Chapter IX
Pienza in deep, snowy winter always seemed even cosier to Joy. The people walked around in perfect silence of the crispy air, wrapped up in furs, wools and sometimes blankets, causing Joy to feel warm just by looking at others around her. The streets were quieter and emptier, however, it didn't mean they were deserted of life. There were smells of cooking coming out of the houses, the warm teas, coffees, biscuits, bread. It didn't matter if it was the morning or evening, the loveliest of smells filled the streets like the bottles of perfume. Joy walked to work in the morning and back home in the evening smiling, and this was the reason.
Gia and Joy's little house was the epitome of Christmas, even though it was the beginning of February. Inside was warmth, the fireplace in their living room became the centre of the house and thus the place where Joy would bring all of her writings from her bedroom to the living room, always followed by Bacio with her wagging tail. With each month, Bacio more and more started to remind Joy of Dog Monday and his love for Jem. Bacio was that way with Joy, she followed her everywhere, waited for her when she was at work, sleeping in her bed. Gia didn't mind that Bacio chose Joy to be her human mother, especially so as Gia received a cat from her family at Christmas. It was a stray, two-month-old kitty back then, all white, like the snow outside, and Gia called it "Bianca", of course. Thus, the black as coal Bacio and the snow-white Bianca made quite the pair and thankfully loved each other like their favourite humans, true soulmate sisters.
It was a quiet evening. Gia was visiting her family and was due to come back the next morning. The darkness outside seemed both endless and calm. The rays of orange and red given off by the fireplace filled the whole room and made Joy's red curls, tossed openly across her back and her shoulders, look even more prominent. She was sipping on hot cocoa her parents had sent a week earlier and across from her was Luca sipping on his cup. They both sat on the floor, Bacio with her head on Joy's thigh, Bianca on Luca's lap. They looked at each other with flushed cheeks from the heat from the fireplace, blankets on their shoulders and hotness of the drink. Luca's cheeks were flushed more vividly than Joy's but she decided not to think about it.
"Jem and Jerry are in the trenches now." Joy said, her eyes greyer than usual "I can hardly bear to think about this awful reality. You know, I don't even follow the news anymore. Gia brings in the newspaper and only gives me a look to let me know how the war is going, she doesn't utter a word about it as I don't want to hear it." she chuckles wistfully.
Luca smiles at her gently, his lips thinning up more "I wouldn't take you for a woman scared of anything at all." he said, his dark blonde eyebrow moving up whimsically.
She smiled at him "Oh, I'm not scared of anything. Anything that could happen to me I mean, but I'm awfully terrified of what could happen to the people I love." she glanced at the photograph hanging above the fireplace, the entire Blythe family and Susan, of course, just a few months before. Ken took the photograph and Joy remembered his cheeky smile. A tear appeared in her eye. "Soon enough all men I know will go off and enlist, I can feel it." she said, her voice quiet and her eyes afar, her hand on her heart.
"It is an awful truth that one is pressured by others to do unimaginable things, things that didn't matter just a year ago." Luca said softly and Joy looked up at him. His face was stern and focused on something out of reach. He reminded her of Walter in that moment and it both hurt her and warmed her heart all at the same time.
"Every night I keep on asking God what is it all for." Joy said, her voice showing a hint of anger.
"Do you get an answer?" Luca asked, his blue eyes genuinely hopeful.
Joy shook her head with the tiniest of smiles "I was raised in faith to God as most people in this world are if not all. And yet I never felt any sort of connection to Him, never felt the need to speak to God. Even now as I ask this question every night it seems like I'm asking myself more than anyone."
Luca smirked "You want to solve the mystery by yourself." he concluded and Joy's eyes twinkled a bit.
"Yes, I will always try." she replied with her smile widening lightly "Do you feel a connection to God? I know you attend church every Sunday and that you wear a cross around your neck... but do you?"
Luca sighed in contemplation and looked up at the ceiling "Sometimes I do feel a connection so strong, I swear I can almost feel His presence next to me. Other times, I wonder how He can allow for such cruel, awful things to happen all around this planet." he looked back on Joy and raised his hands to show his confusion.
"You know, I haven't even been to a church once since starting my journeys." Joy suddenly realised and she surprised herself with this acknowledgement "Five years with no prayers, no thought of God. I did attend church back in Canada for my family's sake but I spent the whole time looking at the pillars, people, my family and not really paying attention to an invisible being which is or may not actually be there."
"But in all your travels, all the lovely and breathtaking sights you have seen, have you never felt gratitude and wonder whilst discovering all of those places?" Luca asked.
"Of course, I have. I was constantly amazed by the beauty and diverseness of each country, city, place. I would look around and feel invincible." Joy closed her eyes remembering the azure waters of Malta, the white-stone villages of Greece, the busyness of Paris with its constant feel of ambition, Scotland's beautiful wilderness, London's elegance and lovable rain, Barcelona's colours and perfect chaos…
"Then this is the same as feeling the presence of God." Luca's words made Joy open up her eyes and glance back at him. It was never easy for anyone to make Joyce Blythe speechless and yet in that moment, she didn't know what to say, what to think, how to feel. She felt very quiet, calm, shocked almost. "I hope God will make it at least a year more before I will have to enlist." is what Joy heard come out of Luca's lips and she came back to the Earth that very second. Luca's face was sorrowful and he was looking straight into Joy's eyes, as if searching for a reason to stay that would be reciprocated in her own eyes.
Joy stood up, waking up Bacio, and sat down next to Luca, putting her hands on his. Bacio quickly followed her mother's actions and put her head on Joy's knee once again. "I sincerely hope so too." she whispered, her green eyes looking into his with utter care "If the worst comes to worst, Gia and I will happily hide you here in our basement."
Both chuckled merrily and Luca looked into Joy's eyes again, searching and searching. He lowered his head delicately, closer to Joy's. Joy's heart was suddenly in her throat and somehow made her unable to move at all, neither closer nor away. Luca's face was gradually becoming closer and closer, his eyes still searching. Their noses almost touched and Joy's eyes were as huge as coins, was this the moment? What did she really feel for him? Did the two of them together make any sense? Did she see any future together? All of those questions were the ones she thought she knew the answers to in regards to Lorenzo, and all of those questions she was still unsure about when thinking about Ken.
Suddenly the bell of the cathedral rang, it was an hour before midnight. Luca, as if awoken from a dream, shook his head and turned his head towards his case lying behind him on the sofa. "It's late, I should let you get some sleep before your work tomorrow." he muttered out, his thoughts clearly muddled in between.
Joy remained where she was and realised that she was speechless for the second time that very hour. "Um, yes, yes, of course." she managed to say eventually when Luca already put on his winter coat, a hat and was at the door, waiting for her.
She stood up and walked over to him, trying her hardest to figure out what his eyes were saying to hers and she knew, however, she didn't want to acknowledge it just yet. She smiled at him weakly and he reciprocated. "Buonanotte." she whispered and kissed his cheek.
His face reddened up and his smile grew stronger "Buonanotte." he replied tenderly and walked out.
Joy leaned against the front door and looked at the fireplace "'I should let you get some sleep before your work tomorrow'" she repeated him and laughed, truly amused "What a funny man."
A month passed at an extreme speed, almost alarming Joy. She was incredibly busy and hardly had the time to think straight for two minutes in bed at night before falling to sleep as soundly as a baby. Her publishing career took over her life for most of the month and in any free time, Joy would write her own book, a third one now, which she kept a secret from everyone, knit and baked furiously for the boys at the front, or she simply wrote letters to her family and friends.
It was the first quiet day Joy arranged for herself in over a month. She laid on the bed with an envelope containing Ken's letter in her hands, Bacio leaning against her side. Her hair was the most disorderly she had seen on her head in ages, she wore Jem's old navy blue jumper and her favourite trousers that Walter gave her the summer before. On the bed, in those clothes, with warmth of Bacio next to her, Joy had never felt more comfortable. Physically, that is. Within her heart, however, was turmoil as she stared at the envelope, holding it up against the brightness coming from the window in front of her.
"Open it." Joy said to herself outloud.
Her fingers tweaked a bit, not entirely convinced it is necessary or needed. She took a deep breath and then with a loud "Ah!" she ripped the envelope open. Her hands carefully touched the paper inside and Joy looked at it from below, seeing the writing from both sides against the light of the window. Ken always had a special way of handwriting, it was both messy and elegant, very much like his way of being.
"My dearest Joy," it read from the top.
"I am more concerned by the fact that I cannot embrace you or comfort you than I am about the reminder of the daily list of casualties I see in the newspapers now.
"Do not think that I am not fearful for Jem and Jerry, I am, greatly. You can feel the stress and tension all around Glen St Mary and Four Winds, I can guarantee you that. I'm glad that Italy hasn't joined in the war just yet, even though we all know it will happen sooner rather than later. I'm glad you can still somehow, in your own Joyest-way, continue your life there on a more or less normal basis.
"You're saying that you fret every sound of a mailman, every telegram or letter and that you even decided not to read about the war news in the papers. I must say that I knew you would do that, you always wanted to escape some part of reality but Joy, you must remember that however much you will try to avoid all this chaos and tension, it will come and find you in one way or another. One day you will want to see the news on the war with your own eyes. I can see your face in my mind now, flush of red in your cheeks, a thunder bubbling in your eyes, you would argue with me and I understand. And Joy, if you need to scream or cry or laugh hysterically, please for the love of God do so. You must keep sane in this strange world and emotions, your forever raw and spiky emotions, have to be seen and heard by the world.
"A huge congratulations are in order of course! You will publish your second book! I'm so extremely excited for you and I have to learn Italian just so I can read it. It sounds very fitting, though, "A Hope for the Cloud", what a calm and satisfying title. Please send me a copy when it comes out, I will trace the writing and the words and imagine you speaking Italian, gesticulating like an Italian should.
"I'm happy that you're busy with work and your newly found love for knitting and baking for the boys at the front. I'm laughing now because yet again I have to say something that you might frown at slightly (or a lot). Dear Joy, please give yourself time off, time to reflect, read something for once and not just write, cook again and don't rely on Gia and your neighbours for that, play and stare at Bacio and forget about the world even if just for a day. In the pace you're living at, you'll arrive at 80-years old in five years!
"Our Jem's letters are so like him, it gives me hope in the world. He sounds so lighthearted in them, he's so himself and so… content. Joy, you must agree that surely it means it's not all that bad down there in the trenches, right? That brings me to the news that I know will make you worry more (and yet it's the last thing that I want).
"Yes, I am now officially enlisted and I shall soon be off to training and then by mid-summer in the trenches."
Joy stopped there as her heart sank. It sank so deeply that she feared for her heart falling out of her from her back and into the mattress of her bed. She knew it would happen, she knew the very day they all heard that there is and will be a war. Yet, she hoped she could escape Ken's going away into the blood and pain. Suddenly she felt angry at Jem for being lighthearted about the war and the trenches, it could have led Ken on to enlist. She felt angry at Ken's parents, Owen and Leslie whom she knew very well herself and loved both, for not forbidding him from going. She felt angry at herself for not getting on the nearest boat or a ship and going to Canada and strapping Ken down to a chair until the end of the war. She felt angry at the whole wide world, at God. Where is He? She thought to herself. The whole world needs Him and He's just not there, what's the use of praying?
Bacio started to lick her face and that's when she realised that she started crying. She embraced her furry companion with her left arm but continued on sobbing as she tried to read the rest of the letter.
"I know it's both a shock and not-a-shock-at-all at the same time. It is the same for me I must say. Please don't worry too much, all my folks do so already, and instead live fully like you always have, for me, for Jem, for your family, friends. For me?
"I know you've told me not to hope and to move on. I have seen your playful nudging me towards Rilla. She's lovely, Rilla is, but she's not the woman that occupies my thoughts the whole day and night. I've given up on making myself move away from those feelings and thoughts, Joy. They give me something to live and strive for, doesn't matter how all of this ends.
"I suppose what I truly want to say is this: this war won't end anytime soon like the people are hoping and we all know it deep down. I'm going to fight in the trenches, for the people I love, for you. I won't ask you to wait for me or that I will always wait for you. All I want to say is that I love you so much it physically hurts me and that I miss you like hell. That however life will lead us, maybe we will be on the same path one day, maybe we will get on two very different paths, either way I want you to know that I will be there, somewhere, always hanging around and waiting for you to finish your dance with Jem so you can dance with me too.
"Please, please, please, Joy. Always, no matter what this world will do, stay your wonderful self and know that out there is someone who loves you more than life.
"Go read a book!
"Yours always,
"Ken"
Joy laid the letter down on the side and stared at the ceiling, her lips slightly ajar and tears still flowing down her freckled cheeks as Bacio snuggled her face against Joy's chin. What Joy felt in that moment was emptiness. There was no fear, no anger, no happiness or excitement. A blank slate. It had never happened to her before, she always knew perfectly well who she was, what she was feeling, what she wanted to say or not to say. But in that moment there was nothing, it almost felt like death. Or was it birth? Was that one of the defining moments of her life?
Joy knew that whatever she would choose to feel then would cause her to take on a life path that would begin now and end with the war and she knew that suddenly, because of a letter, she was deciding between the darkness and the light.
She closed her eyes.
And then finally, out of nowhere in particular, there was a smile.
