Paolo felt a surge of hope. 'Then you'll take my wife?' he begged.
The driver hesitated. 'As long as someone else who is now riding will walk.'
For a fleeting instant, Antonio di Fontanesi was tempted to order Marcella down from the wagon, but another woman volunteered. Antonio decided he was just as happy not to have his wife walking beside him.
As soon as room was made in the wagon for Adriana Vigano, Father Odoni helped Paolo lift the stout woman up onto the back.
Only once his beloved Adriana was in the wagon and the party was headed up the hill toward the convent did Paolo once again dare consider how lucky he was. Perhaps, just perhaps, things might turn out all right after all. His sick wife was on her way to the convent. His son had survived the war. His humble home was still standing. And under his coat he had the two loaves of bread Adriana had been baking when her time had come. They had clothes on their backs, there was help at the convent, and he had had the foresight to bring along some food. What else could a man possibly want?
Antonio, Father Odoni, Paolo, young Dario, and the woman who had volunteered to walk went on foot beside the slow-moving wagon. For a long time no one spoke. Everyone was weary, and the steady uphill climb was tiring. It was Paolo Vigano who finally broke the silence. He had caught Antonio lowering his ear to the bundle in his arm.
He tapped Antonio on the arm. 'What are you carrying all wrapped up like that?'
Without losing a step, Antonio parted a portion of his coat. The baby looked pale and lifeless in the moonlight. 'She is my son's,' Antonio explained sadly. 'Something has happened to her mother. Perhaps she is wounded, perhaps she is dead. Perhaps we will never know. The mother's breasts were barren. She left our shelter during the bombing to find the child some food, but she has not returned. Now I am afraid the poor thing is going to starve.'
Paolo shook his head miserably. 'My wife, too, just gave birth,' he said, commiserating. 'It too was a daughter, but she died right away.' His voice grew choked. 'Now I am afraid that my wife will die also. The only comfort is that she is too delirious to know that the daughter she has carried is dead.'
'I don't know what I'm going to do,' Antonio whispered. 'If the Sisters have no milk . . . '
Suddenly Paolo reached out for the bundle in Antonio's arms. 'Let me have the child,' he said excitedly. 'Surely my wife, ill though she is, has plenty of milk in her breasts.'
Antonio stared at him, then quickly he handed the child over.
'Stop for a moment,' Paolo called to the driver as he hurried to the back of the wagon, climbed over the tailgate and bent down over his wife. She was lying on her back, perspiring heavily. When he touched her forehead it felt cold as ice. He opened the blouse and exposed a huge, swollen breast.
Antonio had followed him and now watched as some instinct brought the child to life. Greedily she found the nipple and began to suck the milk from Adriana Vigano's copious breasts.
'Just look,' Paolo murmured, the tears sparkling in his eyes. He was at once saddened and filled with joy. He wept for his own dead child, and then he dried his tears and smiled proudly that his ailing wife should, without even being aware of it, save the life of another.
God truly worked in mysterious ways, Paolo thought. He had not turned a blind eye on them after all.
In the midst of tragedy, He was out working His miracles.
From across the room, Antonio watched as Paolo Vigano leaned low over the cot and kissed his wife. The cot was in the makeshift ward which was actually the chapel of the convent. The pews had been carried outside and cots were lined up everywhere. A young nun was burping the baby, patting her on the back. Then she handed the infant back to Paolo. He turned and waved at Antonio, then, with Dario, circled around the sea of cots to where Antonio and Marcella waited against the far wall to one side of the altar.
'Adriana stands a good chance,' Paolo burst out as soon as he neared Antonio. 'It may be some time until she recovers completely, but the Sisters and the doctor are convinced everything will turn out fine. They said she was brought here just in time.'
Antonio smiled and clapped a hand on Paolo's shoulder. 'I am very glad to hear it.'
'I am so relieved.' Paolo said, tears in his eyes. Then, almost reluctantly, he handed Antonio the baby. 'She must have been hungry. She has eaten once again.' He shook his head in disbelief. 'I don't think I ever saw such a hungry child. She may be tiny, even for a newborn, but she is so beautiful.' His face grew mournful and his voice fell to a whisper. 'Do you know, for a moment my wife was aware of the child? It was as though the touch of the mouth against her gave her new strength. For an instant, she looked at me with total consciousness and smiled and said, 'My beautiful, beautiful baby.' 'Paolo bit down on his lip as the tears spilled from the corners of his eyes. He shook his head miserably. 'I did not find it in my heart to tell her the truth. Not yet, while she is so ill.'
Antonio nodded. 'I understand.'
Paolo wiped his eyes with his fingertips, put an arm around his son's shoulders, and drew Dario close. 'I'm sorry,' he said to no one in particular. 'I do not usually cry.'
Antonio smiled, drily. 'I do not either, but lately I find I've been crying a lot.'
Paolo looked at him. 'Did you find out about the availability of milk yet?'
'No,' Antonio answered, shaking his head. 'But we were told to wait and speak to the Reverend Mother about it. We will see what she can do.'
'Should you find it necessary,' Paolo said politely, 'my wife is producing plenty of milk. It has to be drawn from her breasts anyway.'
'Thank you, my friend,' the Prince said.
'By the way, my name is Paolo. Paolo Vigano.'
'I am very grateful for what you have done, Signor. My name is Antonio. And this is my wife, Marcella.'
'Signora. Signor.' Paolo bowed politely, but Marcella merely gave him a frosty smile and turned away.
'There is the Reverend Mother now,' Antonio said. He watched as the Mother Superior swept through the chapel doors in her blood-stained white robe, every few steps stopping to give words of comfort to some patient.
As she came closer, she happened to look across the row of cots and met Antonio's eye. For a moment, her gaze roved on elsewhere; she didn't seem to register him or the Principessa in their dirty, changed appearance. Then recognition clicked in her mind and her eyes swept back toward him. She hurried over, still inquiring of various patients, but doing so more quickly.
When she reached them, she gave them a strained smile. 'Prince di Fontanesi. Principessa.' She inclined her head.
Paolo gasped. 'You are . . . the Prince? And the Principessa?' He stared at them; then his eyes fell and he quickly bowed his head. 'Scusi, scusi,' he murmured.
'For what?' Antonio asked.
'For being familiar .'
Antonio touched him under the chin and raised his head so he could look him in the eye. 'I am not sorry. I am grateful for all you have done to help.'
The Reverend Mother cleared her throat and folded her hands. 'I'm afraid I have become the bearer of much sad news of late, and now I must bring yet more bad tidings.'
'Charlotte-Anne is dead, then?' Antonio asked.
She nodded. 'I'm sorry, and you have my deepest sympathies. The stretcher bearers found her and brought her in, but it was too late. She had suffered too many internal injuries. There was nothing more that we could do, other than make her as comfortable as possible. She was, and is, in the hands of God.' The Mother Superior touched Antonio's arm gently, in a gesture of comfort, and only then noticed the child. Her eyes flared in surprise, and for the first time in days she allowed herself to smile. She bent down to inspect the infant. 'A newborn!' She looked back up at him.
'Yes, and now she has no mother,' Antonio said bitterly. 'Nor is there any milk to be found.'
The Mother Superior tightened her lips. 'I'm afraid there's none here.'
'And we ourselves don't even have any food to eat,' Marcella growled. She looked at the Mother Superior hope
fully. 'We have not eaten for days.'
'I'm sorry, Principessa.' The Mother Superior's tone was dry. 'If we only had some we could spare I would give you all I could. But the wounded and sick do not have enough. We are waiting for the rations of the Americans.'
Marcella grumbled and turned away.
'I have some food, Principessa,' Paolo offered, proudly opening his coat. 'Two loaves of bread. See - ' He handed one of the crispy, golden loaves to the Mother Superior. 'It is the least I can do, Reverend Mother.'
'Bless you,' the Mother Superior said.
He broke an end off the second loaf and held it out to Marcella, who seized upon it greedily. She took a large bite and began to chew as though someone might snatch it away from her at any moment.
'Thank you,' Antonio told Paolo quietly. 'You have my lifelong gratitude, first for your wife feeding the baby, and now for feeding us.' His eyes fell. What had happened to turn his wife into such an animal so quickly? Or had she only needed the opportunity to show her real self. He had never been as ashamed of anyone as he was now of his wife. In mere days, Marcella had taken on all the worst characteristics she had once ascribed to the peasants. And it was the peasants who were now behaving with dignity.
'But the child,' Antonio murmured worriedly. 'What are we going to do about the child, now that there is no milk and her mother is dead?'
'And her father also,' the Mother Superior said softly. 'Perhaps you have not heard?'
Antonio stared at her, his face suddenly drained of all color. 'How did he die? Was it here?'
She shook her head. From what she had heard about Luigi di Fontanesi's death, that was information which could surely wait. They would find out about it soon enough.
As the silence continued, the fight seemed to go out of Antonio. As if he guessed the horrible truth of his son's fate, the Prince seemed to shrivel and age right before their very eyes.
Marcella finished her hunk of bread and a calculating glint came into her eyes. In her near madness, she didn't even seem to register the news of Luigi's death. She stared at the rest of Paolo's loaf. 'Why don't you take the child?' she suggested in a sharp whisper. 'It no longer has a father or a mother.'
Paolo stared at her. 'I beg your pardon, Principessa?'
'I said - she's yours. For the rest of that loaf of bread, you can have the baby.'
'Marcella!' Antonio was shocked. She was haggling like some fishwife bargaining at the market - and using the child as currency. Too much had happened, he supposed. The walk through the ruins of the Palazzo di Cristallo had confirmed the worst of everything to her; it had broken her.
Marcella snatched the child out of his arms and held her up to Paolo. 'Look how beautiful she is,' she hissed. 'An angel. Your wife need never know that she is not of her own flesh and blood. Yours was a day old. This one is not much older. You can have her, substitute her. And see this necklace her mother put around her neck?'
Paolo could only stare down at the pansy charm, numb with surprise.
'The necklace is yours, too. I don't want it. You can have her and the necklace! All we want for her is the rest of that loaf of bread.' Her eyes gleamed crazily.
Antonio turned to face the wall, the tears streaming down his cheeks. The Mother Superior had to turn away also. She could not bear to see the ugly impression on the Principessa's face.
'Don't you see that it's all for the best this way?' Marcella hissed at her husband. 'At least this way the child can eat. And she'll have a mother and a father. And we can have some bread to eat, too.'
'You . . . you would do this?' Paolo asked softly.
'Yes, yes,' the Principessa snapped. 'Here!' She thrust the baby into his arms and snatched away the rest of the loaf of bread. 'I hated the baby's mother. She was nothing but a fascist putana. I knew my son was doomed the moment I first saw her. It was all because of her that he died. Who wants the child of the slut who killed her husband.'
Paolo stared down at the baby. Her tiny, wrinkled pink face was one of wide-eyed innocence. The fluffy, down-like hairs on her head were golden, and the eyes were wide and aquamarine. She was indeed an angel. And his wife would never doubt the child was not her own; their coloring was so similar. Paolo looked over at Marcella, who was already walking away, biting off another hunk of the bread. She had not even offered a piece to her husband, who followed after her with a slow step and stooped shoulders. The Mother Superior bowed her head and prayed silently. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have tried to intervene, but the situation was hardly ordinary. It would have been useless to challenge the aristocratic authority of the di Fontanesis. Everywhere, there was death and destruction. Better the child lived in a family of simple people with loving hearts, than try to keep her in the presence of the shrew who was willing to sell her for a loaf of bread.
The Mother Superior watched as Paolo put one arm around his six-year-old son's shoulder, dropped to his knees to show him his new baby sister, and extracted from him a vow never to tell his mother what he had just witnessed.
Then Paolo looked up. 'Reverend Mother, this child does not have a name.'
She nodded. 'I suppose it doesn't, or else they would have told us.'
'What was the mother's name?'
'Charlotte-Anne.'
He frowned thoughtfully. 'Anna. Yes, we shall call her after her mother. We shall call her Anna.' The Mother Superior smiled her approval. Yes, it was much better this way.
Somehow, God in His wisdom had seen to it that the child would at least be loved.
23
The suitcases lay on the bed, their lids yawning open.
Elizabeth-Anne watched in silence as Janet folded and packed their clothes. She glanced over at Zaccheus. Her son had pulled his wheelchair up in front of the window, and he was staring out at the hills of Umbria as though some elusive, last-minute answer lay hidden in that view. She knew what he was thinking. She was thinking the same thing.
They had come to Italy to find Anna, but had finally had to admit failure. There were so many pieces to the puzzle, and she was afraid that no matter how hard she searched or how deeply she dug, she would never find them all.
She crossed the room and stood behind Zaccheus, wearily placing a hand on his shoulder. For a moment he turned and glanced up at her. Her features were composed; she felt there was no need to show the terrible pain she felt as she stared out at the now-familiar hills.
When she had first arrived, she had imagined she felt closer to Charlotte-Anne here, where she had lived, but she knew now that that had merely been an illusion. These hills could not make up for her loss. Charlotte-Anne was buried in Italy but her spirit was no longer here. Elizabeth-Anne had to accept that fact and come to terms with the tragedy, just as nature did. In places, the bombed vineyards had already been replanted with surviving vines. There was a lesson to be learned from that.
Life went on, she thought dully. Despite the most tragic devastation ever visited upon the world, life went on.
She steepled her hands and held her forefingers poised against her lips. She knew that her family had not been singled out to suffer. Millions of other lives had been destroyed in the past few tragic years. But the toll the war had extracted from her and her loved ones was high: a son who was crippled; a daughter dead at only thirty, whose very name inspired such loathing that the Italian peasants would spit and curse upon hearing it; a missing grandchild; a son-in-law who had been fallen upon by his people, stabbed to death with pitchforks, and then ignobly hanged upside down in the village piazza and mutilated, because he was the symbol of a government which abused its power and oppressed its citizens. They had taken their anger out upon Luigi di Fontanesi because he was a remaining tangible manifestation of a country gone mad.
What had happened to the human race, to turn people into such rabid animals?
She had asked herself that question a thousand times, but there was no answer. There were so many questions, and no answers to any of them.
Slowl
y, she turned around. She decided she might as well help Janet pack. Just moving around in a zombie-like state did not do anyone a bit of good, least of all herself. They had come here and done all they could, which had amounted to nothing. Now the sooner they were packed, the sooner they could leave. She knew now the best thing they could do was go home and come to grips with their losses. It was time to face the truth. Her granddaughter had disappeared. Like an unwanted puppy or kitten, she had been given to passing strangers by her other grandparents. No matter how far and wide she continued to search for her, Elizabeth-Anne realized that the search would be fruitless. She would never find Anna. The parents she had been given to had no doubt heard about her search, as Elizabeth-Anne had had it so widely publicized, and they had disappeared into the night. The worst part of it was, in all her fifty years she had never learned to accept defeat.
She clenched her hands and let out a silent moan of anger and impotence. The many voices and images of the last few weeks seemed to swirl in her mind.
The Mother Superior, her lace sad, her voice torn and tortured: 'Signora, the child is happy. You must believe me. It will only hurt her to be torn from the only family she knows and loves. Please, Signora. Have a heart. If you insist, yes, I will tell you. But please, Signora. It will be a grave mistake.'
Her own voice, hollow and faraway: 'I have to know. I must. She is my daughter's child.'
The Mother Superior: 'Very well, then, Anna. Anna Vigano. Father Odoni himself baptized her.'
And the Viganos's neighbor and landlord: 'They left in the middle of the night, like thieves running from the law. Who knows where they went? They left owing me two months' rent. Good riddance I say.'
Elizabeth-Anne's heart and soul burned with the pain. She had been so close to finding Anna. Now she was once again gone, lost forever. Who knew where the Viganos had lied to in order to keep the child?
Memories, so many, many memories assaulted her. There was so much that she blamed herself for. So much could have been different if only . . .
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