The Wedding Officer

2

AFTER LUNCH the accordions and the castanets came out, as they always did on a feast day. Someone began teasing out a low, throbbing rhythm on the tammurro, the goatskin drum shaped like a huge tambourine, and everyone, young and old, began to dance. Children partnered their grandparents, the little girls putting their feet on their grandfathers’ shoes until they had learned the steps for themselves; mothers swayed with their babies on their hips, while the soldiers and the beauty contestants took the opportunity to show off to each other, the girls with the sinuosity of their movements and the boys with their acrobatics.

“Will you dance the tarantella with me, Busy?” Enzo asked Livia, as she passed him with a pile of dirty plates in her arms.

“Certainly not. People will gossip. Anyway, you can stop calling me that. My name is Livia.”

“So you’re not really Busy?”

“You know I’m not.”

“Well,” he said reasonably, “if you’re not busy, you’ve got time to sit down and take that coffee with me.”

She smiled, and came back and sat down. “Thank you for getting Pupetta that prize.”

“Not at all. She was definitely the best cow in the whole contest.”

Livia’s younger sister, Marisa, brought them two cups of espresso with a knowing smile. When she had gone Enzo fixed Livia with his big dark eyes and said seriously, “What do you want to do with your life, Livia?”

No one had ever asked her a question like that before. Taken by surprise—she had assumed that they were going to go on talking nonsense—she said, “Is there a choice?”

“Every girl has a choice,” he said. “Particularly one as beautiful as you. You must have dozens of men wanting to be your beau.”

She was pleased by the compliment, but chose to ignore it. She had always hated the way Colomba Farelli simpered and shrieked every time a man paid her any attention. “There have been some,” she admitted. “Although none that I liked. But anyway, having a choice of men to marry isn’t the same thing as being able to choose what to do in life. Whoever I end up with, I’ll have to keep his house and cook for him.”

“Then you must make sure you marry a man who loves you,” he said.

“Yes,” she said doubtfully. That hadn’t been what she’d meant, exactly. She tried to explain. “I’ve been used to cooking for a lot of people, here at the restaurant. It’s going to be very different when I get married.”

“Ah,” he said. “Now I’ve realized why you were so rude to me earlier. You don’t want to get married, because it means leaving here.”

“Possibly.” She shrugged, amazed that he had understood her so quickly.

“I’m exactly the same,” he said, leaning forward. “Only for a different reason. I don’t want to get married, because I do want to leave here, and if I get married I’ll have to leave the army and live at home with my wife, just like my older brother Riccardo.”

“This is very romantic,” she said, laughing. “We hardly know each other, and already we’re telling each other that we don’t want to get married.”

He shook his head. “I’m saying that I’m as surprised as you. I wasn’t on the lookout for someone, but when you meet the right person, you have to grab the opportunity while you can.” He reached across and took her hand in his. “You are the most beautiful girl I have ever met, Livia.”

It was the kind of remark that, had it been made by one of the young men she usually served at the osteria, she would have dismissed with a mocking comment. But now she felt a wave of heat rising from her neck to her ears.

“I’ve made you blush!” he said delightedly. “It’s a good sign. You know what they say: If you can make a girl blush, make her laugh or make her cry, you’ll be able to make her—”

“I know that saying too,” she interrupted. “And there’s no need to be obscene.” But even as she said it, she had a sudden mental image of the two of them in bed together, and she blushed again.

“Wait here,” he said, jumping up. “I’m going to buy you a ribbon from Alberto Spenza.” He went over to where a plump young man was hanging around with the soldiers. She saw Enzo offer him a coin. The plump boy glanced across at Livia, then opened his jacket to reveal a dozen yellow and red ribbons. Please let Enzo choose me a red one, she thought, because red will look better in my hair; and she was absurdly pleased when she saw him coming back across the square toward her with a long red ribbon dangling from his fingers. “For you,” he said, presenting it to her with a bow, a salute and a click of his heels, all at once.

At that moment Pupetta lowed mournfully from her pasture behind the house. “Thank you,” Livia said, taking the ribbon and tying it in her hair. “But now I’m afraid I’m busy again.”

He frowned, inspecting her face, then carefully looked behind her. “How strange, Busy. You still look exactly like Livia.”

“I have to go and milk Pupetta and Priscilla,” she explained.

“Then I’ll come and help,” he said.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she warned. “Just because you’ve bought me a ribbon, it doesn’t mean I’m going to kiss you.”

“On my honor as a soldier, I promise I won’t try anything.”

“Hmm,” she said. She wasn’t surprised when, the moment they were alone in the barn together, he did try to kiss her. But since she had rather been hoping he would, she allowed him to embrace her briefly, and even to touch his tongue against hers, making her gasp with pleasure, before she pushed him away firmly and said, “The milking has to be done.”

“And I’m the man to do it,” he said, pulling up a milking stool. “Show me what to do.” They were both rather out of breath.

She pulled up a bucket and another stool and sat down next to Priscilla, who was less patient than Pupetta and liked to be milked first. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

“No,” he said, scooting closer. He rested his head on the buffalo’s flanks, taking the opportunity to study Livia’s profile from very close quarters. “But I’m very good with my hands.”

She giggled. “Go on then, maestro. See if you can milk her.”

He put his hands tentatively on Priscilla’s teats and squeezed.

“Not like that,” she said. “You’re meant to be milking her, not fondling her.”

He smiled at her. “I wouldn’t know anything about either one.”

“I’m glad to hear it, even though I don’t believe you for one moment. All soldiers have lots of girls; they’re famous for it.”

“Not true,” he protested. Then seeing that she wasn’t cross with him, he added, “Well, a little bit true.”

She put her hands on his and showed him. “Like this,” she explained. “Squeeze, pull and twist…then release.” There was a ping! as a thin squirt of milk hit the bottom of the bucket. The rich, clean odor of it rose into their nostrils.

“So this is different from the way a woman’s breast likes to be touched, is it?” he wondered aloud as they milked, an innocent expression on his face.

“I’m not answering that,” she said. “Pay attention, or you’ll knock the bucket over.”

Their heads were very close, and the pressure of her hand on his, alternately squeezing and releasing, was rather pleasant. He turned his head to look at her profile again. With her hair pulled back by the red ribbon, he could see where the hairline around her ears became softer and more downy as it merged into the fuzz of her skin, soft as an apricot. Impulsively, he leant forward and placed a kiss on her cheek. She turned her head to him, her lips parted and her eyes shining.

That day poor Priscilla was not milked very effectively, although it was one of the longest milking sessions the buffalo had ever known.