The Shoemaker's Wife(63)

God is Charity

The familiar comforted them; the altar, the pews, the kneelers, and the Latin in the missals provided them with a deserved peace at the end of their long ordeal. The Blessed Mother’s outstretched arms seemed to welcome them, while Saint Vincent’s black robes and wooden rosary beads gave a sense of abiding serenity to these two lost souls hungry for home.

“I was told I will never see my mountain again,” Enza said quietly.

“What do they know about us?” Marco tried to bolster Enza’s spirits, but when he looked at his daughter, she seemed so small to him now, so vulnerable. Marco wished Giacomina was there to counsel her. He always left the big problems to his wife; she seemed to know just what to say to the children to soothe them. He couldn’t imagine how to solve this new problem. What would they do if Enza couldn’t return home? He sighed deeply, and decided all he could do was encourage Enza to move ahead with their plan. “You have to believe,” Marco said, “that we came this far for a purpose.” When the words came out of his mouth, he realized he meant them as much for himself as he did for his daughter.

Enza rose from the pew and followed her father down the aisle. Marco pushed the door of the chapel open.

“Enza? Enza Ravanelli?”

Enza heard her name said aloud in a familiar accent. She looked up to see Ciro Lazzari, who she had not seen since she left him at the convent entrance months ago. Her heart began to race at the sight. For a moment, she wondered if this meeting was real, when he had only lived in her dreams.

“It is you!” Ciro stood back and took her in. “I don’t believe it. What are you doing here? Are you here to visit? Work? Do you have people here?” As he asked her every question he could think of, Enza closed her eyes, took in the soft tones of her native language, and grew homesick on the spot.

“Who is this?” Carla Zanetti snapped.

“These are my friends from the mountain. This is Signor Ravanelli and his eldest daughter, Enza.”

Carla made fast work of sizing up the Ravanellis. She could see that Enza was not another girl from Mulberry Street looking to trap a husband, have a baby, and secure an apartment. This girl was an old friend from Ciro’s province; she traveled with her father, and was therefore respectable.

Ciro explained how he had met the Ravanelli family to Carla, who softened as she heard the story. Keep talking, Enza thought, drinking this conversation in like the first sips of cold water after the long journey.

“Why are you in the hospital?” Ciro asked her.

“Why are you in a chapel?” Enza countered.

Ciro threw his head back and laughed. “I was forced to give thanks that I didn’t lop off my entire hand.” Ciro showed her the bandage.

“My daughter fell ill on the ship,” Marco explained.

“A little sea sickness,” Enza said.

“She almost died,” Marco corrected her. “She was in the hospital aboard ship the entire time. We were terrified. I thought I would lose her.”

“I’m fine,” she said to Ciro. “There’s nothing to worry about now, Papa.”

Carla and Remo led Marco out of the chapel, leaving Enza and Ciro alone. She took his hand in hers, tucking the loose end of the gauze under the tight bandage. “What happened to you? Are you a butcher?”

“A shoemaker’s apprentice.”

“That’s an excellent trade. A shoemaker’s children never go barefoot. Do you remember that expression from the mountain?” She smiled.

Ciro was more of everything than she remembered; taller for sure, seemingly stronger, and his eyes a more vivid color, reminding her of the cliffs above Schilpario, where the branches of the deep green juniper trees met the bright blue sky. She noticed that Ciro carried himself differently. He possessed a particular swagger, an upright posture and a deliberate carriage, which Enza eventually, when she looked back on this moment, would identify as American. He even wore the uniform of the working class—durable wool work trousers with a thin leather belt, a pressed chambray shirt worn over an undershirt, and on his feet, proper brown leather work boots with rawhide laces.

“I should have written to you,” he said.

Enza took in the phrase should have, which she hoped meant that he wanted to write to her, not that he was obligated to do so. She said, “I went to the convent to see you, and the nun told me you were gone. She wouldn’t say where.”

“There was some trouble,” he explained. “I left in a hurry. There was no time to say good-bye to anyone except the sisters.”

“Well, whatever it was, I’m on your side.” She smiled shyly.

“Grazie.” Ciro blushed. He put his hand to his face and rubbed his cheek, as if to remove the pink flush of embarrassment. Now he remembered why he liked Enza; it wasn’t simply her dark beauty, it was her ability to get to the heart of things. “Are you going to Little Italy? We have a carriage. Most Italians go to Little Italy or Brooklyn.”

“We’re going to Hoboken.”

“That’s across the river,” Ciro said. “It’s not very far.” He seemed to think the distance over. “Can you believe I found you again?”

“I don’t think you were looking very hard,” she teased him.

“How do you know?”

“Intuition. It must have been very hard for you to leave the mountain.”