Holy Saturday
by Natalie Galli
We parked on a Partanna street with the enticing name Via Circeo - that powerful witch - and walked the curving roadway past a bakery, a tobacconist, a grocery. Drifting through the green plastic strip curtains which shielded a doorway floated the distinct presence of cheese - maybe bel paese or taleggio - pungent, clean and salty.
"I love this, Maia. At home, everything comes sealed in plastic." Here foods were properly worshipped, displayed on marble stands, their holy essences sifting through the air. Here, the cheese stood alone.
A sign read Macelleria - butcher store. Oh-oh. We were eyeball to glazed eyeball, face to muzzle with twelve furry baby goats, killed and hung in a row along the outside wall, their abdomens split open, intestines stolen away.
"I capretti," Maia informed me. "Eaten at Easter time."
"We don't see this at home," I stammered. They were hanging by their necks. Their delicate hoofs dangled, purplish-grey. Little feet of Pan. And their heads, with tiny budding horns.
"It makes the meat more tender. We eat them only once a year." Maia kept up her steady clip along the street. "Ehh, cara mia, one way or another, animals are killed so that we can eat. It's just that way."
"I know, but..."
We'd turned into a crowded piazza where an outdoor stage had been erected. Loudspeakers blasted a warped recording of a Handel oratorio to get us in a melodramatic mood. Two palm fronds like green parentheses framed the Doric-columned facade at stage rear. Whitewashed walls reflected brilliant morning light from the square.The sound grew more and more distorted each time the piece played, three or four times on a loop. Everyone milled around and chattered, the adults and the kids using hand gestures. I laughed aloud at a three year-old looking up at her parents and protesting something with both her hands flying.
"The play we will see derives from secular theater originally performed in the street: the annunciation, the birth of Gesu, or in this case, the tribunal," explained Maia.
"Mm-hmm. I'm grateful that you are such a historian."
"Historian, boh. I have lived my whole life here, naturally I take an interest in the past."
Eventually Il Spettacolo began. The cast of dozens, young men, mimed the action while a booming, disembodied voice narrated. Jeering Hebrews in floor-length woven robes, headdresses and sandals; glowering Roman guards wearing metal breastplates and helmets; the Jerusalemites straining to listen, brows wrinkled, then loudly protesting; the Apostles huddling to one side. Pontius Pilate delivered his speech, stabbing the stage with his spear, gold robes glistening in the sun. Carl Orff's Carmina Burana pounded from the speakers.
Jesus appeared, manacled, dressed in a white robe, long blond hair, head lowered. They condemned him. The stage crowd showed no mercy, shrieking, hurling styrofoam rocks which bounced off him. Some spectators cried out, "Traitors, traitors!" Kids ran around playing tag. The guards stripped off Christ's robe to reveal him pasty and naked except for a demure white loincloth. They tied his wrists to the wall,and two henchmen came forward to whip him. His body snapped with each lash. During one spasm the blond wig flew off, exposing the actor's close-cropped black hair. Oh, Christ. The audience guffawed. Maia shot me a bemused look. Jesus continued to recoil with each blow, enduring this new humiliation. A pre-recorded rooster crowed three times. An extra in a red costume climbed down off the stage, retrieved the wig from outstretched hands and rushed over to fit it back on him.
They pushed the Crown of Thorns onto his head, which began dripping stage blood. ECCE HOMO. He groaned, heaved the full weight of the cross on his shoulder and began to drag it, haltingly, out of the square. Mary Magdalene followed close behind, nearly flattened with grief. The stage crowd formed a line after him. Electronic cymbals crashed.
"He carries the Cross and Life. He carries the Cross and Suffering. He carries the Cross and Humanity," intoned the tremulous narrator.
Maia and I filed after the procession out the piazza down a long path, which truly seemed dispirited, the powdery earth having no color to it. We ended up on a broad field, littered everywhere with trash. At a distance we could see the action continuing on a hillside. Halfway up the slope two crosses had already been erected, two figures pre-crucified - not statues but men - and between them, blond Jesus was being nailed to the cross. The hammering went on and on.
"They're not using real spikes, are they?"
"No. We would never crucify anyone. It is an honor to share in the pain, to relive the agony of the Savior," my cousin whispered.
For long, excruciating minutes Gesu Cristo leaned at forty-five degrees while his tormentors struggled to keep the cross from tipping over. Next to me a mother unwrapped a prosciutto sandwich and handed it to her child. He grabbed it and, never taking his eyes off the Passion, sank his teeth in. They finally hoisted the crucifix vertically. The crowd murmured, the music swelled. Maia motioned to another part of the hill where Judas hung by his neck from a tree. Shrubs hid his feet. The loudspeaker droned on. Picnics were produced all around, salami sliced with pocket knives, olives chewed and pits spit out, the lazy hiss as Arancina bottletops were unstopped.
Maia shifted from one foot to the other. "Would you like to stay a little longer?" She shielded her eyes from the sun.
"What happens next?"
"He doesn't die till three. They will remain crucified on the hillside all afternoon, until a certain time tonight when the body will be taken down, and placed in a secret cave in the mountain."
"Let's go then, shall we?"
"Oh-kay." She enjoyed using the American expression.
While returning to the square, two actors in Hebrew costumes passed us, nonchalantly carrying a huge cross back to the stage. To props? They didn't struggle at all with its weight, for it was made of balsa wood. They passed so close that a splinter snagged a wool thread in Maia's jacket and I carefully unhooked her while the Hebrews held still, apologizing to the signora, chatting in Sicilian. A Roman guard on a motorcycle buzzed by with his skirts flapping, spraying us with dust from the road. We returned down Circe's street of the goats. I kept my eyes fixed on the sidewalk when we passed the butcher's.