Chiara let her eyes drift out the door. She wasn’t sure she wanted to stay away, and the foreignness of that feeling concerned her more than Marcello’s warning.
The morning sun hung weakly in the mid-October sky when Fatima stepped onto the cobblestone streets of Santa Lucia, money for couscous pushed deep into her pocket. She trailed her fingers along the walls, letting them wind into the greenery that erupted from the mortar. The stones had warmed a bit in the afternoon sun, and she enjoyed the emanating heat against the coolness of the tickling fronds.
She hoped the alimentari had couscous. Time was they never did, but after a few months of her family living in Santa Lucia and asking for it periodically, Giovanni had begun stocking it. Not a lot, and sometimes it disappeared from the shelves just when her family was craving a taste of home, but Fatima appreciated the effort. She’d even been inveigled into conversations about how her family prepared the dish. She liked it topped with good Umbrian lamb, which her tastebuds insisted (as much as her parents vociferously denied) was even tastier than what they ate in Morocco.
Her mouth watered in anticipation of dinner. The smell of the sauce had wafted out with her, and still clung to her sweater. As she was wondering what shape pasta she would choose if the alimentari was out of couscous, she caught sight of Luciano walking out of San Nicola. He raised his head and blinked at the sudden sunshine. Fatima noted that he wasn’t listing to the side as did on bad days, and his cane was nowhere in sight. She ran up to him and tugged at his coat as he walked to the piazza.
“Ah, Fatima, buon pomeriggio.” Was it her imagination, or was Luciano’s voice rusty from disuse? How long had it been since he’d talked to anyone?
“Ciao, Maestro. Come va?”
“I’m well, Fatima.”
“You were in church?”
“I was.”
“For services?” Fatima could never keep track of Catholics’ praying schedule, even though she snuck into the church often enough to study the paintings. Those saints were enigmatic, she wished she knew their stories. She debated coming out from the safety of the wall’s obscurity and asking the priest to explain the Catholic cast of characters to her. He had been so nice and engaging that time he saw her staring at the Madonna in her niche, she knew he would be happy to share his knowledge. But the thought of what her parents would say if they found out she’d even set foot in a Catholic church kept her tucked in the shadows.
“No services today, cara,” Luciano chuckled at Fatima’s creased forehead. “But sometimes it’s nice to go in and pray.”
“You can do that?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t pray at home?”
“Well, yes, I do.” Luciano considered Fatima’s question. “I suppose I prefer praying surrounded by reminders of my faith. In church, the rest of the world falls away and I can hear God, the pope, or, I don’t know. Maybe just myself.” Not for the first time, Luciano regarded this child with a mixture of amusement and wonder. “I don’t know Fatima,” he added, forestalling her question. “I’m not sure what it is. It’s strange though, how much you always make me question what I’ve always assumed to be beyond questioning.”
Fatima ducked her head and frowned, “I’m sorry, Maestro.”
He chuckled again, “No need to apologize. Today it’s nice to be prompted to think a bit more. Not everyday, mind you, but today . . .” His voice trailed off.
Fatima walked beside her teacher, thinking about what he’d said.
Luciano put his hand on Fatima’s voluminous black hair, wrestled neatly into two braids. “So, where are you off to?”
“Oh! The alimentari. Mamma ran out of couscous.”
“Mmm, your mother’s couscous. With lamb sauce, I presume?”
Fatima laughed. “Yes, my favorite. But Maestro, I have a favor to ask.”
“Yes?”
Fatima took a breath. “I have a friend at school, Elisa. Do you know her?”
“Allora, is she the one you hold hands with on the way out of school?”
Fatima stopped walking. He’d noticed?
Luciano slowed his steps until Fatima caught up. She said, “Yes, that’s her. Her parents sort of forget about her, and her brothers, I think maybe they do, too. She’s not stuck to life very well.”
Luciano smiled.
Fatima paused to make sure Luciano was still paying attention. He nodded for her to continue. “She also gets in trouble a lot at school. She’s not bad or anything! It’s only that she loses papers a lot and math is really hard for her. Anyway, I was thinking, maybe you can help her? I remember how well you taught me the conditional tense.”
Luciano said, “I wish I could take credit, but that wasn’t me. You are born to learn.”
Fatima tipped her head up to grin at Maestro. “Okay, then, you taught my siblings. And my parents. I still can’t get my parents to remember how ziti and penne are different, so . . .”
Luciano rubbed his forehead and sighed, “Fatima, I’m afraid my teaching days are finished. They were finished long ago.”
The girl hung her head. Luciano said, “I wish I could help, I do, but it’s a useless endeavor. I can’t teach her, or anyone.”
Fatima’s lip trembled. “You won’t try? Maestro, I don’t know what else to do. Some days it looks like she’s going to melt away. Like gelato left in the piazza.”
The thought of having another tether on life, no, it was impossible. Even if Luciano’s heart quivered at the thought of a struggling child. He said, “The math teacher. It is part of a teacher’s job to stay after school to support those students—”
“The math teacher hits her.”
Luciano stopped walking, agape. “The teacher does what?”
“Hits her. Not often, at least I heard that it used to be more last year. Mostly now he puts Elisa in the corner and makes fun of her.”
His mouth worked as his thoughts raced in many directions, “But
