Kitobni o'qish: «The Shoemaker's Wife / Жена башмачника. Книга для чтения на английском языке»
© КАРО, комментарий, словарь, оформление, 2025
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Dedication
In Memory of Monsignor Don Andrea Spada Who Loved the Mountain
Part one. The Italian Alps
Chapter 1. A gold ring
Un Anello d’oro
The scalloped hem of Caterina Lazzari’s blue velvet coat grazed the fresh-fallen snow, leaving a pale pink path on the bricks as she walked across the empty piazza1. The only sound was the soft, rhythmic sweep of her footsteps, like hands dusting flour across an old wooden cutting board.
All around her, the Italian Alps loomed like silver daggers against a pewter sky. The rising winter sun, a pinprick2 of gold buried in the expanse of gray, barely flickered. In the first light of morning, dressed in blue, Caterina looked like a bird.
She turned, exhaling a long breath into the cold winter air.
«Ciro?» she called out. «Eduardo!»
She heard her sons’ laughter echo across the empty colonnade, but couldn’t place them. She surveyed the columns of the open portico. This wasn’t a morning for hide-and-seek, or for playing games. She called to them again. Her mind swam with all she had accomplished, big chores and small errands, attending to a slew of overwhelming details, documents filed and keys returned, all the while stretching the few lire she had left to meet her obligations.
The first stage of widowhood is paperwork.
Caterina had never imagined she would be standing here alone, on the first day of 1905, with nothing before her but the small hope of eventual reinvention. Every single promise made to her had been broken.
Caterina looked up as a window on the second floor of the shoe shop opened and an old woman shook a rag rug out into the cold air. Caterina caught her eye. The woman looked away, pulled the rug back inside, and slammed the window shut.
Her younger son, Ciro, peered around one of the columns. His blue-green eyes were the exact color of his father’s, as deep and clear as the water of Sestri Levante3. At ten years old, he was a replica of Carlo Lazzari, with big hands and feet and thick sandy brown hair. He was the strongest boy in Vilminore4. When the village children went down into the valley to collect sticks bundled to sell for kindling, Ciro always had the heaviest haul strapped to his back because he could carry it.
Caterina felt a pang whenever she looked at him; in Ciro’s face was all she had lost and would never recover. «Here.» She pointed to the ground beside her black leather boot. «Now.»
Ciro picked up his father’s leather duffel5 and, running to his mother, called to his brother, who hid behind the statuary.
Eduardo, at eleven, resembled his mother’s people, the Montini family, dark-eyed, tall, and willowy. He too picked up his satchel and ran to join them.
At the foot of the mountain, in the city of Bergamo, where Caterina had been born thirty-two years ago, the Montini family had set up a printing press that churned out linen writing paper, engraved calling cards, and small books in a shop on Via Borgo Palazzo. They had a house and a garden. As she closed her eyes, she saw her parents sitting at an alfresco6 table under their grape arbor, eating ricotta and honey sandwiches on thick, fresh bread. Caterina remembered all they were and all they had.
The boys dropped their suitcases in the snow.
«Sorry, Mama,» Ciro said. He looked up at his mother and knew for certain that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her skin had the scent of peaches and felt like satin. His mother’s long hair fell into soft, romantic waves, and ever since he could remember, as he lay in her arms, he had twisted a lock until it became a single shiny black rope.
«You look pretty,» Ciro said earnestly. Whenever Caterina was sad, he tried to cheer her up with compliments.
Caterina smiled. «Every son thinks his mother is beautiful.» Her cheeks turned pink in the cold as the tip of her aquiline nose turned bright red. «Even when she isn’t.»
Caterina fished in her purse for a small mirror and a chamois puff. The tip of red disappeared as she powdered it. She pursed her lips and looked down at her boys with a critical eye. She straightened Eduardo’s collar, and pulled Ciro’s coat sleeve over his wrist. The coat was too small for him, and no amount of pulling would add the two inches at the cuff to make it fit properly. «You just keep growing, Ciro.»
«I’m sorry, Mama.»
She remembered when she had their coats made for them, along with pin-cord trousers and white cotton shirts. There had been tufted blankets in their cribs when they were born, a layette of soft cotton gowns with pearl buttons. Wooden toys. Picture books. Her sons had long outgrown the clothes, and there was no replacing them.
Eduardo had one pair of wool pants and a coat given to him by a neighbor. Ciro wore the clean but ill-fitting clothes of his father, the hems on the work pants three inches deep, tacked with ragged stitches because sewing was not one of Caterina’s talents. Ciro’s belt was tightened on the last grommet7, but still too loose to function properly.
«Where are we going, Mama?» Ciro asked as he followed his mother.
«She told you a hundred times. You don’t listen.» Eduardo lifted his brother’s duffel and carried it.
«You must listen for him,» Caterina reminded Eduardo.
«We’re going to stay at the convent of San Nicola.»
«Why do we have to live with nuns?» Ciro complained.
Caterina turned and faced her sons. They looked up at her, hoping for an explanation that would make sense of all the mysterious goings-on of the past few days. They weren’t even sure what questions to ask, or what information they needed to know, but they were certain there must have been some reason behind Mama’s strange behavior. She had been anxious. She wept through the night when she thought her sons were asleep. She had written lots of letters, more in the last week than they could ever remember her writing.
Caterina knew that if she shared the truth, she would have failed them. A good mother should never knowingly fail her children, not when she is all they have left in the world. Besides, in the years to come, Ciro would remember only the facts, while Eduardo would paint them with a soft brush. Neither version would be true, so what did it matter?
Caterina could not bear the responsibility of making every decision alone. In the fog of grief, she had to be sensible, and think of every possible alternative for her boys. In her mental state, she could not take care of her sons, and she knew it. She made lists of names, recalling every contact in her family’s past and her husband’s, any name that might be helpful. She scanned the list, knowing many of them probably needed as much help as she did. Years of poverty had depleted the region, and forced many to move down to Bergamo8 and Milan9 in search of work.
After much thought, she remembered that her father had printed missals for every parish in the Lombardy region, and as far south as Milan. He had donated his services as an indulgence to the Holy Roman Church, expecting no payment in return. Caterina used the old favor to secure a place for her sons with the sisters of San Nicola.
Caterina placed a hand on each of their shoulders.
«Listen to me. This is the most important thing Iwill ever tell you. Do as you’re told. Do whatever the nuns ask you to do. Do it well. You must also do more than they ask of you. Anticipate. Look around. Do chores before the sisters ask.»
«When Sister asks you to gather wood, do it immediately. No complaining! Help one another – make yourselves indispensable.»
«Chop the wood, carry it inside, and build the fire without asking. Check the damper before lighting the kindling. And when the fire is out, clean the ash pit and close the flue. Sweep up so it looks like a picture. Prepare the hearth for the next fire with dry logs and kindling. Put the broom and the dustpan and the poker away. Don’t wait for Sister to remind you.»
«Make yourselves useful and stay out of trouble. Be pious and pray. Sit in the front pew during mass and sit at the farthest end of the bench during dinner. Take your portions last, and never seconds. You are there because of their kindness, not because I could pay them to keep you. Do you understand?»
«Yes, Mama,» Eduardo said.
Caterina placed her hand on Eduardo’s face and smiled. He put his arm around his mother’s waist and held on tight. Then she pulled Ciro close. Her soft coat felt good against his face. «I know you can be good.»
«I can’t,» Ciro sputtered, as he pulled away from his mother’s embrace, «and I won’t.»
«Ciro.»
«This is a bad idea, Mama. We don’t belong there,» Ciro pleaded.
«We have no place to stay,» Eduardo said practically. «We belong wherever Mama puts us.»
«Listen to your brother. This is the best I can do right now. When summer comes, I will come up the mountain and take you home.»
«Back to our house?» Ciro asked.
«No. Somewhere new. Maybe we’ll move up the mountain to Endine10.»
«Papa took us to the lake there.»
«Yes, the town with the lake. Remember?»
The boys nodded that they did. Eduardo rubbed his hands together to warm them. They were rough and pink from the cold.
«Here. Take my gloves.» Caterina removed her elbow-length black gloves. She helped Eduardo’s hands into them, pulling them up and under his short sleeves. «Better?»
Eduardo closed his eyes; the heat from his mother’s gloves traveled up his arms and through his entire body until he was enveloped in her warmth. He pushed his hair back with his hand, the scent of the brushed cotton11, clean lemon and freesia, reassuring him.
«What do you have for me, Mama?» Ciro asked.
«You have Papa’s gloves to keep you warm.» She smiled. «But you want something of Mama’s too?»
«Please.»
«Give me your hand.»
Ciro pulled his father’s leather glove off with his teeth.
Caterina slid a gold signet ring off her smallest finger and placed it on Ciro’s ring finger12. «This was given to me by my papa.»
Ciro looked down at the ring. Aswirling, artful C in an oval of heavy yellow gold gleamed in the early morning light. He closed his fist, the gold band still warm from his mother’s hand.
The stone facade of the convent of San Nicola was forbidding. Grand pilasters13 topped with statues of saints wearing expressions of hollow grief towered over the walkway. The thick walnut door had a sharp peak like a bishop’s hat, Eduardo observed as he pushed the door open. Caterina and Ciro followed him inside into a small vestibule. They stomped the snow off their shoes on a mat made of woven driftwood branches. Caterina reached up and rang a small brass bell on a chain.
«They’re probably praying. That’s all they do in here. Pray all day,» Ciro said as he peered through a crack in the door.
«How do you know what they do?» Eduardo asked.
The door opened. Sister Domenica looked down at the boys, sizing them up.
She was short and shaped like a dinner bell. Her black-and-white habit with a full skirt made her seem wider still. She placed her hands on her hips.
«I’m Signora Lazzari,» Caterina said. «These are my sons. Eduardo and Ciro.» Eduardo bowed to the nun. Ciro ducked his head quickly as if saying a fast prayer. Really, it was the mole on Sister’s chin he wished to pray away14.
«Follow me,» the nun said.
Sister Domenica pointed to a bench, indicating where the boys should sit and wait. Caterina followed Sister into another room behind a thick wooden door, closing it behind her. Eduardo stared straight ahead while Ciro craned his neck, looking around.
«She’s signing us away,» Ciro whispered. «Just like Papa’s saddle.»
«That’s not true,» his brother whispered back.
Ciro inspected the foyer, a round room with two deep alcoves, one holding a shrine to Mary, the Blessed Mother, and the other, to Saint Francis of Assisi15. Mary definitely had more votive candles16 lit at her feet. Ciro figured it meant you could always count on a woman. He took a deep breath. «I’m hungry.»
«You’re always hungry.»
«I can’t help it.»
«Don’t think about it.»
«It’s all I think about.»
«You have a simple mind.»
«No, I don’t. Just because I’m strong, doesn’t mean I’m stupid.»
«I didn’t say you were stupid. You’re simple.»
The scent of fresh vanilla and sweet butter filled the convent. Ciro closed his eyes and inhaled. He really was hungry. «Is this like the story Mama told us about the soldiers who got lost in the desert and saw a waterfall where there was none?» Ciro stood to follow the scent. He peered around the wall. «Or is there a cake baking somewhere?»
«Sit down,» Eduardo ordered.
Ciro ignored him and walked down the long corridor.
«Get back here!» Eduardo whispered.
The walnut doors along the arcade were closed, and streams of faint light came through the overhead transoms. At the far end of the hallway, through a glass door, Ciro saw a cloister17 connecting the main convent to the workhouses. He ran down the arcade toward the light. When he made it to the door, he looked through the glass and saw a barren patch of earth, probably a garden, hemmed by a dense gnarl of gray fig trees dusted with snow.
Ciro turned toward the delicious scent and found the convent kitchen, tucked in the corner off the main hallway. The door to the kitchen was propped open with a brick. A shimmering collection of pots hung over a long wooden farm table. Ciro looked back to see if Eduardo had followed him. Alone and free, Ciro took a chance and ran to the kitchen doorway and peered inside. The kitchen was as warm as the hottest summer day. Ciro let the waves of heat roll over him.
A beautiful woman, much younger than his mother, was working at the table. She wore a long jumper of gray-striped wool with a white cotton apron tied over it. Her black hair was wrapped tightly into a chignon and tucked under a black kerchief. Her dark brown eyes squinted as she rolled a long skein of pasta on a smooth marble work slab. She hummed a tune as she took a small knife and whittled away tiny stars of dough, unaware that Ciro was watching her. Her long fingers moved surely and deftly with the knife. Soon, a batch of tiny pasta beads began to pile up on the board. Ciro decided that all women are beautiful, except maybe the old ones like Sister Domenica. «Corallini18?» Ciro asked.
The young woman looked up and smiled at the little boy in the big clothes. «Stelline19,» she corrected him, holding up a small piece of dough carved into the shape of a star. She scooped up a pile of the little stars and threw them into a big bowl.
«What are you making?»
«Baked custard.»
«It smells like cake in the hallway.»
«That’s the butter and the nutmeg. The custard is better than cake. It’s so delicious it pulls angels off their perches. At least that’s what I tell the other sisters. Did it make you hungry?»
«I was already hungry.»
The woman laughed. «Who are you?»
«Who are you?» He narrowed his eyes.
«I’m Sister Teresa.»
«I’m sorry, Sister. But, you… you look like a girl. You don’t look like a nun.»
«I don’t wear a nice habit when I’m cooking. What’s your name?»
Ciro sat on a stool across from the nun. «Ciro Augustus Lazzari,» he said proudly.
«That’s a big name. Are you a Roman emperor?»
«Nope.» Ciro remembered he was speaking with a nun. «Sister.»
«How old are you?»
«Ten. I’m big for my age. I pull the rope at the water wheel in town.»
«That’s impressive.»
«I’m the only boy my age who can. They call me an ox.»
Sister Teresa reached behind the table and pulled a heel of bread20 from a bin. She slathered it with soft butter and handed it to the boy. As Ciro ate, she swiftly carved more stars from the dough and added them to the large bowl filled with a batter of milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg. She stirred the ingredients evenly with a large enamel spoon. Ciro watched the creamy folds of custard, now speckled with stars, lap over one another as the mixture thickened. Sister poured the custard into ceramic cups on a metal tray without spilling a drop. «Are you visiting?»
«We’ve been sent here to work because we’re poor.»
«Everyone in Vilminore di Scalve is poor. Even the nuns.»
«We’re really poor. We don’t have a house anymore. We ate all the chickens, and Mama sold the cow. She sold a painting and all the books. Didn’t get much. And that money has almost run out.»
«It’s the same story in every village in the Alps.»
«We won’t stay long. My mother is going to the city, and she’ll come and get us this summer.» Ciro looked over at the deep wood-burning oven and figured that he would have to stoke and clean it until his mother returned. He wondered how many fireplaces there were in the convent. He imagined there were lots of them. He’d probably spend every hour of daylight chopping wood and building fires.
«What brought you to the convent?»
«Mama can’t stop crying.»
«Why?»
«She misses Papa.»
Sister lifted the tray of custard cups and placed them in the oven. She checked the surface of several other baked custard cups on a cooling rack. What a lovely thing, to work in a warm kitchen in the cold winter and make food. Ciro imagined that people who work in kitchens are never hungry.
«Where did your father go?»
«They say he died, but I don’t think so,» Ciro said.
«Why don’t you believe them?» Sister wiped her hands on a moppeen21 and leaned on the table so she might be eye to eye with the boy.
«Eduardo read the letter that was sent to Mama from America. They say Papa died in a mine, but they never found his body. That’s why I don’t think Papa is dead.»
«Sometimes—,» she began.
Ciro interrupted her. «I know all about it – sometimes a man dies, and there’s no body. Dynamite can go off in a mine and people inside blow up, or a body can burn in a fire or disappear down a hole, or drown in a slag river inside the mountain. Or you get hurt and you can’t walk and you get stuck underground and you die of starvation because nobody came to find you and animals eat you and nothing is left but bones. I know every which way there is to die – but my papa would not die like that. He was strong. He could beat up anyone, and he could lift more than any man in Vilminore di Scalve. He’s not dead.»
«Well, I’d like to meet him someday.»
«You will. He’ll come back. You’ll see.» Ciro hoped his father was alive, and his heart ached at the possibility that he might never see him again. He remembered how he could always find his father easily in a crowd because he was so tall, he towered over everyone in the village. Carlo Lazzari was so strong he was able to carry both sons simultaneously, one on each hip, like sacks of flour up and down the steep mountain trails. He felled trees with an ax, and cut lumber as easily as Sister cut the dough. He built a dam at the base of the Vertova22 waterfall. Other men helped, but Carlo Lazzari was the leader.
Sister Teresa broke a fresh egg into a cup and added a teaspoon of sugar. She poured fresh cream into the cup and whisked it until there was a creamy foam on the surface. «Here.» She gave it to Ciro. He sipped it, then drank it down until the cup was empty.
«How’s that stomach now?»
«Full.» Ciro smiled.
«Would you like to help me cook sometime?»
«Boys don’t cook.»
«That’s not true. All the great chefs in Paris are men. Women are not allowed in the Cordon Bleu23. That’s a famous cooking school in France,» Sister Teresa told him.
Eduardo burst into the kitchen. «Come on, Ciro. We have to go!»
Sister Teresa smiled at him. «You must be Eduardo.»
«Yes, I am.»
«She’s a nun,» Ciro told his brother.
Eduardo bowed his head. «I’m sorry, Sister.»
«Are you hungry too?»
Eduardo shook his head that he wasn’t.
«Did your mother tell you that you shouldn’t be any trouble?» Sister asked.
He nodded that she had.
Sister Teresa reached back into the metal bin and took a wedge of bread and buttered it. She gave it to Eduardo, who ate it hungrily.
«My brother won’t ask for anything,» Ciro explained. «Can he have an egg and cream with sugar too?» He turned to his brother. «You’ll like it.»
Sister smiled and took a fresh egg, sugar, and some more cream and whipped it with a whisk. She gave it to Eduardo, who slowly sipped the egg cream, savoring every drop until the cup was empty.
«Thank you, Sister,» Eduardo said.
«We thought the convent would be horrible.» Ciro placed his own and Eduardo’s cup in the sink.
«If you behave and say your prayers, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble.»
Sister Domenica stood in the doorway of the kitchen with Caterina. Eduardo gasped when he saw them and quickly bowed to the old nun. Ciro couldn’t understand why his brother was afraid of everyone and everything. Couldn’t he see that Sister Domenica was harmless? With her starched coutil bib and black skirts, she resembled the black-and-white-checked globe made from Carrara marble24 that Mama used as a paperweight. Ciro wasn’t afraid of any nun, and besides this one was just an old lady with a wooden cross hanging from her waist like a giant key.
«I have found two capable young men to help me in the kitchen,» Sister Teresa said.
«Eduardo is going to help me in the office,» Sister Domenica said to Sister Teresa. «And Ciro will work in the chapel. I need a strong boy who can do heavy lifting.»
«I need a strong boy who can make cheese.» Sister Teresa winked at Sister Domenica.
«I can do both,» Ciro said proudly.
Caterina put her hands on Ciro’s shoulders. «My boys will do whatever you need, Sister.»
Just a few miles up the mountain, above Vilminore di Scalve, the village of Schilpario25 clung to the mountainside like a gray icicle. Even the dead were buried on a slope, in sepulchers protected by a high granite retaining wall covered in vines.
There was no formal piazza or grand colonnade in Schilpario, no fountains or statuaries as in Vilminore di Scalve, just sturdy, plain alpine structures of wood and stucco that could endure the harsh winters. The stucco was painted in candy colors of lemon yellow, cherry red, and plum. The bright colors were set into the gray mountain like whimsical tiles.
Schilpario was a mining town where rich veins of iron ore and barite were carved out of the earth and carted down to Milan for sale. Every job in the village was in service to the towns below, including the building and maintenance of the chutes that harnessed the rushing water of Stream Vò that was piped down the cliffs.
The farms provided fresh meat for the butchers in the city. Every family had a smokehouse where sausage, salami, prosciutto26, and sleeves of ham were cured. The mountain people were sustained through the long winters by the contents of their root cellars27 filled with bins of plentiful chestnuts, which carpeted the mountain paths like glassy brown stones. They also survived on eggs from their chicken coops, and milk and cream from their cows. They churned their own butter and made their own cheese, and what they could not sell, they ate.
The mountain forests high above the village were loaded with porcini and other mushrooms of all kinds, as well as coveted truffles, gathered in late summer and sold at a premium28 to middlemen from France, who in turn sold them to the great chefs in the elegant cities of Europe. The family pig was used to locate the truffles growing in the ground. Even the smallest children were taught how to hunt for truffles from a very early age, combing the woods on their hands and knees, a linen sack tied loosely around their waists, searching for the fragrant bulbs nestled deep in the earth around the roots of old trees.
Schilpario was one of the last villages to the north, which lay in the shadow of the Pizzo Camino, the highest peak in the Alps, where the snow did not melt, even in summer. So high in the cliffs, the people looked down on the clouds, which moved through the valley below like rosettes of meringue.
When spring came, the ice-covered cliffs below the peak thawed, turning bright green as mugo pine29 and juniper trees sprouted new branches. The deep gorge of the valley filled with fields of yellow buttercups. The village women gathered herbs to make medicine: chamomile for tea to soothe nerves, wild dandelion for blood curing, fragrant peppermint for stomach ills, and golden nettle to bring down fevers.
The Passo Presolana was the lone ribbon of road connecting Schilpario to Vilminore di Scalve and down the mountain to the city of Bergamo. It had been built in the eleventh century, a rustic one-way path to be traveled on foot. Eventually the road was widened to accommodate a horse and carriage, but only in warm weather, as it was treacherous in winter.
Marco Ravanelli knew every cleft and curve of the pass, every natural stone overpass that provided shelter, each small village along the way, every farm, river, and lake, as he had accompanied his father, who ran a horse and carriage service, up and down the mountain since he was a boy.
Marco, the coachman of Schilpario, was slim and of medium height, with a thick black mustache that offset his handsome features. As he plunged two long sticks into the ice, he steadied himself on the path between the stone house he rented and the barn that he owned. He was careful not to fall, as he couldn’t afford a broken leg or any sort of injury. He was thirty-three years old and responsible for a wife and six children, the youngest, Stella, just born.
Enza, his eldest, followed behind him, plunging her own set of sticks into the ice to steady herself. Enza had just turned ten, but she could do anything a woman twice her age could do and perhaps better, especially sewing. Her small fingers moved deftly and with precision, creating small, nearly invisible stitches on straight seams. Her natural talent was a marvel to her mother, who couldn’t sew nearly as fast.
Enza’s chestnut brown hair had not been cut, and it grazed her waist in two shiny braids that lay flat and neat like reins. Her heart-shaped face resembled her mother’s, full cheeks, skin the color of fresh cream, and perfectly shaped lips with a defined Cupid’s bow30. Enza’s light brown eyes sparkled like amber buttons.
The eldest daughter in a family with many children never has a real childhood.
Enza had learned how to hitch a horse as soon as she grew tall enough to reach the carriage. She knew how to make a paste from chestnuts for pies, pasta dough from potatoes for gnocchi31, how to churn butter, wring a chicken’s neck, wash clothes and mend them. Whenever Enza found time to play, she used it to sew. Fabric was expensive, so she taught herself to dye cotton muslin32 to create colorful designs that she would then sew into garments for the family.
When summer came, she picked blackberries and raspberries and made dyes from their inky pulp. She pleated and pinched the coarse cotton, painting the dyes onto the fabric, and then let them dry in the sun, setting the colors. Plain cotton muslin became beautiful as Enza dyed it into shades of lavender, delicate pink, and slate blue. She decorated the colorful fabric with embellishments and embroidery.
There were no dolls to play with, but who needed one when there were two babies in cribs to care for, plus three more children in the middle, one crawling and two more walking, as well as plenty of tasks to occupy the dark winter days?
The stable was cold, so Marco and Enza threw themselves into their chores. As Papa brushed Cipi, their beloved horse, Enza polished the bench on the governess cart. The cart was smaller than a regular carriage, seated only two, and was painted a sophisticated black, to emphasize the graceful curves of its design. Enza dusted the seat with a clean moppeen, careful to polish the trim.
Working people in service to the wealthy must pay particular attention to details. Paint must be lacquered, gold trim must dazzle, every notch, joint, and button of brass must shine. The stature and social position of the customer is reflected in the gloss that results from the servant’s elbow grease33. It’s what the wealthy pay for; it’s what they require. Marco taught Enza that everything must gleam, including the horse.
Enza placed the lap robe34 she had made of sturdy gold cotton on one side and brown suede on the other, on the passenger side of the cart. It would keep the paying customer warm.
«I don’t think you should go, Papa.»
«It’s the only job I’ve been offered all winter.»
«What if the hitch snaps?»
«It won’t.»
«What if Cipi falls down?»
«He’ll get back up.»
Marco checked the suspension on the cart. He took an oilcan and greased the springs.
«Here. Let me.» Enza took the oilcan from her father and slipped under the cart to oil the gears. She was careful to give a few extra squirts, so the cart could take sudden turns and jolts on the icy mountain road without toppling.
Marco helped her out from under the cart. «The snow is always the worst on the mountain. By the time I get to Vilminore di Scalve, it will be a dusting. There’s probably no snow at all down in Bergamo.»
«What about the rain?»
Marco smiled. «You worry enough for your mother and me.»
«Somebody has to.»
«Enza.»
«Sorry, Papa. We have enough flour until spring. A little sugar. Lots of chestnuts. You don’t have to take this job.»
«What about the rent?»
«Signor Arduini can wait. All he’ll do with the money is buy more dresses for his daughter. Maria has enough.»
«Now you’re going to tell the richest man in town how to spend his money?»
«I wish he’d ask me. I’d tell him plenty.»
Marco tried not to laugh. «I’m getting three lire to take the passenger down the mountain.»
«Three lire!»
«I know. Only a fool would turn down three lire.»
«Let me go with you. If you have any problems, I’ll be there to help you.»
«Who will help your mother with the children?»
«Battista.»
«He’s nine years old, and a bigger baby than Stella.»
«He just likes to have fun, Papa.»
«That’s not a quality that gets you far in life.»
«Eliana is helpful.»
«She’s not strong,» Marco reminded her.
«But she’s smart; that should account for something.»
«It does, but that doesn’t help your mother with the chores. Vittorio and Alma are small, and Stella is nursing. Your mama needs you here.»
«All right. I’ll stay. How long do you think you’ll be gone?»
«One day down the mountain. I’ll stay the night, and one day up the mountain.»
«Two whole days —»
«For three lire,» Marco reminded her.
Marco was ambitious. He had drawn up plans to build a deluxe carriage with three benches to transport the summer tourists who craved the quiet of the mountain summers, with their cool nights and sunny days. The pristine alpine lakes were popular for swimming. Tourists could take the healing waters in Boario if they wished, sun on the beach of the Brembo River or take the mud baths of Trescore. The new carriage would take the tourists anywhere they wanted to go! Marco pictured a modern carriage with a canopy of bold black-and-white stripes with brass bindings, while silk-ball fringe along the edge would provide a touch of glamour. Giacomina and Enza would make corduroy cushions for the benches, turquoise blue.
Marco hoped to earn enough money to finally make the Arduinis an offer on the old stone house. The rent was high, but it was close to Cipi’s barn, where the carriage and equipment were stored. The Ravanellis couldn’t live in the barn. They needed the house.
Signor Arduini was getting older; soon his son would take over as padrone. The wooden box filled with folded parchments of surveyed land lots35 in Schilpario would be handed down and managed by the next generation of Arduinis. There had been signs that Marco should seriously consider buying the house. Sometimes after Marco delivered the rent, Signor Arduini would implore him to buy their house before his death, before his son took over and a potential sale might be off the table for good36. It was Signore’s desire to sell that had motivated Marco to expand his business; the present carriage would not provide the profit needed to buy the house.
Buying the house on Via Scalina was Marco’s dream for his family.
Marco arrived in Vilminore on time. Across the piazza, he saw his customer waiting for him, a nun by her side. Resting on the ground next to her was a small brown duffel. Caterina’s blue coat stood out against the pink and gray of winter. Marco was relieved that his customer had been waiting for him, as arranged. Lately, most of his fares had not honored their appointments, a sign of how dire the poverty in these mountains had become, as travelers attempted to pass on foot.
Marco guided Cipi across the piazza to the entrance of San Nicola, then jumped off his perch, greeted the nun, and helped Caterina Lazzari into the governess cart. He placed her suitcases inside the drop box by her feet and flipped the cover shut, draped the lap robe over her blue coat, and secured the canopy.
Sister Domenica handed him an envelope, which he tucked into his pocket. He thanked her before climbing into the cart on the driver’s side. The nun went back inside the convent.
As Marco guided the horse across the piazza, he heard a boy calling out for his mother. Caterina Lazzari asked Marco to stop as Ciro, out of breath, ran up to the side of the carriage. She looked down at her son. «Go back inside, Ciro. It’s cold.»
«Mama, don’t forget to write to me.»
«Every week. I promise. And you must write to me.»
«I will, Mama.»
«Be a good boy and listen to the sisters. It won’t be long until summer.»
Marco snapped the reins and guided Cipi down the main street to the mountain road. Ciro watched his mother go. He wanted to run after the cart, grab the handle, and hoist himself up on to the seat, but his mother did not look back at him, nor did she lean over the side, holding out her hand, beckoning him to join her, as she had done on every carriage ride, train trip, or swing as long as he could remember.
All Ciro could see was his mother’s choice to ride away from him, to leave him there like a broken chair on the side of the road waiting for the junkman. As she rode off, he saw the frame of her collar and the back of her neck, straight as the stem of a rose. Soon she became a blue blur in the distance as the cart turned toward the entrance road to the Passo Presolana.
Ciro’s chest heaved when she disappeared from view. He longed to open his mouth and cry out for his mother, but what good would that do? Ciro hadn’t learned the difference between sadness and anger. He just knew that he would have liked to smash everything in sight – the statuary, the vendor’s bin, and the windows in every shop on the colonnade.
Ciro was angry about every bad decision his mother had made since his father left, including selling everything Papa owned, including his gun and his belt buckle. He was angry that Eduardo was tolerant in the face of every setback and went along with everything their mother said. And now Ciro was furious that he had to live in a convent, which for him, was like asking un pesce di abitare in un albero (a fish to live in a tree). Nothing his mother had done made sense. Her explanations were not satisfactory. All he knew and had heard was that he must be good, and who decides what is good?
«Come inside, Ciro.» Eduardo held the door open.
«Leave me alone.»
«Now, Ciro.» Eduardo stepped outside, closing the door behind him. «I mean it.»
Eduardo’s tone ignited Ciro’s temper like a match to dry kindling. He was not Ciro’s mother or father. Ciro turned to his brother and tackled him. Eduardo’s head cracked against the bricks as Ciro pummeled him with his fists. Ciro heard the solid landing of the blows, but didn’t hold back, only hit his brother harder in his rage. Eduardo curled up into a ball to protect his face and rolled from his back onto his knees, crying out, «It won’t make her come back.»
Ciro’s strength gave out, and he fell onto the ground next to his brother. Eduardo held his knees tight as Ciro knelt and placed his face in his hands. He didn’t want Eduardo to see him cry. Ciro also knew if he began to weep, he wouldn’t stop.
Eduardo stood and pulled down the short cuffs on his shirt. He smoothed his pants and lifted them up by the waist. He patted his hair back into place. «They’ll throw us out if we fight.»
«Let them! I’m going to run away. I’m not going to stay here.» Ciro’s eyes darted around37 as he planned his escape. There were at least six ways out of the piazza. Once he was free of this town, he could go way up the mountain to Monte Isola38, or a few miles down the road to Lovere39. Someone might take him in.
Eduardo hung his head and began to cry. «Don’t leave me here alone.»
Ciro looked at his brother, the only family he had, and felt worse for him than he did for himself. «Stop crying,» he said.
The full morning sun was up, the shopkeepers were opening their doors, lifting their shades40, and rolling their carts on to the colonnade. Vendors dressed in shades of flat gray, the color of the low stone wall that encased the village, pushed hand carts painted bright red, yellow, and white filled with bins of polished walnuts, silver pails filled with braids of fresh white cheese in clean, icy water, spools of colorful silk thread on wooden dowels, fresh loaves of bread in baskets, packets of herbs in linen sacks for poultice – all manner of needs for sale.
The presence of the others helped Eduardo gain control of his emotions. He dried his tears with his sleeve. He looked out to where the main road curved to connect to the pass, but it held no meaning for him; it wouldn’t lead him or his brother out of their situation. The morning mist had lifted, and the air was so cold that Eduardo could barely breathe. «Where would we go?»
«We could follow Mama. We could change her mind.»
«Mama can’t take care of us right now.»
«But she’s our mother,» Ciro argued.
«A mother who can’t take care of her children is useless.» Eduardo held the door open for Ciro. «Come on.»
Ciro entered the convent with his heart heavy with need for his mother’s embrace and a deep shame for having hit his brother. After all, their tenure at San Nicola wasn’t Eduardo’s choice, and the events that had led them there were not his fault either.
Maybe these nuns could be of some use, Ciro thought. Maybe they could pray their mother back before the summer – Ciro would ask them to offer up their rosaries41 for her. But something told him that all the glass beads on the mountain wouldn’t bring Caterina home. No matter how Eduardo might reassure him, Ciro was certain he would never see his mother again.
Ciro cried himself to sleep42 that night, and in the morning found Eduardo sleeping on the floor next to him, as the cots provided by the nuns were too small to hold both of them. Even when he grew to be a young man, Ciro would never forget this small act of kindness, which Eduardo would repeat night after night for months. Eduardo’s love was the only security Ciro would ever know. Sister Teresa would feed them, Sister Domenica would assign them chores, and Sister Ercolina would teach them Latin, but it was Eduardo who would look out for Ciro’s heart and try to make up for43 the loss of their mother.
Chapter 2. A red book
Un Libro Rosso
Halfway down the mountain, in the early afternoon, Marco stopped to rest Cipi on the outskirts of Clusone44. He helped Caterina down from the cart. She thanked him – the first time she had spoken directly to him since the trip began that morning.
Marco opened a tin and offered her a fresh, crusty roll, thin slivers of salami, and a bottle of sweet soda. Caterina took a handkerchief tucked inside her sleeve and placed the bread and salami on it while Marco opened the bottle of soda. She took a small bite of the biscuit and chewed slowly.
Marco had been a coachman since he was a boy. His father had taught him how to take care of horses, shoe and feed them, build and maintain equipment, and serve customers, and he still followed his father’s advice: The coachman must know his place and speak only when spoken to. Half the negotiated fare is collected at the beginning of the trip, the balance at the end. A coachman should engage a strong horse and provide a clean carriage with the feed stored out of sight. There should be several rest points on a long journey, announced to the customer beforehand. Food and drink should be provided, as well as pipe tobacco, snuff, cigarettes, and matches. The coachman should be familiar with the route, and know the location of way stations in case of illness or accident. Once the destination is reached, the coachman is responsible for the secure delivery of the customer’s belongings.
This particular afternoon, Marco forgot the rule about conversing with passengers. He was thinking of his children, and knowing that Signora Lazzari was also a mother, he sensed that she might be simpatico. The little boy she’d left behind tore at Marco’s heart. Caterina was stoic until the carriage reached the cleft of the pass. It was only then that she wept.
«I told my daughter that it wouldn’t snow beyond Valle di Scalve.» Marco looked out over the expanse of the valley, frozen over in white ice, the hills curved like sculpted marble. The road ahead seemed clear; the only danger Marco foresaw was the occasional patch of black ice.
«You were right.» Caterina took the biscuit and broke it in half, giving the other half to Marco.
«Thank you,» he said.
She took a bite.
«Do you have a daughter?» Marco asked.
«No. Two boys. You saw Ciro, and there’s Eduardo. He’s a year older.»
«Was he at the convent too?»
She nodded that he was. Marco looked at Caterina, roughly his own age, and decided that she was taking the years better than he. The early mornings tending the animals, the long days working in the iron ore mine for little return, and the constant anxiety about how to provide for his family had made Marco feel and look older than his age. There had been a time when a beautiful woman like Caterina could turn his head45. In the right circumstances, she still could.
«I always wanted a daughter,» she admitted.
«My eldest is a good girl. She helps her mother and me, and she doesn’t complain. Enza is ten years old, and already so wise. I have two sons and three more girls.»
«You must have a farm.»
«No, no, just the cart and the horse.»
Caterina couldn’t imagine why Marco would have six children unless he needed to put them to work on a farm. A couple of strong boys was all he would need to keep a carting business with a livery stable going. «You must have a good wife.»
«A very good wife. And your husband?» Marco realized that he was asking very personal questions, inappropriate for a lady like Caterina. «I only ask because you left your boys at the convent,» he explained.
«I am a widow,» Caterina offered, but she did not elaborate.
Caterina’s station in life – once as the daughter of a prominent family, then as a young wife and mother, and now as a widow – required her to hold herself to standards of decorum. A lady didn’t confide in a coachman, even when she may very well have been even poorer than he.
«The sisters of San Nicola are very kind,» Marco said.
«Yes, they are.» Caterina was sure he was referring to the envelope that Sister Domenica had given to him, which paid for this trip. For Caterina, the nuns had been more than generous. They had taken the boys on short notice46 and made her arrangements as well.
«Your boys should do very well there.»
«I hope they will.»
«Many years ago, when I was a boy, the nuns of San Nicola gave me a remembrance card. I still carry it with me.» Marco reached into his pocket and handed her a small illustrated card trimmed in gold.
«A talisman.» Caterina’s father used to print cards like this one, depicting the Holy Family protected by angels. They were distributed on feast days or at funerals, often with the name of the dead embossed upon the back. Her eyes filled with tears at the memory of the boxes of them in her father’s print shop. «I understand why this gives you comfort. Are you a believer?»
«Yes, I am,» Marco said.
«Not me. Not anymore.» Caterina handed the card back to Marco. If only the image on the card were true. She had long given up on the angels and saints. Their power to soothe her had died with her husband. She climbed back up into the carriage without Marco’s help, suddenly impatient with the length of the journey. «How much longer is the trip?»
«We’ll be in Bergamo by nightfall.»
They continued down the Passo Presolana, over Pointe Nossa, through Colzate, past Vertova, for a final rest stop in Nembro, where Signora Lazzari changed out of her traveling clothes and into a proper dress before arriving in Bergamo. Marco surmised the appointment Signora was to keep must be important. She fixed her hair, her hat, and her gown, which once had been stylish but now was worn along the hem and cuffs. The coachman and his customer did not exchange another word.
Enza closed the wooden shutters on the window at the front of the house. As she threw the latch, cold wind whistled through the slats. With the hearth crackling behind her, stoked with wood and a few pieces of coal, and the laundry kettle about to boil, the kitchen was filled with a warm and welcome mist.
This was Enza’s favorite time of day, when night had fallen in Schilpario and the children were in bed. Baby Stella slept in a woven basket draped with a soft white blanket. Her face looked like a pink peach by the firelight.
Giacomina, Enza’s mother, a capable woman with a sweet face and soft hands, stirred a pot of milk on the fire. She wore her long brown hair with a center part and two braids, wrapped neatly in a bun at the base of her neck.
Giacomina stooped over the flame until the milk foamed and placed the pan on a stone trivet. She lifted two ceramic cups from the shelf, placing them on the table, dropped a pat of butter in each cup, and poured the milk on top. Reaching up to pull a small bottle of homemade brandy from the shelf, she put a teaspoon in her cup, a couple of drops in Enza’s. She stirred the mixture and ladled the foam left in the pan on top.
«This will warm you up.» Giacomina gave Enza her cup. They sat down at the end of their dining table, made from wide planks of alder, with matching benches on either side. How Enza wished she could buy her mother a dining room suite47 made from polished mahogany with fabric seats, and a new set of china48 to dress the table, just like Signora Arduini had at her house.
«Papa should be back by now.»
«You know the trip back up the mountain is always longer.» Mama sipped her milk. «I’ll wait up for him. You can go to bed.»
«I have wash to do.» Enza shrugged.
Giacomina smiled. The laundry could wait, but Enza wanted an excuse to be awake when her father returned. It was always the same. Enza couldn’t sleep until all the members of the family were safe inside, asleep in their beds.
«Mama, tell me a story.» Enza reached across the table and took Giacomina’s hand. She spun her mother’s gold wedding band49 around her finger, feeling the grooves of the tiny carved rosebuds etched into the gold. Enza believed it was the most beautiful piece of jewelry in the world.
«I’m tired, Enza.»
«Please. The story of your wedding day.»
Enza had heard the love story so many times that her own mother and father had become as magical to her as figures in her favorite book, drawn in exquisite detail and eternally young in the telling. Enza studied the photograph of her parents on their wedding day as if it were a map. In a sense it was, as they were creating a destination, a life together. The bride and groom sat stiffly in two chairs. Mama held a bouquet of mountain asters50 tightly as Papa rested his hand on her shoulder.
«Your papa came to see me one Sunday when Iwas sixteen and he was seventeen,» Giacomina began the familiar story. «He drove the governess cart – at that time, it belonged to his father. It was painted white in those days, and that morning, he had filled it with fresh flowers. There was barely room for your papa on the bench.»
«Cipi, just three years old, had pink ribbons braided through his mane. Papa arrived at our house, threw off the reins, leaped off the bench, came into the house, and asked my papa if he could marry me. I was the last daughter in my family to marry. My papa had married off five daughters, and by the time it was my turn, he barely looked up from his pipe51. He just said yes, and we went to the priest, that was that.»
«And Papa said —»
«Your father told me that he wanted seven sons and seven daughters.»
«And you said—»
«Seven children will be enough.»
«And now we have six.»
«God owes us one more,» Giacomina teased.
«I think we have enough children around here, Mama. We barely have enough food as it is, and I don’t see God showing up at the door with a sack of flour.»
Mama smiled. She had grown to appreciate Enza’s wry sense of humor. Her eldest daughter had a mature view of the world, and she was worried that Enza was overly concerned with adult problems.
Enza went to the fire to check the iron kettle suspended on the spit and filled with bubbling hot water, melted down from snow. A second pot, resting on the hearth, filled with clean hot water, was used to rinse the clothes. Enza lifted the pot off the fire and placed it on the floor. She picked up a wooden basket full of nightshirts and placed them into the kettle to soak, added lye, and stirred the laundry with a metal rod, careful not to splash the lye onto her skin. As she stirred, the nightshirts turned bright white.
Enza poured off the excess water into an empty pot and hauled it to the far end of the kitchen, where her father had made a chute in the floor, feeding into a pipe that released water down the mountainside. She wrung the nightshirts by hand and gave them to her mother, who hung them on a rope by the fire, mother and daughter making quick work of a big chore. The lye, sweetened with a few drops of lavender oil, filled the room with the fresh scent of summer.
Giacomina and Enza heard footsteps on the landing. They ran to the door, opening it wide. Marco was on the porch, brushing the snow off his boots.
«Papa! You made it!»
Marco came into the house and embraced Giacomina. «Signor Arduini came for the rent this morning,» she whispered.
«What did you tell him?» Papa lifted Enza off the ground and kissed her.
«I told him to wait and speak to my husband.»
«Did he smile?» Marco asked his wife.
«No.»
«Well, he just did. I stopped at his house and paid him the rent. On time, with thirty-five minutes to spare.»
Enza and Giacomina embraced Marco. «Did you girls think that I would let you down?»
«I wasn’t sure,» Enza said truthfully. «That’s a big mountain and there’s a lot of snow, and we have an old horse. And sometimes, even when you do a good job, passengers only pay the first half of the fare, and you get stuck for the rest.»
Marco laughed. «Not this time.» Papa placed two crisp lire and a small gold coin on the dining table. Enza touched each bill and spun the gold coin, thrilled at the treasure.
Giacomina lifted a warming pan from the hearth filled with her husband’s dinner. She served her husband a casserole52 of buttery polenta53 and sweet sausage, and poured him a glass of brandy.
«Where did you take the passenger, Papa?»
«To Domenico Picarazzi, the doctor.»
«I wonder why she needs a doctor.» Giacomina placed a heel of bread next to his plate. «Did she seem ill?»
«No.» Marco sipped his brandy. «But she’s suffering. I think she must have just become a widow. She had just placed her sons in the convent in Vilminore.»
«Poor things,» Giacomina said.
«Don’t think about taking them in, Mina.»
Enza noticed that her father used her mother’s nickname whenever he didn’t want to do something.
«Two boys. Around Enza’s age: ten and eleven.»
Giacomina’s heart broke at the thought of the lonely boys.
«Mama, we can’t take them,» Enza said.
«Why not?»
«Because it’s two more children, and God only plans to send you one more.»
Marco laughed as Enza stacked the laundry pots and kettles next to the hearth. She kissed her mother and father goodnight and climbed the ladder up to the loft to sleep.
Enza tiptoed in the dark past the crib where Stella slept and over to her brothers and other sister, who slept on one large straw mattress, their bodies crisscrossed like a basket weave. She found her place on the far side of the bed and lay down to sleep. The sound of the gentle breathing of her brothers and sisters soothed her.
Enza prayed without making the sign of the cross, saying her rosary, or reciting the familiar litanies from vespers in Latin. Instead she called on the angels, thanking them for bringing her father home safely. She imagined her angels looked a lot like the gold-leafed putti54 holding sheaves of wheat over the tabernacle55 at the church of Barzesto, with faces that resembled that of her baby sister Stella.
Enza prayed to stay near her mother and father. She wanted to live with them always, and never marry or become a mother herself. She couldn’t imagine ever being that brave, courageous enough to stand away from all she knew to choose something different. She wanted to live in the same village she had been born in, just like her mother. She wanted to hold every baby on the day he was born and bury every old person on the day he died. She wanted to wake up every day to live and work in the shadows of Pizzo Camino, Corno Stella, and Pizzo dei Tre Signorei56, the holy trinity of mountain peaks that she had been in awe of her whole life.
Enza prayed that she could help her mother take care of the children, and maybe one more when God sent him. She hoped the new baby would be a boy, so Battista and Vittorio would feel less outnumbered. She prayed for patience, because babies are a lot of work.
Enza prayed for her father to make enough lire to buy the house, so they wouldn’t have to live in fear of the padrone any longer. When the first of the month arrived, so would Signor Arduini. Enza dreaded it, as there were times when Marco could not pay the rent. So Enza used to imagine her father’s empty pockets filled with gold coins. Her imagination helped her avoid despair; the things that frightened her could be willed away57. Enza imagined a satisfactory outcome to every problem, and thus far, the world had obeyed her will. Her family was warm, safe, and fed tonight, the rent was paid, and there was money in the tin box that had been empty for too long.
Throughout the day, she pictured her father as he came up the mountain, imagining each curve of the road, the rest stops where Cipi ate oats and Papa enjoyed a smoke. She imagined each clop of the hooves that led her father safely back up the pass, one after the other, like the consistent ticking of a clock. In her mind’s eye, she willed Marco home to Schilpario, safely, surely, and without incident, and with the promised three lire in his pocket that would get his family through the long winter.
Enza knew how lucky she was, and how sad it was that everyone on the mountain did not share that luck. Her papa had done a good job, and he had been paid. For now, all was well. When she dreamed that night, she would imagine the young widow who suffered the loss of her husband and now her sons. Poverella58, she thought.
Chapter 3. A silver mirror
Uno Specchio d’Argento
Six winters had passed since Caterina Lazzari left her sons at the convent.
The terrible winter of 1909–10 finally came to an end, like a penance fulfilled. Spring arrived, bringing a daisy sun and warm breezes, thawing every cliff, trail, and ridge, releasing rushing streams of clear, cold water down the mountainside like flowing blue hair ribbons on a girl.
It seemed that all the residents of Vilminore had come outside and taken a moment to lift their faces to the apricot sky, absorb the warmth of it. There was much to do, now that spring had arrived. It was time to open the windows, roll up the rugs, wash the linens, and prepare the gardens.
The nuns of San Nicola never rested.
When Caterina did not return for them the summer after she left them at San Nicola, her sons had learned not to count on her promises. They let the disappointment wash over them like the waterfall showers they took in the lake above Vilminore. When they finally received a letter from their mother, cloistered in a convent without a return address, they stopped begging Sister Ercolina to let them go to her, since that was clearly impossible. Instead, they vowed to find her as soon as their time at San Nicola was done. No matter how long it might take, Eduardo was determined to bring his mother back to Vilminore. When the sisters told them Caterina was «getting better,» they believed she would. They imagined their mother in the care of the nuns in some faraway place, because Sister Ercolina assured them this was true.
Besides the upkeep and care of the convent and church of San Nicola, the sisters ran the local school, Parrocchia di Santa Maria Assunta e di San Pietro Apostolo. They were responsible for the housekeeping of the rectory and providing meals for the new village priest, Don Raphael Gregorio. They also did his laundry, maintained his vestments, and took care of the altar linens. The nuns were no different from any of the working people on the mountain, except that their padrone wore a Roman collar59.
The Lazzari brothers, now teenagers, were as much a part of convent life as the nuns themselves. They were aware of all they missed, but instead of grieving for their father and pining for their mother, they learned to use their emotions to fuel their ambition. They learned how to fend off sadness and quell despair by staying busy like the sisters of San Nicola. This life lesson, learned by the sisters’ example, would carry them through.
The Lazzari brothers made themselves indispensable to the nuns, just as Caterina had hoped. Ciro had taken over most of the chores assigned to Ignazio Farino, the old convent handyman, who, at nearly sixty, was looking for a pipe, a shade tree, and an endless summer. Ciro rose early and worked until night, tending the fireplaces, milking the cow, churning the butter, twisting fresh braids of scamorza60 cheese, chopping wood, shoveling coal, washing windows, scrubbing floors, while Eduardo, the scholar with a gentle nature, was chosen to work as a secretary in the convent office. His artful penmanship was put to use answering correspondence and placing marks on report cards. Eduardo also hand-printed the programs for holiday masses and high holy days in elegant calligraphy. Eduardo, certainly the more devout of the two brothers, also rose at dawn to serve the daily mass in the chapel and ring the chimes in early evening to summon the sisters to vespers.
Ciro was a strapping fifteen-year-old, having grown to nearly six feet tall. The convent diet of eggs, pasta, and wild game had made him robust and healthy. With his sandy brown hair and blue-green eyes, he made a vivid contrast to the dark, regal Italian natives of these mountains. His thick eyebrows, straight nose, and full lips were characteristic of the Swiss, who resided just over the border to the north. Ciro’s temperament, however, remained pure Latin. The sisters had tamed his quick temper by forcing him to sit quietly and say the rosary. He learned persistence and discipline by their example, and humility from his desire to please the women that took him in. There wasn’t anything Ciro wouldn’t do for the sisters of San Nicola.
Without social connections, opportunities, or a family business to inherit, Ciro and Eduardo had to create their own luck. Eduardo studied Latin, Greek, and the classics with Sister Ercolina as Ciro maintained the buildings and gardens. The Lazzari boys were convent-trained in every respect, their excellent manners learned at the table with the nuns. They had grown up without the benefit of close family, which had robbed them of much but also bestowed a certain self-sufficiency and maturity.
Ciro balanced a long wooden dowel draped with freshly pressed altar linens on his shoulder as he crossed the busy piazza. Children played close by as their mothers swept the stoops, hung out the wash, beat the rugs, and prepared the urns and flower boxes for spring plantings. The scent of fresh earth troweled into window boxes filled the air. The release after months of isolation was palpable; it was as if the mountain villages exhaled an enormous breath, finally free of the bitter cold and the layers of wool clothing that came with it.
A group of boys whistled as Ciro passed.
«Careful with Sister Domenica’s pantaloons,» a boy teased.
Ciro turned to them and made as if to butt them with the linens. «Nuns don’t wear pantaloons, but your sister does.»
The boys laughed. Ciro kept moving, and hollered back, «Say hello to Magdalena for me.»
Ciro carried himself like a general in full regalia, when in fact he wore secondhand clothes from the donation bin. He found a pair of melton61 pants and a chambray62 work shirt that fit, but shoes were always a problem. Ciro Lazzari had huge feet, so he was always searching the donation bin for bigger sizes. A brass ring on his belt loop was festooned with keys to every door in the convent and church, which jingled as he walked.
Don Gregorio insisted that altar linens be delivered through the side entrance so as not to interfere with worshippers who came in and out of the church during the day and might be compelled to put an extra coin into the poor box.
Ciro entered the sacristy, a small room off the altar. The scent of incense and beeswax filled the space like sachet in a drawer. A beam of pink light from a small rose window cut across a plain oak table in the center of the room. Along the wall, there was a standing closet for vestments.
A full-length mirror in a silver frame was hung behind the door. Ciro remembered the day the mirror showed up. He thought it odd that the priest needed a mirror; after all, there had been none in this sacristy63 since the fourteenth century. Don Gregorio had installed the mirror himself, Ciro found out; his vanity did not extend to asking Ciro to hang it.
A man who needs a mirror is looking for something.
Ciro placed the linens on the table, then went to the door and looked out into the church. The pews were empty except for Signora Patricia D’Andrea, the oldest and most devout parishioner in Vilminore. Her white lace mantilla64 was draped over her head, bowed in prayer, which gave her the look of a sad lily.
Ciro walked out into the church to replace the used altar linens. Signora D’Andrea caught his eye and glared at him. He sighed and went to the front of the altar, bowed his head, paused, genuflected, and made an obligatory sign of the cross. He looked out at Signora, who nodded her approval, and bowed his head reverently to her.
A smile curved across her lips.
Ciro carefully folded the used linens into a tight bundle and took them into the sacristy. He untied the satin ribbons, lifted the fresh linens off the dowel, and went back into the church, carrying the embroidered white altar cloth like a bridesmaid in charge of lifting the bride’s train on her wedding day.
Ciro centered the freshly starched linens on the altar. He placed the gold candlesticks on opposite corners of the altar, anchoring the linens. He reached into his pocket for a small knife, with which he trimmed the wax drippings from the candle until the taper was smooth. This gesture was in honor of his mother, who reminded him to do whatever needed to be done without anyone having to ask.
Before he went, he looked out at Signora and winked at her. She blushed. Ciro, the convent orphan, had grown up to be an effective flirt. For his part, it was simply instinct. Ciro greeted every woman he passed, tipped his secondhand hat, eagerly assisted them with their parcels, and inquired about their families. He talked to girls his own age with a natural ease that other boys admired.
Ciro charmed the women of the village, from the schoolgirls with their waxy curls to the widowed grandmothers clutching their prayer missals. He was comfortable in the company of women. Sometimes he thought he understood women better than he did his own sex. Surely he knew more about girls than Eduardo, who was so innocent. Ciro wondered what would become of his brother if he ever had to leave his convent home. Ciro imagined that he was strong enough to face the worst, but Eduardo was not. An intellectual like Eduardo needed the convent library, desk, and lamp and the connections that came through church correspondence. Ciro, on the other hand, would be able to survive in the outside world; Iggy and the sisters had taught him a trade. He could farm, make repairs, and build anything from wood with his hands. Life beyond the convent would be difficult, but Ciro had the skills to build a life.
Don Raphael Gregorio pushed the sacristy door open. He placed the tins from the poor box on the table. Don Gregorio was thirty years old, a newly minted65 priest. He wore a long black cassock, affixed with a hundred small ebony buttons from collar to hem. Ciro wondered if the priest appreciated how many times Sister Ercolina went over the button loops with the pressing iron to have them lie flat.
«Do you have the plantings ready for the garden?» Don Gregorio wanted to know. The priest’s bright white Roman collar offset his thick black hair. His aristocratic face, strong chin, small, straight nose, and heavy-lidded brown eyes gave him the sleepy look of a Romeo instead of the earnest gaze of a wise man of God.
«Yes, Father.» Ciro bowed his head in deference to the priest, as the nuns had taught him.
«I want the walkway planted with daffodils.»
«I got your note, Padre66.» Ciro smiled. «I will take care of everything.» Ciro lifted the dowel off the table. «May I go, Don Gregorio?»
«You may,» the priest answered.
Ciro pushed the door open.
«I’d like to see you at mass sometime,» Don Gregorio said.
«Padre, you know how it is. If I don’t milk the cow, there’s no cream. And if I don’t gather the eggs, the sisters can’t make the bread. And if they can’t make the bread, we don’t eat.»
Don Gregorio smiled. «You could do your chores and still find time to attend mass.»
«I guess that’s true, Father.»
«So I’ll see you at mass?»
«I spend a lot of time in church sweeping up, washing windows. I figure if God is looking for me, He knows where to find me.»
«My job is to teach you to seek Him, not the other way around.»
«I understand. You have your job, and I have mine.»
Ciro bowed his head respectfully. He hoisted the empty wooden dowel to his shoulder like a rifle, took the bundle of linens to be washed and pressed, and went. Don Gregorio heard Ciro whistle as he went down the path that would soon be planted with yellow flowers, just as he had ordered.
Ciro pushed open the door to the room he and Eduardo shared in the garden workhouse. At first the boys had lived in the main convent, in a cell on the main floor. The room was small and noisy; the constant shuffle of the nuns in transit from the convent to the chapel kept the boys awake, while the gusts of winter from the entrance door opening and closing made the room drafty. They were happy when the nuns decided to give them a permanent space away from the main convent.
The sisters had moved the boys out to the garden workhouse in a large room with good light, knowing that growing boys needed privacy and a quiet place to study. Sister Teresa and Sister Anna Isabelle had done their best to make the room cozy. They cleared the cluttered storage room of flowerpots, cutting bins, and old-fashioned garden tools that hung on the walls like sculptures. The nuns installed two neat cots with a wool blanket for each boy and pillows as flat as the communion wafers67. There was a desk and an oil lamp, a ceramic pitcher and bowl on a stand near the desk. As it goes with the ranks of the working religious, their basic needs were met, and nothing more.
Eduardo was studying when Ciro came in and fell onto his cot.
«I prepped every fireplace.»
«Thanks.» Eduardo didn’t look up from his book.
«I caught a glimpse of Sister Anna Isabelle in her robe.» Ciro rolled over on his back and unsnapped the key ring from his belt loop.
«I hope you looked away.»
«Had to. I can’t be unfaithful.»
«To God?»
«Hell, no. I’m in love with Sister Teresa,» Ciro teased.
«You’re in love with her chestnut ravioli68.»
«That too. Any woman who can make eating chestnuts bearable through a long winter is the woman for me.»
«It’s the herbs. A lot of sage and cinnamon69.»
«How do you know?»
«I watch when she cooks.»
«If you’d ever get your head out a book, you might be able to get a girl.»
«Only two things interest you. Girls and your next meal.» Eduardo smiled.
«What’s wrong with that?»
«You have a good mind, Ciro.»
«I use it!»
«You could use it more.»
«I’d rather get by on my looks70, like Don Gregorio.»
«He’s more than his appearance. He’s an educated man. A consecrated man. You need to respect him.»
«And you shouldn’t be afraid of him.»
«I’m not afraid of him. I honor him.»
«Ugh. The Holy Roman Church is of no interest to me.» Ciro kicked off his shoes. «Bells, candles, men in dresses. Did you see Concetta Martocci on the colonnade?»
«Yes.»
«What a beauty. That blond hair. That face.» Ciro looked off, remembering her. «And that figure.» Ciro whistled.
«She’s been in the same class at Santa Maria Assunta for three years. She’s not very bright.»
«Maybe she doesn’t want to sit around and read all the time. Maybe she wants to see the world. Maybe she wants me to take her for a ride.»
«Take her on your bicycle.»
«You really don’t know anything about girls. You have to offer them the best and nothing less.»
«Who’s teaching you the ways of women? Iggy?»
«Sister Teresa. She told me that women deserve respect.»
«She’s correct.»
«I don’t know about all of that.» It seemed to Ciro that respect wasn’t something to spread around like hay on the icy walkways in winter. Maybe it should be earned.
«If you showed a little spiritual initiative, if you bothered to go to mass once in a while, maybe Don Gregorio would loan you the cart,» Eduardo said.
«You’re on good terms with him. Ask him if I can borrow it.»
«You’ll have to walk, then. I’m not asking him.»
«Saving your favors for something more important?»
«What could be more important than Concetta Martocci?» Eduardo said drily. «Let’s think. The priest’s cart delivers medicine to the sick. Takes old people to see the doctor. Takes food to the poor—»
«All right, all right. I understand. My heart’s desire is not an act of mercy.»
«Not even close.»
«I’ll just have to think of other ways to impress her.»
«You work on that, and I’ll study Pliny,» Eduardo said, pulling the lamp close to his book.
Every Friday morning, Don Gregorio said mass for the children of the school. They walked into church silently and reverently, in two lines, the youngest students first, led by Sister Domenica and Sister Ercolina.
The girls wore gray wool jumpers, white blouses, and blue muslin aprons, while the boys wore dark blue slacks and white shirts. On weekends their mothers washed the navy-and-white uniforms and hung them on clotheslines throughout the village. From a distance, drying in the sun, they resembled maritime flags.
Ciro stood behind a pillar in the overhead gallery of San Nicola, above the pews and out of the sight line of Don Gregorio. Only two boys Ciro’s age remained in school; most had quit by the age of eleven to work in the mines. Roberto LaPenna and Antonio Baratta were the exception, and at fifteen, they planned to become doctors. Roberto and Antonio processed to the front of the church, genuflected, and went into the sacristy to put on their red robes to serve the mass for Don Gregorio.
Ciro watched the teenage girls file into a pew. Anna Calabrese, studious and plain, had lovely legs, slender ankles, and small feet; Maria DeCaro, lanky and nervous, had a long waist and slim hips; chubby Liliana Gandolfo had full breasts, nice hands, and a perpetual look of indifference in her brown eyes.
Finally, Concetta Martocci, the most beautiful girl in Vilminore, slipped into the pew on the end. The sight of her filled Ciro with longing. Concetta was usually late to mass, so Ciro figured she was about as devout as he was. Her nonchalance extended to every aspect of her unstudied beauty.
Concetta’s blond hair, the exact color of the gold embroidery on Don Gregorio’s vestments, hung loosely over her shoulders, pulled off her face with two slim braids wrapped around her head like a laurel wreath71. She was delicate and pale, her coloring like vanilla cake with a dusting of powdered sugar. Her deep blue eyes were the shade of the ripples on Lake Endine, her inky eyelashes like the black sand that colored the shoreline. She was curvy but small-boned. Ciro imagined he could carry her easily.
Ciro slid down the pillar to the floor, leaned back against the column, and peered through the railing as he reveled in the unobstructed view of his object of desire for a full, uninterrupted hour.
As Concetta followed the mass, she would glance up and look at the rose window over the altar, then down to the words in the open missal in her hands.
O salutaris Hostia,
Quae caeli pandas ostium,
Bella premut hostilia,
Da robur, fer auxilium.
Ciro imagined kissing Concetta’s dewy pink lips as they pronounced the rote Latin. Who invented women? Ciro wondered as he observed her. Ciro may not have believed in the promises of the Holy Roman Church, but he had to admit that God was on to something if He invented beauty.
God made girls, and that made Him a genius, Ciro thought as the girls rose from the kneeler and filed into the main aisle.
Ciro peered around the column to watch Concetta kneel at the communion rail72. Don Gregorio slipped the small communion wafer onto Concetta’s tongue, and she bowed her head and made the sign of the cross before rising. Her smallest movements had an anticipatory quality. Ciro didn’t take his eyes off her as she followed the other girls back to the pew.
Sensing his stare, Concetta looked up into the gallery. Ciro caught her eye and smiled at her. Concetta pursed her lips, then bowed her head in prayer.
Don Gregorio intoned, «Per omnia saecula saeculorum.»
The students responded, «Amen.» They rose from the kneelers and sat back in the pews.
Liliana leaned over and whispered something to Concetta, who smiled. Ciro took in the smile, a bonus on this spring morning – usually there were no smiles during mass. One brief glimpse of her white teeth and perfect dimple made getting up at dawn to open the church worth the effort.
Ciro planned his day around the hope of running into Concetta. He might change course on a morning errand for a glimpse of her walking from the school to the church. He’d go hungry and miss supper for a quick «Ciao, Concetta» as she strolled by with her family during la passeggiata73. One smile from her was enough to keep him going; she inspired him to do better, to be better. He hoped to impress Concetta with aspects of his character she might not have seen, like the fine manners drilled into him by the nuns. Good manners in young men seemed to matter to young ladies. If Ciro got the chance, he knew he could make Concetta happy. He remembered, in the deepest shadows of his memory, his father doing the same for his mother.
The students knelt for the final blessing.
«Dominus vobiscum.» Don Gregorio extended his arms heavenward.
The students responded, «Et cum spiritu tuo.»
«Vade in pace.» Don Gregorio made the sign of the cross in the air.
Ciro watched as Concetta slipped the missal into the holder in the back of the pew. Mass had ended. Ciro was to go in peace. But he wouldn’t, not anytime soon, not as long as Concetta Martocci was in the world.
There was a field of orange lilies near the waterfall above Schilpario where the Ravanelli children played. When the spring came, the sun burned hot, but the mountain breezes were cool and invigorating. Those days di caldo e freddo74 only lasted until Easter, and Enza took full advantage of them. She gathered up her brothers and sisters every afternoon and took them up the mountain.
The aftereffects of the harsh winter were apparent in the landscape, mottled from the assault of heavy rain, snow, and ice. Pale green shoots pushed through the brown branches as tangled mounds of low brush in the ravines thawed out in the sun. The depressions in the earth along the trail where water had pooled and frozen were now pits of black mud. The rushing waters had left thick striae of silt as the snow melted too fast and overflowed down the cliffs. But it didn’t matter; after months of gray, everywhere she looked, Enza saw green.
Enza was relieved every year when spring arrived at last. These majestic mountains were terrifying in the winter; the glittering snow could turn dangerous as wily avalanches buried houses and rendered roads impassable. There was the constant fear of sudden and prolonged isolation, food shortages, and sickness gripping families who might need medicine and had no access to a doctor.
It was as if the sun set the village free.
In spring, the children scattered through the Alps like dandelion puffs. The mornings were filled with chores – fetching water, gathering sticks, scrubbing clothes, hanging the wash, and prepping the garden. The afternoons were spent at play, as the children flew kites made of strips of old muslin, floated in the shallow pool under the waterfall, or read in the shade of the pine trees.
Primavera75 in the Italian Alps was like a jewelry box opened in sunlight. Clusters of red peonies like ruffles of taffeta76 framed pale green fields, while wild white orchids climbed up the glittering graphite mountain walls. The first buds of white allium77 lined the trail as clusters of pink rhododendron blossoms burst through the dark green foliage.
There was no hunger in the spring and summer; the mountain provided food and drink, as the children plucked sweet blackberries from the thickets and cupped their hands and drank the clean, cold water of the streams.
The girls collected baskets of wild pink asters to place in the outdoor shrine at the feet of the statue of Mary while the boys found smooth lavender fieldstones to haul down the mountain to enclose their families’ garden. The children took all their meals alfresco, and their naps in the mountain grass.
Spring was the gift after the deprivation of the long winter, and summer was the highest dream of all, with its hot sun, sapphire sky and blue lakes, and tourists with their pockets full of silver to spend on holiday. The children welcomed the visitors, who generously tipped them for carrying their bags or running errands. In return, the children offered them small baskets of raspberries and fresh lemonade.
Enza hauled the food hamper up the mountain, following the path to the lake. She inhaled the crisp mountain air tinged with sweet pine and felt the hot sun on her neck. She smiled because the chores of the morning were behind her, and she had a new book to read. TheScarlet Pimpernel78 was nestled in the basket next to the fresh cakes her mother baked. Her teacher, Professore Mauricio Trabuco, had given it to her as a prize for having the best marks in her class.
«Come on, Stella.» Enza turned to look for her baby sister, who lagged behind. Stella was five years old, with long, wavy hair that Enza braided every morning. She had stopped on the path and picked a yellow buttercup. «There are lots of flowers in the field.»
«But I like this one,» Stella said.
«So pick it,» Enza said impatiently. «Andiamo79.»
Stella yanked the yellow buttercup, held it tightly, and ran ahead of her sister on the path, scrambling up a steep knob on all fours and disappearing through the brush to follow her brothers and sisters.
«Be careful!» Enza called to her as she took the hike up the path herself. When Enza reached the top, she saw her brothers and sisters running across the green field to the waterfall. Battista rolled the cuffs of his pants. Vittorio did the same, then followed Battista into the shallow wading pool, which came up past his ankles. They began to splash, then wrestle in the water, laughing as they went.
Eliana climbed a tree in the distance, looping her long arms around the branches and hoisting herself higher and higher. Alma and Stella, on the ground, clapped for their sister to reach the top.
Enza put the basket down beside a wild thatch of orange blossoms. She flipped the lid, pulled out a muslin tablecloth, unfolded it, and laid it out on the ground, smoothing the edges. She dug in the basket for her book while keeping her eyes on her brothers and sisters, and pulled it out to read. When she saw that the children were safe at play, she lay down on her back on the edge of the cloth.
Enza held the book over her face as she read, blocking the bright sun. Soon she was in France, in the times of guillotines, palace intrigue, and a mysterious man who signs his name with a quick sketch of a red flower.
Enza read the first chapter, and then the second. She rested the book on her chest, closed her eyes. She saw herself in the book wearing a red silk shantung80 gown, with hair that twirled up like smooth meringue, her cheeks powdered with hot pink rouge. Enza wondered what it would be like if she lived in another place at another time, with another family, fulfilling a destiny different from her own. Who would she be? What might she become?
«We’re hungry,» Alma said.
«Is it time to eat?» Enza asked.
Alma looked up at the sun. «It’s one o’clock.»
«That looks like a pretty good guess. You’re right. It’s lunchtime. Go and get your brothers and sisters.»
Alma ran off to do as she was told while Enza unloaded the hamper. Mama had made sandwiches of mozzarella, tomato, and fresh dandelion drizzled in honey and wrapped them in fresh linen napkins. There were two sandwiches for each child, and an extra for each of the boys. There was a jug with fresh lemonade, and slices of golden pound cake.
Enza set out the feast as her brothers and sisters gathered around. The boys, wet from wading in the pool, were careful to kneel on the outer edge of the cloth. Enza pulled Stella onto her lap.
«She’s not a baby anymore,» Alma said to Enza.
«I’m going to keep her a baby forever,» Enza said. «Every family needs a baby.»
«I’m five.» Stella held up five fingers.
«This is going to be a bad year for porcini,» Battista said as he ate his sandwich. «This ground is too wet.»
«It’s too soon,» Enza told him. «Don’t worry about the porcini. You have to help Papa this summer.»
«I’d rather hunt truffles.»
«You can do both.»
«I want to make lots and lots of money. I’m gonna sell truffles to the Frenchmen. They’re suckers,» Battista said.
«You have such big plans. I’m impressed,» Eliana said, though clearly she was not.
«I’ll help Papa,» Vittorio said.
«We’ll all help Papa. He’s going to get a lot of fares this summer,» Enza said.
«Good luck. Cipi won’t last the summer,» Battista said.
«Don’t say that.» Alma’s eyes filled with tears.
«Don’t upset your sister,» Enza said. «Nobody knows how long Cipi will be around. You have to leave that up to God and Saint Francis.»
«Will Cipi go to heaven?» Stella asked.
«Someday he will,» Enza answered quietly.
«I want to go wading.» Alma stood.
The sun, high on the ridge, burned hot on the children. Even Enza felt the heat as she followed the children to the wading pool, where she took off her shoes and long woolen knee socks. She hiked up her skirt, tied it under her shirtwaist, and waded into the pool. The cold water grazed her ankles. Enza jumped as the frigid water tickled her feet.
«Let’s dance!» Stella said. Soon all the children were splashing in the cold, shallow water. Stella fell into the pool and laughed. Enza scooped her up, holding her close as Alma, Eliana, Battista, and Vittorio waded over to the waterfall to let the cold water rush over them.
Through the clear water of the pool, Enza saw something odd. As Enza leaned over to set Stella down, the child’s thin legs were magnified in the sunlight. Enza saw blue veins and splotchy maroon pools underneath Stella’s skin, darker in places, a network of them from ankle to thigh.
«Stand up, Stella.»
Stella stood in the water, the ends of her pigtails dripping like wet paintbrushes. Enza checked the back of her legs in the unforgiving light, where she saw more bruises that extended up to the top of Stella’s thighs. In a panic, Enza checked her sister’s back, and upper arms. There, too, were the bruises, like blue stones visible on the lake bottom in shallow waters.
«Eli, come here!» Enza shouted to her sister. Eliana, reedy, tall, and athletic at thirteen, trudged over in the shallow water.
«What?» She looked at Enza, pushing her hair off her face.
«Do you see these bruises?»
Eliana looked at them.
«Who hit her?» Enza insisted.
«Nobody hits Stella.»
«Did she fall?»
«I don’t know.»
«Battista!» Enza shouted. Battista and Vittorio were at the far end of the falls, peeling lichen off the stones. Enza waved them over. She gathered up Stella, took her to the cloth spread on the ground, and dried her off with her apron. Stella’s teeth chattered, and, frightened by Enza’s quick movements, she began to cry.
«What did I do?» Stella wailed.
Enza pulled her close. «Nothing, bella81, nothing.» She looked up at Eliana. «We have to go home.» Her tone changed. «Now.»
A feeling of dread came over Enza as she watched her sister gather the children.
Enza counted the heads of her brothers and sisters just as her mother did when they went to neighboring villages for feast days, careful to keep track of every child, careful not to lose one to the gypsies, or in a large crowd.
Stella nestled into the warmth of her older sister, holding her tight.
Mama always said a good family has one heartbeat. No one knows you like the people you live with, and no one will take up your cause to the outside world quite like your blood relatives. Enza knew Battista’s moods, Eliana’s courage, Vittorio’s ego, Alma’s restlessness, and Stella’s peaceful nature. When one laughed, eventually they all did. When one was afraid, they did whatever they could do to shore up the other’s courage. When one was sick, soon they all felt the pain.
There was an especially deep bond between the eldest and the youngest. Enza and Stella were the beginning and end, the alpha and omega, the bookends that held all the family stories from start to finish as well as the various shades and hues of personality and temperament. As Enza held Stella closely and rocked her, the children silently gathered the lunch, cleaned up the napkins, and repacked the basket. Enza could feel Stella’s warm breath in the crook of her neck.
The boys hoisted the food hamper, while the girls helped Stella onto Enza’s back, to carry her back down the mountain. Eliana followed, keeping her hand on the small of Stella’s back, while Alma led them, kicking away any rocks or sticks on the path that could trip Enza as she carried Stella. A small tear trickled down Enza’s face. She had prayed for spring to come, but now she was afraid it had brought with it the worst of luck.
Chapter 4. A pot de crème82
Vasotto di Budino
There was a strange moon the night after Stella got the bruises. Filmy and mustard colored, it flickered in and out of the clouds like a warning light, reminding Enza of the oil lamp Marco used when he traveled by cart in bad weather.
Enza hoped the moon was a sign that the angels were present, hovering over Stella, ambivalent about whether to take her sister’s soul or leave her behind on earth. Enza kneeled at the head of the bed, wove her fingers together, closed her eyes, and prayed. Certainly the angels would hear her and let her sister stay on the mountain. She wished she could shoo the angel of death away83 like a fat winter fly.
Marco and Giacomina sat on either side of Stella’s makeshift bed in the main room, never taking their eyes from their daughter. The boys, unable to sit still, stayed busy doing chores. Battista, tall and lean, stooped over and stoked the fire, while Vittorio hauled the wood. Eliana and Alma sat in the corner, knees to their chests, watching, hoping.
The local priest, Don Federico Martinelli, was an old man. He had no hair and a long face whose expression did little to comfort them. He knelt at the foot of Stella’s bed through the night, praying the rosary. The soft drone84 of his voice did not waver as he pinched his shiny green beads one after the other, kissing the soft silver cross, and beginning the Hail Marys85 anew as the hours passed.
Marco had gone to Signor Arduini as Stella grew weaker, begging for any help he might provide. Signor Arduini sent for the doctor in Lizzola, who came quickly by horse. The doctor examined Stella, gave her medicine for fever, spoke with Marco and Giacomina, and promised to return in the morning.
Enza tried to read the doctor’s face as he whispered with her parents, but he gave no indication what the outcome would be. There appeared to be no urgency, but Enza knew that didn’t mean anything. Doctors are like priests, she knew. Whether it’s an affliction of the body or the soul, there is little that surprises them, and they rarely, if ever, show what they are thinking.
Enza grabbed the doctor’s arm as he went through the door. He turned to look at her, but she could not speak. He nodded kindly and went outside.
Enza peered out into the night through the window slats, certain that if Stella made it until sunrise, she would live; the doctor would return as promised, declare a miracle, and life would be as it always had been. Hadn’t this been true for the Maj boy, who was lost on the road to Trescore for three days, then found? Hadn’t the Ferrante baby, sick with jaundice for sixteen days, eventually recovered? Hadn’t the Capovilla family survived after four children had the whooping cough86 in the winter of 1903? There were so many stories of miracles on the mountain. Surely Stella Ravanelli would become one of those stories told over and over again in the villages, assuring everyone who lived so high and close to the sky that God would not abandon them. Years from now, when Stella was grown and had her own family, wouldn’t she tell the story of the night she survived the terrible bruises and the fever?
Enza couldn’t imagine their home without Stella, who had always been special. Stella wasn’t named for a saint or a relative like the rest of the children, but for the stars that had shimmered overhead on the summer night she was born.
Enza pictured Stella healthy, but she could not maintain the image, her mind filling with doubt. She battled helpless feelings of injustice through the night. In her mind, Stella’s dilemma was unfair. After all, her family had paid their marker in this life. They were poor, humble hard workers who helped others and lived the gospel87. They had done everything right. Now it was God’s turn to reward them for their piety. Enza closed her eyes and imagined the angels and saints surrounding her sister, making her well.
Enza even pictured her family in the future. She imagined her mother and father as grandparents and her brothers and sisters with families of their own. Battista would teach the children the trails, Eliana would show them how to balance on the stone fence on one foot, Alma would instruct the girls in sewing, Vittorio would teach the boys how to shoe the horse, Stella would show them how to paint, Mama would keep the garden, and Papa would hitch the cart and take the children for rides. Their lives on the mountain would go forward as they always had; they would grow old together and happily in greater numbers, with a homestead that they owned free and clear.
La famiglia èterna88.
Enza was mystified as she watched Stella’s labored breathing. She had taken the medicine from the doctor. Why was her sister getting worse?
Stella’s color was all but gone, the pink of her cheeks now an odd gray and her lips turned chalky white. When she opened her eyes, they were unfocused, the pupils like two black rosary beads.
Giacomina dabbed her daughter’s lips with a damp cloth and stroked her hair. Occasionally the soft din of Hail Marys said in unison was cut by a moan from Stella that sent a knife through Enza’s heart. Finally, unable to take another moment of watching her sister wither away, Enza stood and ran outside.
Enza ran to the end of Via Scalina. She buried her face in her hands and wept for Stella. There is no worse feeling than being unable to assuage the suffering of the innocent. Enza could not erase Stella’s expression of fear as she grew weaker, and the helpless look on her mother’s face. Giacomina had been through many fevers and long nights of worry for her children, but this time was altogether different; it had a velocity of its own.
Enza soon felt her father’s hands on her shoulders. As she turned, Marco took her into his arms and wept with her.
God had abandoned them, the angels had taken their leave, and the saints had turned away. Now Enza understood the truth of those terrible hours. They had not been waiting for Stella to get well; they were watching her die. For the first time in her life, in almost sixteen years of surviving blizzards, spring floods, and want89, Enza was unlucky. The strong arms of her father could no longer protect her, and her mother’s touch had lost its power to heal.
Enza and Marco returned to the house. The fire had all but died out, and the morning sun was pulling itself up over Pizzo Camino, flooding the room with light. Eliana and Alma stood at the head of the bed, Vittorio and Battista on either side. After hours on his knees, the old priest stood up and kissed the silver cross on his rosary for the last time.
Giacomina draped herself over Stella’s body as she wept into her daughter’s hair. The mother then lifted her child into her arms, pulling her close and rocking her as she had done every night before the child went to sleep. Stella’s lifeless arms dangled outstretched from her mother’s body, palms up as if to be received by the angels who were nowhere to be found in the hours before her death. Stella’s brown eyes were open, her thick eyelashes framing her vacant stare. Her lips had turned pale blue like the underside of a shell.
Marco leaned over his wife and put his arms around her, unable to comfort her. He felt the strong hand of miserable failure upon him. Not only had the doctor in Lizzola, the priest, and the church failed him; he had not been pious enough in the eyes of God to spare his own daughter.
There was a sacrament happening in their midst90, the uninvited moment of complete surrender to the spirit world, as life passes and death takes its hold. It was a sacred pause, a swinging bridge over the most perilous chasm, a moment that lasted only a second or two, where Stella was still theirs before she was gone to God. It was in this moment that Enza screamed, loud enough for God to hear, «No!» But it was too late; the little girl was gone, her soul returned to the stars she had been named for just five years ago.
Was all of this somehow her fault? Enza had planned the picnic that day. As the eldest, she had packed the hamper and led them up the mountain. She had wanted to read a book in the bright sun. She had allowed the children to play in the pond under the rush of the spring waterfalls. She had failed Stella, and now she had failed the whole family. Now Enza looked around for someone to absolve her of her irresponsibility, to forgive her for the mistakes she had made, but no one stepped forward to break the bondage of her massive guilt. She needed the arms of her mother and father around her, but they were filled with Stella.
Giacomina’s pain was so deep that her back began to heave, her entire body to rise and fall, just as it had when she birthed this child. She cradled her daughter’s lifeless body, feeling the last warmth of her. A father mourns, but a mother, whose child is born of her body, remembers the soft kisses that become the act of two loving bodies joined together in sweet privacy, which begets the first flutter of joyous pregnancy, to the soft, slippery kicks as the baby grows in her belly, to the moment when her body opens up to bring a new life to the world, and yields to a despair that will never leave her.
Stella was Giacomina’s winged angel child, quick to laugh, impertinent with facts she learned from her less wise older siblings, and in total tune with the magic of the world, a curly-haired fairy who danced on the surface of life, soaking up the details of the world around her with a sense of wonder, identifying the possibilities in everything she touched, as she examined glittery mountain grass, hummed along with musical night winds, or embraced the miracle of water at every opportunity, to splash, bathe, and revel in it. And, as fleeting as a sun shower that moves through quickly on the sweet breath of a summer breeze, she was gone.
The hand-painted statues of Saint Michael the warrior, Saint Francis of Assisi with the lamb, Mary the Mother of Jesus crushing the green snake, Saint Anthony holding lilies in one hand and the baby Jesus in the other, Saint Joseph in a carpenter’s apron, and the Pietà, a grieving mother holding her dying son in shades of gray, were lined up in the bright sun in the garden at the church of San Nicola for their annual bath.
Ciro imagined that this was what the devout think heaven will be. Upon their deaths, they will proceed to a garden, filled with a seraphim of perfect saints91, with unlined faces and thick hair, waiting to greet them in white light, wearing robes of purple, blue, and green, their smooth, long-fingered plaster hands indicating where to go.
Don Gregorio may have found Ciro’s lack of devotion odd, but Ciro thought the believers were the strange ones, with their relics, incense, and holy oils92 whose mystical powers did more to raise questions in his mind than provide answers.
Ciro mixed the special cleaning paste he had invented in an old tin drum. Through trial and error, Ciro had created this paste to clean and polish the statues and delicate ornamentation of the church. For this special chore, Ciro mixed a cup of fresh, wet clay from the riverbed of Stream Vò, a few drops of olive oil, and a handful of crushed lavender buds in a drum. He put his hands in the mixture and squeezed it through his fingers until it became a soft putty. After rinsing his hands in a bucket of cold water, he picked up a moppeen, twisted the end around three fingers, and dipped the cloth into the paste.
«Va bene93, Saint Michael, you’re first.» Ciro made small circular motions, gently rubbing the paste onto the base of the statue. The gold lettering, «San Michele,» gleamed as Ciro polished the surface.
Of all the statues in San Nicola, Ciro felt the closest kinship with Saint Michael. His strong legs, broad shoulders, and silver sword raised high to battle evil appealed to Ciro’s sense of adventure and aspirations for courage. Plus, Saint Michael’s sandy hair and blue-green eyes reminded Ciro of his own. As he buffed the golden jaw of the saint, he decided that of all of God’s army, this was the man who could win Concetta Martocci. The rest of the male saints, holding doves or walking with lambs or balancing a baby on one arm, would not be as effective. Saint Anthony was too gentle, Saint Joseph was too old, and Saint John, too angry. No, Michael was the only warrior who could have wooed a beautiful girl and won her heart.
Ignazio Farino rounded the corner, pushing a small handcart loaded with small blue river stones. Slight of build94, with a long nose and thin lips, Iggy wore lederhosen95 with thick wool knee socks and an alpine hat with a merlo96 feather stuck in the faded band. He looked more like an old boy than an old man.
«Che bella.97» He looked up at the statue of Mary perched upon the globe and gave a whistle.
«Is she your favorite, Iggy?» Ciro asked.
«She’s the Queen of Heaven, isn’t she?» Ignazio sat down on the garden wall and looked up at the statue. «I used to gaze – I mean, gaze—at her face when I was a boy. And I used to pray to God to send me a beautiful wife that looked like the Virgin Mary in the church of San Nicola. The prettiest girl in Vilminore was taken, so I took a hike up the mountain and married the prettiest girl in Azzone. She had the golden hair. Pretty on the outside, but»—he pulled a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket—«so complicated within. Don’t marry a beautiful woman, Ciro. It’s too much work.»
«I know how to take care of a woman,» Ciro said confidently.
«You think you do. Then you get the ring on her hand, and the story changes. Women change. Men stay as they are, and women change.»
«How so?»
«In every way. In manner.» Iggy bowed from the waist. «In personality. In their desire for you.» He thrust his body forward as if to stop a runaway wheelbarrow. «At first, oh, si, si, si98, they want you. Then they want the garden, the home, the children. And then they weary of their own dreams and look to you to make them happy.» He threw up his hands. «It’s never enough, Ciro. Never enough. Believe me, eventually, you run out of ways to make a woman happy.»
«I don’t care. It would be my honor to try.»
«You say that now,» Ignazio said. «Don’t do as Idid. Do better. Fall in love with a plain girl. Plain girls never turn bitter. They appreciate their portion, no matter how meager. A small pearl is enough. They never long for the diamond. Beautiful girls have high expectations. You bring them daisies99, and they want roses. You buy them a hat, and they want the matching coat. It’s a well so deep you cannot fill it. I know. I’ve tried.»
«Plain or pretty, I don’t care. I just want a girl to love. And I want her to love me.» Ciro rinsed Saint Michael’s cape with clean water.
«You want. You want. You just wait.» Iggy puffed.
Ciro buffed the plaster with a dry towel. «I’m finding it very difficult to wait.»
«Because you’re young. The young have everything but wisdom.»
«What does wisdom get you?» Ciro asked.
«Patience.»
«I don’t want wisdom. I don’t want to grow old to get it. I just want to be happy.»
«I wish I could give you my experience, so you might not have to endure what I have known in my life. I was like you. I didn’t believe the old men. I should have listened to them.»
«Tell me what I don’t know, Iggy.»
«Love is like pot de crème.» Iggy stirred an imaginary pot with a spoon. «You see Signora Maria Nilo make it in the window of her pasticceria100.» Iggy wiggled his hips like Signora. «You see her stir the chocolate. You see the caramel cascade from the spoon into the baking dish. It looks delizioso101. You want it, you can taste it. You pass by the shop every day and think, Iwant that pot de crème more than anything. Iwould fight for it. Iwould kill for it. Iwould die for one taste. One day, you get paid, you go for your pot de crème. You eat it fast, you go for another, and another. You eat every spoonful in the bowl. And soon the thing you wanted most in the world has made you sick. Love and pot de crème – the same.»
Ciro laughed. «You’d have a hard time convincing a starving man when he hasn’t had his fill. Love is the only dream worth pursuing. I’d work so hard for love. I’d make a future! I’d build her a house with seven fireplaces. We would have a big family – five sons and one daughter. You need at least one daughter to tend to the mother in old age.»
«You’ve got it all figured out, Ciro,» Ignazio said. «I’ve taken what life has given me»—Ignazio put his hands in the air as if to measure the scope of his world—«and Idid not ask for more. It’s more that will get you in trouble.»
«That’s a shame,» Ciro said. «All I want is more. I earn my room and board, but I want to earn money.»
«How much do you need?»
«If I had a lira for starters, that would be good.»
«Really? One lira?» Ignazio smiled. «I’ve got a job for you.»
Ciro washed down the Pietà with a damp cloth. «I’m listening.»
«Father Martinelli needs a grave dug up in Schilpario.» Iggy lit his cigarette.
«How much?»
«He’ll give you two lire, and you kick back one. The church always has to get their cut.»
«Of course they do.» Ciro nodded. «But only one lira to dig a grave?» Ciro couldn’t help but wonder why Ignazio couldn’t cut a better deal. Now he understood why Ignazio hadn’t graduated beyond his job as convent handyman.
Ignazio took a smooth drag off of his cigarette. «Hey, better than nothing.» He offered Ciro a puff of his cigarette. Ciro took it, inhaling the smooth tobacco. «Don Gregorio has you dig for nothing. What are you going to do with your lira? You need shoes.» Ignazio looked down at Ciro’s shoes.
«I’m going to buy Concetta Martocci a cameo brooch102.»
«Don’t waste your money. You need new shoes!»
«I can go barefoot, but I can’t live without love.» Ciro laughs. «How will I get to Schilpario?»
«Don Gregorio says you can take the cart.»
Ciro’s eyes lit up. If he could take the cart, maybe he could work in a ride with Concetta. «I’ll do it. But I want the cart for the whole day.»
«Va bene.»
«You’ll fix it with Don Gregorio?» Ciro asked.
«I’ll take care of it.» Ignazio threw the butt of his cigarette onto the path. He stamped it and kicked it into the shrubs, where one small orange ember released its last spark and went out.
Ciro propped open the front doors of San Nicola to let the crisp spring air play through the church like the chords of the Lenten kyries103. Every surface gleamed. The nuns would like to believe their ward104 scrubbed the church and everything in it for the honor and glory of God, but the truth was, Ciro was hoping to impress Don Gregorio so he’d give him use of the rectory cart and horse whenever he asked.
The young handyman rubbed the mahogany pews with lemon wax, washed the stained glass windows105 with hot water and white vinegar, scoured the marble floors and buffed the brass tabernacle. He wire-whisked the candle drippings off the wrought-iron votive holders and refilled the pockets with fresh candles. The scent of beeswax filled the alcove of saints like the rosewater Concetta Martocci sprinkled on the laundry before she did the ironing. He knew this for sure because when she passed, the air filled with her perfume.
The saint statues looked brand new. Ciro had returned the gloss to the creamy faces, and the colors to their robes and sandals. He hoisted Saint Joseph into place upon his perch in the alcove, then rolled the votive candle cart in front of him and stood back, pleased with the results of his hard work. He turned when he heard footsteps on the marble floor. Peering out from the alcove, he saw Concetta Martocci genuflect in the aisle and move into a pew about halfway between the altar and the entrance. Ciro’s heart began to race. A white lace mantilla was draped over her hair. She wore a long gray serge106 skirt and a white blouse, the palette of an innocent dove.
Ciro looked down at his work clothes, taking in the wet hems of his pants, the shadows of soot along the seams, his ill-fitting boots and filthy work shirt, which looked like a handyman’s paint palette – smears of clay putty, brass polish, and black streaks of smudges from charred candlewicks. A white polishing rag was stuck in the shirt pocket where a starched handkerchief should go.
He ran his hands through his thick hair, then looked at his fingernails, black half moons under every nail. Concetta turned and looked at him, then turned back to face the altar. This type of meeting, just the two of them alone in the church, was rare. A conversation with Concetta was nearly impossible to engineer. She had a stern father, a devout uncle, a few brothers, and a gaggle of girlfriends that surrounded her, as tight as the knot on the ties of a pinafore.
Ciro pulled the rag from his pocket and tucked it behind Saint Michael. He unsnapped the brass key ring from his belt loop and placed it on the rag. He walked up the center aisle of the church, genuflected, joined her in the pew, knelt beside her, and folded his hands in prayer.
«Ciao107,» he whispered.
«Ciao,» she whispered back. A smile crossed her perfect pink lips. The lace of the mantilla made a soft frame around her face, as though she were a painting. He looked down at his dirty hands and folded his fingers into fists to hide the nails. «I just cleaned the church,» he said, explaining his appearance.
«I can tell. The tabernacle is like a mirror,» she said appreciatively.
«That’s on purpose. Don Gregorio likes to look at his own reflection.»
Concetta frowned.
«I’m just joking. Don Gregorio is a holy man.» Sometimes Ciro was happy that he actually paid attention to things his brother Eduardo said, so he added, «A consecrated man.»
She nodded in agreement and pulled a string of white opal rosary beads from her skirt pocket and held them. «I’m here for the novena,» she said, looking up at the rose window behind the altar.
«Novena is on Thursdays,» Ciro said.
«Oh,» she said. «I’ll just say my rosary alone, then.»
«Would you like to see the garden?» Ciro asked. «We could go for a walk. You can pray in the garden.»
«I’d rather pray in church.»
«But God is everywhere. Don’t you listen in mass?»
«Of course.» She smiled.
«No, you don’t. You whisper with Liliana.»
«You shouldn’t watch us.»
«I’m not watching Don Gregorio.»
«Maybe you should.» She slipped back off the kneeler and sat on the pew. Ciro did the same. He looked down at Concetta’s lovely hands. A slim, plain gold bracelet dangled from her wrist.
«I didn’t invite you to sit with me,» she whispered.
«You’re right. How ill-mannered of me. May I sit with you, Concetta Martocci?»
«You may,» she said.
They sat in silence. Ciro realized that he hadn’t drawn a deep breath since Concetta entered the church. He exhaled slowly, then took in the wondrous scent of Concetta’s skin, sweet vanilla and white roses. He was finally, at last, grateful to God for something, the nearness of Concetta.
«Do you like living in the convent?» she asked shyly.
Ciro’s chest tightened. The last thing he wanted from this girl was pity.
«It’s a good life. We work hard. We have a nice room. Don Gregorio loans me the cart whenever I want it.»
«He does?»
«Of course.» Ciro puffed up with pride.
«You’re very lucky.»
«I’d like to take a ride to Clusone sometime.»
«I have an aunt there,» she said.
«You do? I could take you to see her.»
«Maybe.» She smiled.
A maybe from Concetta was better than a yes from any of the hundreds of other girls who lived on this mountain. Ciro was elated, but tried not to show it. Ignazio had taught him to hold back, to refrain from showing a girl how much you care. Girls, according to Iggy, prefer boys who don’t like them. This made no sense to Ciro, but he decided to follow Iggy’s advice, if at the end of the game he might win Concetta’s heart. Ciro turned to her. «I wish I could stay, but I promised Sister Domenica I would make a delivery for her before dinner.»
«Va bene.» Concetta smiled again.
«You’re very beautiful,» Ciro whispered.
Concetta grinned. «You’re very dirty.»
«I won’t be the next time Isee you,» he said. «And Iwill see you again.»
Ciro stood and exited the pew, remembering to genuflect as he left. He looked at Concetta a final time, bowing his head to her, remembering the manners the nuns taught him to use in the presence of a lady. Concetta nodded her head before she turned to the gold tabernacle, which Ciro had spent the greater part of the afternoon buffing to a high polish. Ciro practically skipped out of the church into the piazza.
The afternoon sun burned low, a purple peony in the powder blue sky. Ciro ran across the piazza from the church to the convent, noting that the colors of his world had changed for the better. He threw open the front door, grabbed Sister Domenica’s parcel for Signor Longaretti, and made his way up the hill to deliver it.
Ciro passed folks who greeted him, but he did not hear them. All he could think about was Concetta and the possibility of a long ride to Clusone alone with her. He imagined the lunch he would pack, the way he would take her hand, and how he would tell her all the things he had stored in his heart. His nails would be smooth and round and pink, the nail bed as white as snow, because he would soak them with a little bleach. Concetta Martocci would only see Ciro at his best going forward.
He would kiss her.
Ciro dropped the package at Signor Longaretti’s door. When he returned to the convent, Eduardo was busy in their room, studying.
Eduardo looked at Ciro. «You run around the village looking like that?»
«Leave me alone. I cleaned San Nicola today.» Ciro flopped onto the bed.
«You must have done a good job. Every bit of dirt is on your clothes.»
«All right, all right, I’ll take a good soak.»
«Use lye,» Eduardo said.
«What’s for dinner?»
«Roast chicken,» Eduardo replied. «I’ll tell Sister Teresa how hard you worked, and she’ll make sure you get extra. I need the keys to the chapel. I finished the mass cards for Sister.»
Ciro reached down to hand his brother the ring of keys. «Agh,» he said, «I left them at church.»
«Well, go get them. Sister wants these in the pews before dinner.»
Ciro ran back to the church across the piazza. The evening had a chill to it, and Ciro shivered, thinking he should have grabbed his coat. When he got to the church, he found the front entrance door locked, so he went around to the side entrance to the sacristy. He pushed the door open.
He could not believe what he saw.
Concetta Martocci was in the arms of Don Gregorio. The priest kissed her ravenously. Her gray skirt was lifted, exposing the smooth calf of her tawny leg. Her delicate foot was extended as she stood on her toes. In his arms, Concetta looked like a dove caught in the black branches of winter. Ciro stopped breathing; he swallowed air and choked.
«Ciro!» Don Gregorio looked up and let go of Concetta, who glided away from him as if she was on ice.
«I… I left my keys in the vestibule. The entrance door was locked.» Ciro felt his face flush.
«Go and get your keys then,» Don Gregorio said calmly as he smoothed the placket of buttons on his cassock. Ciro pushed past them and into the church. Embarrassment quickly gave way to anger and then fury.
Ciro ran down the center aisle, not bothering to bow or genuflect. When he reached the vestibule, he grabbed his key ring and the rag from behind the statue, stuffing both in his pockets, wanting to break free of this place as quickly as he could. The church’s grand beauty and the attention Ciro had lavished on every detail that afternoon meant nothing to him now. It was plaster, paint, brass, and wood.
Ciro had unbolted the main door to go when he felt Don Gregorio behind him.
«You are never to speak of what you saw,» the priest whispered with contempt.
Ciro turned to face him. «Really, Father? You’re going to issue an order? With what authority?» Ciro took a deep breath. «You disgust me. If it weren’t for the sisters, I’d take an ax to your church.»
«Don’t threaten me. And don’t ever come back to San Nicola. You are discharged of your duties here.»
Ciro stepped forward, within inches of Don Gregorio’s face. «We’ll see about that.»
Don Gregorio grabbed Ciro by the collar. In turn, Ciro grabbed the soft black linen of Don Gregorio’s cassock with his dirty hands. «You call yourself a priest.»
Don Gregorio loosened his grip on Ciro’s shirt, and dropped his hands. Ciro looked him in the eye and then spit on the floor at Don Gregorio’s feet. To think that all of Ciro’s hard work had been for the honor and glory of this undeserving shepherd of a most ignorant flock! Ciro unlocked the entrance door and walked out into the dark. He heard Don Gregorio bolt the church door behind him.
Don Gregorio looked down at his cassock, the chest placket rumpled and smeared with dirt where Ciro had grabbed it. He dipped his fingers in the holy water font, brushed the clay-colored smudges away, and smoothed his hair before turning back up the aisle to the sacristy, to his Concetta.
Concetta leaned against the table, her arms folded across her chest. She had twisted her golden hair into a knot on the back of her head, and buttoned her sweater over her blouse.
«You see why you cannot speak with boys?» the priest said sternly. He paced back and forth across the floor.
«Yes, Don Gregorio.»
«He took your conversation as interest in him,» Don Gregorio said angrily. «You encouraged him, and now he feels betrayed.»
Concetta Martocci placed her hands in her pockets and looked down at the floor. «How is that my fault?» She took a deep breath.
«You led him on.»
«I did no such thing.»
«He sat with you.»
«He works in the church!» she said defensively.
«The nuns have coddled him. He’s arrogant. He doesn’t take the sacraments or attend mass regularly. He’s too familiar with the congregation.»
She smiled. «You’re jealous of Ciro Lazzari? I don’t believe it.»
Don Gregorio put his arms around her and pulled her close. He kissed her neck and then her cheek, but as he grazed her lips, she pulled away.
«He saw you kiss me.» Concetta patted her skirt. «What if he tells?»
«I’ll take care of it.» Don Gregorio reached out to stroke Concetta’s arm.
«I’d better go,» she said, her voice making it clear she’d rather not. «My mother is expecting me.»
«Will I see you tomorrow?»
Concetta looked at Don Gregorio. He was handsome and polished in ways the boys from the mountain would never be. His kiss was not clumsy like Flavio Tironi’s, behind the fourth pillar of the colonnade at the feast last summer, nor were his hands sweaty or his conversation banal. Don Gregorio was well traveled, full of observations and political opinions, and told fascinating stories about places she had never seen, but intended to. He was an educated man, a graduate of the seminary. He was as familiar with the streets of Rome as she was with the roads of Vilminore.
Don Gregorio saw something in her that no teacher or tutor had bothered to find. He did not press her to study mathematics or bore her with science. Instead, he had made her hungry to see the world beyond the mountains, places he knew would delight her like the pink beaches of Rimini, the shops on the Ponte Vecchio in Firenze, and the purple cliffs of Capri. He loaned her books of stories, not ones filled with dull academics but red-leather-bound novels with plots of sweeping romance and adventure.
Don Gregorio had dinner every Sunday afternoon with the Martocci family. The perfect guest, he arrived after mass and stayed until dusk. He paid special attention to Concetta’s grandmother, listening patiently to her complaints about her health and every detail of her aches and pains. He blessed their fields and their house, administered sacraments, encouraged the family to be devout, to perform acts of mercy in the village, and to support the church.
Concetta had loved Don Gregorio from afar, instantly, from the first day he arrived in Vilminore. Over the course of the next several months, she had found moments alone with Don Gregorio exhilarating. She spent her school hours conniving ways to go to the church, in the hopes of seeing him.
The boys of San Nicola were generally dull and unkempt; they worked in the mines or in the fields, and had simple ideas about how to live. They were boys like Ciro Lazzari, the church handyman who wore rags and casually joined her in the church pew as though he’d bought a ticket next to her on a carnival bench and therefore earned the right to talk to her.
All her life, Concetta had been taught to choose the best in all things, whether it was a yard of linen to make an apron or the finest distilled lemon water to wash her hair. She knew Don Gregorio was a holy man who took vows, but he was also the most powerful and sophisticated man on the mountain. She wanted him. At fifteen she would give up the notion of a life with a husband and children of her own to stay home with her mother and see Don Gregorio whenever she could. She was besotted with the priest, thrilled to share stolen moments with him, and encouraged by his attention. To spend the occasional long afternoon and the weekly meal in his company would bring her happiness, she believed with all her heart.
«Make sure Ciro doesn’t tell anyone about us,» Concetta implored. «If my father were to find out… if anyone…»
Don Gregorio took Concetta in his arms and kissed her to reassure her. Once she was in his arms, risk was meaningless. Her proper upbringing, strict morals, and common sense held no power against his kiss. The rules she had promised her mother to respect until marriage dissipated in the air like smoke from an urn of incense. She told herself she had nothing to fear. No one would believe a servant over the word of a consecrated man.
Don Gregorio kissed her neck. Concetta let him; then, slowly, she pulled away. She did not linger, but pulled the lace mantilla over her head and slipped out of the sacristy into the night.
Chapter 5. A stray dog
Un Cane Randagio
Three small roast chickens surrounded by strips of potatoes and cubes of carrots rested in the center of a platter. Several large ceramic bowls were filled with a puree of chestnuts, made with butter, cream, and salt. Sister Teresa had learned to stretch meals with chestnuts, which were roasted to make crust in place of flour, pureed to fill tortellini, or boiled, mashed, and served as a hearty side dish. By spring, the nuns and Lazzari boys had had their fill of them.
Ciro burst into the kitchen. «Sister?» he cried out.
Sister Teresa emerged from the pantry. «What’s the matter?»
«We must go to Sister Ercolina,» he said, out of breath. «Now.»
«What happened?» Sister Teresa handed Ciro a hot towel.
«I saw something at San Nicola.» Ciro mopped his face, and then cleaned his hands. «Don Gregorio. He was with Concetta Martocci.» Ciro felt his face flush with embarrassment. «In the sacristy. I just caught them.»
«I see.» Sister Teresa took the towel from Ciro and threw it back into the pot of hot water on the fire. She poured Ciro a glass of water and motioned for him to sit. «You don’t have to explain.»
«You know?»
«I’m not surprised,» she said, evenly.
Frustrated, Ciro raised his voice. «Are you telling me that vows have no meaning?»
«Some of us struggle with vows; for others, it’s easier,» she said carefully. «Humans are capable of divine acts. But sometimes they sin.»
«There’s no excuse for him. Do something!»
«I have no sway over the priest.»
«Then go to Sister Ercolina and tell her what I saw. Bring me in. I’ll give her the details. She can go to the Mother Abbess. She’ll punish him but good!108»
«Oh, I see. You want him punished.» Sister Teresa sat. «Is it your love for Concetta Martocci that drives you, or your dislike of Don Gregorio?»
«I am done with Concetta, after what I saw – how could I…» Ciro held his head in his hands. The pangs of unrequited love stung his heart for the first time. There was nothing worse than never having the opportunity to express true romantic feelings to the person who inspired them. Today, he had been as close as he had ever been! For months, he had imagined Concetta getting to know him, returning his feelings, eventually falling in love with him. How many kisses he had planned, in as many places as he could imagine. To know that she had chosen another was almost too much for his young heart to bear. And the village priest, no less!
«Poor girl. She believes whatever he’s telling her.»
«I knew he was a fake. There is nothing mystical happening in San Nicola. It’s all a show. A pageant of perfection. He cares too much about his vestments and the linens and what flowers will grow along the path in the garden. He’s particular about the wrong things. He runs San Nicola like a storefront! That priest is like one of those oily peddlers from the south who come north to the lakes to sell cheap jewelry during the summer. They sweet-talk the ladies and take their good money for glass beads. The way the schoolgirls gather around Don Gregorio, fawning over him, is no different.»
«Yes, it’s true, he’s handsome and he uses it,» Sister said. «Concetta is being duped. But you should never look down on someone for trusting the wrong person. It could happen to any of us.»
«I thought she was intelligent.»
«And why did you think that?» Sister Teresa had tutored Concetta since she was six years old. She knew exactly how little interest Concetta had taken in her studies and how much energy she had expended in the quest for physical beauty and sartorial elegance109. Far more effort went into her pursuit of glamour than into developing her intellect, character, or common sense.
«I thought she was… everything.»
«I’m sorry. Even those we love can disappoint us.»
«I know that now,» Ciro said.
«Priests aren’t perfect…,» Sister Teresa began. «Ciro, Don Gregorio already knows his shortcomings, far better than you ever will.»
«He doesn’t think he has any! He runs the church like he’s king.»
Sister Teresa took a deep breath. «Don Raphael Gregorio was neither distinguished academically nor admired for his spiritual acumen in the seminary. From all reports, he glided through on his good manners and pleasant personality. After he took his final vows, he wasn’t assigned to the cathedral in Milan. He was not chosen to write for the Vatican newspaper. He was not selected to be the bishop’s envoy or the cardinal’s secretary. He was sent to the poorest village on the highest peak in the most northern Alps of Italy. He’s a good-looking sap, and he knows it. He’s just exactly smart enough to know that he can only be important in a place where he has no competition. He says mass like I read a recipe aloud as I’m cooking.»
«He’s a consecrated man! He’s supposed to be better!»
«Ciro, you can’t go by the costume.»
«Then why does Sister take pains ironing his vestments? Why do I have to carry the altar linens on a dowel? We make the man look good.»
«A cassock does not make a man a priest, any more than a fine dress makes a woman truly beautiful – or good or generous or intelligent. Don’t confuse the way someone looks with the way they are. Grace is a rare thing. Iwear the habit not because Iam pious but because I’m trying to be. I left my mother and father when I was twelve years old to become a nun. I had a great desire to see the world, and now, I am doing penance for my selfishness. Who knew I’d see the world through the drain of an old sink and across the surface of a wooden chopping board? But here it is, and here I am. In my zeal to be a part of a grand adventure, I traded my mother’s kitchen for this one.»
Sister Teresa cooked three meals a day for the nuns, and also prepared the meals for Don Gregorio. She was up at 3:00 a.m. baking bread, which Ciro knew because he was up milking the cows. It seemed that Sister Teresa had the workload of a wife and mother, without the love and respect that went with it.
«Why do you stay?» Ciro asked.
Sister Teresa smiled. She really was beautiful when she smiled; her pink cheeks glowed, and her brown eyes twinkled. She placed her hands on Ciro’s. «I’m hoping that God will find me.»
Sister Teresa stood and threw a moppeen over her shoulder. She handed Ciro the platter to carry to the dining room and loaded the bowls of chestnut puree onto a large tray.
«It’s not so bad. We eat, don’t we?»
«Yes, Sister.»
«There’s never enough chicken, but we manage. God’s love fills us up, that’s what Sister Ercolina says. You have to find the thing that fills you up, Ciro. What fills you up? Do you know?»
Ciro Lazzari thought he knew what filled him up, but the last person he would tell was a nun. If Ciro understood anything about himself, it was his desire to woo and win a girl’s heart. «I thought it was Concetta,» he said.
«I’m sorry. Sometimes we get our hearts broken, only to have the right person come along to mend them,» Sister said.
Ciro wasn’t ready to let go of Concetta Martocci. He couldn’t say why he loved her, he only knew that he did. The goal of winning her heart inspired him to work harder, longer, and more diligently so he might make enough money to take her places and buy her pretty things. Now what would he work for?
Ciro imagined Concetta in full, filling in the details of her life outside of what he observed in fleeting glimpses of her on the piazza, in school, or in church. He wondered how she spent her time away from San Nicola. He imagined her bedroom, with a round window, a white rocking chair, and a soft feather bed surrounded by a wallpaper of tiny pink roses. He wondered what she wished for – an elegant gold chain, a small emerald ring, or a fur capelet110 to wear over her winter coat? What would she become? Did she see herself working in a shop on the colonnade? Would she want a house on Via Donzetti or a farm above the village in Alta Vilminore?
Ciro pleaded, «Let’s get rid of Don Gregorio. Help me do it. He’s an infidel. You know how the church works. Help me get the job done. I would do it for you.»
«Let me think about it,» Sister Teresa said.
Seeing Concetta in the arms of another did not make Ciro jealous, it made him sad. He had hoped for a kiss for so long, and now he would never know one from the girl he had longed for from the first moment he saw her. The village priest had stolen any chance for his happiness outright, and Ciro wanted Don Gregorio to pay.
Ciro set off on foot for Schilpario to the north. The five-mile hike over the pass would take him about an hour, so he gave himself plenty of time to make it to the church to speak with Don Martinelli after the funeral and receive instructions for the grave-digging.
Sister Teresa packed a few fresh rolls, sliced salami, a hunk of Parmesan cheese, and a canteen of water. Ciro was frustrated that he was forced to walk to Schilpario, but after his run-in with Don Gregorio, he knew he would never ride in the church carriage again. He wondered who would take care of the rectory stable now that he had been fired. He felt for Iggy, who was getting older and counted on his young companion to do the heavy lifting. The word had spread quickly that Ciro was no longer working at the church, a bit of news in a village longing for it.
The Passo Presolana curved like a copper coil up the perimeter of the mountain, snaking under stone overpasses and widening where the lip of the gorge extended over the rocks. Ciro walked through a long tunnel carved into the mountain, its stone walls once jagged from dynamite blasts but now covered in green moss. Ciro kept his eyes on the far entrance, an oval of bright light capping the darkness.
Suddenly he heard the pounding of hooves. Ciro could make out the silhouettes of a team of horses pulling a covered carriage as it entered the tunnel. The horses plowed on at full gallop. Ciro heard the driver shout, «Sbrigati!111» to him as he froze in their sightline. Ciro threw himself against the wet wall of the tunnel, clinging to it, arms outstretched. The galloping horses raced past, the wheels of the carriage inches from Ciro’s feet as it barely negotiated the hairpin turn.
The deafening sound of the hooves diminished in the distance, and Ciro leaned over, placed his hands on his knees, and attempted to regain his breath, his heart pounding. The idea of certain death skirted only seconds ago sent a chill through him.
As soon as he had regained his composure, he made his way out of the tunnel and continued his climb up the mountain. The Alps blossomed with the fresh buds of spring; on one side the cliffs were draped in white button daisies, while on the other, the rocky sides of the perilous gorge were blanketed in a mesh of vines. Ciro wished he had taken Eduardo up on his offer of company, as the journey was turning out to be longer and more treacherous than he imagined, but his brother was busy preparing the liturgy for Easter week.
Ciro whistled, climbing a steep crook in the road. As he passed a deep gulley where the road dropped off, he heard something rustle in the brush. He looked down into the pit, a crevice filled with thick foliage, and stepped back. There were wolves in these mountains, and he imagined that if they were half as hungry as the poor people who lived in these villages, he might not make it to Schilpario after all. He sprinted up the road when he heard another rustling, this time closer, as if he were being followed. Ciro broke into a run and was soon followed by a small barking dog, a wiry black-and-white mutt with a long face and alert brown eyes.
Ciro stopped. Catching his breath, he asked, «Who are you?»
The dog barked.
«Go home, boy.» Ciro surveyed the stretch of road. He was too far outside Vilminore for the dog to belong to anyone there, and besides, the dog was thin, so it was doubtful he’d been in the care of an owner for a while.
Ciro knelt. «I have to dig a grave, boy.»
The dog looked up at him.
«Where do you live?»
The dog stuck out his pink tongue and panted.
«Oh, I get it. You’re an orphan boy like me.» Ciro scratched the dog behind the ears. His fur was clean, but matted tightly, like thick wool. Ciro opened his canteen of water and poured some into his hand for the dog to drink. The dog lapped up the water and then shook his head, splashing the remains all over Ciro.
«Hey!» Ciro stood, wiping his face with his sleeve. «Non spruzzarmi!112»
He turned to walk up the road. The dog followed him.
«Go home, boy.»
The dog ignored the command and followed Ciro up the mountain. The rest of the climb went by quickly as Ciro tossed sticks for his new friend to fetch. Back and forth, back and forth, the dog made a game of Ciro’s climb higher and higher into the Alps. Ciro had begun to appreciate the dog’s company just as the journey ended. The entrance to the village of Schilpario was in sight.
Ciro’s destination, the church of Sant’Antonio da Padova, built with large blocks of sandstone from the mountain, anchored the entrance to the village. From the church courtyard Ciro saw an enormous waterwheel below, spinning furiously as rushing torrents from the mountain streams spilled over the slats and into a clear pool. The deep field behind the waterwheel gave a sense of length and breadth to this village, nestled at the foot of Pizzo Camino.
Ciro peered down the empty street. The town was eerily quiet. He looked up at the windows and saw no faces in them. The shop doors were locked, and the shades were down. It was as though the village had been abandoned. Ciro began to doubt Iggy’s instructions.
The stray dog followed Ciro to the entrance of the church. Ciro looked down at him. «Look, I have a job here. Go find a family to take you in.»
The dog looked up at Ciro as if to say, What family?
Ciro opened the door to the church. He looked back at the dog, who sat back on his hind legs to wait. Ciro shook his head and smiled.
Ciro entered the church, removing his cap. The vestibule was full, ten people deep. Ciro worked his way through the crowd to the back of the church. Every pew was filled. Rows of mourners stood in the aisles. The alcoves overflowed with people, and the stairs up to the choir loft were full. Ciro soon realized that the entire population of the village was standing in the church. Ciro had been hired to bury someone very important, a padrone, a sindaco113, or perhaps a bishop.
Ciro was tall enough to see over the heads of the mourners. He looked down the long center aisle to the foot of the altar, where a small open casket rested. To his horror, Ciro realized that he had come to bury not an old man, but a child. Kneeling before the casket was the family, a mother and father and their children. They were dressed in clean, neatly pressed work clothes, but in no way would their humble appearance justify this elaborate funeral or the standing-room-only attendance. Ciro was surprised to see such a poor family, one of his own station, so exalted in church.
Giacomina knelt before the casket, placing her hands upon it as if to comfort a sleeping child in a cradle. Giacomina had never had the seventh baby she had promised her husband. How strange that she was thinking about the baby that had never been born as her own lay in her casket. The scent and sounds of a new baby in the house always sweetened the surroundings. The older children had their enchantments, and it was a pleasure to tend to them, but a baby brings a focus to the home. A new baby binds a family together anew.
Giacomina had believed that the absence of a seventh baby shielded the other six from harm. She had made a deal with God Almighty. In exchange for that seventh joy she had prayed for but not received, He would hold the six she had close and safe. But God had broken His promise. As she took in the faces of her children, she realized that she could not comfort them. Their loss was as catastrophic as her own.
Enza gripped her mother’s hand tightly as she knelt before the casket, taking in for the last time Stella’s sweet face and unruly curls. How many times Enza had stood at the foot of the crib when Stella was a baby, peering up at her as she slept! She did not look that different to Enza now.
Enza would hold the image of her baby sister in her heart like the curl of Stella’s hair that she had clipped and placed in a locket before the priest allowed the mourners into the church. Enza began to list all the things Stella had accomplished during her short life. Stella was learning to read. She knew the alphabet. She could recite her prayers, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, and the Our Father. She knew the song «Ninna Nanna» and could dance the bergamasca114. She was learning about nature; she could identify the poisonous red berries of the sagrada plant as well as the edible plumberries that grew wild on the cliffs. She knew the difference between alpine deer and wild elk from drawings in Papa’s book.
Stella knew about heaven, but it had been presented like a land of make-believe, a castle in the clouds where angels lived. Enza wondered if Stella understood what was happening as she lay dying. It was too cruel to imagine Stella’s last thoughts.
Life, Enza decided, is not about what you get, but what is taken from you. It’s in the things we lose that we discover what we most treasure. Enza’s most profound wish was that she might have kept Stella safe, that she had not failed her baby sister, that they would not have to face the years ahead without her.
Enza vowed never to forget Stella, not for a day.
The priest struck a long match and ignited the incense in the gold urn until streams of gray smoke curled from the open squares of the brass cup. He gently lowered the cap and lifted the urn on its rope chain, swinging it gently as he walked around the casket, anointing it, until puffs of smoke obscured the tiny casket, which now resembled a small golden ship sailing through clouds. The family encircled the casket as they had Stella’s bed.
The priest looked all around the church, unable to figure out a way to move the vast crowd through the cathedral so each mourner might pass the casket and pay their final respects. Ciro quickly grasped the problem. He nudged two young men and motioned for them to join him.
Ciro walked up the aisle with the boys, and, slipping behind the altar to the far side of the church, he motioned for the two young men to do the same on the other side of the church. They unbolted the side doors, top and bottom, letting in the fresh mountain air and beams of sunlight that immediately dispelled the gloom. The mourners formed a line and began to process past the casket and out from either side. The priest nodded his approval to Ciro.
Ciro observed the eldest daughter rise from her kneeling position to stand behind her grieving mother, placing her hands on her shoulders to comfort her. He looked away; to see such deep connection between mother and child awoke a particular grief of his own. He slipped out the side door through the crowd. Once outdoors, he took in the cool, fresh air. He figured it would take most of the afternoon to move the mourners through the cemetery after the final benediction. It would be hours before he could begin to dig the grave, and nightfall before he would return to Vilminore.
Hearing a dog whimper, Ciro looked up and saw his stray running around the side of the church toward him. He leaned down, and the dog nuzzled his hand.
«Hey, Spruzzo115,» he whispered, happy for the company.
Ciro reached back into his knapsack and broke off a bit of salami for the dog as the mourners filed out of the church and into the streets of Schilpario in waves of black and gray, like low storm clouds off the cliffs.
A group of children left the church together. Ciro immediately recognized them as orphans. They were led by a nun whose hands were folded into her billowing black sleeves, her head bowed as she went. The sight of the children, moving quickly as if to ward off attention as they followed the nun, tore at his heart. He missed his own mother. Ciro had learned that the pain of her abandonment was only lying dormant; suddenly, when he was most unaware, the sight of a child around the age he was when Caterina left him at the convent would open the old wound again, piercing his fragile soul.
Ciro imagined his mother in a gold carriage, led by a team of black horses, stopping in front of the convent on a winter morning. Caterina would be wearing her best coat, of the deepest midnight blue velvet. She would reach down and extend her hands to her sons, beckoning them to join her. In this dream, Ciro and Eduardo were young boys again. This time, she wouldn’t leave them behind; instead, she would scoop them up and place them on the seat of the carriage. The driver would turn to them: their father, Carlo, smiling with the contentment of a happy man with a clear conscience, who needs nothing in this world but a woman who loves him and the family they have made together.
Chapter 6. A blue angel
Un Angelo Azzurro
A silver mist settled over the cemetery of Sant’Antonio da Padova as the sun sank behind the mountain. The wrought-iron gates of the cemetery were propped open, revealing a flat field cluttered with headstones and surrounded along the periphery by a series of crypts.
Prominent families had built ornate marble and granite mausoleums that featured outdoor altars, open porticoes, and hand-painted frescoes. There were also simple, spare structures in the Roman style, with columns offsetting crypts inlaid with gold lettering.
Ciro knew that grave-digging in Schilpario would be difficult. Barite and iron mines lay beneath the village, which meant that the ground was loaded with shale. Even as his shovel struck rock again and again, he persisted, excavating white limestone hunks that looked like oversize pearls and stacked them by the grave.
Stella’s casket rested nearby on the marble floor of a mausoleum entrance. It was covered in a blessed cloth, ready to be placed in the grave when Ciro’s work was done.
Spruzzo sat on the edge of the open grave and watched his new master make steady progress, the mound of dirt next to the headstone growing higher and higher. Earlier, after final rites were performed at the graveside, the casket had been lowered into the shallow grave and covered with greenery. As soon as the last mourners left, Ciro removed the spray, lifted the casket out of the grave, and commenced digging seven feet into the earth. After two hours of digging, the shale gave way to dry earth, and Ciro dug the last two feet into the pit in no time at all.
Ciro climbed out of the grave to retrieve the casket.
Years ago, the Ravanelli family had purchased a small plot and marked it with a delicate sculpted angel of blue marble. Ciro preferred the Ravanellis’ plot, elegant in its simplicity, to the fancy mausoleums.
Ciro lifted the small casket and set it down beside the pit. He placed it gently on the ground and jumped into the grave.
«Here. Let me help,» a girl said.
Ciro peeked up from the ragged hem of the grave to see the eldest Ravanelli daughter standing over him. In this light, she seemed ethereal, like an angel herself. Her long black hair was loose, and her eyes pierced through the mist, black as jet beads116. She wore a starched white apron over her paisley117 dress. Wiping her tears away with her handkerchief, she stuffed it into her sleeve before kneeling.
Ciro could see that the girl needed to help, that the finality of burying the casket would give her some peace. «Okay,» he said. «You lift one end, and I’ll take the other.»
Carefully, they lifted Stella’s casket together. Ciro placed it gently in the grave and positioned it in the earth firmly before climbing out. Enza knelt on the ground and bowed her head. Ciro waited for her to finish her prayer.
«You might want to go now,» Ciro said softly.
«I want to be here.»
Ciro looked around. «But I have to cover the casket now,» he said gently, as he leaned against the shovel.
«I know.»
«Are you sure?»
Enza nodded that she was sure. «I don’t want to leave my sister.»
Spruzzo whined. Enza extended her hand, and the dog trotted over to her.
«There’s some food in my knapsack,» Ciro told her.
Enza opened the burlap sack and found the end of the sausage Sister Teresa had packed for him.
«If you’re hungry, help yourself,» he offered.
«Grazie118.» She smiled at him.
Enza’s smile filled Ciro with a feeling of warmth as he stood next to the mound of cold earth. He smiled back at her.
Enza fed Spruzzo bits of sausage as Ciro shoveled. He layered the ground evenly, until the surface on top was smooth and level with the other graves. When he was done, Enza helped him move the limestone rocks off to the side.
When they were done, Enza replaced the spray over the fresh grave until barely any earth showed through the quilt of green juniper and pine that the ladies of the church had gathered. Enza lifted long, fresh green branches of myrtle119 from a stack she had gathered that morning and made an edge around the grave, framing the grave in deepest green. She stood back; it looked lovely, she thought.
Ciro gathered the shovel and pick as Enza folded the holy cloth carefully.
«I have to return that to the priest,» Ciro said.
«I know.» Enza tucked it under her arm. «They use it at every funeral.»
«Do you press the linens?» Ciro asked.
«Sometimes. The ladies of the village alternate between the linens and tending to meals for the priest.»
«No nuns in Schilpario?»
«Just the one who runs the orphanage. And she’s too busy to do extra chores.»
Enza led Ciro out of the cemetery. Spruzzo followed behind, wagging his tail as he went.
«I can take it from here,» Ciro said to her. «Unless… you want to show me the way.» He smiled to invite her along.
«The rectory is behind the church,» Enza said. «Like it is in every village in every province in Italy.»
«You don’t have to tell me about churches.»
«Are you studying to be a priest?» Enza assumed he might be because he wore the clothes of the poor, and many entered the religious life because it was a good alternative to a life in the mines, or other hard-labor jobs on the mountain like stonecutting.
«Do I look like a priest?» Ciro asked her.
«I don’t know. Priests look like everyone else.»
«Well, let’s just say I will never be a priest.»
«So you’re a grave digger?»
«This is my first, and hopefully my last, time.» He realized how that sounded, so he said, «I’m sorry.»
«I understand. It’s not a pleasant job.» Enza smiled. «I’m Enza.»
«I’m Ciro.»
«Where are you from?»
«Vilminore.»
«We go there during the feast. Do you live in the village or on a farm?»
«I live in the convent.» It surprised him that he so readily admitted where he lived. Usually, when talking to girls, he was reluctant to tell them about San Nicola and how he had grown up.
«Are you an orphan?» Enza asked.
«My mother left us there.»
«Us? You have brothers and sisters?»
«One brother, Eduardo,» he said. «Not like you. What’s that like, to be from a big family?» he asked.
«Noisy.» She smiled.
«Like the convent.»
«I thought the nuns were quiet.»
«Me too. Until I lived with them.»
«So none of the piety rubbed off on you?»
«Not much.» Ciro smiled. «But that’s not their fault. It’s just that I don’t think prayers are answered very often, if at all.»
«But that’s why you need faith.»
«The nuns keep telling me I need it, but where am I supposed to find it?»
«In your heart, I guess.»
«There are other things in my heart.»
«Like what?» Enza asked.
«Maybe you’ll find out someday,» Ciro said shyly. Enza picked up a stick and tossed it up the road, and Spruzzo ran to fetch it.
They walked up the road and into town. Enza noticed that their strides were similar as they walked together. She didn’t find herself skipping to keep up with him, even though he was bigger and taller than she.
«Was your mother ill?» Enza asked.
«No. My father died, and she couldn’t take care of us anymore.»
«How sad for her,» Enza said.
In all these years, Ciro had never thought about his mother’s feelings. Enza’s observation opened up his heart to think about what his mother had gone through. Maybe she missed her sons as much as they longed for her.
«How did you come to dig my sister’s grave?» Enza asked.
«Iggy Farino sent me. He’s the caretaker at San Nicola. I work for him.» Throughout the long day, Ciro had wondered what had caused Stella’s death. Even though he overheard conversations, little was said when it came to the death of children. «I don’t mean to cause you any further sadness. But I’d like to know what happened to your sister.»
«A fever. And she had terrible bruises. It happened so fast. By the time I carried her from the waterfall back to our house, the fever had consumed her. I kept hoping the doctor could help,» Enza said. «But he couldn’t. We’ll never know.»
«Maybe that’s for the best,» Ciro said gently.
«There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who want to know the facts, and those who want to make up a nice story to feel better. I wish I was the kind who made up stories,» Enza admitted. «I was taking care of Stella the day before she died.»
«You shouldn’t blame yourself,» Ciro said. «Maybe you shouldn’t blame anyone, but accept that this is your sister’s story, and the ending belongs to her.»
«I wish I believed that.»
«If you look around to find meaning in everything that happens, you will end up disappointed. Sometimes there aren’t reasons behind the terrible things that go on. I ask myself, if I knew all the answers, would it help? I lie awake and wonder why I don’t have parents and wonder what will become of my brother and me. But when the morning comes, I realize that there’s nothing to be done about what has already happened. I can only get up and do my chores and push through the day and find the good in it.»
«Stella was a big part of our happiness.» Enza’s voice broke. «I never want to forget her.» Enza stifled her tears.
«You won’t. I know a little about that. When you lose someone, they take a bigger place in your heart, not a smaller one. Every day it grows, because you don’t stop loving them. You wish you could talk to them. You need their advice. But life doesn’t always give us what we need, and it’s difficult. It is for me, anyway.»
«Me too,» Enza said.
As they walked in the twilight, Ciro decided that Enza was more beautiful than Concetta Martocci. Enza was dark, like an inky lake in the moonlight, whereas Concetta was lacy and airy, like columbine in the spring. Ciro decided he preferred the mystery.
Enza had slender limbs and lovely hands. She moved gracefully and was well-spoken. Her cheekbones, straight nose, and strong chin were typically northern Italian. But she had something that Ciro had not seen in any girl before – she was curious. Enza was alert; she drank in the details of the world around her, sensitive to the feelings of others and quick to respond to them. He saw this in church that morning, and now, in conversation. In contrast, Concetta Martocci poured her energy into the cultivation of her beauty and the power it brought her.
Ciro had met Enza at her most vulnerable, and he wanted to help her. He felt compelled to do whatever he could for her. He had used his physical power when he worked, but now he wanted to share his emotional strength. There were no awkward moments with Enza; they seemed to have an immediate and comfortable connection. He hoped the walk back to the rectory took longer than he remembered; he wanted more time with this beautiful girl.
«Are you in school?» he asked.
«I’m fifteen. I finished school last year.»
He noted happily that they were the same age. «You help your mother with the house?»
«I help my father in the stable.»
«But you’re a girl.»
Enza shrugged. «I’ve always helped my father.»
«Is your father a blacksmith?»
«He drives a carriage to and from Bergamo. We have an old horse and a pretty nice carriage.»
«You’re lucky to have a carriage.» Ciro smiled. «If I had a carriage and horse, I would go to every village in the Alps. I’d take trips to Bergamo and Milan every chance I got.»
«How about over the border to Switzerland? You look like the Swiss. The light hair.»
«No, I’m Italian. Lazzari is my name.»
«The Swiss have Italian surnames sometimes.»
«You like the Swiss? Then I’ll be Swiss,» Ciro teased.
Enza walked ahead of Ciro, then turned on her heel to him. «Do you flirt with all the girls you meet?»
«Some.» He laughed. «You just ask a question like that?»
«Only when I’m interested in the answer.»
«There’s a girl I know,» Ciro admitted. He thought of Concetta, and he was disappointed all over again. The kiss between Don Gregorio and the girl he was enamored of burned in his memory like the image of hell in the fresco over the altar.
«Just one?»
«Concetta Martocci,» Ciro said softly.
«Concetta. What a beautiful name.»
«Si,» he said. «It suits her. She’s small and blond.» He glanced at Enza, who was almost as tall as he was. Ciro continued, «And I used to watch her in church. The truth is, I looked for her everywhere. I’d wait on the colonnade for her to go by. Sometimes for hours.»
«Did she return your feelings?»
«Almost.»
It was Enza’s turn to laugh. «I’m sorry, Ijust never heard anyone describe love in terms of almost.»
«Well, I loved her from afar, let’s say. But it turns out that she loves someone else.»
«So your love story has a sad ending.»
Ciro shrugged. «She’s not the only girl in Vilminore.»
«You keep telling yourself that,» Enza said. «You can be the Prince of the Alps, wooing girls with your charm and your shovel.»
«Now you’re making fun of me!» Ciro cried.
«Not at all. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. There are lots of girls in the Alps. Pretty ones in Azzone120, and more up the mountain. Or go to Lucerne121. The girls are blond there, and petite and pretty. Just like you like them.»
«Are you trying to get rid of me?» Ciro stopped and put his hands in his pockets.
Enza faced Ciro. She reached behind her apron and tightened the bow. Then she smoothed the front placket with her hands. «You should have what you want. Everyone should.»
«And what do you want?» Ciro asked her.
«I want to stay on this mountain. And I want to be with my parents until they’re old.» Enza took a breath. «Before I go to sleep, I picture my family. Everyone is safe and healthy. There’s enough flour in the bin and sugar in the jar. Our chickens decide it’s a good day, and they lay enough eggs to make a cake. That’s all I want.»
«You don’t wish for a gold chain or a new hat?»
«Sometimes. I like pretty things. But if I had to choose, I’d rather have my family.» Enza put her hands in her apron pockets.
«Have your parents made a match for you?»
«If they have, they haven’t told me who he is.» Enza smiled. How odd that Ciro asked her this question on this day, of all days. Stella’s death had forced her to grow up, or at least ponder the choices that lay ahead in adulthood. But now she realized that to have a full life, you must commit to building one.
«Maybe they haven’t chosen him yet.» Ciro leaned against the shovel.
«I wouldn’t want my parents to make a match for me. I want to choose who I will love. And I want – more than anything – to see my sister again.» Enza began to cry but stopped herself. «So I’m going to do my best in this life so that I’m sure to see her in the next one. I’m going to work hard, tell the truth, and be of some use to the people who care about me. I’m going to try, anyway.» Enza took the handkerchief out of her sleeve, turned away from Ciro, and wiped her tears away.
Ciro instinctively moved toward her and put his arms around her. Even though he had been thinking for the past several minutes how to get his arms around her, he was surprised to realize that the urge to comfort her came from a place of authentic compassion, not simply desire.
The scent of the earth and his skin enfolded her as he pulled her close.
Enza felt a sense of relief in his arms. This kindness from Ciro felt good after a day of comforting others. She leaned into him and released her burdens, crying until the tears stopped. She closed her eyes and let him hold her tight.
A feeling of contentment washed over Ciro as he held her. Enza seemed to fit naturally in his arms. There was a familiarity between them that made him feel useful. He discovered a purpose in her arms that he had never known before.
Ciro’s worth had always been measured by how hard he worked, how many chores he could complete from the time the sun came up until it went down. His diligence was his calling card and the foundation of his fine reputation; he had built his sense of self-worth one task at a time.
Ciro hadn’t had any idea how capable he would feel, caring for a person rather than completing a chore. He felt a deep well open in his heart. He believed that a girl could be a thrilling mystery, but he couldn’t have guessed she could also be a true companion, that conversation with her would fulfill him, or that he might even learn something from her.
Enza pulled away from his embrace. «You came to dig a grave, not to talk to me.»
«But I found you,» he said, took her into his arms, and kissed her. As his lips caressed hers, his mind rushed over the events of the day. He tried to remember when he had first seen her. Had he seen other girls in the crowd first and then found her, or was she the only girl he noticed? How did he get this far, how was she allowing him to kiss her when his hands were dirty and he was hardly at his best? Would there ever come a time when he would woo a girl pressed, polished, and as shiny as a glass button?
Enza felt her heart race as their lips touched, the sadness of the day quelled by the unexpected meeting with this boy from Vilminore. Maybe their kisses, breath exchanged for breath, could show her a way to live in the shadow of the sorrow of this day. Maybe her darkest moments had found some light; perhaps he could redeem her grief and replace it with connection. Maybe this boy was some kind of peculiar angel, tall and strong, with freckles from working in the sun and calluses on his hands, so unlike the soft hands of the wealthy and learned. After all, he had made Stella secure in the earth. Maybe he had been sent to place her sister in the mountain she knew and loved, making her an eternal part of it.
But it didn’t matter what he was, or where he came from. Enza was sure he had a good heart, raised as he had been by the sisters in the convent, and he filled a yearning within her. There would be time later to wonder why she had let a boy she hardly knew kiss her on Via Scalina. For her, there was no hesitancy, because there was no mystery. She understood him, though she wasn’t sure why.
In this small village, though, there were rules about courting. The thought of a neighbor seeing her, here in the open, kissing a boy quickly brought her to her senses. As usual, her practical nature won over her romantic heart.
«But you love someone else,» she said, making an excuse to step away from him, even though she didn’t want to.
«Sister Teresa says that when one girl breaks your heart, another comes along to mend it.»
Enza smiled. «I’m the best seamstress in Schilpario. Everyone says so. But I don’t know how to help you mend your broken heart. I have one of my own, you know.» Enza ran up the stairs of the rectory and rang the bell. Ciro bounded up after her.
Father Martinelli came to the door. He seemed so much smaller in the doorway than he had at the altar. His white vestment robes and gold sash had made him seem like a giant, but in his black cassock, he had shrunk to the size of an ink blotter.
«Your cloth, Don Martinelli.»
«Va bene. Buona sera.122» Don Martinelli began to close the door. Ciro put his foot in the door frame to prevent the priest from closing it.
«Ignazio Farino says you’re to pay me two lire.»
«You’re an expensive grave digger.»
Father dug in his pocket and handed Ciro two lire. Ciro handed one lira back to Don Martinelli. «For the church.» Ciro said. Don Martinelli took the money, grunted, and closed the door.
«That was kind of you,» Enza said.
«Don’t think highly of me. That was the deal,» Ciro said.
Enza looked up at the night sky, an expanse of lavender with streaks of gold that looked like embroidered threads. A beautiful heaven had welcomed her sister’s soul tonight.
«Where did you stable your horse?» she asked.
«I walked.»
«From Vilminore? You can’t possibly walk over the pass when it’s dark. You could get trampled, or worse.»
Spruzzo wheezed.
«And what about your dog?»
«He’s not my dog.»
«But he follows you everywhere.»
«Because I couldn’t get rid of him. He followed me up here over the pass. I made the mistake of feeding him.»
«He chose you.» Enza knelt down to pet Spruzzo.
Ciro knelt down next to her. «I’d rather you chose me.»
Enza looked into Ciro’s eyes, and couldn’t decide if this young man was the type who said pretty things to all the girls, or if he really liked her. He wouldn’t be the first boy to take advantage of a sad girl, but Enza decided that she had to trust what she saw in him instead of thinking the worst.
«You know this church is named for Sant’Antonio di Padova, the saint of lost things. That’s a sign. Spruzzo was lost, he found you, and he meant to. You have to keep him.»
«Or what?»
«Or Sant’Antonio will forget you. And when you need him most, when you’re lost, he won’t help you find your way.»
When Enza spoke of the saints, Ciro almost wanted to believe in them. He couldn’t imagine such a personal faith, where saints were at the ready to do the bidding of those on earth. Ciro had buffed every statue at San Nicola, and never once felt the power behind the plaster images. How did this mountain girl know with certainty that the heavenly hosts were watching over her?
«Come with me,» she said. «I’ll take you home.»
«You can drive a carriage?»
«Since I was eleven,» Enza said proudly.
«This I have to see.»
Enza and Ciro walked up Via Scalina together, following Spruzzo, who trotted ahead as though he’d been officially adopted. Oil lamps lit the path to the entrance of the Ravanellis’ old stone house. The yard was filled with small groups of visitors who had come to be with the family. Inside, the house overflowed with more neighbors and friends, who had brought food and comfort to the family.
«Let me talk to my father,» she said. «I need his permission.»
Ciro followed Enza into the Ravanelli home while Spruzzo waited outside on the grass.
Ciro’s mouth watered as he looked at the table, filled with an array of homemade breads and rolls, fresh cheese, prosciutto, cold polenta, and platters of tortellini, small purses of pasta filled with sausage. On the mantel over the hearth, he saw several cakes in tin pans, reminding him of the holiday baking at the convent. Ciro delivered Sister Teresa’s rum cakes throughout Vilminore every December. An enamel pot of coffee rested on a trivet, and a pitcher of cream was set nearby. Every bench and chair was filled with company from the village.
There were children everywhere, climbing the ladder to the loft, running under the table, playing tag as they ran through the house to the outdoors. It occurred to him that a terrible day had been made whole by the laughter of children after the loss of one of their own.
Ciro felt the sudden sting of regret for all that he had missed in his own home, with family and friends filling rooms and making a life. The simply furnished house was clean and welcoming, and the friends seemed devoted. What more does a man need to be happy? Ciro wondered.
A woman around the same age as Giacomina poured her coffee, while Marco stood in a circle with several men who tried to keep his mind off his grief with stories from the mines. Ciro remembered them at the foot of the altar that morning, a lump forming in his throat.
Enza made her way to her father. She whispered in Marco’s ear, and he nodded and looked over at Ciro, sizing him up, as Enza went to her mother and knelt before her. She patted her mother’s hand and kissed her on the cheek.
Enza collected two pears, several small sandwiches, and a cavazune123 pie filled with ricotta and honey, placing them in a starched moppeen. She joined Ciro at the door. «Papa said we can take the carriage.»
«Before we go, may I pay my respects to your parents?» Ciro asked.
Every feeling Enza had in her heart had been expanded that day. She was surprised by Ciro’s grace and also moved124 by it. «Of course,» she said quietly.
Enza tied a knot in the moppeen and placed the food on the table. She took Ciro to meet her father. Ciro shook his hand and offered his condolences. Then Enza took Ciro to meet her mother. Ciro repeated his kind sympathies and remembered to bow his head to the lady of the house.
Ciro followed Enza down a stone path to the stable as Spruzzo barked outside the stable door. Enza grabbed a small oil lamp and went into the barn, where the light turned everything inside a milky gold – the hay, the walls, the trough, the horse. Cipi stood in his stall, covered by a blanket.
«You can pull the muslin cover off the carriage,» Enza said, lifting the blanket off Cipi. The horse nuzzled her neck.
«You want me to hitch the carriage?» Ciro asked.
«I can do it.» Enza led Cipi out of his stall to the carriage hitch. «You can feed him.»
Ciro lifted a bucket of oats from the feeder trough and positioned it where Cipi could gobble it down.
Enza opened the stable doors and attached the oil lamp to the hook on the carriage. She went to the water pump outside the doors and pumped fresh water for Spruzzo, who lapped it up hungrily. Then she washed her hands and face, wiping her face on her apron. Ciro did the same, wiping his own face on his bandana.
She climbed up onto the carriage bench. «Don’t forget supper.» Ciro picked up the food and climbed next to Enza, who picked up the reins as Spruzzo jumped up on to the seat and sat between them.
Enza snapped the reins; Cipi trotted out of the barn and onto the main road that weaved through Schilpario. The heart of the village, a corridor of buildings that lined either side of the road, was drenched in pale blue moonlight. The carriage passed through the narrow stone street until the walls of the town gave way to the entrance of the Passo Presolana.
The road unspooled down the mountain before them like a black velvet ribbon, the carriage lamp throwing a strong beam of white light into the darkness to guide them. Ciro watched as Enza deftly controlled the reins. She sat up high, with perfect posture, guiding Cipi through the night.
«Tell me about your ring,» Enza said.
Ciro twisted the gold signet ring on his smallest finger. «I’m afraid I’m going to outgrow it altogether.»
«Have you had it very long?»
«Since my mother left. It belonged to her.»
«It suits you.»
«It’s all I have from my family.»
«That’s not true,» Enza said. «I’ll bet you have her eyes, or her smile, or her coloring.»
«No, I look like my father.» Whenever anyone else asked about his mother, Ciro changed the subject, but Enza asked about Caterina in a manner that didn’t feel like prying. «My brother looks like our mother.» He added, «I’m not at all like her, really.»
«You should eat,» Enza said. «You must be starving.»
Ciro took a bite of the bread and cheese. «I’m always hungry.»
«What’s it like, living in the convent? When I was a little girl, I thought about becoming a nun.»
Ciro draped his arm over the back of the carriage seat around Enza. «You shouldn’t kiss boys, then.»
«Don’t look so smug.»
«How can you tell how I look? It’s dark out here.»
«I can see just fine. The lamp is loaded with oil.» Enza loosened the reins on Cipi, who slowed to a more leisurely jog.
«You don’t even have to direct him. He knows the way,» Ciro observed.
«Papa takes this route when business is good.»
«And how is business?»
«Terrible. But the summer is coming, and it’s always better then.»
«Will I see you this summer?» Ciro asked.
«We go up to Lake Endine.»
Ciro sat up. «You do?»
«We stay with our cousins. You could come with us,» Enza offered.
«I would never impose,» Ciro said.
«My brothers would love the company. They go fishing. They hike and go in caves. Battista says that there are caves with blue sand up on the mountain.»
«I’ve heard of those caves! Do you go fishing?» Ciro asked.
«No, I cook and clean and help my aunt with her babies. Just like your nuns. A lot of work, and I’m paid in fresh figs,» Enza joked.
Enza took the turn onto the piazza in Vilminore. Afew of the townspeople were out after la passeggiata. Old men played cards on small tables on the colonnade as a mother pushed a pram, soothing her baby. Cipi’s hooves clicked across the piazza as Ciro took the reins and guided the carriage to the entrance of the convent.
«Thank you for the ride,» Ciro said. «I wish you didn’t have to go back alone.»
«Don’t worry about me. Cipi knows the road. Remember?»
«I’d better go,» Ciro said, yet he didn’t move. He wasn’t ready to get out of the carriage, or for this night to end.
«I’m not going to kiss you again,» Enza said gently.
«But. .,» Ciro said.
Enza gave him the moppeen with the food.
«Good night, Ciro. Remember, Sant’Antonio will take good care of you if you take care of Spruzzo.»
«When will I see you again?»
«Whenever you want. You know where I live.»
«The yellow house on Via Scalina,» Ciro said.
He climbed down from the carriage, his arms full of Spruzzo and the remnants of supper. He turned to say something more to Enza, but Cipi had trotted out into the piazza and was heading for the road.
Enza’s dark hair flew behind her like a veil. How small she looked, high on the driver’s bench! As the carriage turned off onto the pass, the lamplight threw a sheen on the wooden side of the carriage. «Wait!» Ciro called out, but she was gone.
I know that carriage, he thought.
It looked like the carriage that had taken his mother away. Could it be the same one? Ciro had felt there was something fated about meeting Enza, and now he knew. He couldn’t wait to tell Eduardo, who might remember the carriage in more detail than he. Or maybe he was just imagining things on this day of grave-digging and tears.
The smattering of clouds over the moon floated away, leaving a gold coin in the sky. Lucky moon. Tonight, Ciro thought, life was pretty good. If he were the praying kind, he might even thank God for his good fortune. He had a lira in his pocket. He had met a pretty girl, and he’d kissed her. It wasn’t like any of the other kisses he’d ever had, nor was she like any of the other girls who had come before her. Enza listened to him, and this was a gift sweeter than any kiss. But it would take Ciro many years to realize it.
Ciro pushed the convent door open and entered the vestibule. Eduardo jumped up from the bench. «You’re back. Grazie Dio.125»
«What’s the matter?»
«What is that?» Eduardo looked down at the dog.
«This is Spruzzo.»
«You can’t have a dog in the convent.»
«He’s for Sister Teresa. She says there’s a rat in the kitchen.»
Ciro turned to head out to the workhouse. Eduardo stopped him. «They’re waiting for us in the kitchen.»
«They?»
«The nuns.»
Ciro followed Eduardo. «What’s going on?» he asked. A sense of unease displaced the contentment he had felt moments before.
The kitchen door was closed, but light spilled through the cracks in the doorjamb. Ciro told Spruzzo to stay outside as Eduardo pushed it open.
The nuns had gathered around Sister Teresa’s worktable. Some sat on stools, while others stood. Sister Teresa stood off to the side, a look of worry on her face.
«Are we taking a vote?» Ciro asked. «Because if we are, I vote to plant more olives next year than grapes.»
The nuns, who usually appreciated Ciro’s jokes, were in no mood for them tonight.
«Okay, before you punish me, for whatever I’ve done—» Ciro took the lira from his pocket. «For you.» He handed it to Sister Domenica, whose white hair stuck out of her wimple, a sure sign she’d been in a rush to get to this meeting.
«Thank you,» she said. The sisters murmured their gratitude.
«We have a very serious problem,» Sister Ercolina said as she adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses and stood tall and reedy, like a palm frond on Easter Sunday. She crossed her arms across her chest inside her sleeves. «We have loved having you boys here. Eduardo, you have been a wonderful student, and Ciro, we don’t know how we would have handled the garden and the chickens and the maintenance of the convent and the church without you—»
«This is about Don Gregorio, isn’t it?» Ciro interrupted her, but his mouth was so dry, he could barely swallow. He picked up the pitcher and poured himself a glass of water.
«He has asked to have you removed from the convent immediately,» Sister said.
Ciro looked at Eduardo, whose face had turned as white as the flour in the enamel bin. Ciro placed his hands on the table and nodded his head in disbelief. The Lazzari boys had lived in two homes in their young lives. The first had been taken from them because their father had died, and their mother could not build a life for them alone. Now, it was Ciro’s own actions against the village priest that had caused them to lose their home. The boys had grown accustomed to their role in service to these good and poor nuns. They felt long work hours in exchange for their room and board was a fair trade. They had become part of this community, and grown to feel affection for it. The nuns were purposeful in their motherly care of the boys, making certain they celebrated holidays and feast days as they might have with their parents. Now, the security that had given them confidence and a place in the world had been taken away.
«I hope you told Don Gregorio to drop dead,» Ciro said.
The novitiates gasped.
«He’s a priest,» Sister Ercolina said.
«He’s also a fraud who takes advantage of young girls. You press his vestments, but he is not worthy of them. You—» Ciro turned and searched the eyes of his family of nuns. «You are worthy. Every single one of you. You serve. Don Gregorio takes.»
Eduardo gripped Ciro’s arm.
«My brother and I»—Ciro’s voice broke—«thank you for taking us in. We’ll never forget you. You should not suffer because I was honest with Don Gregorio. My brother and I will pack up and find another place to stay.»
Sister Ercolina’s eyes filled with tears. «You won’t be together, Ciro.»
«Don Gregorio has seen to it that you will be separated,» Sister Teresa cried.
«Ciro, he has arranged to send you to the boys’ workhouse in Parma,» Sister Domenica began. «I argued that you had done nothing wrong, and that you don’t belong there with boys who steal and do worse, but he was vehement.»
«So the infidel punishes us instead of doing penance for his own sin. And this, dear sisters, is the man who represents God on earth? I have no words.»
«He deserves our respect,» Sister Domenica said, but the steady look in her eyes told Ciro the words were bitter in her mouth.
«Sister, you can give him yours, but he will never have mine.»
Sister Ercolina looked around, then fixed her gaze on Ciro. «I am not here to debate the power of the village priest, I am here to help you. We have all gathered to help you.»
«That’s why we meet in secret in the kitchen.» Ciro looked around at their faces, the same sweet faces with whom he and Eduardo had shared dinner since the first night they came to the convent. He could not imagine his life without them, nor could he accept the loss of his brother. Fury rose within him. «He would never think to look for us here. The saint of pots and pans is not one he calls upon. No, the saints of gold, frankincense, and lire are more his style.»
«Stop it,» Eduardo said sadly. «Listen to Sister.»
Sister Teresa stepped forward. «Ciro, we have a plan to help you.»
«What about Eduardo?»
«Eduardo is reporting to the seminary of Sant’Agostino in Rome.»
Ciro turned to his brother in disbelief. «You’re going into the seminary?»
Eduardo nodded. «I am.»
«When were you going to tell me?»
Eduardo’s eyes filled with tears. «I’ve been thinking about it. And now I will leave the convent when you do.»
«So you’ve been sacrificed on the altar of the priesthood in exchange for me?»
Sister Teresa stepped in. «Don Gregorio insists you both leave the mountain.»
«Of course – I saw too much.»
«But we have a plan of our own. Sister Anna Isabelle has an uncle who is a very good shoemaker.»
«Oh, come on,» Ciro blurted.
«Ciro—,» Eduardo warned.
«It was either apprentice with him or go to the workhouse in Parma. That’s not a place for a fine young man with a good mind and a good heart.» Sister Teresa began to cry.
«We have to protect you,» Sister Ercolina said. «We promised your mother.»
The weight of what had transpired on this day finally settled on Ciro. This wasn’t really their home, and the nuns weren’t truly family. The security they had provided was only on loan.
«Is this shoemaker in Rome, so I can be near Eduardo?» Ciro asked, accepting his fate. Ciro would work anywhere, for anyone, as long as he could be close to Eduardo.
«No, Ciro,» Sister Teresa said.
«Milan, then?»
«America,» Sister Teresa said, as her voice broke.
The cot creaked as Ciro rolled over in the dark. «You awake?»
«I can’t sleep,» Eduardo said.
«Probably a good idea. Keep your eyes open. Don Gregorio will come in here and stab us in our cots,» Ciro said. «No, he wouldn’t. He’s too much of a coward.»
Eduardo laughed. «Do you take nothing seriously?»
«It hurts too much.»
«I know,» Eduardo said.
«Do you really want to be a priest?»
«Yes, Ciro, I do. Though I’m not worthy of it.»
«They are not worthy of you.»
«Well, either way, they’re about to find out.» Eduardo’s wry tone made Ciro laugh.
«I suppose there were signs. You served every morning mass, and you never missed vespers. And I saw you read your missal every night.»
«I’ll do my best to be one of them. I’ll become a priest, and then I’ll be able to help you should you ever need me. It doesn’t hurt to have a brother with an education and a good position in the church.»
«I would have been proud of you no matter what you became.»
«You are pure of spirit, Ciro. You always have been.»
«Right,» Ciro joked. «And what does it say in the Beatitudes126? The pure of spirit inherit what? The shoes?»
«I didn’t think you knew what the Beatitudes were.»
«I guess some of your dogma soaked in after all.»
«There’s another reason for me to become a priest. I can find Mama and take care of her. The church provides for the families of the clergy.»
«You’re going to give up everything for the chance it might help Mama?» Ciro asked.
«Yes, Ciro. It’s the first vow I ever took.»
«If I could, I would help. That was always our plan. But now the Holy Roman Church has ruined that, too,» Ciro said. «I miss her.»
Eduardo got up, went to Ciro’s cot, and lay down on the floor next to him, as he had every night when they first arrived at the convent. The nearness of Eduardo was all it took to soothe Ciro. And tonight, it still did.
«When you find her, no matter where I am, I will come home to you,» Ciro said.
Spruzzo jumped up on Ciro’s cot and nestled at his feet. Ciro lay back and crossed his arms behind his head, staring at the wooden beams on the ceiling, with their spikes and hooks sticking out where pots and tools and loops of rope once hung. He wondered how soon the nuns would put all the equipment back into this room after they had left. The sisters reconfigured the space inside the convent like wealthy women in the city changed their hats.
This old room wouldn’t be empty for long.
The winter bulbs asleep in pots, the urns, the buckets, the wreaths of wire, the spirals of rope, and the bowed wooden frames of the grape arbors would find their way back onto the shelves, as the trowels, rakes, and shovels would dangle from the hooks once more. It would be as though the Lazzari brothers had never lived at San Nicola.
One day, when Ciro took a walk up the hill to Via Bonicelli, he had seen that a new family had moved into the house where he and Eduardo were born. Sometimes Ciro would climb the hill just to look at the house, so as not to forget the details of the only place his family had ever lived. Eventually, he stopped going, and now he knew why.
Memories take the place of rooms. The sisters would fold up the cots, roll the rug, and put the lamp back into the office. The ceramic washbasin and pitcher would be returned to the sisters’ quarters in the guest room. Will the nuns even think of us when we are gone? Ciro wondered as he lay in the dark.
Ciro knew every street in Vilminore, every house and every garden. He would study their architectural details, creating his own perfect home in his mind’s eye. He’d imagine a staircase here, a veranda there, windows with small panes that swung out, a garden with an arbor for grapes, and a patch of sod to grow a fig tree. He preferred a house built of stone to one of stucco and pine. He’d live at the end of the street, high on the mountain, with a good view of the valley below. He’d open his windows in the morning and let the fresh breeze through, as the sunlight filled every room, as bright as the petal of a daffodil. Light would fill every corner, and happiness would fill every room. The love of a good wife and children would fill his heart.
All Ciro knew of America was what he had heard in the village. There was a lot of boasting about the potential there, the money to be made, the fortunes to be built. But for all its promise, America had not returned their father home to the mountain. America had become, in Ciro’s mind, almost like heaven, a place he could only see in his dreams. He had longed for his father and pictured him alive still, imagined their reunion. Maybe his father was filling his purse to return to the mountain to buy them a fine house. Maybe his father had had a plan, and something had prevented him from seeing it through127. Anything but death in the mine, anything but that. Ciro still believed his father was alive. He vowed to find his father and bring him home. Maybe his father had grown to love America and didn’t want to return to the mountain. That particular thought always brought Ciro pain. Ciro imagined America loud and crowded, and wondered if there were gardens and sun.
Southern Italians had flocked there to America to find work; fewer had emigrated from the Alps. Maybe that trip down the mountain was long and treacherous because it should be made rarely, if at all. It seemed to Ciro that a man had all he needed in the shadow of Pizzo Camino, so long as he was lucky enough to find love and a job to sustain his family.
Ciro was sure of one thing; he would only stay in America until the scandal blew over, not one day more. He vowed that he and Eduardo would return to Vilminore together, someday, to live on the mountain where they were born. Nothing would separate them, not even the Holy Roman Church. The Lazzari boys were blood brothers, and as their mother left them on that winter day, together, so they would remain, even when an ocean separated them.
Chapter 7. A straw hat
Un Capello di Paglia
The nuns kept Ciro out of sight for two days as they plotted to save him from the work camp in Parma. As the sun set behind the mountain, Sister Domenica, Sister Ercolina, and Sister Teresa carried trays across the piazza from the convent to the rectory.
Sister Ercolina shivered as they approached the rectory. «What did you make?» Sister Ercolina asked Sister Teresa.
«Veal,» said Sister Teresa.
«It’s his favorite meal,» Sister Domenica said softly.
«Of course it is. It’s the most expensive meat.» Sister Ercolina sighed.
«I know. I bribed the butcher,» Sister Teresa said.
Sister Domenica unlocked the door to the rectory kitchen. Sister Teresa lit the oil lamps, while Sister Ercolina placed a tray on a butcher-block worktable in the center of the room. The marble floor was pristine, the walls painted bright white. Fine copper pots, a deep stove, and a double enamel sink filled the wall under the windows. The rectory kitchen had the scent of fresh paint. Only rarely was food cooked here; the nuns bussed every meal over from the convent.
Sister Teresa placed Don Gregorio’s dinner on the counter. She gathered the china, silver, and cloth napkins from the open shelves and pushed through the swinging doors into the dining room. Sister Domenica followed her, lighting candles in silver holders. The formal dining room was splendid, its walls adorned with a wallpaper of pale green stripes, staggered with oil paintings in gold-leaf frames.
The mahogany dining room table, which seated twenty, was polished to a mirror shine. The nuns had embroidered the seats of the chairs by hand in a pattern of lilies of the valley128, surrounded by ivy vines, on a field of navy blue.
The nuns worked silently and swiftly, setting a place for Don Gregorio.
Sister Ercolina entered the dining room, checking her watch. «May I call Don Gregorio to supper?»
«Yes, Sister.» Sister Domenica folded her arms into her habit sleeves, took her place by the sideboard, and looked straight ahead.
Sister Teresa entered the dining room with Don Gregorio’s meal, warm under its silver dome. She positioned it on the starched linen place mat and took her place next to Sister Domenica.
Sister Ercolina entered the dining room and stood on the opposite wall, facing Teresa and Domenica.
Don Gregorio entered. «Let us pray,» he said without looking at the nuns. He made a sweeping sign of the cross, his hands cutting a swath through the air as he said,
Benedice, Domine,
nos et haec tua dona
quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi
per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
The nuns made the sign of the cross with him, and Don Gregorio took his seat as Sister Teresa moved forward to serve him. She lifted the silver dome off the plate, and Sister Domenica took it from her. They returned to their stations by the server.
«What a beautiful cut of veal,» Don Gregorio said.
«Thank you, Don Gregorio,» Sister Teresa said.
«Why am I deserving of such an opulent meal in the midst of Lent129?»
«Don Gregorio, you must keep your strength up during Easter week.»
«Have you set the schedule for the house blessings, Sister Ercolina?»
«Yes, Father. We have the LaPenna and Baratta boys accompanying you. We thought you should begin in Vilminore Alta this year and work your way down the mountain. Ignazio will drive you in the carriage. We have the silver polished, and the urns ready for your blessing of the holy water.»
«Have the palms arrived?»
«They were shipped from Greece, and we expect them any day now,» Sister assured him.
«And the linens for Good Friday?»
«They are pressed and stored in the sacristy.»
«And my vestments?»
«Hanging in the chifforobe in the sacristy.» Sister Ercolina cleared her throat. «Are you expecting any visitors during Holy Week, Father?»
«I’ve sent a letter to the priest in Azzone to concelebrate Easter mass with me. I understand the choir has been practicing.»
«Yes, they sound wonderful.» Sister Ercolina motioned to Sister Teresa to refill Don Gregorio’s wineglass.
«Sisters, I’d like to speak to Sister Ercolina alone, please.»
Sister Domenica and Sister Teresa nodded and left quietly through the door to the kitchen, closing the door behind them.
«You may sit, Sister Ercolina.»
Sister Ercolina pulled a chair out from the table and sat on the edge of it.
«Have you taken care of the Lazzari boy?» he asked.
«Which one?» Sister Ercolina said innocently.
«Eduardo.» The priest was impatient.
«I sent the letter to the seminary weeks ago. They are willing to take him now. Eduardo is a very pious young man,» Sister Ercolina said.
«I can see that. I believe he’ll do very well there.»
«He has been a great help to us at the convent.» She added, «And I know you will miss his expert planning of the liturgy and music for Sunday mass. He really is quite talented.»
«I agree with you. That’s why I recommended him,» Don Gregorio said.
On the other side of the door, Sister Teresa and Sister Domenica listened to the conversation.
«What are they saying?» Domenica asked.
«They’re talking about Eduardo. Don Gregorio is taking full credit for Eduardo’s admission into the seminary.»
«Really? He applied months ago with Sister Ercolina’s recommendation.»
Sister Ercolina folded her hands on her lap. Don Gregorio tore a bit of bread from the loaf and sopped up gravy, made with butter, red wine, and mushrooms.
«And the other one?» He bit the bread and chewed.
«They are willing to take Ciro at the workhouse in Parma.»
«Good.»
«But we need a little help from you.»
«What do you need?» he asked grudgingly. He picked up his glass of wine and sipped it.
«We need one hundred lire.»
«What!» Don Gregorio placed his wineglass on the table.
«There is usually a waiting period at the workhouse, and they are willing to waive it, but we have to pay them for the privilege. Itold them the matter was urgent, and that you want Ciro off the mountain as soon as possible—»
«I do,» Don Gregorio said defiantly.
«They won’t take him without it. I need the money tonight.»
Don Gregorio eyed her suspiciously.
«Father, you asked me to make the arrangements quickly, and I was not to question you,» Sister Ercolina pressed. «I have done as you have asked.»
«Yes, of course, we must do what’s right for San Nicola.»
Sister Teresa and Sister Domenica entered to clear the plates. Sister Domenica carried a silver tray with a dish of baked custard for dessert.
«If you don’t mind, I am going to skip dessert tonight,» he said. «Sister Teresa, I need to speak to you alone.»
Sister Teresa looked at Sister Ercolina nervously.
The older nuns nodded and retreated into the kitchen, closing the door behind them.
«Did you get the money?» Sister Domenica whispered frantically.
Sister Ercolina nodded. «He said he would give it to me. I hope that Sister Teresa corroborates what I’ve told him.»
«Don’t worry about her. She’s as smooth as custard.» Sister Domenica lifted a spoon and ate Don Gregorio’s dessert.
In the dining room, Sister Teresa stood in front of Don Gregorio. She folded her hands and stared straight ahead.
«Sister Teresa, I would like to know why you went to Signora Martocci about their daughter.»
«I was concerned, Father.»
«You believed the little story that the Lazzari boy was spreading about me?»
«He has been at the convent since he was a boy, Father, and I’ve never known him to be dishonest.»
«He’s a liar,» Don Gregorio said.
«Father, if you’re trying to upset me, or cause me to doubt my own instincts, you won’t succeed.»
«You upset the Martocci family and caused them great distress. The sin of envy has swept through this village. Or perhaps it is you who has embarked upon an inappropriate relationship?»
«I assure you that is not the case. He’s like a son to me.» Sister Teresa raised her voice defensively.
«I would call that an inappropriate relationship. You’re a nun, not his mother. Had I been the priest here when their mother dropped them off, I wouldn’t have allowed them to stay. You’re not running an orphanage over there.»
«We minister to the poor in whatever capacity they need us.»
«You’re here to service the church, Sister Teresa. Now go and send in Sister Ercolina.»
Trembling with rage, Sister Teresa bowed and exited to the kitchen.
In a moment, Sister Ercolina stood at the table, facing Don Gregorio.
«I want you to transfer Sister Teresa from our parish.»
«I’m sorry, Father.» Sister Ercolina was firm and clear – she had done enough horse trading for one night. «Sister Teresa is a good nun, and an excellent cook. I think you might remember when Sister Beatrice was the cook. We practically starved.»
«Have someone else deliver my meals, then.» Don Gregorio checked his watch.
«Of course, Father.» Sister Ercolina was relieved to have saved Teresa. «But first, I need the one hundred lire,» she said placidly.
«Oh, yes.» Don Gregorio didn’t make a move.
«I’ll wait.»
Don Gregorio got up and went out the door to the living room. Sister Ercolina reached down into her habit pocket and gripped her rosary. She bowed her head and prayed. After a few minutes, Don Gregorio returned.
«Here.» He handed Sister Ercolina the money. «But it’s an enormous amount. You’ve been taken advantage of.»
«You gave me an urgent command, Don Gregorio. Perhaps you would prefer that Ciro—»
«No,» he snapped. «It’s a small price to pay to clean up this village.»
Sister Ercolina put the money in her pocket. «Good night, Don Gregorio,» she said, and went.
As Sister Ercolina joined her friends in the kitchen, she placed her fingers over her lips, smiling. The nuns lifted the trays and extinguished the oil lamp. Sister Ercolina opened the door and showed the sisters out.
That night, the sisters of San Nicola filed into their pews in the convent chapel. Ciro and Eduardo joined them, taking seats behind them. Sister Ercolina entered from the sacristy. She closed the door and faced them.
Sister Ercolina began with a heavy heart. «The arrangements have been made. This Saturday, Ignazio is going to take you both down to Bergamo, in the church cart.»
«I’m allowed in Don Gregorio’s cart? I thought he’d make me walk barefoot down the mountain, hauling a giant cross like Jesus on Golgotha.»
«Ciro, I’m going to ask you to hold your tongue until I finish talking.»
«I’m sorry, Sister.» Ciro smiled.
«Eduardo, your train ticket will be waiting for you at the station. You will join four other seminarians. When you reach Rome, you will proceed with them to your new home in the seminary at Sant’Agostino. Ciro, the ticket waiting for you at the train station will take you to Venice. From there, you will sail to Le Havre130, France, where you will purchase a one-way ticket to New York on the SS Chicago.»
«Have you secured me a spot as an indentured servant? I only had one lira, and I gave it to Sister Domenica, who may have already squandered it on a bottle of Cuban rum.»
«Ciro!» Sister Domenica laughed. The nuns giggled.
«No, your passage will cost one hundred lire.» The sisters gasped at Sister Ercolina’s defiance.
«Sister Anna Isabelle’s family wired us to let us know that they will meet you in Manhattan at South Port 64 after you have been processed through Ellis Island131. Take this letter.» She gave it to Ciro. «And this money.» She gave Ciro the lire. «There are two extra lire for you.»
«Thank you,» Ciro said. He held the envelope and the money and looked at his brother. «You’ve all sacrificed for me, and I’m not worthy.»
«You are worthy, Ciro. But, I must ask you something in return. And I must ask you, Eduardo, and all the sisters, to hold a confidence for me. I told Don Gregorio that you were being sent to the work camp in Parma.»
The sisters gasped; they had never known Ercolina to lie.
«I prayed about it, and I must follow my conscience in this matter. I believe you to be an honorable young man, Ciro. It’s ironic that in order to take care of you, I had to lie. But the priest’s power is absolute, and a thousand years of begging him to change his mind would not have turned the result in your favor. You should never have been punished for telling the truth.»
«Thank you, Sister.» Sister Teresa was full of emotion.
«I’m asking you to forgive me, and to pray for Eduardo and Ciro as they leave us to start their new lives. And also, please pray for Don Gregorio, who needs your intercessions on his behalf.»
«You had me until you asked us to pray for the padre,» Ciro muttered.
Sister Ercolina snapped, «Ciro, you realize, had you ever met me halfway132, I’d be sending you to the seminary with Eduardo.»
«Better to ship me off on a boat to America. I don’t think the Holy Roman Church and I are a match.»
«That would be my conclusion also, Ciro.» Sister Ercolina smiled.
The rectory carriage was parked outside the entrance of the convent. The sun was not yet up over Vilminore; only the farmers and the town baker were up this early. Sunrise was an hour away.
Ignazio Farino drank a cup of strong coffee and hot milk and dipped a heel of day-old bread into it in the convent kitchen while Sister Teresa prepared eggs on the stove. Ciro and Eduardo joined them in the kitchen.
«It’s the last supper, Sister,» Ciro joked.
«I didn’t know a sense of humor was awake this early.» Eduardo pulled out a work stool and sat. Ciro poured his brother a cup of coffee, and then one for himself.
«Thank you for getting up early to milk the cows,» Sister Teresa said to Ciro.
«I’m going to New York City. I don’t know when I’ll see another cow.»
«That’s a talent that you can use anywhere in the world,» Ignazio assured Ciro. «They drink a lot of milk in America, I hear.»
«I’m going to be a shoemaker, Iggy.»
«I’ve always wanted a pair of black leather boots with blue spats and gray pearl buttons. I’ll tell you what, I’ll have my wife take a pencil and draw my feet on butcher paper. I’ll send you the patterns and you can make the shoes. And you»—Ignazio turned to Eduardo—«You can pray for me and arrange some indulgences, if and when I need them.»
«You’ll always be in my prayers, Iggy,» Eduardo said.
Ignazio finished his coffee and headed outside to prepare the cart for the trip down the mountain. He had agreed to transport several boxes for the Longarettis and deliver a collection of missals to the church in Clusone.
«I’m going to go and pack up my books. Thank you, Sister.» Eduardo took his plate to the sink.
«I’ll be right there,» Ciro said to Eduardo.
Sister Teresa turned away from Ciro and cleaned the frying pan on the griddle.
«The pan is clean, Sister.»
«I can’t look at you, Ciro.»
Ciro looked away, trying not to cry. The only sound was the soft sizzle of the pot of boiling water in the fireplace. Finally, Ciro said, «You knew this day would come. I just hoped to live up the road and visit a lot. Bring my wife over and my children. Maybe stop in and be of some use to you.»
«You’re going so far away.»
«If only Don Gregorio knew how far.»
Sister Teresa smiled, knowing this was the last bit of humor from Ciro that would brighten her mornings. «He’ll never find out, but even if he does, you’ll be safe.»
«Do you know what happened to Concetta?» Ciro asked quietly.
«Her mother didn’t believe me until Concetta admitted the whole thing. The relationship between the Martoccis and the priest has ended. Concetta won’t see the priest any longer. That’s why Don Gregorio is so angry at us. We ruined his happy arrangement.»
«I loved Concetta, you know.»
«I know.»
Ciro tried to lighten the mood, for Sister Teresa’s sake and his own. «I can’t believe Sister Ercolina shook Don Gregorio down for one hundred lire. He didn’t even know what hit him. I wish she would’ve asked for two hundred, and then you could’ve gotten some cows and pigs for the convent.»
«Sister only takes what she needs. It’s the secret to happiness, you know. Only take what you need.»
«I’ll remember that,» Ciro smiled. «I guess I should say good-bye. I will write to you. One day, I promise, I will return to Vilminore. This is my home, and I plan to grow old here.»
«I’ll be so happy to see you when you come back.»
«Thank you for all you’ve done for me.» Ciro embraced Sister Teresa.
Her eyes filled with tears.
Ciro wiped his own tears on his sleeve. «You have been my mother and my friend. You have been on my side from the day I arrived here. Eduardo will always do well because he knows how to follow rules. I never could, but you protected me and made it seem as though I was. I’ll never forget you. It’s only fitting that I leave you with a special gift so you’ll always remember me.»
«Absolutely not, Ciro.»
«Oh, yes, Sister.»
Ciro whistled. «Come on, boy.»
Spruzzo bounded into the kitchen.
«Spruzzo will keep you company. You can feed him bits of salami, just like you fed me. He won’t talk back, and he won’t hound you for seconds. He will be happy with whatever you give him. Promise me you’ll be as good to him as you were to me.»
Sister Teresa’s tears gave way to a hearty laugh. «All right, all right. But when you come back, he’s all yours.»
«Absolutely.» Ciro hugged Sister Teresa one last time, then slowly walked out the door. Ciro did not look back. He wanted to, but he knew that the greatest gift he could give Sister Teresa was to forge ahead and take a bold step into his new life. He knew that she hoped above all he would be brave; courage would keep him from harm.
Spruzzo looked up at Sister Teresa. She sat down on the work stool, lifted her apron to her face, and cried into it. She had vowed to be true only to God, and then to her community, but she hadn’t counted on raising a hungry little boy who had walked into the convent kitchen and won her heart. No mother had ever loved a son more.
The bells in the tower above the convent chapel rang out over the valley as the rectory carriage made the turn on the ridge above Valle di Scalve. Iggy pulled the reins tightly as Eduardo and Ciro looked up the mountain at Vilminore for the last time.
Ciro’s eyes did not linger on the landscape, as he vowed to return quickly. Eduardo knew differently, taking a few moments to commit the green cliffs to memory. He was certain the antiquities of Rome could never be this beautiful.
«Those bells are for you boys,» Ignazio said. «If I didn’t have to drive you down the mountain, it would have been me working the ropes in the tower to say good-bye to you. I’m deaf in one ear from ringing those chimes.»
«I’m sorry you have to scrub the church from now on,» Ciro said.
«You left it so clean, I think I can get to next Easter without a major scouring,» Iggy said. «Now, Ciro, when you get to America, remember that every other person you meet is trying to trick you out of what’s in your pocket. Only drink wine with your spaghetti and never alone at a bar. When a woman seems interested in you quickly, she is looking to take advantage of you. Ask for your wages in cash, and if they pay by paper, don’t let them take a cut for cashing your check. Open a bank account as soon as you get there, with ten lire. Leave it there, but never add to the sum. Every man needs a bank, but the bank doesn’t need your money.»
«I’ll only have two lire after I pay my passage,» Ciro reminded him.
Ignazio reached into his pocket and gave Ciro eight lire. «Now you have ten.»
«I can’t take this.»
«Trust me, Mother Church will never miss it.» Iggy winked as Eduardo rolled his eyes and made the sign of the cross.
«Thanks, Iggy.» Ciro put the money in his pocket.
«I always felt for you boys. I remember your father, and I know he would be very proud of you.»
Eduardo and Ciro looked at one another. Whenever they asked Iggy about their father, he made a joke or told a funny story.
«What do you remember about him?» Eduardo asked.
Iggy took his eyes off the road and looked at the boys. He believed dwelling on the past and revisiting the pain would make their loss worse, so he had kept quiet all these years. Today, though, Iggy wanted to share all he knew. «He never set foot in church. You must get your devotion from the Montini side. Anyway, his people were from Sestri Levante originally, down in the Gulf of Genoa133. He came up to Bergamo to find work. At that time, they were building the train station, and there were many jobs. Your mother’s people had a printing shop, and he would walk by on his way to work and see your mother in the window. He fell in love with her and that was that.»
«Why did they come to Vilminore?»
«Your father got a job in the mines. But then he was told he could get twice the wages for the same job in America. And your mother came from some means, and he felt that he had to provide her with a life like the one she knew as a girl. So he set off to make his fortune.»
«Do you know where he went?»
«He went to a place in America called the Iron Range134, in Minnesota.»
«Do you know how he died?»
«I know only what you boys have been told, that he died in a mining accident.»
«But they never found his body,» Ciro said, a phrase repeated whenever he spoke of his father.
«Ciro,» Iggy said solemnly, «you’re a man now. It’s not good for you to believe that he’ll return. Put your hopes in something real, something that will bring you happiness.»
Ciro stared ahead, wondering what, if anything, would ever bring him happiness. Eduardo nudged Ciro to say something.
«Va bene, Iggy,» Ciro said.
«You just do your best, and life will follow. That’s what my papa used to tell me.»
They stopped in Clusone to deliver a package to the local stonemason. Iggy tied the horse to the railing outside the post office. Eduardo and Ciro sat on the bench and ate their lunch. Ciro squinted and looked across the street, taking in the homes staggered on the hillside like dollhouses, painted yellow and white, pale blue with eggshell trim, moss green with black shutters. Ciro never tired of looking at houses. He was fascinated by their design and longed for the permanence they represented.
Across the street, a girl closed the door of a white house with dark blue trim. She pulled on a straw hat with a long red ribbon and tied it under her chin. Ciro saw the ruffles of her white skirt as they grazed the top of her brown leather ankle boots. She turned and walked out onto the street. It was Concetta Martocci.
«Where are you going?» Eduardo called out as Ciro leaped from the bench. «We’ll be late for the train!»
«I’ll be right back.»
Ciro ran across the road and followed her. Concetta turned and saw him, then quickened her pace.
«No, please… stop, Concetta!» Ciro called after her.
«I don’t want to talk to you,» she said as Ciro raced alongside her, until he overtook her. She stopped.
«I never meant to hurt you,» Ciro said.
«Too late for that.» Concetta moved around him and kept walking.
«Why are you in Clusone? Did Don Gregorio send you away?»
«No, my mother decided it was best. I’m staying with my aunt.»
«He should have been the one to leave, not you and not me.»
Concetta stopped and faced Ciro. «Why did you have to ruin everything?»
«He was taking advantage of you!»
«No, he wasn’t. I didn’t want to end up a miner’s wife, I wanted something more for myself.» Concetta’s eyes burned with tears.
«You couldn’t make a life with him,» Ciro said, frustrated by her ignorance. «He’s a priest.»
«Just so you understand,» Concetta said, «I never would have fallen in love with you. I don’t like the way you would strut on the piazza, lifting stones and hauling wood, talking loudly and making jokes. Your clothes were always dirty, and when you’d eat, you ate with both hands and hungrily, as though you would never eat another meal again. I watched you too, Ciro, just like you watched me, and I was not impressed. You deserve the work camp. Maybe they can straighten you out.»
«Maybe they can.» Instead of defending himself, instead of trying to convince her to see what he believed to be true, he surrendered. What had always been impossible would remain so forever.
Eduardo waved to Ciro from across the road.
«Good-bye, Concetta,» Ciro said as he turned to the carriage. He didn’t look back, but this time it was because he didn’t want to.
In the days that followed Stella’s death, Giacomina hardly spoke. She took care of the house, washed the clothes, and cooked the meals as she had always done, but joy was lost along with her baby girl. She knew that she should be grateful that she had five other healthy children, but the comfort of many could never make up for the loss of one.
Slowly, Enza was beginning to feel the suffocating bonds of her grief break loose135. She picked up after the children and took care of chores her mother usually attended to. Marco kept busy running the carriage from Schilpario to Bergamo.
«I have a package to deliver to Vilminore,» Marco said as he came into the house before supper.
«I’ll take it for you, Papa,» Enza volunteered. She had waited a week to hear from Ciro Lazzari. He had promised to come to see her, and she believed he meant it.
A practical girl never pines; she takes action, Enza told herself. She knew Ciro lived at the convent in Vilminore.
As she hitched up the carriage and the horse, she remembered the camaraderie she had felt with Ciro the night they drove down to Vilminore. He was easy to be with, and she loved the way he looked, that offbeat thick sandy hair, the funny ring of keys on his pants loop, and the red bandana tied around his neck, just like the miners wear after they’ve cleaned up after a long shift. He was original, on a mountain where that was rare.
Ciro had taken Enza’s mind off her despair the day of Stella’s funeral. He had given her something to look forward to, something beyond that terrible day. In his kiss there was hope.
As she took Cipi out of the stable, he found the road and instinctively headed south in the direction of Vilminore. The wind cooled her face as Cipi settled into a trot on the pass. The night she took the ride with Ciro, it had been pitch-black, but the lamp threw plenty of light to see. She savored their conversation, and often, when doing her chores, she remembered the words he said to her, and how hopeful he was that she might kiss him again.
Now, she wished she had. Because one kiss is not enough. Neither is one conversation. Enza had so much more to say to Ciro Lazzari.
As she entered the village of Vilminore, she guided the carriage to the entrance of the convent, where she had left Ciro the week before. She felt confident, but more importantly, she felt the excitement of the possibility of their reunion. Surely he would be happy to see her. Hadn’t he said he wanted to see her again? Even if he didn’t, even if he was cold and abrupt, at least she would know his feelings. She would happily stop imagining his kisses every time she put down her book, or remembering his arms around her when she hung up the wash.
Enza jumped off the carriage bench and onto the ground. She rang the bell at the convent entrance and waited. Soon, Sister Domenica answered the door.
«Sister, my name is Enza Ravanelli. I’m from Schilpario.»
«Is there something I can do for you?»
«I’m looking for Ciro Lazzari.»
«Ciro?» Sister’s eyes darted around suspiciously. «What do you want with Ciro?»
«I met him the day my sister was buried. He dug the grave.»
«I remember.»
«And I wanted to thank him.»
«He doesn’t live here anymore,» Sister Domenica said softly.
«Where did he go?»
«I’d rather not say,» Sister said.
«I see.» Enza looked down at her hands. Ciro had probably gone off on a great adventure. Maybe he’d gone south to the port cities to work on the fishing boats, or west to work in the marble mines. All Enza knew was that he’d left without saying good-bye, which told her that he didn’t feel the same about her as she did him.
«Maybe I can get a message to him,» Sister said softly, looking around the piazza.
«There’s no message, Sister. I’m sorry to have bothered you.»
Enza climbed back on the bench, checked the address of the package, and guided Cipi across the piazza and up the street to deliver it. She began to cry, and wasn’t sure why. Really, what had she thought would happen? What had she hoped he would say?
As she reached the road on the outskirts of Vilminore, Cipi stopped and waited. He didn’t know which way to turn, and Enza had given him little direction with the reins. She sat high on the bench and looked out over the valley and wondered what she could have done differently when it came to Ciro Lazzari.
Chapter 8. A friar’s robe
Una Tonaca del Frate
It was a Tiepolo blue sky136 with smatters of creamy clouds the morning Ignazio Farino bid farewell to the Lazzari brothers at the train station in Bergamo before turning the horse and cart back up the mountain to return to Vilminore di Scalve.
Iggy looked back at the boys several times from his perch on the carriage bench, until the road took a turn and he could no longer see them. The boys watched Iggy go, bowed like the crook of a cane, until he had disappeared.
Orphans have many parents.
Eduardo and Ciro made their way through the station to the platforms. Eduardo’s black wool pants and white shirt were pressed. His boiled wool jacket in forest green with gold epaulets on the shoulders looked a bit like a castoff from a defunct alpine regiment, but it was clean and without moth holes, so it would do, until he made it to the seminary and was assigned vestments.
Ciro wore navy blue corduroy work pants and a mended and starched chambray shirt under a gray wool topcoat with black piping. Sister Ercolina had retrieved the coat from a donation bag left on the convent steps, and Sister Anna Isabelle had lined it in a few yards of silk paisley left over from a sewing project to make bedding for a wedding gift to the town’s mayor.
That morning, in the first light of dawn, Sister Domenica had given each boy a haircut, after which she vigorously rubbed their scalps with the juice of a fresh lemon mixed with a bit of clear alcohol. Ciro commented that when Sister Domenica was in charge, beauty hurt.
The nuns had laundered, pressed, and mended the boys’ clothes before packing them. The clean underclothes in their duffel bags, along with handkerchiefs embroidered with their initials by Sister Teresa and socks knitted by Sister Domenica, would provide them with the basics until they arrived at their destinations. The sisters did their best to prepare the boys for the outside world, at least on the surface of things.
Eduardo checked the large station clock, its black Roman numerals set on a mother-of-pearl137 face. Everything seemed more important in Bergamo than it did on the mountain; even the telling of time had a certain elegance.
They had already begun to miss their village. As the boys surveyed the station, they were aware of all they were leaving behind. A long black train parked on the tracks had a series of wooden step stools placed outside the open doors reminded Eduardo of the nuns’ shoes left outside their doors to be collected for polishing.
Passengers rushing to make their train gently jostled the boys. Eduardo and Ciro did their best to step out of the way, but their apologies went unheeded.
The people were so different here. The parade of well-dressed men that milled around the platform bore no resemblance to the journeymen and laborers on the mountain. The nobility of Bergamo wore custom-made three-piece suits topped with dress coats of silk wool and dapper felt fedoras wrapped with broad bands of dark grosgrain ribbon138, accented with small feathers or a tucked knot. The men in Vilminore also wore hats, but they were strictly utilitarian, straw in the summer to ward off the sun and wool in the winter to keep them warm.
The elite wore shoes of dyed calfskin with insets of pebbled leather, some with laces, others with buttoned spats. They carried satchels made of the finest embossed suede. The women were also dressed stylishly, in long skirts and fitted waistcoats. They wore dramatic hats with extravagant plumes, clouds of net dolloped over the wide brims and tied under the chin with satin bows. They seemed to move slowly, as if underwater, the only sound they made the rustle of their skirts and the click of their high-buttoned shoes, which grazed the pavement in muted taps as they passed.
Eduardo looked around for the four young men who would accompany him to the seminary in Rome, checking a slip of paper to remind himself of their names.
«Here,» Ciro said, handing his brother the three lire Iggy had given him.
«No, no, put it away, Ciro.»
«Take it,» Ciro insisted.
«I don’t need money where I’m going,» Eduardo assured him.
Distraught at the thought of leaving his brother, Eduardo stared at the great clock, willing time to stand still. He wanted to give his brother something to remember him by, to bind the two together when they were apart.
Ciro looked down at his mother’s signet ring with its swirling engraved C.
«And don’t offer me your ring, either,» Eduardo said.
Ciro laughed. «How did you guess?»
«You’re the most generous person I know. You would give me your shoes if you could. And you wouldn’t complain if you had to walk to Venice barefoot.»
«Yeah, except my feet are twice the size of yours,» Ciro said.
«Lucky for me, because those are ugly shoes.»
«That’s all Sister Domenica could find in the bin.» Ciro shrugged. «Besides, when you become a priest, they’ll give you the cassock, the collar, and the black slippers. You’ll never want for clothes, that’s for sure.»
«No cassocks for the Franciscans. Just brown robes of burlap tied with an old rope. And sandals.»
«If you’re going to go to all this trouble to become a priest, I wish you’d join a fancy order. You deserve the fine linens of the Vincennes139 like Don Gregorio. You’re a poor orphan becoming a poor priest. You’re like a crab going sideways.»
«That’s the idea, Ciro.» Eduardo smiled. «Jesus wasn’t known for his embroidered vestments.»
«And what will become of me?» Ciro asked quietly.
«Sister Anna Isabelle’s family will take good care of you.» Eduardo’s voice broke, hoping what he said would prove true. It had always been his job to take care of Ciro. How could he trust anyone else to do it? «It goes that way, you know. There isn’t anything they can do for her as a nun who has taken a vow of poverty, so instead they will do for you, because she asked. We’re very lucky, Ciro.»
«Really? You would call us lucky?» Ciro believed fate had been against them at every turn. Had he remembered his keys that night, he would not have discovered Concetta and the priest, which had set all these horrible events in motion.
«Yes, brother. We’ve made it this far.» Eduardo looked up and down the tracks, trying not to cry.
The Lazzari boys stood on the platform, having never been apart, not for a day or night of their lives. Little had gone unsaid between them. They had been one other’s counselors and confidants. In many ways, Eduardo had been Ciro’s parent, setting his moral compass, helping him navigate convent life, prompting him to study, all the while encouraging him to see the good in people and the possibilities of the world beyond the piazza in Vilminore.
Eduardo was now seventeen, and he possessed a contemplative air and a humble attitude. For a young man, he was unusually solemn, as well as empathetic.
Ciro would turn sixteen on the ship to America. He was over six feet tall, the pugilistic stance and comedic expressions of his youth replaced with a grown-up masculine prowess that made him appear much older. Eduardo sized up Ciro and was reassured that his younger brother could take care of himself physically. But he worried that Ciro was too trusting and could be taken advantage of by people less honorable than he. It was always the young men of gentle natures who acknowledged the worst in the world; strong boys like Ciro never did.
«You know, Ciro,» Eduardo began slowly, «I never felt I really lost Papa, because you look so much like him. Sometimes when I was studying late at night and I would look over at you sleeping, I would remember him lying on the grass, taking siesta. And I would swear Papa had never really left us because he was alive in you. But you are like him in more ways than your appearance. You have a mind like him too.»
«I do?» Ciro wished he could remember more details about his father. He remembered his laugh, and the way he held a cigarette, but beyond that, very little.
«You always tell the truth. You stand up for the weak. And you’re not afraid of taking chances. When the sisters told us that we had to leave, and they told you that you had to go to America, you didn’t flinch. You didn’t cry. You didn’t try to make a better deal for yourself, you just accepted their offer.»
«Maybe that makes me a pushover,» Ciro said.
«No, it makes you wise. Like Papa, you aren’t afraid of trying something new. I don’t have that kind of daring in my nature, but you do. I’m not going to worry about you in America.»
«Liar.»
«Let’s put it this way, I’m going to try not to worry about you.»
«Well, I wish I could say the same.» Ciro said. «Keep your eyes open, Eduardo. Holy men sometimes aren’t. Don’t let them push you around or make you feel like you’re not one of them. You’re smarter than the keenest of their lot. Take charge. Show them what you can do.»
«I’ll do my best.»
«I’ll work hard because it’s all Iknow,» Ciro said. «But, everything we do, everything we make, is done so we might return to the mountain. Together.»
Eduardo nodded in agreement. «Pray for me.»
«Papa said something to me the night before he left, and I wrote it in my missal, so I would never forget it.» Eduardo’s eyes glinted with tears as he opened his leather-bound black missal to the first page. He handed it to Ciro. In a young boy’s measured script, Eduardo had written:
Beware the things of this world that
can mean everything or nothing.
Ciro closed the book and handed it back to Eduardo. «You’ve never been without this missal. It belongs to you. Keep it.»
Eduardo placed it in Ciro’s hands firmly. «No, it’s your turn now. When you read it, you will think of me. Besides, Iknow you aren’t one for daily mass—»
«Or Sunday mass.»
«Or any mass!» Eduardo grinned. «But if you’ll read the missal, I think you’ll find some comfort.»
Ciro closed the missal. «The sisters of San Nicola, my brother, and the world conspire to turn me into a good Catholic. To all of you, I say, good luck.»
The whistles of an incoming train pierced the air. An attendant climbed a ladder and wrote the new arrival on the station’s giant blackboard:
ROMA140
«I have to go,» Eduardo said, his voice breaking. «That’s my train.»
The brothers embraced. They held one another a long time, until Eduardo straightened his back and gently released his brother.
«You go to track two for the train to Venice—»
«I know, I know, then the ferry to Le Havre. Eduardo?»
Eduardo picked up his satchel. «Yes?»
«I’ve never been to France.»
«Ciro?»
«Yeah?»
«You’ve never been to Venice, either.»
Ciro put his hands on his hips. «Do you think anyone can tell? Do I look like a goat herder from the Alps?»
«Only when you wear lederhosen.» Eduardo slung his satchel over his shoulder. «Be careful in America, Ciro. Don’t let anyone take advantage of you. Watch your money. Ask questions.»
«I will,» Ciro assured him.
«And write to me.»
«I promise.»
Four young men, similar in countenance and age to Eduardo, each carrying a single satchel, boarded the train for Rome. Eduardo turned to follow them. «Your new brothers are waiting for you,» Ciro said.
«They will never be my brothers,» Eduardo said. «I only have one.»
Ciro watched as Eduardo slowly disappeared into the crowd.
«And don’t you forget it!» Ciro shouted, waving the missal, before he, too, crossed the platform and boarded a train to take him to his new life.
Bepul matn qismi tugad.
