In their convent’s subterranean chapel, white-robed nuns knelt in unified prayer, fingered ebony beads. In the Benedictine monastery above, the male counterparts of their illustrious order did not stop to rest, for this was July—their busiest season! No time for languid Reposas, not even prayer. The fame of their delectable Cherry Cordial depended on their devotion to vats, casks, secret formulas, and vigilant pressings! As the diligent Sisters ran not only the village school but everything else they considered worthy of their administrative skills, the busy Fathers had, long ago, relinquished their expected dominance to them, in their consummate need to nurture, bring to fruition the glorious ruby-red elixir they adored, which depended on them so. The village of Cirié, enormously proud of its chemist monks, forgave them whatever shortcomings arose in their most holy duties.
As had been their custom since their First Communion, Giovanna and her friends, Camilla, Teresa, and Antonia, brought their high-backed chairs to the village square to sit and work lace in the dense shade of its mighty chestnut; a tree so ancient no one was left who could vouch for its beginning.
It was only when Father Tomasso Innocente proclaimed that the Holy Virgin Mother herself must have surely commanded the mountain winds to blow—to carry the seed of their glorious tree to nestle amidst the granite, there to take root for the sole purpose of bringing comforting shade to her beloved flock of the village of Cirié—that everyone had finally acepted this Holy Dictum.
Regardless, the four girls were grateful for the mighty chestnut’s welcoming shade. Small work pillows positioned securely on their laps, they began fashioning lace. Each rapid movement, studied and precise, their practiced fingers flipping bobbins, pinning, twisting, knotting the fine cotton threads over and under, back and forth, they formed the intricate patterns of delicate lace indigenous to their region of Piedmont, which would later be sold in the elegant city of Turin, down the mountain path only six hours away on foot, even less if one rode a mule or had the luxury of a horse-drawn cart.
Camilla, pink, plump, and pretty, liked little glass beads to weigh her bobbins. Whenever the gypsy peddlers came to the village, she searched through their leather pouches for hours, hoping to find some in her favorite colors of leaf green and palest rose. Once tied to her bobbins in little bunches, the tinkling sound they made when she flipped them was pretty, and their colors in motion delighted her.
Antonia, a cool Madonna with passionate eyes, preferred bits of bleached bone, delicately carved into animal shapes by her father’s surgeon hands.
Teresa, a docile girl, already the designated nun of her large family, used weights her mother found when she was seventeen during an exciting summer journey down to the sea; fragile shells, curled and spiraled, with tiny holes just right for thread.
Giovanna made do with small buttons. They did the job, even jingled softly like the others.
Their weighted bobbins bouncing, playing their individual tunes, the girls worked in accustomed companionship. Sitting so straight on their high-backed chairs, glossy dark heads bent in determined concentration, their classic profiles as though chiseled from finest marble, they looked like an artist’s rendering of what they were—four Italian virgins fashioning lace at the beginning of their womanhood and their century.
A drawn-out snore drifted across from the taverna. Somewhere a baby cried, a dog rooted through his coarse hair searching for fleas, teeth clicking in excited anticipation, a cart-horse, head down, dozing, flicked flies with a matted tail, a woman in a red flowered wrapper, one buttock balanced on her windowsill, sat fanning herself, looking nowhere in particular.
Ever curious, Camilla was the first to interrupt their bobbins’ rhythm.
“Where are the sisters?”
Their friends Gina and her younger sister, Celestina, were always referred to as a unit. They were so perfectly matched, they reversed each other. Where one was confident, the other was uncertain; one bubbled, never far from laughter, the other brooded, suspicious of good fortune. Sometimes they switched characteristics, as though to better understand each other, but mostly they were content within their perfect counterbalance. As Gina grew into what the village believed would become a possible beauty, Antonia, who had known her since they were babes in arms, decided she had never really liked her even then. She now answered Camilla, “Probably she has gone with their mamma on one of their errands of charity. Whenever these three appear, it’s like the Holy procession … the saintly old goose, followed by Gina, the strutting peacock, and, bringing up the rear, Celestina, the giggling chicken.”
The picture was so perfect, they all laughed, even Teresa, who quickly recovered, ashamed of herself, reprimanded Antonia for being unkind. Antonia’s eye’s blazed; Camilla, who hated confrontations, jumped into the breach. “Did you hear? He’s back! Did you see him? … Well, did you? What do you think? … I think he’s too short to be really handsome … but he is strong! Really strong! Even under his city coat, I could see his muscles—rows and rows of them! Mamma even noticed them! Then she saw me looking and got angry and told me not to stare and made me go back into the house but she stayed outside, sweeping the stoop that I had just been sweeping for hours!” Camilla giggled, looked expectantly at her three friends.
Teresa, fussing with a tangle, trying to correct a mistake she had made in the pattern of her lace collar, was too busy to offer a comment. Giovanna remained silent. Antonia, very pleased to be given a really good reason to stop working, looked up with interest.
“Who? Who has muscles? Camilla, what are you talking about?”
“The sisters’ brother, Giovanni. He had that big fight with his papa about … Oh! I don’t know WHAT it was … My papa told my mamma it had to be something again about machines … something about ‘always those damned machines … Fight, fight, fight! All the Ricassolis are nothing but stuck-up trouble,’ Papa said. Anyway, he’s back and … guess what? He found work! In l’America! Just like he said he would.” Camilla stopped to fan herself—even in the shade, it was just too hot today for all this accelerated talking. Antonia, having decided the weight of her hair was bothering her, removed the long pins from the knot at the nape of her neck, splayed its beauty with her fingers, and began plaiting it into two thick braids instead. “Why isn’t he handsome then? If he has muscles, has work in America, and is rich … short isn’t so bad!”
“Once I saw a real fistfight at the fair. My brothers let me watch … it was awful! One man got a broken nose … the blood poured out and …”
“Teresa, what has that got to do with what we are talking about?” Antonia asked in that tone of aristocratic annoyance she used whenever she felt something was about to elude her.
“Well, if you ever gave someone time to finish what they are trying to say, you would know without having to ask in that superior way!”
Antonia stopped her braiding and glared.