Адриана Трижиани – The Shoemaker's Wife / Жена башмачника. Книга для чтения на английском языке (страница 8)
Before he went, he looked out at Signora and winked at her. She blushed. Ciro, the convent orphan, had grown up to be an effective flirt. For his part, it was simply instinct. Ciro greeted every woman he passed, tipped his secondhand hat, eagerly assisted them with their parcels, and inquired about their families. He talked to girls his own age with a natural ease that other boys admired.
Ciro charmed the women of the village, from the schoolgirls with their waxy curls to the widowed grandmothers clutching their prayer missals. He was comfortable in the company of women. Sometimes he thought he understood women better than he did his own sex. Surely he knew more about girls than Eduardo, who was so innocent. Ciro wondered what would become of his brother if he ever had to leave his convent home. Ciro imagined that he was strong enough to face the worst, but Eduardo was not. An intellectual like Eduardo needed the convent library, desk, and lamp and the connections that came through church correspondence. Ciro, on the other hand, would be able to survive in the outside world; Iggy and the sisters had taught him a trade. He could farm, make repairs, and build anything from wood with his hands. Life beyond the convent would be difficult, but Ciro had the skills to build a life.
Don Raphael Gregorio pushed the sacristy door open. He placed the tins from the poor box on the table. Don Gregorio was thirty years old, a newly minted[65] priest. He wore a long black cassock, affixed with a hundred small ebony buttons from collar to hem. Ciro wondered if the priest appreciated how many times Sister Ercolina went over the button loops with the pressing iron to have them lie flat.
«Do you have the plantings ready for the garden?» Don Gregorio wanted to know. The priest’s bright white Roman collar offset his thick black hair. His aristocratic face, strong chin, small, straight nose, and heavy-lidded brown eyes gave him the sleepy look of a Romeo instead of the earnest gaze of a wise man of God.
«Yes, Father.» Ciro bowed his head in deference to the priest, as the nuns had taught him.
«I want the walkway planted with daffodils.»
«I got your note, Padre[66].» Ciro smiled. «I will take care of everything.» Ciro lifted the dowel off the table. «May I go, Don Gregorio?»
«You may,» the priest answered.
Ciro pushed the door open.
«I’d like to see you at mass sometime,» Don Gregorio said.
«Padre, you know how it is. If I don’t milk the cow, there’s no cream. And if I don’t gather the eggs, the sisters can’t make the bread. And if they can’t make the bread, we don’t eat.»
Don Gregorio smiled. «You could do your chores and still find time to attend mass.»
«I guess that’s true, Father.»
«So I’ll see you at mass?»
«I spend a lot of time in church sweeping up, washing windows. I figure if God is looking for me, He knows where to find me.»
«My job is to teach you to seek Him, not the other way around.»
«I understand. You have your job, and I have mine.»
Ciro bowed his head respectfully. He hoisted the empty wooden dowel to his shoulder like a rifle, took the bundle of linens to be washed and pressed, and went. Don Gregorio heard Ciro whistle as he went down the path that would soon be planted with yellow flowers, just as he had ordered.
Ciro pushed open the door to the room he and Eduardo shared in the garden workhouse. At first the boys had lived in the main convent, in a cell on the main floor. The room was small and noisy; the constant shuffle of the nuns in transit from the convent to the chapel kept the boys awake, while the gusts of winter from the entrance door opening and closing made the room drafty. They were happy when the nuns decided to give them a permanent space away from the main convent.
The sisters had moved the boys out to the garden workhouse in a large room with good light, knowing that growing boys needed privacy and a quiet place to study. Sister Teresa and Sister Anna Isabelle had done their best to make the room cozy. They cleared the cluttered storage room of flowerpots, cutting bins, and old-fashioned garden tools that hung on the walls like sculptures. The nuns installed two neat cots with a wool blanket for each boy and pillows as flat as the communion wafers[67]. There was a desk and an oil lamp, a ceramic pitcher and bowl on a stand near the desk. As it goes with the ranks of the working religious, their basic needs were met, and nothing more.
Eduardo was studying when Ciro came in and fell onto his cot.
«I prepped every fireplace.»
«Thanks.» Eduardo didn’t look up from his book.
«I caught a glimpse of Sister Anna Isabelle in her robe.» Ciro rolled over on his back and unsnapped the key ring from his belt loop.
«I hope you looked away.»
«Had to. I can’t be unfaithful.»
«To God?»
«Hell, no. I’m in love with Sister Teresa,» Ciro teased.
«You’re in love with her chestnut ravioli[68].»
«That too. Any woman who can make eating chestnuts bearable through a long winter is the woman for me.»
«It’s the herbs. A lot of sage and cinnamon[69].»
«How do you know?»
«I watch when she cooks.»
«If you’d ever get your head out a book, you might be able to get a girl.»
«Only two things interest you. Girls and your next meal.» Eduardo smiled.
«What’s wrong with that?»
«You have a good mind, Ciro.»
«I use it!»
«You could use it more.»
«I’d rather get by on my looks[70], like Don Gregorio.»
«He’s more than his appearance. He’s an educated man. A consecrated man. You need to respect him.»
«And you shouldn’t be afraid of him.»
«I’m not afraid of him. I honor him.»
«Ugh. The Holy Roman Church is of no interest to me.» Ciro kicked off his shoes. «Bells, candles, men in dresses. Did you see Concetta Martocci on the colonnade?»
«Yes.»
«What a beauty. That blond hair. That face.» Ciro looked off, remembering her. «And that figure.» Ciro whistled.
«She’s been in the same class at Santa Maria Assunta for three years. She’s not very bright.»
«Maybe she doesn’t want to sit around and read all the time. Maybe she wants to see the world. Maybe she wants me to take her for a ride.»
«Take her on your bicycle.»
«You really don’t know anything about girls. You have to offer them the best and nothing less.»
«Who’s teaching you the ways of women? Iggy?»
«Sister Teresa. She told me that women deserve respect.»
«She’s correct.»
«I don’t know about all of that.» It seemed to Ciro that respect wasn’t something to spread around like hay on the icy walkways in winter. Maybe it should be earned.
«If you showed a little spiritual initiative, if you bothered to go to mass once in a while, maybe Don Gregorio would loan you the cart,» Eduardo said.
«You’re on good terms with him. Ask him if I can borrow it.»
«You’ll have to walk, then. I’m not asking him.»
«Saving your favors for something more important?»
«What could be more important than Concetta Martocci?» Eduardo said drily. «Let’s think. The priest’s cart delivers medicine to the sick. Takes old people to see the doctor. Takes food to the poor—»
«All right, all right. I understand. My heart’s desire is not an act of mercy.»
«Not even close.»
«I’ll just have to think of other ways to impress her.»
«You work on that, and I’ll study Pliny,» Eduardo said, pulling the lamp close to his book.
Every Friday morning, Don Gregorio said mass for the children of the school. They walked into church silently and reverently, in two lines, the youngest students first, led by Sister Domenica and Sister Ercolina.
The girls wore gray wool jumpers, white blouses, and blue muslin aprons, while the boys wore dark blue slacks and white shirts. On weekends their mothers washed the navy-and-white uniforms and hung them on clotheslines throughout the village. From a distance, drying in the sun, they resembled maritime flags.