“I lost my pillow … Well, I didn’t really … I know exactly where I left it. I had it next to me on the bench in the confessional and I couldn’t go back to get it because the Rossini twins went in … both of them at once! What they can have to confess after being locked up for weeks is beyond me … and they were in there forever! Signora Fellice was waiting to be next, tapping her cane, furious she had to wait! … So, I just have to try and find it when I confess tonight.” Out of breath, very depressed, Camilla settled herself on the wall next to Antonia and dangled her feet.
“What do you expect to do for the rest of the day so that you will still have something left to confess this evening?” Teresa asked with genuine interest.
Antonia, slipping her precious comb carefully into the wide belt at her waist, laughed. “Camilla will make up something. She always does. Of course, nothing ever really happens to her … but …”
“Sister Bertine says just thinking sinful thoughts is a sin,” Teresa observed without looking up.
“Pooh!” Antonia snorted and took up her bobbins of bone.
Camilla kicked a fuzzy dandelion with the tip of her high-buttoned Sunday shoe, watched its soft explosion drift away. In a tone filled with anguished doom, she whispered, “My papa took the widow Angelli …”
Bobbins stopped in midair! Three incredulous gasps of “What?” filled it.
“Don’t make me say it again! I can’t! I just can’t say it again … ever … ever!”
“Where?” asked Antonia.
“I don’t believe it!” Teresa had turned as white as her thread.
“And how would you even know such a thing?” Giovanna, the ever practical one, said not unkindly.
“Well … I DO know … It’s true! Mamma saw them! In the barn, when she went to collect the eggs!”
“They were there in your own barn? … In broad daylight?” Antonia shook her head in disbelief.
“And you said nothing of this yesterday?” Teresa was very put out that Camilla had kept such a shocking tragedy from her closest friends.
“How could I? It only happened this morning!” Camilla wailed.
“On a Sunday!?” Teresa crossed herself.
“But the widow Angelli has a beard! … And lives with goats!” Antonia exclaimed, very disgusted.
“Well, Mamma has gone to see Father Innocente … Sister Bertine is accompanying her up there. My second married sister, Lucia, is in early labor from the shock! All my brothers have disappeared somewhere … the rest of my sisters are weeping and lighting candles in the chapel … and Papa is getting drunk! I only came up here because I couldn’t stay hidden all day in the confessional … and I thought that my dearest friends would understand and help!”
Tears that had begun to fall at the beginning of the first sentence of this sad litany now flowed freely at the close of it. Hugs and Sunday handkerchiefs were offered, with many “There … theres” and “Easy … easys” until Camilla was able to regain her composure.
“‘Beasts!’ My mother has always said, ‘All men are beasts—deep down beasts!’ I never believed her, but now, after this, I do—I do!” sighed a thoroughly disillusioned Teresa, who crossed herself anew.
Antonia felt it was up to her to take charge. “Camilla—now don’t take this the wrong way and PLEASE, do not swoon, for I must tell you something. Something very important. It seems that men, all kinds of men, sometimes have what is described as ‘Urges’… and when these ‘Urges’ come upon them, they do all sorts of very strange things. You must also know that for men, these ‘Spells’ are considered to be … no more than … well … than eating a really fine risotto … just … a normal appetite!”
Camilla had ceased to breathe. Teresa felt faint. Giovanna thought Antonia terribly brave. A shadow fell across their shoulders and a deep male voice said, “Hi, girls!”
Camilla shrieked, sprang off the wall, ran down the path towards the village, as though the Devil himself was in hot pursuit! Teresa trembled—Giovanna patted her hand. Antonia, her black eyes sparkling, smiled up into the handsome face of the adventuresome Giovanni Ricassoli, who exclaimed, “My God! What’s wrong with Camilla? … That was Camilla, wasn’t it?”
“Yes! She had to get home. Don’t pay any attention to her. She just had a bad shock today. She didn’t mean to be rude.” Antonia patted the place newly vacated by her side. “Welcome home, Giovanni!”
“Welcome,” Giovanna joined in the greeting of one of their childhood friends. He had been the only one of the older boys who had never been mean, teased the girls as they walked, eyes downcast, two by two to their convent school, never pelted them with icy snowballs. If only in memory of that, he deserved a proper welcome. He looked a little like she remembered him—stocky and strong, like a fine plow horse, all rippling muscles and gloss, with that strange beauty of controlled power all its own. Now this seemed overlaid with a man’s self-assurance, and she wasn’t sure if she would like him as much.
“I think I should go and see to Camilla. Besides, I have to help my mamma with the babies.” Teresa rolled up her bobbins, smiled a hasty good-bye, and took the shortcut through the buttercups on her way down the hill.
Left on either side of the young man, Antonia and Giovanna worked their lace. Lying back against the grassy knoll behind, he pillowed his head in his hands, looked up at the clean, clear sky.
“When you smell grease all day … you forget …”
“Grease?” Antonia turned to look down at him lying beside her, suddenly made shy by the faint feeling of excitement this caused.
“I work with machines. They have to be lubricated to …” The young man stopped himself, as though explaining a private passion to others might defile it somehow.
Antonia thought his abrupt silence boorish. Tossing her heavy hair back over her shoulders, she slipped off the wall. The young man jumped to attention, eager to be the one allowed to accompany this village beauty back down to her front door. Antonia took stock. Camilla had been right—he was certainly not tall … that made it a bit awkward if one wanted to gaze up beguilingly, so she did the next best thing and looked deep into his level eyes, gave him her very best look of softest, helpless need. When he hesitantly touched her elbow, she allowed him to assist her along the twisted path towards the village. At the first bend, they remembered, turned, and waved a belated friendly good-bye in Giovanna’s direction, who, watching them, waved back before slapping a bumblebee that had dared to settle on her pillow.
The next day, only Giovanna came to the piazza to work in the shade of its ancient tree. Camilla, being part of a family scandal that had the village buzzing, was too ashamed to step outside her door. Teresa, who had offered to light candles and prayers to the saint in charge of lecherous fathers, was on her tenth round of Hail Marys, and Antonia, having decided not to wait until the full moon, was busy washing her mighty mane two weeks earlier than her monthly schedule called for.