The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman Read Free Book Online Page B

strength back, we can get him on his feet.”
    Elodie nodded. “Maybe tonight, we can see if he can play his violin a bit. He doesn’t need to stand to play. We can adjust his pillows and then do a small concert for you.” She smiled and went to hug her mother. “It will be good for his spirits to get him playing again.”
    Elodie looked sideways to see her father sleeping in his bed. It was true that his bruises had begun to fade, but the brutality of Fascism was now more evident than ever, leaving permanent marks on her family’s once-idyllic household.
    Although she tried to remain as calm and helpful as possible to her mother, since her father’s return, Elodie knew that she had been forever changed by this event. The sight of her gentle father being carried home by a neighbor, his body beaten beyond recognition and his leg dangling like a broken marionette—this was not something she could ever erase from her mind.
    So when she saw Lena outside Guido’s Café, Elodie seemed to have lost the meekness she exhibited the first time Lena had invited her to a meeting.
    “When is your next meeting?” Elodie asked, unblinking.
    “You’re ready to join us now?” Lena questioned in turn. She was now staring at Elodie intensely, trying to gauge her sudden change in spirit.
    “Yes,” she said. “I’ve never been more ready. Just tell me when and where.”

    The next morning after she finished her coffee, Elodie did what she thought was impossible: She looked into her parents’ eyes and told them her first lie.
    “I will be late today, so don’t wait for me. I don’t want you to worry,” she said, hoping that her parents would not ask for further details.
    Orsina was still in her nightgown. A long black braid, with wisps of gray, fell over one shoulder. Even after a full night’s sleep, she still looked tired.
    “Of course I will worry, when you see what sort of animals are on the streets these days. What is going to keep you?”
    Elodie took a deep breath.
    “I need to practice a concerto with Lena. She’s having trouble with her timing, and Professor Olivetti will have our heads if we don’t get everything just right for the spring performance.”
    It was a complete fabrication on Elodie’s part, but still something that seemed plausible enough. She looked at her mother to see if she had detected her transgression but Orsina seemed to have found the explanation credible.
    Orsina sighed. “Don’t stay out too late. And please, please be careful.”
    Elodie nodded and shifted her gaze. It had been easier to lie than she imagined. Perhaps too easy.
    “Yes, Mamma. Of course.”
    Orsina glanced over at her husband, hoping he would express his own similar thoughts on their daughter’s safety. But his injuries were so severe, he clearly hadn’t even heard her and Elodie speaking. There had been a time, she thought, that he heard every breath, every whisper. But now he hardly seemed to hear anything at all.

    That afternoon, Elodie and Lena leave their instruments at the school. They are dressed nearly identically: navy skirts and white blouses. Shoes with T-straps. Hair pinned behind their ears.
    Lena tells her the meeting will occur in a small bookshop on Via Mazzini. It’s a store that Elodie never even knew existed. The exterior is nothing but a small window front lined with books. Above the door hangs a black sign with the word
Libri
in gold letters.
    Elodie wishes she had the security of her cello to comfort her. She is so used to her heavy armor that she hardly knows what her body feels like without it, almost as if she is missing a limb. She feels strangely weightless and her other senses are heightened. She hears everything around her: the sound of footsteps on the pavement, the sound of the birds in the air, the rustle of the leaves.
    “Come inside,” Lena whispers to her and points to the door. The small shop is lined from floor to ceiling with books. Bricks of color, Elodie thinks, as she