Sicilian Odyssey Read Free Page A

Velásquez’s “Las Meninas.” And smack in the middle of a group of kids, parading in formation and dressed like Harry Potter and his fellow students at the School for Wizards, is, incongruously, a sort of giant eyeball-on-legs meant to represent a Cyclops.
     
    Catania’s Feast of St. Agatha also takes place at the beginning of February, at the same time as the start of Acireale’s Carnival, and less than ten miles away. But the atmosphere and the mood of the crowd are so remarkably different that the festival could be taking place in another country. The Feast of St. Agatha is celebratory but solemn in a way that seems appropriate for a religious holiday honoring the city’s patron saint, a martyr credited with having rescued the town from an especially threatening eruption of Mount Etna; in some versions of the legend, her outstretched arms diverted a stream of lava that would otherwise have inundated the city. On cloudless days, you can see Etna’s gently smoldering cone at the end of the long straight boulevard that bears its name. The last time we were in Sicily, Etna was erupting, and, from our hotel room in Taormina, we could watch the tongues of fiery orange lava snake down the mountainside.
    Just before noon on the final day of the feast, a crowd of Catanians—many of whom carry long yellow candles they will light in the course of their peregrination around the holy sites associated with the saint scattered throughout the old quarter—gathers in the square in front of the stately, gloomy cathedral. The charcoal-gray volcanic rock from which so many of its buildings are constructed gives Catania the air, among Sicilian cities, of the family member with the long face, the sad story, the bad news.
    At exactly twelve, a series of cannon blasts sends puffs of white smoke wafting across the blue sky; the church bells toll. And as a procession of priests, ecclesiastical dignitaries, local officials, and members of fraternal orders dressed in eighteenth century costume emerge from the church, displaying a silver reliquary containing the relics of the saint, a young mother standing in front of me tells her small son the story of St. Agatha.
    Smoothing back his hair, gently stroking his forehead, speaking in a melodious voice, she narrates a mercifully bowdlerized version—minus the gorier details—of how the blessed virgin refused to marry the suitor who had been chosen for her and, consequently, as punishment, had her breasts cut off. A visitation from St. Peter healed her wounds and restored her breasts, but Peter could not, or would not, save her from a horrible martyrdom—from the tortures that insured her beatitude and made her the patron saint of women suffering from diseases of the breast.
    This evening, at the height of the festival, young men, dressed in black berets and white suits (rather like karate uniforms) and assembled in groups representing the various trade organizations, will carry the candelore —heavy, gilded litters decorated with images of the saint and topped with tall candles—in a procession that’s part race, part endurance contest designed to see who can bear the weight longest. There will be fireworks, music, stalls selling candy, nougat, freshly made nut brittle. But beneath it all will run that Sicilian understanding that the underside of joy is grief, that the face of sacrifice and suffering is the dark mirror image of pleasure and enjoyment, that every moment of arrival is to be treasured and enjoyed in the full knowledge that it has brought us a moment closer to the moment of departure.

CHAPTER TWO

Syracuse
    Sitting in the top row of the Greek amphitheater in Syracuse’s Archaeological Park, I close my eyes and try to imagine the roar of the spectators during the city’s glory days, when Syracuse was among the most influential city-states in the world, when its leaders could afford to build the most magnificent theaters and attract the most brilliant playwrights, when