Read Online The Golden Hour by Margaret Wurtele - Free Book Online

souvenir, you know, something to keep.”
    “And if they’re not? If they’re British, Canadian, or French?”
    “Well, then, I’m not sure. I can find out, though. Giovanna, I think it’s too funny you want to sew. You! It just doesn’t sound like you at all.”
    “I guess war is unpredictable that way,” I said. “It can change a person.”

    I was churning with the thrill of the hunt. I took longer and longer routes home in the late afternoons, darting in between the stone houses to see which ones had tiny vegetable gardens tucked into the backyards. I went out of my way through the countryside, scouting the fields, checking to see which kitchen gardens were surrounded by walls, which ones were guarded by dogs, which ones had unlocked gates.
    I made a beeline for the wheat farmer’s fenced-in garden, where—a few days before—I’d seen a row of large heads of lettuce and a parade of healthy carrot tops. I approached slowly, looking behind me and quickly to the left and right. I had my hand on the gate and was just working the rusty latch when I heard a high-pitched yell.
    “Giovanna, is that you?” I looked up and saw the lumpy silhouette of Teresa, the wheat farmer’s wife, hoe in hand, calling to me from the adjacent field. I drew back my hand and waved at her.
    “Your vegetables look so healthy!” I called, my hand cuppingmy mouth. “I was just admiring your crop!” I remembered then that it had been Teresa’s son who had delivered the note to Catarina last week, the one who had first reported seeing Giorgio. Could Teresa guess what I was doing? Had he told his mother about it?
    Teresa made her way slowly toward me, her long skirt dragging over the rows of low sprouted wheat, her laced leather brogues stepping awkwardly into the rutted furrows as she leaned on the hoe for support. I hurried in her direction, intending to put as large a distance as possible between me and the vegetable garden.
    “Off to the market, dear?” she asked, eyeing the basket.
    “Oh, you know supplies are short everywhere…” I answered, leaning into the sentence, trailing my unspoken need before this woman’s abundance.
    “I’m sure your garden at the villa is overflowing.” There was no sign of comprehension.
    “How is Andrea?” I thought maybe this reference to her son might jog her memory if she knew about Giorgio.
    “His wounded arm is healing well, thank you,” she said. Then she moved closer. “Not too fast, we hope, because you know what that would mean. They’d be after him again.” She adjusted her dark head scarf and rolled her eyes. “Such a nasty business, this war.”
    The conversation petered out with no mention of Giorgio, no sign that she knew what I was after. “I’ll see you soon,” I called to her, and hurried off, my mind churning. I wished I knew more about everyone’s politics, that I had a better feel for our neighbors. But in the face of my ignorance, I had to opt for silence and utter discretion.
    I stopped by two other gardens, but at each, I lost heart. I stood looking over the stone walls, eyeing the profusion of snap peas dangling from their trellises made of orchard prunings, the fava beans with their long, lumpy pods, delicate yellow zucchini blossoms, and artichokes bristling on strong stems. But the day was too bright, the land too open. At another, a brown-and-white shepherd dog prowledthe perimeter. What if I were caught stealing? Some people might forgive me without another thought, but there were others who might force me to explain and threaten the whole venture.

    At Saturday breakfast, Father was unusually cheerful. “How about some tennis this afternoon,
piccola
? It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
    “Sure, Papa.” I waited, took another sip of coffee. “I promised Catarina I’d stop by this afternoon. So maybe we could play this morning instead.”
    He frowned at me, setting down his crust of bread. “Sometimes I think you spend more time with the