The Shoemaker's Wife(104)
“And that’s where they will stay.” Enza sipped her champagne.
“All of a sudden, the tireless Italian girl is shy about her work. I don’t believe it.” Vito shook his head.
“I still have a lot to learn,” Enza said.
They heard applause and cheers from the living room.
“He’s here,” Vito said. Enza, Colin, and Laura followed him out to the living room, carrying their drinks.
The living room of the Gepfert home was filled like a church on a feast day. The revelers faced Enrico Caruso, who stood under a chandelier, taking in their love like sweet cream in his coffee. Vito pulled Enza close in the doorway as Colin and Laura sneaked through the crowd to get closer to him.
“You know how much affection I have for each and every one of you. I want to thank you for all the hard work you did on Lodoletta. Gerry and I are grateful for your dedication.”
Geraldine Farrar held up her glass. “Thank you all for making us look so good. And I would also like to thank the United States Army, who is making fast work of putting the Germans in their place—”
The revelers cheered loudly.
“We look forward to having the heat back on in the opera house. It’ll be a long winter without it. We’re doing our bit and keeping the furnace on low, to send our coal to the front for a good cause. But there’s only so many times I can embrace Enrico Caruso onstage and pretend it’s a love scene. Frankly, I needed his body heat to keep me from frostbite.”
Caruso made his way through the crowd, shaking hands, embracing his dresser, bowing deeply to the hostess in gratitude. As he passed Vito, Vito leaned in and whispered in Caruso’s ear, “Don’t forget your seamstresses.”
“My Vincenza and my Laura,” he said, embracing them both at once. “You have been so kind to me. I will remember your invisible stitches on my hems and your macaroni.”
“It was an honor to work for you, Signore,” Enza said.
“We’ll never forget it,” Laura assured him.
Caruso reached into his pocket and placed a gold coin in each of their hands. “Don’t tell anybody,” he whispered, and moved through the crowd.
Enza looked down at the coin. It was a solid gold disc with Caruso’s profile etched on it.
“It’s real,” Laura whispered. “I’m gonna buy myself a mink.”
“I’ll never spend it,” Enza whispered back.
And that was a promise Enza Ravanelli kept her whole life long.
Ciro found a small room available at the Tiziano Hotel, close to the Campo de’ Fiori, where the peddlers sold blood oranges, fresh fish, herbs, and bread. He had only the uniform on his back, a change of underclothes in his knapsack, a document guaranteeing him free passage home on any ship departing from Naples, and his final paycheck from the U.S. Army. The war had officially ended a few weeks ago, and after all he had withstood, he was eager to return to his life on Mulberry Street. But first, he had to find his brother.
The last letter he had received from Eduardo explained that he was scheduled to be ordained as a priest into the Franciscan order in Saint Peter’s Basilica at the end of November.
If Ciro thought the U.S. Army had layers of bureaucracy, he knew now that they had nothing on the Roman Catholic Church. No information was available regarding the ordination ceremonies. When Ciro went through the proper channels to obtain details, he was turned away, or the response was vague and veiled in secrecy.
Ciro knew, when his brother left for the seminary so many years ago, that they would have little contact, but they both had hoped that would change when Eduardo became a priest.
On the advice of a Vatican secretary, who by chance had ties to Bergamo and took pity on him, Ciro addressed letters to every deacon, priest, and prelate in the general directory, hoping to find someone who had information regarding his brother’s final orders.
Ciro was careful not to smudge the ink as he addressed the last envelope. He laid the sealed letters in the bright sunshine of the hotel windowsill so they might dry as he dressed. As he pulled on his boots, he saw a split in the seam where the upper met the sole. He examined it, then looked around the room for supplies to fix it. He pulled scissors and a large sewing needle from his backpack. The last time he’d used either was to dress a wound incurred by his friend Juan when he stepped on a spike of barbed wire buried in a trench’s mud.
The surgical thread wouldn’t hold the leather, so Ciro looked around the room for string with heft that might work. He was prepared to take the pull string from his windowshade when his eyes fell on his knapsack. Instead, he clipped a six-inch portion of the pull cord from the knapsack, knotting the end. Then he threaded the cord through the needle and sewed his torn shoe together, deftly securing the thinning leather to the sole. He tidied up the end, looping it through the upper so it might hold.
Ciro slipped into his boot, pleased with his temporary fix. The patch job should last until he was back on the machines at the Zanetti Shoe Shop. He gathered up his letters and left the hotel.
The side streets of Rome were packed with foreigners who had been siphoned through Italy on their way home from France. Ciro saw an occasional American soldier, who would nod at him, but for the most part, the men wearing uniforms were with the Italian army.
Wherever there were soldiers, there were the parasol girls, like the redhead who had greeted Ciro when he first arrived in New York. He looked at those girls differently now, understanding that they needed work, just as he did. There seemed to be so many more of them on the streets of Rome than there had been in New York.