To Find a Mountain

Chapter Thirty-four

The weeks dragged on, several months passed and then spring came. The flowers along the edge of town began to show the tips of their white blossoms, throwing a false, hypocritical light of gaiety onto the area.

Dominic’s letters arrived in the same place every week. The first few were short and to the point, not straying far from the expected ‘how are you?’, ‘I miss you’, ‘it’s lonely up here,’ to even cliché descriptions of the weather. But with each letter, he seemed to become more confident, more willing to express his feelings, as if writing about his emotions seemed to simultaneously make him more aware of them.

It was hard for me to believe that the young shy boy I’d first met walking up the mountain had managed to transform himself into something of a poet, but it was true. I felt that his words, his willingness to stray beyond the first traditional proclamations of affection for me were symbolic of how he was reaching out to me. Yes, sometimes he did fall into cliché, maybe he was even a bit sappy at times, but behind the words themselves the meaning was genuine, and I felt that honesty; I responded mentally and physically to the beauty of his truth.

I knew my father would not approve of the letter-writing, he had told me, after all, to stop, but I did not care. No one was being harmed. Besides, I could tell Papa that we were just friends, even though I hoped it wasn’t true.

I believed in following my heart, and my heart was leading me to Dominic. I answered his letters, his assertions of love, with my own.

Still, my father and mother always said I had a strong head on my shoulders and it was my head, not my heart, that began to suggest there was something wrong with the letters. Something about the way Dominic began with simple sentences and then switched to more flowery words. Even though I knew the sentiments being expressed were beyond reproach, I began to wonder if the actual words used to express them were his own.

I went to my father’s room and looked at his bookcase. Not sure of what I was looking for, I scanned the titles on the shelf. There were some textbooks from his schooling so long ago. Father had only made it to the fifth grade before Nonna pulled him out and sent him to work in the fields. There were also a few picture books and a volume of poetry. Nothing seemed to stir my memory.

It was then that I remembered Luigi Iacobelli.

Without stopping to consider what I was doing, I walked out of the house and struck out for Luigi’s house. As I walked, I tried to remember what I’d heard. I knew that Signor Iacobelli had once wanted to be a priest, and had attended a prestigious seminary in Rome, but that he had grown tired of the priesthood. There were rumors that he had left the church with abandon, living a decadent lifestyle for several years before returning to Casalveri. He had the largest book collection in town, and people who needed to know something often went to his house to look something up on his bookshelf; in essence he was the town’s library.

I also knew that many young men went to his house; there was rumored to be a secret bookshelf that even Signora Iacobelli did not know about. There were supposed to be books that had such things in them, scandalous things, things that would get a young boy like Luigi kicked out of the seminary.

I reached the Iacobelli house and knocked upon the front door. The house was a small, lopsided structure made of stone with a long grape vine winding its way around the walls, like a green snake bringing fresh fruit to its next victim.

The door opened and Signora Iacobelli smiled at me.

“Benedetta! Come in, come in. How are you?”

“Good, Signora. And you?”

“We’re just fine, just fine. What can I do for you, girl?”

“Actually, I’m here to see Signor Iacobelli.”

“Ah, you need to look something up, no?” Without waiting for a reply, she yelled toward the back of the house. “Gigi! You have a visitor.” She turned back to me.

“I must return to the kitchen, Benedetta…”

I stood silently in the front entryway and looked at a small oil painting hanging crookedly on the wall. It was a picture of a young girl and a young man standing back-to-back beneath a tree.

“You like it? I bought it in Rome.”

I turned to see Signor Iacobelli watching me from the hallway. He was in a wheelchair, a stump where his left leg should have been.

“It’s nice.”

“What can I do for you?” he said.

“I’m looking for a book…”

“You have come to the right place, follow me.”

We went back down the hallway, passed the main room of the house, then turned left and went into a small room that was crowded with books from floor to ceiling. The bookshelves covered every wall and they were overflowing. Stacks of books were piled in corners and on tables. It was a mess.

“Now, what kind of book were you looking for?”

“A book of letters. Love letters.” I felt myself blush.

Signor Iacobelli seemed to ponder that for a moment, and eyed me closely.

“I don’t think I can help you with that one, Benedetta.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Do you not have it, or can you not help me?” I watched him closely and he dropped his gaze.

“I may have had a book like that at one time…”

“Did a young man borrow it?”

He shrugged his shoulders and held his hands out. “So many people borrow books from me, it is hard to keep things straight — as you can see.”

My heart sank. He was not going to help me. I started to thank him for his time, but then a thought came to me.

“My brother will be so disappointed,” I said.

“Your brother?”

“Yes, Emidio has a crush on a little girl, and he asked me to write her a love letter. I had heard that you might have a book of these things.”

“But Emidio is so young!” the old man said.

“A young romantic,” I corrected.

He laughed heartily and clapped his hands together.

“Ah, yes, I was young myself once, and in love. I was in love so many, many, many times.” He chucked deliciously and seemed lost in thought for a moment, a guilty, pleasurable smile on his face.

At last, he faced me. “Now, what I said Benedetta, was that I may have had such a book. That is true. I did have one at one time. But the men in the mountains, they need to write letters home to their girls, and some of them came and got it from me.”

I knew then that I had my answer, but I could not stop now.

“However,” he said quietly, looking over my shoulder to make sure Signora Iacobelli was not listening. “For some of my more, how shall we say, radical works of literature, I do have copies, just in case the original gets…appropriated. Wait here.”

He pushed himself into a small closet in the corner of the room and lifted something. I heard wood scraping, Signor Iacobelli grunted as he lifted a heavy object, then rummaged around. After much effort, he replaced the object, then closed the closet door.

When he came out, there were beads of perspiration on his forehead.

“Here we are. But be careful with it, it is my last copy.”

I glanced down quickly. Letters of Love.

“Thank you. Emidio will be so happy.”

I raced home and went directly to my room. I read the first few pages and nothing struck me, but on the fourth page I recognized this passage:

“nightingales whisper your name, and the chambers of my heart resonate with their song.”

As I read on, more and more of the words were the same words Dominic had used in his letters. I was not seized by an insane fury, after all, I still felt that the emotion he was expressing was genuine and it was not uncommon for men to look for help in writing flowery letters. Still, I started to get warm, as a slow anger rose within me. I thought of Lauretta, so much wiser in the way of young men than myself, she probably would have not been surprised by something like this. She probably would shrug her shoulders and say, “that’s what men do.”

But I was different, I had not expected something like this, as obvious as it now seemed to me.

I got out a piece of paper and a pen, scribbled a short note and walked out to the rock wall. I lifted the stone, hesitated, then opened my letter again to read it.

Dominic,

Your last letter was so warm and heartfelt, I know you love me so much to say these words straight from your heart. You have no idea how it makes me feel to know that a man of your honesty and integrity loves me.

In fact, I don’t think I can go on writing, so instead of trying to put anything down, why don’t you turn to page 46 of your book for the rest of my letter.

Love,

Benedetta

I slipped the note under the rock and pushed it back into the wall.