“Strip to your underwear and go by the fire,” Father Re said. “I’ll send Mimo to fetch you some dry clothes.”
Pino took off his boots and socks, grimaced at the nasty blisters, all of which had popped and were a livid red.
“We’ll put iodine and salt on those,” Father Re said.
Pino cringed. When he was down to his undershorts, he chattered, hugged his chest, and hobbled into the dining hall where all forty boys were quietly studying under the watchful eye of Brother Bormio. The second they saw mostly naked Pino doing his awkward, exaggerated walk toward the fireplace, they broke into howls of laughter, with Mimo laughing hardest of all. Even Brother Bormio seemed to find it funny.
Pino waved them off, didn’t care, just wanted to be as close as he could get to that fire. He stood on the warm hearth for several long minutes, shifting his body one way and then another until Mimo arrived with dry clothes. When Pino had dressed, Father Re came over with a mug of hot tea and a bowl filled with warm salt water for his feet. Pino drank the tea thankfully and had to grit his teeth when he plunged his feet into the salt water.
The priest asked Pino for a complete rundown of the morning’s exercise. He told Father Re all about it, including his encounter with the angry man from Soste.
“You didn’t get a look at his face?”
“He was kind of far, and it was raining,” Pino said.
Father Re thought about that. “After lunch, you can take a nap, and then you owe me three hours of studying.”
Pino yawned and nodded. He ate like the proverbial horse, limped down to his bunk, and passed out cold the moment his head hit the pillow.
The following morning, Father Re shook him awake an hour later than he had the previous day.
“Get up,” he said. “You have another climb ahead of you. Breakfast in five minutes.”
Pino moved, felt sore everywhere, but his blisters were better for the salt bath.
Still, he dressed as if he were in a fog as thick as the one he’d encountered the day before. He was a growing teenage boy. He liked to sleep a lot and couldn’t stop yawning as he gingerly made his way in stocking feet back to the dining hall. Father Re was waiting with food and a topographical map.
“I want you to flank to the north today,” Father Re said, tapping the wide lines that defined the bench at Motta, including the cart track that dropped down the mountain to Madesimo, and then a series of tight lines indicating increasing steepness beyond it. “Stay high crossing the face here and here. You’ll find game trails that will help you cross this ravine. And eventually you’ll end up over here in this meadow up the slope from Madesimo. Would you recognize it?”
Pino stared at the map. “I think so, but why don’t I avoid that face, drop down to Madesimo on the two-track, and then climb straight up to that spot? It would be faster.”
“It would be,” Father Re said. “But I’m not interested in your speed, just that you can find your way and not be seen.”
“Why?”
“I have my reasons, which I’ll keep to myself for now, Pino. It’s safer that way.”
That only deepened Pino’s confusion, but he said, “Okay. And then back?”
“No,” the priest said. “I want you to climb into the bowl of the north cirque. Look for the game trail that goes up and over into Val di Lei. Don’t climb it unless you feel you’re ready. You can come back and try another day.”
Pino sighed, knowing he was in for another rough hike.
Weather wasn’t a factor. It was a beautiful late September morning in the southern Alps. But Pino’s muscles and taped blisters nagged at him as he maneuvered across rocky catwalks on the western face of the Groppera and through a ravine choked with old logs and avalanche debris. It took him more than two hours to reach the meadow Father Re had shown him on the map. He started uphill through deep alpine grasses, already turned paler than brown.
Like Anna’s hair, Pino thought, examining the hairs that surrounded the seed pods, mature, and ready to spread on the wind. He remembered Anna on the sidewalk beyond the bakery, and how he’d rushed to keep up with her. Her hair was just like this, he decided, only riper, lusher. As he climbed on, the soft stalks of grass sliding across his bare legs made him smile.
Ninety minutes later he reached the north cirque. It looked like the interior of a volcano, with three-hundred-meter sheer walls to his left and right and ragged, sharp stone teeth along the top. Pino found the goat trail and thought about climbing it, but decided he wouldn’t be worth a damn up there with his feet feeling like ground meat. Instead, he dropped straight downhill to Madesimo.
He reached the village at one o’clock that Friday afternoon, went to the inn, ate, and reserved a room. The innkeepers were kind people with three children, including seven-year-old Nicco.
“I’m a skier,” Nicco boasted to Pino while he wolfed down his food.
“I am, too,” Pino said.
“Not as good as me.”
Pino grinned. “Probably not.”
“I’ll take you skiing when it snows,” the boy said. “Show you.”
“I look forward to that,” Pino said, and tousled Nicco’s hair.
Stiff, but no longer ravenous, Pino went in search of Alberto Ascari, but the engine repair shop wasn’t open. He left a note telling Ascari of his plan to return in the evening, and hiked back to Casa Alpina.
Father Re listened closely to Pino’s description of crossing the cliffy face of the Groppera, and his decision not to climb the north cirque.
The priest nodded. “You don’t want to be in the rocks if you’re not ready for them. You will be soon enough.”
“Father, after I’m done studying, I’m going to go down to Madesimo to spend the night and see my friend Alberto Ascari,” Pino said.
When Father Re squinted, Pino reminded him that weekends were his own.
“I did say that,” the priest said. “Go, have fun, and rest up, but be ready to start again Monday morning.”
Pino took a nap and then studied ancient history and math, before reading the play The Giants on the Mountain by Luigi Pirandello. It was past five when he started back down the trail to Madesimo in his street shoes. His feet were killing him, but he hobbled all the way to the inn, checked in, spent time regaling little Nicco with his ski-racing stories, and then went to Ascari’s uncle’s house.
Alberto opened the door, welcomed him, and insisted he come in for dinner. His aunt was a better cook than Brother Bormio, which was saying something. Ascari’s uncle loved to talk about cars, so they got on famously. Pino gorged himself to the point where he almost fell asleep during dessert.
Ascari and his uncle helped him back to the hotel, where Pino kicked off his shoes, flopped on the bed, and slept in his clothes.
His friend knocked on his door right after dawn.
“Why are you up so early?” Pino asked, yawning. “I was going to—”