Since there was only so much work to do around the property, he found that he was spending more time in prayer. He prayed for forgiveness for the things he’d done; for the souls of the people he’d killed—directly or otherwise; for Vittoria’s mother, Celeste, whose name he still had not spoken aloud, all these many years. The house was far enough away from any main road or important town that there was no Nazi presence, and so far, at least, the four of them had been left alone. Perhaps it had to do with the house’s isolation, or with the reputation of the late owner of the property—a “friend of the Reich,” the evil captain had called him, but who could possibly know if that were true? Or perhaps it was because, if Paolo understood the news correctly, at least some Italians were now fighting on the side of the Allies. All over Europe, Zenia told him, the German army was losing ground. So perhaps the Nazi soldiers had other things to worry about.
From time to time Paolo thought of the grapes rotting on the vines at home, an entire harvest, lost. And he often wondered what had happened to Marcellina and the others; where the men of the barn—Carlo especially—might be fighting if they were still alive; what Antonio and Eleonora were doing, and where. But he was coming to understand that it was the nature of war to ruin the earth and to separate people, to keep their fates unknown to the ones who loved them, and to fill the minds of the living with various kinds of fear, regret, shame, and anger, and deprive them of all but the most fleeting moments of peace. He prayed every day for the German surrender.
Whenever he sat with Vittoria on one of the benches that looked down over the lake, or took a stroll with her in the warm evenings （sometimes she’d hook her arm inside his elbow）， he could feel both her love for him, and that a difficult conversation hovered around them, secrets swirling, questions tapping at their ears. He’d resolved to wait until she asked, and then he would tell her everything. Everything she wanted to know. Much of the time she seemed sad and preoccupied, and he understood that. Like all three of them, she was still recovering from the trauma at the vineyard, still hoping for news from Carlo. Although, if there were any news, how would it reach them?
On that late October day, sunny but with a cool breeze sweeping off the lake, Vittoria was on the far side of the house, choosing a selection of autumn flowers for the dinner table. Paolo had done what work he could do around the property—pulling out the tomato plants and using seeds he’d found in the shed to plant a cover crop of winter rye—and was sitting tiredly on one of the benches, looking down at the lake. He could see Enrico there, fishing patiently from the end of a pier, having no success. And then, for some reason, Paolo’s eyes were pulled to the left, south, along the paved, unlined road that ran parallel to the water and connected their little town with the next one down the shore. He saw a figure walking slowly along there. A man it was, young, wearing something across part of his face and limping as if the bottoms of his feet were blistered. The man’s shoulders and the way he swung his arms seemed familiar, and for a moment Paolo didn’t understand why. He stood up, studying him intently now. The man stopped and put his hands to either side of his mouth, as if calling to someone. Paolo couldn’t hear what he said, but he saw Enrico whirl around and then drop his fishing pole right into the water, and go sprinting back along the pier and then down the road.
Paolo waited a few more seconds to be sure; then he turned and hurried toward the flower garden to give his daughter the wonderful news.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have, as always, a number of people to thank: my wife, Amanda, and our daughters, Alexandra and Juliana, first of all, for their steady love, support, and wisdom. I’d like to express my gratitude to Peter Grudin and Robert Braile—two close friends who are also superb writers and editors. They took many hours out of their lives to go carefully through the manuscript of this novel and offer suggestions and corrections. I’m grateful to another friend, Peter Sarno, for his consistent support of my work through the newsletter and Plus Side essays and the publication of many of my earlier books. My heartfelt thanks, also, to two superb editors, Chris Werner and David Downing. Their careful readings and our detailed back-and-forth inspired good ideas, saved me from serious missteps, and undoubtedly made the book better. My appreciation, also, to Max de Zarobe, who, with his wife, Virginie, owns a magnificent vineyard, Avignonesi, in a part of Italy very close to the place where this story is set. I’d already chosen that location when I discovered Max, so the hand of fate may have been involved, but I’m grateful to him for a good deal of the factual information about winemaking at that time, and in that part of Italy, and for an incredible tour of the vineyard and a remarkable lunch there. In his case, and in the case of Simone Gugliotta, who helped me with the fine points of the Italian language, any errors that appear in these pages are entirely my own. I’m grateful, as always, to my superb agent, Margaret Sutherland Brown, at Folio Literary. Final thanks to the good people at Lake Union who worked on the production and copyediting of the manuscript, especially Nicole Burns-Ascue and Sarah Engel.