The problem was, Betsy was a cute name, the name of a girl people wanted to be friends with. Someone named Betsy could jump high, and smile easily. But Clara was an ugly name. No one would want to be friends with a Clara. At least Chiara sounded exotic, like a dancer or an opera singer.
“You’re praying again, aren’t you?” Elisabetta demanded.
Chiara sighed and looked at her sister. She had successfully finished a complete rosary so she could say honestly, “No, I am not praying.”
Elisabetta said, “Well, you were. You always move your lips when you pray. And when you read,” she added, disgusted.
“I hate reading,” Giulia said. “And arithmetic. I want to be famous, and when I am, I won’t have to read or do fractions ever again.”
“That,” Elisabetta said, flicking the tines of the fork off the pasta, leaving perfect ridges, “is idiotic.”
It must be hard to be Elisabetta, Chiara thought, having to do everything just right. Then Chiara bent her head again, and began another rosary.
WHEN THE SPANISH INFLUENZA swept their neighborhood, taking dozens of people with it, Chiara prayed even harder. Her brother was fighting in France, so she had to pray for him as well as for all the American soldiers. She prayed so much there was hardly time for anything else.
“Why don’t you run off and join the convent?” Elisabetta said. “Then you can pray all day and all night.”
She said it to be mean, of course, but Chiara thought it was a wonderful idea.
“How do you join?” Chiara asked her.
“How should I know?” Elisabetta said. She was doing complicated algebra problems at the kitchen table, smiling to herself as she solved each one. “Go ask Father Leone.”
“Sorry,” Chiara said, “I thought you knew everything.”
Elisabetta kept scribbling numbers and letters on a piece of paper. “I know everything that matters,” she said.
CHIARA, LIKE ALMOST everyone else, was terrified of Father Leone, despite his handsome face and thick, wavy hair. When she had told her mother this, her mother had said she should never be afraid of one of God’s servants. He is so holy, her mother had told her, that the pope writes him letters of admiration. This only made Chiara even more humbled and frightened of the priest.
But today, when she climbed the steep stone steps that led to his residence behind the church, she burned with pride instead of fear. Imagine telling the most respected priest in the entire world that you too wanted to become God’s servant.
She was surprised when Father Leone himself answered her knock. Usually, one of the parish nuns was in there cleaning or cooking for him. Right then, as the heavy door swung open and Father Leone appeared with dramatic light pouring in from the window behind him, Chiara decided that not only did she want to be a nun, but she wanted to be the nun who took care of Father Leone. What an honor that would be. To wash the floors he walked on and to simmer a rich ragu for him to eat. Even Elisabetta would never have such pleasure.
Father Leone was smiling down at her, waiting. “Yes?” he said finally. “Have you come to stand on my doorstep? Or do you have a problem?”
Chiara spoke in a rush of Italian. “Forgive me for the disturbance,” she said, “I’m God’s servant Chiara Rimaldi—”
“I know who you are,” he said. “Your mother is a selfless woman who gives everything to God.”
This shut Chiara up. She never thought of her mother this way. To Chiara, her mother was a woman in a faded cotton dress, always working. She never seemed to be at rest. Even when she sat, she sewed or knit or kneaded. She was not like Magdalena down the hill, who brought her children onto her lap and sang them silly songs. Or like Catalina next door who baked her children their own loaves of bread in animal shapes: cats and horses and rabbits.
She felt Father Leone waiting.
“I want to be a nun,” Chiara blurted.
The priest studied her face carefully, and nodded. “How old are you, Chiara?”
“Eleven,” she said. Then she added quickly, “And I’m ready to leave my family and become a bride of Jesus.”
“You must be twelve to become an initiate,” he said. “But I can arrange it for you if you are still serious about this next year.”
“Oh, I will be!” Chiara said. “Even more serious.”
He smiled down at her. She thought he must be the tallest man she’d ever seen.
“You will make a good nun,” he said, turning serious. “You are homely, although in God’s eyes everyone is beautiful. So taking Our Lord Jesus Christ as your husband is very wise.”
Chiara thought she might cry from joy. She fingered the rosary around her neck, praying in gratitude. She didn’t even care that the priest had told her how ugly she was; she knew this about herself. Her face was flat, as if God had punched her just before she was born, and her nose was like a pig’s snout. Even her hair was not silky like her sisters’. Instead, it grew in tight, kinky curls all over her head.