Chapter 5
Thereafter, they began to take frequent walks together along the beaches and atop the cliffs.
Allegra shared the traditions and expectations of water women with Johann.
Sardegna itself was layered with customs and ways unmatched in the rest of Italy, so her stories of the weavers fit perfectly with the island’s air of mystery.
Allegra traced their line from the Hebrew queen Berenice, their ancient tutor and patron, through the Middle Ages, when the cloaks they’d fashioned had been worn by popes and kings.
She recounted how, not so many years ago, her own grandmother had helped create the wedding cloak for Dona Maria Pia, the fourteen-year-old bride of the king of Portugal.
She told him the water women had always been different from the rest of the town’s residents, but artists, as a rule, were often an odd bunch.
Although now they were respected and honored because of their unique work, they hadn’t always been.
Being Jewish meant they were still sometimes perceived as strange, but that was nothing new.
Although over time, many of them no longer actively and openly practiced the faith in the traditional ways, the townspeople always had and probably always would think of them as Jews.
Perhaps because of their deep knowledge of plants and the mysterious language of the ancient Nuragic people they sometimes used when they sang (which even she didn’t know the source of), there had been times in the past when their families had been labeled and marked with suspicion, called heathens or witches.
But in truth, there was nothing magic about the beautiful weavings they created.
As long as Allegra had lived there, she’d only experienced their island as home, a small, close community, its members linked by their shared love of the sea and working side by side.
Johann shared his love of the land, delighting in the long-haired sheep that regarded them with droll expressions as they passed by, outnumbering the island’s human population by threefold.
They parsed their common interests: music, the sea, a good meal shared, a solid day’s work with their hands, and the roots of their faith.
His father and two older brothers had been casualties of cholera, and his mother had remarried a widower and was now responsible for additional children.
“My sisters and their husbands are there to help her, but I’m the only one who remains unmarried,” he told her.
“I love the sea. Living on an island, I of course had sea legs before I could walk. I’d sail with my father and brothers.
Papà would hoist me on his shoulders and announce we were off for an adventure, and I could think of no better way to spend a day.
Pushing offshore in my boat in the mornings, not knowing what it will show me, what it might surrender to me from beneath—a thrill I’ll never shake. ”
Allegra nodded. It was something she knew full well. “I love the morning dives with the weavers. The breathing, tending the mollusks, weaving the threads, caring for one another. We’ll never be rich, you and I.”
“A pescatore and a weaver.” Johann laughed. “We’ll have all we need.” He clasped her hand as they strolled, the soothing melody of the sheep’s tinkling bells carrying on the wind.
Over the course of the next several months of courtship, Allegra thought often of her sister Ella.
She saw Gus occasionally in town, and she knew he had begun asking after another young woman.
She didn’t like to think that Ella was so easily replaced, but her mother saw it differently.
Gus, too, had suffered and needed mending.
Every heart beat differently. Though Ella had used her marriage as an excuse to leave the byssus work, Allegra believed she could honor both a husband and her water oath.
They delighted in each other’s differences.
In his spare moments, Johann was happy to walk with her through the pastures and along the seashore.
Allegra pointed out this plant or that one as she placed it in her basket.
She loved how he marveled at her knowledge and beamed with pride when he answered her quizzes correctly.
He showed her the different types of clouds and ways to read the sky in both daylight and dark.
While Allegra knew the sea, she knew only the shallow byssus coves and shoreline rather than the depths reached only by boat.
That had always been her father and brothers’ realm.
But she and Johann sometimes sailed beyond the cove, out where the water deepened to a dark indigo blue.
There, he’d map the world beneath the waves for her: here, a drop-off too deep to plumb; there, a cave and rocks where eels and octopuses loved to hide.
He’d whip off his vest, shirt, and shoes, and dive in a perfect arc from the bow of the boat, resurfacing with gifts—handfuls of sand dollars, the mother-of-pearl shell of an oyster.
Allegra leaned over the side to kiss him, his lips salty as the sea streamed from his hair.
Before the year was out, Johann had spoken to Allegra’s parents, and the family had consented that they be wed.
Through that winter, while it was too cold to swim and rougher seas curtailed Johann’s trips out, they dreamed and planned their lives together.
Johann had already begun building what would be their modest home, a block structure tucked into the curve of a cove off the coast, not too far from Allegra’s family home.
He made sure it would be sheltered from the coastal winds in the winter and that the eastern side would light with the sunrise.
A simple stove and storage area for drying fish, octopuses, and whatever Johann would bring home.
Shelves for Allegra’s herbs and staples.
Allegra and her mother spent the winter tailoring the brocade and silk she would wear on the day of the wedding.
Allegra herself wove the black orbace cape Johann would don.
As her fingers worked the fine wool into its thinly knit form, her heart danced, and she couldn’t keep from humming and singing softly to herself.
She’d spent hours dyeing the wool before it ever touched the loom, boiling it carefully and adding vinegar, salt, and ash to fix the color until it was the perfect shade, the exact hue of the meurra, or blackbirds, flitting through the evergreen shrubs dotting their island.
Painstakingly, she added a thick felt layer to waterproof the garment before declaring it finished.
Allegra’s father set about borrowing a strong pair of oxen from a family that agreed to be paid with part of his weekly catch, and her mother and sister bent their heads together to whisper about how they would decorate the tracca the oxen would pull.
The wedding carts would be full of color and whimsy if the two of them had their say.
Both her brothers played the three-piped launeddas, and the house filled with their music while they practiced after the family’s evening meal.
By early spring, the day had come. Johann’s mother and sisters, with their children and husbands, had traveled to be there.
Neighbors had kindly offered to help house them all for the week, and Allegra finally met Johann’s family.
They were a lively lot, pitching in to help with wedding preparations, make meals, and run errands.
Johann was unlike any of them, Allegra thought, deciding he must have favored his father.
Before the procession began, the family gathered at the home Johann had built.
“May this home be blessed,” Allegra’s father asked. “May the hands that built it protect our daughter. May her hands work together with yours to build a happy and faithful union.”
“May you be blessed with lots of children,” her mother added with a smile, “bringing light and love to your home.” Allegra couldn’t help the blush that crept from her neck to her cheeks. If she was honest, she felt more than a little fear, remembering what had happened to Ella.
“May you grow together in wisdom, wealth, love, and abundance,” her father recited as he raised a clay dish full of rice, wheat, salt, coins, and rose petals above his head.
Grinning from ear to ear, he dashed the dish to the ground, the auspicious ritual complete.
The family scooped up handfuls from the ground and scattered them over the couple as they held hands and laughed.
They climbed into the traccas, adorned with flowers, vines, and byssus tapestries depicting scenes from their island—fishing boats heavy with nets, herds of sheep in the fields, and of course, weavers at their looms. The notes of the launeddas drifted gaily around them as the procession made its way to the home of the rabbi, which functioned as a synagogue as needed.
There, they raised a chuppah, and the rabbi united them in marriage, joining Allegra and Johann’s hands with a silver wedding chain.
“I can’t wait to start this life with you,” Allegra whispered to her new husband as he opened the door to their home that evening. They were tired from the day and sated from the banquet her parents had managed to pull together despite the lean times.
Johann held her cheek in his large, warm hand and bent to kiss her, his eyes bright.
“A pescatore and a weaver,” he said. “We may never be rich, but tonight I feel like a king.”