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“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes.”
“By the way, how many floors of this building are your apartment?”
“This one and the one above, where my son lives with his family. He didn’t see anything, either. He was with me.” The woman closed the door. “Goodbye.”
Gaetano found the stairway, climbed upstairs, and knocked on the next door. An older man opened it but gave the same answer. Gaetano went up one more flight and knocked on another door, to the same end.
He left the house and went to the houses on the other two corners, knocking on as many doors as he could and asking the same questions. Nobody had seen anything suspicious, or at least they wouldn’t admit it.
Gaetano found himself back on the Quattro Canti. He took off his hat and wiped his brow with his handkerchief. The conspiracy of silence was spreading throughout his city, to the honest and the dishonest alike.
But Gaetano wasn’t giving up.
Not yet.
Not ever.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There was a knock at the door, and Mafalda froze, afraid. Things had worsened since that morning at the piazza, when Concetta blamed baby Lucia for the disaster at sea. Neighbors threw rocks at their house, shouted profanities, or cast on them themalocchio, the evil eye. The village had turned against them, their grief decayed to hatred.
“Turi?” Mafalda went to him, slumped at the table. “Would you answer the door?”
“No, you.” Turi’s head dropped back onto his elbow. The wine bottle was empty.
“I can’t. It’s not safe.” Mafalda understood why Turi was drinking, but it left her on her own. They had no more food, and she couldn’t venture out to pick chicory. Her milk for Lucia was running low.
There was another knock, and Turi rose unsteadily and went to the door. Mafalda hurried to the corner, standing in front of Lucia’s box on the floor, where she was sleeping.
Turi opened the door, and Mafalda’s heart sank at the sight. Standing on the threshold was her mother-in-law, Petra. The older woman’s eyes were dark and round, her thin lips pursed. Her dark-gray hair was pulled in a taut bun, and she was small and wiry in her black dress. She wore a large gold crucifix around her neck, but no other jewelry.
“Mamma!” Turi threw himself into her arms like a little boy.
“My son, oh, what have you been going through?” Petra hugged him, rocking him back and forth. “What happened? It’s so awful. I heard all about it.”
“Mamma, I tried to save them, I did try—”
“Don’t blame yourself, it’s not your fault.” Petra kissed his cheeks, wiping his tears with her knobby hand, then turned to Mafalda. “You’re the one I blame, you and the horrible baby you birthed. I live two villages over, and you didn’t even get word to me. Let me see her right now.”
Mafalda gasped. “She’s not horrible—”
“Let me see.” Petra flew to Lucia’s box, shoving Mafalda out of the way.
“It’s only that her skin is lighter—”
“Holy Virgin Mary!” Petra plucked Lucia from her crib. “She’s a ghost! A specter! It’s inhuman.”
“No, no, that’s not true,” Mafalda rushed to say, and Lucia awoke crying. “She does everything normal babies do. She nurses happily, she looks around. I even think she’s starting to know me.” She turned to Turi, who stood aside. “Turi, please tell your mother our baby is normal.”
“Mamma.” Turi put a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “I know she looks ugly—”
“She’s beautiful!” Mafalda held out her arms. “Give me my baby.”
“Take her!” Petra shoved the crying baby at Mafalda. “What did you do, Mafalda? Did you make a deal with the devil? That’s what they say, you traded the men for your baby. Did you, because it took you so long to conceive?”
“No, no—”
