The Italian Villa: An emotional and absolutely gripping WW2 historical romance Read online

  Dawn is breaking, and in an hour or so I’ll have to go to work. I haven’t slept at all, but I need to tell you everything in order. I can barely believe it all myself.

  Leo came for me last night. I heard our old signal outside my window – the three owl hoots made by blowing into his cupped hands – and my heart stopped for a moment. I couldn’t believe it was him! I lit a candle as quickly as I could, slipped downstairs in my dressing gown and let him into the house. I heard Papa’s low voice and Mamma’s footsteps on the stairs. I knew she’d seen us, but she let us be. Bless her.

  When I finally managed to light the petrol lamp, I saw how thin Leo looked, how ragged his clothes were. But his eyes, those black eyes I love so much, they were still the same, even after months of living in perpetual danger. He took me by the waist and held me to him in a way that was almost desperate. Like I was about to vanish. I should be ashamed to write this but I’m not. We kissed there and then, and I didn’t care about my parents or Zia Costanza hearing us, I didn’t care about anything. My Leo was with me at last.

  “Elisa, I don’t have long. We came down for a few hours only, just to see you.”

  “We?”

  “Davide Carpentieri is with me. I asked him to join me. I need him tonight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anything can happen. I could be dead tomorrow.”

  “Don’t say that. I don’t want to hear that.”

  “But it’s true. Elisa, I asked Davide to be our witness tonight. In the church.”

  “Witness? You mean…”

  “Yes, my love. I want to marry you tonight. If you say yes. If you’ll have me.”

  What do you think my answer was? Yes, yes, a million times yes!

  I ran to Mamma, who lay awake in her bed, listening out for me by the light of the petrol lamp. “Leo came for me. We’re getting married!” I whispered.

  “Oh, Elisa!” she said, and her eyes were shiny.

  Papa’s face was a picture. Even in the danger of the moment, his look of total surprise made me giggle. And then I spoke seriously. “I have your blessing, don’t I, Papa?”

  “You do, daughter. You and Leo have my blessing… and my permission, which he didn’t ask!”

  I bent over and embraced him, and he wrapped his arms around me. At that moment I knew I would remember this instant for the rest of my life.

  “Mamma, please come and be my witness. Papa…”

  “I understand. Too dangerous to maneuver me and the wheelchair around. Go, sweetheart,” he said, while Mamma was hastily getting ready. I got dressed too, grabbing the dress I use for church and slipping on my ruby earrings quickly. I left my hair down, not having time to arrange it. With one last kiss to Papa and one to Zia Costanza, who stood in the corridor with her arms around herself, her expression and her thoughts a mystery, as they often were, I joined Leo outside.

  We sneaked into the church like thieves in the night – Don Giuseppe and Davide were there already, and it was all so hasty, so hushed, that when it ended, it was like I’d been dreaming. Yes, I would open my eyes and realize I was in my bed, that it was almost time to go to work…

  But the feeling of his lips on mine, a quick, chaste kiss under Mamma’s and Davide’s eyes, told me this was real. Leo was a man who kept his feelings buried deep down, and usually would not express them in public. But he held my hands in his and looked at me in a way that said it all – our fingers intertwined, and it sank in at last. Leo and I were husband and wife.

  At that moment, a memory swept through my mind: a summer of long ago, when I must have been no older than ten years old – Leo climbing a cherry tree to pick cherries for me, and then arranging one around my ear, the two red buds peeping through my dark hair. Maybe that had been the moment I knew about Leo. About what I would always feel for him, even as young as I was. Now, as he held my hands, I was so happy that I forgot all about the imminent separation. Our moment was brief, and yet eternal.

  We had no time left. He had to go. I held him to me, clinging for a moment before forcing myself to let go. I gave Davide a peck on the cheek. I was so grateful to him for doing this for Leo, for us. I knew the danger he’d put himself in coming down from the mountains, the risk they’d both run. I watched Leo and Mamma embrace, and then stood arm in arm with her, our hands laced, and watched him go back to the mountains…

  A shrill, sharp sound interrupted my reading. It took me a few seconds to come back to the here and now, so absorbed was I by the story.

  More ringing.

  Oh, yes, my cell phone… I’d found a windowsill upstairs where there seemed to be signal, and I’d left it there. I dried my tears, cursing modern technology and having to be wrenched away from such a romantic moment – one including a Carpentieri – as I carefully put the diary down and ran back to the house and up the stairs to answer. It was Flora. She’d used the number I’d left her.

  “Hello, Flora.” My cheeks were still wet. I wiped my eyes and my face.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Just a bit of hay fever,” I lied, breathing deeply to try to disperse the memory of the diary and come back to earth. I didn’t want to tell Flora about it. I felt it was my thing, at least for now; I wasn’t ready to share it.

  “Just wondering how you were. You haven’t come to the shop today.”

  “I thought you weren’t that happy to see me there. And you don’t need my help anyway,” I teased her.

  “I don’t need it, as such. Only, I have a few things for you.”

  “Sounds good, thanks. Want to come up here for lunch?”

  “Why not? I’m on my lunch break anyway. Be there in a moment.”

  Well, that was progress. I went outside to fetch the diary and the blanket, then began preparing for Flora’s arrival. I must admit I was nervous. I did all I could to make the table look pretty, there in the kitchen of what was our family home. I put some water to boil for pasta – I knew that Italians don’t seem to think it’s a meal unless there’s pasta involved, and I was now one of Nonna Tina’s regular customers.

  Not even half an hour later, Flora was at the door.

  “Hey, come in,” I said. It felt strange that I should invite her in when she’d come and gone as she pleased up until I’d arrived. Unfair, somehow. I had to find a way to bring the issue up during lunch.

  “Thank you. Something smells good,” she said.

  “Well, I’d like to take the credit, but it’s Tommaso’s pesto.”

  “Oh, Tommaso. I see.” There was a half-smile dancing on her lips. Beyond that prickly, harsh exterior lurked someone else; someone she kept carefully hidden away from the world. Maybe someone she used to be, long ago. Someone she could be again.

  “No, you don’t,” I said, smiling back. “There’s nothing to see,” I said, as we made our way to the kitchen.

  “Nah, you’re right. Tommaso is absolutely not smitten with you. At all,” she teased me.

  “Smitten is a strong word. And anyway…”

  “Anyway, you’ll be gone soon,” she said, and as the words came out, her eyes widened. But when I looked into her face and saw her expression, I realized she didn’t mean to be nasty. She was simply stating a fact. And, to my surprise, it seemed to be a fact she didn’t particularly like.

  “I suppose so. Take a seat. Lunch’ll be ready in a minute.”

  “Thanks. By the way, I brought you these.”

  “Oh… lavender candles! I love them, thanks!”

  “No problem. Wow. It seems strange… to be here with you. This house feels almost… new. No. Renewed.”

  Was that a good thing?

  “Well, not for long. Like you said, I’ll be gone soon.”

  “Do you have to leave?” she said, somehow impulsively, as if the words had come out by themselves. I turned around, and she looked away. “Of course you do,” she added hastily. “You have a life in Texas, people who’re waiting for you, a job. All this… must seem like a dream to you.”r />
  “It does, actually. And I do have a home. The place I bought when I got out of care. It means a lot to me.”

  An image of the apartment back home shot through my mind – the small lobby, with the linoleum floor and fire extinguisher on the wall, and a vase of fake flowers beside my neighbor’s door – the one room I lived in, with cheap furniture and constant noise outside. It seemed so mundane, so modest, compared to this. And yet, I loved my little apartment back home; it was in that anonymous building block, in an anonymous part of town, that I had gained freedom and the ability to get to this moment.

  “I have a best friend. Kirsten,” I said, throwing a handful of pasta into the boiling water and remembering, with a pang of guilt, the missed calls from her that I’d seen when I’d ended the call with Flora.

  “No man?” She rested her chin on her hand, a silver ring on each finger.

  “No. No guy, no family.” Because you didn’t look for me. The angry thought came and went, making me lose my concentration.

  “So… what about Marco?” I thought it would be okay to ask such a personal question, as she was doing the same.

  She raised her eyebrows. “How do you know about him?”

  “Chocolate festival, remember?”

  Flora placed a hand on her forehead. “Oh, God, yes. I’d rather forget.”

  “So… Marco?”

  She shrugged. “He’s too good for me. And he will see sense, sooner or later. His daughter hates me, by the way.”

  “Well, she’s wrong. How is Marco too good for you, anyway? You’re beautiful, funny. Interesting.”

  “Yeah, interesting is a way of putting it. Anyway. So, your job is waiting for you back home, yes?”

  An abrupt change of topic, if ever there was one.

  “Yes, I do have a job waiting for me. It’s a good place to work, with nice people, but it won’t take me anywhere. I’m really only there to save for college, and I’m living off my college fund to be here. So, that’s not good.”

  “I understand.” There was a moment of silence, broken only by the pasta pot rumbling in the background, and by birdsong outside. A warm, golden light seeped in through the open window – gentler than the Texas light, somehow. And then Flora spoke.

  “So, if you had a job here you could stay longer?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know… Maybe. There are so many things to consider. I don’t even know what I want to study yet.”

  Flora stood and went to the window, gazing outside. “Okay, you’ll say no, and I completely understand,” she said in a casual tone. “But… well, you offered to help me at Passiflora. If you want… there’s a job there for you.”

  I was taken aback. That was pretty much the last thing I expected Flora to say, especially after the way she’d welcomed me.

  “Me, work with you? At Passiflora?”

  She shrugged. “Well, you’re going to have to study those books I gave you, and there’s a lot to learn, but, yes. You offered to help me, didn’t you?”

  “Flora, I offered you my help for free. I didn’t mean you should pay me.”

  “I think the pasta is ready,” she replied.

  “Wow. Is that some Italian pasta sense? A sixth sense for spaghetti?”

  Flora laughed. “I guess so.”

  I drained the pasta over the sink and mixed the sweet-scented pesto into it as Flora began pouring water from a jug into glasses I’d set out on the table.

  “I think it’s a good idea, you know,” she continued. “The pay won’t be much, but hey, who wouldn’t want to work with me?”

  I laughed. “I’ll help you, but you don’t need to pay me.”

  “If I don’t then you’ll have to go back. And we’re right back at the beginning of this conversation.”

  “Look, don’t take this the wrong way but… Tommaso told me you’re struggling to pay the rent as it is,” I said, handing her a steaming plate of pasta. I had no idea how she would take that, but I had to say it. It was the truth. There was no way I could allow her to have even more financial problems because of me. Because of wanting to keep me near. Was that what she wanted, to keep me near?

  “That is true. But… Well, I haven’t been able to open the shop every day. I’ve been… unwell.”

  “Yeah,” I replied in a small voice. “Come on, eat up. Don’t think about that.”

  But she laid her fork down and took a moment. “It’s just to explain to you. The reason why the shop is struggling is that sometimes… sometimes… I don’t know, it just feels too much, getting up in the morning.”

  “Oh, Flora…”

  “Well, never mind. It was a silly idea. Sorry for bringing it up,” she said.

  It was decision time.

  “You know what? Actually, it’s a good idea. I can help you open the shop every day, you can get back on your feet… and I get to stay a little longer. I don’t know if they’ll keep my job open back home, but—”

  “You make a mean spaghetti, you know?” Flora said suddenly, contemplating the plate in front of her.

  I held my breath for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  “Eat up!”

  “Thanks,” she replied, and twirled the spaghetti around her fork like the natural she was.

  “So, yeah. Job accepted.”

  My thoughts went to Kirsten and Shanice, and my life back in Texas with all its familiar routines and places I knew. It would be hard to tell them about this. And they’d be shocked at how quickly I’d decided, how suddenly this had come on.

  Had it, though? Because right now, change seemed like a long time coming.

  “Well. Good. I’m happy,” Flora said, and her eyes went to the window.

  “Better hit the books, I guess.” I couldn’t wait to learn more about naturopathy. Especially the use of healing herbs – I couldn’t believe I never got into something like that in Texas. After all, I’d been looking for a direction and this was something that felt right.

  “Yeah, I suppose it is the right time for you to be changing things.” Flora put my thoughts into words.

  “You can say that again.”

  Sooner or later I would have to ask her the fundamental question that burned inside me, more painful than I could ever say. But not now, not yet. I decided to clear the air about something else that had been on my mind for a while – something I was surprised Flora hadn’t brought up.

  “Flora, listen. I’m grateful to my mother for leaving me this house. I’ve been here for such a short time, and I know it’s strange, but I feel so at home already.”

  “Yes. I can see that,” she said, and I studied her face for signs of bitterness, of resentment. There were none.

  “The thing is… it’s the Stella family home. You’ve kept it clean and well maintained all this time. It should be yours too. I don’t understand how you could accept that it’s mine so easily. I mean, you haven’t exactly been welcoming, but you never actually protested about me owning the place.”

  “It’s because I think it’s right that you own the place.”

  “But you’d been coming here and cleaning it and putting the heating on. You’d been maintaining it like someone still lived here. Then, I arrived. Out of the blue. And you sent me away, remember? You said to go and never come back.”

  “Callie—”

  “That doesn’t matter, really. We’ve moved on from there. I understand why you didn’t doubt who I am. I mean, it’s like looking in a mirror…”

  Her brow furrowed, as if the fact pained her.

  “…but you never said this house shouldn’t be mine. You never said this house should be yours.”

  Flora shrugged. “Because I don’t think it should be mine.”

  “Why? You’re a Stella woman. Like me.”

  “I don’t deserve it.”

  “What? Please don’t tell me it’s more of the Flora self-hatred thing, because I’ve had enough of it since the chocolate fest.”

  She gave a brittle laugh. “Wow, you Americ
ans are blunt. I like it.”

  “What do you mean you don’t deserve this house?”

  “Ah, nothing. You know, I talk nonsense from time to time. Well, thanks for this.”

  I knew from her face that this conversation was over, that today I would not be allowed to go any further.

  “You Italians talk about food to avoid awkward conversations,” I observed.

  “We Italians talk about food as often as we’re allowed to,” she said, picking up her bag.

  “So…” I began.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning? At Passiflora?”

  She smiled. “That’d be meraviglioso. Wonderful. Keep working on those books.”

  “For sure,” I said.

  It was a curt goodbye, Flora style, without an embrace or any sentiment. I watched her walk away from Firefly House and disappear, her figure looking suddenly tiny out in the big world.

  So many questions were still unanswered. But at least I had a little more time to unravel the Stella secrets.

  I cleaned up, my mind racing with all I had to do now I’d made the decision to stay. The enormity of it was beginning to hit me. I would call Kirsten tonight – she deserved to know before Shanice. What would I say to Shanice? To replace me for a while, or to look for someone else? And I would tell Tommaso.

  I wondered what his reaction would be when he knew I was staying.

  I was also desperate to ask him if he knew of Davide Carpentieri from Elisa’s diary, since they shared the same surname, and eventually I would have to tell him that my father was Paolo Caporale. Surely he couldn’t hold it against me, could he? He would accept it, I was sure.

  Out of the blue, a sudden wave of happiness flowed over me, a feeling I hadn’t experienced for a long, long time – maybe not since I was a little girl, before everything fell apart. I grabbed the books Flora had given me, and Elisa’s diary, and headed outside to spend the rest of the afternoon reading and studying.

  I started out with the topic that attracted me the most: herbalism. Curare con le Erbe – Healing with Herbs – a dark green, fabric-covered tome with beautiful illustrations. I began thumbing through it.