THE JOURNEY
73
thieves. Weare ten minutes or more in the vicinity of the cathedral
without finding our way. And it is already the hour for reprisals and
the rooftop sniper, with the police gone into hiding for the night.
The basilica of St. Nicholas of Bari. Going inside, we are met
by an unbelievable stench, a breathing smoky murmuring darkness.
It might have been the low echoing chant of many priests. Yet we
saw only two priests the whole time. The vast nave seemed even larger
because of the fires flickering in darkness. Those who all their lives
had cooked in the street now made fires on the cathedral floor. And
there was one great fire beneath a vast tureen of boiling water and
squid. A waving rubbery tentacle of the creature would be cut to
measure before the customer's eyes, and sprinkled with precious salt
and oil. There were also two rival stands where water was sold by the
glass. There must have been over a thousand living in the cathedral:
living, cooking, eating on the floor and among the tombs, and in
all but two of the chapels, and in their divers odors of living-the
urine damp and secret excrements, and the charcoal odors of the
fire. The odors of the very old.
Only
two priests. One was saying mass in a small chapel, at–
tended by ragged acolytes, and with a few ancient crones. The pro–
ceedings were furtive, surreptitious. We might have been witnessing
the quiet death throes of a proscribed or eccentric faith. But in the
crypt-I went down there looking for Peralda, who had disappeared
at once-there was a larger gathering. Twenty persons or more were
sprawled at the very entrance to the crypt, among the first dark tombs.
Many of them were holding hands. A quiet guitar strummed in the
darkness. A man was speaking in Italian very softly: rhythmic
phrases, they might have been aphorisms learned by heart. The only
lantern in the crypt was behind him. It lit one side of his face in a
bland innocence, but left the other side dark as a great scar or burn.
A
peaceful face, a voice with a message of quietness beyond despair.
I began to make out a few bearded faces, and one girl close to the
speaker. They
all
seemed to be young. And in the morning I saw
them again, but in the outside glare. They were, except for the leader,
seventeen or eighteen. Blond and northern. They squatted on the
sidewalk in a compact ring, while water or food was heating. No
one talked; I expected but did not hear the guitar. The leader sat
quietly
with
his knees hunched against his beard, staring into the fire.
