The Girl Who Rode the Wind

by Stacy Gregg

  I cast a look over at Stella who was standing in her stall. She had run her heart out for me today. I loved her so much! The thought of leaving her behind was almost more than I could bear, but I knew that what I was saying was right.

  “There is a train at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” I told Marco. “It will take us to Rome. And from there we can buy tickets on a boat to America.”

  “America?” Marco sat up. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Of course I am serious!” I pulled back from our nest in the hay and sat up. “It is the only way!”

  “You are being crazy, Loretta! This will blow over, you will see …”

  “If this is what they do to you when you lose a race,” I said, “imagine what they will do when we tell them we want to get married. Don’t you see? There is no future for us as long as the contradas control us.”

  Marco dropped his gaze from mine.

  “So this is your solution. You want me to abandon my mother, my father, my brothers and my friends to be with you?”

  “I want us to be happy and live our lives together!”

  Marco shook his head. “I need time to think about this, Loretta.”

  “What is there to think about?” I replied. “You know that I am right and this is the only chance for us.”

  I clutched his hand and held it to my heart. “Meet me at the station tomorrow, Marco. If you love me, then you will be there.”

  There was a finality to our parting, and I lay awake that night consumed by sorrow, knowing that we were not the same as we once were, that our decisions had been made. All the same, as I stood on that platform the next day I waited in desperation for him to appear, hoping against hope. Even to the very last, as the train pulled in to the station and the passengers began to board, right up until the moment the doors were closed and the whistle sounded and we began to pull away slowly from the platform, I still believed he would come. I watched out the window, convinced I would catch a glimpse of him running around the corner, shouting out joyfully to me, sprinting to catch up with the train and make a flying leap onboard.

  I sat alone in my carriage and clutched his unused ticket in my hand all the way to Rome. It was the longest and loneliest journey of my entire life, but I never looked back, and I never saw Marco again.

  So many questions filled my head as Nonna finished her story, I didn’t know where to begin.

  “Did you ever contact Marco?” I asked. “Maybe send him a letter and let him know where you were?”

  Nonna shook her head. “Marco, my brother and the war, they all became one and the same to me. Everything I had left behind in Italy caused me pain. I did not want to dwell on the past. From the moment I set foot on American soil, New York opened its heart to me and I felt free for the first time in my life.

  “When I met your grandfather that day in the clubhouse and he smiled at me and helped me to pick up the broken crockery, I knew right away that he was a good man. Over the years that followed we were so happy together. I spent my days with the horses, which I loved. And then I had a baby – your father – and he grew up and got married to your mama. She was a wonderful woman, beautiful inside and out, and your father loved her very much. Then Johnny and Vincent came along and Donna and then you, Piccolina. My little one, the dearest of all to my heart.”

  “Nonna,” I said. “I’m really sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t know. After what you’d been through I never would have had anything to do with the contradas.”

  “It’s in the past, Piccolina. It was a long time ago …”

  “I don’t care. I’m not going to ride for them, Nonna. Not after what they did. I’m going to tell them no.”

  Nonna shook her head. “That is not why I told you the story, Piccolina. I don’t want you to give up the chance to ride because of what happened to me. I only wanted you to be aware of what you are getting yourself into. These men you are dealing with are capable of anything. They are not good people.”

  “What about the Prior? Is he a good person?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you trust him? You told me that he knew about Carlo. The Prior was the one that sent you on the mission that night. Perhaps he also sent the Blackshirts too? Maybe he wasn’t on the side of the freedom fighters after all? You said the fascists treated him as one of them. Perhaps he really was a fascist all along?”

  “No! Piccolina, that’s not true. The Prior was helping Carlo. He did his best to protect me afterwards …”

  “Or was he just trying to keep you quiet in case someone else realised what he had done?”

  “It is impossible,” Nonna said. “I know you do not want to believe that it is my fault, Piccolina, but I am telling you the story as it really happened. It was me. I was the one who led the Blackshirts to my brother –”

  The hard rap of bare knuckles against wood made us both sit upright in our chairs. There was someone at the front door of the villa!

  “It will be the Prior and the Capitano,” Nonna said. “They have come to discuss strategy for your race tomorrow.”

  I stayed in my chair. I didn’t know what to do. There was silence and then two more knocks at the door. The bang sounded ominous, this time, impatient.

  “Let them in,” Nonna said.

  I walked to the front door with a sense of dread. After what Nonna had just told me, I was not sure what was the right thing to do any more. Should I race for the contrada or tell them that they needed to find themselves another fantino? I took a deep breath and swung the door open.

  “Frannie?”

  “Hi, Lola,” Frannie said. “Can we come in for a moment?”

  We? I looked behind him. Standing there on the doorstep in the shadows was Signor Fratelli.

  “Umm, OK,” I said. “I’m just in the kitchen with Nonna …”

  “It is actually your nonna that I have come to see.”

  It was Signor Fratelli speaking. He stepped over the threshold and removed his hat.

  I looked at Frannie. His expression made it clear that he was as baffled by this as I was.

  “Come with me,” I said.

  When we entered the kitchen, Nonna had her back to us at first, busy making coffee.

  “Loretta?” Signor Fratelli said her name and I saw Nonna’s shoulders stiffen. She did not turn around.

  “Who is it?” she said.

  “You know who it is,” Signor Fratelli replied.

  Nonna turned around to face us. Her skin was ashen with shock. Her hand holding the coffee cup was trembling.

  “It cannot be you,” she whispered. “But how? Why are you here?”

  “You know each other?” I asked.

  There was a tense pause and then Nonna said, “We do. Although it has been a long time. Hasn’t it, Marco?”

  Signor Fratelli nodded. “Seventy years, Loretta. Almost to the day.”

  Marco. She called him Marco.

  Signor Fratelli gestured to the chair. “May I sit down?” he asked.

  I noticed he was holding his hat so tight, he’d screwed up the brim of it in his hands, and he was shaking too.

  Nonna grunted. “At our age it does us no good to stand up.”

  Signor Fratelli shuffled to the table and sat down. Nonna sat opposite. Frannie and I remained where we were, not certain what to do.

  “I am sorry to surprise you by turning up on the doorstep,” Signor Fratelli said. “I have been wondering how best to do this, ever since Lola first arrived at the castle. I knew who she was, of course, even before she told me her name.”

  He smiled at Nonna. “She rides like you, Loretta. Fearless, agile, it must be in the blood.”

  “Is that why you have come here?” Nonna said. “To tell me that my granddaughter is a good rider?”

  Signor Fratelli’s smile vanished. “I know you must be angry, Loretta. I have been so anxious about this moment, about what to say. I felt like you would send me away if I tried to explain myself.”

 
“What is there to explain?” Nonna said. “You made your position clear seventy years ago. There is no going back.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Signor Fratelli said. “Yes, you are right. I made my choice. It was a decision that has pained me every day for the rest of my life.”

  Nonna’s eyes filled with tears, her voice was strained with emotion. “And you think I do not know pain, Marco? Me, who stood on that train platform right until the final boarding call and waited for you! Why didn’t you come? If you loved me so much, why didn’t you come?”

  “Loretta, you don’t understand what a force of nature you are,” Signor Fratelli replied. “You are the strongest person I know. You always have been. Only you could have turned your back on your life and left everything behind. To throw yourself into the open arms of the world and let it decide your fate.

  “I didn’t have your courage, Loretta. I loved you more than anything, but I could not do what you did. I didn’t follow you because I was afraid to leave my old life behind. It was all I knew and I was too cowardly to let it go.”

  “But we would have been together!” Nonna said. “There was nothing to be afraid of!”

  “For you, maybe, but I was not ready to cut the ties,” Signor Fratelli said. “It was only after you were gone, Loretta, that I realised I could be brave too, in my own small way. I confronted the Prior of the Porcupines and told him I was no longer a part of the contrada. Then I struck out on my own and began to breed and train Palio horses for myself. I used all the skills I had learnt from my time with you, the way you treated your horses and trained them. I never had an eye for a horse like you did, but I was skilled in my own way and soon I had a reputation for producing the best Palio horses in Italy. All the contradas began to come to me. I belonged to no contrada, but they needed me and there was a freedom in that, of sorts at least.”

  Signor Fratelli was still anxiously clutching his hat. “I tried to find you, Loretta. But I had no idea where you were. I didn’t even know for sure whether you had made it to New York. If only you had written to me, just one letter saying where you were.”

  “What for?” Nonna said. “You made your choice, Marco. I wasn’t going to try and convince you to come after me.”

  “No.” Signor Fratelli shook his head. “That’s not why I tried to find you. I loved you still, but I never expected you to take me back. I was trying to find you for a different reason. To tell you what I had found out, because you needed to know the truth.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nonna said.

  Signor Fratelli hesitated. “Loretta, I need to tell you about Carlo, about what really happened the night that his camp was seized by the Blackshirts.”

  Nonna stiffened. “I know what happened that night.”

  “No, you don’t,” Signor Fratelli said. “Neither did I, not until much later, almost two years after you had left Siena …

  “They said the war was over, but there was no real peace in Italy yet. The civil war meant ongoing trials and recriminations as the fascists, who had done terrible things, were hunted out and brought to justice.

  “One day, I was exercising one of the horses when I came across a group of men hiding out in the woods. They were in a bad way, they looked as if they had been living rough for some time. It was clear to me that they were Blackshirts on the run from the authorities. I had seen them but they had not seen me, so I rode back as fast as I could and went to the police. The men were arrested and taken in for questioning.

  “I was not there for the interrogation myself. The rest of the story I learnt in a bar that evening when I shared a drink with the chief of police. He told me that the men were indeed Blackshirts, and that they had confessed to several acts against the freedom fighters, including the attack on your brother’s camp in the woods.

  “I don’t know why I had the presence of mind to ask the chief of police, but as we sat with our wine, talking about what had happened in the woods the night Carlo had been captured, I had one very important question for him.

  “‌‘How did the Blackshirts find the freedom fighters’ camp? Did someone lead them there?’

  “The police chief sucked hard on his cigarette. ‘Not a person at all,’ he said. ‘It was a dog who showed them the way. The patrol came across him, a scruffy brown thing, lost in the woods. And what do you think the foolish beast did? With a little bit of coaxing, he led the Blackshirts right where they wanted to go.’

  “The chief of police shook his head, ‘Poor dumb mutt. Man’s best friend indeed! His loyalty to his master was what did them in.’”

  Nonna’s eyes widened. “Ludo?”

  Signor Fratelli nodded. “That was why I tried to find you, Loretta. It wasn’t you who led the Blackshirts to Carlo at all. It was the dog.”

  Signor Fratelli pushed his chair back and stood up from the table.

  “Carlo’s death was a tragedy, Loretta, but it was not your fault. There is no blood on your hands. Now at last you know the truth.”

  Signor Fratelli readied himself to leave and beckoned to Frannie, who stood up with him and they began to walk towards the door.

  “Wait!” Nonna said.

  Signor Fratelli turned around.

  “There is coffee,” Nonna said. “A fresh pot and Lola has made biscotti. They are very nice, not as good as mine, maybe, but she is learning. Please? Stay a while?”

  Signor Fratelli took his hat off again and walked back to the table.

  “I should like that very much,” he said.

  Signor Fratelli and Frannie stayed for dinner in the end. Nonna prepared wonderful gnocchi and we ate green salad from the garden and Frannie and I sat at the table and listened as our grandparents told us endless stories of their childhood. Not the sad stories, but the happy ones now. Tales about stealing fruit from the neighbourhood’s apricot tree, and swimming horses in the lagoon, and bow and arrow fights on horseback.

  At last, it was almost eleven at night and Signor Fratelli and my nonna bid each other goodnight.

  I walked with Frannie to the end of the driveway, and we talked about the Palio. I had made up my mind now, I would race.

  “The next time I see you,” I told him, “you will be my deadly enemy.”

  He laughed. “That is what the contrada might say, but you and I do not belong to them, do we?”

  “No,” I agreed. “We don’t.”

  “You know Umberto and Leonardo were selected too?” Frannie said. “We will all be on the track tomorrow, so perhaps the Contrada of the Wolf will have friends for once, as well as foes.”

  “I’ll need them,” I said. “I’m terrified.”

  “Don’t be,” Frannie told me. “You are ready for this. Nico is too. He is in fine form. He ate a good dinner tonight before they took him away.”

  “Took him away?” I said.

  “It is tradition,” Frannie said. “The night before the Palio, the chosen one must sleep in the stall beneath the contrada.”

  “When did they take him?”

  “Just before we left to come to you,” Frannie said.

  “But Nico will hate that! He’ll be all alone down there!”

  I turned away and headed back up the driveway to the villa.

  “Where are you going?” Frannie called after me.

  “I have to go tell Nonna,” I said, “I’m going to the contrada to see Nico.”

  “They’ll never let you in,” Frannie said. “Nobody can see the horse on the night before the race.”

  “I don’t care!” I shouted back to him. “I have to try!”

  Back at the villa I burst inside and hurried up the stairs. “Nonna! I just found out the contrada have taken Nico! I have to go and …”

  “Lola! I am in here …”

  Nonna was in her bedroom.

  “I need you to get something for me, Piccolina,” she said. “It is underneath the bed and I have tried but my bones are too stiff to bend down that low.”

  “What is it?” I
asked.

  “There should be a suitcase under there,” Nonna said. “A brown leather one with gold initials on the front.”

  I lay down on my belly and looked under the bed. A thick layer of dust covered the floorboards, and I had to suppress a sneeze.

  “I can see the case,” I said. “It’s right at the back by the wall.”

  “There should be a handle,” Nonna said. “Can you drag it out?”

  “Urghh.” I stretched my arm as far as I could, flattening my chest to the floor. “Got it!”

  I dragged the case out and put it up on the bed, wiping the dust from the top with my hand.

  “Open it.”

  I did as she asked, clicking the lock on the case and opened the lid.

  Inside were racing silks, handmade from beautiful, heavy satin. The trousers were black and white check and the top half the same, with stripes of brilliant orange.

  “Take them out. They should be your size,” Nonna said. “They fitted me once.”

  I held the racing silks up against me and looked at my reflection in the mirror. It was really happening. I was going to ride the Palio.

  “You will need something else,” Nonna said. “It is not enough to have the silks, you must also have your nickname.”

  “Can’t I just use yours?” I asked. “Can’t I be Scavezzecolla?”

  “Ah!” Nonna grinned. “There was only one Daredevil, and that was me! No, Piccolina, you must be your own name. You shall be Tempesta.”

  I frowned. “What does that mean, Tempesta?”

  “It means that of all the fantinos you alone are a storm tamer,” my nonna said. “You are the girl who can ride the wind.”

  It was almost midnight when I reached the Via di Vallerozzi. I hurried as fast as I dared in the dark on the steep, cobbled streets, all the time growing more and more sick with worry about Nico. How could they just take him like that? All his life he’d had the company of the other horses at Signor Fratelli’s stables. How must he have felt when he was handed over to complete strangers, taken to the subterranean stalls beneath the contrada and left there all alone in the darkness! He must be terrified! I didn’t care about the stupid Lupa traditions – I had to go to him.