Giovanni's Light Read online

  “Okay,” said the bus driver, dropping the suitcase with a thump at Anna’s feet. “What’s your plan?”

  A sob came ripping out of her throat. “I don’t know. Listen, we can’t go back, because we don’t have any place to go back to. We only got a place to get to.”

  Now tears were running down her cheeks. The bus driver was taken aback.

  “Look, kid,” he pleaded, “I didn’t get you into this, and I don’t see how I can get you out of it.”

  Just then, he saw a man emerge from the tent across the street and throw a bucket of ashes on the snow. Maybe he’d know of something that was open.

  “Come on,” the driver said to Anna, who was still crying, “I don’t have all day.” Then he called out to Giovanni, “Halloo.”

  Giovanni looked up and saw a man pulling a little girl and a big suitcase across the street toward him.

  “Got a little problem here,” said the bus driver, setting down the suitcase in front of the tent. “My bus won’t make it across the mountain where this kid and her mother need to go. You know of where they might spend the night?”

  Giovanni shook his head. “Nothing in Ryland Falls is open. We’ve been without electricity for three days, and everything’s shut down. You’d best go back where you came from.”

  “My mother said we can’t go back,” said Anna quietly. “We got to keep on going.”

  The bus driver was getting desperate. If he didn’t turn the bus around soon, he’d be stuck in Ryland Falls, too. Peering around the flap of the tent, he saw a cot, a lantern, and a woodstove inside.

  “Look,” he said to Giovanni, “I know this might be a little unusual, but you got a decent place here. I mean, it’s rough, but you got what you need. Is there any chance they might be able to stay here—just for the night?”

  Giovanni’s eyes widened. The idea of having a little girl and her mother was unthinkable. “Oh, no, this is no place for them.”

  Anna dug into her jacket pocket and brought out her tiny roll of bills. “We can pay you,” she said, holding out the money.

  Giovanni shook his head. “Oh, no, I couldn’t charge anybody.”

  The bus driver grabbed at the opening. “Does that mean you’ll let them stay?”

  Giovanni looked at Anna. He could tell, from the way she was holding her chin up, that she was trying to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling down her face. She had the same wobbly-legged look that Max had had when he’d found him at the dump.

  “You’d be warm enough,” he said, “but …”

  Anna didn’t wait to hear more. She turned around and raced back to the bus to get her mother.

  “Thanks, mister,” said the bus driver. “Merry Christmas.”

  Giovanni picked up the suitcase. Nothing about this Christmas had gone the way he’d wanted. “Well, Max,” he said, “we’ve got company,” and he had no sooner set down the suitcase on top of the cot than they were standing in the doorway—a small, dark-eyed little girl holding on to her mother’s hand as if her mother were the child.

  “Come in,” he said. But Anna and her mother didn’t move.

  Anna stared at Max. “Does he bite?”

  Giovanni reached down and held Max by his collar. “You don’t have to be scared of him. He’s a gentle dog.”

  Slowly, not taking her eyes off Max, Anna edged her way around him into the tent and sat down with her mother on the cot. “I’m scared of dogs.”

  Giovanni smiled. “You won’t be scared of Max for very long.”

  Anna’s mother reached in her purse and took out a pad of paper and a pencil. Hastily she scribbled something down, tore it off, and handed it to Giovanni.

  “My mother’s deaf,” explained Anna. “That’s how she talks to people.”

  Anna’s mother was looking at him, smiling expectantly.

  “Go ahead, read it,” said Anna. “Then you can write something back.”

  Giovanni handed the paper back to Anna, without looking up. “I’m not too good at reading. Or writing.”

  Anna gazed at Giovanni as if he were an interesting, but not very difficult, puzzle. “That’s all right, you got hands.” She held up her own. “That’s how I talk to her, with my hands. I could show you.”

  It was a fair exchange. While Giovanni fixed a supper of pancakes, fried apples, and coffee, he told Anna about Max and how he had found him at the dump when he was a puppy, and Anna lost some of her fear. Anna showed Giovanni how to make different words with his fingers, and Giovanni lost some of his shyness.

  Later, Anna and her mother curled up like spoons on the cot, beneath a pile of blankets. Max took his place on the floor beside them. Staring at him for a few minutes, then gathering up her courage, Anna reached out from beneath the blankets and gingerly brushed the top of his head with her fingers.

  “What kind of dog is Max?”

  “Mostly retriever,” said Giovanni.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means he knows how to pick up things, like birds, very gently, so nothing breaks, and bring them to you in his mouth.”

  Max gave Anna’s hand a lick.

  “Looks like you’ve made a new friend,” said Giovanni.

  “Does he watch out for you when you sleep?” Anna had never spent the night in such a strange, unguarded place before.

  “That he does. And he’ll watch out for you, too.”

  Soon Anna and her mother fell asleep while Giovanni dozed upright in a chair by the woodstove. Outside, in the swirling snow, the walls of the tent glowed like a lantern in the darkness.

  Sometime during the night, after everybody in Ryland Falls was fast asleep, the last flake of snow shook itself from the sky.

  Chapter Twelve

  ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, Ryland Falls woke up beneath a canopy of bright blue sky. As blue as Mary’s cloak, thought Reverend Williams who had canceled the “Living Nativity” scene and now was trying, without success, to find the collapsed plywood manger. But the snow had so completely erased all the familiar landmarks that it was hard to find anything.

  Reverend Williams stabbed up and down in the snow with the handle of his shovel. Some Christmas! he thought. With no electricity to power the organ, and no radiators to warm the church, there would be no worship service. He hit something hard and he began to dig. It was the sign in front of the church, with the title of today’s undelivered sermon, “Oh, come all ye faithful!” Not without central heating, thought Reverend Williams.

  This was the first time in the history of Ryland Falls that Christmas had been celebrated, or rather, not celebrated, under such emergency conditions. The electricity was still off. The phones were still not working. And the plows were so overwhelmed that the only street that was clear from one end to the other was Center Street. All the other roads were more like tracks between high drifts. The first thing people did on Christmas morning was to grab their shovels and dig toward each other.

  All day long, Ryland Falls was full of the stamping of boots on newly cleared porches, and the voices of neighbors calling back and forth between houses. Being able to see clearly across the street, instead of squinting through snow, was like suddenly sighting land after being marooned on the high seas.

  Frances Nickerson hadn’t been so excited since her school retirement party. As soon as she could make a path to the sidewalk, not that you could see the sidewalk, she set up a card table, spread it with a flowered cloth, and brought out some cups and cookies and hot tea in a thermos for whoever might like to join her.

  “A tea party in the snow!” exclaimed Miranda’s mother, who had always thought Frances Nickerson was a little odd. But now she knew it.

  “I think it’s very original,” said Miranda.

  “Why don’t you shovel your way across the street and have a cup,” said Miranda’s grandmother. “I think we should show our support for the idea.”

  Other people, too, began to stumble out of their houses and toward their neighbors as if they had never seen e
ach other so clearly—or dearly—before. How relaxed and unburdened everybody seemed, how straight their shoulders and open their expressions.

  Neighbors who had not found the time to stop and really talk to each other for many years suddenly had all the time in the world. And now it was not just Frances Nickerson who noticed things but many grown-ups, and children, too, who did. Being cooped up seemed to have sharpened everybody’s eyes.

  They noticed the way ice-coated tree branches clicked together like castanets, how the snow was milk blue in the shadows, and the way icicles hanging from the rain gutters trapped the light inside. Everything, from the soft scraping sound of a shovel to the shadow print of a tree against a garage door, seemed quietly remarkable. And they noticed something else, as well. The urge to chatter away about nothing seemed to have gone away. Everybody in Ryland Falls was quieter, as if the snow had pulled all the noise out of the air and buried it. And when they did speak, their words seemed to come from a deeper place inside.

  But what nobody noticed until after Miranda’s grandmother had woken from her afternoon nap was that Pasha was gone.

  He wasn’t curled up in his usual position at the end of the bed. He wasn’t downstairs in the breakfast nook or on the living room sofa. All his favorite places were empty.

  “Pasha? Pasha?” Every time Miranda’s grandmother called his name, her voice trembled a little more. “I don’t understand it. Pasha hates the snow. He’d never leave on his own.”

  Then she remembered what had woken her from her nap—the sound of the Bridgeman dog barking. The front door must have been open. He had chased Pasha outside.

  “I’ll go outside and look for her, Grandma,” said Miranda. “I have sharp eyes.”

  All afternoon, Miranda trudged around the neighborhood—up and down the streets, into backyards, checking woodpiles, looking up into trees. But no cherished red blob of fur was to be seen anywhere. Just as the sun sank, Miranda came home.

  Her grandmother was waiting at the front door. When she didn’t see Pasha in Miranda’s arms, she sank down in a chair and dropped her head into her hands.

  “I’m sorry, Grandma,” said Miranda.

  “It’s not your fault. Pasha had been cooped up for too long. But if he doesn’t come home tonight …” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  That evening, the Bridgemans sat glumly around the kitchen table eating dinner—chicken noodle soup from a packet, canned okra, and green Jell-O with marshmallows that were as hard as bullets. Nobody complained. Only Pasha was on their minds.

  Miranda looked out the window. Without any streetlights, she could barely see the road. But with a flashlight, she could make an arc of light upon the snow.

  “Grandma,” she said, “I can go out and look for Pasha some more with a flashlight.”

  “No!” said her mother firmly. “You will stay inside!”

  “Not tonight,” added her father. “It’ll be well below freezing.”

  “I can’t worry about you and Pasha, both,” said her grandmother.

  The idea of Pasha turning into an ice cube in the dark was horrible. But Miranda didn’t want to turn into an ice cube in the dark either. When no one would allow her to go out again, Miranda was secretly relieved.

  That night, she took the flashlight upstairs, got in bed, and made a warm tent of the covers where she could write in her diary. She had just uncapped her pen and written, “Christmas Night—very cold,” when she heard a noise.

  It was a soft, muffled sound she couldn’t quite identify. Getting out of her bed, she tiptoed down the hall and followed the sound to her grandmother’s bedroom door. Shivering in her bare feet, she listened intently. Her grandmother was crying into her pillow so no one would hear her. It was the saddest sound Miranda had ever heard.

  Miranda tiptoed back into her room and stood there thinking. Then, she put on two pairs of wool socks and a suit of long underwear. On top of that she pulled on three sweaters and a pair of snow pants. Padding downstairs, she zipped herself into a parka, pulled on her boots and gloves, and quietly opened the back door.

  Pulling the door shut quietly so nobody would wake up, she heard the lock click and realized two terrible things at the same time. She had left the flashlight in her bedroom and she had locked herself out.

  Standing between a locked door and the darkness, Miranda was terrified at what she’d done. But she couldn’t bear the sound of her grandmother crying. She headed into the dark.

  Chapter Thirteen

  WILL CAMPBELL turned up the wick on his lantern and held it above his head. By tomorrow morning, everything in his apartment had to be in a box or a suitcase. He looked around the room. It was a wreck of good intentions gone wrong—all the sketches that were meant to become paintings, all the paintings he didn’t complete. On his desk was a stack of Christmas cards from his students. He couldn’t bring himself to open them until he was in a new place and the pain of leaving Ryland Falls had lessened. He set the lantern down and went to work.

  Outside, Giovanni was dragging all his unsold Christmas trees into the middle of the lot to make a bonfire. He was leaving tomorrow as soon as the road across Old Rag Mountain was cleared. Each tree he tossed upon the pile increased his regret. He had sold less than half his inventory, and the snow had left the remaining trees so wet that he would have to use his remaining kerosene to make them burn.

  Ducking his head inside the tent, he said to Anna, “I’m going to make a bonfire. You and your mother can watch.” Tying back the tent flaps, he moved the big wooden chair across the entrance so Anna could sit on her mother’s lap and both could see. Then he wrapped mother and daughter in a heavy blanket against the cold.

  Giovanni circled the pile of trees, carefully pouring kerosene around its base. Then he made another circle, pouring kerosene higher up in the wet branches to make sure the fire would catch. A bonfire of old Christmas trees wasn’t much of an entertainment, but he might as well make it the best bonfire Anna had ever seen. He emptied the can.

  Just then, Max appeared at Giovanni’s side with an animal of some kind clasped between his jaws. Ever since the snow had stopped, Max had been busy scouting the neighborhood, expressing his retriever instinct.

  “What have you got there?” Giovanni asked.

  Max proudly laid his find at Giovanni’s feet. Kneeling down to examine it, Giovanni wasn’t sure it was alive or dead, but when he picked the small, limp creature off the ground and cradled it in his hand, the bedraggled little thing opened its eyes and mewed.

  “Well,” said Giovanni, carrying the cat over to show Anna and her mother, “Max has found a real prize.”

  “What is it?” asked Anna excitedly.

  “A half-frozen, very wet little cat.”

  Anna held out her arms. “Let me have it,” she begged. Gently, Giovanni deposited it in her lap. Unbuttoning her jacket, Anna took Pasha, for that of course was his name, and rebuttoned it around him, leaving him just enough room to poke his head out from beneath Anna’s chin.

  “He’s purring!” she announced solemnly.

  “Just keep him right where he is,” said Giovanni. “Between you and the bonfire, he should warm up soon.” Taking out some matches, he bent down and lit the trees.

  Slowly, surely, the fire caught hold, turning the pile of trees into a golden cone of light in the darkness. Giovanni stepped back behind Anna and her mother to watch as the bonfire popped and crackled and released the sweet smell of pitch into the air. Anna and her mother stared at it, transfixed.

  Will Campbell saw light flickering on the walls of his apartment. Perhaps, he thought, the electricity has been restored. He stopped his packing and went to the window to see what the source of the light was. And there, right in front of him, was more illumination than he had seen in a long time.

  The bonfire cast a wide circle of golden light upon the snow, carved deep pockets of light and shadow on the blanket around the woman’s shoulders, lit up the cheeks of the little girl on her lap
. Soft light was coming from behind and around Giovanni as he stood in the entrance of the tent. And pushing in and out of the light was the darkness.

  Will raised the window to see some more. Buttoned up in the little girl’s jacket was a cat. Giovanni’s dog was by her side, looking up at her. The mother was resting her chin on top of the little girl’s head and gazing dreamily into the fire. Without taking his eyes off the scene, Will groped around his desk for a sketchpad and a charcoal pencil. Pulling up a chair to the open window, he rested his pad upon the sill and began to draw as quickly as he could.

  When Miranda Bridgeman first saw the light in the sky, she was trudging along, terrified. She didn’t know what the light was, only that it looked warm and she thought that perhaps Pasha would have seen it, too. She ran toward it, slipping and sliding in the dark, teeth chattering and heart pounding. “Please, God,” she prayed, “don’t let me or Pasha freeze to death.”

  Neddie Crimmins and his father were just pulling on their boots and parkas. The town’s sledding party on Cemetery Hill had been canceled along with everything else, but Neddie and his father were going anyway.

  “Well, Neddie boy, your old man thought he was going to be eating mangoes on a beach tonight. It goes to show you shouldn’t plan too far ahead.”

  “I thought I would be watching television in the hotel with a bad baby-sitter,” said Neddie.

  Edward Crimmins laughed and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Not anymore. Let’s go. We’ve got years of back sledding to catch up on.”

  As they reached the top of Cemetery Hill, Neddie saw a bright glow coming from Center Street. “Look, Dad. What’s that?”

  Edward Crimmins stared at it and shook his head. “I don’t know, but it bears investigation. I hope nothing important is on fire. Let’s take the sled downtown and see.”

  So it was that Miranda Bridgeman and Neddie and Edward Crimmins headed for Giovanni’s bonfire. But when they arrived, they discovered that quite a few other people in Ryland Falls had seen the light, as well.