The Shoemaker's Wife (40 page)

“You did—I know that. And I wrote you that letter. I said I would come in a few weeks, and I came—I was there, Enza! But Signora Buffa lied to me.”

Enza pulled her hand from his and placed it on her lap. “No, Ciro! Listen. A man who wants a woman will do anything it takes to win her. If you thought I went back to Schilpario, why wouldn’t you write? Why wouldn’t you move heaven and earth to find me? No ocean, no obstacle, no excuse could have kept us apart had you wanted me.”

“That’s true.” His heart grew heavy as he realized she was right. He knew how single-minded he could be when he pursued a woman he desired; why had he avoided pursuing Enza?

“But there wasn’t an ocean. There wasn’t even a
mile
separating us. I’ve seen you with other women, Ciro. I’ve seen you when you’re happy. Then you run into me—”

“That’s fate—”

“Or just an accident!” Enza replied. “I remember the look on your face when you came into the shoe shop with Felicitá. You were blissful. You had champagne and a beautiful girl on your arm, and you were happy. You took one look at me, and you were instantly uncomfortable.”

“No, I was happy to see you there!”

“Well, it didn’t seem so, Ciro. It’s not wrong of you to choose women who make you happy. You should have that.”

“You’re encouraging me to go with other women?” Ciro felt himself losing patience. “That’s rare in a girl.”

Enza persisted. “I remind you, I imagine, of things you’d rather not think about.”

“You know what I’m thinking?”

“I can only trust what people
do
in this world, not what they say. You say all the right things, and then you disappear,” Enza said quietly. “When I was ready for you, I couldn’t find you.”

“What if I told you that I want you now?” Ciro leaned toward her.

She smiled. “I would think that you’re a courageous soldier going off to war, who wouldn’t mind leaving a nice girl behind to pray for him. I remind you of what you come from. Don’t mistake that for love. It’s a deep connection, but it isn’t what you think.” Enza released her hands from his grip, put them in her lap, and leaned back.

Ciro walked Enza home to Greenwich Village that night. She shared stories about the opera. She mimicked Enrico Caruso, Geraldine Farrar, and Antonio Scotti and made Ciro laugh. He told Enza about the repair cart and his plans for the business when he returned from the war. He marveled again at how easy it was to talk to Enza, and how honest and open he was when he was with her.

They held one another close on the stoop of the Milbank House. Ciro wanted to kiss her good-bye, but she kissed his cheek instead. And that night, she remembered him in her prayers, but she did not pine for him.

Chapter 20

A HATBOX
Una Cappelliera

November 22, 1917

Cambrai, France

Dear Eduardo,

I hope this letter reaches you, as it’s the only one I have written in my time at the front. You know, above all others, how difficult it is for me to describe the world in words, but I will try.

From the first moment of my service, the days have rolled out with such uncertainty that I was unable to describe them. We sailed to England on July 1 on the USS Olympic. There were two thousand of us on the ship, though no one counted. I am in the regiment of General Finn “Landing” Taylor. His daughter Nancy Finn Webster made sure every new recruit had a new pair of socks for our tour of duty. Each of us received a pair when we boarded the ship. It reminded me of Sister Domenica and her knitting needles, clicking for hours on end, making us socks and sweaters.

We ran drills on the deck during the day. We proceeded to Tours, France, by ferry. From there, we walked for hundreds of miles, pitching camp, digging trenches, and when we did not dig trenches, we jumped into the ones that had been dug by the soldiers before us. You couldn’t help asking yourself, “What happened to those men?”

I have been lucky to make some good friends. Juan Torres grew up in Puerto Rico, but lives in New York City, 116th Street. He introduces himself as the proud son of Andres Corsino Torres whenever he meets someone new. He is thirty-two years old, with six children and a wife, and is very devout to Our Lady of Guadalupe. When I told him my only brother was a priest, he went down on one knee and kissed my hand. So please, remember him in your prayers.

I cannot believe what I see here. We spend as much time burying the dead as we do fighting the enemy. We came upon a field, and we could not even see the earth beneath the dead. The wise soldier hardens his heart against all he sees, but I have not mastered that skill. I don’t think I can, brother.

The land is badly scarred, forests have been torched, and the rivers are so full of slag from the fighting that the water has slowed to a trickle. Sometimes we happen upon a small blue lake or a pristine corner of a forest, and I can see that France was once beautiful. Not anymore.

We were told that our regiment was hit with mustard gas. On that morning, I was dreaming, asleep in the trench, sitting in my helmet (yes, better than the mud!), and I thought we were back in the convent with Sister Teresa when she made the aioli bread. But that scent of garlic was not the herb, but the poison of the gas. We were assured by our commander that very little of it blew across our area, but the soldiers think differently. I don’t feel any effects of it yet, and this is good. I don’t smoke too many cigarettes, so I am able to feel my lungs.

I hope to see you in Rome for your final vows in the spring. I think of you every day and send you my love,

Ciro

It seemed to Ciro that there were two ways a soldier tried to survive the war. He had examples of both in his regiment.

There was Private Joseph DeDia, who kept his gun cocked, his helmet straight, his eyes on the middle distance, as if his very gaze would send a message to the enemy. Order and skill would save him.

On the other hand, there was Major Douglas Leihbacher, who patrolled the trenches like a lowly private, making them laugh, conversing with them through the cold French nights. If Major Leihbacher could shore up the spirit, he could guide his men to win the war. A clear goal would save him.

Ciro was a good soldier—he obeyed orders, stayed alert, and performed every duty asked of him—but he remained skeptical of the politics behind the decisions made in the field. The men were often moved from place to place without preparation, and there seemed to be no apparent master plan. Ciro anticipated the worst, coming up with his own contingency plans because he had no confidence in the leaders.

While Ciro was aware of the sacrifice he and the others were making, he had not fully contemplated his own mortality, even as the bullets rained down around him. Every soldier comes to this, a moment when he acknowledges how he will meet his fate. Ciro listened to the voice within and remained focused. He saw the terrible waste of lives across the bloody fields of France. He thought of all those men might have accomplished in their lives. He decided that he would defend his life and the life of his fellow soldiers at all costs. But he would not seek to kill the enemy for the sake of winning the war. He would only kill to defend.

Most of the victories in battle seemed almost accidental. As they covered ground, the regiment came upon an arms storage unit in the barn of an old farm, and later a tank factory where lace was once made. But no intelligence guided them; it was simply vast numbers of men, in regiments that were numbered but not named, that canvassed the small villages of France, in search of whatever they might find, seize, or hold.

There would be entire days when Ciro would think the war was over, with not a single shot fired, or any sign of movement in the distance. And then battle would begin anew. It always began in the same way; faint sounds would grow louder, and within hours, the world around them would explode in a hailstorm of shells and bullets. The tanks sounded like pile drivers that crushed stone in the Alps. Their treads flattened anything in the tank’s path. Ciro, who loved machinery and its design, thought the tanks were ugly. What beauty could be found in something that was created with the sole purpose of destruction?

Once Ciro’s regiment made it to the trenches of Cambrai, they stayed. Sometimes he thought he would go out of his mind from the tedium, the long stretches when there was nothing to do but worry about when the next assault would come.

The nuns of San Nicola had taught him that no major decisions should be made in a state of exhaustion. But it seemed every decision in the trenches was made by men who were bone-tired, hungry, wet, and cold. There was no rest.

There was no peace to be made with death. Conversations steered around it. Some men asked their fellow soldiers to shoot them if they were left without limbs. Others vowed to turn their guns on themselves if captured. It seemed every soldier had his own ideas about how to control the outcome of war, knowing he was powerless to change what fate had in store for him.

Death was dodged, shirked, and outwitted daily. And still, death found them.

Ciro understood why they needed ten thousand men a day shipped from America to do battle on the fields of France. They were determined to win by sheer numbers, with or without a solid plan for victory. Some men, without a plan in place, began to cling to their dreams. Others began to see death as a way out of the horror of what they were living through. But not Ciro; he endured the cold fever of fear because he knew he must go home again.

Enza tucked the gold-filigreed invitation into her evening bag. She looked in the mirror, taking in her pearl gray brocade gown with a critical eye. Its columnar shape, with one shoulder exposed, was dramatic, even in the eyes of the woman who had created it.

Enza wore her long black hair in an upsweep. She pulled on silver satin evening gloves that stretched over her elbows, the contrast of the fabric leading the eye to the delicate blush of her bare shoulder. The effect was sophisticated and daring.

Dawn Gepfert had hosted a party every fall for the entire staff of the Met, including the board of directors, crew, actors, and designers. It was the only time every department at the Met came together socially, and everyone who worked for the opera considered this party the ultimate perk.

Mrs. Gepfert had a twenty-room duplex on Park Avenue, with windows the size of doors and vaulted ceilings so high, they reminded Enza of a cathedral. Rooms were decorated in cheery English chintz, the walls papered in rosebuds climbing trompe-l’oeil trellises, and thick wool rugs and low lamps made the apartment seem cozy, despite its size.

The party was at its peak—a string quartet played music, there was lots of laughter and party chatter, most of the rooms were filled with guests—but Enza, Colin, Laura, and Vito had found a quiet spot.

Enza sank into a pale green velvet slipper chair facing the fireplace in the library as Vito added a log to the fire. The French doors leading to the wraparound terrace were open, and awnings had been unfurled, with small heaters placed along the perimeter. The evening hovered on the line between fall and winter; the night air had a nip to it, but it was still warm enough to be outside with a light wrap. Colin brought Laura a drink.

“This is living,” Laura said.

“Great friends and good wine,” Colin agreed.

Vito settled on the arm of Enza’s chair. She held a glass of champagne, and he picked up his glass. “To us,” he said.

Colin, Laura, and Enza raised their glasses.

“I wish this night would never end.” Enza sighed. Sometimes she was so deeply in the moment of the present, Enza forgot the pain of the past and was free to enjoy herself without guilt. The scaffolding of her new life was sturdy, but she wanted the contents to be light, just like the colors of Dawn Gepfert’s apartment.

“It doesn’t have to,” Laura said.

“I like where this is going.” Colin pulled Laura close.

“Me too.” Vito put his arm around Enza.

“I propped the Milbank’s basement door open with an old shoe.” Laura toasted herself and took a sip of wine. “Now we can stay out as late as we want without having to wait on the front steps in the morning like we’re on a first-name basis with the milkman.”

“I go with the smartest girl on earth.” Colin laughed.

“And don’t forget it.”

This had been a good week for Laura. At long last she had met Colin’s sons, and she found them as rambunctious as the brothers she helped raise. They went to Central Park where Laura proved herself to them. She thew a baseball, ran fast, and played hard, which engaged the boys and impressed Colin. Laura approached her love life just as she did her sewing. She was careful in the pattern stage, so there were no surprises later. But she would have to be flexible if she married Colin and became an instant mother to his boys because that family plan was already well in place.

Enza settled back into the chair, resting her head against Vito. She was overwhelmed with a feeling of contentment, attending their party in the clouds, the glittering city at her feet, with her friends who she had come to rely upon and treasure.

“Did you tell Vito what Signor Caruso said about you?” Laura nudged Enza.

“No,” Enza said softly.

“What did he say?” Vito asked.

“He asked Enza when she was going to design costumes instead of just sewing them.”

“He did?” Vito was impressed.

“He thinks I have a good eye,” Enza said with a shy smile.

“Come up with some sketches,” Vito said.

“She already has two hatboxes full at the Milbank,” Laura said.

“And that’s where they will stay.” Enza sipped her champagne.

“All of a sudden, the tireless Italian girl is shy about her work. I don’t believe it.” Vito shook his head.