Under a Sardinian Sky

by Sara Alexander

  Mrs. Curwin glided across the tiles. With the gentlest touch to the small of her back or wrist, her partner sent her swirling in and out of his arms, then back and forth through the crowd. They spun to the center of the terrace, and the guests gathered around and cheered. As the young man jitterbugged with her, she threw her head back with abandoned laughter, never once missing a beat or falling out of sync with him.

  “I taught her everything she knows, ladies and gentlemen!” Mr. Curwin shouted over the music, smirking.

  “Of course, my darling!” she answered back, beaming, then reached out her hand to him. The two men spun her between them as she basked in the raucous applause of her guests.

  Tore returned to the kitchen with the empty trays of antipasti. “They’re drunk already.”

  Piera focused on the steaming dish of cauliflower she spooned into another terrine, catching out of the iron skillet the final pieces of tender olives and tomatoes she had cooked them with. “I don’t care if they’re dead—just get this out!”

  “When do I get to eat?” Tore asked.

  “When I say so!” Piera shooed him out with the cauliflower dish in hand.

  The bell marked ENTRATA rang in the glass-fronted service box hanging over the door.

  Carmela looked up from the radicchio leaves she had just begun to pat dry.

  “Hurry,” Piera said, “God gave me only two hands.”

  Carmela took off her apron and placed it on the back of the chair, then smoothed her hair. She flew through the living room, past the ornate rococo settee, the velvet ottoman, and the somber portraits of Franco’s uncle’s ancestors. Mrs. Curwin’s laughter bubbled above the twirling dancers and Perry Como. Carmela caught glimpses of the party through the square holes in the crotchet lace curtains of the living room windows. She tried to imagine how it must feel to be swung around your terrace by young, visiting soldiers while your husband enjoys you from afar.

  Reaching the main doors, Carmela turned the fat, gold knob with two hands and heaved them open. The silhouette of a man stood before her, blackened against the candlelit path behind him.

  “Buona sera, Signore,” she said, politely.

  “Buona sera,” he replied, removing his hat. “I hope I’m not too late.”

  “You’re fashionably late, Lieutenant, that’s what you are,” Mrs. Curwin cooed as she glided in behind Carmela, flushed with dance and rosato. “And handsome as a button.” She laughed, breathless. “No dueling for my heart, though, do you hear?”

  The lieutenant smiled, bashful.

  “Beauty is beauty is beauty,” she continued, “to be appreciated at all costs, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” another man answered, stepping in behind Kavanagh. He was taller, with a strawberry tinge to his blond locks and the beginnings of gray creeping in at his temples. His face was dotted with freckles, which Carmela tried not to stare at. His eyes were closer to slate than the luminous blue of Kavanagh. They raced over Mrs. Curwin’s outfit in one swift move.

  “Captain Casler, I am honored you could make time to stop by!” Mrs. Curwin said.

  “Just trying to do the proper thing for a pair of proper Brits.” His face creased into a sharp smile.

  “Lieutenant, Captain, this is the inimitable Carmela.”

  She felt their eyes on her, followed by the flush of her cheeks.

  “Her talents are utterly wasted here,” Mrs. Curwin continued. “Look at what she made me!” She twirled, hands on hips, inviting their gaze. “Ought to have her own studio on Fifth Avenue, not Piazza Cantareddu! I want her to come work for me in London, but she’s intent on getting married to her dashing childhood sweetheart! A horribly pretty pair. If you are looking for anyone to help you with interpreting work, this is your lady!”

  Carmela felt her cheeks turn a deeper shade of plum.

  “Shall we?” Mrs. Curwin asked, with a coquettish tilt.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the captain answered, offering her his arm. The pair left for the terrace, where Mr. Curwin headed toward them with a welcome glass of rosato.

  “Third time’s a charm, right, Carmela?” Kavanagh said.

  Carmela looked at him, blank.

  Kavanagh cleared his throat. “It’s the third time we’ve been introduced.”

  Carmela smiled, feeling her head give an involuntary nod instead of words finding their way out. He tipped his head and walked away. She liked the way her name sounded when he said it.

  A pound at the door startled her. She opened it.

  “Franco!” she gasped. “I thought you weren’t getting back to town till tomorrow.”

  “You never told me there was a party,” he said, stubbing out the butt of his cigarette on the gravel. “I got to hear about what my fiancée is doing from strangers?”

  “What?”

  “That why you’re dressed like that?”

  Carmela stepped forward and planted a soft kiss on his mouth. It tasted like ash. “Is your uncle coming, too?”

  “His house, isn’t it? Madame invited us last week. Your little secret, eh?” He reached forward, took her chin in his hands, and ran his tongue over her top lip, then strutted down to the terrace.

  Carmela watched him disappear into the throng, then turned back and walked out through the door and along the front of the house. She carried on past the side of the house toward the fragrant herb garden, flanked with the last of the summer’s plum tomatoes and bell peppers. Peppe sat by a pile of hot coals placed at the center of a dusty circle, a safe distance from the foliage, turning the spit. His flat cap sat at a jaunty angle, and his tiny wooden stool ached under the weight of him.

  “Almost ready?” Carmela asked as she watched him dip a tied bunch of rosemary into a terra-cotta pot of olive oil and run it across the caramelized crackling of the suckling pig.

  “Americans come, everyone wants now. Rush life, die quick.”

  Carmela smiled. Peppe’s face was burnt ochre in the glow of the coals, emphasizing the deep creases of his face. They watched the spit turn without talking for a moment, with a cicada chorus in the blackened brush and echoes of laughter rolling up in waves from the terrace.

  “Gianetta brought you water?” she asked.

  “I wait till Sunday for my wine like a priest?”

  She grinned. “Depends. Have you said confession?”

  “You grow a mouth on you like Zia Lucia, no one will want to marry you,” he answered with a benevolent twinkle. As the first child born to the brothers, it sometimes seemed to Carmela that Peppe was as much her father as his brother Tomas.

  “Let me share a glass of the good stuff with my favorite uncle!” Franco yelled, appearing at the kitchen door and sauntering over with a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.

  “There’s the vagabond!” Peppe replied. “You’d do best not to travel till she’s got that ring on her finger, if you know what’s good for you.” He chuckled.

  “Gonna keep my treasure safe, don’t you worry.”

  Franco’s eyes planted on hers. For a fleeting moment, they slit with a passion that Carmela would have liked to describe as love. She was his treasure. Had he ever described her this way? Perhaps. So why did her mind claw the word just now? There was so much still to do inside with her sister, as the party was dancing into life. Yet the word pricked, a minuscule spike from a cactus fruit that can’t be seen to be removed but sharpens into the skin with even the gentlest brush of fabric. Treasure? Hold on to precious, she lied to herself. Treasure: something to keep hidden under lock and key. Something to covet, gaze upon. Own. Carmela had followed Franco into the muddy distance between love and ownership. She had become his possession after all. If he wasn’t assured his father’s empire, if his brothers would usurp him in the end, then Carmela was the one thing in his world that would belong only to him. She had promised him as much. A mist of quiet doubts fogged her mind. Her gaze lowered toward the fire. She willed her thoughts to whip up into the dark night with the flames.

&n
bsp; By the time Carmela returned to the kitchen, Piera was reaching boiling point faster than the pan of linguini. “Russian army at the door, or were you having a cocktail?” she asked, heaving a huge tray of roasted potatoes out of the oven, then lifting up her apron to wipe the sweat off her brow.

  Carmela lifted the pasta off the heat and drained the salty water into the sink. The steam blinded her for a moment. “Franco’s here.”

  “I don’t see him helping.” Piera darted to the large wooden dresser that took up almost half the length of one side of the kitchen. She opened one of the upper glass-paned doors with such ferocity that the lace curtain inside nearly swung off its hook. “Oh, for crying out loud! Tore!”

  “Take it easy,” Carmela said, trying to smooth her sister’s ruffled feathers. “They’ll think we can’t cope.”

  Piera stomped back to the other side of the table and reached into the wooden icebox for a small jar filled with bottarga, dried fish roe. “We can’t! I said three simple courses. But no! You had to turn Mrs.’s ear with a menu fit for a godforsaken royal wedding! Which, in case you didn’t know, is not what I like to be sweating over on a hot summer’s night!”

  Tore entered. “Please bring down that top bowl, Tore,” Carmela said, trying to keep her tenuous grip on calm. He reached up, then carried the large bowl over to her. Carmela tipped the linguini into it, covering the hand-painted circle of traditional dancers. She reached for the bottle of olive oil, then waved a generous amount across the steaming heap of pasta, while Piera attacked the potatoes with a metal spatula. Tore snatched a small piece from the corner just before Piera made to swat his knuckles.

  “Franco found a soldier to dance with, then?” Piera snipped, punctuating each syllable with a scrape.

  “He’s with Zio Peppe.” Carmela sprinkled the cured fish roe over the linguini and stirred the strands so that each piece was coated with an even, salty glaze. “Am I like Zia Lucia?”

  “No. Your breasts still point to heaven.”

  Carmela smiled.

  “Now for the love of God, let’s get this out!” With that, she snatched the hot bowl from Carmela’s hands and shoved it at Tore, who beat a hasty exit, wincing at the heat of the potato ricocheting about his mouth.

  Carmela returned to the radicchio leaves and laid them in a glass bowl. She shaved slivers of cucumber and placed them on top. Then she took a handful of ruccola from an enamel bowl filled with pickings from the garden and tore them onto the other leaves, releasing their metallic aroma. Finally she peeled a couple of long radishes and sliced them. Piera threw a generous sprinkle of salt over the salad. “Here, take the salt cellar out to Zio Peppe,” she said, placing it on the center of a large slab of cork lined with myrtle stems. Carmela thought about leaving Piera with a line to soothe, but the way her sister stabbed the enormous watermelon in preparation for the fruit tray persuaded her it was best to wait till later.

  Outside, Peppe’s cheeks had reddened, and the bottle of wine Franco had brought was half full. He had set the pig atop a large wooden butcher’s block beside the embers and was carefully peeling the meat off the bones, its juices trickling down onto the large flat bread placed underneath. He took a spoon to the pig’s eye, scraped out the jelly, and swallowed it.

  “Let’s not waste the best bits on those Yanks, eh, Carme’?” he said, splitting the pig’s head in two, using the same spoon to scoop out the brain. He tore a piece of flat bread from the cloth bag beside his stool and smeared the spoon across it. “You want?”

  “No, Zio, you enjoy.”

  The brain-laden bread disappeared in a few bites.

  “Piera’s having a baby in there,” she continued, trying to stay on top of the task at hand.

  “Doesn’t take after your mother, that’s for sure.”

  Carmela held up the cork while he placed the white meat upon the myrtle stems, balancing the two halves of the pig’s head at the center. He topped the entire tray with coarse salt from the cellar. “Start with this, Carme’. Come back for the rest.”

  Carmela turned back for the house, balancing the heavy load. The parched earth crunched underfoot. The aroma of the roasted meat heralded her entrance and made all the guests turn toward her. She passed through the crowd, catching the Fadda girls look at the tray with longing, leaving her wondering whether the rumors of their eating meat only once a week, despite their wealth, were true. Grandmother was always quick to remind Carmela and her siblings that the way to wealth began with not squandering the little one started with.

  She placed the tray at the center of the food table and took a moment to admire the spread. In between the dishes she had placed small ridotto glasses filled with sprigs of fresh herbs. Upon the tablecloth she had laid strands of bougainvillea in deepening shades of pink and purple. The aromas hung together in the air above the colorful table. It was a culinary celebration of which Carmela was proud. How indebted she felt to Mrs. Curwin, the woman who allowed her creativity to take flight without criticism or censorship. Her mind flitted back to her grandmother at the house, most likely sitting on her solitary throne at the head of an empty table, dipping toasted bread into warmed milk. How she would have scoffed at the whimsy of the table decoration and hissed at the excess of food!

  Mrs. Curwin swung in beside her. “You’ve done me proud, my darling,” she whispered in Carmela’s ear, then she turned toward her guests. “Dinner is most definitely served!” she announced, a ringmaster opening the show.

  As the guests moved toward the table, a piercing scream shattered the night.

  Someone scratched the needle off the record.

  “The mines!” a child’s voice yelled, warped with agony.

  Quiet panic froze the group.

  Several soldiers moved toward the garden and shone their flashlights.

  “Help!” the voice cried again, desperate.

  Carmela raced forward. “It’s Salvatore!”

  “Wait!” Kavanagh yelled from the other side of the terrace as he lurched forward to stop her before she could run out. “Private Johnson,” he called, turning to one of the soldiers while holding Carmela, “no civilian is to follow me. That is an order!”

  “Yes, sir,” the private replied, snapping to attention.

  Kavanagh ran out toward the trees.

  He was swallowed into the night.

  The group became statues of fear, waiting for him to reappear. A sliver of light caught his face. A limp Salvatore came into view, draped in Kavanagh’s arms. The Fadda girls gasped. Patches of red were smeared on his thin legs. They were a sculpture of the Pietà in church, a lifeless Jesus collapsed in his mourning mother’s arms. Vittoria dashed to Carmela and clung to her hip. Peppe bounded through the group, ashen. He tore his son from Kavanagh’s arms.

  “Carmela, boil some water and clear the kitchen table,” Kavanagh said. “This is his father?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell him to follow me.”

  “Zio Peppe, come,” Carmela said, but her words fell flat against her uncle’s sobbing. He swung round from foot to foot, lost in terror, clutching his child.

  Carmela grabbed his face. “Zio! This way.”

  When they reached the kitchen Piera was on her way out to see what the commotion was. She saw her cousin’s bloody body and froze.

  “Bring a pot of water to the boil. Lieutenant needs help.”

  “Clear and clean this table! Cut up a tablecloth!”

  Carmela opened the dresser drawers. She had assisted her mother during the labors of several of her neighbors. The sense of urgency and copious blood was not unfamiliar, but this time it took an almost insurmountable level of determination to keep her panic at bay. Kavanagh’s hands worked quickly. He cut part of the cloth into strips, then laid the largest piece on top of the wood.

  “I will take the boy now,” he said, turning to Peppe, whose tears were smeared across his weathered skin. Kavanagh cradled Salvatore and laid him upon the table. Mrs. Curwin ran in. She saw the blood
and turned pale. Mr. Curwin moved in behind and steadied her.

  “Ice to stop the bleeding, please. Is the water almost ready?”

  “Nearly,” Piera replied.

  Carmela ran to the icebox and chipped at the inside. She wrapped a pile inside a muslin. Kavanagh placed Piera’s hand where he wanted the ice pack held. He ripped a strip of tablecloth to make a tourniquet around Salvatore’s shin. It slowed the flow of blood out of the open wound near his ankle.

  “I’m going to suture the wound on his head first, Carmela.”

  She nodded.

  “Mrs. Curwin,” Kavanagh said, without taking his eyes off his patient, “I need you to take care of the father.”

  “Of course,” she answered, pulling a chair out from the table and sitting Peppe down on it.

  Two soldiers burst in and unbuckled two tin medical cases. Thin boxes of supplies lined the inside side by side, labels on their spines like books on a shelf.

  “Tourniquet and forceps, Williams,” Kavanagh said, steady.

  The private reached into the case and pulled out the first box and began to open the package.

  “Carmela, in a moment Private Kendricks will place an ammonia inhalant under his nose. This should bring the boy into consciousness. He has a strong pulse. This is good. When he wakes we’re going to need something for him to bite down on.”

  Carmela grabbed a dishtowel and twisted it thick.

  “Williams, get a couple of boys in here to hold him down. Kendricks: inhalant, swabs, gauze.”

  It was hard for Carmela to imagine these unflappable men caterwauling into the night but moments ago.

  “The water’s boiling, Lieutenant,” Piera said, her voice wavering.

  “Take it off the heat. I’ll clean the wound before I suture.”

  After the lieutenant had mopped Salvatore’s wound clean, he covered most of his face with the remnants of tablecloth to focus on closing the wound. A couple more soldiers entered and moved directly to Salvatore’s head.