangling in the air. It's his way of shaking hands, of saying hello.
Really?
Yes. Anyway, this living mummy, old Menelik, brought up Cairo with a grin as dry as dry while lying at the bottom of a sarcophagus where he'd been residing through the ages beside the Nile, endlessly talking away to Cairo and telling him all there was to know about secret tombs and temples and what went on inside of pyramids, not to mention his friend the genie, Strongbow by name, who had a comet of his own as an eternal plaything.
Bernini clapped his hands.
Old Menelik? The genie Strongbow?
Exactly, lad. The stuff of dreams, that's what they are. Men have fallen by the wayside trying to keep up with the likes of them. There's magic in those tales that flies, that leaps across time with its sparkling visions, the magic that comes at one and the same time from the songs of long ago and the lovely tunes yet to be sung.
Bernini got up and began to walk around in a circle, looking for stones to scale. He stopped for a moment and raised his head.
Is that really the way it is?
How's that, lad?
It never ends?
Oh no blessed be, it never does. Just keeps right on going. I'll tell you that and so will Haj Harun and the baking priest, and the potting priest and all the rest of them. Stern and Munk whom you know, and Cairo whom you don't know, and a cobbler in Jerusalem whom I don't even know myself although we went looking for him last New Year's Eve, looked hard and didn't find him that time, but there'll be another time because Haj Harun has never forgotten him, hasn't and won't. So yes indeed, just ask any one of them and the answer will always be the same. They'll all tell you that, straight off and no question about it.
We go right on in the lives of others and there's no end to it for sure.
Why?
Ah, now you're getting to it and I can see why you like to spend your time down here on the shore, just watching and listening until you have it all. And the sea will whisper the answers, lad, it will do that for you. Gently, don't you see. Quietly, don't you know. Whispering away just for you. Because it's here for no other reason.
Bernini smiled.
Aren't you going to choose a stone, Father? Aren't you going to scale even one?
I am. That's why I'm here. To see you on your birthday and scale a stone across the water. Like to hear something else while I'm looking for a stone?
Sure.
You've got a brother or a sister in Jerusalem.
Bernini smiled.
No I haven't.
Yes it's true. Of course the child is only a half-brother or a half-sister.
Well which is it?
I don't know.
How old?
Almost eleven. Do you like the idea of it though?
Sure. But why all the mystery?
It just seems that's the way it is sometimes. It just seems some things are always a mystery.
Well who's the mother?
A saint. That's why I can't see her anymore and don't know anything about the child. She's a saint and she lives with God.
Bernini frowned. He laughed.
I don't think I should believe everything you say.
Don't you now? Can't imagine why you'd tell me that. Although of course the world is full of facts, and we're all free to choose the ones we want to believe.
Bernini went on laughing.
Father, haven't you even found a stone yet? They're all over the place.
I know they are and I'm looking. I'm looking. Now here's a possibility and here's another, but I want to take my time, I want to find one that's just right for now. Mind you, it's not always the same one that's wanted. It depends on the shape of the waves and the cast of the wind and the slant of the sunlight as well. Sometimes a skimmer will do the job, light and fast, and sometimes one with more weight to it is in order. There's no way of knowing beforehand. You just have to dream.
You're talking in riddles again, Father.
Am I now. Just jokes and riddles and scraps of rhymes? But you see a life without dreams is no life at all, a loss for sure and sadly so. Or as Haj Harun used to like to say, time is. And always said in a very ethereal manner, it was.
What's it supposed to mean?
Oh I don't know, that we're here by the sea together? That we're sharing the sun and the sea and finding our stones to scale over the water? It's not much, what we're doing. On the other hand, it's everything.
Scaling stones is the tale.
What tale?
Haj Harun's tale, I guess. And the baking priest's and the potting priest's, and Cairo's and Munk's and Stern's, and your mother's, and my own and yours. All of them about to be told, when I find the stone I'm looking for.
Sometimes you have a queer way of talking, Father.
I do, it's true. It comes from those times when I was a boy straining so hard to hear the whispers of the little people, trying so hard to catch the sounds of their singing and dancing, even though I knew I'd never see them. Whispers, that's right. Whispers, that's all. But once you hear those whispers, lad, you never forget them and you're never the same. Because they remind you of birds soaring free in the sun, and sea gulls gliding in your wake, and a fine strong tide running you home in your little boat after a night at sea, running you home to the new flowers smiling in the green green grass. And then home you are at last on your little island and it's dancing you think of and singing and making your feet fly in the sun, and maybe later, when the moon has risen softly, even holding your hurling matches brazenly on the strand.