"What about him?"
"Coming here, on his way to celebrate Gaudenzia's victory, he died."
"He—what?"
"He got as far as my house, with a beautiful green umbrella for you ... not oiled cloth, but silk! Real silk!"
Giorgio's throat went dry. He knew he ought to say something, but it was queer how he felt, as if someone had put a heavy hand on his chest and another on his back between the shoulder blades and the two hands pressed and pressed until all the breath was squeezed out of him. Why was it always like this? Why always the joy choked by sorrow?
"Giorgio," the Chief said softly, "do not grieve. Uncle Marco was a very old man. He saw many, many Palios. And he died smiling. 'Tell little Giorgio Terni,' he said, 'tell him that way, way back when he was a knee-high boy, my story-telling begat a very fine fantino!'"
Giorgio listened. As he walked arm-in-arm with the Chief, he put the news in a deep chamber of his heart and drew a curtain over it, not of forgetting but of warm remembrance. The pilgrimage to Onda included the seen and the unseen now.
They had reached the Via Giovanni Duprè, and they both went through the archway and stopped short, transfixed by what they saw. Before them the wavy street, which had given to the contrada its strange name, The Wave, was a mosaic of brilliant lights and colors—glowing, surging, colors—all the colors of the sea when the sun throws millions of sparkles on it. And there, ablaze in front of the noble old church of San Giuseppe, hung the Palio banner that Gaudenzia had won! It too was like the sea, catching all the rays of light and sending them out again. At its sides two dolphins swam in an ocean of blue, their tongues spurting living flames. And under the banner and the sweeping arc of lights, and under the flags flying, and the flowers cascading from windows and balconies, hundreds of tables were laid with snowy-white cloths. But no one was seated. People were milling about, milling and singing and shouting.
Giorgio suddenly found himself pulled into their midst, and friends and strangers alike were pumping his hand and slapping his back and saluting him on both cheeks. General Barbarulli stood laughing at his bewilderment. He beckoned him to the head table, for coming up a side street was Gaudenzia with her barbaresco.
The crowd made a little corridor for Giorgio to pass, and another for Gaudenzia, so that soon they would meet at the head table. But Giorgio arrived first and he saw her coming toward him with that wonderfully long stride of hers. She looked more like a painting than real, with the embroidered velvet horsecloth thrown over her body and the blue-and-white plumes nodding in her headstall. But what made his heart leap was that her scars did not show!