Mihály removed his hat and edged closer for a better view of the ceremony. The door of the dead stood open. Through it he could see into the house, into a dark room containing the bier. Priests and their assistants stood around the coffin, chanting and swinging censers. After a few minutes they lifted it up and passed it through the door of the dead into the street, where the hooded relatives hoisted it on to their shoulders.
Then in the gothic doorway a priest appeared in flowing robes. His pale ivory face, with its sombre, all-unseeing eyes, glanced at the heavens. Then with bowed head he placed his hands together in an ancient gesture of inexpressible gentleness.
Mihály did not rush up to him. For he was now a priest, a pale, serious monk performing a religious duty … No, one couldn’t just run up to him, like a schoolboy, like a little boy …
The pallbearers set off with the coffin, followed closely by the priest and the procession of mourners. Mihály joined it at the rear, and trod slowly with hat in hand towards the camposanto, up on the hill side. His heart was beating so hard he had to keep pausing for rest. Would they have anything to say to each other, after so many years, journeying along such widely divergent paths?
He asked one of the people in the procession what the priest was called.
“That’s Father Severinus,” said the Italian. “A very holy man.”
They reached the burial ground. The coffin was lowered into the grave, the funeral came to an end, and people began to move away. Father Severinus set off for the town with a companion.
Mihály still could not make up his mind whether to approach him. He felt that Ervin, now that he had become such a holy person, would surely be ashamed of his worldly youth, and, like St Augustine, would look back upon it with lofty disdain. Surely he would see it all quite differently, and had doubtless dismissed him, not wanting even to think about him. Perhaps it would be better to leave straightaway, and be content with the miracle of simply having seen him.
Just then Father Severinus left his companions and turned back. He was coming straight towards him. Every adult response deserted Mihály, and he ran towards him.
“Mishy!” shouted Ervin, and embraced him. Then he offered the right and the left sides of his face to Mihály’s cheeks, with the kindliness of a priest.
“I saw you at the graveside,” he said quietly. “How did you get here, where no bird flies?”
But this was mere cordiality. It was clear from his tone that he was not in the least surprised. Rather, it was as if he had long anticipated this meeting.
Mihály was unable to say a word. He simply gazed at Ervin’s face, now so long and so thin, and his eyes, in which the youthful fire still blazed. Beneath the happiness of the moment he could see in that face the same profound sombreness he had found in the old Gubbio houses. He could think of only one word, ‘monk’. It was borne in upon him that Ervin really was a monk, and his eyes filled with tears. He turned his face away.
“Don’t cry,” said Ervin. “You have changed too, since those days. Oh Mishy, Mishy, I’ve thought about you so much!”
Mihály was filled with a sudden impatience. He must tell Ervin everything, everything, things he couldn’t tell Erzsi … Ervin would know a balm for everything, now that he was bathed in the glory and the radiance of another world …
“I knew you would have to come into Gubbio, so I came here. Tell me when I can talk with you, and where. Can you come with me right now, to the hotel? Can we have dinner together?”
Ervin smiled at his naïveté.
“That really isn’t possible. I’m sorry, even at this moment I’m not free, my Mihály. I’m busy all evening. I have to be off straight away.”
“Have you so much to do?”
“Terrible. You lay people can’t imagine how much. I’ve still got a pile of prayers to get through.”
“But then, when will you have time? And where can we meet?”
“There’s only one way, Mishy, but I’m afraid it’ll be rather uncomfortable for you.”
“Ervin! Do you think comfort matters to me, if it’s a question of talking with you?”
“Because you’ll have to come up to the monastery. We are never allowed out, except on pastoral duty, like the funeral today, for example. And up in the monastery every hour of the day has its tasks. There’s only one way we could speak together without interruption. You know we go to church at midnight to say psalms. At nine we usually go to bed and sleep till midnight. But this sleep isn’t obligatory. The period isn’t governed by regulation, and silence is not prescribed. That’s when we could talk together. The wisest thing would be for you to come up to the monastery after dinner. Come as a pilgrim. We’re always receiving pilgrims. Bring a small gift for Sant’ Ubaldo, to please the brothers. A few candles perhaps, that’s the usual thing. And ask the brother at the gate to put you into the pilgrims’ room for the night. You realise it’ll be pretty uncomfortable compared with what you’re used to — but I won’t say anything more. Because, if you left at midnight to go back to the town, I’d be very worried. For that you would have to know your way about the hill. If you aren’t familiar with it, it can be a very unfriendly place. Hire a boy to bring you up. Will that be good?”
“It will be good, Ervin, very good.”
“So, until then, God be with you. I must hurry, I’m already late. See you tonight. God be with you.”
And he set off with rapid strides.
Mihály wandered back to the town. Beside the cathedral he found a shop and bought some rather fine candles for Sant’ Ubaldo. Then went back to his hotel, dined, and tried to think what sort of accessories to take with him in his guise of pilgrim. He eventually made a neat little package of the candles, his pyjamas and toothbrush, to all appearances the bundle of a genuine pilgrim. Then he commissioned the waiter to find him a guide. The waiter soon returned with a young lad, and they took to the road.
On the way he enquired after the local sights. He asked what had happened to the wolf Saint Francis had befriended, and the bargain it had made with the town.
“That must have been a long time ago,” the boy replied thoughtfully, “even before Mussolini. There certainly haven’t been any wolves since he became Duce.” But he did seem to recall, as something he had heard, that the wolf’s head was buried in some faraway church.
“Is it usual for pilgrims to go up to the monastery?”
“Of course, often. Sant’ Ubaldo is said to be very good for knee and back pains. Perhaps you have a bad back yourself, sir?”
“Not so much my back … ”
“But he’s very good for anaemia and bad nerves. The numbers are specially large on May 16th. That’s the Saint’s day. On that day they carry up the Ceri—figures made of wax — in a procession from the cathedral up to the monastery. But that’s not such a big procession as Corpus Christi or Resurrection Sunday. When they parade the Ceri they have to run.”
“What do the Ceri represent?”
“That nobody knows. They’re very old.”
The religious historian in Mihály was aroused. He would have to see these later. It was most interesting that they ran with them up to the monastery … like the Bacchantes running up the hill at the festival of Dionysos, in Thrace. This Gubbio was really remarkably old: the Umbrian tablets, the doors of the dead. Perhaps even the wolf tamed by St Francis was some old Italian deity, related to the she-wolf that mothered Romulus and Remus, living on in the legend. How very strange that Ervin should have come to just this place …