Chapter 3
The football slammed against the wall of the Chiesa di Sant’ Agata, ricocheting back into the village square. Fernanda shook her broom angrily.
‘Sinners! Kicking a ball at a church, you’ll go straight to hell!’
The three young boys ran off laughing, one tossing the ball as high as he could.
He jumped up to catch it, his T-shirt riding up, exposing his bare midriff.
Fernanda knew the boys wouldn’t dare come back until she’d gone.
Although they’d smirked and giggled, she knew she scared them.
Yes, she with her tiny frame who could barely reach to polish the eagle on Sant’ Agata’s lectern.
She who was so frail her eighty-seven-year-old body creaked and groaned as she bent over her broom.
She smoothed down her shock of white hair and focused once more on the doorstep.
The entrance of the church couldn’t possibly get any cleaner but still she worked on, wielding the stiff bristles again and again.
Back and forth, back and forth. Father forgive me, Father forgive us all.
The tall apartment buildings, the restaurants opposite, the people enjoying their morning coffees all faded away.
Nothing but Fernanda sweeping away her sins, praying for herself and her dear departed sister.
‘Fernanda!’ Father Filippo’s voice jolted her back to reality. He peered at her through round metal-rimmed glasses, smiling kindly.
‘Buongiorno, Father.’ He was a young man, this new priest, full of fashionable ideas, peppering his sermons with modern soundbites.
Words like integration and diversity. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him mention the fires of hell without looking embarrassed.
But she wasn’t going to knock him, whatever brought people closer to God and turned them away from their wicked ways was a good thing.
‘Brava, Fernanda! The step is spotless, grazie! But now you have done enough, lay down your broom.’ He raised a hand to silence her protest. ‘Even the good Lord knew the importance of rest. Please, join me for a coffee. I have something I want to talk to you about.’
‘Of course.’ She knew he had a penchant for the village bar’s cavolini. Fernanda rarely allowed herself one of the fresh cream buns, but perhaps she would today. And it would be nice to sit at one of the bar’s shady tables knowing that thanks to her companion, she would receive only kindly looks.
Father Filippo led the way, down the passageway beside the church.
He had to slow his steps right down to match hers, giving him the effect of having geisha’s shoes under his black cassock.
A table on the pavement outside the bar was free.
He pulled out a chair, making sure Fernanda was comfortable before he sat down.
‘Nice to see you, Father,’ the woman who ran the bar greeted him.
She often left Fernanda sitting there for ages before she bothered to wander out, but this time she appeared almost at once and returned with their coffees and cavolini in record time, flashing Fernanda a half-smile and a slightly shamefaced look.
The woman was only in her thirties. Her family hadn’t even moved to the village until after the war, but Fernanda knew that she knew. Knew that she judged her.
Father Filippo shifted in his seat. He steadied his tiny espresso cup with the forefinger of his left hand as he brought it to his lips.
‘How are the preparations for the return of the bones of the unknown soldier, Father?’ Fernanda spared him the small talk.
‘Not so unknown.’ The priest smiled. ‘The lab results are finally back.’
‘It is Pietro Parodi?’ Pietro had fled the village the day the German soldiers came searching for partisans and deserters. His mother and sister had always hoped he’d got away. Months and years had gone by with no letter, no contact. But the hope never went away.
‘Yes, it is Pietro, poor fellow.’ The priest closed his eyes for a moment, his hands clasped in silent prayer.
Fernanda joined him, thinking of the young man she’d once known, reduced to bones, a bullet hole in the back of his skull.
Pietro had got less than ten kilometres up the old mule tracks through the woods, his body unearthed on some farmland, buried in a shallow grave.
‘Will his sister come back here for the ceremony?’
‘Yes, she is the only one of the family left. And of course she will stay for the unveiling.’
‘Of the new memorial? My grandson has been working ever so hard.’
‘I called into Leo’s workshop a few days ago. God has given him a wonderful talent.’
It was the argument that had sealed the village committee’s decision, that had quietened the voices that muttered that employing a relative of Fernanda’s wasn’t right.
They talked of parish business for a while.
Father Filippo’s hands twisted together; his Adam’s apple rose up and down above his white priest’s collar. She knew he was churning over how best to broach the subject of the celebrations. She’d put him out of his misery.
‘I will come to the memorial service to see Pietro receive a proper Christian burial and I will make my special focaccia bread for the festa. But I will sit at the back of the church and slip away before the unveiling and the dancing. I cannot cope with too many people. At my age I prefer to pay my respects and admire the memorial the next day without the noise and the bother.’
The priest’s face gave a peculiar twitch as he tried not to show how relieved he was. He swallowed the last bite of his cavolino, wiping a blob of cream from his nose.
She used the edge of the table to help lever herself up. ‘Thank you for the coffee, Father. Much appreciated. Buona giornata.’
‘Buona giornata, Fernanda.’
She walked home slowly, greeting everyone she passed, even the ones who replied with nothing but a curt nod. There were fewer of them nowadays; those who’d lived through the war slowly dying away. Fernanda kept her head up, meeting everyone’s eyes whether they were friendly or not.