Carosello exited the alley and turned left down Via Romana. He trotted past classrooms, festooned with drawings of olive trees and wildflowers and grapes taped carefully to the windows. He passed the art studio, shuttered against the night. He passed the butcher shop. Here, the dog snuffled the ground, as Giuseppe often left a little bit of this or that in a styrofoam dish outside the door as an evening treat for the aged dog. There! A tasty morsel. Or what was left after Santa Lucia’s wandering cat population had enjoyed their share.
The dog licked his chops, hoping for more down the road. The rosticceria often offered a nice variety of delicacies—a bit of mozzarella or even breaded meat cutlets that had gone a bit off.
There was a right hand turn just past the macelleria, but Carosello ignored it and kept trotting forward. Had he gone down that cobblestone lane that wound around to shoulder the terraced groves, he would have passed Massimo and Isotta’s home. Where Margherita slept the sleep of the blameless, Anna slept the sleep of the vicious, Massimo slept the sleep of the twisted, and Isotta slept not at all. She sat in bed, arms wrapped tightly around her legs, staring out at the sky. Staring without seeing, her turbulent thoughts more magnetic than the moon.
The dog rejected the next turn as well. Those steps led to the deserted castle, where there was so rarely anything to eat. Instead, Carosello pressed on past the comune’s salmon-colored walls, bleached now to gray in the starlight. Within those walls stacks of paper, some which had been shuttled from one desk to another for fifty years, patiently waited to be ignored for one day more.
Just past the comune, Carosello approached the Madonna, tucked high and out of sight of the one-eyed dog. Even so, as he passed her outstretched hand his steps slowed and his fur prickled. The Madonna’s eyes gazed past and through and beyond the dog’s journey, radiating an expression of deep love and boundless adoration.
Chiara observed Carosello’s stride slow from her window in the apartment above Bar Birbo. She wiped her eyes with a soft handkerchief fringed with threads loosened by years of washing. She sniffed and choked back a sob. By the time she peered back out the window, the dog had jogged out of sight.
He loped through the piazza with its trees standing sentinel behind each bench. The rustling leaves of those trees shaded the faces of the old men who gathered here daily to discuss the same things they discussed yesterday. The dog scarcely spared a head turn for the mini-excavator parked at the edge of the piazza, finally quiet after a day of sending the sound of breaking concrete throughout the town.
Almost to the edge of Santa Lucia now, Carosello picked up speed. The streets were narrower on this side of town. They stretched and tangled into a warren of pathways. One such stone-lined alley hosted yet another group of old women clustered under a tall arbor of drying grape branches. A larger alley wound back past Bea’s chicken yard to the gates that lead up into the terraced uliveti, the olive groves, and the walking paths around Santa Lucia.
Another piazza, this one smaller, more of a bit of breathing space within the hodgepodge of lanes. At one end stood the Church of San Nicola, where a lone organ player practiced music for Sunday’s service before a fresco of the archangel Gabriele kneeling before Mary. His entire audience comprising one grey kitten curled tightly on the front pew. The music swelled, drifting out into the street, where it hushed in reverence.
Carosello arrived at the rosticceria, where a tart chalk scent signaled the rising pizza dough. He nosed along the wall until he met with a windfall—a styrofoam tray of meat-stuffed olives, breaded and fried. The dog practically inhaled the Ascolana olives. They were a bit stale perhaps, but for his canine sensibilities the aging process enhanced the treat. He licked the tray clean and stood straight, his single eye bright.
He cocked his head toward the groves and without a backward glance, he wound his way through the playground encircled by umbrella pines. The swings danced to unknown music as, down the hill, Elisa counted and recounted her coins. Almost enough. Almost.
Carosello loped through the opening in the playground wall, skirting the cemetery perched in a crevice of the mountain where the wind sings to the ancestors that once walked the streets of Santa Lucia.
As for him, his day had drawn to a close. Nose to the ground, he sniffed until he found his favorite tree. So old the roots lifted out of the soil, creating a hideaway perfect for a satiated, if filthy, dog. Carosello crawled on his belly until he exactly fit his den of root and earth. Turning tightly, he rested his black snout on the stringy buff-colored fur of his haunches.
Lulled by the playful wind murmuring between the leaves and ripening fruit of the olive tree, Carosello drifted to sleep.
Though it was undoubtedly going to be a long day, Isotta was pleased Massimo had suggested heading to the Tuscan coast after their visit with her family. It would decrease the time she had to cope with the prying eyes and cutting remarks
