Bits and pieces of her grandfather’s India began to shake loose in Matelda’s mind. The miners chewed on honeycomb to stay awake when working long hours in the dark. Pigeon blood rubies were the color of ripe purple grapes. Pink clouds floated in a lapis sky.
At night, after the family ate dinner together, her parents would go for a walk, leaving her grandfather to tell the children a bedtime story. Pietro Cabrelli stacked pillows on the floor to represent the mountain, and wood blocks to represent the rocks from the mine. He would reach into his pocket for his handkerchief and press it against his face to dramatize the sweltering heat. He performed all the parts, using different voices for the characters, like an actor in a play. Cabrelli even became the elephant. He lurched around the room, swinging his arm back and forth to imitate the trunk of the beast.
“Matelda!” her friend Ida Casciacarro whispered as she gave her a gentle shove.
Matelda opened her eyes.
“You fell asleep.”
Matelda whispered back, “I was thinking.”
“You fell asleep.”
No use arguing with Ida. The pair sat together in the same pew for daily Mass, their routine set in stone like the fleur-de-lis tiles embedded in the granite floor of the church. They stood, bowed their heads, and blessed themselves as the priest cut an imaginary cross through the air. They genuflected together as the morning bells of Chiesa San Paolino pealed the same ancient Kyrie that summoned the women to Lauds when they were girls.
You didn’t need a clock to tell time in Viareggio; you lived by the bells and the baker. Umberto Ennico pulled trays of buttery cornetti out of the oven as Don Scarelli began the Mass. By the time the service was over, the puff pastries had cooled and Umberto had brushed them with an apricot glaze so they would be ready for pickup by the devout on their way home.
“Let’s stop for pastry and coffee,” Ida suggested, pulling her scarf over her head and tying it under her chin as the ladies walked together.
“Not today.”
“But it’s your birthday.”
“I’m sorry, Ida. Anina is coming over.”
“Well, another time, then.” Ida tilted her head back and examined her friend through her bifocals. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
Ida reached into her pocket and handed her friend a small parcel tied with a ribbon.
“Why do you do this?”
“Don’t get excited. It’s nothing.” Ida buried her hands in the sleeves of her wool car coat like the priest buried his hands in the sleeves of his cassock when he delivered a sermon. “Go ahead. Open it.”
“What’s this?” Matelda shook the white plastic vial of capsules.
“Probiotics. These will change your life.”
“I like my life.”
“You will like it better on probiotics. Don’t take my word for it. Ask your doctor. It’s all about gut health these days.”
“Why do you spend your money on me?”
“You’re impossible to buy for. You have everything.”
“Ida, if you don’t have everything you want by the time you’re eighty-one years old, you’re probably not going to get it.”
Ida gave her friend a quick kiss on each cheek before turning to hike up the steep cobblestone street to her home. The pink scarf slipped off Ida’s head, and her white hair ruffled in the wind. The Metrione/Casciacarros were hard workers, sturdily built people who worked in the silk mill when it was a big operation. Matelda remembered when her friend had black hair and sprinted up the hill after a long shift. When did we get old? Matelda wondered.
CHAPTER 2
The village of Viareggio was set on the shores of the Ligurian Sea, on the cusp of Il Tirreno Mare, south of the Gulf of Genoa and north of the Amalfi coast. The candy-colored villas with a view of the sea were shaded by a grove of pine trees with tall, spindly trunks topped by bouffants of green foliage. Viareggio Beach unfurled on the west coast of Italy like a rope of emeralds.
The scents of charred eucalyptus wood and sulfur lingered in the air as Matelda climbed the rickety steps to the boardwalk. Carnevale had officially ended the night before when the fireworks turned to ash in the black sky. The last of the tourists had left the beach before sunrise. The pink Ferris wheel was still. The carousel horses were frozen in midair. The only sound she heard was the flap of the tarps over the empty vendor stands.
Alone on the boardwalk, Matelda leaned against the railing, where she observed curls of smoke from the abandoned firepits on the beach drifting up to the heavens like offerings. The overcast sky blurred into the horizon, where it became one with the silver sea. She heard the blare of a foghorn as a sleek ocean liner appeared in the distance, rippling the surf in streaks of foam. The graceful ship glided past, pulling the banner of daybreak over the water. All her life, Matelda waited for the great ships and considered spotting one good luck. She couldn’t remember where she learned it; it was something she always knew.
Come back, Matelda thought as the white ship with a maroon hull and midnight blue trim sailed south. Too late. The ship was on its way to somewhere warm. Matelda was done with winter. It would not be long until the turquoise waves returned under a cloudless sky in springtime. How she looked forward to walks on the beach when the weather was warm.
Matelda typically took a short stroll after church in the morning to shop for the day’s meals, and a long walk in the afternoon to think. These rituals had shaped her days in the last chapter of her life, after she retired from her bookkeeping position at Cabrelli Jewelers. Matelda took the time to get her house in order. She didn’t want to leave her children with the stacks of paperwork and rooms of furniture her parents had left behind after they died. She wanted to prepare her children for the inevitable as best she could.