Domenica Cabrelli cupped her hands, turned toward the dunes, and belted out, “Sill-vee-oh!” The eleven-year-old girl had the lung capacity of a great soprano. The beach belonged to her, not a soul in sight. The sky was Tiepolo blue with tufts of flamingo clouds floating on the horizon, a sure sign that it would rain later in the day. Under the noonday sun, the sea rippled peacefully as the tide rolled to the shore. The girl rubbed her stomach. She was hungry. Domenica grew impatient and called Silvio’s name again. There was work to be done. Where was he?
The girl’s intense black eyes surveyed the ridge of the dunes like a general before battle. She folded her arms across her clean, pressed work apron, which had been mended, then patched by her mother with an overlay of odd squares of burlap from a sandbag and remnants of fabric from the slag floor of the silk mill. Most girls in the village wore a similar style. The apron had a square neckline with two wide straps over the shoulder that fastened with two buttons in the back. Utility pockets were sewn on the front, deep enough to hold a straight edge, small scissors, a coil of thread with a needle, and wide enough to accommodate an embroidery hoop and any extras. Signorina Cabrelli saved room in her pockets for seashells and small stones, which she would find a purpose for later.
Domenica was barefoot, as all Italian children were during the summer. The soles of her feet were thick from carrying pails of fresh water up and down the wooden planks of the promenade. The white sand beneath her feet was as soft as a Persian carpet. Her dark brown hair was braided neatly and twisted into a crown on top of her head, though a few curls had escaped the plaits. She brushed away the loose strands when the sea breezes caught them. The cotton slip and pantaloons she wore underneath the linen jumper were hand-me-downs from a cousin, but that was where the charity ended. Gold hoop earrings, made by her father, the jeweler’s apprentice, twinkled in her earlobes. The earrings were made of gold mesh so delicate, you had to be close enough to whisper in her ear to see them.
Silvio Birtolini appeared at the top of the hill. The black-haired boy was exactly her age but a couple inches shorter than she, as were most of the boys in school. She waved to him. “Hurry!”
Silvio slid down the dune and ran to Domenica as fast as he could, kicking up sand as he went.
“Did you get it?”
Silvio pulled a slim cylinder of paper tied with a ribbon from the back of his pants. He gave it to her, keeping his eyes on her, eager to please, hopeful for a positive reaction. Domenica untied the ribbon and unrolled the paper. Her eyes darted around the map of Viareggio proper as she consumed the information.
“Did anyone see you?” she asked without taking her gaze off the grid drawn in black ink on a field of beige.
“No.”
“Good.” She nodded. “If we are to find the treasure, no one must know we are looking for it.”
“I understand.” Silvio never knew which part of the time he spent with Domenica Cabrelli was make-believe and which part was actual fact. Was there a treasure? Who were the “no ones” exactly? Silvio had no idea.
Domenica rolled up the map and, using it to point, picked a spot on a dune at the far end of the beach. “Follow me.” She began to trudge up the long beach in the direction of Pineta di Ponente. “The fate of all things rests upon us.”
“How could that be true?” Silvio walked beside her.
“Because it does.”
“But the fate of all things? You’re not the Creator.” They had studied God’s will in catechism in preparation for the sacrament of confirmation. Silvio noticed that Domenica was often inspired to act in real life in direct opposition to whatever dogma they had been learning in school.
“Didn’t Don Fernando tell us that we were authorized to baptize someone who needed the sacrament if no priest were available?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make you a priest.”
“He gave us permission to baptize the unchristened. We are holy enough to do it! A sacrament is an outward sign of inward grace. Everyone has inward grace. Even me. Even you.”
“I wouldn’t baptize anyone. I would run for the priest. The nuns taught us to get a priest. You have to do it over again if there’s no priest.”
“Listen to the good nuns of San Paolino, but don’t believe everything they tell you.”
“Says who?”
“Papa. I wasn’t supposed to be listening, but I heard him say it to my mother, so it must be true.”
Silvio didn’t have a father, so he was at a disadvantage to counter the point. There were times he wished he could say, My papa said, just to challenge her.
“When my parents whisper, I make sure I’m close enough to hear what they’re saying. I watch them when they divide the purse and pay attention when they discuss the priest. I stay inside when they have company and stay close to Papa when he talks to customers in the shop. When we have company, the guests always bring lemons or tomatoes, but they also bring stories from Lucca. You cannot believe what goes on there. There’s the man who brings pigs’ feet from Lazio. He knows where the money in the poor box at San Sebastiano goes. And there’s Signora Vanucci, who gives my mother sugar when she has extra, but she is also looking for business. Signora has so many stories.”
“The matchmaker?”
“That’s her! She marries off nice men with clubfeet to women who are past the age of courting and won’t get asked for their hand in marriage otherwise. But I wouldn’t know that if I didn’t listen to her long stories. She told Mama if she were young, she would not be a matchmaker. She would seek her fortune and make it her life’s work to hunt for buried treasure. That’s how I found out about the loot from Capri.” Domenica made a circle in the air with the map. “Signora Vanucci found the story had some truth to it. That’s good enough for me.”
“What if we don’t find it?”
“We’ll find it.”