I liked meeting Bernardo in part because he gave me a fuller picture of Francesca. They told me they had met in Sassari after the war, and that Bernardo had been born there. He’d grown up in a family of freemasons and had spent long hours reading the writings of revolutionary socialists such as Mikhail Bakunin and Amadeo Bordiga. This had turned him into an idealist, and as a young man, he had stopped going to Mass, then refused to fight in Mussolini’s army. With the exception of a three-month prison stint, he had spent much of the war underground, working on behalf of the resistance.
“He must have been very handsome,” I said to Francesca.
The corner of her mouth turned up. “Ovviamente.”
The pair married in 1946 and lived together in Sassari for several years before Francesca’s mother died and her father—who had lived in La Maddalena his entire life—grew sick. There was no convincing him to come to Sassari, so Bernardo took a job at the island’s lower secondary school, and they moved to La Maddalena to care for him. “We thought the move might be temporary,” Francesca explained, “but that was more than twenty years ago.”
“Può essere difficile entrare in sintonia con i maddalenini, se sei un estraneo,” Bernardo said to me, then looked to Francesca to translate.
“He says it can be difficult to connect with the Maddalenini. Especially if you are an outsider.”
“Like me?”
“Sì,” said Francesca. “Or like Bernardo.”
I smiled at him, glad we had something in common, or at least that he might see it that way.
We talked a little about the divorce referendum; Italians had voted on the proposed repeal days earlier, and both Francesca and Bernardo seemed exceedingly pleased it had been voted down. “Divorce has finally allowed Italian women control of their own destinies,” said Francesca. “We cannot go back.”
“Ora vediamo cosa succede a giugno,” said Bernardo, which was a reference to the upcoming regional elections. I was dying to know who Bernardo and Francesca planned to vote for, but I was terrified to ask. I think I knew even then that if I asked, they would tell me they were PCI, andI’d have a real dilemma on my hands because I’d feel obligated to tell Paul. If I told him, I was pretty sure he’d insist I discontinue my lessons, but if I didn’t tell him, I’d walk around feeling guilty for keeping such a big secret. You can see why it was better not to know.
Francesca was clearly ready to get us back on task, so she asked Bernardo if he wanted a cup of coffee, and when he said no, she shooed him off. “Piacere,” he said to me as he picked up his satchel and disappeared down the hall and into the bedroom.
Francesca and I took our coffees out to the balcony, as we had during each of our previous lessons. I spent a few minutes admiring her potted plants and asking for the Italian words for basil, mint, and thyme. “Is it you or Bernardo who gardens?” I asked, but Francesca was all done with English, and with letting me run the show.
“Vediamo i tuoi compiti,” she said, and only when she’d eyed my bag suggestively and mimed the opening of a book would I understand that she wanted to see my homework.
55.
ON A WEDNESDAY MORNINGwhen we’d been on the island for about a month, Marcello finally called. I was in the bath, but I ran to answer the phone and was very glad I did because he told me there was a house that would be available soon, on the Via don Vico, and he wanted us to see it immediately.
It’s possible I squealed. It doesn’t seem like something I’d do, but I must have, because Marcello was quick to cut me off. “Don’t get too excited.”
“Is it not very nice?” I asked, crestfallen.
“I’ll tell you about it in the car.”
It took me a minute to figure out what he was saying. “Oh, you mean we’re going now?”
“Sì,” said Marcello, slowly, like I had most definitely missed the point.
“Paul’s at work,” I said, although of course he already knew that. Everyone’s husbands were always at work. “Could we see it tonight?”
Marcello laughed. “What is it you Americans say?”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“We’ve got to move fast?”
Five minutes later, I was in Marcello’s Fiat Panda, looking for a seat belt that didn’t exist. I’d worn my most conservative skirt with a simple white blouse, in case the landlord needed proof that I was a responsible adult. But I hadn’t had time to do anything with my hair, so it hung down my back in thick wet cords.
We followed the same road out of town that Paul and I had taken to get to the beach, and while Marcello drove, he gave me some background on the house. It was actually one side of a duplex owned by a local barber named Giovanni Chirri, whose son had grown up with Marcello. Recently, Giovanni’s father had died, and Giovanni and his sister—both in their sixties—had inherited the property. The sister planned to move one of her grown daughters into her unit, but all of Giovanni’s children hadleft the island, so his plan was to turn his side of the duplex into a vacation rental.
“Does he already have someone lined up?”
“That’s what his son tells me. That some friends of friends in Milan want it for the summer, and they’re sending someone to look at it this afternoon.”
My head was spinning—not just because of the tight timeline but because it was becoming clear to me that Marcello was going to expect me to make a decision on the spot. What would Paul think if he arrived home from work to find that not only had I looked at a place without him but I’d committed to it?
