The Shoemaker's Wife (16 page)

“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 Range, 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 loose. 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

I
t was a Tiepolo blue sky 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-pearl 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 ribbon, 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 Vincennes 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.”