Under a Sardinian Sky

by Sara Alexander

  “Miss, I believe you misunderstood me,” Mary-Anne said.

  “Sorry?”

  “Lieutenant Kavanagh. He’s not here,” the receptionist replied, slower this time, overenunciating the way many of the Americans did for the Simiuns.

  “Yes, you said. Many times I’ve waited.”

  “No, miss. He is gone.”

  Carmela drew a blank.

  “Home,” Mary-Anne continued, reduced to single-word sentences. “America.”

  Carmela opened her mouth to speak, but the words caught at the back of her throat.

  “Left last night.”

  “When does he come back?”

  “Twelfth of never, if his wife has anything to do with it.”

  “God-damn it!” Casler’s voice boomed from around the corner. “For Chrissakes, Mary-Anne, what in the Lord’s name have you done?”

  “Sir?” Mary-Anne stood up to attention.

  “The godforsaken report I dictated to you about Kavanagh for the Lieutenant General in DC?”

  “Yes, sir. Did I make a mistake, sir?”

  “Yes, you made a god-damn mistake!”

  “Sir?”

  A vein pulsed at the side of his head. “You wrote every fricking word I asked you to write!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m holding you solely responsible for robbing me of my best man! DC told me they’re keeping him stateside. Indefinitely! Don’t you ever do that to me again!” He swung open the door and flew out. “Son of a gun!”

  The women stood. Carmela’s heart galloped. The rest of her body was numb. She looked at the rosy-cheeked receptionist, who was flushed with embarrassment. Carmela willed her expression into something close to breezy, but her face wouldn’t cooperate.

  Gone. The word stuck like a thorn.

  It was only when Carmela was halfway up the hill beside the base that she realized she hadn’t said as much as a good-bye or thank you to Mary-Anne. Hadn’t stopped to ask her whether she was expected to visit the farm without Kavanagh and report back. She had turned and left, and that was all. Holding on to her last scrap of pride. Holding her breath till the base was out of view. Giving into the sobs only when she was sure no one would see. Seething with disgust for wailing like a woman who had just lost a child. Balking at her self-pity as she rocked beneath a cork tree, raped of its bark. Her cries vibrated against its ochre trunk.

  And for what? A shabby silhouette of another life? Some man she was terrified to admit to being in love with? Some man she had loved the moment her eyes had landed on his mere shadow, a man who made every fiber in her body stand at attention and vibrate with life—a made-up man. When had she become so spoiled? When had she looked her destiny in the face and chosen to lose herself in some young girl’s fantasy? It was beyond pathetic. She was a simpering mess, an embarrassment to herself, to all Sardinian women.

  She could run away from the pointlessness of existence for only so long, after all. Kavanagh was a delightful diversion. That was all. And so was Franco, she supposed. And so was the work she loved. And so was everything. In the end we die and spend a lifetime running away from the fact. Being alchemists in the kitchen to make gold out of root vegetables, manna out of tomatoes, for what? A fleeting moment of pleasure. A desperate act of worship for the beauty all around us. We wake the next day, realizing death inches closer, so we do it all again. Throw our hands in the air, dance for no reason, succumb to frivolity, illusions, flattery, vanity—all to buy precious time. Creating the illusion of memories till we are dust. And for what?

  How stupid we all are, she thought, little ants scurrying around to nowhere. Some Greek or Roman said it better. Laid it out on stone or scrolls; pointlessness was their specialty. She was no philosopher. She was just a withering woman too scared to listen to her instincts that screamed out for escape from her promise to a man who would never fill her heart with the love she ached for. A man terrified of her yearning for independence, romance, and a love that was not his to give.

  There was ash in her stomach. She shivered despite the heat beating down. Then the fury rose, hot and ferocious. She shook with angry tears. The knot in her stomach tightened. She lurched and heaved by the tree. A speck of vomit flecked the hem of her skirt.

  “You’re sick.”

  Carmela looked up, startled. Was there drool at the corner of her mouth?

  “Water?” the little boy asked, offering his leather pouch hung across his bony body. He squinted in the sun. Carmela fumbled to kick earth over the mess she had made by her feet.

  “No.” Flick, kick. “Grazie.” She wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

  “You look like my aunt.” The young boy was no more than nine years old. His black eyes bored into her.

  “She died,” he added.

  “Paolo?” Carmela replied with a tight swallow. Her throat was acid.

  His face cracked into a wily grin. His skin was the same hue as the tree trunks framing him, but he looked more pinched than he had when she and Kavanagh had seen him at Signor Lau’s farm a few weeks back.

  “You’re the talker for l’Americano,” he said, giving his head a scratch. It looked as if a blindfolded barber had attacked it with sheep shearing scissors.

  Carmela felt naked. How long had he watched her? And how could he stand the heat in those oversized woolen trousers and jacket?

  “You don’t go to school?”

  A raspy cackle. “Nothing to learn there, Signorina. That’s what Papa says.”

  This scrawny shepherd boy was ripping her out of her self-inflicted ravine. What must he think of this woman in a linen suit and smudged lipstick, sobbing and vomiting into the trees?

  “Do you have cholera?” he asked.

  Carmela burst into laughter. Tears fell off her cheeks, leaving little droplets on her shirt.

  “Mamma told me the cholera makes people mad.”

  Carmela wiped her eyes, a giggle at the end of her breath.

  “Maybe a spider bit you? Nonna said she watched a woman die of crazy because of a spider.”

  “No, it’s nothing that will kill me. Or you, for that matter.”

  Paolo took a step forward. “Did someone else die?”

  “How long have you been watching?”

  “Signora, I have to go and get these sheep down the hill and back before sunset.”

  “Good heavens, that’s a day away!”

  “Not with these lot, Signora. Papa gives me the difficult ones. Teach me a lesson.”

  “Oh?”

  Paolo yanked at a tuft of wild fennel and chewed for a while. “Does your Papa hit you?”

  Carmela turned to look at his tiny face. “No.”

  His twinkling black eyes bore straight through her. “I’m bad,” he said.

  “Everyone has a bit of bad.”

  “You don’t.” He shrugged. “Only a bit of sick—for someone.”

  Carmela took the first full breath since leaving the base. “Try not to do bad things. Papa might go easy on you.”

  Paolo took his gaze toward the sea. A memory flitted across his face. Then his expression fell into studied inscrutable.

  “I’m good at keeping secrets, Paolo.”

  Paolo rolled up his sleeve. A huge gash was across his upper arm. It looked hot with the beginnings of infection.

  Carmela gasped, reaching down for his small wrist and clasping it in her hand. “You’re coming with me!”

  Carmela marched down the hill with a reluctant Paulo dragging behind her, screaming out in protestation. “No, Signora!” he cried, fighting to free himself from her grasp.

  “They have medicines,” she barked back at him without taking her eyes off the base at the bottom of the hill.

  “You’ll get me killed, Signora!”

  His escalating cries fell on deaf ears. All Carmela could hear was the thumping of her heart and the crunch of her feet on the cooked earth.

  Carmela burst through the base doors. Mary-Anne looked up at the clatt
er. Her eyes landed on the duo. Carmela paid no mind to the scuffs of dried earth on her white linen, the puffy, tear-stained shadows under her eyes, or the hair that looked as if she had slept in the wilderness for months. Nor did she, even for a moment, consider it inappropriate to drag a shepherd’s son into the base and demand immediate assistance. Carmela brushed away that little voice, reprimanding her for using this poor wretch as an excuse to step back inside. Mary-Anne sat openmouthed. “This boy needs help!” Carmela yelled.

  “Signora! Please!” Paolo spat. “You’re holding on too tight!”

  “Excuse me?” Mary-Anne asked.

  “You heard me! Call a doctor!”

  “Miss, is he injured?”

  “No, I’m taking him on a tour of America.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Get me a doctor!”

  “Signora, you’re hurting me!” Paolo pushed at Carmela’s wrist, but the vise would not be loosened.

  “Are you telling me that you are not going to call a doctor for immediate assistance?”

  “Please tell me where the accident happened.”

  “No accident. This boy was hurt on purpose!”

  “Miss, I’m going to ask you to calm down.”

  “And I’m asking you to open that gate there and lead us through to the ward. Now!”

  The tears were rising. Carmela’s first night beyond those starched curtains, Kavanagh tending to Salvatore with the tender care of a father, replayed in her mind without pause. “Call Signor Casler!”

  “Miss, this is an army base, not the Red Cross!”

  Carmela didn’t realize she was sobbing. “If Lieutenant Kavanagh were here, he would not turn his back on a sick child!”

  “If this is a medical emergency I suggest you take him to the local hospital in town immediately.”

  Carmela shrieked. An intense pain shot up her wrist. Paulo slipped free of her grasp and flew back out the doors, disappearing into the hills, leaving behind nothing but two little teeth marks on Carmela’s hand. Mary-Anne’s eyebrow raised, then lowered.

  “Where’s Casler?!” Carmela yelled.

  “I can take a message. If it’s urgent.”

  “Has he gone home now too?!”

  “If you do not calm down you will be escorted out of the base.”

  “One month you have watched me come in and out of here. Do you have any idea what my work has done for you? You wouldn’t have your job without me, do you hear?!” Carmela’s arms were flailing now, punching the air with desperate lobs.

  Casler snaked in. “Nothing hotter than a pair of gals clawing at each other, right?”

  Mary-Anne flushed a deeper shade of pink. “Major, this woman is demanding—”

  “Bet she is. Her ride has skipped town. I was trying to forget I lost my right arm. What the hell?!”

  Carmela took a breath, but Casler didn’t give her a chance to use it.

  “You two done scratching, or shall I stay and watch the rest of the show?” He looked from one red-faced woman to the other. He took a final drag of his cigarette, then stubbed it out on the chrome ashtray upon Mary-Anne’s desk as he walked past, tipping his hat. Carmela watched him disappear down the corridor for his rounds.

  “Good-day, ma’am,” Mary-Anne concluded, sorting a batch of files for the fourth time.

  “If, in your heart,” Carmela began, leaning toward her with a threatening whisper, “you believe Kavanagh would not have helped that poor boy, you will sleep well tonight.”

  Mary-Anne looked up and met Carmela’s gaze squarely. “A skin infection does not warrant military intervention. Your young cousin, with whom you came in previously, was almost maimed by undetonated enemy mines. This young companion did not appear to be in such a position or in danger of dying from malaria, ma’am.”

  Capital M.

  Mary-Anne was not moved by Paulo’s plight. Or Carmela’s. Or, if she was, she hid it with military precision. Carmela turned on her heel for the second time that morning, paying no mind to her ripped hem, her hands scuffed with earth, or the sniggers of the two nurses who, on hearing the commotion, had approached for a closer look. She wouldn’t admit to having used Paolo as a pitiful excuse to return to the place where Kavanagh should be. What did it matter?

  America had shut her doors.

  CHAPTER 16

  Carmela stared down into the metal skillet, watching the slivers of garlic fizz dark brown in the hot oil.

  “It’s burned,” Piera said, setting down the last plate upon the kitchen table.

  Carmela yanked the skillet off the flame and dropped it on an unlit burner with a clang. “And the world still turns.”

  “Here,” Piera said, handing Carmela a pile of cotton napkins. “I’ll start a new sauce. Lay these and go change out of your linen suit.”

  “And miss Icca telling me about the garlic too? Not if you paid me.”

  “Someone’s still recovering from the dance!”

  Carmela flung the napkins onto the table. “Someone is not recovering. Someone couldn’t care less if the whole lot of you ate donkey’s oats for their damned lunch, because, in the end, whether it’s good or whether it’s bad, it will never be good enough, will it? And we shuffle around, pleasing the queen, while she hides her growing grandchild behind stone walls.”

  Piera’s jaw fell open slightly, but Carmela stormed on before she could even take a breath. “I don’t need to feed or please or beg or apologize for a hypocrite, I—”

  “A hot cook is best out of the kitchen.”

  Carmela whipped around to the crooked silhouette of her grandmother in the doorway. “Anything you care to tell me directly, child?” Icca asked. “Or shall I just hold on to the poisonous snippets I caught from the other side of this door?”

  Carmela felt woozy. A gray feeling. So quickly had she drifted to the frayed edges of sadness. So fast was she retreating into a numb place, an emotional purgatory, a no-man’s-land. Would she let one man push her so far into the deep? Of course she would. His very essence scored her. Every inch of him was committed to memory: his woody scent, the rosy pallor of his pale skin, the way the sunlight set his hair on golden fire, how his blue eyes shone with warmth and honesty.

  How could she have let herself mistake the way he looked at her for anything other than decorum? How could she have let her eyes linger a moment too long on his capable, skilled hands at the wheel, on the head of his child, the marble shoulder of his wife. Or let his face, or the imagined weight of him on top of her, be the last thing that would float into her mind before sleep overcame her? Cling to numb, Carmela, she pleaded with herself. There’s air there, if a little thin. “Lunch is almost ready,” she said.

  “Very well,” Icca replied.

  “Yolanda needs me at the studio. Tell Mamma I will be late this evening.”

  She glanced at her sister before turning to leave. Piera’s eyes appeared to search her own for an explanation, which Carmela doubted she would ever be able to give. How could she turn onto her side at night—their usual sleeping position like the dovetail of fine furniture—wish her sister sweet dreams and say, by the by, that she was engaged to the wrong man and had lost her heart to another? In another world, perhaps. Another life. To burden her sister with anything of the sort was nothing short of unthinkable.

  Carmela walked across the concrete terrace. For the first time that day her mind drew a blank. An intermission. She walked down the steps to the lower terrace, passed beneath the mimosa and wisteria without her daily admiration of them, without taking in the little houses encrusting the funnel of her town, toward the cathedral’s golden spire. She stepped into the viccolo beyond their house in silence and closed the gate behind her.

  The lock clicked.

  “Soda alla menta, please, Antonio.” Carmela raised her hip onto one of his bar stools.

  “The belle of the ball graces my little cave with her presence! You want me to ask everyone else to leave?”

  Carmela’s eyes didn’t smile.


  “Still groggy? Comes with the territory. Princess by night, mortal by day.”

  Carmela caught a sliver of herself in the mirror behind the army of bottles behind the bar. She looked blank.

  “There you are, Signorina,” he said, placing a tall glass of green liquid before her. A long, skinny spoon rested inside it. She watched the effervescent bubbles race skyward, their ephemeral existence expiring at the surface with a pop.

  “Hey,” he pinged, snapping her back to the bar, “is it true that Blue Eyes has done a bunk back to Uncle Sam? Someone said they saw his wife in a fit of tears.”

  What brittle resolve she had cracked on meeting his eyes.

  He read her. “Carmela,” he whispered, “tesoro, I’m so sorry.” His warmth was disarming. The first drop of a flood hit her hand as she averted his gaze. Antonio whipped around to the front of the bar. “Come with me.” He called to a young man serving a couple outside. “Matteo, I’m in the office if you need me.” Matteo gave Carmela a sweep, then raised an eyebrow at his boss, which Antonio ignored. He closed the door behind them and signaled for Carmela to take a seat on the tired leather chair at his desk. “No mint soda’s going to fix what you have, is it?”

  Carmela bit her lips so they would neither lie nor confess. The sobs broke through regardless. Antonio watched her for a moment. Then he wrapped his arms around her. How had his mother taught him to listen so carefully?

  “This will hurt,” he said, taking her puffy face in his, salty tears trickling down her nose. “For a long time, this will ache. But believe me, Carmela, I have loved where I shouldn’t have loved. It’s a knife. But it doesn’t have to kill you. You can choose.”

  “What have I done?” she murmured before the second wave washed to shore. She shuddered into the ashen center of her sobs. Antonio smelled of licorice. She pulled away from the wet patch she left on his lapel. “How did I let this happen?”