Michael’s sandy hair and blue-green eyes reminded Ciro of his own. As he buffed the golden jaw of the saint, he decided that of all of God’s army, this was the man who could win Concetta Martocci. The rest of the male saints, holding doves or walking with lambs or balancing a baby on one arm, would not be as effective. Saint Anthony was too gentle, Saint Joseph was too old, and Saint John, too angry. No, Michael was the only warrior who could have wooed a beautiful girl and won her heart.
Ignazio Farino rounded the corner, pushing a small handcart loaded with small blue river stones. Slight of build, with a long nose and thin lips, Iggy wore lederhosen with thick wool knee socks and an alpine hat with a merlo feather stuck in the faded band. He looked more like an old boy than an old man.
“Che bella.” He looked up at the statue of Mary perched upon the globe and gave a whistle.
“Is she your favorite, Iggy?” Ciro asked.
“She’s the Queen of Heaven, isn’t she?” Ignazio sat down on the garden wall and looked up at the statue. “I used to gaze—I mean, gaze—at her face when I was a boy. And I used to pray to God to send me a beautiful wife that looked like the Virgin Mary in the church of San Nicola. The prettiest girl in Vilminore was taken, so I took a hike up the mountain and married the prettiest girl in Azzone. She had the golden hair. Pretty on the outside, but”—he pulled a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket—“so complicated within. Don’t marry a beautiful woman, Ciro. It’s too much work.”
“I know how to take care of a woman,” Ciro said confidently.
“You think you do. Then you get the ring on her hand, and the story changes. Women change. Men stay as they are, and women change.”
“How so?”
“In every way. In manner.” Iggy bowed from the waist. “In personality. In their desire for you.” He thrust his body forward as if to stop a runaway wheelbarrow. “At first, oh, si, si, si, they want you. Then they want the garden, the home, the children. And then they weary of their own dreams and look to you to make them happy.” He threw up his hands. “It’s never enough, Ciro. Never enough. Believe me, eventually, you run out of ways to make a woman happy.”
“I don’t care. It would be my honor to try.”
“You say that now,” Ignazio said. “Don’t do as I did. Do better. Fall in love with a plain girl. Plain girls never turn bitter. They appreciate their portion, no matter how meager. A small pearl is enough. They never long for the diamond. Beautiful girls have high expectations. You bring them daisies, and they want roses. You buy them a hat, and they want the matching coat. It’s a well so deep you cannot fill it. I know. I’ve tried.”
“Plain or pretty, I don’t care. I just want a girl to love. And I want her to love me.” Ciro rinsed Saint Michael’s cape with clean water.
“You want. You want. You just wait.” Iggy puffed.
Ciro buffed the plaster with a dry towel. “I’m finding it very difficult to wait.”
“Because you’re young. The young have everything but wisdom.”
“What does wisdom get you?” Ciro asked.
“Patience.”
“I don’t want wisdom. I don’t want to grow old to get it. I just want to be happy.”
“I wish I could give you my experience, so you might not have to endure what I have known in my life. I was like you. I didn’t believe the old men. I should have listened to them.”
“Tell me what I don’t know, Iggy.”
“Love is like pot de crème.” Iggy stirred an imaginary pot with a spoon. “You see Signora Maria Nilo make it in the window of her pasticceria.” Iggy wiggled his hips like Signora. “You see her stir the chocolate. You see the caramel cascade from the spoon into the baking dish. It looks delicioso. You want it, you can taste it. You pass by the shop every day and think, I want that pot de crème more than anything. I would fight for it. I would kill for it. I would die for one taste. One day, you get paid, you go for your pot de crème. You eat it fast, you go for another, and another. You eat every spoonful in the bowl. And soon the thing you wanted most in the world has