The Shoemaker's Wife(14)

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 wreath. 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 rail. 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 passeggiata. 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 freddo 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.