Chapter 14
quattordici
With a few kilos of cherries in the basket on the back seat, Sophia zipped through the countryside.
Francesca waved one hand languidly out the window, catching the skipping breeze around each corner.
She would point to properties, noting the businesses and produce they farmed: the Nunzios – nuts, in particular almonds; the Antonuccis – purveyors of organic herbs; the flour mill; the slaughterhouse; numerous olive groves; many vineyards; orchard after orchard; and all quite thirsty.
Alessio noted a sign up ahead on the left with a black painted crucifix. Cimitero. ‘The cemetery?’ he asked.
‘The largest gathering of the townsfolk we will ever manage.’ She indicated left and pulled off just before the turn-off.
‘When you are ready, that’s where you should go.
If your nonna spent any of her youth here, she would have known plenty of people buried there.
Perhaps you have other relatives there.’
‘Is that where your . . .?’
‘Papà is there, waiting patiently for us. As is Nonno. And Mamma’s parents.
’ Alessio watched as a faraway look came over her face.
‘Sometimes if I make too much pasta I bring Papà what’s left.
I leave him a few farfalle, or orecchiette.
The orecchiette were his favourite.’ She smiled sadly.
‘The entrance is just around that bend.’
Just as Francesca was about to indicate and pull back onto the road, something made Alessio reach over and stop her.
‘How far are we from Impastino now?’ He craned his neck to assess the roadway behind them.
‘Hmm. I think three kilometres.’
His eyes locked onto the side road and that sign, Cimitero, faded and cracked, beckoned him. Not later. It called him now.
‘Do you mind if I go ahead now on my own? I can walk back by myself.’
Francesca’s eyes softened. ‘Would you like me to stay and wait for you?’
He smiled his gratitude. ‘Francesca, you are already going above and beyond for me. Grazie, but I’d like to do this myself. I’ll walk back.’
‘Sicuro? It’s getting hot—’
‘Very sure.’ He gave his water bottle a reassuring shake. ‘You need to get back for lunch prep. I’ll be fine. A pasticciotto upon my return will be all I need to revive me.’
She laughed. ‘I’ve created an addict.’
‘That crema pasticcera is worth it.’
Peeling the backs of his thighs off the vinyl seats, he climbed from Sophia and closed the door behind him. Then he waved Francesca off as she performed a U-turn and started back up the road, Sophia kicking up gravel in her wake.
The rumble of Sophia’s engine faded into the distance.
Alessio stood still for a moment, absorbing the soundtrack of Impastino’s lowlands; crickets and cicadas chirped orchestrally, the waves of their song washing in and out with the breeze.
The caw of gulls and crows knotted in the sky, the only disturbance in the otherwise peaceful silence of the cemetery.
Alessio’s sunglasses couldn’t shield him from the blinding glare off the gravel path, which scrunched underfoot. With his hands forming a visor across his brow, he looked out across the cemetery.
It echoed the town’s whitewashed aesthetic.
Cream marble headstones, beige-flecked gravel pathways, all glistening under the heat of the sun.
Interspersed between the graves were pockets of golden weeds and escaping grasses.
Contorted cacti frames reached out from between the older graves, while posies of dead flowers bleached by the sun’s unforgiving rays rustled in the wind.
Alessio walked until he reached a long line of wall-mounted graves. Some were small and poky, sized to hold ashes, but most were larger with bronze-lettered plating. The wall was high enough to allow for stacks of four. His pace slowed as he read the surnames.
Ciavarella. Michele. Falcone. Russo. Fanelli. Cassano . . .
As far as he could tell families were buried together or close by, and most wall-mounted graves featured painted ceramic motifs of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.
The small red cloche lights attached to the name plates were decorated with lengths of knotted rosary beads and dangling religious medallions.
But some looked like they hadn’t been tended in years. How many of these graves had been abandoned? Long forgotten? Did people not come down the hill to visit their loved ones? Something about this thought weighed on his heart.
And so, in the spirit of tracing Nonna Immacolata’s footsteps, he decided to start over, checking each grave for her family’s surname, and any possible connection to their shared roots. A date. A photo. Anything.
The process soon became dizzying, with names and dates blurring into one another.
There were nameless graves. Dateless graves.
Damaged and broken graves. Graves for the smallest babies and children, and graves for centenarians – of which there were many.
Some graves held entire families, others a single soul.
Alessio was so fixated on her name, that down in the lower stretch of the cemetery, he stumbled across one that suddenly caused his heart to seize.
Fiore, Giacomo.
His eyes narrowed in on the little red light mounted to Giacomo’s grave, which held a few little pasta shapes. He exhaled slowly. Here was Francesca’s papà.
He could picture her here in the bottom corner of the cemetery, pasta in hand. Were her visits solemn? Did she cry? Would she talk to Giacomo and tell him about her life? Her mother? The trattoria? Would she recount the new culinary tips and tricks she’d been trying? Ask for help?
Alessio sensed that the facade of strength and restraint she wore so well in the restaurant would fall away here by Giacomo’s grave. Here she could let herself be vulnerable, emotional.
His fingers dipped behind the light’s red plastic shade and fished out a few of the pasta shapes. Farfalle, tinted burgundy, a few orecchiette. All perfectly formed with clean edges and expert texture. These screamed ‘Francesca’.
One by one he dropped them back into the light, and said aloud, ‘She’s amazing, your girl.’
Alessio turned and carried on with his mission as beads of sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. He checked each and every grave, and soon it felt as if he’d met everyone who had once called Impastino home.
Everyone save the one surname he sought.
Mazzotta.
‘You’re back! Did you have any luck?’ Francesca leaned over the kitchen serving ledge, holding her floury hands aloft.
‘Nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘Not a single Mazzotta there. In the marked graves, at least.’
‘Oh.’ Francesca felt a little winded for him. ‘Not one? It’s common enough in Puglia.’
He shook his head. ‘I checked them all.’
‘Sorry, Alessio. There will be other places we can look for clues.’ She wanted to reach out and squeeze his arm in support, but could only clap her hands free from flour.
‘I know. Thank you. And I found your father.’
She felt her cheeks warm. ‘You did?’
‘A beautiful touch with the pasta.’ His lips curled into a kind smile. ‘It’s really very sweet.’
Her eyes pulled away from his. Lowering her voice, she said, ‘I just miss him. He was my pasta partner in crime.’
‘I know. And he’d know it, too.’
She looked up. ‘Grazie, Alessio.’ It was at that moment that Maria ambled past the kitchen, her grey bun just visible over the serving ledge. ‘Alessio, shall I ask her now?’
Alessio’s shoulders rose. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Nonna!’ Francesca called, and Maria’s head popped through the saloon doors.
Francesca continued in Italian, ‘Alessio is trying to learn more about his nonna, Immacolata Mazzotta. She was born and grew up here, but migrated to Australia after the war . . .’ The mention of the war prompted a swift sign of the cross from Maria.
‘Did you know her? Remember anyone by that name?’
Maria’s brow furrowed as she pondered the name. ‘There were many girls and women called Immacolata. But Mazzotta . . .’ Her lips pursed and she cast her gaze to the ceiling. ‘No. I don’t remember her.’
‘Really? Nothing?’
‘No.’ She gestured to Alessio. ‘Does he have an address? Names of other relatives?’
Francesca relayed the question to Alessio in English, and he shook his head. ‘Tell her we have no living relatives here in Impastino that I know of, and no details such as past addresses. Whoever was here has long since left or passed away.’
Maria shared her heartfelt apologies before heading to the dining room to fold napkins at one of the tables.
‘I’m sorry, Alessio. Nonna can’t remember anyone of that name.’
‘Grazie. I understood enough to piece that together.’
‘But we can keep trying.’ She gave him a gentle smile. Noting how the skin of his neck and the tip of his nose had reddened under the morning sun, she said, ‘You’re looking very hot.’
Alessio flinched. ‘Hot?’
She pointed to his shirt. ‘Look at how red and sweaty you are.’
‘Ah. Right. But I’m heading down to the beach now to cool off.’ He gestured to the blue and white striped towel tucked under his arm. ‘I just wanted to stop by and say thanks for the ride this morning.’
‘Di niente! You’re welcome.’ She darted off to the fridge and collected a small paper-wrapped parcel and a bottle of water. ‘Ecco,’ she said, setting the bottle down on the ledge first. ‘You will need this down by the water.’
He gave her a wink. ‘Grazie.’
And just as he was about to turn and leave, she reached over the ledge and grabbed his arm. His smooth skin radiated a delicious sun-kissed warmth. ‘And this . . .’ The little parcel hit the counter.
She watched as his eyes narrowed on the sealed paper-wrapped bag of intrigue. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
She feigned ignorance. ‘Boh!’
‘Francesca . . .’
‘What? I did nothing! Nothing!’
‘If that’s what I think it is, I might just have to marry you.’
She couldn’t withhold the bubbling laughter and it bounced around the empty kitchen. ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep!’
With an effervescent tingle in her stomach, she watched as he slipped a finger under the tape and opened the paper. Not one but two pasticciotti lay in wait.
‘You’ve gone and done it now. Married with kids it is! Three. Two boys and a girl!’
Through her laughter she tried her best to silence him, pressing her index finger to her lips. ‘Cousins, remember?!’
‘There’s no one here!’ With a mouthful of pastry and crema pasticcera, he sauntered to the door, calling back over his shoulder, ‘Grazie, cugina!’
Watching as his slender frame was caught by the sun in the piazza, she sighed. ‘Grazie a te . . .’
A zing of energy rippled down her arms and through to her fingers.
She shook out her hands, trying to calm herself, but all it did was bring an untameable smile to her lips.
The morning they’d spent together, their simple playful exchange just now, had changed something between them.
She could feel it in the air, and it intoxicated her more with every breath.
Francesca had seen his eyes come to rest on her thighs in the car.
And she had watched him swallow nervously when he’d closed his eyes and she’d pressed the fragrant cherry to his lips.
Was it simply innocent flirtation? Or could it be more, despite the risks and challenges of the charade they had committed to playing out?
I do want more . . .
Shaking herself out of these thoughts, she turned back to the dough she’d been kneading at her workbench, but at that moment Maria arrived through the kitchen door, prayer missal in hand.
‘Did I hear the word “married”? Even I know that word . . .’
Francesca rolled her eyes.
Of course! Nosy Nonna knows no bounds.
‘No one is getting married, Nonna.’
Maria gave an indignant snort as she reached for her Virgin Mary–shaped bottle of holy water in its usual place by the olive oil. Maria opened the stopper, poured some into her hand and flicked it at Francesca.
‘Eh! Stop that!’ Another handful. ‘Nonna! Enough!’ Francesca tried to swat away the water, but it kept coming.
‘Stay still, you need this!’
‘I don’t need a consecrated shower!’ Another handful of water shot at her, hitting her square in the face. ‘Please, Nonna! Stop!’
Finally, Maria relented, setting the bottle down on the end of the bench. ‘There. It’s in God’s hands now.’