The mill wouldn’t give him a job, not with the crazy things he said, or the confused look that swept over his face most of the time. But Chiara spoke with Father Leone, and the priest said Carmine could sweep the church, replace the candles and incense, small things like that.
“Good,” their mother said. “He can go on Tuesdays, when Elisabetta studies her Latin with Father Leone.”
Elisabetta groaned. “Why does he have to come with me? He’s creepy!”
“He’s your brother and he will go to the church with you,” her mother said.
On Tuesday evenings, after supper, Elisabetta and Carmine walked together to the church.
“Anna Zito liked me to fuck her like a dog, from behind,” Carmine said.
Elisabetta covered her ears and conjugated Latin verbs in her mind so she wouldn’t hear him.
“Anna Zito is a puttana,” Carmine said as they climbed the steps to the church.
Once inside, he got the broom from the closet and began to sweep. He was extremely methodical, which was also creepy. He dragged the big broom up and down the aisle, beginning against the wall and then up the aisle. Down and up. Elisabetta paused to be sure he was lost in the sweeping before she hurried into Father Leone’s study behind the altar.
Father Leone was always waiting for her at his desk. He had a glass of red wine and the Latin book opened to their next lesson. Elisabetta loved his mustache. At night sometimes she imagined what it would be like to kiss him. Certainly it would tickle. Her friend Connie at school had kissed a soldier with a mustache and she said she could taste soup in it. Father Leone would taste like wine, Elisabetta thought.
“Always smiling,” Father Leone said when he saw her standing in the doorway.
Kiss me, she thought. Let me see what your mustache tastes like. She hoped that if she thought these thoughts hard enough, Father Leone would receive them through mental telepathy. She had read in a science magazine in the school library about a man who could bend spoons by staring at them.
“What is going on in your pretty head, Betsy?” the priest said. He leaned back in his chair and she saw that he was dressed like a normal man: black pants, white shirt. No collar or crucifixes in sight.
“Do you know about mental telepathy?” she said, taking her seat across from him.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “You mean communicating through thoughts?”
She nodded. “There is a man in England who can bend silver spoons just by staring at them.”
“Ah!” he said. “Shall we try it?”
“Bending spoons?”
“No, mental telepathy. Send me a message and let me see if I can get it.”
“Oh, no,” Elisabetta said, embarrassed. But then she looked at the priest and with all of her might thought: Kiss me! Kiss me!
Father Leone shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m not very good at reading minds, I guess.”
Disappointed, she opened her Latin book.
“Sweeping’s done,” Carmine said from the doorway, startling them both.
“Fine,” the priest said. “Scrape the wax from the altar then. Get it all, now, Carmine. Be sure.”
Carmine nodded but he didn’t leave.
“Is there something else?” Father Leone said impatiently.
“She’s a puttana,” he whispered, pointing to his sister. “Watch out.” Then he walked away.
“I’m sorry,” Elisabetta said.
“You? No, no, Betsy. It is God who is sorry for making a world where war can do that to men.”
Elisabetta studied the priest’s face. I love you, she thought.
He patted her hand. “God loves us all,” he said.
SOMETIMES ON TUESDAYS they all three walked to church after supper: Chiara and Carmine and Elisabetta. Chiara prayed as they walked, her lips moving, her fingers caressing the rosary beads. She prayed for Carmine to stop being shell-shocked. She prayed for the end of all war. She prayed to turn twelve soon so she could become an initiate. This last would happen in two months; Chiara knew that. But she prayed anyway.
“In Coney Island I fell in love with a woman,” Carmine said one night.
“No, you didn’t,” Elisabetta said.
Chiara finished her prayer and said gently to her brother, “No, Carmine. You were supposed to marry Anna Zito.”
“That puttana?” He laughed.
Elisabetta rolled her eyes and walked faster, leaving those two behind her. The week before, Father Leone had said he was worried about her. You can be a scientist, he had told her, but you cannot forsake God for science. What have you given to God? he’d asked her. He had told her that her mother gave anything God asked. Think about it, Betsy, he’d said.
She had thought about it. Tonight she would tell him that she put up with a brain-damaged brother for God. She put up with stupid sisters. She tolerated her mother’s lack of affection. When she became a scientist, she would give her knowledge in God’s name. She was pleased with her response.
Father Leone was in his usual place, waiting for her. She heard Carmine and Chiara come in. She heard the sweeping begin and Chiara go down the basement stairs, where she would wash all of the holy linens used in Mass.