Tomas gestured for the American to sit. Carmela noted the lieutenant’s posture. He seemed so at ease, or else created an impeccable performance to that effect, even among this group of strangers intent on force-feeding him and making him drink into a fog. The men took their places on the benches and thrust a glass into Kavanagh’s hand, filling it to the rim with Tomas’s wine. Their glasses raised skyward. “Saludu!” Tomas called out.
“Salute,” the lieutenant replied.
That silken voice unlocked a memory.
Carmela stood by the door that led into the house, hovering between participation and service, the chopping board and basket still in either hand. She watched as the men coerced him into drinking in one gulp so they could refill. Peppe signaled to Carmela to pass the pecorino, made from their own sheep’s milk. She walked over to him and placed both board and basket before him, allowing him the honor of slicing the cheese. He carved out a generous slab, wrapped pane fino around it like a blanket, and bellowed across the table, “Tieni! Take it, Americano. God bless our sheep! God bless America!”
The men clinked to America and long life. Kavanagh was fed a sample of their ricotta too, and several slices of their homemade sausage, fragrant with fennel and thyme, balanced with just the right amount of salt. The group made easy work of polishing off three of them. When four bottles stood empty and the lieutenant still appeared intact, Tomas called down to Maria at the other end of the table. “Got ourselves a professional, Mari’. Bring out the hard stuff!”
She disappeared into the house, followed by Carmela and Lucia.
“Going to take more than wine to make this one dizzy,” Lucia whispered, frisky. “I’m going nowhere until that collar is undone and I get myself a look at more skin than just a neck. And those eyes, no? Clear like the Chia coves.”
Maria reached into the bottom of the wooden dresser and shook her head with a reluctant smile. She passed up glass bottles of homemade liquor to Carmela, for the tray; aqua vitae and Tomas’s fragrant mirto, an aromatic, potent after-dinner drink made from their native myrtle berry.
“Give it here!” Lucia exclaimed. “I’ll do the pass with the mirto, Mari’, get me a closer look!” With that she whisked the bottles out of Carmela’s hands before she could get them onto the tray. Carmela followed Lucia as she flew back out of the door, laying out fresh ridotto glasses before each man.
“Oh, here she goes,” Peppe said, as Lucia sidled up to the table. “Why must you always nosey about the men, woman? You stay in there and I’ll stay out here, and we’ll all go home happy!”
“Someone’s got to protect her beautiful nieces from you lot!” she replied, flashing Kavanagh a toothy grin.
The men laughed at the couple’s familiar repartee, which accompanied the end of most meals. Peppe fidgeted in his seat.
“Americano! Which one for you?” Lucia asked.
“Mirto, per piacere.”
A stunned pause fell over the merry group. His Italian impressed them. Mumbled surprise rumbled into clinking glasses. The men slurred wishes of good health as the initiation fast approached completion. The afternoon trickled through another bottle of each digestif, alongside plentiful servings of Maria’s seadas, thin pastry-encased slices of cheese, pan fried till crispy on the outside and oozing on the inside, topped with a drizzle of the neighbor’s acacia honey.
The setting sun cast its ruby glow over the men as they cajoled in a soup of half languages that everyone appeared to understand. The Americano started to gesticulate in Sardinian. Carmela noticed his hands were worn, those of a man accustomed to hard physical work. The way they moved smoothly through the air, however, was more akin to an artist describing a new work than that of a worker discussing the fluctuating prices of milk and cheese. His sleeves were rolled up now, exposing his muscular forearms, much to Lucia’s delight.
Tomas looked over to his daughter and signaled for her to bring out yet another bottle. She moved to clear the empty ones first, when her father took her hand. “Americano!” He hiccupped. “You’ll forgive me, I haven’t introduced you to my daughter. This is my eldest, Carmela. Not just a pretty picture—inherited my brains too!”
Kavanagh’s eyes widened, his head cocked slightly. “Actually,” he replied in English, stretching out his hand, “I think we’ve already had the pleasure.”
Carmela flashed a brief half smile in return and gave his hand a perfunctory shake.
“She speaks English too, you know?” Tomas began.
Carmela stiffened. She was no stranger to being put on the spot by her father after he had drunk too much. Her face reddened in spite of herself.
“Go on, Carmela, say something!” Tomas cried, swinging his arm up like a ringmaster announcing the headlining act.
Carmela felt the glare of a dozen eyes. What was this fixation with her knowledge of English? It was a skill, but she was not an acrobat who lived to hear applause for her tricks. Carmela had a heightened sense for when her father would perform such turns and now berated herself for failing to escape in time.
“Attenzione, everyone!” Tomas called out, “My firstborn is going to speak like an English!”
The blood thumped in her ears.
“Please, don’t put yourself on the spot on my account,” the lieutenant said, undoing the top button of his collar. The blue of his eyes deepened. Carmela would have liked the warmth that shone in them to relax her, but it only made her unease swell. Her eyes darted up and down the table, scanning the remnants of the food, a gourmet graveyard. She raced around in her mind for something simple to say, but it was like a bare white room. Her eyes lifted. They met her mother’s, reminding Carmela it would be no great pain to humor her father. She found her voice.
Carmela muttered something about welcoming the lieutenant to Sardinia and the Chirigoni farm, but the applause drowned out the end of her sentiment. Her eyes flitted over a sea of sun-cracked smiles. Kavanagh flashed her a grin, as warm and wide as hers was taut.
She beat a swift retreat inside.
The cicadas serenaded a fat moon by the time the group bid each other reluctant good nights. Carmela stood in the shadows of a cork oak beyond the house, scraping food off the plates and into a trough for the pigs. She looked up as her father and Peppe creaked the gate shut. The lieutenant strolled to his jeep, jacket swung over his shoulder, a satisfied sway to his walk.
She watched his taillights zigzag into the blackness of the hills.
The long windowpanes of Yolanda’s dressmaking studio reached up to fresco ceilings, but its clouds were cracked, and the sanguine putti—happy harp-playing angels—now had several bare plaster patches where rosy cheeks once grinned or chubby thighs bent into flying arabesques. The business took up the entire third floor of Palazzo Grixoni. The building ran almost the length of the narrow street, Via Santa Lucia, a brutal incline from the main Piazza Cantareddu ending at Fontana Grixoni. This marked the center of town. From here, Simius sprawled up and around like a funnel. The icy mountain water gushed out of the marble lions’ mouths, ensuring Simiuns had access to fresh water, unlike some of the neighboring villages. Its Victorian black-and-white marble base, topped with busts of the Grixoni family, who had commissioned it, flanked Palazzo Grixoni. In the halcyon days of the mid-nineteenth century, when the valley had been christened with the proud title of Logudoro, land of gold, Palazzo Grixoni had been home to the wealthy merchant family of the same name. Now, as Simius blew away the ashes of war, buildings like these had been divided and rented out as separate quarters.
Carmela