The Shoemaker's Wife Read online

  Giacomina lifted a warming pan from the hearth filled with her husband’s dinner. She served her husband a casserole of buttery polenta 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 putti holding sheaves of wheat over the tabernacle 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 il Pizzo Camino, Corno Stella, and Pizzo dei Tre Signorei, 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 away. 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. Poverella, 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 collar.

  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 scamorza 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 discip
line 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 melton pants and a chambray 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 sacristy 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 mantilla 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 minted 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, Padre.” 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 wafers. 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 ravioli.”

  “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 cinnamon.”

  “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 looks, 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?”