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tray. Antonio Luigi reached out a calloused hand for the amaretti , while Maria raised her eyes to meet the gaze of the man who was to marry her sister.
    â€œDo you know how to make sweets?”
    It was the first time all afternoon that Maria had heard him speak; he had a deep clear solemn baritone. A farmer working his own land, Antonio Luigi Cau at twenty-five had already been an adult for at least ten years.
    Surprised by the direct question, the girl lowered her eyes to her tray. “I can make fruit shapes from almond paste. Pears, apples, strawberries . . . animals too!”
    â€œClever girl, because that’s important too; it isn’t only with their mouths that people eat.”
    The sunburnt fingers of her future brother-in-law grabbedan amaretto , lightly scraping its base on the tray. Maria took a step back as if she had herself been touched, pulling the tray to herself and looking up at him again. Unaware of her reaction, Antonio Luigi Cau had already lost interest in her, chewing the amaretto with closed lips as he turned away to listen to what other people were saying. Maria stood near him for a few seconds more, then her future aunt stole another almond sweetmeat from the tray, forcing her to move on. During the rest of the engagement party Maria stayed silent and helpful, avoiding everyone’s eye when she got up to help clear away the dishes.
    She saw Tzia Bonaria again at nightfall, when she brought home a basketful of left-over amaretti as well as a raging fever she could hardly admit to.
    â€œHow did it go?”
    â€œDecent people, as far as I could see.”
    â€œAnd is he a decent type?”
    â€œSeems to be.” Then she said quietly, with a thin smile: “He’s tall.”
    Bonaria laughed, carefully folding away her last piece of cloth for the day, some wool she had cut into the shape of a little coat.
    â€œWell, that’s fine then. But don’t you think it might be useful to be able to do something more than just pick figs from a tree without needing a ladder?”
    Maria laughed in her turn, but felt herself blush with embarrassment. If Bonaria noticed, she showed no sign of it.
    â€œThey’ve fixed on the thirteenth of May, so it won’t be too close to Whitsun.”
    â€œWill they need you to help?”
    â€œYes, they’ve asked me for the pastries and the bread.”
    â€œAs far as the pastries are concerned, fine. But for the bread only if it’s a Saturday. I don’t want you missing school.”
    Maria had never been eager to go and work in her old home before, but now she dug in her heels like a deaf mule.
    â€œI’ve hardly ever missed school, and the place won’t fall down if I have a day off because my sister’s getting married!”
    Bonaria gave way only after repeated insistence, and as she did so she felt there was some important detail she did not know about. The lack of enthusiasm for visiting her mother’s home that Maria had shown from the first had always deeply reassured Bonaria, even though she could not honestly have sworn that she had never made any attempt to encourage this indifference. Until the day she had first met Maria and her mother in the shop, Bonaria had considered herself as suffering from a perfect anguish, unique in that it could never be assuaged. She knew the world she was taking the girl from; in fact she knew it so well she had never felt any need to be aware of its every form. So she had not been surprised that Maria had never shown any obvious homesickness since deep down, in the privacy of her solitary infancy, the girl must always have known that her destiny did not lie in her old home. But now, faced with Maria’s insistence on helping with the preparations for Bonacatta’s wedding, the confidence of Bonaria Urrai wavered. She had no women friends or sisters she could have talked to about what was worrying her, but even if there had been any, she would have