“Sì, sì, certo,” Paolo said, but it was painful to look into Enrico’s face, to bear witness to the happiness and hope there. On this morning, with the rest of the workers gone and the threat of the Germans filling his thoughts to the point where he kept expecting to see their trucks coming through the gate, Paolo knew where Enrico’s happiness and hope were headed.
“I’ll go get Gaetano!”
Paolo wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders, and steered him toward the hillside. “Let’s you and me do the work today, Rico.”
“And Gaetano. And the others. We need help because people are at the war. Men. The men are at the war and will be home soon, so everybody has to work.”
“We do,” Paolo said, leading Enrico along the path between vines, trying to decide what to tell him and what to hold back, how far into the future to put off his disappointment. “But the others had to go away for a while.”
“Where? To church? It’s not Sunday now.”
“It’s not Sunday, you’re right.”
“Where, then?”
“They went to the sister of Costanza, near Siena. She has a farm there and needs help.”
“We could help, too.”
“We could, but somebody has to stay here and finish the wheat, so you and I will do it.”
“Okay. Yes. We’ll finish the wheat, you and I will finish it. Can we finish it today?”
“No. It will take a few more days.”
“Good. I like doing the wheat, Paolo. I like it.”
“You’re a good worker.”
“We can take the wagon there and put the wheat on it and bring it to the other barn.”
“Your sister has the wagon. She went to the nuns. She’ll bring it back soon.”
“I want to see her. I miss her.”
“She’s a good sister.”
“And when she comes back with the wagon, we can load the wheat on and bring it to the other barn.”
“Right.”
“And we won’t finish it today.”
“Right, Rico. Esatto.”
As they crested the hill and went along the edge of the forest, and then down into the field where the wheat was grown, Paolo could see with a painful clarity just how much there was still left to do. With only the two of them working, it would be impossible to get the wheat in before it was time to harvest the grapes. And how were they going to harvest all those grapes, in any case, one old man and one helper? Bad enough that the three strongest men were away in the army and might never return. Bad enough that the itinerant workers who usually came through the area for the vendemmia were most likely also at war. If Marcellina and the others had stayed, he might have decided to leave the last of the wheat in the field and do the more important work: preparing for the cutting of the grapes. There was so much to do before the vendemmia. Once the preparation was finished, the grapes would be ready, and would have to be gotten in before the rain came and turned the clay hillside into a slippery swamp. They’d pick the grapes by hand, painstakingly, then load the fruit into reed baskets, carry the baskets on the wagon or on the mule’s back to the large, open container where the grapes could be crushed. The stems would be separated out, and if, as he did in certain years, the Signore wanted some white wine as well, the skins, too, would be taken away at this point from certain batches of the purplish-green soup. Paolo wasn’t an expert like Carlo or Gennaro Asolutto, but he knew that it was important, at least for a time, to let the yeast of the skins mix with the sugar of the pulp. That was where the alcohol came from, where the taste and richness came from. Working together, they all could have managed that much, and gotten the wine into demijohns and bottles, and then gone on to the olive harvest in November, and if there was a hectare of wheat left in the field, or a few kilos of olives or hazelnuts left on the trees, it wouldn’t be tragic.
Now, walking beside Enrico, making the calculations he always made about how long each job would take, Paolo felt the shadow of impossibility sweep over him. He was tired already, wearied by the drama of the early morning. How was he going to find the energy to complete the vendemmia and bottle the wine? And then he thought, What does it matter? If the Nazis came again, they’d steal every case they could load onto a truck, then kill him, smash the rest of the bottles, shoot holes in the kegs, and burn down the manor house. Producing the next SanAntonio vintage, the goal that had pushed him out to work every morning of his life, would never happen. It was something he’d always been proud of, producing the vintage and then driving the truck with SANANTONIO painted on its side to shops in the great cities, the shopkeepers, workers, and ordinary people watching for him, looking on as he and Carlo or he and Giuseppe carried in the cases. Sometimes people would line up to buy the wine before the truck had even been emptied. Gone now. Finished. All ruined, and why? Because he’d listened to the priest and the man with the beak for a nose and killed the Signore’s friend with some kind of homemade bomb. How could he have been foolish and evil enough to do such a thing? And why had the priest needed to have it done?