Just a little farther away, under trees in a pool of shade, the older ladies sat together gossiping and tending to the very youngest. Mrs. Quinlan and Margaret were there too, because the detective sergeant had made sure to find places for them next to his aunt Philomena. There seemed to be a law that dictated black clothing for Italian women over a certain age, but Mrs. Quinlan wore a simple day dress of sprigged cotton, white flowers against a turquoise background, and looked like an exotic bird among the crows.
The older men were playing a gentle game that reminded Elise of horseshoes, but with a ball. It looked interesting, but Italians were like everybody else, with strict ideas of where women belonged, and where they didn’t. Her place was here looking after the little ones.
Beyond the very old and the very young, everyone had something to do. Every once in a while Elise got a glimpse of Rosa and Lia in the middle of a small group of girls who had been given rags and piles of dishes to wipe. They were completely absorbed in this work, chattering with the other kids as if they had all grown up together. Children survived, if they had half a chance. Children who could form attachments survived best.
“Look,” said Chiara. “Cesare is going to fall off the ladder and break his head.”
The band pavilion was crowded with people arranging chairs and music stands. Younger men stood on ladders, hanging red, white, and green bunting on a frame. One of them was reaching so far that it did seem as if the ladder would tip.
“Sicilian,” Bambina said, frowning at her knitting. “Made of rubber. They bounce.”
Her tone was not complimentary. Elise considered for a moment and then asked, “You don’t like Sicilians?”
A pained expression crossed Bambina’s face. “I’ve got nothing against them, as long as they stay away from me.”
Elise decided that it would be better to ask Jack about this. Bambina seemed to want to change the subject, too, because she decided that Elise needed to be able to identify all the band instruments being taken out of cases. She pointed out a sousaphone, trumpets, bassoons, clarinets, and three kinds of drums, every bit of brass and copper polished so that it reflected in the sun.
At home in Vermont Elise had known only fiddles and pennywhistles and Mr. Esquibel’s fipple flute, brought out at parties. Once she entered the convent she had heard no musical instruments beyond the organ. She knew that there were other kinds of instruments but had never given them much thought. Certainly she hadn’t imagined anything like this, especially when the band began to tune their instruments. All the sounds wound together like a badly pieced quilt, wavering up and down and finally settling.
The bandleader was standing off to the side, all his attention taken up by an elegantly dressed older man. This, Chiara said in an almost reverent tone, was Mr. Moro, head of the Benevolent Society.
Then Anna appeared out of nowhere, sliding in neatly between Bambina and Chiara. She had changed out of the very plain suit she wore when she left for the hospital to a summery gown. There was a layer of pale sea green, another with a faint narrow stripe in the same color, and an overdress printed with twining vines and budding flowers. The bodice of the overdress was constructed of panels that flowed into a split skirt. The back was just as striking, pleats falling from a graceful curved yoke at the shoulders. The whole effect was simple and somehow misleading. You might not notice how pretty it was unless you took the time to look closely, and no doubt some wouldn’t bother because it was completely out of fashion.
Most of the Mezzanotte women were dressed like country women everywhere, in comfortable sleeveless bodices worn over linen blouses, wide skirts and aprons. Only Bambina wore something that might have come out of an illustrated magazine, not flamboyant but very stylish, her skirts bunched at the sides to reveal a ruffled underskirt.
Elise couldn’t stop herself from asking. “Dr. Savard—Anna. Is that the dress you wore when you got married?”
Chiara’s whole posture changed, like a hunting dog coming across a promising scent. She was always wanting to know more about the quiet little wedding ceremony on Staten Island. Somehow she didn’t believe it could have been as simple as both Anna and Jack claimed. Bambina was just as curious, Chiara knew that for a fact, but she wore a more studiously disinterested expression.
“No,” Anna said. “Remind me later and I’ll show you what dress I was wearing. It was nothing out of the ordinary, Chiara. We didn’t set out that day with plans to marry.”
Chiara’s expression was resigned, but then she asked a question Elise would never have known how to put into an acceptable form.
“Why do you dress like you do? Don’t you care about fashion?”
Anna didn’t take offense easily, it seemed. She said, “Mostly it has to do with my work. Tight bodices and narrow skirts are the last thing you want in an operating room. You have to be able to move freely. When I’m not working I can’t see the logic in being uncomfortable, either.”
Bambina said, “Anna belongs to the Rational Dress Society. The one that is so radical about what women wear. They’d have us all in trousers if they ruled the world.”