“Are the turnips ready for harvest?”

“Soon. Before Christmas. That will be good. Maybe I can trade for things that we need for the holiday. It is so strange. In past years we would all be baking at this moment. Now it will be only chestnut cake if we are lucky. No dried fruit, no cream, no butter. And probably no meat. A poor feast.”

“Let us hope it will be the last poor feast before the Germans are finally defeated.”

Sofia crossed herself. “From your lips to God’s ears,” she said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

JOANNA

June 1973

It’s easy enough to explain that boot print, I thought. The two Carabinieri agents would obviously want to search the crime scene for clues. They may have dusted my window for fingerprints. But then if it wasn’t an official search, someone was watching the house and saw me leave. I glanced around and was relieved when I heard Paola’s voice calling for Angelina to bring a bowl. I hurried to join her, and soon she was showing me how to choose the zucchini blossoms and how to pick them, making sure that the stem was intact. After that she cut a few artichokes, dug up some radishes, and chose a couple of ripe tomatoes. Then she stopped by the herb garden and picked various leaves that I couldn’t identify, but their scent was pungent when she gave them to me to hold. Finally we walked back to the house. I found myself looking around to see if we were being watched. Paola chatted away as we walked, telling Angelina about our encounter with the Carabinieri and what the townspeople had been saying.

“You see, I was right,” Angelina said. “I told you that it was because Gianni kept bad company. He liked to flirt with danger. That’s why he was killed.”

“But why choose my well? That’s what I’d like to know,” Paola said. “Why not kill him on his own property? It is more remote, less likely to be seen among those trees. Why not just follow him there?”

“Perhaps he saw he was being followed. Perhaps he fought back and had to be killed in a hurry.” Angelina shrugged. “Let’s get on with the meal, Mamma. I am hungry and I am sure Signorina Joanna is, too.”

“Then lay the table and slice the bread,” Paola said, going ahead of us into the cool kitchen. “And put out the salami and the cheese and wash those radishes.” She turned to me. “Now pay attention if you want to see how we stuff the zucchini blossoms, Joanna.”

She put some of the white cheese into a bowl, chopped up and added some of the herb I had now decided was mint, then grated some lemon zest on to it. Then she took a spoon and carefully stuffed this mixture into each of the blossoms.

She dipped a scoop into the big jar of olive oil and lit the gas under a pan.

“Now the batter,” she said. She broke an egg into flour, whisked the mixture, and added water. Then she took a zucchini blossom and dipped it into the batter. When the oil was sizzling, she dropped the blossom in and repeated the same process with the others, one by one, turning them and then removing them when they were crisp.

“Tonight we do the same with the artichokes,” she said. “We need to eat these while they are good and hot.”

We sat at the table. Bread was passed to me along with sliced tomatoes with rich, sweet vinegar poured over them. I took my first bite of the zucchini blossom.

“Very delicious,” I said, wishing my Italian vocabulary of praise was more extensive. We ate for a while in silence until the baby’s cries made Angelina jump up to fetch her. “She went three hours between feeds this time. That is good news, eh, Mamma?”

“Yes, she is certainly growing stronger,” Paola said. “I think now we can safely say that she has come to stay.”

We finished our meal with apricots.

“Now a little siesta before we pick the vegetables and load up the cart for tomorrow,” Paola said. “I expect you are tired, too, mia cara.”

I didn’t like the thought of Paola and Angelina going off to sleep and leaving me alone.

“Not really,” I said. “I think I will sit in the shade of the front porch and read my book.”

“As you wish. Myself, I need to sleep.”

I went to the front porch and sat on the bench in the shade. It was cool and peaceful. Bees were buzzing around jasmine. Sparrows chirped as they hopped around in the dust. In the distance I heard a donkey braying. But I could not read or relax. I found myself glancing up from the book, my eyes on the path that led down from the village. I tried to make sense of what had happened. Nobody in San Salvatore seemed to have met my father, or even knew of him. And yet Gianni had tried his best to get me alone and tell me something important, something he had kept hidden until now for fear of his life.

And then there was the beautiful boy, the boy my father had hidden where only he and Sofia could find him. But the only boy was Renzo, and he did not remember being hidden away, nor did he remember my father. And he was too old to be a child of my father. I found myself wondering if Sofia had concealed a pregnancy. Would that be possible in a village of this size with nosy neighbours? Renzo, being only three at the time, might not have noticed if his mother put on weight. But other women would. And then the biggest question of all: If my father had been in the area long enough to fall in love and maybe father a child, where on earth had he been hiding? In Sofia’s house? But then Renzo had said that a German soldier had been billeted with them. And surely someone else would have seen him. It didn’t make sense. In fact, the most logical thing to do was to leave this place as soon as possible. If Sofia Bartoli had run off with a German and thus broken my father’s heart, then I didn’t want to know more about her.