Teresa continued, uncowed, “As I was GOING TO SAY, when I saw this fight at the fair, I noticed that one of those sweaty men—the one who broke the nose, not the one who got it broken—he had short legs AND THEY WERE BOWED! So, I can tell you—I know! Short legs are not handsome … not handsome at all!” Having said her piece, handed on her superior knowledge, Teresa felt all had been said that could, or at least should, be mentioned by innocent maidens on the subject of male anatomy. She picked up her bobbins and resumed her pattern at the point where she had left off.
“I have never heard such nonsense!” Antonia’s tone was worthy of a real principessa. “Really! If you saw some of the illustrations I have seen in my father’s books, you would probably have hysterics for weeks. Swoon dead away! … Of course, I am absolutely forbidden to look inside those books … but I sneak into my papa’s study whenever I know it’s safe … and see things you couldn’t imagine if you tried for a thousand years!”
“Antonia,” Camilla asked, just a little breathless, “do you know what makes babies? I once asked Mamma and she sent me to my room, without supper! When I asked my brothers, they laughed at me, said I was stupid and told me all I had to do was ‘watch the animals and find out everything.’ Well, I did … and … it is—ugly! Really, really UGLY! That can’t have anything to do with making sweet little babies! Can it? … I don’t dare ask Sister Bertine … she’d be so shocked I would be kneeling for weeks!”
Everyone giggled, self-consciously half-afraid of being overheard in what would surely be interpreted as mocking the Church!
Giovanna asked quietly, “So? Did you find out why he came back?”
“Who?”
“Giovanni … the Ricassoli boy! Weren’t you all just talking about him?”
“Oh, him! Giovanna, that was hours ago! Weren’t you listening?” Camilla could sound like her ever-exasperated mother without even trying an imitation.
“Oh, Camilla … Really! Don’t be silly! I’m hot, my eyes hurt from working in this darkness. I still have to lay the fire, bake bread, cook Papa’s meal, iron his Sunday suit, and blacken his shoes for church before I can come back here, draw water, carry it back for his bath. All I asked was a simple answer to a simple question!”
“Well, really! We all draw water from the well … What a big fuss! You’d think you were the only one!” Camilla sniffed, offended.
“That does it!” Giovanna secured her bobbins, preparing to leave.
“I don’t think Camilla really knows why he’s back, Giovanna.” Teresa liked everyone to be nice to each other.
“Anyway, she was too busy swooning over his bulging muscles to ask!” Antonia chuckled, fluffing out the ends of her sumptuous braids.
“You’re mean! You’re all mean! I AM GOING HOME!” and, picking up her chair, cushion, and pride, Camilla stormed off.
Undisturbed, Antonia remarked, “I think that the old grandmother Ricassoli is sinking. I heard Papa say something about being called in and that it is now ‘only a matter of time.’”
“That must be it!” Teresa caught fire. “Only yesterday my mamma said, ‘Mark my words! There’ll be a funeral soon … I felt a cold shadow hovering over my left shoulder … then my polenta burned without a reason. I was there, the whole time, every second—I was stirring, yet my polenta scorched! A sure sign—the Angel of Death is near!’” Teresa always committed to memory whatever her mother said. For some reason, at an early age she had convinced herself that it was very important to do so. No one had figured out why, least of all Teresa’s mother, who, at first flattered by her daughter’s habit of absorbing her every word, now that she had turned seventeen and was still doing it, had become slightly apprehensive.
“Well, then that must be the reason Giovanni came back.” Giovanna had her answer, and the girls picked up their chairs and went home.
After Mass on Sundays, when the village square became a bustling meeting place, the girls usually met by the tall clump of oleanders that shadowed the low stone wall bordering the terraced path that wound its way down from the monastery above. Dressed in their Sunday best, starched white shirtwaists and long black skirts, they perched like swallows, surveying the sloping meadow of alpine flowers at their dangling feet. Work pillows ready on their laps, they sat, enjoying the beauty spread before them. The toll of church bells drifted up from the valley below, the faint echo of tin bells drifted down from above as sure-footed goats searched steep crags for their favorite bitter herbs.
As usual Camilla was late. Confession always took up a great deal of her time. Giovanna, who resented the ritualistic dogma of Confession, avoided the confessional whenever possible. Besides having nothing of real importance to beg forgiveness for, it made her uncomfortable in taking up the busy priest’s time. She knew her friends looked forward to those sequestered moments amidst the scent of sandalwood and incense, especially if, when they finally emerged, their given penance took up most of their remaining day, by its very length giving proof to all of their blossoming maturity. Just once, Giovanna wished she could have something really shocking to confess—see what stirred her most, the Prayers of Contrition or the sin that had fostered them.
A fat bee bumped into her black-stockinged ankle, and gently she pushed it off with the tip of her shoe. Teresa sighed and began preparing her bobbins. Antonia undid the taffeta ribbon of her Sunday braid, smoothing it between her fingers before rolling it up. Then she began combing her long hair with the wide tortoiseshell comb she had bought with her lace money from the gypsy tinker.
“Antonia, can you sit on it yet?” Giovanna asked, admiring the glorious sepia-colored silk curtain being groomed, a little envious that her own hair refused to grow any further than her waist, even frizzed when it rained.
“When I lift my chin and have no clothes on, I can. Papa says it’s hereditary. All the women in his family have long, beautiful hair … but Mamma says no, it’s the olive oil that she rubbed onto my head the second after she bore me.”
“Did you see the Rossini twins?” Teresa asked in a tone heralding dramatic news.
Without interrupting her comb’s hypnotic strokes, Antonia turned in anticipation. “No, why?”
“They’re shaved!”
“NO!” her friends gasped.
“Yes! They’re BALD! Not a single hair left on their heads! Like babies’ behinds … both of them! Well, with scarletina, you have to shave off all the hair. You should know that, Antonia!”
“Of course I know that! But what I didn’t know is that they had it. Papa said it was varicella. But, Mamma said it had to be ‘the fever’ because Mario and Stephano were quarantined for so long so, when they finally came out, their hair was GONE!”
Camilla came puffing up the path, straw bonnet trailing from one listless hand, tears glistening in her pretty gray eyes.