But some frail hope drew her forward. She could feel it deep inside her, hidden beneath the fear and dark thoughts like the German deserters a meter behind her, lying still on a damp cushion of straw. Her mother seemed to be speaking to her, in that calm, soothing voice Vittoria had loved: You can surrender to the evil or you can find a way to push back against it, that’s the choice, Vita.
As she went farther into the trees, Vittoria pretended it was a mild summer night, and Carlo was lying with her in the soft grass behind the smaller of the two barns. She imagined he was running his hands over her bare breasts, kissing her the way he did—a mix of gratitude and awe, of passion and gentleness, as if the early years they’d spent so close to each other had woven a fabric in which they wrapped themselves now; as if the enormous distance between their lives had been shrinking over those years, glance by glance, word by word; as if, when their bodies were linked, finally, in the heat and sweat and excitement, fifty generations of difference had become same. In the rain, in the cold, in the fear, she clung to that image, to the memory of her mother’s voice, fought back hard against the swirling spirit of negativity, insisted to herself that she and her lover would be together again, in peacetime, in some new arrangement—not in the manor house, and not in the barn, but something else, something she couldn’t yet imagine. Yes, their adult lives had been lived in utterly different circumstances, but as little children they’d been able to connect with each other purely and simply as human beings, in a place beneath or beyond the roles in which society dressed them. Why couldn’t she and Carlo find—or make—a grown-up life in such a place?
The ride would be short—less than an hour. She could have tea with the nuns, spend a night with them in prayer. She had Enrico to care for; the Good Lord would never let her be taken from him. And there had been a look in Paolo’s eyes when she walked into the barn. Something different there. As if he were guilty at asking her, but also secretly proud that she’d agreed. As if they were connected in some new way. There had even been a hasty sign of the cross offered from Marcellina, a woman who’d always seemed to dislike her.
Caught in the hypnosis, lost in her dream, Vittoria didn’t hear the police car until she’d turned away from the river and crested the last hill. The vehicle was slipping along, struggling up the muddy slope toward her, and the road was so narrow she had to pull to the side to let it pass. But, instead of going by, the car stopped, very close beside the wagon. A mustachioed man in uniform at the wheel. Another man beside him. The driver rolled down the window. “Going where, beautiful woman?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he opened his door as far as it would go, barely squeezed his big belly out, and stood there with rain plastering the hair to his head. He reached out to keep his balance and placed one hand on the wagon, close beside her left ankle.
“Delivering my father’s wine to the nuns.”
“Your father?”
“Umberto SanAntonio.”
“A great man!” The policeman moved his hand a bit farther from her ankle, ran his eyes over the tarpaulin, seemed about to inquire further. Before he could say anything else, Vittoria reached down beside her and handed him first one bottle, then another. “I’m sure he’d want you to have these. As thanks for your important work.”
The man’s cheeks were soaked in raindrops. The ends of the wet mustache squeezed upward when he smiled. “This wine is famous,” he said, holding a bottle in each hand and admiring the label. “Your father must be a genius.”
“He is,” she said. “Yes. A remarkable man.”
“Why doesn’t he have one of his workers make the delivery? Why, on such a day, would he permit his beautiful daughter—”
“Because I’m going to the nuns. I’m going to make a retreat there. No men are allowed inside the walls.”
The policeman nodded somberly, glanced at the tarpaulin again. Vittoria kept her eyes on him until he looked back at her. “You’ll be all right, going by yourself? You won’t need us to accompany you?”
“Thank you,” she said. “I know the way. I went many times as a girl. And it’s very close now.”
For just a moment, the officer seemed to suspect something. He squinted at her, shifted his eyes again to the strange arrangement in the wagon’s bed. The puddled tarpaulin. Part of a hay bale sticking out.
“Really, I must go, Major.”
“Yes, yes. I’m just a lieutenant, but yes. Thank you, Signorina SanAntonio. Go with God. Regards to your famous father. And everyone here still mourns your beautiful mother. We’ll enjoy the wine, thank you!”