Chapter 20
A HATBOX
Una Cappelliera
November 22, 1917
Cambrai, France
Dear Eduardo,
I hope this letter reaches you, as it’s the only one I have written in my time at the front. You know, above all others, how difficult it is for me to describe the world in words, but I will try.
From the first moment of my service, the days have rolled out with such uncertainty that I was unable to describe them. We sailed to England on July 1 on the USS Olympic. There were two thousand of us on the ship, though no one counted. I am in the regiment of General Finn “Landing” Taylor. His daughter Nancy Finn Webster made sure every new recruit had a new pair of socks for our tour of duty. Each of us received a pair when we boarded the ship. It reminded me of Sister Domenica and her knitting needles, clicking for hours on end, making us socks and sweaters.
We ran drills on the deck during the day. We proceeded to Tours, France, by ferry. From there, we walked for hundreds of miles, pitching camp, digging trenches, and when we did not dig trenches, we jumped into the ones that had been dug by the soldiers before us. You couldn’t help asking yourself, “What happened to those men?”
I have been lucky to make some good friends. Juan Torres grew up in Puerto Rico, but lives in New York City, 116th Street. He introduces himself as the proud son of Andres Corsino Torres whenever he meets someone new. He is thirty-two years old, with six children and a wife, and is very devout to Our Lady of Guadalupe. When I told him my only brother was a priest, he went down on one knee and kissed my hand. So please, remember him in your prayers.
I cannot believe what I see here. We spend as much time burying the dead as we do fighting the enemy. We came upon a field, and we could not even see the earth beneath the dead. The wise soldier hardens his heart against all he sees, but I have not mastered that skill. I don’t think I can, brother.
The land is badly scarred, forests have been torched, and the rivers are so full of slag from the fighting that the water has slowed to a trickle. Sometimes we happen upon a small blue lake or a pristine corner of a forest, and I can see that France was once beautiful. Not anymore.
We were told that our regiment was hit with mustard gas. On that morning, I was dreaming, asleep in the trench, sitting in my helmet (yes, better than the mud!), and I thought we were back in the convent with Sister Teresa when she made the aioli bread. But that scent of garlic was not the herb, but the poison of the gas. We were assured by our commander that very little of it blew across our area, but the soldiers think differently. I don’t feel any effects of it yet, and this is good. I don’t smoke too many cigarettes, so I am able to feel my lungs.
I hope to see you in Rome for your final vows in the spring. I think of you every day and send you my love,
Ciro
It seemed to Ciro that there were two ways a soldier tried to survive the war. He had examples of both in his regiment.
There was Private Joseph DeDia, who kept his gun cocked, his helmet straight, his eyes on the middle distance, as if his very gaze would send a message to the enemy. Order and skill would save him.
On the other hand, there was Major Douglas Leihbacher, who patrolled the trenches like a lowly private, making them laugh, conversing with them through the cold French nights. If Major Leihbacher could shore up the spirit, he could guide his men to win the war. A clear goal would save him.
Ciro was a good soldier—he obeyed orders, stayed alert, and performed every duty asked of him—but he remained skeptical of the politics behind the decisions made in the field. The men were often moved from place to place without preparation, and there seemed to be no apparent master plan. Ciro anticipated the worst, coming up with his own contingency plans because he had no confidence in the leaders.
While Ciro was aware of the sacrifice he and the others were making, he had not fully contemplated his own mortality, even as the bullets rained down around him. Every soldier comes to this, a moment when he acknowledges how he will meet his fate. Ciro listened to the voice within and remained focused. He saw the terrible waste of lives across the bloody fields of France. He thought of all those men might have accomplished in their lives. He decided that he would defend his life and the life of his fellow soldiers at all costs. But he would not seek to kill the enemy for the sake of winning the war. He would only kill to defend.
Most of the victories in battle seemed almost accidental. As they covered ground, the regiment came upon an arms storage unit in the barn of an old farm, and later a tank factory where lace was once made. But no intelligence guided them; it was simply vast numbers of men, in regiments that were numbered but not named, that canvassed the small villages of France, in search of whatever they might find, seize, or hold.
There would be entire days when Ciro would think the war was over, with not a single shot fired, or any sign of movement in the distance. And then battle would begin anew. It always began in the same way; faint sounds would grow louder, and within hours, the world around them would explode in a hailstorm of shells and bullets. The tanks sounded like pile drivers that crushed stone in the Alps. Their treads flattened anything in the tank’s path. Ciro, who loved machinery and its design, thought the tanks were ugly. What beauty could be found in something that was created with the sole purpose of destruction?
Once Ciro’s regiment made it to the trenches of Cambrai, they stayed. Sometimes he thought he would go out of his mind from the tedium, the long stretches when there was nothing to do but worry about when the next assault would come.
The nuns of San Nicola had taught him that no major decisions should be made in a state of exhaustion. But it seemed every decision in the trenches was made by men who were bone-tired, hungry, wet, and cold. There was no rest.
There was no peace to be made with death. Conversations steered around it. Some men asked their fellow soldiers to shoot them if they were left without limbs. Others vowed to turn their guns on themselves if captured. It seemed every soldier had his own ideas about how to control the outcome of war, knowing he was powerless to change what fate had in store for him.
Death was dodged, shirked, and outwitted daily. And still, death found them.
Ciro understood why they needed ten thousand men a day shipped from America to do battle on the fields of France. They were determined to win by sheer numbers, with or without a solid plan for victory. Some men, without a plan in place, began to cling to their dreams. Others began to see death as a way out of the horror of what they were living through. But not Ciro; he endured the cold fever of fear because he knew he must go home again.
Enza tucked the gold-filigreed invitation into her evening bag. She looked in the mirror, taking in her pearl gray brocade gown with a critical eye. Its columnar shape, with one shoulder exposed, was dramatic, even in the eyes of the woman who had created it.
Enza wore her long black hair in an upsweep. She pulled on silver satin evening gloves that stretched over her elbows, the contrast of the fabric leading the eye to the delicate blush of her bare shoulder. The effect was sophisticated and daring.
Dawn Gepfert had hosted a party every fall for the entire staff of the Met, including the board of directors, crew, actors, and designers. It was the only time every department at the Met came together socially, and everyone who worked for the opera considered this party the ultimate perk.
Mrs. Gepfert had a twenty-room duplex on Park Avenue, with windows the size of doors and vaulted ceilings so high, they reminded Enza of a cathedral. Rooms were decorated in cheery English chintz, the walls papered in rosebuds climbing trompe-l’oeil trellises, and thick wool rugs and low lamps made the apartment seem cozy, despite its size.
The party was at its peak—a string quartet played music, there was lots of laughter and party chatter, most of the rooms were filled with guests—but Enza, Colin, Laura, and Vito had found a quiet spot.
Enza sank into a pale green velvet slipper chair facing the fireplace in the library as Vito added a log to the fire. The French doors leading to the wraparound terrace were open, and awnings had been unfurled, with small heaters placed along the perimeter. The evening hovered on the line between fall and winter; the night air had a nip to it, but it was still warm enough to be outside with a light wrap. Colin brought Laura a drink.
“This is living,” Laura said.
“Great friends and good wine,” Colin agreed.
Vito settled on the arm of Enza’s chair. She held a glass of champagne, and he picked up his glass. “To us,” he said.
Colin, Laura, and Enza raised their glasses.
“I wish this night would never end.” Enza sighed. Sometimes she was so deeply in the moment of the present, Enza forgot the pain of the past and was free to enjoy herself without guilt. The scaffolding of her new life was sturdy, but she wanted the contents to be light, just like the colors of Dawn Gepfert’s apartment.
“It doesn’t have to,” Laura said.
“I like where this is going.” Colin pulled Laura close.
“Me too.” Vito put his arm around Enza.
“I propped the Milbank’s basement door open with an old shoe.” Laura toasted herself and took a sip of wine. “Now we can stay out as late as we want without having to wait on the front steps in the morning like we’re on a first-name basis with the milkman.”
“I go with the smartest girl on earth.” Colin laughed.
“And don’t forget it.”
This had been a good week for Laura. At long last she had met Colin’s sons, and she found them as rambunctious as the brothers she helped raise. They went to Central Park where Laura proved herself to them. She thew a baseball, ran fast, and played hard, which engaged the boys and impressed Colin. Laura approached her love life just as she did her sewing. She was careful in the pattern stage, so there were no surprises later. But she would have to be flexible if she married Colin and became an instant mother to his boys because that family plan was already well in place.
Enza settled back into the chair, resting her head against Vito. She was overwhelmed with a feeling of contentment, attending their party in the clouds, the glittering city at her feet, with her friends who she had come to rely upon and treasure.
“Did you tell Vito what Signor Caruso said about you?” Laura nudged Enza.
“No,” Enza said softly.
“What did he say?” Vito asked.
“He asked Enza when she was going to design costumes instead of just sewing them.”
“He did?” Vito was impressed.
“He thinks I have a good eye,” Enza said with a shy smile.
“Come up with some sketches,” Vito said.
“She already has two hatboxes full at the Milbank,” Laura said.
“And that’s where they will stay.” Enza sipped her champagne.
“All of a sudden, the tireless Italian girl is shy about her work. I don’t believe it.” Vito shook his head.
“I still have a lot to learn,” Enza said.
They heard applause and cheers from the living room.
“He’s here,” Vito said. Enza, Colin, and Laura followed him out to the living room, carrying their drinks.
The living room of the Gepfert home was filled like a church on a feast day. The revelers faced Enrico Caruso, who stood under a chandelier, taking in their love like sweet cream in his coffee. Vito pulled Enza close in the doorway as Colin and Laura sneaked through the crowd to get closer to him.
“You know how much affection I have for each and every one of you. I want to thank you for all the hard work you did on Lodoletta. Gerry and I are grateful for your dedication.”
Geraldine Farrar held up her glass. “Thank you all for making us look so good. And I would also like to thank the United States Army, who is making fast work of putting the Germans in their place—”
The revelers cheered loudly.
“We look forward to having the heat back on in the opera house. It’ll be a long winter without it. We’re doing our bit and keeping the furnace on low, to send our coal to the front for a good cause. But there’s only so many times I can embrace Enrico Caruso onstage and pretend it’s a love scene. Frankly, I needed his body heat to keep me from frostbite.”
Caruso made his way through the crowd, shaking hands, embracing his dresser, bowing deeply to the hostess in gratitude. As he passed Vito, Vito leaned in and whispered in Caruso’s ear, “Don’t forget your seamstresses.”
“My Vincenza and my Laura,” he said, embracing them both at once. “You have been so kind to me. I will remember your invisible stitches on my hems and your macaroni.”
“It was an honor to work for you, Signore,” Enza said.
“We’ll never forget it,” Laura assured him.
Caruso reached into his pocket and placed a gold coin in each of their hands. “Don’t tell anybody,” he whispered, and moved through the crowd.
Enza looked down at the coin. It was a solid gold disc with Caruso’s profile etched on it.
“It’s real,” Laura whispered. “I’m gonna buy myself a mink.”
“I’ll never spend it,” Enza whispered back.
And that was a promise Enza Ravanelli kept her whole life long.
Ciro found a small room available at the Tiziano Hotel, close to the Campo de’ Fiori, where the peddlers sold blood oranges, fresh fish, herbs, and bread. He had only the uniform on his back, a change of underclothes in his knapsack, a document guaranteeing him free passage home on any ship departing from Naples, and his final paycheck from the U.S. Army. The war had officially ended a few weeks ago, and after all he had withstood, he was eager to return to his life on Mulberry Street. But first, he had to find his brother.
The last letter he had received from Eduardo explained that he was scheduled to be ordained as a priest into the Franciscan order in Saint Peter’s Basilica at the end of November.
If Ciro thought the U.S. Army had layers of bureaucracy, he knew now that they had nothing on the Roman Catholic Church. No information was available regarding the ordination ceremonies. When Ciro went through the proper channels to obtain details, he was turned away, or the response was vague and veiled in secrecy.
Ciro knew, when his brother left for the seminary so many years ago, that they would have little contact, but they both had hoped that would change when Eduardo became a priest.
On the advice of a Vatican secretary, who by chance had ties to Bergamo and took pity on him, Ciro addressed letters to every deacon, priest, and prelate in the general directory, hoping to find someone who had information regarding his brother’s final orders.
Ciro was careful not to smudge the ink as he addressed the last envelope. He laid the sealed letters in the bright sunshine of the hotel windowsill so they might dry as he dressed. As he pulled on his boots, he saw a split in the seam where the upper met the sole. He examined it, then looked around the room for supplies to fix it. He pulled scissors and a large sewing needle from his backpack. The last time he’d used either was to dress a wound incurred by his friend Juan when he stepped on a spike of barbed wire buried in a trench’s mud.
The surgical thread wouldn’t hold the leather, so Ciro looked around the room for string with heft that might work. He was prepared to take the pull string from his windowshade when his eyes fell on his knapsack. Instead, he clipped a six-inch portion of the pull cord from the knapsack, knotting the end. Then he threaded the cord through the needle and sewed his torn shoe together, deftly securing the thinning leather to the sole. He tidied up the end, looping it through the upper so it might hold.
Ciro slipped into his boot, pleased with his temporary fix. The patch job should last until he was back on the machines at the Zanetti Shoe Shop. He gathered up his letters and left the hotel.
The side streets of Rome were packed with foreigners who had been siphoned through Italy on their way home from France. Ciro saw an occasional American soldier, who would nod at him, but for the most part, the men wearing uniforms were with the Italian army.
Wherever there were soldiers, there were the parasol girls, like the redhead who had greeted Ciro when he first arrived in New York. He looked at those girls differently now, understanding that they needed work, just as he did. There seemed to be so many more of them on the streets of Rome than there had been in New York.
Ciro was comfortable as he walked the streets of the city, not because he was a native Italian, but because the noise reminded him of Manhattan. He found himself looking into the faces of those he passed, hoping he might recognize a priest or a nun who might be able to help him find his brother.
The addresses on the envelopes took him to various parts of the city, requiring a good deal of walking to deliver them. He had one to deliver to the center of the city, and one a mile away, at the basilica within the gardens of Montecatini. He learned that he must hike up beyond Viterbo to the small chapel on the hillside outside of Rome, where the Franciscans stayed when they traveled through. Having delivered the last letter, Ciro lingered outside the chapel until nightfall, hoping that his brother might miraculously pass through on his way to the Vatican. But with hundreds of priests and seminarians in Rome at any given time, Ciro knew his chances of getting to Eduardo were slipping through his fingers with each passing day.
Ciro walked back toward the city, stopping at a crowded restaurant, a simple open-walled structure with a loggia shaded with olive branches. Jugs of homemade wine were filled to the top, splashing purple tears onto the white tablecloths as the waitresses set them out for customers. There was much chatter and laughter as hearty bowls of risotto speckled with mushrooms and chestnuts, with a side of hot, crusty bread, were served to the locals, farmers, construction workers, and day laborers. Ciro was the only soldier in the restaurant. His uniform drew some curious stares.
Ciro tore into the feast hungrily, having spent the day on foot, unable to stop to eat, because he wanted to deliver every last envelope to the correct address. He hoped the meal would fill him up, and even ease the heavy burden he felt in his heart. He had all but given up hope that he would see Eduardo again. He sipped the wine, which soothed him as the warmth of the smoky grapes spread through his body. He knew that when he sailed back to America, it would be many years before he would return to Italy.
The waitress placed a bowl of fresh figs on the table. Ciro looked up at her. He guessed her to be around forty. Her black hair was streaked with white, pulled off her face in a low chignon. She wore a linen apron over a black muslin skirt and red blouse. She had an attractive face, with black Roman eyes. She smiled at Ciro, and he nodded respectfully. He sipped his espresso, and remembered a time before he was a soldier when he would have smiled back at her, prolonged her stay at his table, suggested they steal away for a few minutes later in the evening. Ciro shook his head. It seemed that everything about him had changed; his reaction to the world and the things that went on in it was as unpredictable as the moods of a Vatican secretary.
Ciro stood at the front desk of the Tiziano Hotel, looking at the mail cubbies behind it. Most were stuffed with letters and newspapers, but when he gave the attendant his room number, there was nothing. Not a single response to any of the letters he had delivered.
Ciro climbed the steps to his room. Once inside, he sat and unbuckled his boots. He slipped them off and leaned back on the bed. What a fool’s errand this trip to Rome had been! Ciro’s face flushed with embarrassment when he thought about the long story he’d told the attendant at the Vatican rectory, dropping in the names of priests and the orders of nuns that he knew from his days in the convent. It had been a disingenuous exercise, a waste; no soldier in mended boots could possibly impress any watchman to the pope. Ciro chided himself for forgetting to bribe them with money—that might have worked.
There was a soft knock at the door. Ciro got up to answer, expecting the night maid. Instead, his heart filled with joy as he looked into tender brown eyes he had not seen in seven years. “Brother!” Ciro shouted.
Eduardo embraced Ciro and slipped into the room. Ciro closed the door behind him and looked at his brother, who wore the mud brown robes of the Franciscans. A belt of white hemp rope was knotted around his waist. Upon his feet, he wore sandals with three bands of plain brown leather across the top of his foot. Eduardo threw the hood off his head; his black hair was cropped short. The glasses once used only for reading were perched on his nose. The round lenses trimmed in gold gave Eduardo a sober, professorial look.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Ciro said. “I left letters in every rectory in Rome.”
“I’ve heard,” Eduardo said. He sized up his brother and couldn’t believe what he saw. Ciro was terribly thin, and his thick hair was shorn, but more shocking to Eduardo were the dark circles under Ciro’s eyes, the hollow spaces where there once had been robust, full cheeks. “You look terrible.”
“I know. I don’t make a very handsome soldier.” Ciro looked around the room. “I have nothing to offer you.”
“That’s all right. I’m not even supposed to be here. If the monsignor finds out, they’ll kick me out of the order. This visit is not allowed, and I must hurry, and be back at the rectory before they realize I’m gone.”
“You’re not allowed to spend time with your only brother?” Ciro said. “Do they know you’re all I have in the world?”
“I don’t expect you to understand, but there’s a reason for it. To become a priest, I have to separate from all I love in the world, and sadly, that includes you. I have something to occupy my heart in a wholly different way now, but I understand that you don’t. If you love me, pray for me. Because I pray for you, Ciro. Always.”
“Any racket but the Holy Roman Church. You could have had any career in the world. Writer. Printer. We could’ve bought the old press and bound books and sold them like the Montinis. But you had to put on the robes. Why, Eduardo? I would have been happy had you been a tax collector—anything but the priesthood.” Ciro fell back on the bed.
Eduardo laughed. “It’s not a career, it’s a life.”
“Some life. Cloistered away. Vows of silence. I could never shut you up. How can you live that way?”
“I’ve changed,” Eduardo said. “But I see you haven’t. And I’m glad.”
“You just can’t see it. But I’m different now,” Ciro said. “I don’t know how I could be the same after what I’ve seen.” He sat down next to Eduardo. “Sometimes I get a good night’s sleep, and I wake up and think, Anything is possible. You’re not in the trenches. You don’t have a gun. Your time is your own again. But there’s a heaviness inside me. I don’t trust that the world is better now. And why else would we have gone to war? What reason could there possibly be to behave like a bunch of animals? I’ll never know the answer.”
“You’re an American now,” Eduardo said.
“True—I will be a full citizen soon. And at least I was on the side of the mighty. I wish you could come with me and live in America.”
“You’ll have to be in the world for me, Ciro.”
“I wonder if I still know how to do that.”
“I hope you will have a wife and a family, the way you always dreamed of. Give them the childhood you always wanted. Be the father we didn’t have. There has to be a special girl. You wrote to me about the May Queen at your church.”
“I only wrote about Felicitá to impress you. I wanted you to think that I’d found religion through a pious princess. I found a lot, but not God. She married a nice Sicilian.”
“I’m sorry. Is there anyone else?”
“No,” Ciro replied, but even as he spoke, an image of Enza Ravanelli appeared in his mind’s eye, and his body filled with a sad ache.
“I don’t believe it. No one loves women more than you do.”
“Is that an achievement?”
“You had a knack for it. There was never any question that marriage would be your calling. It’s not really that different from my own calling. We both reached out for what we needed. Whether it’s spiritual or emotional sustenance, we both went looking for our heart’s fulfillment.”
“Except you have to live in a cell.”
“I am leading a good life in that cell.”
“What about Mama? Have you learned anything else since you wrote to me?”
Eduardo reached into his pocket. “The sisters at San Nicola forwarded this letter to me.”
“What does it say?”
Eduardo unfolded the letter. “She’s had a hard time, Ciro.”
Ciro’s heart was pierced with pain at the thought of his mother suffering.
“All I ever wanted was for the three of us to be together again. Papa was taken from us, but you and me and Mama, that could have been.” Ciro wiped the tears from his eyes.
“I pray every day for Papa’s soul, Ciro. We can’t forget all the effort that went into securing our happiness and safety. Mama tried her best to protect us. No matter what happened, we have to be grateful to her for knowing what was best for us.”
“I wanted her,” Ciro cried. “And even now, she doesn’t want us to know where she is. Why?”
“She tries to answer that in the letter. She was ill when she left the mountain, and she thought she would return.”
“But she didn’t,” Ciro said. “We lost Papa, then we lost Mama. And tomorrow I’m going to lose you.”
“You will never lose me, Ciro. I risked my ordination to come to you tonight. I came to tell you to be strong. Don’t be afraid. You’re my brother, and you will always be the most important person in my life. As soon as I’m ordained, I will find Mama, and I’ll keep her safe until you can see her again. It’s all I can do.”
“Do you really want this life?”
“I want to be useful. To use my mind. To pray. To know God.”
“What do you get out of it?”
“To know God makes sense of life, I don’t know how else to say it. Come to my ordination tomorrow, Ciro. I want you to be there. Ten o’clock at St. Peter’s Basilica.”
Eduardo stood and opened his arms to Ciro. Ciro remembered scrubbing the statue of Saint Francis, and how careful he had been with the folds of the robe, where the artist had carefully drawn slim lines and painted them with gold leaf. Now, standing before him, was his humble brother, the finest man he would ever know in the same brown robes of the Franciscan order. Ciro embraced him, and felt the billowing sleeves of Eduardo’s robes enfold him like wings.
Eduardo lifted the hood of his robe and placed it on his head. He opened the door, then turned back to Ciro. “I’ll write to you as soon as I know where they’re sending me. If you ever need me, I will come to you, regardless of what the church says.”
“And I’ll come to you, regardless of what the church says.” Ciro smiled. “That would be my pleasure.”
“I knew that.” Eduardo slipped out the door, closing it softly behind him. Ciro sat down on the bed and unfolded the letter from his mother.
Dear Eduardo and Ciro,
I am so proud of my boys. You have become a shoemaker, and Eduardo, a priest. A mother wants her children to be happy, and please know that’s all I ever wanted for you.
When I left you and Eduardo at the convent, I had planned to return that summer. But my health took a terrible turn, and I was unable to return to Vilminore. The sisters were good about sending your marks and updates about your life in the convent. I was happy to know that there was never a time that a single hearth was not prepared to be lit. The sisters said they had never known what it was like to have the fireplaces roaring at once, keeping the convent warm. I am so proud of you. I hope to be well enough to see you someday, and your brother too. Your mama loves you.
The charcoal clouds hung low over the Piazza di San Pietro as rain fell onto the cobblestones like silver stickpins. The piazza outside the Vatican was empty as the crowds sought shelter under the colonnade from the downpour, including a cluster of pigeons lined up on the joice overhead, perched like a row of musical notes.
Ciro stood by a red obelisk in his brown uniform as the rain jingled against his tin helmet. He took a final drag off his cigarette, tossed it away, and walked to the entrance of the church as a slew of black-and-white nuns, moving in an orderly cluster, entered the Basilica. Ciro took off his hat, bowed his head to the nuns, and walked with them as they entered the church. He smiled when he thought of Sister Teresa, who had advised him to look for the black-and-whites when he was unknown in a city. Ciro Lazzari felt unknown everywhere he went now.
He knelt in a pew behind the nuns. They bowed their heads in prayer, but Ciro looked around, taking in the architecture of the Basilica as though it were the church of San Nicola and he was assessing it for a spring cleaning. Even though his brother’s life was about to change forever, penitents and tourists meandered through the massive portals, stopping to pray at the sepulchers and shrines in a most ordinary way. There was not the feeling of something special in the air.
A group of African priests in gold robes walked up the left transept and disappeared into a chapel behind the main altar. The Vatican, Ciro thought, was like a train station, disparate groups peeling off from one another to go to various destinations, under one roof, leading where? he wondered.
The aisle soon filled with what seemed like hundreds of priests in the brown robes of the Franciscans, tied with white rope belts. Ciro watched the ordained priests glide by silently.
Following the brown robes, a choir of altar boys carried the brass-trimmed candles of acolytes. The candidates followed them, in starched white robes, in two long lines. They filed by the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the right transept, hands buried deep in their billowing white sleeves, heads bowed reverently.
Ciro had moved behind a rope attended by Vatican guards to get a better look at the seminarians’ faces. He made note of every face, one after another, until finally he found Eduardo, resplendent in white.
Ciro reached across the rope to touch his brother’s arm. Eduardo smiled at Ciro before two Vatican guards took Ciro by the arm, pulled him to a side aisle, then removed him to the back of the church. It wouldn’t matter if the guards had dumped Ciro in the Tiber; he had seen Eduardo on the most important day of his life. That was all that mattered.
Ciro whispered to the guards, explaining that his brother was receiving holy orders. They took pity on the soldier and allowed him to watch from the back of the pews.
Eduardo lay on the cold marble floor, arms outstretched in the shape of a cross, face to the floor, as the cardinal in his ruby red zucchetto leaned over him to administer chrism and holy oil. Tears sprang to Ciro’s eyes as his brother rose to his feet to receive his blessing. He had lost Eduardo for good as the sign of the cross was placed upon his brother’s forehead.
Ciro stayed in the Basilica long after the ceremony, hoping that his brother would make his way from the sacristy out into the church, as he had on so many mornings at San Nicola, to set out the Holy Book and the chalice and light the candles for mass.
But the Holy Roman Church had other ideas. As soon as Eduardo was made a priest, he was shuttled away swiftly. Eduardo was on his way to his assignment, and that could be anywhere! Sicily, or Africa, or as close as the gardens of Montecatini in the center of Rome. Near or far, it didn’t matter. Eduardo was gone. It was finished.
The arrangements made by the U.S. Army to return Ciro home to America were through the port of Naples. Ciro bought a one-way train ticket to Naples at the station.
As he stood on the platform, waiting for the train, Ciro imagined what it would be like to take the old Roman road, Via Tiberius, out of the city and up to Bologna to catch the train to Bergamo. He imagined taking the Passo Presolana up the mountain by carriage and looking down into the gorge, finding the brown brambles of late autumn every bit as beautiful as the spring flowers. Ciro imagined that he would appreciate everything about where he came from now, but the ache in his heart wasn’t about missing a particular place; it was about something else entirely. He knew he must return to America to put that ache to rest.
Enza turned the work light off on her sewing machine. She rose from her work stool and stretched her back.
“Hey, you.” Vito poked his head into the costume shop. “How about dinner?”
“How about yes?” Enza pulled on her coat and grabbed her purse.
“Where’s Laura?” Vito asked.
“Colin took her to see the boys tonight.”
With a twinkle in his eye, Vito hummed the wedding march. “Bum, bum, bum, bum . . .”
“Where are we going?” Enza pulled her coat from the closet. “Do I need gloves?”
“And a hat.”
“Fancy?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m a very fancy girl,” Enza said.
“When did this happen?”
“There’s a gentleman who keeps taking me places. And now I can’t drink out of anything but Bavarian crystal, and if the caviar isn’t cold, I can’t eat it.”
“Poor you.”
“I’m afraid I’ll never see Hoboken again.”
“You can wave to it from the first-class cabin of the Queen Mary.”
Vito took Enza’s hand as they left the Met. He guided her west; Enza figured they were going to one of Vito’s favorite bistros in the theater district, intimate rooms with glazed brick walls, low lighting, and rare steaks on the table. Instead, he kept walking, taking her to the west-side docks at Thirty-eighth Street.
A massive construction site greeted them, a surface of gravel plowed smooth over river silt and mud. Dump trucks were parked by the river’s edge, while a cement mixer was angled near the street. There were stacks of steel beams, enormous wheels of tubing, bins of picks, and large shovels resting in wheelbarrows.
Enza waited on the ramp outside the construction booth while Vito ducked inside. Enza chuckled to herself. Vito was always planning an adventure. If he wasn’t renting out the Ferris wheel at Coney Island just for the two of them, he was taking her to speakeasies where the jazz was as smooth as the gin. Vito was a man who knew how to live, and he wanted everyone in his life to live it up. After a moment, Vito emerged with two tin hard hats. He handed her one.
She removed her hat and put on the hard hat. “You said it was fancy.”
“You wait,” he said.
Vito helped Enza into the outdoor elevator. He snapped the gate and pressed the button that would lift them to the top of the construction site. Enza held her heart as the elevator ascended up into the night sky. She felt as if she was flying, though Vito had a firm grip on her. Soon the panorama at her feet changed, and she looked out over New York City at night, rolled out beneath them like a bolt of midnight blue silk moire staggered with crystals.
“What do you think?” Vito asked.
“I think you’re a magician. You pull things from the ordinary and turn them into magic.”
“There’s something I want to give you.”
“I think this view is plenty.”
“No, it’s not enough. I want to give you everything. I want to give you the world.”
“You already have.” Enza rested her head on his shoulder. “You’ve given me confidence and adventure. You’ve given me a new way of being.”
“And I want to give you more—” Vito pulled her close. “Everything I am. Everything I dream. And everything you could imagine. It would be my purpose and joy to make you happy. Will you marry me, Vincenza Ravanelli?”
Enza looked out over the shimmering lights of Manhattan. She couldn’t believe she had come this far, and climbed this high. She thought of a thousand reasons to say yes, but she only needed one. Vito Blazek would make sure she had fun. Life would be a party. After years of taking care of everyone else, Vito vowed to take care of her. Enza had worked hard, and now she was ready to experience life with a man who knew how to live.
“What do you say, Enza?”
“Yes! I say yes!”
Vito kissed her, her face, then her ear, then her neck.
He placed a round ruby surrounded by diamond chips on her hand. “The ruby is my heart, and the diamonds are you—you’re my life, Enza.” He kissed her, and she felt her body weaken in his arms. “I would make love to you right here, if you’d let me,” he whispered in her ear.
“I’m afraid of heights, Vito.”
“Will you change your mind on the ground?” he teased.
“Let’s get married first.” Enza had traveled far from home, but her parents’ hopes lived within her. She was a proper young woman, raised in a religious home by pious parents. She would continue to follow their rules, even though she had earned the right to make her own decisions long ago. Enza believed there was a beauty in the sacraments that brought grace to living. She wanted a life of refinement and serenity, and certainly Vito, with his grand vision of the future, understood that. He believed Enza deserved the best because she was, without a name, education, or position, the embodiment of true elegance. Her natural grace had been born in her. It could not have been manufactured or bought. It simply was.
The crisp autumn air was cold and sweet, like vanilla smoke. High above the city, Enza was no longer the Hoboken factory girl, but a hardworking American woman of Italian birth who had risen to a new station in life, a climb not to the second floor on the service stairs but to the penthouse via the elevator.
Enza would marry Vito Blazek.
As a team, these two young professionals, one an artisan, the other a liaison to the talent, would continue to work at the Metropolitan Opera House, eat breakfast at the Plaza Hotel, and dance at the Sutton Place Mews. They had fine friends; they wore silk, drank champagne, and knew where to buy peonies in the winter. They were on their way up.