That Summer in Sicily by Marlena de Blasi Read Free Book Online Page B

holds his kneading machine and sacks of the only flour with which he will bake. Stuff that is raised and water-milled by a friend near Caltanissetta. Like a holy relic, she says, he keeps a glass jar of furiously bubbling yeast on a black velvet cushion on the seat next to him. Conflicting emotions play upon Carlotta’s face, and I think she sits here with me speaking of the baker as a distraction. I move my chair closer to hers. She says that Furio travels about the most remote of the villages and hamlets, wherever an old stone oven has survived. He is hosted in each place, she says. Paid a pittance for his labors if he is paid at all. He dines and sleeps wherever he stops to bake. A folkloric kind of saint, she calls him. Of course he has a woman in every village, she says. Children, too, she thinks. Though not here, she assures me, sweeping her arms wide. At least his women have good bread and they see their man—happy and loving and gentle—once a week. I think it’s more than many women have, she says.
    “Are you faring well? Fending for yourself, are you?” she asks.
    “I’m fine. Fernando, too. Though I do feel, you know, in the way a bit. All these
family
events.”
    “Yes. Of course. It’s why no one asked you to come along this morning. An awkward moment for you. But . . .”
    Carlotta stops. Looks down at the pattern of red roses and green leaves stitched onto the tablecloth. Traces it with a forefinger.
    “I’ve just come from Mass. Actually, I always feel just a little ashamed of myself when I go to a funeral. No matter how I try to prevent it, there always comes that moment when I say—even through the sincere weeping for the one who is gone—
I’m fine. It’s she who’s gone. It isn’t me there in the fine polished box. It’s okay. It will never happen to me. The world will end before it will happen to me.
”
    “Unless it’s our own child who’s gone, I think we all cheer silently for our own survival. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
    She doesn’t seem to have heard me.
    “Only once. A very long time ago. There was a funeral during which that moment never arrived. Only once.”
    I stay quiet.
    “I do hope all of this, all of us, won’t drive you away. I mean, please do stay a while longer. You will, won’t you?”
    “Of course she’s staying.” Tosca has approached the table from behind us. She walks to the other side of it, comes to sit across from us. A widow brings her coffee.
    “I’ve noticed that you are enamored with the frescoes in this room. Am I right?”
    “I guess I do look up a great deal when I’m here,” I concede.
    “I’ve been meaning to invite you to come see them in the early evening light. The colors somehow become softer
and
more intense as the sun shifts. At this time of year, I think they’re loveliest at about six or so. You’re welcome to take a look.”
    At least there is no fear of menstruating women laying waste the plump-flanked, rolling-eyed gods and goddesses under the shifting sun. “I would like that. Thank you.”
    Tosca and Carlotta must have things to discuss. I excuse myself. The truth is not that I’m so sensitive to their needs as I am to my own. I feel uncomfortable in Tosca’s presence. There’s an austerity to her that seems so out of place here. Her gaze pierces, unnerves. And yet, as I’d felt from the first day, unless she’s near, something always seems missing.

CHAPTER V
    I N HIS CONVINCING GUISE AS RURAL PRIEST, IT IS, MOST UNEXPECTEDLY , Christopher Plummer who seeks us out most often at table, who stops me in the halls on my way to and from our room to ask after my comfort.
    “Would you like to see the chapel?”
    “La signora and I will be in the blue salon at four, if you’d like to join us for tea.”
    “I would be pleased to show you the library.”
    “Do you ride?”
    When Don Cosimo corners me for a moment or two, it’s always to trill out some Ciceronian jewel about the history of the villa. When it