“Okay, class, let’s begin. Who would like to read his essay aloud?”
Marco raised his hand, according to one of the stratagems he had devised to hide his deficiency. He would volunteer to read, instead of waiting to be called upon, so he could control when he spoke. Then he would pretend to read his essay aloud, making his eyes move back and forth like the others did, but he would simply be speaking about the subject of the assignment. Marco had an excellent recall, able to remember everything the teacher had said, so he had learned the information, and he loved attention, so he was an entertaining speaker. None of his classmates had guessed his secret, so far. But every day, he worried that the king of the class would become its buffoon.
Last night’s homework had been to write an essay entitled “Mussolini’s Greatness from My Unique Viewpoint,” and Professoressa Longhi had explained the assignment was to be a personal essay, rather than the generic treatise that filled the new textbooks, showing Il Duce commanding vast crowds, firing a gun, harvesting wheat bare-chested, piloting an airplane in goggles, leaping over obstacles on horseback, swimming, hiking, and even playing with a lion cub.
“Marco,” said Professoressa Longhi, “come read your essay. Sandro, you’ll read yours next, after Marco.”
Marco rose and walked to the front of class, then Professoressa Longhi cocked her head, as if she had a second thought. “Marco, why don’t we do something different this time? Why don’t we switch? You read Sandro’s essay, and, Sandro, you read Marco’s.”
“No, wait,” Marco said, his mouth going dry, but it was too late, as Sandro was coming to the front of the class.
“Marco, here.” Sandro handed Marco his essay. “Let me have your essay.”
“I wrote it in a hurry, that’s why it’s messy.” Marco handed Sandro his essay.
“It’s perfect, written with passion and vigor.” Sandro smiled, and Marco realized that Sandro was covering for him.
Professoressa Longhi motioned from her desk. “Marco, please begin. Read us Sandro’s essay.”
“Okay.” Marco stared at Sandro’s assignment, stricken. He recognized a few words, but he couldn’t begin to read the essay, which was written in his best friend’s neat handwriting. Marco’s heart began to pound, and he swallowed hard. He glanced up to see Elisabetta looking at him with a sweet and expectant smile. He couldn’t bear her reaction if she found out that he couldn’t even read. She loved newspapers and books, and she would never fall in love with him then. She would pity him, and he would be humiliated in front of her.
“Marco?” Sandro said, all of a sudden. “I’ll read your essay first, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure.” Marco nodded, his cheeks aflame.
Sandro cleared his throat. “‘As everyone knows, my interest is cycling, and I see Mussolini in that way. Like a cyclist who must keep his balance, no matter the terrain, our leader guides Italy . . .’”
Marco listened with astonishment, and Sandro managed to decipher some of Marco’s horrible handwriting and made up the rest as he went along, inventing insights about cycling and Mussolini that Marco himself would have thought of. Only a friend who knew him so well could accomplish such a feat, and the class listened to the end, then clapped.
Professoressa Longhi nodded. “Marco, that essay was fascinating! Now, Marco, would you read Sandro’s?”
“Certainly.” Marco realized he could make it up, too. “‘Benito Mussolini excels in literature, but particularly, in regard to mathematics. Mathematics requires logical adherence to rules, much like Fascism itself . . .’” Marco continued, moving his eyes back and forth, and Sandro nodded as if Marco were reading exactly what he had written. Marco finished the essay and bowed with a flourish, and everyone clapped again.
“Bravi, boys!” Professoressa Longhi beamed. “Sandro, that is the most thoughtful analysis I have ever heard!”
The boys walked side by side back to their desks.
Elisabetta smiled at them both, and Marco sat down, reassured. He must have been mistaken, and nothing must have happened between her and Sandro that day by the river.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sandro
June 1937
Sandro sighed, sitting next to his mother. Night had fallen outside the window, and the dinner table had been set with their best china, silverware, and crystal glasses. His sister had met a new beau in London and was bringing him to dinner tonight, but they were late, and so was Sandro’s father, Massimo. His mother was annoyed, for as she always said, tardiness was allowable only in babies born past their due date.