hat, Iggy?”
Iggy shrugged. “It still fits.”
Ciro embraced him.
“Be careful. My bones are like breadsticks,” Iggy said. “I could snap in two right before your eyes.”
“You look good, Iggy.”
“You’re thin.”
“I know.” Ciro pulled on his pants and shirt and slipped into his shoes. “I looked better before I was hit with mustard gas. But I still eat like a horse. Let’s go raid the pantry for some breakfast.”
Ciro followed Iggy down the hallway. Except for the bow in his knees, he moved well for a man in his eighties.
“Can you believe I’m not dead?” Iggy said. “I’m as old as the bell in San Nicola.”
“You don’t look it.”
“I still visit my wife.” Iggy’s eyebrows shot up.
“Iggy, I just got up the mountain, and the first thing you tell me is that you still make love to your wife.”
“I have not withered,” Iggy promised him. “Besides, she says she doesn’t mind.”
“Well, if she doesn’t mind, why not?”
“That’s what I say—why not? It’s one of the joys of marriage. I still get as hard as torrone. Not as often, but enough. How’s Enza?”
“She’s a great wife, Iggy.”
“Good for you.”
Iggy took a seat in the convent kitchen. He lit up a cigarette as the young nun came in from the main convent to make them breakfast. She poured them each a cup of coffee. Ciro poured cream into both cups, and Iggy ladled three teaspoons of sugar into his. The nun served them bread, butter, and jam, placed hard-boiled eggs in a clear glass bowl on the table, and sliced off a hunk of cheese for each of them. She picked up her moppeen and went into the main convent to help with the chores.
“Don Gregorio . . .” Iggy clucked.
“I know. Went to Sicily.”
“I had words with him after you left.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him, You’ll have to answer to God someday for what you’ve done.”
“Do you think he will?”
“Nah. He probably has every priest in Rome praying for him. That’s how they do it, you know. They do a bad thing, they say they’re sorry, and they get some ninelle to pray for them, wiping the slate clean. What a racket.” Iggy handed the cigarette to Ciro, who took a puff. “If he’s ahead of me in line to get into heaven, I’ll raise holy hell. This guy we have now, he’s all right.”
“Don—”
“Yeah—Don Baci-ma-coolie. I see him kneel in the garden and say his rosary. I’ve been in his room, and there’s nothing askew. He’s neat as wire. I think he’s all right. Finally after all these years, an actual pious priest. Didn’t think that card trick was possible.”
Ciro laughed. He took a sip of the coffee and turned to his old friend. “I don’t pray, Iggy.”
“You have to get it down to the bones, otherwise it doesn’t work.” Iggy waved his cigarette.
“What do you mean?”
“Be clear. Ask God for exactly what you want. Forget all the poor slobs of the world—their lot in life is not your problem. Who is starving has to find their own food. Who is broken-hearted has to find his own woman. Thirsty? Jump in a lake. Worry about yourself. You pray for what you need, and see if you don’t get it.”
“Did you miss me, Iggy?”
“I worried about you like a son. Eduardo too.”
“Did you get my letters?”
“In twenty years, I got three. Not so good.” Iggy smiled.
“Not so good. But you knew I was thinking of you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I knew. I could feel it.”
Ciro was walking the piazza as he waited for Eduardo to arrive with their mother. He paced under the colonnade, resisting the urge to run down the mountain to meet the carriage. He checked his watch repeatedly, hoping that time would pass more quickly if he did. He thought of this for a moment. Enza wanted to stop the clock, and here he was, bidding it to speed up toward the reunion he had dreamed about.
At the appointed hour, a black carriage pulled into the piazza, headed toward the convent. Ciro, at the far side of the colonnade, broke into a run to meet the carriage.
When it stopped, Ciro reached up and opened the shiny black door. Twenty-six years had come and gone since Ciro last saw his mother. She emerged from the carriage, dressed in blue, just as she had been when she left. Her hair was gray now, but still long, and braided, twisted into a chignon.
Her face was still beautiful. The arc of her nose, the fullness