Sunlight dazzled, casting rays onto the pale cream stucco of the church. The sky was blue, the roofs were red, the trees green. For years they’d moved about in a palette of gray and deprivation. And now this . . . The air was saturated with the sounds and smells of the market, and the steamy waft from the tripe seller crept around the corner and punched them in the guts. Claude flew to the white marble statue of Cosimo Ridolfi and settled on his head. He would stay there and shit on him all morning.
