The river Arno had burst its banks, flooding the city of Florence and leaving it blanketed in mud. The city looked like the surface of the moon, or Pompeii after the eruption: everything was black and grey, and the eye could no longer tell what belonged where, what was clean and what was sludge left behind by the deluge. Florence was under attack; Florence had fallen. The people from the neighbouring countryside had come running, everyone eager to do their part. The people from the city called them “mud angels”, the men and women who had come to save their great heritage. They’d worked gladly to restore Florence to its former beauty, determined not to leave a single artwork, by authors known or unknown, to disappear under the mud.
“Come on, let’s go slide around in it!” little Giovanni urged his brother.
“Mama said not to go out or we’ll get dirty,” Paolo replied.
“So we don’t tell her! Come on, we can’t stay inside all day!” insisted Giovanni.
The two brothers stole out, slipping on their boots to slide around in. Their parents were busy helping with the clean-up; what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. Besides, there was no school today. As they went out, Giovanni and Paolo were amazed at all the commotion. People were moving the earth with shovels, taking works of art from the churches, scurrying to save the city like ants gathering crumbs. People were crying, praying, lamenting: “Madonna, blessed Virgin, help us!” they cried. But Giovanni and Paolo were not afraid; Florence would always be Florence, and none of this mattered. They trusted in the future, as children ought, being unable to imagine the slightest upheaval or that life may not always remain as it was now.
“I know the perfect place to play!” Giovanni realised.
“Where?”
“The church of Santa Maria del Carmine!”
“Mama says you can’t play in holy places!”
“We won’t go inside, we'll stay in the courtyard,” Giovanni reassured him.
Giovanni and Paolo walked into the courtyard outside the church. The grass was covered in mud, the arches half-submerged in the filth. The two boys ran and slid around, falling, getting up, shouting, and enjoying their day off school under the nonchalant eye of a mud angel. All of a sudden, they spied a statue of the Madonna, brought out of the church and now watching over the garden of stinking earth. There she was, protecting the city from beneath the arcades. She was beautiful and radiant, stuck there in the mud. She was so tall. The two boys went up to her. Giovanni brushed one of the stars in her crown with his finger. He’d never been so close to a Madonna. He suddenly fell in love with her. But Paolo moved first and kissed her on the cheek. “Beautiful Madonna, why don’t the mud angels have wings like in the pictures we see at mass?” asked Giovanni, as if she were alive. Paolo watched the Madonna’s lips; it was a fair question. The Madonna did not answer, but the two boys knew she’d heard them because all of a sudden the mud angel in the courtyard burst out laughing.
Alan Alfredo Geday