The Shoemaker's Wife(107)

When I left you and Eduardo at the convent, I had planned to return that summer. But my health took a terrible turn, and I was unable to return to Vilminore. The sisters were good about sending your marks and updates about your life in the convent. I was happy to know that there was never a time that a single hearth was not prepared to be lit. The sisters said they had never known what it was like to have the fireplaces roaring at once, keeping the convent warm. I am so proud of you. I hope to be well enough to see you someday, and your brother too. Your mama loves you.

The charcoal clouds hung low over the Piazza di San Pietro as rain fell onto the cobblestones like silver stickpins. The piazza outside the Vatican was empty as the crowds sought shelter under the colonnade from the downpour, including a cluster of pigeons lined up on the joice overhead, perched like a row of musical notes.

Ciro stood by a red obelisk in his brown uniform as the rain jingled against his tin helmet. He took a final drag off his cigarette, tossed it away, and walked to the entrance of the church as a slew of black-and-white nuns, moving in an orderly cluster, entered the Basilica. Ciro took off his hat, bowed his head to the nuns, and walked with them as they entered the church. He smiled when he thought of Sister Teresa, who had advised him to look for the black-and-whites when he was unknown in a city. Ciro Lazzari felt unknown everywhere he went now.

He knelt in a pew behind the nuns. They bowed their heads in prayer, but Ciro looked around, taking in the architecture of the Basilica as though it were the church of San Nicola and he was assessing it for a spring cleaning. Even though his brother’s life was about to change forever, penitents and tourists meandered through the massive portals, stopping to pray at the sepulchers and shrines in a most ordinary way. There was not the feeling of something special in the air.

A group of African priests in gold robes walked up the left transept and disappeared into a chapel behind the main altar. The Vatican, Ciro thought, was like a train station, disparate groups peeling off from one another to go to various destinations, under one roof, leading where? he wondered.

The aisle soon filled with what seemed like hundreds of priests in the brown robes of the Franciscans, tied with white rope belts. Ciro watched the ordained priests glide by silently.

Following the brown robes, a choir of altar boys carried the brass-trimmed candles of acolytes. The candidates followed them, in starched white robes, in two long lines. They filed by the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the right transept, hands buried deep in their billowing white sleeves, heads bowed reverently.

Ciro had moved behind a rope attended by Vatican guards to get a better look at the seminarians’ faces. He made note of every face, one after another, until finally he found Eduardo, resplendent in white.

Ciro reached across the rope to touch his brother’s arm. Eduardo smiled at Ciro before two Vatican guards took Ciro by the arm, pulled him to a side aisle, then removed him to the back of the church. It wouldn’t matter if the guards had dumped Ciro in the Tiber; he had seen Eduardo on the most important day of his life. That was all that mattered.

Ciro whispered to the guards, explaining that his brother was receiving holy orders. They took pity on the soldier and allowed him to watch from the back of the pews.

Eduardo lay on the cold marble floor, arms outstretched in the shape of a cross, face to the floor, as the cardinal in his ruby red zucchetto leaned over him to administer chrism and holy oil. Tears sprang to Ciro’s eyes as his brother rose to his feet to receive his blessing. He had lost Eduardo for good as the sign of the cross was placed upon his brother’s forehead.

Ciro stayed in the Basilica long after the ceremony, hoping that his brother would make his way from the sacristy out into the church, as he had on so many mornings at San Nicola, to set out the Holy Book and the chalice and light the candles for mass.

But the Holy Roman Church had other ideas. As soon as Eduardo was made a priest, he was shuttled away swiftly. Eduardo was on his way to his assignment, and that could be anywhere! Sicily, or Africa, or as close as the gardens of Montecatini in the center of Rome. Near or far, it didn’t matter. Eduardo was gone. It was finished.

The arrangements made by the U.S. Army to return Ciro home to America were through the port of Naples. Ciro bought a one-way train ticket to Naples at the station.

As he stood on the platform, waiting for the train, Ciro imagined what it would be like to take the old Roman road, Via Tiberius, out of the city and up to Bologna to catch the train to Bergamo. He imagined taking the Passo Presolana up the mountain by carriage and looking down into the gorge, finding the brown brambles of late autumn every bit as beautiful as the spring flowers. Ciro imagined that he would appreciate everything about where he came from now, but the ache in his heart wasn’t about missing a particular place; it was about something else entirely. He knew he must return to America to put that ache to rest.

Enza turned the work light off on her sewing machine. She rose from her work stool and stretched her back.

“Hey, you.” Vito poked his head into the costume shop. “How about dinner?”

“How about yes?” Enza pulled on her coat and grabbed her purse.

“Where’s Laura?” Vito asked.

“Colin took her to see the boys tonight.”

With a twinkle in his eye, Vito hummed the wedding march. “Bum, bum, bum, bum . . .”

“Where are we going?” Enza pulled her coat from the closet. “Do I need gloves?”