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Agata had gone to fetch him soon after I’d left our room. Sat him down to breakfast with some of the men, the second shift on their way to the orchards. The Venetian boy had spent his morning among the almond trees. Made friends with a red-haired farmer called Valentino who is the son of the former caretaker of the villa. Fernando says that Valentino was born at the villa in 1939, that he’s lived and worked here for most of his life. Since long before Tosca’s era. He tells me all this with a fresh enthusiasm, a rare flush of joy. He takes a breath then, looks at me as though I’ve just arrived, stretches his lips into the letter-box grin, kisses me hard on the mouth, pulls me in the direction of the dining room. “I knew it,” he says fixing his gaze upon my hair.
    “Oh, my braids. I have double vision but I love them. I’ve been banned from the kitchen.”
    “Excellent. You won’t mind so much then that we’re leaving after lunch, will you?”
    “Why? We’ve just arrived. Has someone told you we must?”
    “No. No one has said a thing. Which is one of the reasons why I think we should go. I still don’t know the first thing about this place and it makes me uncomfortable. For instance, what does it cost to sleep and dine here? There are no tariffs posted; there seem to be no other ‘guests,’ if that’s what we are. I have this eerie sense that everyone here was someone else before they arrived. You know, like the island where all bad boys are turned into asses. I expect to look in the mirror and find I’ve become a crusty old farmer. And you, with the braids, are already halfway to widowhood. Let’s get away while we can, my love.” He laughs then at his own cleverness. “Besides,” he continues, “we’ve had the rest we needed. Our plan was to
escape
from these mountains. Here we’ve only gone into a deeper isolation, albeit one where people speak. But it’s time to get on with our journey.” Another letter-box smile. “I do like the braids.”
    He’s holding me softly by the shoulders and, in his way, making perfect sense. But I’m not going anywhere.
    “I saw them making these magnificent eggplant and, for supper, they’ve braised lamb in the embers of the hearth. Let’s ask about the details—the financial ones, I mean—and then we’ll see. We’ll talk about it again later. Okay?”
    “Okay. Okay for the eggplant and the lamb. But no widow’s weeds.”
    “No widow’s weeds.”

    Though no one whom we ask directly answers our questions about tariffs, we stay that day. We stay the next day and the day after that. We never
decide
to stay but simply get caught up in the imperishable rituals and rhythms of the villa. There are bells to wake us, bells that announce prayer and work, bells that summon us to table, back to prayer, back to work. Back to table. A rejoicing, harmonious, sometimes solemn life, the boundaries of acquaintance, friend, and family are as tightly woven as the widows’ hair. No one seems to count upon one person’s attentions but on the benevolent vigilance of the tribe. They seem to fare well. There are moments that do indeed recall
The Red Tent;
others—especially when Tosca is present—recall
The Leopard.
Most often the scenes are straight from
Cinema Paradiso.

    The unassailable matriarch and protectress of all who rest in her embrace, Tosca holds benign, unconditional sway. Mystery is almost palpable about her. Never appearing at breakfast, she—dressed in the old, exquisitely cut men’s clothes she was wearing when we first saw her—rides out to the farthest fields in the early mornings and, when she returns, retires to some private place until nearly noon. Her hair freshly twisted into its coils and loops, she struts about the villa and the gardens in one or another of an endless repertoire of good black dresses, the square-cut emerald hung from a short braided chain of rose gold resting in the hollow at the base of her throat. In the garden or in a