me not to say a word.”
All I could think about was seeing Giorgio the next day, but Saturday-afternoon confession intruded. Visiting Don Federico was getting complicated. I had made my confession to him for years, reciting my sins of the week. He was an old friend of our family—a gentle, kind man whose hair had turned all white and who had to wear thick glasses to see the scripture and words of the mass on Sunday mornings. I knew he couldn’t hear too well either, but still, I had to be careful of what I said.
As I entered the narrow booth, I remembered a previous Saturday. I had mentioned taking a walk with “someone Papa didn’t approve of,” but I hadn’t added that he was a German soldier.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” I kept my eyes on the floor, avoiding the grille behind which I could picture the piercing, inquisitive eyes of Don Federico. “I was impatient with the children at the School of Santa Maria, where I work.” I paused, took a full breath to lend conviction to my voice. “I…felt almost like kissing someone—a man—at the school.” I rushed to add, “But he is a German soldier, so I know I must not think of such things.”
Don Federico’s absolution had been unusually fervent, my penance unusually stiff.
These little transgressions seemed to me back then to be tiny things, insignificant in the face of the havoc that surrounded us all. There was the nearly constant sound of Allied planes overhead en route to their bombing raids; canvas-covered jeeps and lorries carving deep ruts in the country roads; uniformed soldiers in khaki or camouflage with rifles slung over their shoulders standing in every crowd, on every corner. People were dying every day, and the nearby forests teemed with partisans who sabotaged the German occupiers. Surely these, the killers and pillagers, were the ones who should be whispering in Don Federico’s ear on Saturdayafternoons. Why waste his time with the minor attentions that passed between Lieutenant Klaus Eisenmann and me?
How naive I was, and how easily I rationalized a schoolgirl crush that put everyone around me at risk.
The next day was Sunday, the day I was to meet Giorgio. I sat through our noon meal on the edge of my chair, cutting my meat extra slowly and setting my knife on the rim of the plate so it wouldn’t make a sound. Papa was going on about how the olive crop looked like it might be large, so he didn’t notice anything unusual, but Mother glanced over at me now and then and smiled.
That’s more like it,
I knew she was thinking.
Before mass, I had put on a full skirt and a pair of comfortable sandals in anticipation of the long walk to the gazebo. Mother had taken one look at me and shaken her head. “No. You will not go to church looking like one of the farmer’s daughters. Now go back to your room and come back out as a member of the Bellini family.”
“Mother,” I said, “I’m too old for you to be telling me what to wear.”
“I don’t understand why
you
don’t care, Giovanna. How can I get you to see yourself as others see you?”
I did as I was told, because I couldn’t risk a big confrontation. Not today.
Now I was seated in a shirtwaist that Rosa had ironed stiff, buttoned all the way up the front. Perfect for Mother’s picture of the Bellini family.
When we finished I took my napkin and pressed it to my lips. “May I be excused?” I asked. “Violetta is meeting me for a walk in just a few minutes.”
Back in my comfortable clothes, I set out down the front path as if I were going to meet Violetta on the road. Then I cut through the lower gardens and around the back of the tennis court. I increased my pace, tapping the trunks of the linden, then the horse chestnut as I passed. At the back of our property, I hopped over thelow wooden fence and pushed into the thick underbrush. I found the old path without too much trouble—it had been sifted over with leaves. Long, thorny branches reached out to
All I could think about was seeing Giorgio the next day, but Saturday-afternoon confession intruded. Visiting Don Federico was getting complicated. I had made my confession to him for years, reciting my sins of the week. He was an old friend of our family—a gentle, kind man whose hair had turned all white and who had to wear thick glasses to see the scripture and words of the mass on Sunday mornings. I knew he couldn’t hear too well either, but still, I had to be careful of what I said.
As I entered the narrow booth, I remembered a previous Saturday. I had mentioned taking a walk with “someone Papa didn’t approve of,” but I hadn’t added that he was a German soldier.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” I kept my eyes on the floor, avoiding the grille behind which I could picture the piercing, inquisitive eyes of Don Federico. “I was impatient with the children at the School of Santa Maria, where I work.” I paused, took a full breath to lend conviction to my voice. “I…felt almost like kissing someone—a man—at the school.” I rushed to add, “But he is a German soldier, so I know I must not think of such things.”
Don Federico’s absolution had been unusually fervent, my penance unusually stiff.
These little transgressions seemed to me back then to be tiny things, insignificant in the face of the havoc that surrounded us all. There was the nearly constant sound of Allied planes overhead en route to their bombing raids; canvas-covered jeeps and lorries carving deep ruts in the country roads; uniformed soldiers in khaki or camouflage with rifles slung over their shoulders standing in every crowd, on every corner. People were dying every day, and the nearby forests teemed with partisans who sabotaged the German occupiers. Surely these, the killers and pillagers, were the ones who should be whispering in Don Federico’s ear on Saturdayafternoons. Why waste his time with the minor attentions that passed between Lieutenant Klaus Eisenmann and me?
How naive I was, and how easily I rationalized a schoolgirl crush that put everyone around me at risk.
The next day was Sunday, the day I was to meet Giorgio. I sat through our noon meal on the edge of my chair, cutting my meat extra slowly and setting my knife on the rim of the plate so it wouldn’t make a sound. Papa was going on about how the olive crop looked like it might be large, so he didn’t notice anything unusual, but Mother glanced over at me now and then and smiled.
That’s more like it,
I knew she was thinking.
Before mass, I had put on a full skirt and a pair of comfortable sandals in anticipation of the long walk to the gazebo. Mother had taken one look at me and shaken her head. “No. You will not go to church looking like one of the farmer’s daughters. Now go back to your room and come back out as a member of the Bellini family.”
“Mother,” I said, “I’m too old for you to be telling me what to wear.”
“I don’t understand why
you
don’t care, Giovanna. How can I get you to see yourself as others see you?”
I did as I was told, because I couldn’t risk a big confrontation. Not today.
Now I was seated in a shirtwaist that Rosa had ironed stiff, buttoned all the way up the front. Perfect for Mother’s picture of the Bellini family.
When we finished I took my napkin and pressed it to my lips. “May I be excused?” I asked. “Violetta is meeting me for a walk in just a few minutes.”
Back in my comfortable clothes, I set out down the front path as if I were going to meet Violetta on the road. Then I cut through the lower gardens and around the back of the tennis court. I increased my pace, tapping the trunks of the linden, then the horse chestnut as I passed. At the back of our property, I hopped over thelow wooden fence and pushed into the thick underbrush. I found the old path without too much trouble—it had been sifted over with leaves. Long, thorny branches reached out to
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