Under a Sardinian Sky

by Sara Alexander

  The mound of shells continued to rise. Icca’s cries faded. She shuffled away from the table and returned with a small photo of her late husband that she kept on the corner shelf above her stool. Then she opened the dresser door, pulled out several glass oil lamps, and adjusted the woven wicks of each so they were the same length. She reached into her apron for a small box of matches and lit each of the lamps. Their flames mesmerized Vittoria. “I’m sorry, Nonna.”

  “You should be. He was an ox.”

  Vittoria straightened, braced for more questioning, but Gianetta shot her a furrowed glare and she stayed mute.

  “To bed, girls. Nonna needs some rest,” Maria said.

  Carmela and Piera arranged some of the dried fruit upon the nuts. From another basket on the counter Carmela pulled out several flat breads, baked especially for All Souls’ Eve. They were far smaller and denser than the wide spianata pane fino. The dough was fluffier and dotted with fennel seeds, scored several times down its length so that when it was cooked the small, flat loaves looked like baked faces. When Carmela had been Vittoria’s age, it had scared her so much that she couldn’t sleep. She watched her youngest sister now, eyeing the shadows that the oil lamps cast as the family rose from the table. Across the rough white walls the women looked like itinerant ghosts, creeping around the kitchen.

  Before they left, Icca placed several more photos by each of the lamps: her brother, killed in the First World War; her aunts. There was a tiny, damaged photo of Maria’s youngest brother, who died in infancy, and another of her father. Carmela wondered how her mother had coped with her father passing a week after Maria and Tomas were married. A broken heart, they had said. And yet Maria was loyal in her devotion to him and to her mother, who had passed when she was a girl. Now the grandparents Carmela would never know were propped up on the kitchen table—tiny, faded ghosts invited to a midnight feast.

  That night Carmela couldn’t sleep. She was twelve again. Every creak and whisper of wind made her ears prick up. She thought of the ghosts downstairs, chomping on nuts, sharing stories, crying for the living, for their lives. Would they cast shadows across the walls too? A transparent glow, perhaps. She thought about checking on Vittoria: A terror shared is a terror halved. Instead, she drew her knees closer to her chest. She thought about Aunt Rosa asleep at the farm.

  Thick, hot tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Carmela was haunted by something more terrifying than ghosts.

  The following morning, the cemetery was full of people and yellow chrysanthemums. Families wove in and out between the graves shaking hands; kissing each other; offering blessings, condolences, and compliments. Each gravestone was polished and gleaming. The Chirigoni clan stood before Icca’s late husband’s grave while she rearranged the flowers in the vase upon the marker. The week before, Tomas had refreshed the painted letters of the inscription with a new coat, and the marble shone from scrubbing. Zia Lucia stood beside them with her children gathered around her skirts as she crossed herself. Beside the grandfather’s tomb lay her son Bruno, taken by encephalitis at ten years old, and her baby Gina, taken at thirteen months from malaria.

  Carmela wanted to cry, but no tears would come. Beside her, Piera wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. Zia Lucia blasphemed a little, told her resting children she counted the days since they had left her, shot a sideways glance at Icca, and then marched off to talk with the neighbors. The men replaced their flat caps upon their heads and gravitated toward their friends, huddling in an ever-growing group by the main gates.

  Luigi appeared around one of the larger family mausoleums and took off his hat as he approached the family.

  “Buon giorno, Signora Maria.”

  Carmela’s mother nodded her head. As the group moved up the muddy path, Carmela noticed Piera hang back a little and exchange a few snatches of a conversation with Luigi before he moved on to another group of people.

  “A secret is not a secret if everyone knows, you know,” Carmela said as Piera reached her.

  Piera’s face creased into an involuntary grin.

  “That wasn’t the official parental meeting, I hope. I shouldn’t think it wise to bring your fiancé to the cemetery on All Souls’ Day to meet his in-laws!”

  “Shhh!”

  “You’re the one who ought to keep a little quieter, don’t you think? Luigi turns up anytime we set foot out of the house. An invisible wire connects you two. Only a matter of time before they realize.”

  “With your wedding in the spring? No one can think of anything else.”

  Carmela stopped walking. “There’s no competition here, Piera.”

  “Never said there was.”

  “I can hear it under your words.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Carmela looked into her sister’s big brown eyes, moist with frustration and excitement. It occurred to her that her sister’s happiness was paramount to her own. An image of Piera walking up the aisle to Luigi flashed in her mind. There was nothing she wanted more than to see feisty Piera soften into a lifelong love. Life with Franco may not provide Carmela with this fantasy of romantic love, but in the end it was a sacrifice she would gladly make, especially if her sister might have the blessing instead. She had not found love at an early age. She had not let her eye and mind drift toward a foreign stranger only to have the illusion shatter before her like brittle glass. Of the two, Piera was the one who deserved life’s prize. It abetted any last traces of guilt in Carmela to know that, in some way, her suffering had not been in vain. In the end, it was as if she had paid penance for her sister’s happiness. “I would be the first person to offer you the cathedral in my place if you and Luigi don’t want to wait till afterward. There’s no race to win.”

  “We’ve only been—I mean . . . just let’s not talk about this.”

  “You’re the one who’s suggesting my wedding is somehow eclipsing everyone else’s happiness.”

  “I never said anything like that!”

  “That’s precisely what you said.”

  “Not everyone has a fiancé who drools over them or people telling us how talented we are all day long!”

  The sisters fell silent. Carmela realized it wasn’t her sister she wanted to fight. “I’ve upset you. I’m sorry. I’m a little off today.”

  Piera surrendered to a laugh, then planted a light kiss on Carmela’s cheek.

  “I love you too, Pie’.”

  They turned toward the path. With quick steps they dodged the thicker clods of mud to catch up to the rest of the family. Just before they reached the entrance to the cemetery, Franco appeared.

  “Buon giorno, Franco,” Piera said. With a nod she left them alone.

  “This place gives me the shivers,” he said, wrapping his arm around Carmela and planting a soft kiss on her forehead.

  “Why? Everyone is at peace.”

  “You say so? Have you seen any of those photographs on the tombs up that aisle over there? You’d think the family would have chosen pictures of the grandmothers where they don’t have a mustache!”

  Carmela smiled. “The dead don’t have much need for vanity.”

  “Dignity, at least. Who wants to be remembered as the hairy nonna?”

  They walked several synchronized steps along the pathway.

  “We will lie side by side one day here too,” Franco said, without raising his eyes from the ground. His voice was a warm murmur. It was as if he were inviting her to lie with him for the first time, not thinking about dying.

  “And we will crumble into our earth, Franco.”

  They turned to look at one another.

  “I’m not frightened when I look at you, Carmela. It’s impossible, when I lose myself in your eyes.”

  Carmela touched her cheek to his. “First skeletons give you goose bumps, now they turn you romantic.”

  “I love you with every part of me, Carmela.”

  He took her face in her hands and placed his warm mouth on hers. For a moment
they were adolescents again. The dank November mist disappeared. The dreadful afternoon of the grape harvest had never happened. It was summer. “Have a good feast day. Papa will be calling for me. I must go before he bursts an artery.”

  Carmela watched him take wide strides over the damp earth toward the crowds. Her hands were warm again. Had a part of their love resurrected? October had been a mistake. His passion had run away with him. She could have said no, stayed with the group. She had been foolish to run away on her own. If that wasn’t an invitation, what would be? Neither of them had spoken about it since. She had made sure of that. As well as making sure they never met alone for any length of time, away from the safety of a crowd. Carmela grasped at the hope that these feelings of forgiveness weren’t just passing through, the revisiting of a memory, only to fade alongside her ancestors once tomorrow dawned.

  CHAPTER 19

  The golden rays of late summer were long forgotten. Now a purple gray haze hung limp and frigid over the plains. Carmela stood outside the farmhouse watching the November fog roll in from the coast. The cork oaks looked like arthritic workers, hunched in pain, toiling the frosty soil. She wrapped her wool scarf tighter around her shoulders. In the field before the cottage, Tomas and Peppe finished planting the garlic. Tiny cloves, like white pawns, stood to attention in straight drills inside their holes. Carmela used to draw some comfort from the ritualistic planting rhythms, the promise and reminder of hibernation before the celebration of spring, but all she felt now was a damp, cold seep into her bones.

  Usually at this time of year, the men would take the majority of the work on themselves, often staying for days at a time without any help. As Rosa approached her final few weeks of confinement, however, the women took turns staying with her.

  “Carmela?” Rosa’s voice called from the dark.

  Carmela returned inside. The fire was almost embers. She walked to the hearth and threw on another squat log from the basket. It crackled.

  “I need something warm to drink,” Rosa whispered from her supine position upon the bed, where she had spent most of the day.

  “I’ll set some tea if you like, Zia?”

  “Yes.”

  Carmela lifted the iron pot, poured in some water from a terracotta jug, then hung the pot above the flames on a metal hook. She took a seat upon the footstool.

  “A watched pot never boils,” Rosa murmured.

  “You really think I have such powers, Zia?”

  “I think you like to sit there smug while I roll around this cave like a beached whale.”

  Carmela looked across the room to her aunt. She was pale. Over the last few days she had eaten like a bird, citing that the growth, as she referred to it, was suffocating her to the point of her not being able to swallow. The dark circles under her eyes told the story of sleepless nights. Her hair was swept back under a black scarf, her delicate face skeletal where once it had been compelling. Her demeanor, pallor, speaking tone, was of a woman locked in grief—not jubilant expectancy. Without her signature coral lipstick she looked washed out. A half-finished sketch.

  “Nobody is judging you,” Carmela said, almost letting the cup in hand fall to the floor, doing a bad job of avoiding the circular conversation at which Rosa excelled since her imprisonment.

  “You’re a bad liar. It will get you into trouble one day.” And with that she turned onto her other side, moaning as her back arched with the protruding weight.

  The noise of a car rattling down the lane reached the house. Carmela moved to the back window to see who was there, but the driver had already jumped out and was headed to the front door. Before Carmela could reach it, it swung open and Silvio’s brother, Agostino, strode in. Carmela leaped toward him and stood between him and the bed, grateful that the blankets did a fair job of disguising whom it was covering.

  “Signor Falchi! Buon giorno. Let me take you to my father,” she said, shaking his hand and doing her best to lead him back out while appearing hospitable. He was a meaty man, thick all over. Every movement was assured—his handshake, his stride, even the way his eyes surveyed the land.

  Tomas and Peppe, on hearing the noise, were already marching across the cold earth to greet him. “Agostino, so glad you could help us this year!” Tomas bellowed. “It’s an honor to have you do this for us!”

  His voice reached the sty on the far side of the house. “My brother said there was half a pig in it for me! How could I refuse?”

  The men laughed. Carmela noticed how round and pink Agostino’s nose was, not a world away from the animals that he slaughtered each day. He had axed his way up the butchery ladder since he was a young man, and now he owned all three of the meat shops in town.

  “The Chirigonis and the Falchis will be family soon, no? This will be the first of many!” Agostino boomed.

  Carmela watched them walk toward the pig sty, a small stone hut. Muddy remnants of past winters clung to its sides, and moss threatened a silent, slow rebellion. The men disappeared inside. Every year she had managed to miss this event, and every year she had offered prayers of thanks. Having Agostino perform the task could only mean one thing. It would be swift, over in a professional heartbeat. Carmela looked toward the sty, sending a meager apology to an animal she had never shown any particular affection toward.

  Suddenly, the sow shot out through the gate as if her hind legs were on fire. She squealed into the fog. The men gave chase. Twice Agostino mounted her over her neck to pin her down and twice she threw him off. As Tomas and Peppe helped him up, she waddled, frantic, out toward the field. Her piglets broke loose next. They trotted concentric circles around their mother as she flayed beneath the men’s grasp. In desperation, and perhaps more than a little embarrassment, Agostino lunged at her with his dagger but missed her jugular. She bit at the air with her huge jaws and stampeded around her piglets waddling away from the men. Peppe ran toward the house and brushed by a motionless Carmela.

  “We carry on like this, we’ll ruin the damned meat!” he muttered. When he reappeared his rifle was under his arm. He stomped toward the sow. As she saw him approach the animal bolted once again in the opposite direction. The two other men jumped on top of her, and when they had gained control they leaned to one side and Peppe pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the bullet echoed along the land toward the surrounding hills.

  Carmela watched the men drag the carcass inside.

  Over the next few days every part of the pig would be cleaned and used: pancetta from the belly, cured ham from the leg. All the innards would be sautéed and eaten fresh with caramelized onions and garlic, suffused with vernaccia and rosemary. Every bit of meat would be ripped off the bones to be cooked or ground into cured sausages. The bones, stripped of flesh, would be cleaned and salted and saved for the broad bean stews of February’s carnival feasts. The butchery was a symbol of lack of want. At least Carmela knew that’s what she ought to be thinking. All she felt was a great sorrow for the tiny piglet that galloped on its short legs around the yard squealing for its mother, now dead on the other side of the shed door. Carmela returned inside the house.

  Rosa stood leaning against the hearth. Her head rested in the crook of her elbow. She lifted it slightly when she heard Carmela come in. “It’s started.” Carmela followed Rosa’s gaze down to the floor. Liquid was streaking down her leg, a tiny pool at her feet.

  Carmela dashed over to her and covered Rosa’s shoulders with her scarf. Then she ran to the stove and grabbed all the dishtowels she could find. She covered the kitchen table with several of the towels and helped her aunt onto them by sitting her down and scooping her legs up and over. She gave others to Rosa to place between her legs. The water on the stove was boiling now, though the tea had since been forgotten. Carmela ripped several other towels and threw them into the boiling water. “Don’t do anything, Zia! I’m going to call for Mamma!”

  Carmela ran out to the sty and pushed the doors open. “Signor Falchi! You must drive to Simius and bring M
amma. It’s an emergency!”

  Tomas’s eyes flicked toward Peppe. In an instant a story was born. “Our farm girl, Agostino. It’s her time. Carmela has assisted in births, but Maria is always there.”

  “I see,” Agostino said, holding up his bloody hands. The sow’s belly was sliced open. Carmela could make out part of her liver.

  “I could drive maybe?” Tomas asked.

  “It wouldn’t be wise for me to leave right now,” Agostino said. “You drive, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  Carmela saw a look pass across Peppe’s face.

  “Then you must go.” Agostino nodded. “I will stay and Peppe will help.”

  This was a man to whom negotiation appeared to be a stranger. Tomas flew through the doors and jumped into Agostino’s car. He rattled up the lane and screeched through several gears before he was swallowed into the inky night.

  Back inside, Rosa’s labor progressed fast. She was sweating now, more than Carmela had ever noticed in any other woman at this stage, though the contractions appeared to be sporadic and quite far apart. The color of Rosa’s skin was between gray and white. Along with Rosa laboring several weeks earlier than anticipated—no irony had been lost on the fact that her baby might be born on Christmas Day, like the second coming—everything about Rosa’s behavior was different from the women Carmela had assisted before. When her breathing became uneven, Carmela squeezed Rosa’s hand and murmured in her aunt’s ear, reminding her to keep to a rhythm. Several times her aunt arched back as if something sharp were clamping her inside, as if the baby were biting its way out. Her veins swelled beneath her paper skin. This was a woman who looked closer to death than birth. Maria could not come soon enough.