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We drank coffee and ate chocolate and chatted about nothing until all the clothes were sorted and folded, ready for the sisters. Don Anselmo rose to his feet with some difficulty and accompanied me to the door. He seemed older and smaller since don Mauro had died, and there were shadows under his eyes.
‘Now, you will find a moment to come and see me tomorrow evening, won’t you?’ he said as I stepped outside. ‘I have one or two matters I’d like your help with.’
I was relieved that he’d asked. It meant that I didn’t have to invent some reason to look in on him. ‘Of course. I have a couple of things to do after school, but I’ll come round straight afterwards.’
Don Anselmo smiled. He seemed relieved, too. ‘Just whenever you can, my child. I shall be here. Goodnight and God bless you.’
*
I didn’t have anything else to do that evening. That was unusual – as a rule I scarcely had a minute to myself, but today was an anomaly. After leaving don Anselmo, I had nowhere to go other than home. And I didn’t want to go home before I absolutely had to.
I was sitting on a bench in piazza Burresi, swinging my heels and trying not to think about wanting my dinner, when I heard a familiar voice.
‘Comrade!’ Davide was crossing the square towards me, his shoulders hunched and his hands stuffed in his pockets against the cold. ‘You can’t imagine how happy I am to see you.’
I was happy to see him, too. We had scarcely crossed paths since the Liberation. He’d stayed in Romituzzo just long enough to make sure our invalids were healing and our new government was stable before heading to Florence, itself freshly liberated, to work at the hospital there. I knew that he occasionally made it back to visit Lucia, but I’d been avoiding the Frati house. It was bad enough that I had to see Enzo at the garage, to witness him and my father banding together to freeze me out.
Davide sat down next to me and smiled. ‘I hear you’re quite the pillar of our committee. Always running here and there with your gun and your kerchief, even if it is the wrong colour.’
I didn’t know what to do with his teasing. It made my throat hurt and I felt suddenly, horribly, like I might cry. ‘We are all anti-Fascists,’ I said, sounding rather stiffer than I meant to.
‘I know, I know.’ He nudged me with his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. Honestly, I’m relieved Romituzzo has someone like you – someone really serious, someone who’s always ready to work and learn and work some more. It gives me hope for our future.’
But it was too late. The tears had risen and now they were spilling over, pouring down my face and making me ashamed.
‘Oh,’ Davide said, and put his arms around me. ‘What’s wrong, Stella? Tell me.’
And I told him. I couldn’t stop myself. I wept it out, all of it, in broken and stuttering words: my parents’ cruelty and Enzo’s scorn, and how Achille – beloved Achille, my friend, my ally – didn’t even notice. ‘It isn’t fair,’ I sobbed at last, like a hurt child; which I was, really. ‘It isn’t fair!’
Davide pulled me in tight, tight, so that my face was pressed into his lapel. His wool coat smelled of tobacco smoke and fresh air. ‘No,’ he said quietly into my ear. ‘It isn’t fair. You don’t deserve to be treated like this. But you have me, and I have you, and we’ll stick together whatever happens. Even if the whole world’s against us. Agreed?’
I couldn’t speak. I could only nod.
‘Good,’ Davide said. He shifted his grip on me and planted a brotherly kiss on the top of my head, and I thought he would let me go, but he didn’t. For a long time he just held me and I held him, like mourners at a funeral.
We had never held each other before. We never did it again. But nobody in Romituzzo would believe me if I said that now.
*
All through that winter, don Anselmo grew older and frailer almost by the day. He moved slowly and picked at his food, and there was a sadness about him that never quite abated. Really, I should have known what was coming. But it was still a shock when he asked me to the parochial house one evening in early March and told me, after much careful preparation and several squares of precious, hoarded chocolate, that he would be leaving our parish.
‘But when?’ I asked. ‘Why?’
‘The “when” isn’t quite settled – we don’t even have a replacement for don Mauro yet, never mind me. The war has complicated everything in that regard. But I shall go as soon as it’s feasible, whenever that may be. And as for why…’ He was looking at the fire. ‘Dr Bianchi says ominous things about my heart and my kidneys and my stomach lining, but the truth is, my dear child, I’m worn out. I have been fighting for a very long time and I’m simply not up to the task any more. Not physically, and not in here.’ He tapped a finger against the breast of his cassock. ‘Besides, I have my orders.’
‘From God?’ I asked, and he looked at me and smiled.
‘From the archbishop. Though I rather think he and God are on the same page, as they so often tend to be.’
I wanted to argue, to plead with him to stay with us at least until the war was over – but I couldn’t. It was simply unarguable. ‘Where will you go?’ I asked.
‘Further south, that much I know. Perhaps even very far south, to Sicily. I hear there’s a wonderful rest home on the coast near Palermo, and they say the climate is so healing.’
As I left him that day, he put a hand on my shoulder. ‘My child, I must ask you to keep this news of mine to yourself. Until the details are quite certain, it would only cause unrest in our community and that would not be right, especially now. But I wanted to tell you in particular.’
‘But you’ll say goodbye before you go,’ I said. ‘You won’t just leave.’
‘Dear Stella,’ he said, ‘of course I shall say goodbye, if God lets me. I should hate for you to feel abandoned.’
