The Garden of Letters (9 page)

Pietro and Orsina left Venice the following week. They used the proceeds from the inventory to pay off her parents’ debt. And before leaving, they visited her favorite church, Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Cannareggio, to pray for another child.

“I’ve managed to arrange a fellow musician to take over their lease,” Pietro said. “Valentina will pack up the rest of your parents’ belongings and store them until you’re ready to go through them.”

But by the next year, Orsina was pregnant again and neither of them, after the last two journeys, had any immediate desire to return.

Portofino, Italy

A
PRIL
1934

Although Angelo had been trained as a doctor he had loved hearing stories since he was a small child, and he knew every person in the world had something locked in his heart to tell.

His own story had begun against Italy’s rocky coastline, and two women were sewn into the fabric of his soul. His mother was the first. The second was his first wife, Dalia.

He had met Dalia in San Fruttuoso during his final year in medical school. He had been on his way home to surprise his mother with a visit, when the boat he took made an unexpected stop at the small coastal village next to his hometown of Portofino. He walked across the beach, a carpet of smooth, flat rocks, and found a café by the name of Fiorello Dolce only steps away from the dock. There, Angelo had stopped for a coffee and one of his favorite sweets, a
sfogliatella
, the triangle pastry with ricotta and orange zest tucked inside. The heat, even for the port towns, had been particularly strong that day. Hoping to get a bit of shade, Angelo had moved his chair into the smallest square of shadow. As he repositioned himself, he caught sight of a figure dressed completely in white. A girl of eighteen emerging from the entrance of one of the stone archways, carrying a basket of fresh lemons, many of them with the stems still attached. She had pinned a white gardenia blossom in her long, black hair. Angelo was unable to take his eyes off her from the moment he first saw her.

“Fresh lemons! Fresh lemons!” she sang, as her feet treaded over the rocky beach toward the café. Angelo’s heart began to race. “Handpicked from my father’s grove!”

Angelo felt a sudden energy wash over him. He took one last sip of his coffee, and his hand shot into the air.

“Signorina, yes, signorina, over here . . . I need some lemons!”

She walked over to him, a shy smile forming on her lips.

As she came closer, she appeared even more beautiful. He could now see her with greater clarity: skin the color of honey; eyes the color of Roman glass.

“How much for the whole basket?” he asked.

She looked down and counted the lemons. “If you take the full dozen, I’ll sell it to you for five lire.”

“That’s far too little,” he said, giving her his brightest smile. “Let’s be fair, and you can sell it to me for eight.”

“But that’s too much,” she said, trying to curb her urge to laugh. He knew she was amused that they were bartering in reverse. It was absurd. A buyer who was insisting he needed to pay a higher price, and she refusing to agree. But she wanted to be honest and fair.

He reached into her basket and pulled out one of the fruits. The fragrance of the lemons was intoxicating.

“I think I need to pay extra because their scent is so extraordinary. I have never smelled lemons this fresh.”

This time, she allowed herself to smile fully, and when she did, he felt his heart quicken again. Her teeth against her rosebud mouth were as white as pearls.

“That’s because you’re from Genoa, where you can smell only the soot,” she said. “Here, because we grow our lemons in our backyard, the very air is filled with their scent.”

“What makes you think I’m from Genoa?” he asked.

“Oh, I can hear it in your accent. It’s the pure Genovese. You sound proper,” she said and laughed again.

“But you are mistaken,” he said, switching into his home dialect as easily as a man taking off his work shoes for the day and slipping into a more comfortable pair of sandals.

She looked completely surprised. “What? I would never have guessed. Where are you from? Portofino?”

“Good for you!” He grinned, clearly impressed. “You’re right.”

“But you don’t look like someone from these parts.” She pointed to his linen suit and the shoes of hard leather, which had been meticulously shined.

“I’m studying medicine in Genoa and I’m on my way home to my parents,” he said with a laugh. “I thought I’d surprise my mother with a basket of lemons and a visit from her only son.

“The next boat leaves in an hour,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Now that I’ve bought your entire basket of lemons, won’t you do me the honor of joining me for another coffee and any sweet you want . . .”

He stood up and took the basket from her, gently lifting it from her arms. Then, with a grace that even surprised him, he pulled back one of the café chairs and ushered her into its seat. He was normally awkward around women, yet this girl was so fresh and unassuming he immediately felt at ease.

“What will you have?” he asked. His own plate had nothing on it except crumbs.

“An espresso and a
sfogliatella
,” she said, blushing. Angelo smiled and ordered her two.

He stayed with her all afternoon, missing the next three boats to Portofino.

“My mother isn’t even expecting me,” he said. “If I arrive before dinner or after, it won’t matter. She’ll still be surprised.”

“My own family is expecting me, though,” she said, her face still pink from all the attention he had showered upon her. “You have made me laugh all afternoon . . .” She pointed to the basket of lemons he had taken from her after they had left the café. She had commented that he looked silly walking with the basket looped through his arm.

“To avoid the village gossip,” he told her. “This will look like I’m assisting you . . .”

“You are quite the chivalrous doctor in training. First you overpay for your lemons, and then you insist on carrying my basket.” She giggled.

When she laughed, it sounded like the most beautiful music to him. As if God had captured sunlight and released it through her. He wanted to hold every bit of her between his hands. He wanted to cradle her face between his palms like a precious pearl, and press his lips to hers.

He noticed the flower in her hair had grown limp and that the edges of the white petals had begun to turn brown. When she stopped and told him that she had to turn north back to her home, he reached to pull the flower from her ear.

“There should never be something wilting next to your perfect skin.” Against the fence where they now stood were several hibiscus trees. He reached over and picked one of the brightest pink blooms and placed the new flower behind her ear.

As she went to touch it, her fingers met his for the first time.

“I wish I could bring you home to meet my mother tonight,” he said, smiling at her.

“Now that would surely give her a surprise!”

“But she would be delighted . . . and, well, a bit surprised, considering you’d be the first woman whom I ever brought home.”

“Bring her my lemons instead. Come back tomorrow and tell me what she thinks of them.”

He had not wanted their fingers to stop touching, but eventually they fell away.

“Meet me at Fiorello Dolce tomorrow afternoon and tell me then,” she said.

He knew his mother would lament his coming and then leaving so quickly, but he couldn’t resist the thought of seeing this woman again.

“It’s a date,” he said. “I will be sitting in the same spot waiting for you.”

“And I will bring you another basket of lemons,” she said, her smile curling like a ribbon above her chin.

His heart raced as he ran to make the last boat home.

Angelo arrived home later that evening and gave his mother the basket of yellow fruit.

“You bring me lemons?” she said, slightly confused. “Why? I can get them in my own backyard.”

“But, Mamma,” he said, “these lemons are special.”

“Special?” She pulled one from the basket. “They are certainly lovely and fragrant, Angelo, but why are they so special? We have them here, in abundance. There was no need to waste your money on any more.”

“Oh, but, Mamma, I brought these to you because they were handpicked by the woman I’m going to marry.”

His mother placed her hands in her apron. There was flour on her cheeks from rolling out the pasta.

“Marry?” she said, pressing her hands to her face. “Madonna! This is the first I’ve heard of this.”

“Me, too, Mamma,” he said, grasping her at the waist and lifting her. “But just you wait and see. You’re going to fall in love with her as quickly as I did!”

“Oh, Angelo! This is craziness you’re talking.”

“No, Mamma. I am a man of science now. I know this for a fact. I made simple calculations on the way home. I will write her every day for the next year. Three hundred and sixty-five letters telling her how much I love her. The village donkey will get tired from carrying so many letters on his back.”

She shook her head. “You must be hungry from your journey. You have given me enough surprises for today. Let me make you a little pasta. Your bones are showing.”

She was a woman who did not take her apron off until she was just about to go to bed. The house of his childhood was full of the smells he loved: frying garlic, fistfuls of fresh basil, and the fragrance of olive oil. Like all the women of the region, his mother’s love for her family was pressed with her very fingers into the dough she made every morning to roll out for pasta, every egg she picked from the coop, and each tomato she plucked from the vine.

She could make something wonderful out of almost nothing: focaccia out of a little flour and sea salt or a plateful of grilled sardines that glimmered in a puddle of oil and herbs. She would fry zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta that she had made fragrant with lemon zest, and dust little fishes from the sea in bread crumbs and bits of grated cheese. For dessert, she used the fruit she had hand-picked from her garden and served it alongside her
torte de miele
. When the children got older, their father would let them sip a little
sciacchetra
, the amber-colored sweet wine that made everything better and softer at the end of a long day.

She had given herself completely to the raising of her children. She had nursed one while spoon-feeding another. Angelo adored his mother. Seven children born to her, the first one when she was only seventeen. Angelo had been the fifth child, but the first one to graduate from school. Only his youngest sister still lived at home now, and there was already discussion of which village boy she would marry.

As he sat at the little table on their patio, which faced the sea, his mother brought him a plate of cold octopus salad. “Eat this,” she insisted, while she went back to make him something else. He pushed a fork into the firm tentacles, each one shimmering with olive oil and lemon. He smiled. He loved eating, and he loved tasting the sea.

She returned a few minutes later with some warm ravioli.

“Mamma,” he said. “I’ve missed you so while I’ve been away at school.”

“Missed me? Then why this talk of another woman!” She stood over him and placed her hands over his shoulders.

“Mamma!” He put down his fork and smiled.

“Angelo . . . If you need to marry, why not pick a nice girl from here? Someone who we all know, instead of a stranger from another village.”

He closed his eyes and remained serene. He did not pay too much attention to his mother’s lack of enthusiasm for his declaration of newly discovered love. He had expected such a reaction from her. Instead, he let the memories of Dalia holding her basket of lemons, the curl of her smile, and the taste of his mother’s ravioli, wash over him.