“Do you have a telephone book?” she asked him, hoping to find a listing for a Nenci or a Longobardi, Umbertina’s maiden and married names.

The man was very patient. “No one in Castagna has a telephone, only the tabacchaio.”

“Nothing here, only chestnuts, eh?” Ferruccio said pleasantly. And Tina remembered her grandfather’s old joke about his wife’s family origins—Castagna, where all the nuts come from. The thought of her mother made her close her eyes.

Ferruccio was ordering two cold coffees. They drank them at the bar, savoring the good strongness. “Excellent,” he said to the shy man, and then pointed to some hard candies in a glass jar and asked for an etto. The man went to the back of the store behind a curtain and came back with a small bag, saying, “These are better.”

“Let’s go to the Sale e Tabacchi,” Tina said, “and you can get some cigarettes.”

“It’s the one thing a traveler can be sure of finding all over Italy, no matter how poor and miserable the locality,” Ferruccio said as they went down a steep cobbled street fronted by stone dwellings that were old and decrepit-looking. A few women looked out of doorways, a few children stopped their play and stared. Tina glanced quickly at them, looking to recognize herself or Weezy in their impassive faces. In one dark-eyed handsome, roguish-looking boy she thought she saw her Uncle Sammy.

Within the dark shop an old woman sat knitting. The place was absolutely bare except for a little shelf where the familiar blue and white bags of salt were lined up: sale grosso and sale fine. Nearby was a wall telephone and a sign saying that it could be used weekdays 8–12 and 14–19 and holidays 9–12. There were no cigarettes at the moment, the woman said. Tina, wanting to have something from Castagna and conscious of the woman’s glance, bought a package of salt.

“For wisdom?” asked Ferruccio sardonically, as they left.

“No, to catch birds.”

He laughed and caught her to him and bit her gently on the cheek. “Always fighting, aren’t you—sempre in polemica! I think I’ll miss that fighting; in fact, I’ll miss you. I hope you’ll stay on in Rome, I’m quite attached to you, you know.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Let’s take it day by day. And for today there’s Castagna.”

They went down the steep passageway to where all the other alleys of the little village converged into an open space that was like a large balcony contained by a balustrade overlooking the valley. A huge chestnut tree whose light green burrs distilled the light into cool shadows stood in the center of the piazza, which was deserted except for a person in a long black gown and wide-brimmed hat sitting on a bench reading.