The Shoemaker's Wife(41)

Passengers rushing to make their train gently jostled the boys. Eduardo and Ciro did their best to step out of the way, but their apologies went unheeded.

The people were so different here. The parade of well-dressed men that milled around the platform bore no resemblance to the journeymen and laborers on the mountain. The nobility of Bergamo wore custom-made three-piece suits topped with dress coats of silk wool and dapper felt fedoras wrapped with broad bands of dark grosgrain ribbon, accented with small feathers or a tucked knot. The men in Vilminore also wore hats, but they were strictly utilitarian, straw in the summer to ward off the sun and wool in the winter to keep them warm.

The elite wore shoes of dyed calfskin with insets of pebbled leather, some with laces, others with buttoned spats. They carried satchels made of the finest embossed suede. The women were also dressed stylishly, in long skirts and fitted waistcoats. They wore dramatic hats with extravagant plumes, clouds of net dolloped over the wide brims and tied under the chin with satin bows. They seemed to move slowly, as if underwater, the only sound they made the rustle of their skirts and the click of their high-buttoned shoes, which grazed the pavement in muted taps as they passed.

Eduardo looked around for the four young men who would accompany him to the seminary in Rome, checking a slip of paper to remind himself of their names.

“Here,” Ciro said, handing his brother the three lire Iggy had given him.

“No, no, put it away, Ciro.”

“Take it,” Ciro insisted.

“I don’t need money where I’m going,” Eduardo assured him.

Distraught at the thought of leaving his brother, Eduardo stared at the great clock, willing time to stand still. He wanted to give his brother something to remember him by, to bind the two together when they were apart.

Ciro looked down at his mother’s signet ring with its swirling engraved C.

“And don’t offer me your ring, either,” Eduardo said.

Ciro laughed. “How did you guess?”

“You’re the most generous person I know. You would give me your shoes if you could. And you wouldn’t complain if you had to walk to Venice barefoot.”

“Yeah, except my feet are twice the size of yours,” Ciro said.

“Lucky for me, because those are ugly shoes.”

“That’s all Sister Domenica could find in the bin.” Ciro shrugged. “Besides, when you become a priest, they’ll give you the cassock, the collar, and the black slippers. You’ll never want for clothes, that’s for sure.”

“No cassocks for the Franciscans. Just brown robes of burlap tied with an old rope. And sandals.”

“If you’re going to go to all this trouble to become a priest, I wish you’d join a fancy order. You deserve the fine linens of the Vincennes like Don Gregorio. You’re a poor orphan becoming a poor priest. You’re like a crab going sideways.”

“That’s the idea, Ciro.” Eduardo smiled. “Jesus wasn’t known for his embroidered vestments.”

“And what will become of me?” Ciro asked quietly.

“Sister Anna Isabelle’s family will take good care of you.” Eduardo’s voice broke, hoping what he said would prove true. It had always been his job to take care of Ciro. How could he trust anyone else to do it? “It goes that way, you know. There isn’t anything they can do for her as a nun who has taken a vow of poverty, so instead they will do for you, because she asked. We’re very lucky, Ciro.”

“Really? You would call us lucky?” Ciro believed fate had been against them at every turn. Had he remembered his keys that night, he would not have discovered Concetta and the priest, which had set all these horrible events in motion.

“Yes, brother. We’ve made it this far.” Eduardo looked up and down the tracks, trying not to cry.

The Lazzari boys stood on the platform, having never been apart, not for a day or night of their lives. Little had gone unsaid between them. They had been one other’s counselors and confidants. In many ways, Eduardo had been Ciro’s parent, setting his moral compass, helping him navigate convent life, prompting him to study, all the while encouraging him to see the good in people and the possibilities of the world beyond the piazza in Vilminore.

Eduardo was now seventeen, and he possessed a contemplative air and a humble attitude. For a young man, he was unusually solemn, as well as empathetic.

Ciro would turn sixteen on the ship to America. He was over six feet tall, the pugilistic stance and comedic expressions of his youth replaced with a grown-up masculine prowess that made him appear much older. Eduardo sized up Ciro and was reassured that his younger brother could take care of himself physically. But he worried that Ciro was too trusting and could be taken advantage of by people less honorable than he. It was always the young men of gentle natures who acknowledged the worst in the world; strong boys like Ciro never did.

“You know, Ciro,” Eduardo began slowly, “I never felt I really lost Papa, because you look so much like him. Sometimes when I was studying late at night and I would look over at you sleeping, I would remember him lying on the grass, taking siesta. And I would swear Papa had never really left us because he was alive in you. But you are like him in more ways than your appearance. You have a mind like him too.”

“I do?” Ciro wished he could remember more details about his father. He remembered his laugh, and the way he held a cigarette, but beyond that, very little.