Bernini smiled.
Why do you say that?
Just wondering, just guessing. Well?
I've never told anyone, whispered Bernini seriously.
Of course you haven't
It was a secret.
And it's a good one. Well?
Bernini nodded. He smiled.
You're right, I did know they were there. I didn't know that's what they were called, and I didn't know what they wore, but I knew about them.
Well it's a pretty outfit, isn't it. Just right for ones so fine and grand and clever, so mysteriously watching over us in their pursuits. Although it's also true the ones you know may wear quite a different costume.
There's no limit, of course, to how they can carry on.
Bernini was smiling rapturously now.
Will you tell me all about them, Father? About the games they play and the dancing and the singing and all of it?
I will, lad. From beginning to end we'll discuss their sly mischievous ways, always off where they can't be seen having their fun and winking at the sky as they tip their heads so gaily and set their feet to flying in a whirling whirligig so fine, so grand, the very sunshine itself flutters and laughs.
Bernini clapped his hands.
Oh yes, just whirling and whirling in their flying shoes with buckles. But what's this uniform then? This queer old one you're wearing?
Ah, lad, another whole place and time. We'll get to that too. The man who owned this one before me is known as the baking priest, as fine an item as ever walked in the streets of the Holy City. Saved my life, he did, when I was on the run and arrived in Jerusalem starving and penniless, a fugitive from injustice and the youngest by far of the Poor Clares who were making that dreadfully shocking pilgrimage that year.
What's a Poor Clare?
A nun, lad, a nun from the strictest of orders. That's why the pilgrimage was so shocking. Because normally Poor Clares can't even leave their convents, not ever, let alone travel to a place like Jerusalem with its unlimited sights and sounds and smells. Anyway, I went to the Holy Land as a nun.
But a man can't be a nun, can he?
That's right, he can't. He simply cannot. But apparently Himself decided to make an exception that year so I could escape from the city of Cork and be transported to the Holy Land in order to fulfill a prophecy made by my father.
Who's himself?
God. Chose to intervene, He did, the baking priest told me all about it when he made me a hero of the Crimean War and awarded me the first Victoria Cross ever given, which until then had been his own.
Here you see it. A Victoria Cross for defending Ireland against the English.
So you're a great rich man now?
Not at all, none of it. I'm just a poor fisherman's son from the Aran Islands who's been adrift and afloat in our Holy City for fourteen long years. Just one O'Sullivan Beare who found himself in Jerusalem by chance, although it's also true we're known as the O'Sullivan Foxes on occasion, for what reason I can't imagine. But with a name like Bernini now, with a fine name like that, you'll be going on someday to build fountains and stairways to heaven and beautiful colonnades for the pope. Good lad. If it had been up to me I might have called you Donal Cam, and that's not half so ringing.
Who was Donal Cam?
The famous bear and fox among your ancestors on my side, known in his time as the O'Sullivan Beare.
Some centuries ago he walked a thousand of his people out of the south of Ireland to the north, in the dead of winter and fighting all the way, escaping, the English and starving too, just as I was doing three hundred years later as a nun. Well he limped and he fought and he led his people, and after two weeks they arrived where they were going. And they were safe now, the thirty-five who had survived out of the thousand. So he was a hero because of what he did. But for all that, I still like Bernini better as a name.
Your name's Joe.
That's what it is, that's mine, as simple as can be. And after that the names of half a dozen other saints, same as my father who had the gift.
What gift?
Prophecy. To see the world as it was and shall be. He was the seventh son of a seventh son, you see, and when you are you have the gift. While me, I was just the thirty-third son and last.
Bernini's eyes shined when he heard the numbers. Joe gazed into them and saw something. A shadow flickered across Joe's face.
Good with figures are you, lad? Quick, what's five plus eight?
Eleven or twelve, said Bernini.
Is it now. And how's that? How can it be both?
Because some days I scale a stone eleven times and some days twelve. I know Mother says that's not the way you're supposed to do arithmetic, but that's the way I do it. At different times, to me, different numbers answer better. When I have a feeling about one, I use it. But then if I don't have a special feeling, a number turns up anyway. Do you know what I mean?
Joe gazed at his son and his frown slowly changed to a smile.
Do you tell me so. Is it always that way with you? In other things besides arithmetic?
Yes, I'm afraid it is. Does it make you angry?
Nothing of the sort, lad. I'm here to love you and accept you as you are. And it strikes me you just might be a poet, did you ever think of that? In poetry all things slip and slide, just as they do when you're hearing the whispers of the little people, and knowing they're there behind the wall all right, but not seeing them.
Well I don't think I'm a poet, most of the time I don't seem to be anything. Do you know? Most of the time I'm just here by the sea. And even when I'm not, I still am really, down here looking at the sea and listening. Do you know where it goes?
Sometimes. And sometimes I'm also just like you. I just sit and look at it and listen. I used to do that a lot down on the coast of the Sinai, in a little oasis on the Gulf of Aqaba. I used to fly my Camel down there and sit for days listening and watching, just keeping watch through the hours of light and dark.
Bernini laughed.
You flew a camel? The same way they have flying carpets in the stories?
Does sound strange, doesn't it. But that's also the name of an airplane, you see, a Sopwith Camel it's properly called. Now tell me, do you like that looking and listening more than anything else?
Yes.
Joe knelt on the sand and put his arms around Bernini's waist.
Well lad, then I'm surely glad I found you here. Right here on this very spot by the sea.
Bernini put his fingers in his father's beard.
I'm glad too, for a special reason. I knew you'd be coming soon but not just today, and that's a wonderful surprise. Today I mean. It's my birthday.