The Shoemaker's Wife(4)

“It’s the same story in every village in the Alps.”

“We won’t stay long. My mother is going to the city, and she’ll come and get us this summer.” Ciro looked over at the deep wood-burning oven and figured that he would have to stoke and clean it until his mother returned. He wondered how many fireplaces there were in the convent. He imagined there were lots of them. He’d probably spend every hour of daylight chopping wood and building fires.

“What brought you to the convent?”

“Mama can’t stop crying.”

“Why?”

“She misses Papa.”

Sister lifted the tray of custard cups and placed them in the oven. She checked the surface of several other baked custard cups on a cooling rack. What a lovely thing, to work in a warm kitchen in the cold winter and make food. Ciro imagined that people who work in kitchens are never hungry.

“Where did your father go?”

“They say he died, but I don’t think so,” Ciro said.

“Why don’t you believe them?” Sister wiped her hands on a moppeen and leaned on the table so she might be eye to eye with the boy.

“Eduardo read the letter that was sent to Mama from America. They say Papa died in a mine, but they never found his body. That’s why I don’t think Papa is dead.”

“Sometimes—,” she began.

Ciro interrupted her. “I know all about it—sometimes a man dies, and there’s no body. Dynamite can go off in a mine and people inside blow up, or a body can burn in a fire or disappear down a hole, or drown in a slag river inside the mountain. Or you get hurt and you can’t walk and you get stuck underground and you die of starvation because nobody came to find you and animals eat you and nothing is left but bones. I know every which way there is to die—but my papa would not die like that. He was strong. He could beat up anyone, and he could lift more than any man in Vilminore di Scalve. He’s not dead.”

“Well, I’d like to meet him someday.”

“You will. He’ll come back. You’ll see.” Ciro hoped his father was alive, and his heart ached at the possibility that he might never see him again. He remembered how he could always find his father easily in a crowd because he was so tall, he towered over everyone in the village. Carlo Lazzari was so strong he was able to carry both sons simultaneously, one on each hip, like sacks of flour up and down the steep mountain trails. He felled trees with an ax, and cut lumber as easily as Sister cut the dough. He built a dam at the base of the Vertova waterfall. Other men helped, but Carlo Lazzari was the leader.

Sister Teresa broke a fresh egg into a cup and added a teaspoon of sugar. She poured fresh cream into the cup and whisked it until there was a creamy foam on the surface. “Here.” She gave it to Ciro. He sipped it, then drank it down until the cup was empty.

“How’s that stomach now?”

“Full.” Ciro smiled.

“Would you like to help me cook sometime?”

“Boys don’t cook.”

“That’s not true. All the great chefs in Paris are men. Women are not allowed in the Cordon Bleu. That’s a famous cooking school in France,” Sister Teresa told him.

Eduardo burst into the kitchen. “Come on, Ciro. We have to go!”

Sister Teresa smiled at him. “You must be Eduardo.”

“Yes, I am.”

“She’s a nun,” Ciro told his brother.

Eduardo bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Sister.”

“Are you hungry too?”

Eduardo shook his head that he wasn’t.

“Did your mother tell you that you shouldn’t be any trouble?” Sister asked.

He nodded that she had.

Sister Teresa reached back into the metal bin and took a wedge of bread and buttered it. She gave it to Eduardo, who ate it hungrily.

“My brother won’t ask for anything,” Ciro explained. “Can he have an egg and cream with sugar too?” He turned to his brother. “You’ll like it.”

Sister smiled and took a fresh egg, sugar, and some more cream and whipped it with a whisk. She gave it to Eduardo, who slowly sipped the egg cream, savoring every drop until the cup was empty.

“Thank you, Sister,” Eduardo said.

“We thought the convent would be horrible.” Ciro placed his own and Eduardo’s cup in the sink.

“If you behave and say your prayers, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble.”

Sister Domenica stood in the doorway of the kitchen with Caterina. Eduardo gasped when he saw them and quickly bowed to the old nun. Ciro couldn’t understand why his brother was afraid of everyone and everything. Couldn’t he see that Sister Domenica was harmless? With her starched coutil bib and black skirts, she resembled the black-and-white-checked globe made from Carrara marble that Mama used as a paperweight. Ciro wasn’t afraid of any nun, and besides this one was just an old lady with a wooden cross hanging from her waist like a giant key.

“I have found two capable young men to help me in the kitchen,” Sister Teresa said.

“Eduardo is going to help me in the office,” Sister Domenica said to Sister Teresa. “And Ciro will work in the chapel. I need a strong boy who can do heavy lifting.”

“I need a strong boy who can make cheese.” Sister Teresa winked at Sister Domenica.