"Si è visto nei fiori e perlato rugiada di mattina;
Nel verde della terra ore e nel cielo di blu eterna.
Si è sentito in primavera quando luce e raggi di sole,
Caldi e gentile, su d'angelo ala portare amore e musica per la mente.
E dove voce, di così giovane,
Così bella e dolce come natura scelta,
Dove primavera e gli amanti si incontrano?
Amore vita oltre la tomba, e la terra, che svanisce come rugiada!
Amo le fond, i fedeli e il vero."
Emilio's heart was love struck—it had been that way for over eight years, but now that he was twenty-five, his feelings had intensified for a beautiful German girl to the point he was spending hours reading romance novels or writing love poetry. He was cooking dinner for him, his father Romano, his mother Benedetta, and his Uncle Feliciano, who was spending the evening at their house.
"Emilio!" his father called out cruelly. "Stop singing! You have been singing the same song for days now!" Emilio cringed at the sight of his father coming into the kitchen, and he watched what he was making—lasagna with tomato sauce and eggplant parmiggiana.
"I can't help it, papá," the young man told his father, still in his romantic trance.
"You have been singing that song for so long now and you still haven't found a love that lasts beyond the tomb," Romano lectured. "At least, not that I know of."
"It's best that you not know until I ask her to marry me," Emilio remarked after placing the food on plates. He grated a block of fresh parmesan cheese on each dish before bringing it to the table. Romano looked at his son with cold hazel eyes—was he that much enchanted by Hilda? Romano didn't really know if it was Hilda or not, but he knew that there was a woman his son had deep feelings for.
"Did I just hear that you were getting married, Emilio?" Benedetta asked as she sat down to eat. Uncle Feliciano had not arrived yet, but once there was a knock on the door, Romano walked hastily toward the door and opened it to Feliciano greeting him with a big hug.
"Ah! Buona sera! It's good to be here!" he said, squeezing his brother to the point his ribs started to crack. Romano shoved him off playfully and smiled, catching his breath.
"Nice to see you, brother," Romano told him leading him into the house. Emilio and his mother saw their family member come into the dining room and at once, he ran and hugged his uncle playfully.
"Buona sera! Come stai?" Emilio asked cheerfully.
"Sto bene, grazie! Hai preparato il cibo per stasera?" Feliciano asked, sitting down at the table where his food was all ready for him.
"Si, mangi adesso!" Emilio said excitedly as he jumped into his seat foolishly. Romano stared at him shortly before taking his first bite of lasagna.
"Perché hai fretta, Emilio?" he asked, looking at him as though he had two heads. "Settle down!"
"Non posso," Emilio said with a cheesy smile.
"You will!" Romano snapped, taking a bite of food. "You are twenty-five and you are acting like a buffoon. Stop it!" Benedetta kissed Feliciano on the cheek and began to eat her food, savoring the raw cooking skill Emilio had inherited from generations long passed.
"This is molto delizioso," she told him.
"Grazie," he told her with a cutesy face and voice.
"So, you are getting married?" Benedetta asked. Feliciano jumped up and reacted with rejoice over this statement—was his nephew really getting married?
"Mamma mia! Mio nipote sta per sposarsi!" he squealed.
"No, no, no!" Emilio protested, sounding calmer than he had been in quite a while. "I'm not getting married, but there is a lady I really love."
"Che cosa é chiamata lei?" Benedetta asked happily, taking another bite of her son's delicious cooking. Emilio was reluctant to answer, but he did for honesty's sake even though he had not planned to tell his father and mother who he loved out of fear of Romano's disapproval. He sighed and looked down at his plate contemplatively.
"Hilda Bielschmidt," he said, almost in a slow, inaudible whisper.
"Yay!" Feliciano said, clapping his hands. "Her father is so nice! I've known him for—"
"No, Emilio," Romano cut in as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. "You are not marrying the daughter of that potato-eating bastard. Besides, German women are terrifying."
"No, loro non sono!" Emilio protested, his fiery temper about to erupt. "Hilda is very gentle and she is very beautiful. She also is finishing up at Freie University."
"Quella universitá é molto buona," Benedetta said happily, proud of her son. "That is one of the best in all of Germany! Is she home for the summer?"
"Si," the young man told his mother. "She is very intelligent, and she speaks Italian fluently."
"That is because I taught her," Feliciano said as he continued to eat his food. "I remember she was just a baby and I was watching her while her father was away. I was making her a bowl of cut-up spaghetti and her first word was 'pasta'! Potete credere?"
"Aw, that's so sweet," Emilio said, calmed down by the thought of Hilda as he continued to eat his food.
After dinner, Benedetta got out a cherry cassata torte she had made just hours earlier. While preparing the cake to go into the oven, she spiked the batter with brandy and felt it was appropriate to do so considering that no one in the house was a child. Everyone loved it, but Romano and Benedetta finished up long before Feliciano and Emilio were even halfway done. Sitting alone in the dining room, Feliciano was curious about Emilio's tender feelings for Hilda. He had known for a long time about how he felt towards Hilda, but he was curious about how intense his feelings really were.
"Ah," his uncle said after swallowing some of the cake. "I remember the day you and Hilda met."
"Si," Emilio said dreamily. "I love her. Lei é mia vita."
"Aw, that's so cute! My nephew has finally found someone. Good thing it is someone I have known for a very long time," Feliciano said with a sigh.
"So, you really knew Hilda as a baby?" the young man asked.
"Si, she was a beautiful child. Now she is a beautiful woman. Very smart, too! I remember first hearing her play a piece on the piano. I had been visiting with her father one weekend. She played like a pro," his uncle said, taking another bite of his cake.
"I know she plays the piano, but I have never heard her play for real," Emilio answered. "Does she sing?"
"Well, I have only heard her hum, if I remember correctly. I bet she does, but hates doing it," Feliciano said, moving closer to whisper. "Emilio, where do you think Benedetta keeps the brandy? I can tell this cake has brandy in it."
"Si, she always does that with this kind of cake," his nephew told him. "But, I think she keeps the brandy in that cabinet up there. God only knows what else is up there."
"Want to have a few shots with your uncle? I've never been a big drinker, but with you, I'm cool with it," Feliciano told him. Emilio smiled devilishly and nodded.
"Si, facciamo bere!"
Emilio got up from his seat and toward the tall wooden cabinet and struggled to open it. He realized that it was locked, so he took out two paperclips and picked the tiny lock on the left door open and it popped open. Emilio smiled sinisterly as he saw all of the bottles of liquor and alcohol stored away from view. There was a bottle of French wine, which immediately reminded him of Hilda—she loved French wine, and during the times he had seen her with Mathilde, her maid and best friend, during an occasional celebration or get-together, they had drank wine and had good times. Krista, Hilda's mother, also enjoyed French wine and often had it imported straight from Paris.
"Questo é il suo vino favorito," the young man whispered, looking at the label on the dark, glass bottle. It was all in French, but he could clearly tell what kind of wine it was—it was red.
"Chi?" Feliciano asked, his attention on his nephew as he stood up to join him near the liquor cabinet. He looked down at the bottle before his eyes met with his nephew's amber-brown ones. Emilio smiled at the bottle with Hilda on his mind.
"A Hilda piace il vino, soppratutto il vino francese," the young man clarified. Feliciano giggled in his usual cheerful tone.
"She should have fallen for a Frenchman, then," he joked. "He could give her more French wine you could." Emilio laughed and shrugged nonchalantly.
"She probably hasn't even tried Italian wine," the young man told his uncle. "I think I'll surprise her next time I see her. I'll give her two bottles of wine—one will be French, and the other will be Italian."
"Ah-hah!" Feliciano giggled, placing his arm around his nephew. "Do you…have some…devious plan behind all that wine you'll be giving her?"
"No!" Emilio said defensively, looking at his uncle. "Believe me, not until she is my wife, Uncle Feli. I do not want to steal the pearl from the flower too soon."
"Aw, you are such a gentleman!" his uncle said jovially, patting his dark brown hair shortly before a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey caught his eye. He reached for it and took a few small glasses from the lower shelf and set them on the kitchen counter.
Emilio looked at the bottle as he put it back on the shelf gently and reverently, and looked over at what his uncle got from the liquor cabinet. The negative memory of him striking a woman in the middle of the street after drinking too much whiskey with a friend at the town bar came to his mind as he stared at the label with uncertainty—Jack Daniels.
"Uncle Feli, don't take that out," Emilio told him.
"Perché?" Feliciano asked as the young man took the bottle and slammed it on the upper shelf and took out a big bottle of scotch.
"I almost got in big trouble one night for striking a woman in the street," Emilio said, closing the liquor cabinet doors without locking it back up. "I was so drunk on whiskey that I didn't know what the hell I was doing."
"Were you ever drunk like that before?" Feliciano asked with a worried look on his face. Emilio looked at his uncle with shame in his amber eyes as he walked to the table and poured the liquor into the two glasses. Feliciano sat across from him and looked at the drinks contemplatively—was it such a good idea for him to suggest alcohol to bond with his nephew?
"We…don't have to drink if you don't want to. If you are—"
"You know, someone once said to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die," Emilio said. "Uncle Feli, la notte é giovane. I'll be damned if I am bored with nothing to do with my uncle. Besides, I learned an important lesson—don't drink so damn much. I was a brutal alcoholic then, now I realized that I could be so drunk I'd strike Hilda and not even know it. I love her, and I don't want to hurt her with some stupid addiction."
"That is true, Emilio. I like how mature you've become," he said, taking his full glass before sipping it entirely in one gulp. Emilio looked at him before he even took a sip to his lips.
"Che cazzo?" his nephew asked. "Want more?"
"Si," Feliciano said, taking the bottle as he gently poured it into his glass. "It's strong, but it's good. I bet Romano drinks in the middle of the night."
"I've waken up in the middle of the night as a child to him drinking in here," Emilio recalled. "He'd tell me to go back to bed. My mom only uses the brandy for making the cherry cassata torta."
"Hey, we could have gotten drunk off that cake!" Feliciano joked. Emilio laughed hysterically at this comment and looked at him.
"Real funny," he said, drinking his scotch. "I was just singing in the kitchen earlier today when I was making the food, and then my father comes in and tells me to stop singing."
"What were you singing?" Feliciano asked.
"Ah, a song about how the beauty of springtime and heavenly angels bring love to the mind. The song is 'Love Beyond the Tomb.'" Emilio told his uncle, supporting his chin with his fist as his elbow rested on the table. His mind went off in the clouds again, thinking about his love for Hilda.
"Aw! Sei in amore! Ho saputo quello," Feliciano said, smiling at his nephew.
Emilio sighed as he reached into the pocket of his pants. He pulled out something and put it on the table, but it was only seconds later that Feliciano saw that it was a ring—a sparkly diamond solitaire set in the thin, tiny prongs of a simple gold band. His uncle smiled at it, but Emilio held it up to show him how simply elegant it was.
"Is that for Hilda?" he asked with a smile.
"Si, and I will give it to her the next time I see her," Emilio told him. "I want the moment to be perfect!"
"I am so happy you are uniting our families," Feliciano told him. "I'm so happy that Germany will be my in-law!"