The Tuscan Child(28)

But I could still feel their eyes on me, and I was not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing my fear. I stepped forward bravely. The floor was made of large cobblestones, the walls hewn out of the stone of the hillside. And after the tunnel turned a corner, I saw that one side had openings to the view while the other had what looked like wine cellars. I came through the tunnel without incident and followed the path that dipped steeply into the valley. The village came to an abrupt halt after only a couple of rows of houses, and I took the track that led down the hill. It consisted of two rows of rutted dirt made by the wheels of successive carts and tractors. Between the dirt rows poppies poked their heads above the grass. After the houses came to an end, I walked between leafy vines on one side and on the other kitchen gardens with runner beans covered in their red flowers climbing on beanpoles above tomatoes and other vegetables I didn’t recognise. I went a way down the hill, and there on the left ahead of me was one of the old farmhouses I had admired on my journey here. It was built of faded pink stone, its terra cotta roof glowing a rich, warm red against a startlingly blue sky. Over its doorway an old and gnarled grapevine created a shady porch, and beside it was a huge clay jar with rosemary spilling over the top. The front door was open. I went up to it and looked for a bell. I knocked tentatively but got no response.

“Hello! Buongiorno,” I called. No answer.

From the back of the house I could hear women’s voices. I advanced slowly along the tiled passage, which opened up on to a big sunny kitchen from which wonderful smells were emanating—baking bread and herbs that I couldn’t quite identify. A row of copper pots hung on hooks. Beside them were braids of garlic and drying herbs. In the centre was a scrubbed wooden table on which various vegetables and herbs had been chopped, and on the right-hand wall was an enormous and ancient open brick oven that could have baked a dozen loaves at once. And at the more modern gas stove beside it a woman was standing with her back to me. My first glimpse of her made me gasp and stand rooted to the spot. It felt as if I had been transported back in time. This was my mother, the same stout build, the same hair twisted up into a bun, stirring something magical on the stove as I came home from school.

Any minute now she’d turn to see me, give me a big smile, and open her arms to embrace me. Instead a dog rose up from under the pine table and came toward me, growling. The woman turned and uttered a little cry of alarm at being startled.

“Quiet, Bruno,” the woman said. “Lie down.” The dog obeyed, still eyeing me suspiciously.

“Scusi, Signora,” I said quickly. “I knocked but you didn’t hear.” Actually, I think I said that I struck the door, not having the word for “to knock” in my scant vocabulary.

“No matter,” she said. “You are here now. How can I help you?”

“I need a room for the night,” I said. “The men told me you had a place?” I had practised these phrases on the walk down, and they came out quite smoothly.

She nodded, beaming now. “Yes. Of course. My little house in the garden. Once it was for animals. Now it is for people. Good, eh?”

I returned her smile. It was difficult to tell how old she was—probably in her forties, but her face was remarkably unlined and her hair only showed the faintest streaks of grey. She was wearing a large blue and yellow apron over a white blouse with the sleeves rolled up above the elbows.

She wiped her hands on the apron and came toward me. “I am Paola Rossini,” she said. “Welcome.”

I shook the outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you, Signora Rossini. I am Joanna Langley,” I said.

“From England?”

“Yes.”

She nodded approval. “You look like an English girl. Always tall and elegant. You are a student of Italian?”

“No, I’m here on a visit. I’m looking into places my father visited when he was in Italy.”

“Really? And he came to San Salvatore once?”

“I think so,” I said, not wanting to broach this matter now.

At that moment there was a loud and piercing cry and I remembered that we were not alone in the room. There had been a conversation going on as I walked down the hall. On a chair in the corner, a young woman sat. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulders, and she was watching me with curiosity. On her lap was a tiny new baby.

“My daughter, Angelina,” Signora Rossini said proudly. “And now my granddaughter, Marcella. She is just three weeks old. She was born early, and for a while we were worried we might lose her, but with good care and her mother’s good milk she is now doing well, eh, Angelina?”

The girl in the corner nodded, smiling shyly at me. “Angelina’s husband is a steward on a ship,” Signora Rossini said. “He is away at sea and has not seen his baby daughter yet. So she comes to her old mother and knows she will be well taken care of.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off that tiny, perfect human being, nor could I stop my brain from going to places I did not want it to visit. Three months from now . . . Stop! I commanded myself.

“My congratulations on your daughter,” I said, this being one of the phrases we had learned in the Italian course.

Angelina beamed. “You are married?” she asked. “You have children?”

I tried to keep on smiling. “Not yet,” I said. “I am studying to be a lawyer.”