“I don’t know if your friend Il Duce has the guts.”
“He’s not my friend. He’s an embarrassment to my people. My mother had an expression: ‘Just because they’re Italian doesn’t mean they’re good.’ There are good and bad people everywhere. How’s your mother? I haven’t seen her in a long while.”
“Signora McVicars is holed up in the old house with the shutters closed. She lived through the Great War, so she has decided to hide until England takes a proper stand. If we go to war against Germany, she’ll head down to the basement and stay there for the duration.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“This is all too much for her.”
“She should leave Glasgow and go to the country. Can your brother take care of her while you’re gone?”
“That would be difficult. Reverend McVicars is in New Zealand on another mission to convert the pagans.”
“He should stay there until the trouble blows over.”
“If you knew my brother, you would know that he has a way of staying as far from trouble as trouble allows.”
“The opposite of you.”
McVicars laughed. “True enough. I met one of your own in France. An Italian nurse.”
“What’s the name?”
“Domenica.”
“Means ‘Sunday.’?”
“Cabrelli.”
“Cabrelli. Hmm. She’s Toscana.”
“Viareggio on the sea. Do you know it?”
“Bella! The beach goes on for miles.”
“I’ve sailed the Ligurian Sea.”
“That’s why you have the eye of the fish. Someone waits for you on the shore.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I haven’t received a letter in weeks. Of course, you never know, the nuns may have her digging trenches in the South of France and she hasn’t time to write.”
“You make a joke, but you don’t find it funny,” Antica said. “You like this young lady.”
McVicars took a moment to think. “Very much, my friend.”
“The one you want is usually the one you can’t get.”
“Is that true, Antica? I do not accept your treatise. Do you know how many ports there are on the coast? Too many to count. Do you know how many women live in those port cities? Too many to count. I stand before you, one man. One man in a sea of women looking to drown him.”
“Va bene! Hundreds. Thousands. But the girl you want is only one girl. And only one girl can save you.” Antica rang the bell on the cart and pushed it toward the pier. “The Cabrelli girl. Her name sounds like a bell.” Antica pulled the string attached to the bell on his cart. “Bellissima!”
CHAPTER 22
Marseille
JULY 1939
The Garden of the Angels at H?pital Saint Joseph was a haven for the Sisters and a source of additional income for the order’s purse. Inside the walls, the nuns grew vegetables and lavender, prayed the rosary at the shrine of the Blessed Mother, and cultivated beehives for honey. The bee colonies were housed in black wooden boxes set in a row along the back wall, where graceful orange trumpet vines crawled up the bricks behind them.
“Nurse Cabrelli, over here!” Sister Marie Bernard called to Domenica before lighting the smoker.
Domenica shielded her eyes from the sun as she walked through rows of lettuce, cucumbers, and yellow peppers. She saw a flurry of black snow in midair; on closer look, it was a swarm of bees hovering over their hive. Sister fanned the hives with the smoker, a rusty can with a spout. When lit, the smoker burned cedar chips, producing a clean white smoke that forced the bees back into the hive like soldiers into a foxhole.
“Don’t you love the scent?” Sister said as she closed the trap on the can. “Reminds me of my dear father who smoked cigars. Cedar burns like tobacco, you know. Quick and clean. Is your father a smoker?”
“No. He takes snuff once in a while.”
“So he enjoys the occasional tobacco. Which is what God intended. Here and there, it does no harm, but a daily habit of it, no good.”
“I don’t smoke, Sister.”
She smiled. “Good for you. I wish you would convince your fellow nurses to drop the habit. But a day off, a pub crawl, and cigarettes seem to go together. Nurses need their diversions too.”
“Smoking keeps them slender. Or so they say.” Domenica chuckled. “Mother Superior asked me to meet with you.”
“I’m sorry to report that the Sisters of Saint Joseph won’t be running this hospital any longer. The Mother Abbess has requested we move our hospital back to the motherhouse outside of Tours. I wish I could take you with me, but that’s not possible. There’s a position at the convent in Dumbarton, Scotland, where you can work off the remainder of your punishment.”
“Please, Sister. I don’t want to work in Scotland. Send me anywhere else.”
“It’s the only position we can offer you. The Sisters run a school called Notre Dame de Namur. They need a school nurse. Mother Superior has made the arrangements.”
Domenica Cabrelli was not in control of her own life as long as she had to work off a debt to the Holy Roman Church. Fate was toying with her. Scotland was the last place on Earth she wanted to go. She had written faithfully to McVicars and received nothing in return, not one letter. Clearly, he had changed his mind about her. She felt foolish having fallen for him. Any thoughts of McVicars triggered a spiral of regret, which made her feel worse about the emotional letters she had sent to him.
“We’ll give you a proper habit for travel, with the Red Cross insignia. We will purchase the tickets you need, including the ferry across the channel. We plan to move you out on Bastille Day.”
“Thank you, Sister.” But Domenica wasn’t grateful; she felt manipulated. In her mind, the position in Scotland was another punishment. Perhaps the order banished her once more because she had told the Mother Superior that she would not become a postulant, the step before taking final vows. But now that the captain had abandoned her too, she wondered if she had made the right decision.
* * *