by Angela Petch
‘I buried him,’ she said.
She stood up. ‘Come,’ she said, and he followed her with his lamp a few metres up a narrow animal track to a small glade on the peak. She pointed to a circle of white stones and a crude wooden cross entwined with dried daisies. A bunch of rosebay willowherb wilted in a jam jar and she pulled the stems out. ‘This needs refreshing,’ she said. She knelt and picked up the cross and turned to Massimo. ‘This was given to Florian by a local family. He told me he rescued their baby.’
They stood in silence for a few seconds and then Massimo said, ‘We will ask Fra Amos to bury him properly.’
‘No, no.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s best he remains here on the mountain. It’s where he was made, and where his life ended before it could begin.’ She wiped her tears on her sleeve and looked up at him. ‘I’m only telling you because you married me, because you need to understand why I am the way I am.’
He waited for her to speak again but she was quiet. They walked back to the cave and sat by the remains of the fire. She settled into his arms, and after a while he realised that she had fallen asleep. Very gently, he laid her on the ground, covering her with his coat, and he stretched out beside her, sharing the warmth of his own body, watching the glow from the ashes until the fire died, listening to her breathing until he too fell asleep.
He woke next morning to find her already awake, watching him with her huge, river-green eyes. She smiled. ‘You’re a good man, Massimo,’ she said. ‘I have been blessed in my life with two good men.’ She pulled his hand to her heart and said, ‘You are here with Florian and the baby.’ Then she traced her fingers round his eyes, down his nose and to his mouth, where she kissed him. Her touch was like the petals of a dry flower on his lips.
He couldn’t respond, and he cupped her face with his hands. ‘Lucia, stop! We have plenty of time. You don’t have to make love to me. We can wait.’
Her brow puckered and she moved away. ‘I have coffee up here, and apples I’ve picked from the wild. Will that do you for breakfast?’
‘That will do perfectly, and then we’ll go home.’
Thirty-One
There was a slight change between them now that Lucia wore his ring. They were no longer like buzzards circling each other high in the clouds. Occasionally their wings would touch.
‘I’ll get you a new one when I’ve saved up,’ he said, opposite her at the kitchen table. He reached out to touch the ring on her finger. It was beginning to turn green and tarnished, leaving a dark mark on her skin.
‘I don’t need a fancy ring, Massimo. I like this.’
He started to bring her little gifts he found around the countryside: a handful of wild strawberries and raspberries wrapped in a basket of ferns, a piece of driftwood shaped like a star. She placed it on the ledge above the fireplace and added the colourful stones he picked up for her along the riverbed. He dug up a root of evening primrose to start off her flower garden, and he enjoyed listening to her beautiful voice as she sang while she weeded. Often, she sang lines he didn’t understand, and one day, leaning on his hoe, he asked her what they meant.
‘Florian taught me, but he used to smile at the way I sang the words.’ She closed her eyes to concentrate and then she sang again. The tune was gentle, lilting. He thought he might have recognised it from the wireless in the bar.
‘Guten Abend, guten Nacht,
Mit Rosen bedacht,
Mit näglen besteckt,
Schlupf unter die Deck…’
And then she stopped. ‘I don’t know any more, but he told me it was a lullaby and I would sing it when we had our babies.’ She stole a glance at Massimo but, as usual, he gave nothing away. ‘There are words in the song that mean roses and carnations,’ she continued. ‘He was serious about me, Massimo, you know. I was called a whore by the people in this village, but he asked me to marry him when the war finished. We loved each other.’
‘I believe you.’
He found a deeply scented rose growing beside an abandoned house and he climbed to the top of the ridge to search for wild pink dianthus and handed them shyly to Lucia. ‘For your garden,’ he said. ‘These are flowers from your song.’
‘Grazie, Massimo,’ she said, and she kissed him on the cheek. When she walked away to find a vase, he rubbed the spot where her lips had touched.
‘I won’t come down to see them,’ Lucia said one night some weeks later, when Massimo suggested they should announce their marriage to his parents. ‘And you needn’t ask me again. They did nothing to stop those girls and their mother that night. I don’t care if I never see them again. I know they’re your parents, Massimo, but that is the way I feel.’ She pointed to the windows frosted with snow. ‘And anyway, how could we travel in this?’
It was cosy in the kitchen with the fire blazing, the flames licking at river driftwood that hissed and spat in the hearth. But it was cold upstairs in the two bedrooms. After the first snowfall, Massimo had been woken by Lucia, who’d slipped into his bed and snuggled up to him. ‘Porca Madosca, Massimo. I think it’s time you moved into my bigger bed, don’t you? Yours is too narrow… and I’m bloody freezing.’
So he’d lifted her in his arms and carried her back into his parents’ room. She’d kissed him long and deep until they both felt warm. From then on, they’d slept together every night. After several weeks of eating properly, Lucia had filled out, her breasts and hips no longer lean like a boy’s. She surprised him with her fierce lovemaking. She often took the initiative, reaching for him sometimes even before it was time to light the candles and climb the ladder to their bed. On Christmas Eve, they’d eaten baccalà – the traditional dish of salted cod. She’d drunk her fair share of a bottle of rich red Chianti and, draining her glass, she’d climbed onto his lap, kissed him passionately and then slowly unbuttoned his shirt. They made love on the hearthrug and afterwards lay naked together for the rest of the night wrapped in a blanket, watching the flames dance before falling asleep.
‘You gave me the best Christmas present,’ Massimo said sleepily, nuzzling her neck, when they woke next morning. That was when she told him she wanted a baby.
When she discovered she was pregnant, in February, Massimo made her rest. He took over the cooking and cleaning of the little house. Over one metre of snow blanketed the houses, the landscape harshly beautiful. Icicles hung from the roof and words misted in the still air. Massimo had to clear a pathway to the stable to feed the cow, pig and goats. Lupino’s coat had grown thicker for the winter and Lucia added extra straw to his kennel. He refused to come inside to the warm and started howling at night.
Lucia lost their baby at eight weeks, her blood soaking into the double mattress. Massimo carried the mattress from the single bed for her to lie on, making up temporary bedding for his side until he could go down to market to buy a new one. In the huge trunk at the end of the bed, he found his grandparents’ old mattress case woven from thick cotton, and stuffed it with straw from the stable, instead of the dried corn leaves that were traditionally used. For the remainder of the time they were marooned by the snow, they lived in their own world, reverting to methods handed down by their ancestors. They ate bottled produce they’d set aside, and Lucia made flat schiaccia bread on a trivet in the hearth. Massimo was infinitely patient with his wife, almost fatherly in his tenderness.
In summer, it happened again. This time, Lucia was almost four months into her pregnancy. With this loss, she didn’t cry but stayed for hours in a chair staring out of the window. Massimo tried to cheer her with gifts again: a bunch of helleborines, tips of old man’s beard to add to her favourite frittata, but nothing would bring back her smile, and he had to coax her to eat and carry out everyday tasks. She went missing again. Massimo found her sitting on a rock by her first baby’s grave near the cave. At over one thousand metres it was chilly, with a fresh bite to the wind, and she’d left the house without a shawl or coat. He removed his and fed her arms into the sleeves.
‘I let Lupi
no go,’ she said, her teeth chattering, her body shaking, and she held up the empty rope she’d used as a lead. ‘He was howling again, and the wolves called back.’ She pointed to the peak opposite, blue-green and mysterious in the sunshine. ‘It was time to let him leave. Nothing lasts forever.’
‘Come home, Lucia,’ Massimo said, pulling her to her feet. ‘Come home.’
Thirty-Two
Tuscany, Present Day
‘For a while, Lucia and I went back to how we were before. Existing in the same house is how I would describe it,’ Massimo said to Alba. ‘But with time, something of the old Lucia returned, something of her sparkle. Some days when she woke up, she would turn to me in bed. “Let’s forget our chores and have today to ourselves, Massi.” And we would pack a simple picnic and escape to somewhere in the mountains where we had never been before. She loved to walk. That is how I prefer to remember her, Alba. Free and easy on the Mountain of the Moon. She was as loving as I think she could be.’
Massimo stopped for a moment, his eyes directed to the mountains bathed in sunshine. ‘Nowadays there would be help for a couple like us, but there were so many people damaged by the war. We had to get on with life in the only way we knew how: day by day. Our love deepened into friendship, and over the years we grew to understand each other better… and accept. We had both suffered in different ways, although what she had been through was infinitely worse.’
‘It is very sad, but you were amazing with her.’ Alba was sketching his face as he talked, pinning his likeness to the paper, trying to interpret his character in a deeper way than a photograph ever could.
‘I loved her, you see. Love comes in many forms. I was sad for her, and I wanted to care for her. She was part of my life, she became my life. I remember when she was born, even though I was only tiny, and I remember the joy of her family and all the others in our little hamlet that another baby girl had arrived to swell our numbers. In fact, in the end she agreed to meet my parents. It was awkward at first. I know they found her odd. But there was an eagerness after the war to forgive and forget. Lucia was a brave woman. I don’t think I have ever met anyone braver in the way she battled her sorrows.’
Alba was silent. She didn’t know how to tell Massimo what a wonderful man he was; how, without him, Lucia’s battle would probably have been lost. If Alba had attempted to tell him this, her words would have turned to tears.
‘What I am trying to tell you with this story of my life, Alba, is to take care to not miss the life you have or let it pass you by. Be honest with your feelings and take action.’ He paused again and Alba waited.
‘Poverina. My poor Lucia… I still think of her every day after all this time,’ Massimo said.
Alba stopped sketching.
‘Tell me, Massimo, did you ever come across the predella? Do you think it could possibly be the one missing from the altar panel in the little chapel up in Montebotolino?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know, Alba. I never tried to find it. That cave became a very sad place for us both.’
‘I might go and look for the cave myself. Maybe it’s still buried there.’
‘It will be impossible to find, cara mia. It was covered by a landslide more than thirty years ago. Don’t waste your energy.’
‘I struggle to understand how any of you could get over the war,’ Alba said, resuming her drawing.
‘There’s no simple answer to that, cara mia. As for Lucia, I wonder if I treated her too gently or protected her too much. I should have remembered the feisty girl she had been before the war, and left her to find her own way. But I wrapped her up in my care like a delicate egg, fearing her shell would crack at any minute. I watched her when she slept, her eyelashes fanned on her cheeks like a drawing, her hands fluttering in her dreams, her straggly urchin hair like a street boy’s. She’d been through so much, I was frightened of breaking her.’
‘You loved her so much, Massimo.’
‘I think I was even frightened of loving her, of being too romantic – God knows, I loved her so much. Maybe I should have let things take their own course. If you tie the vine the way it wants to climb, then it flourishes. I was always in a quandary over the best way to behave with her.’ Massimo turned to Alba and sighed. ‘There is silence with grief,’ he said, ‘and I think I was too silent. That is why I urged you when we first met to talk about your James, cara mia.’
‘Perhaps that’s simply the way we are. We bottle things up, believing that is how to stay strong,’ Alba said, reaching to touch his arm. ‘It’s hard to change.’
‘But I haven’t been strong and silent with you, have I? I’m so glad we’ve shared with each other, Alba. If I could turn back the clock with Lucia, I would be different. I wasn’t man enough. I was terrified half the time of damaging her.’
‘She was already damaged. It’s not a case of needing to be a strong man, Massimo.’
‘You modern girls, with your feminist ideas. You say you don’t want a strong man, but I think, deep down, a woman does.’
She shook her head to disagree. ‘We need a soulmate, somebody to share our lives with. Nobody can be strong all the time.’ She tried to capture his eyes; the mixture of mischief and torment. ‘I’m sure you were happy together, weren’t you?’ she said, looking up from the paper.
‘Oh yes, we were happy enough, but ours was not always a passionate love. Maybe… I should have done more.’
‘Oh, Massimo, I think Lucia was a very lucky woman.’
While Massimo had been talking, the sun had descended, casting patterns across the grass, the view of the river valley turning golden in the evening light. The ball of fiery sun was caught for a few moments in the curve of a tree near to where they were sitting, and she pulled out her phone to capture the striking image with the silhouette of Massimo in the foreground.
‘Shall we go inside?’ the old man asked. ‘I’m a little tired. And there is something I need to talk to you about.’
In his kitchen, they shared his favourite meal of spaghetti alla carbonara and drank a glass of wine.
‘What did you want to say to me?’ she asked, when they had finished their simple supper.
‘When I die, I would like to pass on this house to you. Lucia and I couldn’t have children of our own, but…’ He caught hold of her hand, the age spots and blue veins pronounced in his paper-thin skin. ‘I know I’ve found my family now.’
Alba brought his hand to her mouth and kissed it. ‘Massimo, it’s such an honour, but I hate to think about that happening. I hope it’s a long time away. I don’t know what to say,’ she said.
‘Then say nothing. Just smile and that will be a thank you.’
She obeyed, and he grinned at her and clasped his hands together in delight. ‘Then tomorrow we will go to the lawyer’s office in Badia and start the ball rolling. But first, there is something I want to ask you in return.’
‘Ask away.’
‘I want to hold a little party here very soon to thank everybody for their kindness to me. I will leave the invitations up to you. And I also want you to promise me that when I die, you will scatter my ashes in Tramarecchia.’
‘I’m always up for a party, and I know who I’m going to invite, but I’ve already said I don’t want to think of you dying.’
He laughed. ‘Alba, I’m an old man. And I’ve led a very full life. Scatter me without a fuss. I can’t bear the thought of being cooped up in that horrible cemetery.’
She sighed. ‘I promise, Massimo.’
‘That’s sorted, then. Now, it’s time for my bed. It’s late and I need my sleep if I’m going to be partying.’ He chuckled and she shook her head at him.
Before she settled down for the night, Alba changed the screensaver on her phone from the image of her and James to her favourite photo of Massimo sitting outside his house. By the side of the red door, a rosemary bush was in flower and old man’s beard, or Clematis vitalba, scrabbled up the drainpipe. Babbo had told her that rosemary wa
s planted in remembrance, and that vitalba was also known as traveller’s joy. She decided both plants were significant and would remain, as long as they were kept under control. James was gone. She would never forget him, but she had moved on.
Lodovica was a fast walker; Alba found it hard to keep up at times as they climbed together towards the Mountain of the Moon. Halfway, they stopped to drink water from a spring in the woods that Lodovica knew about.
‘I’m truly grateful for your help with Alfiero, Lodovica. He’s such a special friend.’
‘You’re welcome. I warmed to him, too. At first, he was uncomfortable in my presence, but after a couple of days, he relaxed. How is he now?’
Alba told her a little about the night in the mountain refuge. ‘Hopefully we’ll be less awkward with each other in the future. I respect him, but…’
‘You can’t force feelings that aren’t there, Alba. No need to explain.’
They continued their ascent in easy silence until just before they reached Seccaroni. Alba stopped. ‘Thank you for coming up here with me. A while ago, I told you about my ghost in the ruins.’ She laughed self-consciously. ‘Now I believe it was simply my imagination, that my mind was in a state after losing James.’
Lodovica gazed around. ‘I’ve never been up here before. The view is wonderful.’ She walked into the ruins and touched the walls. ‘It is very strange to think that my uncle was probably up here with other partisans during the war.’
Alba wandered over to the edge of the ridge and pointed out the gap in the rocks where she and her brother had found the silver goblets and plate. ‘As you can see, it would be impossible for anybody to walk down there.’