The Golden Hour
Praise for
“Margaret Wurtele’s novel,
The Golden Hour
, will grab you on page one and not let you go until the very end. It is a love story with an embedded history lesson that few of us know much about. There is a great loss of innocence in this coming-of-age story, both for the heroine and for the bucolic landscape of Tuscany.”
—Dan O’Brien, author of
Stolen Horses
“Margaret Wurtele tells the beautiful story of a young Italian woman who comes to maturity in the midst of persecution, war, and personal loss. As she views the world around her and comes to understand the cruelty, corruption, hypocrisy, and timidity of those she had hitherto admired, our hearts go out to her. We cheer as she forms her own values of decency, courage, tolerance, and commitment to others. Hers is a journey to be remembered and emulated.”
—Susan Zuccotti, author of
Under His Very Windows:
The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy
“Wurtele skillfully evokes the beauty of the Italian countryside, the brutality of the war, and the power of love to outlast the battles.
The Golden Hour
is an engrossing read.”
—Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of
The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott
“Moving and powerful, interesting and compelling, Margaret Wurtele’s debut novel is thoroughly enjoyable. I loved the historical detail and the complexities portrayed in an Italy torn apart by World War II. The quiet elegance of the writing definitely brought to mind
The Girl With the Pearl Earring
, and I would likewise recommend this book to any book club.”
—Robert Alexander,
New York Times
bestselling
author of
The Kitchen Boy
“Set in the danger and drama of Italy during the Second World War,
The Golden Hour
is an enthralling story of love, family, and courage. Margaret Wurtele has delivered a lush, suspenseful, and thoroughly engaging read.”
—Lynn Sheene, author of
The Last Time I Saw Paris
Golden Hour
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
N
EW
A
MERICAN
L
IBRARY
Published by New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
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First published by New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, February 2012
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Copyright © Margaret Wurtele, 2012
Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2012
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Wurtele, Margaret.
The golden hour/Margaret Wurtele.
p. cm.
EISBN: 9781101575451
1. World War, 1939-1945—Italy—Tuscany—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3623.U77G65 2012
813.6—dc23 2011033387
Set in Stempel Garamond Pro
Designed by Elke Sigal
Printed in the United States of America
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For my mother
and in loving memory of my father,
characters different in every way
from the parents I created in these pages
This novel would never have been conceived without an invitation from Jane and Jerry Baldwin to join them on a visit to the source of their olive trees. So thanks are due to them and most certainly to Marcello Salom for reminiscences that piqued my interest and set my pen in motion.
I am grateful as always to the Loft Literary Center: for the fiction classes; for the referral of Kathy Coskran, who helped me find my fiction legs; and for the rented writing studio that gave me distraction-free space when I needed it most.
I spent countless hours reading widely about World War II in Italy, but I want to acknowledge three books in particular that both informed and inspired me: Iris Origo’s memoir,
War in Val d’Orcia
; Tullio Bruno Bertini’s
Trapped in Tuscany
; and Susan Zucotti’s
The Italians and the Holocaust
.
I owe so much to Lorna Owen, independent editor extraordinaire, for her warmth, her keen interest, her fresh and astute eye, and her deft (virtual) pencil.
I am indebted to Carole Williams, to Gail See, and to my mother, Joanne Von Blon, for taking the time to read and comment on the manuscript and for encouraging me, each in her own way.
I thank my agent, Marly Rusoff, and Julie Mosow, her in-house editor, for their insightful review and sound advice on the manuscript. I owe so much to Marly for her warm support and for her sage
experience in the market that put me together with NAL/Penguin.
Claire Zion, editorial director of New American Library, has brought much energy, enthusiasm and openness to the publishing process and has made me feel part of it. Thanks as well to her assistant, Jhanteigh Kupihea, for her helpful support.
Special appreciation goes to my stepdaughter, Heidi Castelein, for reading the manuscript not once, but twice, and for her unflagging enthusiasm. I owe most, as always, to Angus, my beloved husband—reader, feeder, fan.
Golden Hour
I
moved home to Villa Farfalla for a few days while Father was dying. Mother hadn’t asked me to, but I knew she would need me—her only daughter—to be there, to witness this momentous shift in all our lives. My two sons were busy with their own families, my husband independent enough to tolerate my absence, so I packed a small bag, drove the several kilometers from our own
fattoria
, and installed myself in my old bedroom.
The heavy tapestry of the curtains and upholstery were faded with age, the paisley throw at the foot of the four-poster bed limp and threadbare. Years of sunlight had paled the spines of my books and yellowed the framed engravings on the walls. I felt oversize, as if I were trying to squeeze into a dress made for one of my granddaughters. The doorknobs resisted the twist of my hand; the gilded faucets yielded nothing but a rusty trickle of water at first. Had Mother or Rosa begun to neglect even cleaning the bathrooms?
Papa lay in my parents’ bedroom across the hall, unmoving, propped on a mountain of pillows, a light blue silk comforter stretched under thin arms limp at his sides. I thought he was asleep when I approached the bed the first evening, but when I eased myself onto the edge of the mattress, he opened his eyes.
“Giovanna.” His voice was hoarse, labored.
“Hello, Papa.”
He didn’t answer but held me in a sober, watery gaze.
“It’s good to see you, Papa. The boys, all of them, send love.”
He nodded, a barely perceptible gesture, and his eyes closed again.
Too late now, we’re too tired—both of us—for any more than that.
“Are you scared, Mama?” I ventured at breakfast, swirling a thin splash of milk into my coffee. Mother and I sat at a small table in the conservatory, warmed by weak sun coming through the glass roof.
“I’m not sure.” She stirred her own coffee in response. “I’ve had so many months to get used to the idea of his dying.” She reached out and adjusted a small narcissus in the bouquet Rosa had placed on the table between us.
“We’re all nearby. We’ll do this together.”
She shrugged, shook her head. I knew what she was thinking:
But your lives will go on as if nothing has changed. I’m the one who will be alone.
Later that morning, Father was more alert. I wanted to ask him if
he
was afraid, but instead I offered, “We’ll all look after Mama, I promise. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I know that,
piccola
.” At the sound of my childhood nickname,
I smiled and took his hand. It was surprisingly warm, his grip steady and firm. How long would it be?
Our dear Rosa was a godsend. Old and stooped now, her hair pulled back in a white chignon, she had had far more experience with the dying than either Mother or I. She had been in attendance at the bedside of her own grandmother, of both her parents and their siblings. Papa, his body wasted from months of an aggressive cancer, had stopped eating or drinking the week before. Rosa kept a small bottle of morphine on a table near Father’s bed, and—at the slightest sign of restlessness or pain on his brow—she would ease a drop or two between his parched lips and under his tongue. “It won’t be long now,” she said to me. “A few days, maybe. No more.”
The third morning, he had sunk into an even deeper slumber, his head tipped slightly back, his mouth open. Rosa took me aside. “I think,” she said, “if you have anything to say, you should say it now. The hearing, they say, is the last thing to go.”
“How much longer do you think it will be?” I asked.
She reached for my hand. “One never knows for sure, but if he doesn’t wake up at all today, he will probably die tomorrow.”
Tomorrow…one more day. Then my father will be gone forever. Mother had announced that she was taking a short walk in the garden, so I stepped quietly to the side of his bed. There was a soft armchair pulled up next to it. Had Mother spent much of the night there? Had Rosa given her the same advice? I sat down and took his hand. It was still so warm. I thought I could feel deliberate pressure, as if he knew I was there but didn’t have the strength to acknowledge it any other way.
I was oddly nervous—we hardly ever talked like this, so intimately, the two of us. Especially now, when it was all up to me, when I could only imagine his response.
“Papa…
I just want you to know that you’ve been a wonderful father and grandfather. I—we all—love you so much. We’ll miss you when you’re—” My throat tightened around the words, and I didn’t finish the sentence. I started to speak again, but then thought better of it.
No, just sit here now with what I’ve said. Enough.
It had been true, just the way I’d put it—for decades, anyway. He and I had reached an understanding and a kind of easy, loving back-and-forth based on family, on his grandchildren especially.
After a while, Mother came in, flushed from her walk in the early-spring air. I gave her the armchair and pulled up another. We chatted, the two of us, in a way we felt would be comforting to Papa: memories, recent ones, about the children in particular….
Rosa had fixed us a light lunch, a crispy panini with ham and cheese, the crusts elegantly trimmed, and glasses of chilled prosecco. So we took a break. We deliberately skirted the subject of Papa and focused instead on the garden, on some changes Mother had been contemplating on the front terrace, a couple of new roses she had heard about, single varieties with large, flat, open blossoms.
Yes, single, how perfect
.
After lunch, we returned to Papa and sat on the chairs on either side of the bed. We each took one of his hands and held it. He was still so warm, and I could have sworn I felt a squeeze.
“Look at his face, Giovanna,” Mama said suddenly.
I leaned in close to see. His head was turned slightly to one side, so his face was almost in profile. The skin on his forehead was pulled tight, and the lines in his face had begun to disappear. “My God—he looks so young, doesn’t he?” I said. It was uncanny, as if fifty years had evaporated, and there before us was the Papa I had known in my youth.
I studied the illusion, fascinated, and—as I did—I could feel
my stomach begin to tighten. Images, unwelcome ones, began to tumble and float in my head. I felt slightly dizzy. I looked at Mother, searching her face to see whether she too was beginning to visit that forbidden territory, but her face was inscrutable. I released Papa’s hand and stood up. “I’m tired, Mother. I hope it’s all right, but I’m going to lie down for a while.”
I went into my room, pulled the coverlet back, and lay down on the bed, my head swirling. I stared at the ceiling, letting long-forgotten scenes play across my consciousness in a kind of waking dream. Hours passed, in which I lived inside the memories, following them like a path through the woods that was long drifted over with leaves.