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 façade 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.’
