The three on the front step regarded Elisa’s mother with a mixture of shock and disdain. Magda swallowed the bile she felt rising in her throat. “Signora, I’m sorry I have yet to introduce myself. My name is Magda, and I own the Villa Tramonte in the centro. I’ll be accompanying Luciano and Elisa to the hospital. I’ll make sure she gets there and back safely, and can give you my phone number. We’ll be back this afternoon.”
Elisa’s mother glared at Magda before sniffing. “Even so. I heard that fire was caused by the Muslims. I don’t want Elisa mixed-up with that.”
Elisa’s pinched face flushed red. “Mamma, I’m not ‘mixed-up’ with anything. I need to see Fatima. She’s my friend.”
“Oh, Elisa, you’re such a fool.”
Elisa closed her eyes and then said, “I’m not a fool. And I will go to see Fatima.”
“Ha! What kind of mother would I be if I let you go with strangers?”
“But you are not my mother.”
“Elisa!”
The tension on the front steps mounted. Elisa sighed, “I’m sorry, Mamma, I didn’t mean it that way. I just . . . I know you want to protect me, especially now, but Luciano is my friend, and Fatima is like a sister to me. I have to go. I think it might be my fault that she was there at all.”
“Not your fault!” Magda said sharply.
All eyes turned toward her and she muttered, “Sorry. Carry on.”
Elisa scratched her chin as she gazed at Magda curiously. She shrugged and turned back to her mother. “I’m going, and you can’t stop me.”
“Elisa! What are you saying?” Her mother looked around at the other adults and gestured as if to beg their understanding for her foolish daughter. Luciano and Magda gazed back, their faces like stone.
“Papà is gone, and he’s not coming back. You made sure. We’re safe now. But we can’t go back to how we were.” Elisa nodded to herself, satisfied, and went on, “I’m going to the hospital to see one of the few people in my life who doesn’t make me feel like an idiot. Let’s go.” Elisa strode away from the door, not looking back to see if Luciano and Magda were following.
Her mother shouted, “Stop! You can’t take her, I’ll call the police if you try!”
Elisa turned around and inhaled deeply like Luciano had taught her to do when faced with what seemed an insurmountable problem. She tempered the steel in her voice. “I’m going. If they don’t take me, I’m walking to Girona, or I’m hitching a ride. You can’t stop me. The rules are broken.”
She walked down the street. Luciano and Magda followed her with their eyes, and looked at each other, unsure of what to do.
Elisa’s mother’s sobbed and then said, “Well, what are you waiting for? You can’t let her go alone. Go!”
Not needing to be told twice, Luciano and Magda followed Elisa up the road.
Luciano nudged open the heavy blue door. The faces assembled around the slight and shrouded figure on the bed looked up, nodding and shifting their weight before refocusing their attention on the girl, her face hidden behind tubes and an oxygen mask. As if by their sheer will, they could make her reanimate, return to them.
Luciano held the door open and Elisa walked in. She sobbed at the sight of her friend, and Salma made room for Elisa beside her. Elisa lurched forward, and curved into Salma, her tears flowing fast. Salma put an arm around the girl and pulled her closer. Looking up at Luciano she whispered her thanks for bringing Elisa.
Magda followed Elisa, but seeing the quizzical looks at her presence, she turned to Luciano, “I’ll wait outside. The room is full. I can’t imagine I’m needed here.”
Nodding his assent, he softly told the group that Magda had helped him fetch Elisa, and would be in the waiting room should anyone need anything. Magda cleared her throat, “Unless there is something you need now?”
The unfamiliar faces shook their heads, the man in rumpled clothes standing next to Salma added, “Chiara has gone to get us lunch. Chiara and that boy—Edo?”
Magda nodded. “I’ll be here if you think of anything.” She stepped back out to the hallway, willing the smell of disinfectant to drift out of her nose, out of her pores. To have her vision not filled with the unmoving figure of that little girl. Seeing her had cued memories of those curious eyes in the bakery, that ready laugh in the alimentari. Her fault, her fault . . .
Magda stumbled to the waiting room and slid into the first empty chair, relishing the cool, hard, uncomfortable surface.
Back in the room, Luciano asked, “How is she?”
Elisa, hearing the question, gulped air in her attempt to stop crying and listen for the answer. Flooding images made it hard to concentrate. Fatima weaving necklaces from daisies while chatting about the smell of Persian roses, spinning tales of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella from the books Luciano lent her, wearing the short-sleeve shirt under her family-approved wardrobe every day, placing her warm hand on Elisa’s arm when she sensed Elisa’s heart shivering in fear or sadness, lying on her bed with her hands under her head while the two of them swapped childhood memories of ghost stories and fairy tales, closing her eyes to savor whatever she was tasting, whether or not it included pork, before holding it out with a grin to share it with Elisa.
Salma said, “The same.”
“The x-rays didn’t come back yet?”
In halting Italian, Salma answered, “They did, but the photographs are difficult to read. They do not know how sick the lungs are. The doctor said the blood tests are finished. It is what they thought—she lost much oxygen.”
Salma’s father added, “They think she breathes chemicals from fire and it sleeps her. No, not sleep, but like sleep?”
Luciano smiled, “Faint?”
“Yes, thank you, faint. The smoke, it fills the room and . . .” Fatima’s father gestured to his daughter, taking up far too little space in the big, white bed.
A man seated across the room, Fatima’s uncle, Luciano remembered, said, “I thought I saw her moving a little while ago, but Salma thinks that was a shadow.”
Fatima’s father lowered his voice and asked Luciano. “And the fire?”
Luciano answered, “The fire chief confirmed it was started by an ember on the vines. There is no other story.”
Salma’s breath exhaled slowly, and she turned back to her daughter. “What was she even doing at the sagra?”
Elisa felt her stomach clench. Had Fatima been there to meet her? Had she been angry? Had she been ready to forgive her? Or had she just been there to watch the town eat and celebrate, to maybe sneak a bite?
Elisa looked up at Salma who wordlessly nodded her permission. Elisa caught up Fatima’s hand—were those pomegranate stains on her fingers?—and pressed it to her cheek. “Fatima . . . please . . . I love you. Come back, my friend.”
Thunder rumbled high across the greying sky. Shadows grazed the valley floor, meandering around stands of olive trees and leaping over stretching cypresses. The air thickened, gathered—an inhale before the storm.
One by one the figures filed past the Madonna glowing in her heavenly niche. Loaded as the villagers were with buckets, brooms, and bags, they paused to brush their fingers over the figure. She gazed upon each of them, her expression transcendent. They bowed their heads, breathed in, and climbed the steps. Like ants on a tentative trail, they followed each other up to the castle.
Chiara, newly back from delivering a pistachio yogurt cake and the news that the town was praying for Fatima, leaned on Edo for support. The two of them muted, intent on the task at hand. “What if it rains?” Edo asked.
“Then we’ll go home. But it could blow over. These November storms are often more flash than substance.”
Ava, who had heard about the English tourist, touched Edo’s shoulder. He looked down at her and smiled. She couldn’t help the way her stomach backflipped at his tender grin, but she was abl
e to return his smile before the two of them strolled easily to the edge of the castle. They sighed in unison before gathering the charred remains of the vines.
Carosello, a piece of lettuce hanging from his right ear, trotted past Edo and Ava to nudge his nose against Fabrizio’s knee. Fabrizio, who had just crested the stairs to scan the group for Chiara, greeted the dog. Carosello thumped his tail twice and then flopped on the ground, stretching across the top of the stairs.
Catching Chiara’s eye, Fabrizio stepped over the dog to approach her. He reached out his hand, and Chiara took it for a moment before lifting their intertwined hands to kiss his fingers. Ignoring the whispers, the two of them began collecting the spent fire extinguishers to stack them by the steps. While Chiara was still troubled by questions about how to navigate this relationship when Fabrizio returned to Bologna at the end of the month, she tried to focus on this, now. This moment of fragile peace.
Dante stood in the center of the clearing, hands on his hips. Hearing a muted snickering behind him, he whirled and glared at Fabio. Fabio suppressed his laugh and looked chastened, plunging his brush into the bucket of soapy water.
Patrizia and Giuseppe made their way into the clearing. The butcher held his wife against him as her eyes welled with tears. When she saw Chiara standing closer to Fabrizio than strictly necessary, she smiled and moved to greet them. Giuseppe approached Dante and asked about the rumors that the owner of the castle had been in contact, angry about the news of the fire on his property. Dante nodded in affirmation, and said that the owner was planning to fly in from New York City to assess the damage.
Magda hugged the wall as she arrived, her face alert for any sign of suspicion or blame. Most faces slid past her, intent on their tasks, a few nodded perfunctorily, accepting her place among them. She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and joined Giovanni and Rosetta, who were folding the unburnt tables and resting them against the wall.
Vale appeared briefly at the entrance to the castle, but spying Dante, he hung his head and retreated back down the steps. Stella was absent. She’d left Santa Lucia late in the night. Rumor was she’d moved in with her eldest daughter.
Sauro the baker arrived and helped Paola, the owner of the produce market, sweep ash and bits of coal. They paused to lean on their brooms as they gazed over the groves. Anyone who has loved an olive tree will empathize with the hammer to the chest at the sight of those burnt groves. No, the trees weren’t theirs, but they were cousins to theirs. Paola blinked back tears. She turned her head to return to work, but her vision was caught by Luciano arriving with Isotta and Elisa. She watched them for a few moments, biting her lip, before she returned to her sweeping.
As they entered the clearing, Elisa’s eyes glimmered. Luciano leaned down and reminded her of what the doctors said—it was very possible that Fatima would recover. She was stronger than almost anyone knew. They needed to keep thinking positively and sending her prayers. Elisa bit her lip and nodded. Isotta squeezed her hand. Elisa closed her eyes briefly, and then smiled up at Isotta. She accepted the rake Luciano held out to her and stepped to the edge of the groves to rake the burnt rosemary branches.
Along with the mingled images of Fatima strangled in smoke and lying in her pristine hospital bed, Elisa couldn’t help scanning the assembled townspeople. Was her real mother here, now? Or her father? Did they know her? Had they stayed away from her all these years because they didn’t care? Or were they waiting for an opportunity to talk to her? Was it someone she knew? What if it was someone she hated? What if it was someone she loved? Her mind was in knots, she wished she had Fatima to talk it out with. Fatima would find a way to make her laugh and wonder at the same time.
Now that Carlo was gone, Elisa wondered if she could persuade her mother to tell her the truth about her parentage. But not yet. Her mother was still broken and worried about how to support the household. Her brothers—the three of them agreed that no revelations about bloodlines would divide their sense of kinship, they would always be her brothers—maintained that their lives would only improve with Carlo gone. She was inclined to believe them.
Standing beside Elisa, Isotta searched for Massimo or Anna. Her argument with Massimo that had rung through the quiet streets of Santa Lucia seemed to have shamed him and his mother into staying home. Isotta breathed a sigh of relief, but she found herself regretting not seeing Margherita. After Massimo had left, she’d cried with Luciano, realizing that leaving Massimo meant leaving the little girl that had come to feel like her own. She struggled with feeling powerless in the face of a wash of regret. Could she still see Margherita, without seeing Massimo? Was Massimo willing to change, to see her for who she was? Could he really love her as herself and not the glimmer of his wife dead and buried as he’d insisted last night? Or was the whole relationship too rotten to ever recover? And, then her mind cycled back to the most painful question—could she keep Margherita in her life?
At the thought, her stomach lurched. She’d tried to quiet her nausea this morning with plain toasted bread, but she still felt the threat of bile rising in her throat. It must be nerves.
Unless . . . her hand fluttered to her belly and she began furiously calculating the days that had slipped by her, tangling, uncounted.
A wisp of wind, fresh as innocence itself, began moving between and through the townspeople. Arching into the sky, the breeze, more confident now, thinned the bulky heft of the clouds, stretching them into a hazy veneer. The sky seemed to twist on itself, opening a circlet in the shifting veil. For a brief moment, the edges of the aperture glowed brilliantly around a stretch of sky the exact blue of the Madonna’s niche. A cascade of light flowed through the rippling air to warm the assembled faces, lifted in greeting. All around, gnarled branches swayed and bowed, tossing glints of silver into an endless sky.
Thank You for Visiting Santa Lucia!
Luckily, like any great small town, something wonderful waits just around the corner. The Silent Madonna: Book Two in the Santa Lucia Series has hit bookshelves, so you don’t have to wait to discover what happened to Fatima, Isotta, Chiara, and the rest of the villagers.
Can’t get enough of Italian village life? I’d love to welcome you The Grapevine, your source for extra stories as well as book releases and sweet giveaways.
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Until then, keep dreaming,
— Michelle
Italian Words in This Text
Conversations
a dopo/a presto/alla prossima volta — see you later
allora · well now
amore mio · my love
anch’io · me too
andiamo · let’s go
arrivo · I’m coming
aspetta · wait
(un) attimo · just a moment
auguri · congratulations
basta · that’s enough
bella · beautiful
bentornato · welcome back
boh? · no real translation, similar to “who can say?” and often given wth a shrug
bronzato · tanned
buono/a · good
buonasera · good afternoon
buongiorno · good morning
cara · dear
castello · castle
che succede ? · what happened?
ciao · hello and goodbye
come no? · why not?
comunque · anyway
davvero? · isn’t that right?
eccoci qua · here we are
fa un freddo cane · literally “it makes a dog cold”, used to express that it’s freezing outside
fidanzato/a · fiance/e
gita · field trip
grazie · thank you
lo so · I know
ma dai! · Come on!
maestro · teacher, often used as an honorific
moda · fashion
nascondino · hide and seek
nonno/a · grandfather/mother
paesano · country boy
per favore · please
piacere · nice to meet you
poverino/a · poor
prego · you’re welcome
pronto · literally “ready” but used as “hello” when answering the phone
ragazzi · guys
salve · greetings
senza peli sulla lingua · without hair on the tongue (plain speaking)
sono d’accordo · I agree
stronzo · bastard, piece of crap
tesoro mio · my treasure
tutto bene/tutto a posto · everything’s okay ·
va bene · it’s okay
zio/zia · uncle/aunt
About town
alimentari · shop that sells cheese and cured meats, as well as some other basic foodstuff and household supplies
Ape · a three-wheeled truck with a small motor
comune · where administrative aspects of the town happen
farmacia · pharmacy
festa · celebration/party
forno · bakery
fruttivendolo · produce shop
macelleria · butcher shop, often with other fresh items
palazzo · palace
palazzo comunale · seat of civic authority, like a town hall
Perugino · Umbrian Rennaisance painter; his paintings (or those of his students) adorn many Umbrian buildings
piazza · town square
polizia municipale · police department ·
rosticceria · shop to buy pizza by the slice, and sometimes cooked items for takeaway like fried rice balls (arancini)
trattoria · informal restaurant
Book One of the Santa Lucia Series Page 34