“It’s better if I don’t explain. Safer. One day, perhaps.”

“You will come back?”

“Yes. I promise I will. I . . .”

His voice drifted away, along with the moonlight, and the room was dark again, and cold, but his body was warm, and so welcome, and as long as he was next to her she wasn’t alone.

She tried not to think of how lonely she would be when he was gone. She would keep herself busy, and she would work harder than ever, so hard that she would fall asleep the moment she doused the lamp each night. And she would count the days until he returned.

Chapter 11

15 November 1943

It was Monday, laundry day, the day of the week they all disliked the most. It began at eight o’clock, as soon as Carlo had left for school and the water in the big kettles had reached a rolling boil. The wooden laundry tub was already in place, set on a stool so Rosa didn’t have to stoop quite so low, and once the hot water was mixed with just enough cold to stop it from stripping the skin from their hands, and Rosa had whisked in scoops of washing soda and her homemade soap, the business of laundering their clothes and linens began.

Rosa trusted no one else to get things truly clean, so she was the one who labored the hardest and longest, her hands constantly scrubbing. Only once she was satisfied did she give each item to Nina and the girls. It was their job to wring everything out, then layer it all in an array of wicker baskets that went on the back of Bello’s cart for the journey uphill to the stream.

That took all morning, and by the time they stopped for lunch—always leftover soup, for there was no time for anything else—their hands and forearms were red and raw from the scalding water and harsh lye soap. On Mondays the men stayed well away from the house at midday.

Nina had just finished eating when some instinct had her glance at the calendar, which was tacked to the wall just below a framed photograph of the pope. November. It was November already, and that meant she had missed the High Holy days.

Rosh Hashanah had been less than a week after her arrival in Mezzo Ciel, Yom Kippur ten days after that, and they had passed by without her even noticing. Her parents would have been thinking of her, praying for her, but the days had swept by, governed only by the rhythm of the farm and her work and her self-pity, and she had forgotten.