The Shoemaker's Wife(19)

Ignazio Farino rounded the corner, pushing a small handcart loaded with small blue river stones. Slight of build, with a long nose and thin lips, Iggy wore lederhosen with thick wool knee socks and an alpine hat with a merlo feather stuck in the faded band. He looked more like an old boy than an old man.

“Che bella.” He looked up at the statue of Mary perched upon the globe and gave a whistle.

“Is she your favorite, Iggy?” Ciro asked.

“She’s the Queen of Heaven, isn’t she?” Ignazio sat down on the garden wall and looked up at the statue. “I used to gaze—I mean, gaze—at her face when I was a boy. And I used to pray to God to send me a beautiful wife that looked like the Virgin Mary in the church of San Nicola. The prettiest girl in Vilminore was taken, so I took a hike up the mountain and married the prettiest girl in Azzone. She had the golden hair. Pretty on the outside, but”—he pulled a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket—“so complicated within. Don’t marry a beautiful woman, Ciro. It’s too much work.”

“I know how to take care of a woman,” Ciro said confidently.

“You think you do. Then you get the ring on her hand, and the story changes. Women change. Men stay as they are, and women change.”

“How so?”

“In every way. In manner.” Iggy bowed from the waist. “In personality. In their desire for you.” He thrust his body forward as if to stop a runaway wheelbarrow. “At first, oh, si, si, si, they want you. Then they want the garden, the home, the children. And then they weary of their own dreams and look to you to make them happy.” He threw up his hands. “It’s never enough, Ciro. Never enough. Believe me, eventually, you run out of ways to make a woman happy.”

“I don’t care. It would be my honor to try.”

“You say that now,” Ignazio said. “Don’t do as I did. Do better. Fall in love with a plain girl. Plain girls never turn bitter. They appreciate their portion, no matter how meager. A small pearl is enough. They never long for the diamond. Beautiful girls have high expectations. You bring them daisies, and they want roses. You buy them a hat, and they want the matching coat. It’s a well so deep you cannot fill it. I know. I’ve tried.”

“Plain or pretty, I don’t care. I just want a girl to love. And I want her to love me.” Ciro rinsed Saint Michael’s cape with clean water.

“You want. You want. You just wait.” Iggy puffed.

Ciro buffed the plaster with a dry towel. “I’m finding it very difficult to wait.”

“Because you’re young. The young have everything but wisdom.”

“What does wisdom get you?” Ciro asked.

“Patience.”

“I don’t want wisdom. I don’t want to grow old to get it. I just want to be happy.”

“I wish I could give you my experience, so you might not have to endure what I have known in my life. I was like you. I didn’t believe the old men. I should have listened to them.”

“Tell me what I don’t know, Iggy.”

“Love is like pot de crème.” Iggy stirred an imaginary pot with a spoon. “You see Signora Maria Nilo make it in the window of her pasticceria.” Iggy wiggled his hips like Signora. “You see her stir the chocolate. You see the caramel cascade from the spoon into the baking dish. It looks delicioso. You want it, you can taste it. You pass by the shop every day and think, I want that pot de crème more than anything. I would fight for it. I would kill for it. I would die for one taste. One day, you get paid, you go for your pot de crème. You eat it fast, you go for another, and another. You eat every spoonful in the bowl. And soon the thing you wanted most in the world has made you sick. Love and pot de crème—the same.”

Ciro laughed. “You’d have a hard time convincing a starving man when he hasn’t had his fill. Love is the only dream worth pursuing. I’d work so hard for love. I’d make a future! I’d build her a house with seven fireplaces. We would have a big family—five sons and one daughter. You need at least one daughter to tend to the mother in old age.”

“You’ve got it all figured out, Ciro,” Ignazio said. “I’ve taken what life has given me”—Ignazio put his hands in the air as if to measure the scope of his world—“and I did not ask for more. It’s more that will get you in trouble.”

“That’s a shame,” Ciro said. “All I want is more. I earn my room and board, but I want to earn money.”

“How much do you need?”

“If I had a lira for starters, that would be good.”

“Really? One lira?” Ignazio smiled. “I’ve got a job for you.”

Ciro washed down the Pietà with a damp cloth. “I’m listening.”

“Father Martinelli needs a grave dug up in Schilpario.” Iggy lit his cigarette.

“How much?”

“He’ll give you two lire, and you kick back one. The church always has to get their cut.”

“Of course they do.” Ciro nodded. “But only one lira to dig a grave?” Ciro couldn’t help but wonder why Ignazio couldn’t cut a better deal. Now he understood why Ignazio hadn’t graduated beyond his job as convent handyman.

Ignazio took a smooth drag off of his cigarette. “Hey, better than nothing.” He offered Ciro a puff of his cigarette. Ciro took it, inhaling the smooth tobacco. “Don Gregorio has you dig for nothing. What are you going to do with your lira? You need shoes.” Ignazio looked down at Ciro’s shoes.