ELENA’S CIAMBELLA
As Elena scampered over the road, the town clock struck a quarter to four. Elena had an important engagement. Her mother had sent her to draw a jar of water from the public well outside the town; and on the way back she was to stop at the bakery to get her ciambella, which was to come out of the oven at four.
Now a ciambella is an Easter cake, but it is different from any other cake in the world. It is made of flour and sugar and olive oil, and tastes like a crisp cooky. If you are a girl yours will be in the form of a dove; if a boy, in the form of a galloping horse, with a handle of twisted dough from mane to tail to carry it by. Whichever it may be, an Easter egg will be baked inside the ciambella, and the cake will be stuck full of downy feathers, which wave and look festive.
Elena’s cake was an unusually large one, in the shape of a dove, of course, with wings and tail feathers and an open beak. It had been brought to the bakery on a tray by Elena’s mother, and left to be baked.
HER MOTHER HAD SENT HER TO DRAW A JAR OF WATER
As Elena panted up the hill she saw Giuseppa outside the cabane or hut, helping her mother with the washing. The baby stood in a high, narrow box where he could look on and yet was out of mischief, and there he waved his arms and shouted with excitement as the suds flew.
‘Where are you going?’ called Giuseppa as Elena passed.
‘To get my ciambella,’ cried Elena. ‘Have you got yours?’
Giuseppa shook her head. ‘I’m not going to have any,’ she said.
‘Not this year,’ added her mother, looking up; ‘perhaps next. But we are going to make the cabane clean for Easter.’
Giuseppa and Elena looked at each other sympathetically.
‘Too bad!’ exclaimed Elena. ‘Well I must hurry. Ciao, Giuseppa.’
‘Ciao, Elena.’ (A parting that is pronounced ‘chow’ and means good-bye.)
When Elena reached the bakery she found a great crowd there. The four o’clock cakes were coming out of the oven. Far back in the glow Elena could see her own ciambella on the stone floor of the oven, larger than all the rest, its feathers waving tantalizingly in the heat.
In the midst of the women and children stood the cook, with smooth black hair and huge earrings of gold and pearls, which reached to her shoulders, and with a clean flowered kerchief tucked into her corset. She was bare-armed and brown, and held what looked like a great pancake-turner with a very long handle. With this she could reach into the depths of the oven, which was as big as a pantry, and scoop out the cakes, even those quite at the back. There were all sorts of cakes, large and small; some were cookies, and some were big loaves made with almonds and honey and eggs. The whole place smelt delicious, and every one stood on tiptoe to see his own cake pulled out of the oven. Finally Elena’s ciambella was put into her hands, still hot and fragrant, though she had waited for it to cool somewhat on a tray.
Just then a little girl named Letitia came in to ask for coals with which to light the fire at home. The cook raked a few from the oven and put them into the pot of ashes that Letitia carried. Covering them with her apron, Letitia went out with Elena.
‘Just look at my ciambella,’ said Elena proudly, as she carried it carefully on both hands. ‘Isn’t it a beauty?’
‘Yes,’ said Letitia, ‘I am going to have one, too. It will be baked to-morrow. Of course,’ she added, ‘it won’t be quite as big as yours, because Maria will have one and Gino will have a horse. But they’ll all taste the same.’
‘Just think!’ said Elena, ‘Giuseppa isn’t going to have any at all.’
‘Not any?’ cried Letitia. ‘How dreadful! I never heard of a house without a ciambella! They must be very poor.’
‘Yes, but at school Giuseppa always has a clean apron and clean hands. She helps her mother a lot, too. Well, chow, Letitia.’
‘Chow, Elena.’
The girls parted, and Elena walked proudly through the streets, carrying the cake as though in a procession.
She climbed the outside stair, which led to her house, built over the donkey stable. Her mother had gone out to the fountain to polish her pots. The big dim room, with its brown rafters and the dark furniture ranged along the walls, was very quiet. A patch of sunshine made a bright spot on the stone floor, and in it a white pigeon drowsed. It did not move, even when Elena stepped over it. The little girl looked down and laughed at the comical resemblance between the pigeon and her ciambella; but her own pigeon sat up very straight and stiff, because it had an Easter egg baked inside it.
Elena set the cake carefully on a big chest while she struggled to open the bottom drawer of the bureau. There she laid the cake in a nest of clean aprons and handkerchiefs, to rest until Saturday afternoon, when it would be taken out to be blessed. Not until Sunday morning would its fine feathers be plucked and its crisp wings bitten off.
The ciambella safely lodged in the drawer, Elena climbed on a chair and got a piece of bread and some sheep’s cheese from the cupboard; then she ran to find her mother.
The next days were very busy. Every one in Sezze was cleaning house frantically before Easter. Washing hung over every balcony, the yellow and flowered handkerchiefs and aprons making the whole street gay. Every bit of furniture was polished, windows were cleaned, curtains washed and floors scrubbed. Above all, the copper water jars and basins were taken out to the fountains and scoured with lemon and sand until they shone like red gold. There was the warmth of spring in the air after a cold winter. On the slopes below the town the almond trees were in blossom and the snow had disappeared from the mountains, the tops of which were drifted with clouds.
Far below the town a fertile plain—the Pontine Marshes—stretched out to the sea. Often the plain was covered with mists, for it was full of swamps that bred mosquitoes and malaria. People who lived there did so at a risk. Often they came up to the town sick with fever, and sometimes they died; but the gardens and fields produced such fine vegetables and brought so much money from the markets in Rome that men kept on. There were no houses down there, so far as the eye could see, only cabanes or huts thatched with reeds from the marshes and in the distance looking like haystacks. Giuseppa’s father worked on the flats, and the family lived in a cabane, but it was high up on the mountain, just below the town, where land was cheap.
It was true that Giuseppa’s father was very poor, but he was also saving his money to build a little stone house to take the place of the cabane. He told the children that when they had the house they should also have a ciambella every year. In the meantime Giuseppa helped her mother to make the cabane as neat as possible for Easter. It was a poor place indeed; round, with a thatched roof, which came to a peak at the top. Inside there was only one room, and that had an earthen floor and no windows. There was no opening except the doors, and no chimney.
When the fire was built on the floor in the middle of the room the smoke struggled up through holes in the roof; but the family lived out in the sun most of the time, and went into the cabane only when it rained or was very cold. As Elena went back and forth for water those busy days she sometimes looked over the wall and saw Giuseppa hanging clothes on the bushes or beating a mattress; and there was smoke coming through the roof as if water was being heated. Elena felt very sorry for Giuseppa, and every night prayed God to send her a ciambella.
Giuseppa, not knowing this, felt bitter toward Elena and jealous of her great, feathered cake. Also she herself prayed earnestly for a ciambella. On Easter morning she made herself as fine as she could, and went to church. She combed back her short hair and laid a white embroidered handkerchief over it. She had small gold earrings and a coral necklace, and she put on a light blue cotton apron and her corn-colored handkerchief with roses, over her shoulders.
On her way home Elena came running after her. ‘Oh, Giuseppa,’ she asked earnestly, ‘did you get a ciambella?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Giuseppa, and passed on.
Elena was much disappointed. She had prayed hard, and felt that a cake should have been sent to Giuseppa. Then suddenly she stopped short in the street. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘perhaps God hasn’t got a ciambella, and I have!’
She went home thoughtfully and opened the drawer and looked a long time at her ciambella. Then she ate her dinner of boiled chicken, and artichokes fried in batter. After dinner Elena took the cake lovingly in her arms and carried it into the street. It was the last time it would be on parade. She passed the groups of children, all munching ciambella, and made her way to Giuseppa’s hut. Giuseppa was outside, feeding the baby from a bowl of bread and milk.
‘Happy Easter!’ cried Elena.
‘Happy Easter!’ replied Giuseppa, her eyes fixed on the cake.
‘I brought my ciambella to eat with you,’ said Elena cautiously, ‘and you may hold it, and, oh, Giuseppa, you may have the egg!’
Giuseppa grew scarlet. ‘I never saw such a beauty,’ she said, ‘and what feathers!’
‘I stuck them into the dough myself;’ said Elena, ‘that is why there are so many.’
‘Do you know,’ said Giuseppa shyly, ‘I prayed for a ciambella.’
‘And you got it!’ cried Elena triumphantly.