July passed. Giorgio had no peace. His dream of the Palio had become sullied. He called on the Chief-of-the-Guards in his own home. He called on General Barbarulli. He sought out Signor Ramalli. With each he tried to unburden his worry, but the talk was roundabout and never came near the sore spot.
In desperation, one day, he put Gaudenzia in the care of a barbaresco and went home to Monticello. He planned to arrive in the late afternoon, when he knew his mother would be cooking supper. She would be standing in the pool of light from the single bulb over the stove, and her back would be toward him, and the room would be steamy warm, and in the semi-darkness it would be easy to speak right out.
It happened exactly like that. Giorgio was there in the kitchen, leaning against the wall where the patched green umbrella hung, and both cats were sidling up against his legs as if they remembered him from yesterday, and he was saying, "Mamma, now that I am grown, the Palio is a thing I do not understand."
His mother was making pizzas, shaping each pie carefully. She stood there in her black dress and did not turn around. And yet Giorgio felt her motherliness spread over him like wings over a young bird.
"Giorgio," she began, then corrected herself. "My boy is now Vittorino. He has the wished-for name, and in his keeping he has the wished-for mare. Yet he does not understand the workings of the Palio, and so he is unhappy."
"That is the way of it, Mamma."
"You are not alone in this, Vittorino. Many things of history I do not understand. Nor does your Babbo. But the part that torments you, maybe it is a thing to pull out of the dark and into the light. Maybe then...."