Charles was being transferred to the Fort of Santa Maura, on the northernmost of the Ionian Islands, and he would sail there the following week. I would remain in Kapsali town until he could make the arrangements for me to join him. Sióra Gazi, a special friend of the British commander, would take excellent care of me—Charles lowered his voice at this point as though the sea would overhear him—given my condition.

I pieced together much of this conversation afterward, with the help of Sióra Gazi, who was not a friend but the mistress of the British commander. Before Charles walked me down to her seaside villa, I threw my mother’s shawl off the edge of the overlook. It had Kanella’s scent all over it. Onions and oil.

What I felt for Charles in those days must have been love because I did not fault him, not even after Sióra Gazi informed me that he had known for many weeks about his transfer to Santa Maura. She said that, given my condition, he should have arranged for my travel prior to the fracas with my brothers. She puffed on a thin cigar and blew out the smoke, which for a moment fogged the star-filled sky above us. We were sitting on her terrace, and the Ionian Sea was spread before us and within it was a bobbing half-moon. As she took another puff, I asked her, “Sióra Gazi, what is my condition?”

Charles did not sail for Santa Maura for another three months, nor did I, as we would depart on the same vessel. The delay, according to the Sióra, was due to a malarial outbreak on that island. The British commander was unwilling to transfer his men there before the all clear was given. By then I was two months from giving birth. Sióra Gazi said that she could tell from the position of my belly.

The months, unexpected and unplanned, that I would live with the Sióra were my Padova, my university, Elesa.

The Sióra spoke a throaty but refined Venetian and had fluency also in the English language, but she claimed that language was unnecessary for women like us. “Men do not look to us for our words,” she said. “They look to us for the body that God gave us. You can be fluent with your body, Rosa, and it will serve you equally well.” Then she showed me how.

The tip of the tongue, the lick of the lips, the downward-cast eyes, the flicker of the lashes, the tuck of a strand of hair, the breath sharply inhaled, the breath slowly released, the shoulders shrugged, the bosom jutted, the bosom covered by modest hands, the hands trembling, the hands steady, the body walking away, the head turning back, the blush of the cheeks, the blush of the neck, the blush of what he cannot yet see.

Sióra Gazi often laughed when she taught me these wordless confessions and denials. The Angels murmured their approval, as she continued the lessons that they had in haste begun on the morning when God had given me Charles.