“You rest.” Elisabetta had heard this before, too. Sometimes she wondered if he said it for her benefit, or if he even knew that he hadn’t painted in years. She kissed his grizzled cheek, then rose with the empty wine bottle. “I have to go to school. Bye, now.”
“Of course, goodbye, my darling girl, my special light, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Papa.”
“Fetch me a bottle before you go, will you, my dear?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marco
June 1937
Marco watched dustmotes swirl in a shaft of sunlight, while his classmates were getting their essays from their backpacks. The classroom was stifling, small, and devoid of decoration other than the Italian flag, a large wooden crucifix, and portraits of King Vittorio Emanuele III and Il Duce. A sign bore the party credo, credere, obbedire, combattere—Believe, Obey, Fight. There were thirty other students in his class, including Elisabetta and Sandro, all dressed in their uniforms.
Their teacher, Professoressa Longhi, was an older woman with thick glasses and gray hair in a bun, thick-waisted in her dark dress, which sported the tricolor emblem. She motioned for them to sing “Giovinezza,” the party anthem, and the class rose halfheartedly, weary of the routine this late in the school year. She didn’t reprimand them, and Marco suspected she had joined the party only to keep her job, as he had noticed her rolling her eyes at their textbooks from time to time. The standard joke was that some teachers joined the PNF, the Partito Nazionale Fascista, but others joined Per Necessità Famigliare, only to support their family. Secretly he felt the same way, a Fascist because of his father, and it was the only way he knew. At heart, he believed in love, not politics.
Marco began to sing with his classmates, loudly to make Elisabetta laugh:
“Your warriors’ valor,
Your pioneers’ virtue,
Alighieri’s vision,
Today shines in every heart.”
Marco turned around to see if Elisabetta was laughing, but instead she was looking at Sandro, whose desk was near the front. Her face bore a curious expression, one that Marco hadn’t seen before, and he had seen all of her expressions. She lifted her right eyebrow when she listened, she frowned when she read the newspaper, and she wrinkled the bridge of her nose when she laughed hard. She could even look dreamy-eyed, like when she watched the screen at the movies. Oddly, she was looking that way now, at Sandro.
Marco felt bewildered, remembering the afternoon that he had seen Sandro and Elisabetta standing close at the river. What if something had happened between them? Were they becoming more than friends? Neither of them had told him so, but then he hadn’t told either of them about his own feelings. Marco couldn’t imagine competing with Sandro for Elisabetta, and it was inconceivable that any girl, even she, would come between them.
“Class, please take your seats,” Professoressa Longhi said after the song ended. “Let’s get started. Take out your essays.”
Marco sat down, retrieved his essay from his backpack, and hid his paper so no one would see his handwriting. His letters were large and deformed, as if written by a much younger student. His teachers thought he was sloppy or careless, but the truth was worse. Writing and reading were a struggle for him, even at his age. His classmates could read with ease, even aloud, but every time he looked at a page, the words appeared to him as a collection of nonsensical squiggles and he had to figure out their meaning from the context, or from what the teachers said. He didn’t recognize any of the words except for the ones that reoccurred, like Mussolini, and Marco had begun to fear that he was simply born stupid, which shamed him. His grades were falling, and last year, one of his teachers had summoned his mother, telling her that he had to study harder. His mother had nagged him and prayed to Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Joseph of Cupertino, but Marco knew he would have been better off with Saint Jude, Patron Saint of Lost Causes.
“Okay, class, let’s begin. Who would like to read his essay aloud?”
Marco raised his hand, according to one of the stratagems he had devised to hide his deficiency. He would volunteer to read, instead of waiting to be called upon, so he could control when he spoke. Then he would pretend to read his essay aloud, making his eyes move back and forth like the others did, but he would simply be speaking about the subject of the assignment. Marco had an excellent recall, able to remember everything the teacher had said, so he had learned the information, and he loved attention, so he was an entertaining speaker. None of his classmates had guessed his secret, so far. But every day, he worried that the king of the class would become its buffoon.
Last night’s homework had been to write an essay entitled “Mussolini’s Greatness from My Unique Viewpoint,” and Professoressa Longhi had explained the assignment was to be a personal essay, rather than the generic treatise that filled the new textbooks, showing Il Duce commanding vast crowds, firing a gun, harvesting wheat bare-chested, piloting an airplane in goggles, leaping over obstacles on horseback, swimming, hiking, and even playing with a lion cub.
“Marco,” said Professoressa Longhi, “come read your essay. Sandro, you’ll read yours next, after Marco.”
Marco rose and walked to the front of class, then Professoressa Longhi cocked her head, as if she had a second thought. “Marco, why don’t we do something different this time? Why don’t we switch? You read Sandro’s essay, and, Sandro, you read Marco’s.”
“No, wait,” Marco said, his mouth going dry, but it was too late, as Sandro was coming to the front of the class.
“Marco, here.” Sandro handed Marco his essay. “Let me have your essay.”
“I wrote it in a hurry, that’s why it’s messy.” Marco handed Sandro his essay.
“It’s perfect, written with passion and vigor.” Sandro smiled, and Marco realized that Sandro was covering for him.
Professoressa Longhi motioned from her desk. “Marco, please begin. Read us Sandro’s essay.”
“Okay.” Marco stared at Sandro’s assignment, stricken. He recognized a few words, but he couldn’t begin to read the essay, which was written in his best friend’s neat handwriting. Marco’s heart began to pound, and he swallowed hard. He glanced up to see Elisabetta looking at him with a sweet and expectant smile. He couldn’t bear her reaction if she found out that he couldn’t even read. She loved newspapers and books, and she would never fall in love with him then. She would pity him, and he would be humiliated in front of her.
“Marco?” Sandro said, all of a sudden. “I’ll read your essay first, if that’s okay with you.”