“Now, ladies, before you go and the night girls take over,” Mrs. Curwin said, “have a think about our party, yes?”
“Party?” asked Piera.
“Yes. Next week. Marito has invited about thirty people. Fellows from the base, mostly. The charming captain introduced me to his chief lieutenant—even Marito had to admit he was a darling American—”
“I used that word?”
“Absolutely! He’s the most marvelous specimen either of us had clapped eyes on. They’re pretty new around here, so they told me—how Americans do love to talk—and we thought we’d give them a proper welcome, if you like.”
She lifted her glass, and Mr. Curwin filled it with vermentino. “In truth, it’s a bit of a belated birthday bash for me, actually. Wear your dancing shoes, won’t you, girls? Everyone needs a break sometime!” She raised her glass toward her husband. They drank. Carmela pictured her grandmother watching, agog, as two of her grandchildren left for work in their best shoes.
“We’ll talk about the menu over the next few days,” Mrs. Curwin continued, running a swift hand through her hair, lifting it higher off her face. “Just thought I ought to mention it now in case you need to order anything special from the salumeria, and so forth.”
“Of course, Signora,” Carmela answered.
“Suzie, darling, please. Now head on before it’s too dark.”
Carmela and Piera turned back to the kitchen and laid the skillets to soak in the deep ceramic sink. Two young girls came in to take over for the night shift and exchanged a perfunctory greeting. Piera and Carmela stepped outside and began their winding walk back to Simius in silence, under the canopy of a starlit, purple dusk.
“Ticket to London?” Piera asked after a while, kicking a stone.
“Tickets.”
“Franco’s always wanted to meet the Queen, no?”
The daydream brought a broad smile to Carmela’s face. Considering even the slightest possibility of a life beyond her shores was seductive. She breathed in the cool, scented air of the evening, aromatic with sun-toasted juniper and thyme. In the near distance, the lights of Simius twinkled; beyond it, the cobalt sea. Franco was right, of course; this island was the perfect place for them. Paradise was underfoot. How foolish to even entertain the idea of chasing dreams in London, or Marseilles, or Munich, like many of their contemporaries, running after invisible riches.
The sliver of a moon crept up over the distant hills, jagged silhouettes of the surrounding valley. Carmela thought about the woman playing on the beach in Antonio’s magazine. That life was nothing more than a photograph, after all.
Carmela and Piera reached Simius just as their family prepared to sit for dinner. They washed their hands and took their respective places around the long wooden table, a formidable island in a narrow strait.
“Nel nome del padre, e figlio, e spiritu santu,” Grandmother Icca intoned from her chair at the head of the table. She crossed herself.
“Amen,” Maria and her children echoed.
Carmela looked down at the tiny piece of meat in her bowl. It lay adrift at the center of her bowl, surrounded by a thin red sauce, the reluctant survivor of a shipwreck. All flavor had been simmered away. Wilted runner beans floated about it with a scant helping of potato pieces. Carmela returned to the Curwin villa in her mind, imagining the satisfied couple relaxing on their terrace after their meal, bellies full of fresh ravioli, moon rising to the underscore of cicadas’ serenades as they savored their way through the bowl of plump, fresh fruit.
“Admiring your reflection or waiting for the cow to raise from the dead?” Icca asked.
Carmela looked up. It took a moment for her to realize the comment was directed at her. “It’s delicious, Nonna.”
“It’s overdone.” Icca switched her gaze to her daughter-in-law, at the opposite end of the table. “Maria, take greater care over my recipes.”
“Yes, Nonna,” Maria answered in the placid tones she’d mastered to deflect Icca’s criticism. Carmela tore some pane fino from the small pile on the table.
“Plenty of time to fatten up after you’re married,” Icca said, reaching out her hand. Carmela knew better than to do anything other than place the entire piece in Icca’s hand. The family returned to silence but for the percussive tinkle of their spoons against the enamel bowls.
Vittoria, sitting on the opposite side of the table, had almost devoured her entire helping. It would seem graduation to the Angels had finally given her an appetite. “Buonissimo, Mamma!” she squealed, searching for remnants of sauce with a lick of each corner of her mouth. Gianetta, two years Vittoria’s senior, sat beside her and had separated each of the vegetables. She chewed every studious mouthful several times, her mane of straight, jet locks motionless, relishing having the family’s meat dish in the middle of the week as opposed to Sunday. Tore, Maria’s only son, sat on Carmela’s left, hunched over his plate under the weight of his adolescent world, brooding over his stockpiled bread beside his glass. No one would rob him of it on account of him being the only boy of the house and apt to need the extra energy to help his father at the farm the following day. Tomas was spending the entire week out at the farm, thus tightening Grandmother’s stranglehold. Piera, on Carmela’s right, wiped her plate clean with a slipper of pane fino.
Carmela glanced over at her mother, enjoying her meal. It was hard to imagine her as the young woman described to her by Lucia, defying her father and marrying Tomas. One day, when they found themselves alone in a snatched moment between chores, Lucia had recounted the tale of Maria’s father, how he had warned his daughter that she would cry every day of her life if she went ahead and married a man he did not approve of. Days after the wedding, which only a few of her siblings attended, Maria lost her mother. Carmela imagined a newlywed Maria, honoring her duties as a wife while stepping in to become her siblings’ substitute mother. Her mother lifted her eyes from her plate. Carmela watched their chestnut warmth glisten despite the pallid light of the bare bulb overhead.
Icca bore into Carmela. “She gets her faraway from your side of the family, Maria. Spends all her day looking at those magazines with the customers. Fills a girl with foolish ideas. My boys’ bones are for working.” A tiny spit of bread flew out of her mouth and landed in Carmela’s bowl. “This house wasn’t built on air.”
“I am sorry, Nonna. I’m dreaming up food. Mrs. Curwin plans a party.”
“Indeed? The wretches south of here have no shoes and under our noses we fatten up the foreigners.”
Maria turned toward her firstborn. “I can see you have little appetite, Carmela—I’m sure Vittoria and Gianetta will be glad for a bit extra. Why not go upstairs to finish your sewing work.” She followed her instructions without reply, sliding off her chair and stifling the guilt she felt for her escape. As she climbed the granite stairs to the bedroom she shared with Piera, Icca’s voice echoed, “You’ll be sorry you raised her with a soft hand, Maria, you mark my words.”
On Mrs. Curwin’s insistence, the driveway