The Madonna of the Almonds by Marina Fiorato Page B

even for a brace of hours. They watched him constantly; Nonna to see her son again, and Amaria through a fascination she could not define. They clothed him in Filippo’s ancient garb, fed him and tended to his needs like a child, yet he began to look after them as they had looked after him. It seemed he could no more write than he could speak, for they had tried him with a slice of wood and a charred twig.His only sound was that of his breathing, and sometimes as they sat by the fireside Amaria listened for the air drawing in and out of his body, like the tides of the ocean she had never seen. Always at these times he had in his damaged hands a piece of wood and Filippo’s knife. He seemed fascinated by the turn of the grain, the feel of the material in his hands. He clung to the sticks and logs that he carved as if he held on to something that was fundamental, elemental; he worked with the wood so obsessively that Nonna and Amaria privily agreed that he must have had something to do with carpentry in his former life. (They did not know, then, that wood had nothing to do with his old life but had merely been his first sight in this new world of his.) He would carve awkward lumpen shapes at first, which he cast into the fire. But as the days wore on he began to develop his skills, and fashion little mannikins to delight Amaria. At the end of each evening she would hide what he had made in her skirts and keep every one; secretly populating her closet with an ever-growing wooden throng. She could watch Selvaggio for hours, and did so. She talked to him almost ceaselessly, and when he laughed, as he began to do, he was a strange sight; for his face and body convulsed as most men’s do in mirth, yet no sound came.
    But sound came at last. Selvaggio had taken it upon himself to stop the hole in the door where a knot had fallen out and the wind whistled through. As he hammered a new plank in place, he struck his hand and gave a cry. Amariarushed to his side as he dropped the hammer and took the wounded hand; they looked at each other incredulously and laughed – hers musical and his silent as ever. Amaria led him to the hearthside by his wounded hand, and sat him down as she fetched the salve to stop the blood. ‘Try again!’ she said excitedly, ‘it may be that you are able to speak to us. Try again!’
    He seemed to forget the pain of his hand as he contorted his mouth and tried to replicate the cry. After a few attempts he began to make a sound, a flat, guttural ‘o’ like the call of a woodchuck. Amaria laughed and clapped her hands. Selvaggio rose from the chair, unable to sit still in his excitement, and danced round the room waving his hands, the untied bandage flying from one of them. Amaria whirled like a top, skirts flying, also chanting ‘o o o’ and it was thus that Nonna found them when she returned. When she heard the sound that Selvaggio made she was almost moved to join in, but her age and dignity prevented her – that and the small voice in her heart that whispered that it was the beginning of his going away.
     
    Amaria Sant’Ambrogio now embarked on the task of a lifetime – that of teaching a savage to speak. All her warmth and effusion and the happy nature of her character, was given full reign and she entered into the task with patience and pleasure. Forever a talker herself, she delighted in hearing his syllables painfully and slowly develop. From ‘o’ it wasbut a short step to ‘i’, from thence to ‘e’ until all the vowels were in place. The chatterer now listened patiently for his rejoinder, she that made noise was silent while he struggled; the speaker became the listener. Nonna watched Amaria school Selvaggio, noting the girl’s new maturity; she had grown indeed in the labour she had set herself; no longer the breathless, chattering adolescent, she was displaying a new quality; an almost maternal, nurturing care and attention that complemented her womanly beauty. Nonna could see how