The old folk song wasn’t as rousing but Fernanda knew all the words and soon her sister was joining in, their two voices filling the workshop.
‘You’re a good little singer.’ Violetta patted her on the head. ‘Now, in a few minutes I want you to run on home and set the table, then you can read your book. I must carry on working here for a little while. Do you remember I’m visiting my friend at the hospital tomorrow? I can’t be sure when I will be home, what with the strikers and the roadblocks, but you know that if it gets dark and I’m not back, you can go and knock next door.’
‘I won’t be scared,’ Fernanda lied.
Violetta sat back down behind her workbench. She patted her knee. ‘Come here for a minute.’
Fernanda climbed onto her lap, even though she was a big girl of seven and three quarters and far too old for cuddles. She snuggled against Violetta’s soft sweater.
‘You smell so nice, Letta. You smell like roses.’
Violetta fiddled with the coin that dangled from a thin leather thong around her neck. Fernanda hadn’t seen it before; she wondered where her sister had found it.
‘One day this war will be over and everything will be different,’ Violetta said.
‘Will all the people in the world be friends?’ It was something Fernanda often wondered.
‘I hope so, darling.’ Violetta hugged Fernanda tightly. It made Fernanda’s itchy jumper scratch against her skin but she didn’t want her to stop. She stroked her big sister’s silky locks, giggling as the curls sprang up again. Her fingers caught against something in the back of Violetta’s hair.
‘Look, an olive leaf.’ Fernanda held it up.
‘I wonder how that got there.’ Violetta took the leaf, turning it over in her hand, a soft smile on her face as though her thoughts were far away again.
‘Do you think the trees get really sad when the people come and take all the olives away?’
‘Yes,’ Violetta said. ‘I think they must get sad, when the fruit is gone and the sky is cold and grey. But then they remember that the winter can’t last forever. And that spring will come again.’
50
Stella fastened the catch on her bra; she pulled a T-shirt over her head. It was strange to realise she was sixty today. With all that had occurred over the last few days, her so-called landmark birthday seemed quite irrelevant. Still, it was nice to wake up to messages on her phone from Lauren and Carol and to know she would be celebrating over dinner with Gino that night.
Her younger sister stood by the mirror, drying off her hair. Marta showed no signs of remembering what day it was and that didn’t matter a jot. It had been decades since Stella had celebrated any birthday with one of her siblings. But now she and Marta and Giovanni were reunited. That was worth any number of birthday wishes and fancy gifts.
‘Did you sleep all right?’ Stella said.
‘Remarkably well. This is way more comfortable than it looks.’ Marta indicated the narrow pull-out bed.
‘Much better than the couch.’ Stella smiled.
‘And less noisy than sleeping under Domenico’s room! I don’t know who’s the worse snorer, him or our brother. They could form their own band!’
‘I don’t know how the two of them didn’t wake up when one of us was showering, the way the pipes clank.’ Stella gave her hair a quick comb, feeling rather than seeing what she was doing, as Marta was still hogging the mirror.
Marta drew a pencil line around her lips. She twisted her tube of lipstick, painting on a berry red.
‘Very glam! We’re only getting our breakfast at the village bar; this isn’t Sanremo, you know. I can’t believe Joe and I were staying in a hotel just a few roads away from where you’re living.’
‘I still can’t believe you’re here.’
‘I wouldn’t have come back if Joe hadn’t booked that trip. I thought everyone despised me, blaming me for causing Papà’s death. I thought you and Giovanni and Mamma hated me.’
‘Mamma was shocked and upset but she never hated you, I promise you that. And neither did Giovanni and I. We thought you never wanted to see us again because we didn’t stand up for you when our parents tried to keep you and Gino apart.’
‘All those years…’
Marta frowned. ‘Last night Domenico told me he and Papà had argued the morning Papà died.’
‘Do you know what about?’ Stella trod carefully. Domenico and Fernanda had vowed not to unmask her nonno, not wanting to reopen old wounds. But perhaps a few drinks at the festa had loosened her uncle’s tongue.
