Under a Sardinian Sky

by Sara Alexander

  “Carmela”—Franco planted a soft kiss upon her forehead— “I’ll call for you tomorrow.” He gave a polite nod to Maria and Tomas and then left.

  Carmela felt pale.

  She didn’t move from her chair.

  Several minutes passed before anyone spoke.

  “I’m going to stop in on Peppe,” Tomas said, walking out onto the terrace and easing the door closed.

  In the silence, Maria took a chair next to her daughter. She placed Carmela’s cold hand in hers. “I married against my father’s wishes. The day I left he told me I would cry every day of my life. He died a week later. Be grateful for your father’s blessing, Carmela.”

  “I am. Of course. But . . .”

  Maria took a breath to reply, but the staggering footsteps from upstairs brought her to her feet. There was the loud clang of a bedpan. Rushing upstairs, they threw open the double doors to find Rosa on her knees over the pan, Grandmother Icca holding back her hair. She heaved again and again, until her stomach produced nothing but yellow bile. Icca looked up. Her eyes hardened. “We leave tomorrow, Maria.”

  Maria looked away. “I will prepare everything.”

  As she closed the doors Carmela caught sight of her aunt’s swollen abdomen. How could she have not noticed? So lost in the world of the Curwins, the promise of her new position alongside Kavanagh, the abundance of the summer, she had failed to spot the signs. This was no sickness.

  Maria moved quickly. She drew out a large trunk from underneath her bed and began filling it with linens and her mother-in-law’s clothes. Carmela, close behind, bombarded her with barbed whispers: “Mother?! Is this why? Zia Rosa is being sent to the farm to grow her baby out of sight? Does Franco know? What is happening?!” Carmela grabbed her mother’s shoulders a little too hard.

  “Carmela!” Maria shot back with uncharacteristic fire. “We will not speak of this. We will do what we need to do so you can be a bride.”

  “I’m not the one having a baby!”

  A thorny silence. Maria looked at her firstborn, her eyes glistening with what seemed to be remorse and panic. She fought for a deep breath, and straightened. “In a few months you will be the wife of the most important young man in town. Your children will want for nothing.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, determined to stop the tears from falling. “You have a great life ahead of you. Don’t be a slave to your passions. Do this, and the world is yours.”

  Carmela hoped for comfort through her mother’s words, but all she felt was a chasm open up between her and the woman whose tireless family devotion she had always admired. Rosa was having the doctor’s baby, and the family would be forced to bury the dirty secret. Her aunt would flee to the wilderness, labor in silence, and relinquish the babe to willing adoptive parents, no doubt. The woman about town, now fleeing to the hills she had always despised. The woman draped on the most dapper arm in the valley behind closed doors, now slinking into the mud, mired by her passion, burned by desire.

  Carmela’s shock turned to pity. “Very well, Mamma,” she answered.

  She would never be trapped by lust, Carmela vowed. Unlike Rosa, she would play victim to no man.

  Yolanda’s studio was alive with activity. Most of the girls were busy clearing their station or folding and sorting scraps and patches from ends of fabric rolls. Carmela sat by her godmother as she read out the inventory from the store cupboard, essential work for the oncoming September, when business was at its height in preparation for the winter wardrobes of the wealthy.

  The bell rang. They stopped what they were doing and moved across the room to welcome the unexpected guest. Carmela opened the door. There, looking pinched, was a diminutive Virginia. For a flash Carmela panicked that something had befallen Kavanagh, then berated herself for even thinking it; the first port of call for his widow would not be a seamstress of Via Dante with dreams beyond Simius.

  “Buon giorno, Signora,” Carmela said, wanting to sound neither formal nor familiar.

  “One of the girls at the base said to come here. You make dresses, correct?”

  “Yes, of course, come in.”

  Virginia stepped inside, looking tentative, as if she might tread on something untoward. Yolanda swept in, thrilled to have an American come to call. Her godmother’s expression brightened with ambition; she hoped this American customer might be the first of many.

  “Buon giorno, Signora!” she exclaimed a little too loud.

  “Yes,” Virginia replied.

  “This is my godmother, Signora. This is her studio. I work here.”

  “I can see that. I want this dress,” Virginia answered, pulling from her clutch a picture that she had ripped out of Vogue. Carmela caught sight of the magazine’s name on the top right-hand corner of the page.

  “There is a dance at the base in a week’s time,” Virginia said.

  “Yes, Lieutenant Kavanagh mentioned something about invitations for all the farmers!”

  Virginia bristled. Carmela wasn’t sure if it was because she had mentioned Kavanagh’s name like that of an old friend, or because the idea of sharing a hall with a handful of elderly shepherds was not Virginia’s idea of high society.

  “Is that so?” she replied, with an arch of her eyebrow.

  “We will be delighted to help,” Carmela added, off Yolanda’s urgent look.

  Carmela caught Agnes spying on the group from the other side of the room and counted a few seconds before she whisked herself over, greeting Virginia like an old friend. Yolanda stiffened. It was obvious she found her approach vulgar, and she was quick to send her back to her table. Yolanda pressed the importance of making new customers feel unique and appreciated, welcome, not stifled.

  “Signora—caffè?” Yolanda asked.

  “Ice tea would be just fine.”

  Yolanda shot Carmela a glance.

  “Just a moment,” Carmela said to Virginia, walking a few paces away to whisper to her aunt. “Zia, she wants iced tea. I’ll run down to Antonio and fetch some?”

  “Get one of the girls to do it—you stay and measure her before she changes her mind.”

  “Really, Zia, I don’t mind.”

  Yolanda’s eyes narrowed. “Anyone would think you didn’t want her business!”

  Carmela leaned in closer to her ear. “This is a woman with little patience. Trust me. If things aren’t just the way she wants them we’ll have our name smeared. Get this right and she’ll bring in more lire than you can dream of!”

  “Fine. I shall begin, then.”

  Carmela walked back to Virginia, who was leafing through a pile of magazines, looking bored.

  “My godmother, Yolanda, will measure you now. When I return with your drink we can talk about fabric?”

  Virginia nodded as she turned to the mirror to check her teeth for lipstick and readjust her hat.

  Outside the sun was unforgiving, but Carmela preferred the hot air to the glare of Kavanagh’s wife. She reached Antonio’s bar and stepped into the welcome cool. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

  “If it isn’t the world-famous interpreter! The brains and beauty of Simius! To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “That’s enough, Anto’.”

  “Everyone’s talking about it. Had one in this morning from his farm out east, telling me he heard about some dance at the base being thrown by that handsome lieutenant fellow.”

  “Did he call him handsome?”

  “And Giuaneddu from the dairy farm stopped in, says you and Blue Eyes were quite the pretty pair, sat side by side in his veranda trying to get him to give up a piece of his land to the Yanks.”

  She sat on a stool. “Rent, Anto’, not give up.”

  “So they say.”

  “Will you be at the dance?”

  He toweled off the counter in front of her. “Running the bar.”

  “Don’t even tell me how much you’re charging.”

  “More than they have sense.”

  Carmela shook her he
ad with a smile. “Well, right now I need an iced tea.”

  “For you?”

  “No. Kavanagh’s wife.”

  “I didn’t know you two were friends,” he chirped with a grin.

  Carmela rolled her eyes. “She’s at the studio being measured for a gown.”

  “I see,” he said, reaching up for a tumbler. “Going to make her belle of the ball?”

  Carmela liked to think that Virginia’s visit hadn’t raised her own expectations of how she herself would dress for the evening. Nothing uglier than vanity, Carmela reminded herself. “She hardly needs any help from me, Anto’.”

  “True,” he answered, opening the wooden door of his icebox to chip at a block of ice. “I saw her next to naked at the beach picnic,” he carried on. “Like she had her own spotlight follow her.”

  “You’re no better than Casler.”

  Antonio set a small paper coaster on his marble counter and placed the glass on top of it. Then he sliced three rings of lemon and dropped them inside. “Only a fool allows himself to feel superior. If Casler’s manners have a lot to be desired, who am I to say mine are any better?”

  “You keep your eyes to yourself—for the most part—that’s why.”

  Antonio reached over for a large jug of tea and poured it into the glass. The ice clinked. “And there I was thinking that mass twice a day was making me a good person.”

  Carmela reached into her pocket for some coins.

  “Wait,” Antonio said, reaching for a small vial of simple syrup. “The Yanks like their drinks—and women—sweet.” He drizzled the clear liquid into the glass and gave it a stir with a metal rod.

  Carmela rushed back to her office, careful not to spill any of Virginia’s cool drink. She placed it down on top of the low table Yolanda had cleared in the changing area. Most of the measurements were already done, and Virginia was slipping back into her pale yellow linen dress.

  “Here, let me,” Carmela offered, reaching for the buttons at the back. She noticed how transparent Virginia’s skin looked and the way the muscles in her shoulders rippled underneath, like the sinew of a new colt. Her neck was long and slim, a delicate perch for her heart-shaped face. Virginia leaned forward toward the mirror to reapply her lipstick. Her mouth was small and looked like it was almost, or had just been, puckered for a kiss. On another it might have lent the face an overall impression of someone sensual, ready to be touched at any time. On her it painted permanent disappointment. Carmela was a head taller than Virginia. She felt like an awkward prepubescent playing with an oversized doll.

  As far as Carmela could tell, Kavanagh was curious about people and generally inquisitive. His wife, on the contrary, appeared to despise anyone who might not be of use to her. Try as she might, Carmela couldn’t stop the slew of images floating into her head—Virginia and Kavanagh dining, dancing, making love. She wondered whether this woman was someone who ever caved in to raw lust. Or whether there would always be a part of her kept locked away, protected, cold. Was this a woman who would die for her mate? Unlikely. But what would be the sense in feeling like you would sacrifice yourself for another? That was not love. That was not marriage. Would someone like Kavanagh even crave that sort of woman anyway? Of course not. His was a measured life. The consideration and gentility he displayed toward her countrymen was of someone who, in the words of her mother, was not a slave to their passions.

  Carmela reached the top button. “Would you like black for the bodice, or try something else?”

  “I want this dress. It is black. Joe convinced me you were more than capable of cutting the exact match of anything I chose.”

  Carmela felt a swell of pride. Kavanagh deemed her talented enough for his wife. Why had she said it had been one of the girls to convince her to come? He couldn’t have paid Carmela a bigger compliment if he tried. She would hate to disappoint him. Now it was her job to make his wife dazzle, though she couldn’t help feeling that Virginia stepping into a room dressed in a burlap sack would turn as many heads. An image of herself, standing in the gown she had been asked to make Virginia, pierced her mind. Carmela pictured Kavanagh casting a glance down the length of her own body.

  “Yes, I want this dress,” Virginia said, clipped, snapping Carmela back to the room. “I shall be back in two days for the fitting.”

  With that, Virginia rose and left. Not so much as a thank-you or farewell. Carmela and Yolanda watched the door close.

  “They all like that up there?” Yolanda asked with a frown.

  “What do you mean?” Carmela pretended she hadn’t scrutinized Virginia, didn’t feel the tide rise and fall in her stomach or the cold ache of guilt.

  “Barely looked at me,” Yolanda said. “I haven’t felt like that since I was an apprentice to my own godmother down in Cagliari. Never seen skin like that, though, have you? China. White like the sands of Sant’Antioco.”

  Carmela disappeared into her work, using the picture as a guide for a pattern. Never had she been asked to make anything so dramatic. As fashionable as they liked to feel, the gentry of the surrounding areas were marked in their conservative attitude to high fashion. Off-the-shoulder dresses would be built up to cover a little more flesh. Inches would be added to lengths. Décolletage was covered with discreet swathes of tulle perhaps. But the vision before Carmela was one of pure drama. A tight bodice, barely leaving room to breathe, clung to the model’s slim waist, rising up to a deep plunge toward the cleavage in a heart-shaped rim. From the waist a three-tiered skirt fell to the ground in swooping layers to a gentle train. The fabric—a rich, black velvet—added to the aching decadence. The model stood with a foot upon the first step of a sweeping marble staircase, looking back toward the camera as if she had been interrupted at the start of her flight to a secret lover, hidden perhaps in the upper rooms of the palace she found herself in.

  Of course Virginia would be the belle of the ball.

  CHAPTER 14

  Local women lined the walls of the dance floor at the base, doing their best impersonation of demure, eyeballing the uniformed men while masking their excitement with apparent nonchalance. Carmela knew that, despite their best efforts, they felt as swept away as she did. No party in town had been anything like this. At best, they might expect a twirl around an uncle’s cement terrace, if they had any who were lucky enough to own a gramophone. Carmela knew that none of these girls had ever heard a brassy swing band howl into the night like this one, nor had they twirled beneath a sea of star-spangled banners or sipped from bottomless bowls of punch served in squat glasses with dainty handles. This was as close to America as any of them might hope to get.

  A trumpet player at the podium took to his feet and screeched out a riff. Every fiber in her body willed her to dance. She skimmed the crowd for Franco. He was lost right after they entered, accosted by one of his cousins hovering over a table with booze. There was a cackle of laughter. Agnes was at the center of a small group of girls beside Carmela. “If we don’t get lucky tonight, girls, I’ll eat my own dress!” she gasped, stifling a girlish giggle. Her eyes landed on Carmela’s. “Don’t we look fancy tonight?”

  “Evening,” Carmela replied.

  “Fiancé left you to fend for yourself?”

  Franco slipped in and hooked his arm around Carmela. Agnes’s smile faded. If she wasn’t so full of malice, the fact that she was still in love with Franco might have made Carmela feel sorry for her.

  “I was just getting my bride a drink,” Franco purred, slipping a glass of orange punch into Carmela’s hand. “Sounds like you need one too. Might be the only thing to wipe the sour puss off your face.”

  Agnes turned on her heels and disappeared into the throng, her clique of young girls close behind like a line of ducklings.

  “Just jealous because I’m standing with the most beautiful woman in here.” Franco ran a finger along Carmela’s jaw. “Did you wear this so I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else but being inside you?” he whispered.

&nb
sp; Carmela met his gaze.

  “Let’s go out,” he said, “for air.”

  He slipped his hand into hers, grasping it a little tighter than she would have liked.

  “Carmela! Franco! Welcome!” Kavanagh called, wading through the dancing couples, stretching out a hand to Franco. “Quite the turnout, right?”

  They shook hands. Franco’s smiling eyes glinted with an undecipherable twinkle, which Carmela wished was closer to warmth than threat.

  “I’m so glad everyone made the trip down here. Benvenuti, yes?” Kavanagh was shouting now, as the band had hit a raucous bridge. In her periphery, Carmela spied Piera being twirled by Luigi, a local optometrist who had recently set up a tiny photo studio in his back storeroom. She hadn’t seen her sister smile like that in a while.

  “This party is wonderful!” Carmela beamed. “We’ve never seen anything like it!”

  “Great,” Kavanagh answered, a little bashful. Carmela noted how the tone of his voice shifted when talking of anything beyond the comfort of work. “I know the girls in the offices had a great time fixing it. Most of them haven’t been to a dance since they left home. I’ll call for you when I make my speech, if that’s okay?”

  “Of course.”

  Franco shifted. “What he say?” He never failed to intuit when Kavanagh spoke of her interpreting.

  “He says I’m going to help with his speech later.”

  “In front of everyone?”

  In the slight pause, Kavanagh’s gaze lifted from Carmela to scan the room.

  “Well, you two have a good time, now. Please excuse me.”

  Carmela watched Kavanagh walk away, noticing how his jacket tapered at his slim waist, emphasizing his wide shoulders.

  “Where’s his wife?” Franco asked. Carmela’s eyes scanned the crowd. The sea of people ahead parted. There, at the end of the narrow aisle, the delicate frame of a woman appeared, her alabaster skin luminous beneath the folds of the black velvet of her ruched bodice. The sweeping décolletage led the eye to a polite hint of cleavage. Her hair was gathered up and away from her face, drawing attention, like a magnet, to those unmistakable green eyes. They sparkled as bright as the diamond clusters in her ears.