was an infant. The injury had ended his painting career and started his drinking career. His vibrant watercolors of Trastevere covered the walls of their apartment, capturing the neighborhood’s charm as well as its mystery, with its tiny alleyways that disappeared into darkness. It was almost inconceivable to Elisabetta that her father had painted them, given his current condition, but they showed her the colors that illuminated his soul.
“Papa, good morning, wake up.” Elisabetta set the breakfast down on a side table.
“Oh, my head hurts.” Her father opened his eyes, a bloodshot brown, and he broke into a smile. “Such a pretty one you are. I love you so much, my darling.”
“I love you, too.” Elisabetta meant it, even though her mother called her father an ubriacone, a drunk. Her parents used to quarrel, but even that had stopped and her mother had withdrawn from him. Elisabetta understood her mother’s unhappiness, but didn’t share it. Her father had tried many times to stop drinking, and he hated himself for his failing. She couldn’t blame him when he blamed himself so harshly, and she knew that he loved her. Wine made one speak the truth, and her father’s words to her were always tender.
Her father stroked her cheek. “My darling little Betta, are you happy? Are you?”
“I am, Papa. Here, have some coffee.” Elisabetta helped him bring the cup to his lips.
“Delicious.” Her father shifted upward on the sofa. “That helps my headache. What would I do without my girl? Your heart, it’s as fierce as a lion. Mark my words, that’s what matters in life.”
“I’m sure.” Elisabetta smiled, for she had heard this many times.
“Tell me, have you gotten the newspaper yet? What’s that thug up to now? Parades and marches? Guns and knives? Those idiots follow him like sheep! But he is the wolf!”
“Shh, Papa.” Elisabetta worried that passersby would hear, since their apartment was on the ground floor and the window was open.
“Is it a nice day? Perhaps I’ll paint al fresco.” Her father closed his eyes again. “I’ll paint something wonderful, I just know it. I feel the tingling in my fingers. How they itch for the brush.”
“You rest.” Elisabetta had heard this before, too. Sometimes she wondered if he said it for her benefit, or if he even knew that he hadn’t painted in years. She kissed his grizzled cheek, then rose with the empty wine bottle. “I have to go to school. Bye, now.”
“Of course, goodbye, my darling girl, my special light, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Papa.”
“Fetch me a bottle before you go, will you, my dear?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marco
June 1937
Marco watched dustmotes swirl in a shaft of sunlight, while his classmates were getting their essays from their backpacks. The classroom was stifling, small, and devoid of decoration other than the Italian flag, a large wooden crucifix, and portraits of King Vittorio Emanuele III and Il Duce. A sign bore the party credo, credere, obbedire, combattere—Believe, Obey, Fight. There were thirty other students in his class, including Elisabetta and Sandro, all dressed in their uniforms.
Their teacher, Professoressa Longhi, was an older woman with thick glasses and gray hair in a bun, thick-waisted in her dark dress, which sported the tricolor emblem. She motioned for them to sing “Giovinezza,” the party anthem, and the class rose halfheartedly, weary of the routine this late in the school year. She didn’t reprimand them, and Marco suspected she had joined the party only to keep her job, as he had noticed her rolling her eyes at their textbooks from time to time. The standard joke was that some teachers joined the PNF, the Partito Nazionale Fascista, but others joined Per Necessità Famigliare, only to support their family. Secretly he felt the same way, a Fascist because of his father, and it was the only way he knew. At heart, he believed in love, not politics.
Marco began to sing with his classmates, loudly to make Elisabetta laugh:
“Your warriors’ valor,
Your pioneers’ virtue,
Alighieri’s vision,
Today shines in every heart.”
Marco turned around to see if Elisabetta was laughing, but instead she was looking at Sandro, whose desk was near the front. Her face bore a curious expression, one that Marco hadn’t seen before, and he had seen all of her expressions. She lifted her right eyebrow when she listened, she frowned when she read the newspaper, and she wrinkled the bridge of her nose when she laughed hard. She could even look dreamy-eyed, like when she watched the screen