Out of the Ashes

by Lori Dillon

  The deeper he walked into the city, the fewer tourists he encountered, since this area had hardly been touched by the archaeologists. With the exception of a few scattered buildings, only the street had been excavated, leaving the vacant facades of the empty homes and shops to watch him as he passed by.

  Just as he was suspecting he’d taken a wrong turn, he encountered a bustling hub of activity. Men, young and old, were at work everywhere. Some pushed wheelbarrows filled with dirt down the narrow street, while others labored in shallow pits under white canvas tents to shield them from the hot summer sun.

  David scanned the workers, then approached the one who looked like he was in charge. The man inspected him from head to toe, then called out to someone down in one of the holes.

  Within moments, a man climbed out of the pit and walked up to David.

  “Buon giorno, signore. Can I help you?”

  He looked down on the little old man who took off his sweat-stained canvas hat to wipe at the beads of perspiration on his forehead. The man was a good foot shorter than David, and his balding head was pink and peeling from sunburn.

  “Sì, I am looking for work.”

  The old man nodded and replaced his hat.

  “Come with me, then. My name is Heberto, and I am assistant to the Director of Excavations. I’m certain he will hire you. With the war, we are in short supply of young, strong backs.” The old man grinned and pointed at himself. “As you can see, some of us are not so strong or young anymore.”

  They walked past several villas and shops, the cracked plaster walls and gaping doorways silent testimony to the bustling city that once was. David thought it odd that none of the buildings had any windows, at least none facing the street.

  They entered one of the ruined villas and walked down a short, narrow hallway. Stepping down into what appeared to be a single large room, he noted that the walls were still covered with faded fresco murals, and the mosaic tile floor appeared to be in almost perfect condition. A large square cut out of the center of the roof allowed light to flood the room.

  A man of about sixty sat at a large wooden table near the center of the room examining a small silver cup, while all around him lay piles of cracked pottery, pieces of broken columns, and small, limbless statues.

  “Signore Moretti, I have a young man here who seeks work. I think we can find a place for him, sì?”

  The man looked up from his work.

  Stepping up to the table, David removed his hat, and the lies he had rehearsed for days tumbled easily from his mouth in flawless Italian.

  “My name is David Corbelli,” he said, pronouncing his first name the Italian way—Dah-veed—and modifying his surname to a similar, local one. “I am from Naples.”

  The professor eyed him suspiciously. “You are a young man. How is it that you are not fighting in the war?”

  “Busted ear drum.”

  Moretti cocked a questioning brow at him.

  “I may not be able to hear the enemy coming, but I’m still strong enough to do a hard day’s work.”

  The man seemed to take him at his word.

  “Have you ever worked on an archeological dig before?”

  “No, but I am a fast learner.”

  “Very well, send him over to insula four. We could use more diggers there.”

  Heberto stepped up beside David, the man’s small frame making David feel like a giant beside him.

  “Perhaps he could be of use at the thermopolium. I’m certain there is plenty of work still to be done there.”

  Moretti glanced down at the cup in his hand.

  “Perhaps you are right. Serafina could use some help.”

  The decision made, Heberto led David out of the villa and down the street. As they walked, Heberto pointed out various buildings, telling David their names and what the archeologists thought they were used for, but David only half listened. He was paying more attention to possible vantage points, trying to determine in which direction the German camp might lie. Soon, they came to a building were only the front room had been excavated, while the rest remained buried under tons of dirt. They climbed the mound of earth surrounding its exterior wall, and Heberto drew David’s attention to a small figure in a shallow pit at the top.

  Roomy, tan trousers and a full white shirt did little to hide what was undoubtedly a very feminine figure beneath. David watched the woman digging as they approached. Each vicious jab of her shovel stabbed deep into the defenseless earth. She flung the dirt over her shoulder to fall nowhere near the bucket it was intended to land in.

  The woman threw the shovel at the ground in an obvious fit of temper, then dropped to her knees and began digging with her bare hands.

  “Serafina,” Heberto called as they drew near. “I have brought you someone to help with your digging.”

  With her back to them and a large-brimmed straw hat on her head, he had yet to see her face. She stopped clawing at the ground and placed her dirt-caked hands on her equally filthy thighs, the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders evidence of her recent exertion.

  “This is David Corbelli. The professore has assigned him to work with you.”

  The woman’s knuckles turned white as her fingers squeezed her thighs. Long seconds trickled by like the sweat running down David’s temples without a movement from her. Finally, she stood and turned to them. David was shocked, to say the least.

  Expecting to see the typical straight dark hair, brown eyes, and olive skin so common among the Southern Italians, instead he was met with large blue eyes and a light, tanned complexion with just a smattering of freckles. Wild tendrils of hair escaped the confines of the hat, but the shadow it created prevented him from telling what color it was. Serafina Pisano looked so wholesome and all-American, he could have plucked her straight off any one of a dozen farms in Virginia.

  Then, she opened her mouth, and any illusions he had about her disappeared. A stream of colorful Italian curses flowed off her tongue, some aimed at him, but most directed at the male population in general.

  Nope, American she was not. Serafina Pisano was all fire-breathing Italian.

  Hands on her hips, she inspected him up and down.

  “Great. That’s all I need—another hot-blooded male.” She turned and stalked off, leaving David and Heberto to stand in her dust.

  Watching her storm away, David caught sight of Mount Vesuvius rising silently in the distance beyond the ruins. After witnessing Serafina’s explosive eruption, he wondered which was more volatile—the mountain or the woman?

  *

  Heberto crept silently into Maria Angelico’s home and made his way down the hallway. The house was quiet, the only sound the clattering of dishes in the kitchen sink. Most of the tenants who rented rooms in the villa had not yet returned for the evening.

  The old woman’s back was to him as he entered the kitchen, her attention focused on the dirty dishes. He tiptoed behind her and reached around to sneak a zeppole cooling on a tray on the counter. Without turning, Maria slapped at his hand with a soapy wooden spoon.

  He jerked the offending appendage back and cradled it against his chest.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “You’ll spoil your dinner. Besides, we’re not in heaven, Hershel.” Marsha turned from the sink and shook her index finger at him. “You can get fat, your arteries can clog, and you can have a heart attack. Don’t you even think about dying on me and leaving me here alone to finish this job.”

  “Darn it, Marsha.” Hershel pouted. “You’re taking all the fun out of being mortal again.”

  “We’re not here to have fun. We’re here to see to it that David and Serafina get together.” Marsha handed him one of the warm fritters and motioned him to sit at the small linoleum table before taking the chair opposite him. “So, how are things progressing on your end?”

  “Fine. I’ve managed to get David assigned as her assistant. That should give them plenty of time alone together.”

  “That
’s wonderful! And so fast.” She reached across the table and patted his hand. “I’m very proud of you.”

  Hershel shrugged, but beamed all the same at his wife’s praise.

  “It was nothing, really. Just a little suggestion in the Professore Moretti’s ear was all it took.”

  Marsha bounced in her chair, hardly able to contain her excitement. “Oh, I can’t wait to meet him. What’s he like?”

  “Let me see, he’s—”

  “Is he handsome?”

  “Well, I guess he’s—”

  “Is he tall or short?”

  “I’d say —”

  “What about his eyes? Are they blue or green?”

  “I think they’re—”

  “Oh, never mind.” Marsha waved her hand at him. “You wouldn’t describe him right anyway. I’ll just have to find out for myself.”

  Hershel stared at her with a slack-jawed expression, not daring to say another word.

  She put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. Her face took on a dreamy glow.

  “I can’t believe he’s finally here. Serafina has been living with us so long, it’s like she’s our own granddaughter. I thought he would never come, and now he’s finally here. After so long, I can’t believe it’s all starting to happen.”

  He popped the last morsel of the zeppole into his mouth.

  “Now, maybe we can finally go home.”

  “We can’t do that. We have to stay until they fall in love.”

  “Might be a while, then. She wasn’t too pleased to have him around. Barely spoke a word to him all day except to tell him where to dig.” Hershel used the tip of his finger to pick the crumbs from the tabletop and licked them off, one at a time. “And he kept calling her Simon Legree under his breath.”

  Marsha’s attention snapped back to Hershel.

  “Oh, that’s not good. Not good at all. I wonder why she doesn’t like him? They’re soul mates. They should have been immediately drawn to each other. Were they attracted to each other at all?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you don’t know. You’re a man. Men never know about these things.” Marsha tsked in exasperation and wiped up the remaining crumbs with a napkin, effectively ending his miniature snacks.

  He pouted, then leaned back in his chair.

  “I don’t see what the problem is. The hard part’s over. We got them together. Why can’t we let nature take its course?”

  Marsha shook her head.

  “We did that the last four times, and look where that got us. No, we have to stay on top of things and make sure it goes smoothly from here on out. We have to make sure they fall in love.”

  “How? I mean, we’re mortal now. We can’t be with them every minute.”

  “I know.” Marsha stood and walked over to the stove. “You just make sure they don’t kill each other at the site, and I’ll try to soften up Serafina when she’s here.”

  Hershel came up beside her and peered into the simmering pot of stew. She adjusted his collar, then pulled his head down by the ears and kissed him on his balding scalp before shooing him out of the kitchen.

  “After all,” she called after him as he headed down the hallway, “how can we expect her to fall in love with him if she doesn’t even like him?”

  Chapter 7

  What in the world could be taking him so long?

  Serafina might have to take on the new worker as an assistant, but she’d be damned if she was going to babysit him all day long. She’d given him the easier job of removing the sterile ash and volcanic debris. All he had to do was shovel the dirt. Any idiot could do that. She wasn’t about to trust him with possibly getting near actual artifacts and damaging them because he didn’t know what he was doing.

  And now he was gone. Again.

  Throwing her trowel in the screening bucket, she rose to her feet and arched her back to stretch her aching muscles. Sitting in one position for hours on end was hard work, not to mention that the dust and ash she inhaled every day were probably not doing her lungs any good.

  She needed a break, and she needed to find out where her so-called assistant had gone. When she found him, David Corbelli was going to be fired, if she had anything to do with it.

  She started toward the main excavation area, but she hadn’t gone far before her long-lost worker caught her eye. His wheelbarrow was empty, so he had obviously just dumped his latest load of dirt at the trucks. He should have been on his way back to her dig site to remove another load, but he wasn’t. Instead, he walked down the road pushing his empty wheelbarrow, going right past the turn he should have made.

  Where on earth was he going?

  Curiosity temporarily cooling her ire, Serafina decided to follow him. Sticking close to the buildings, she shadowed him. He turned down a small side street heading toward the east wall. Why was he going there?

  As he walked further away, the stones gradually gave way to dirt and grass rising up an incline, evidence of where the excavations had yet to expand. Every now and then, he would glance behind himself. Did he know he was being followed?

  She hurried after him, but by the time she jogged the three blocks to the end of the street, he was nowhere in sight. His wheelbarrow sat abandoned at the base of the inner stone wall that surrounded the city ruins. Glancing up, she spied him perched next to one of the crumbling guard towers built into the wall, staring out into the distance.

  What was he looking at?

  Determined to find out, Serafina walked to the base of the wall and began scaling the jagged stone steps up the side of the tower.

  *

  The late afternoon sun beat down on his shoulders. David pulled his hat lower to shadow his eyes and leaned against the rough stone of the tower.

  Italy was damn hot, and it was only the beginning of summer.

  Being reduced to doing hard, manual labor didn’t help. Things might’ve been easier if he were a convict on a chain gang. He certainly felt like one. All day long, he shoveled load after backbreaking load of dirt into a wheelbarrow. Then he pushed it down the rutted cobblestone street to trucks waiting to haul away the useless volcanic ash and rock. He did this day after day, while Serafina Pisano sat on her trouser-covered ass in the shade of a canvas awning, scraping at the dirt with a pick no bigger than the one his dentist used to clean his teeth.

  Unfortunately, a little reconnaissance had revealed that the German camp was located clear on the opposite side of the ruins. Every time he made the long detour to observe what he could from one of the old guard towers built into the city wall, it took him twice as long to return with the empty wheelbarrow.

  He gazed out over the Italian landscape, past small stucco houses and fertile green farms to the modern seaside town of Pompei. He couldn’t see the Bay of Naples a mile away, but the Mediterranean breeze occasionally brought the smell of the sea to his lofty vantage point.

  Returning his attention to the activity just below him, he laughed to himself. The informants had been right. The German encampment sat right under his nose, just on the other side of the crumbling walls of the ruins. In fact, if David had jumped from the wall, he would have landed in the middle of a group of soldiers taking a smoking break behind a large canvas tent.

  From what he could tell so far, the place didn’t look like much, but looks could be deceiving. The Allies believed the Germans were using the ruins to hide munitions. His job was to find out if it was true.

  The crunch of rock beneath stealthy feet instantly put him on guard. He spun and dove on the intruder, slamming the person to the packed earth that filled the space between the two stone walls surrounding the city. He pulled the knife hidden in his boot and instantly pressed it against the intruder’s jugular, biting into soft white skin before he registered who the person was.

  “Jesus, Pisano. What are you doing sneaking up on someone like that? I could have killed you.”

  “I noticed.” Startled blue eyes met his, and
her small, soft body cushioned him from the hard, rocky soil. “Now get off of me.”

  He shifted, but then experienced a sudden flash, a small speck of a memory—a time when he had seen her look this way before. She on the ground beneath him. And he on top, covering her body protectively. But he couldn’t place it, couldn’t quite remember it. Then, just as quickly, she looked away, breaking the connection, and the sensation was gone.

  David stood and offered his hand to help her up.

  Serafina slapped it away and stood by herself, dusting off the back of her dungarees with angry swipes of her hands.

  “What are you doing over here? You’re supposed to be working for me.”

  For a moment, he didn’t answer. What could he say that would make sense? What excuse could he make that would not jeopardize his mission?

  “I thought this might be a good spot to dig?” It came out as a question, but apparently she took it differently.

  “You thought…” She appeared to choke on the words. “What?”

  David glanced around them while he considered the situation. If he could convince her to dig here, he could keep an eye on the enemy all day. It might make his life a little easier, at least where spying on the Germans was concerned. Serafina, on the other hand, was a different issue.

  He grappled for an explanation to appease her.

  “Well, you haven’t found anything so far where you’ve been digging.”

  “Not found anything? I’ll have you know—” She stopped abruptly, biting off whatever she had been about to say. “Signore Corbelli, you have only been working here for three days. How can you possibly know what I have and haven’t found?”

  He shrugged. “Okay, so you haven’t found anything while I’ve been here. Maybe you should try digging somewhere else.”

  “Excavating a site takes time to do properly. Artifacts are not discovered every day. Sometimes it takes weeks, even months before a significant find turns up.” She walked up to him and jabbed her index finger into his chest. “All that is beside the point. I’m the archeologist here. You are the laborer. You dig where I tell you to dig.”