A Heart Most Worthy by Siri Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

she’d assumed that here there would be no anarchist political party or organization. And she had hoped – hoped still! – that in this country, she could become one of many. One of a very many immigrants come to America in order to leave the past behind. To begin life anew.
    He hadn’t found her yet. She knew that if he had, she would already be dead. And it had been so many weeks since she’d seen him, she had started to hope that he had given up his hunt.
    She tore her gaze from the paper, searching the street for anyone looking suspicious. She examined those foreign words too, hoping to discern something that looked familiar. There was no mention of assassinare .
    But what did it say? She wanted to know what it said!
    What it said was:
There will be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder; we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; never hope that your cops, and your hounds will ever succeed in ridding the country of the anarchistic germ that pulses in our veins. . . . Long live social revolution! Down with tyranny!
THE ANARCHIST FIGHTERS
    But she had no way of deciphering it. And in any case, she had already divined the general idea. Letting the sheet drop from her hand, she began to run. She flew by the crowds on the North End sidewalks, heedless of protecting her identity. She almost shouted at the greengrocer to hurry when she stopped long enough to buy some fruit.
    Finally, she reached the door to their rooms, overwrought and out of breath. Trembling with trepidation. What if . . . what if her father’s murderer had discovered where she lived? What if he’d already been to the apartment? What if he’d taken . . . ? She unlocked the door and pushed it open, then almost melted with relief. The contessa was sitting there, just as she always was, oblivious to person or to place.
    Luciana set the fruit on the sideboard and unknotted her scarf with fingers gone stiff from fear. In the bedroom, she slipped out of her gown and then pulled on her worn peasant’s skirt and blouse. Sat on the mattress as she tried to calm her nerves.
    This wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. She had to have information. If there were other anarchists in this country, then he was sure to have found them. She had to know what they were planning to do. She was worse than an illiterate in this country. She was deaf and mute too!
    Papa. Papa! She pulled the pillow to her face so that her grief could not be heard. She pressed it to her face with her knees as she beat upon the ends of it with her fists.
    Why had this happened? Why had she been left all alone?
    Why are you doing this to me, God? Sì. You, God! Keeper of widows and orphans. You who don’t see and don’t care and won’t answer. Why have you done this to me?
    Of course God had done no such thing, though you can probably see why she might think so. But it’s no good preaching to a grief-stricken soul. And it can actually cause much harm. God is long-suffering in His patience, however, and infinite in His kindness, so we shall leave it to Him to draw Luciana to himself in His own time.
    She fell over onto the bed and rolled onto her stomach, letting the pillow absorb both her sobs and her tears. After a while, once her tears had stopped, once perspiration had dampened the hair at the edges of her face, she sat up and wiped the remnants of grief away. And then she stood. Took a deep, stuttering breath.
    Grief was too much a luxury to allow herself to indulge in for long. If God wasn’t going to look after them, and clearly He had decided not to, then she had to do it herself. She left the room and went to the old woman’s side. Kneeling beside the contessa, she kissed her hand. “Dinner is ready.” Such as it was.
    “Grazie, ragazza.”

    “Dinner isn’t ready.” Mama Rossi spoke the words as Papa pulled his chair from the table and moved to sit down.
    “What do you mean dinner isn’t ready?” Annamaria’s family