Free Hidden Voices by Pat Lowery Collins Page B

bowls of the sweet biscuits called
baicoli.
We are each given a quarter of a fruit called a
melarancia.
It is orange in color, tastes both sweet and tart at once, and causes all the little girls to wrinkle their noses with pleasure. We are told that it is a great delicacy and will not appear on our plates soon again.
    I mention the food first, because it will not be easy for me to describe my greatest gift, the return of Luisa to our table if only for the noon festivities. When I see her being led into the room, walking very carefully beside the burly nurse who evicted me from the hospital more than once, leaning into her, actually, as if one small misstep would cause her to lose her footing altogether, I become both dejected and then full of a sudden energy I haven’t experienced in a very long time. Immediately, I jump from my chair and run to her side, against the protests of Prioress, who clucks her tongue when I clasp Luisa to me as gently as I can. The bad-tempered nurse tries to pull us apart, but I do not budge until Luisa herself withdraws from me, breathless, it seems, with her effort at simply standing up. I then fetch her a chair near the head of the longest refectory table. It is but one of a few newly vacant places and not near my place at table, but just to have her in the room is delight enough. Dressed only in a chemise and dressing gown, she is extremely pale and thin, with violet crescents above her cheekbones. I turn often to see if she is eating what has been put upon her plate, that is, until Rosalba pokes me and tells me to stop.
    “She will eat when she is ready,” says Rosalba. “It is feat enough that she has made it to Christmas dinner. Do not anger her with your constant attention.”
    I am not allowed to take Luisa back to her sickroom, as I request when she rises to leave the meal in a short space of time, quickly tired, it seems, from raising a few forkfuls of food to her lips. Watching her leave the refectory with the odious nurse is very difficult for me, since it is doubtful that Luisa will be joining us again soon.
    “You must think only of her being restored to health,” says Rosalba when I sigh overmuch at Luisa’s leaving our company so soon.
    “It would seem you might have enjoyed the quiet nights and extra space in our bedchamber,” says Silvia. “I for one have luxuriated in such a sea change. No hysterics over normal bodily functions. No bouts of whimpering for her mother.”
    “Neither was ever a burden to me,” I tell her, “nothing on a par with your thrashing and whistles and snorts in the night.”
    Silvia becomes red-faced and Rosalba smirks.
    “I do nothing of the kind, and you know it,” says Silvia. “I keep even my wind to myself so as not to annoy.”
    “The noise,” says Rosalba, “but not the odor.”
    “As if you could separate mine from all of the rest.”
    “It would not be a task I would care to undertake,” says Rosalba.
    I delight in the way she rises rather grandly and goes off to return her plate to the kitchen, while Silvia scrunches up her tiny features until her mouth and eyes are but slits.
    “The only way she can have the last word with me,” she says, “is for her to leave like that. She will not be so high and mighty when she discovers what I have found out about this year’s Carnival.”
    I cannot resist asking. “What is it? What do you know?”
    “The moment I tell you, you’ll run right away to tell her.”
    “There are other ways — more reliable ways — to find out,” I say, still dying for her to divulge what she knows.
    “No one knows but me. I overheard Prioress scheming with Signora Mandano and Maestro Gasparini how to keep the lot of us indoors until Shrove Tuesday.”
    “There. You see? You’ve told me yourself.”
    She presses her lips together, sticking the upper lip over the bottom one until she resembles a jackanapes.
    “That’s not the whole of it,” she says at last. “When we’re all told, you will