“No services today, cara,” Luciano chuckled at Fatima’s creased forehead. “But sometimes it’s nice to go in and pray.”
“You can do that?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t pray at home?”
“Well, yes, I do.” Luciano considered Fatima’s question. “I suppose I prefer praying surrounded by reminders of my faith. In church, the rest of the world falls away and I can hear God, the pope, or, I don’t know. Maybe just myself.” Not for the first time, Luciano regarded this child with a mixture of amusement and wonder. “I don’t know Fatima,” he added, forestalling her question. “I’m not sure what it is. It’s strange though, how much you always make me question what I’ve always assumed to be beyond questioning.”
Fatima ducked her head and frowned, “I’m sorry, Maestro.”
He chuckled again, “No need to apologize. Today it’s nice to be prompted to think a bit more. Not everyday, mind you, but today . . .” His voice trailed off.
Fatima walked beside her teacher, thinking about what he’d said.
Luciano put his hand on Fatima’s voluminous black hair, wrestled neatly into two braids. “So, where are you off to?”
“Oh! The alimentari. Mamma ran out of couscous.”
“Mmm, your mother’s couscous. With lamb sauce, I presume?”
Fatima laughed. “Yes, my favorite. But Maestro, I have a favor to ask.”
“Yes?”
Fatima took a breath. “I have a friend at school, Elisa. Do you know her?”
“Allora, is she the one you hold hands with on the way out of school?”
Fatima stopped walking. He’d noticed?
Luciano slowed his steps until Fatima caught up. She said, “Yes, that’s her. Her parents sort of forget about her, and her brothers, I think maybe they do, too. She’s not stuck to life very well.”
Luciano smiled.
Fatima paused to make sure Luciano was still paying attention. He nodded for her to continue. “She also gets in trouble a lot at school. She’s not bad or anything! It’s only that she loses papers a lot and math is really hard for her. Anyway, I was thinking, maybe you can help her? I remember how well you taught me the conditional tense.”
Luciano said, “I wish I could take credit, but that wasn’t me. You are born to learn.”
Fatima tipped her head up to grin at Maestro. “Okay, then, you taught my siblings. And my parents. I still can’t get my parents to remember how ziti and penne are different, so . . .”
Luciano rubbed his forehead and sighed, “Fatima, I’m afraid my teaching days are finished. They were finished long ago.”
The girl hung her head. Luciano said, “I wish I could help, I do, but it’s a useless endeavor. I can’t teach her, or anyone.”
Fatima’s lip trembled. “You won’t try? Maestro, I don’t know what else to do. Some days it looks like she’s going to melt away. Like gelato left in the piazza.”
The thought of having another tether on life, no, it was impossible. Even if Luciano’s heart quivered at the thought of a struggling child. He said, “The math teacher. It is part of a teacher’s job to stay after school to support those students—”
“The math teacher hits her.”
Luciano stopped walking, agape. “The teacher does what?”
“Hits her. Not often, at least I heard that it used to be more last year. Mostly now he puts Elisa in the corner and makes fun of her.”
His mouth worked as his thoughts raced in many directions, “But this is unacceptable. Why isn’t someone putting a stop to this?”
Fatima snorted. “Like who? I told you about her family.”
Luciano wanted to shrug away this responsibility to insist it wasn’t his problem, but the thought of this little girl trapped by her life with no way out. He took Fatima’s hand and started walking again, “Let’s say once and see how it goes.”
Massimo would be calling soon, Isotta chided herself. She had to tell her parents about him, despite the dread roiling in her gut. At least two of her sisters were ostensibly at Florence’s storied Pitti Palace for a concert of Mozart music, but more probably in their boyfriend’s beds listening to American rap. In any event, there were fewer opportunities for interruption. It was now or never.
“Mamma, do you want some help?” Isotta asked, wringing her hands behind her back.
Her mother, Caterina, sighed and handed the celery she was mincing to Isotta. “Yes, thank you. I don’t know why your sisters wait until the last possible moment to tell me they are bringing their boyfriends home for dinner after the concert. Of course I’m happy to feed them, but how am I going to make this pasta sauce serve ten people?” She opened a cupboard and pulled out another can of tomatoes. “Thank the Madonna we have this. The meat will be sparse, but that can’t be helped.” She sat on a dining room chair with a sigh, and picked up a magazine.
“Um, Mamma? There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”
“Madonna mia, you’re not bringing someone to dinner are you?”
“No, no.”
“Good. Then again,” Caterina let out a screech of laughter, “who would you bring? That’s one thing we can say about our Isotta, she doesn’t exactly have suitors beating down our door.”
Isotta flinched. Her mother rolled her eyes, “God, Isotta. Don’t be so sensitive. You’ll find someone. It’ll take a little longer, what with the weak chin you got from your father and the bulging eyes you got from my mother, but you are a nice enough girl, with steady work. And since you are the youngest, you’ll eventually meet the friends of all your sisters’ boyfriends.” She chuckled and flipped the pages of her magazine.
“Well, Mamma. That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. I did find someone.”
Caterina looked up from her reading, all the tension of her raised eyebrows leaving her mouth hanging open.
Isotta turned and scraped the chopped celery into the waiting bowl of diced carrots. Wiping her hands, she ventured, “Mamma?”
Her mother blinked, and shook her head. “What do you mean? You have a crush on a boy? It’s about time. Your father and I often wondered if perhaps you were . . . never mind, it doesn’t bear mentioning. Wait, it is a man, isn’t it?”
Isotta was glad her back was to her mother. The heat was creeping up her cheeks, as she conjured images of Massimo and his thorough maleness. She pressed her cool hands against her face, steadied herself, and pivoted back toward her mother, a few cloves of garlic in her hand. She focused on peeling them steadily while she answered, “Yes. It’s a man. But it’s not just a ‘crush’. I’m . . . I’m seeing him.”
Catarina sat up straighter. “Well! You are seeing a man. A man you’ve never introduced to your family?” Her voice tripped from confusion to iciness. “Who is he?”
Isotta waited to answer until she’d pounded each clove of garlic to dislodge the papery skin. “His name is Massimo.”
“He’s from Florence.”
Isotta squirmed. “Um . . .”
“Tuscan? Please tell me he’s Tuscan.”
“Actually, no. He’s from Santa Lucia.”
“Sicily?”
“No, Umbria.”
“Well, thank the Madonna for that.” She paused, “There’s a Santa Lucia in Umbria?”
“Yes, south, past Perugia, on the border of Le Marche.”
“Never heard of it. Then again, why would I?”
Isotta finished mincing the garlic and selected an onion from the basket. Holding it out toward her mother, Isotta waited for Caterina’s nod that she should chop it before crackling the peel off in shards.
“How would you meet an Umbrian?”
“He works for the bank.” Isotta faltered. If she said she met Massimo in Rome, her mother, less predisposed to turn a blind eye to her than to her sisters,
was likely to put two and two together and realize that the overnight she had in Rome was not because of food poisoning, but because of something far more dire. If pressed, she decided to say that she met him here, in Florence.
Caterina’s eyes were still furrowed, as she slowly processed her daughter’s words.
“So you are seeing a man, an Umbrian man, whom you haven’t introduced to your family.” She smoothed her dress over her knees. “What’s wrong with him?”
Isotta, cutting the onion from pole to pole, looked up at her mother with wide eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that, Isotta. It’s a fair question. What’s wrong with him?” It is a fair question. Those familiar with the story of Massimo and Isotta will have wondered the same.
Isotta sighed, and began slicing through the halved onion. “Nothing, Mamma. Nothing is wrong with him.”
“Well, when will you bring him to meet us?”
“Next week?”
“Okay, then.” Caterina leaned back and began flipping the pages of her magazine again. She guffawed, “Looks like our little bird is puffing out, eh? Your father will be amused. And your sisters!”
Isotta scraped the diced onion into the bowl with the back of her knife. She set down the knife and pressed her hands on the counter to steady herself.
“Mamma?”
“Sì?”
“There’s more.”
“More?”
“Yes . . .”
The color drained from Caterina’s face. “Oh, my God, you’re pregnant.”
“No! No, I’m not pregnant. It’s just that . . .”
“Isotta! Tell me! What is it?”
“It’s just that,” Isotta closed her eyes and breathed deeply, gathering her courage. “We are getting married.”
Luciano stood in the piazza ticking off his internal checklist. The tea kettle was filled from the spigot in the alley. He would usher everyone quickly to the garden so he wouldn’t need to explain the lack of power. He calculated that with a few weeks of careful spending he would have enough to contact the utilities and start a payment program to regain water and electricity. He thanked the Madonna that the gas—despite the warning letter he’d gotten in the mail—was still flowing. Especially with the colder months coming on.
He smiled when he saw Fatima appear at the edge of the piazza. She straightened and beamed at him with a mixture of relief and excitement. Tugging Elisa’s hand she said, “There he is!”
Elisa wanted to pull back a bit. Meeting people was always awkward for her, she’d had to do it so rarely. Besides, Luciano seemed so . . . unpredictable. And sometimes he smelled weird. Like vinegar and ashes. But he looked better than usual now—his candyfloss hair was combed and his outfit looked clean, if a little rumpled.
The girls arrived in front of Luciano.
“Ciao, you must be Elisa. I’m delighted to meet you,” said Luciano, leaning forward to drop a polite kiss on each of Elisa’s cheeks.
“Ciao, Maestro. Piacere, it’s nice to meet you, too.”
Fatima stood and grinned.
Luciano gestured up the street, “Fatima tells me that math is a puzzle for you?”
Elisa nodded, “Yes. It feels like everything I learn just falls out of my head.”
Luciano chuckled, “Yes, numbers have a tendency to do that. Slippery rascals.”
Elisa searched Luciano’s face to see if he was making fun of her, but he was grinning easily. She decided she was being jumpy.
Fatima stopped her friends, “I’m just going to run into the forno before they close. Focaccia? Or Maestro would you prefer biscotti?” She asked with a knowing smile.
Luciano chuckled again, “With albicocche.” To Elisa he added, “Fatima knows my weakness for apricot cookies. All sweets, if I’m to be honest.”
Fatima smiled and said, “You two go ahead, I’ll catch up.” Fatima squeezed Elisa’s hand in reassurance and then skipped backward, waving.
Luciano nodded, “So how old are you, Elisa?”
“Eleven.”
“Ah, a good age. I remember it well.”
“You do?”
“Well, not really,” Luciano admitted, with a smile. “It’s just one of those annoying things old people say to sound important. And you live in Santa Lucia?”
“Yes, at the other end, by the park, a little outside the gates.”
“Your parents’ surnames?”
“Lucarelli and Bruno.”
“Hmm. Those names don’t sound familiar. Did they go to school in Santa Lucia?”
“No, they are from Foligno, but moved here because my father got a job at power plant in Girona.”
Luciano nodded, “Do you get to see your extended family often?”
“No, my father isn’t close to his family, and my mother was an only child, and her parents died.”
Elisa kicked herself for using the word. When Fatima had told her about Luciano’s double loss, she warned Elisa not to remind him by mentioning death. He was being so nice, why did she have to go and ruin it? But though Maestro blanched a little, he didn’t look angry. He simply answered, “Allora, it is difficult to be without family.”
Luciano turned into a doorway and said, “Ah, we’ve arrived, eccociqua.”
As he jiggled the doorknob, Fatima’s footsteps hurried up to them. “Here I am! They didn’t have them with albicocche, so I got prugne. I hope that’s okay.”
Elisa said simply, “I love prune.”
Luciano grinned his agreement.
Fatima smiled. “Good. Oh, ciao, Degas!”
A black cat with white on its chest, face, and feet had flung itself on Fatima’s legs. “Elisa, this is Degas, Maestro’s cat.”
Elisa got down on the floor cross-legged and whispered to Degas, “Ciao, micio, ciao kitty.” Degas leapt lightly into her lap and curled into a tight ball, purring.
Fatima laughed, “Trapped by a cat.”
Luciano peered around the corner from where he’d started the kettle for his favorite camomilla tea, and smiled. “It appears he approves of you, Elisa. Do you have pets?”
Elisa scratched the top of Degas’s head and said, “No. My parents never let me. Sometimes I make friends with one of the Santa Lucia cats. But when it starts following me home my brothers chase it off. Or my father does.” A cloud marred Elisa’s bright features.
Luciano nodded before heading back into the kitchen. He called over his shoulder, “That is unfortunate. You clearly have a gift with animals. Or at least my animal. Bring him some mortadella sometime and he’ll cling to you like a caper berry.”
Winking at Elisa, Fatima rubbed her belly. She had just tried mortadella the day before and loved it almost as much as prosciutto. Fatima turned and followed Luciano to the kitchen, “Maestro? Are capers actually sticky? Do you know how to make them?” Elisa wondered if perhaps Fatima was less caper-curious and perhaps just making sure her teacher wasn’t taking out wine. As Elisa stroked the white patch behind the cat’s ear, admiring how such a thin beast could create such a loud rumble of satisfaction, she heard Luciano’s chuckle and response of, “I don’t know, Fatima, to own the truth, I never picked a caper in my life. But they look like they should be sticky, don’t they?” The voices muted to a low burble and then Fatima returned with a broad smile. “Luciano says we can have our snack in the garden, his house is a little . . . cluttered.”
Elisa scanned the room. Her own house was rarely orderly, but this was something else entirely. Teetering stacks of papers and books trampled every available surface. Nothing seemed to have been touched in months. The dust had settled everywhere, cramming crevices. Elisa felt invisible particles clogging her lungs.
This was stupid, ridiculous even! What was she doing in this crazy drunk’s house? Yes, Fatima said he was nice and everything, but Fatima was too trusting, as t
hat dumb coin still weighing down her pocket proved. Even if he wasn’t crazy, how could this help? She couldn’t do school, and was better off figuring out ways to get money. It was almost report card time. Report card time. Elisa couldn’t catch her breath, she pushed the cat off her lap and bolted up.
Fatima furrowed her brows at Elisa. She mouthed, “What’s wrong?”
Elisa just shook her head. She had to get out of here. Fatima took her hand and pulled her toward the back door. Elisa shot one more glance over her shoulder at her escape, but as she couldn’t think of a way to explain her leaving, she allowed herself to be guided out the door. She’d just stay for ten minutes. And then she’d figure out an excuse to go. That would be better, if she left while the others were still outside, she’d be able to pluck something on her way out. It didn’t look like Maestro’s house would have any money, but there were a few brass knickknacks she might be able to pocket. Maybe Stefano would take those in lieu of money.
Once outside, she gasped.
Fatima smiled, “Yes, that’s how I felt the first time, too.”
The view was different from what Elisa was used to. From here, the mountains across the valley didn’t look so far away, in fact, they seemed to fold greenly against Santa Lucia. She could hear the waterfall from around the mountain, and the birds swooped and dove, carving lines into the startlingly turquoise sky. The garden itself was overgrown with weeds, but Elisa could tell it would be a restful space with just a little work. Round concrete benches surrounded several fruit trees, and there was an olive tree in the corner of the garden, hanging heavy with darkening fruit, and a line of bay bushes against the back of the garden wall. Rosemary lined the iron fence facing out over the valley. The grass was too long and dry, or scraped bare in places, but still gave the garden a stretched-out, welcoming appearance.
Book One of the Santa Lucia Series Page 15