And so every day but one, villagers stroll out of Bar Birbo with their minds sharpened by Chiara’s coffee, and their days knit with their neighbors’. Perhaps they no longer notice the light. But on particularly iridescent days, they may pause on the low step leading from Bar Birbo to the cobblestone street. In that brief moment, they take in the sunset-hued stucco buildings’ murmur of color alongside the predominately creamy stone walls, the splash of red geranium-filled flowerpots, and how the children with backpacks as unwieldy as turtle shells race to school, their laughter weaving through the sound of the church bells.
Such are mornings in Santa Lucia. Just as they have been for generations.
“Buongiorno, Massimo, un caffè?”
“Sì, certo, Chiara, of course.” The clustered villagers looked over their shoulders at the man silhouetted against the glowing doorway. With a rustling burble, they parted to allow Massimo to approach the bar, the women twitching their skirts to fall more becomingly. The man ignored the bustle his presence created. He stepped into the opening at the bar, and pulled back his blue-striped shirtsleeve to consult his watch. His grandfather’s watch, really, but he knew the scratches in the gold and the imperfections in the leather as well as he knew his own hand. He straightened his tie and then gazed over the heads of the other patrons, seeing none of them. He didn’t hear the hushed voices of Sauro, the baker, and Rosetta, the school principal, as they lowered their heads to whisper confidentially.
“Guarda, Rosetta,” Sauro murmured, gesturing with his chin. “It’s Massimo.”
Rosetta fought the urge to smooth down her hair as she cast a quick glance at Massimo, standing like a signal fire over the crowd, his strong jaw echoing his strong brows. “Mmm . . .” she responded, noncommittally.
Sauro watched his friend with a bemused expression. He murmured, “I wonder, will he ever smile again?”
This got Rosetta’s attention. “Massimo’s a serious person. You know that.”
“Sì, but the seriousness, it’s different now. Like he’ll never know joy.”
“Such drama. He was never a cheerful man, even before.”
Sauro paused to consider the foam left clinging to the side of his cappuccino cup, before venturing with a loftily raised eyebrow, “If I remember correctly, that didn’t stop you from tagging after him like Carosello follows a pork bone.”
Rosetta shifted uncomfortably. “So now you’re comparing me to a one-eyed dog?”
Sauro shrugged. “You know what I mean.”
Rosetta decided to glide over the implied comparison to the flea-bitten creature that jogged about town looking for scraps. “Anyway, that was years ago! And besides, it’s not like it was just me. All the girls had crushes on him. But he wouldn’t give any of us the time of day.”
Sauro nodded and said, “Only Giulia.”
Rosetta struggled not to roll her eyes and add a cutting comment as Sauro mused, “I never understood that attraction. Massimo is so tall, so . . . well, you know.”
Unfortunately, Rosetta heard none of this fascinating narration. Her eyes were half-lidded, and her vision trained on Massimo.
Unaware, Sauro stirred his coffee. “And Giulia. She was very sweet, but . . .” Sauro leaned past Rosetta’s shoulder to assess Massimo. His thick, dark hair that waved away from his bronze forehead and then swooped roguishly to the left, past eyelashes as thick as paintbrushes. His broad chest narrowing to a neat waist. It seemed unfair that Massimo had lost none of his good looks. Even after the tragedy.
As Sauro’s elbow brushed her own, Rosetta caught her cue. She said, dreamily, “Comunque, she was a sweet girl. And in love with him since we were children. Besides, you know what they say about Italian men and their mothers. Is it any wonder he chose Giulia?”
Sauro said, “And they never found out what happened to her. So strange.”
Eyes still fixed on Massimo, sipping his coffee with authority, Rosetta said, “Yes, well. Strange things happen. God’s will.”
The conversation shifted back and forth easily. After all, they’d had it at least once a week for the past year. But neither Rosetta nor Sauro seemed to notice the pattern. Only Chiara registered a familiarity with the turns of the dialogue, and that only by smiling to herself, the gap between her two front teeth winking, as she dried a glass with extra care.
Massimo spooned the last of the coffee-soaked sugar into his mouth and stepped to the register to drop his euro on a scuffed copper plate. His smile flashed briefly at Chiara, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which remained fixed to some distant point. He turned on his heel and with military briskness he started out the door looking neither right nor left, but determinedly walking up the hill to one of the two lots where the villagers parked their cars.
He didn’t notice the man pressed against the shadows, waiting for him.
Elisa hurried to school, late. This was unfortunately the standard state of affairs for little Elisa. Always behind, which would cause her no end of heartache. But more on that later.
As Elisa struggled to hang onto the papers wriggling out of her notebook (why, oh, why, hadn’t she organized them yesterday like she’d planned?), she tripped through the piazza, dappled with buttery light, and jogged around a couple that looked to be American judging from their fanny packs. The tourists paused in the middle of the street to take a picture up the wide stone steps to the castle. That abandoned castle never failed to reverberate in Elisa’s
