The Shoemaker's Wife(3)

“Follow me,” the nun said.

Sister Domenica pointed to a bench, indicating where the boys should sit and wait. Caterina followed Sister into another room behind a thick wooden door, closing it behind her. Eduardo stared straight ahead while Ciro craned his neck, looking around.

“She’s signing us away,” Ciro whispered. “Just like Papa’s saddle.”

“That’s not true,” his brother whispered back.

Ciro inspected the foyer, a round room with two deep alcoves, one holding a shrine to Mary, the Blessed Mother, and the other, to Saint Francis of Assisi. Mary definitely had more votive candles lit at her feet. Ciro figured it meant you could always count on a woman. He took a deep breath. “I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Don’t think about it.”

“It’s all I think about.”

“You have a simple mind.”

“No, I don’t. Just because I’m strong, doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid. You’re simple.”

The scent of fresh vanilla and sweet butter filled the convent. Ciro closed his eyes and inhaled. He really was hungry. “Is this like the story Mama told us about the soldiers who got lost in the desert and saw a waterfall where there was none?” Ciro stood to follow the scent. He peered around the wall. “Or is there a cake baking somewhere?”

“Sit down,” Eduardo ordered.

Ciro ignored him and walked down the long corridor.

“Get back here!” Eduardo whispered.

The walnut doors along the arcade were closed, and streams of faint light came through the overhead transoms. At the far end of the hallway, through a glass door, Ciro saw a cloister connecting the main convent to the workhouses. He ran down the arcade toward the light. When he made it to the door, he looked through the glass and saw a barren patch of earth, probably a garden, hemmed by a dense gnarl of gray fig trees dusted with snow.

Ciro turned toward the delicious scent and found the convent kitchen, tucked in the corner off the main hallway. The door to the kitchen was propped open with a brick. A shimmering collection of pots hung over a long wooden farm table. Ciro looked back to see if Eduardo had followed him. Alone and free, Ciro took a chance and ran to the kitchen doorway and peered inside. The kitchen was as warm as the hottest summer day. Ciro let the waves of heat roll over him.

A beautiful woman, much younger than his mother, was working at the table. She wore a long jumper of gray-striped wool with a white cotton apron tied over it. Her black hair was wrapped tightly into a chignon and tucked under a black kerchief. Her dark brown eyes squinted as she rolled a long skein of pasta on a smooth marble work slab. She hummed a tune as she took a small knife and whittled away tiny stars of dough, unaware that Ciro was watching her. Her long fingers moved surely and deftly with the knife. Soon, a batch of tiny pasta beads began to pile up on the board. Ciro decided that all women are beautiful, except maybe the old ones like Sister Domenica. “Corallini?” Ciro asked.

The young woman looked up and smiled at the little boy in the big clothes. “Stelline,” she corrected him, holding up a small piece of dough carved into the shape of a star. She scooped up a pile of the little stars and threw them into a big bowl.

“What are you making?”

“Baked custard.”

“It smells like cake in the hallway.”

“That’s the butter and the nutmeg. The custard is better than cake. It’s so delicious it pulls angels off their perches. At least that’s what I tell the other sisters. Did it make you hungry?”

“I was already hungry.”

The woman laughed. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?” He narrowed his eyes.

“I’m Sister Teresa.”

“I’m sorry, Sister. But, you . . . you look like a girl. You don’t look like a nun.”

“I don’t wear a nice habit when I’m cooking. What’s your name?”

Ciro sat on a stool across from the nun. “Ciro Augustus Lazzari,” he said proudly.

“That’s a big name. Are you a Roman emperor?”

“Nope.” Ciro remembered he was speaking with a nun. “Sister.”

“How old are you?”

“Ten. I’m big for my age. I pull the rope at the water wheel in town.”

“That’s impressive.”

“I’m the only boy my age who can. They call me an ox.”

Sister Teresa reached behind the table and pulled a heel of bread from a bin. She slathered it with soft butter and handed it to the boy. As Ciro ate, she swiftly carved more stars from the dough and added them to the large bowl filled with a batter of milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg. She stirred the ingredients evenly with a large enamel spoon. Ciro watched the creamy folds of custard, now speckled with stars, lap over one another as the mixture thickened. Sister poured the custard into ceramic cups on a metal tray without spilling a drop. “Are you visiting?”

“We’ve been sent here to work because we’re poor.”

“Everyone in Vilminore di Scalve is poor. Even the nuns.”

“We’re really poor. We don’t have a house anymore. We ate all the chickens, and Mama sold the cow. She sold a painting and all the books. Didn’t get much. And that money has almost run out.”