Адриана Трижиани – The Shoemaker's Wife / Жена башмачника. Книга для чтения на английском языке (страница 2)
The boys nodded that they did. Eduardo rubbed his hands together to warm them. They were rough and pink from the cold.
«Here. Take my gloves.» Caterina removed her elbow-length black gloves. She helped Eduardo’s hands into them, pulling them up and under his short sleeves. «Better?»
Eduardo closed his eyes; the heat from his mother’s gloves traveled up his arms and through his entire body until he was enveloped in her warmth. He pushed his hair back with his hand, the scent of the brushed cotton[11], clean lemon and freesia, reassuring him.
«What do you have for me, Mama?» Ciro asked.
«You have Papa’s gloves to keep you warm.» She smiled. «But you want something of Mama’s too?»
«Please.»
«Give me your hand.»
Ciro pulled his father’s leather glove off with his teeth.
Caterina slid a gold signet ring off her smallest finger and placed it on Ciro’s ring finger[12]. «This was given to me by my papa.»
Ciro looked down at the ring. Aswirling, artful
The stone facade of the convent of San Nicola was forbidding. Grand pilasters[13] topped with statues of saints wearing expressions of hollow grief towered over the walkway. The thick walnut door had a sharp peak like a bishop’s hat, Eduardo observed as he pushed the door open. Caterina and Ciro followed him inside into a small vestibule. They stomped the snow off their shoes on a mat made of woven driftwood branches. Caterina reached up and rang a small brass bell on a chain.
«They’re probably praying. That’s all they do in here. Pray all day,» Ciro said as he peered through a crack in the door.
«How do you know what they do?» Eduardo asked.
The door opened. Sister Domenica looked down at the boys, sizing them up.
She was short and shaped like a dinner bell. Her black-and-white habit with a full skirt made her seem wider still. She placed her hands on her hips.
«I’m Signora Lazzari,» Caterina said. «These are my sons. Eduardo and Ciro.» Eduardo bowed to the nun. Ciro ducked his head quickly as if saying a fast prayer. Really, it was the mole on Sister’s chin he wished to pray away[14].
«Follow me,» the nun said.
Sister Domenica pointed to a bench, indicating where the boys should sit and wait. Caterina followed Sister into another room behind a thick wooden door, closing it behind her. Eduardo stared straight ahead while Ciro craned his neck, looking around.
«She’s signing us away,» Ciro whispered. «Just like Papa’s saddle.»
«That’s not true,» his brother whispered back.
Ciro inspected the foyer, a round room with two deep alcoves, one holding a shrine to Mary, the Blessed Mother, and the other, to Saint Francis of Assisi[15]. Mary definitely had more votive candles[16] lit at her feet. Ciro figured it meant you could always count on a woman. He took a deep breath. «I’m hungry.»
«You’re always hungry.»
«I can’t help it.»
«Don’t think about it.»
«It’s
«You have a simple mind.»
«No, I don’t. Just because I’m strong, doesn’t mean I’m stupid.»
«I didn’t say you were stupid. You’re
The scent of fresh vanilla and sweet butter filled the convent. Ciro closed his eyes and inhaled. He really
«Sit down,» Eduardo ordered.
Ciro ignored him and walked down the long corridor.
«Get back here!» Eduardo whispered.
The walnut doors along the arcade were closed, and streams of faint light came through the overhead transoms. At the far end of the hallway, through a glass door, Ciro saw a cloister[17] connecting the main convent to the workhouses. He ran down the arcade toward the light. When he made it to the door, he looked through the glass and saw a barren patch of earth, probably a garden, hemmed by a dense gnarl of gray fig trees dusted with snow.
Ciro turned toward the delicious scent and found the convent kitchen, tucked in the corner off the main hallway. The door to the kitchen was propped open with a brick. A shimmering collection of pots hung over a long wooden farm table. Ciro looked back to see if Eduardo had followed him. Alone and free, Ciro took a chance and ran to the kitchen doorway and peered inside. The kitchen was as warm as the hottest summer day. Ciro let the waves of heat roll over him.
A beautiful woman, much younger than his mother, was working at the table. She wore a long jumper of gray-striped wool with a white cotton apron tied over it. Her black hair was wrapped tightly into a chignon and tucked under a black kerchief. Her dark brown eyes squinted as she rolled a long skein of pasta on a smooth marble work slab. She hummed a tune as she took a small knife and whittled away tiny stars of dough, unaware that Ciro was watching her. Her long fingers moved surely and deftly with the knife. Soon, a batch of tiny pasta beads began to pile up on the board. Ciro decided that all women are beautiful, except maybe the old ones like Sister Domenica. «
The young woman looked up and smiled at the little boy in the big clothes. «
«What are you making?»
«Baked custard.»
«It smells like cake in the hallway.»
«That’s the butter and the nutmeg. The custard is better than cake. It’s so delicious it pulls angels off their perches. At least that’s what I tell the other sisters. Did it make you hungry?»
«I was already hungry.»
The woman laughed. «Who are you?»
«Who are
«I’m Sister Teresa.»
«I’m sorry, Sister. But, you… you look like a girl. You don’t look like a nun.»
«I don’t wear a nice habit when I’m cooking. What’s your name?»
Ciro sat on a stool across from the nun. «Ciro Augustus Lazzari,» he said proudly.
«That’s a big name. Are you a Roman emperor?»
«Nope.» Ciro remembered he was speaking with a nun. «Sister.»
«How old are you?»
«Ten. I’m big for my age. I pull the rope at the water wheel in town.»
«That’s impressive.»
«I’m the only boy my age who can. They call me an ox.»
Sister Teresa reached behind the table and pulled a heel of bread[20] from a bin. She slathered it with soft butter and handed it to the boy. As Ciro ate, she swiftly carved more stars from the dough and added them to the large bowl filled with a batter of milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg. She stirred the ingredients evenly with a large enamel spoon. Ciro watched the creamy folds of custard, now speckled with stars, lap over one another as the mixture thickened. Sister poured the custard into ceramic cups on a metal tray without spilling a drop. «Are you visiting?»
«We’ve been sent here to work because we’re poor.»
«Everyone in Vilminore di Scalve is poor. Even the nuns.»
«We’re
«It’s the same story in every village in the Alps.»
«We won’t stay long. My mother is going to the city, and she’ll come and get us this summer.» Ciro looked over at the deep wood-burning oven and figured that he would have to stoke and clean it until his mother returned. He wondered how many fireplaces there were in the convent. He imagined there were lots of them. He’d probably spend every hour of daylight chopping wood and building fires.
«What brought you to the convent?»
«Mama can’t stop crying.»
«Why?»
«She misses Papa.»
Sister lifted the tray of custard cups and placed them in the oven. She checked the surface of several other baked custard cups on a cooling rack. What a lovely thing, to work in a warm kitchen in the cold winter and make food. Ciro imagined that people who work in kitchens are never hungry.
«Where did your father go?»