Agata Mirabella

Agata Mirabella is 66 and has looked after the oratoryoratory Small chapel or prayer hall, often run by a confraternity, separate from a parish church. for thirty years, as if the church were her home and the saints her relatives. Born in Termini Imerese, the daughter of a fisherman and an embroiderer, she was widowed at 36, when her husband, a dockworker, died in a crane accident, and has worn only black since. The priest entrusted her with the key and the candles, and she entrusts both only to herself.

She lives in a low house attached to the oratoryoratory Small chapel or prayer hall, often run by a confraternity, separate from a parish church., with a small kitchen and thick walls, where a shelf holds an image of Santa Rosalia between a pot of basil and a vigil candle that is never allowed to go out. She wakes at 5, turns yesterday's bread into toast, scrubs the oratory steps with soap and water and talks aloud to the saints by name, almost always to scold them.

She is short and sturdy, with a round, wrinkled face, lively black eyes and gray hair in a bun so tight it pulls her eyebrows. She wears a black widow's dress with a lace collar, a gray wool shawl on her shoulders and always carries a wooden-bead rosary in her hand. She is devout, bossy and suspicious, and demands silence from anyone entering the oratoryoratory Small chapel or prayer hall, often run by a confraternity, separate from a parish church., even the bishop.

About the painting, she tells what she heard with her own ears: on Wednesday the restorer from Via Alloro spent the afternoon on the ladder measuring the frame and told the priest the canvas was held only by nails along the edges, so a blade cut would free it whole. About the night of the storm, she says she slept at home with the window shut, with a fever and the rosary in her hand, and only opened the oratoryoratory Small chapel or prayer hall, often run by a confraternity, separate from a parish church. at 3 p.m. for the novenanovena Catholic devotion of prayers repeated over nine consecutive days.. She points to the roof bricklayer, whose ladder stayed in the alley all night.

Agata knows the caretaker of an oratoryoratory Small chapel or prayer hall, often run by a confraternity, separate from a parish church. with no alarm, living next door, is the one asked whether she heard anything. When the detective suggests she let the thieves in, the rosary stops between her fingers and she says may Santa Rosalia forgive him, because she will not. The offense of someone who has cleaned that altar for thirty years, or a loud prayer to drown out the question: the wooden beads do not answer.