Chapter 8
Little dancers bent this way and that, trying to keep themselves warm and loose as Silvestro tampered quietly, trying to get the gas heater in the back corner of the room up and running again. She murmured as she glanced between the manual and the small knobs at the bottom, a small 'click' as she pressed down on the fuse.
The walls were covered with looping tinsel, Christmas cards sent in by patrons and parents of the students, as well as those given by the local retirement home hung along the frosting windows; the students had made their own cards to send in response, as they did every year. Silvestro and Amelia's contribution of cards were propped up beside Valentina Bacigalupi's, the woman having hounded her niece until she caved in and had donned a Santa hat for a day.
"Are you nearly done, Ms Russ?" Susanna asked, tapping up to her with a water bottle.
"...Nearly," Silvestro grunted out. "Go back to practising, don't stand so close." She didn't really know if it was safe for her to be nearby while she was trying her luck with gas and fire.
Amelia shook her head up on the stage and clapped her hands to end the break, summoning children from warming huddles. They flocked to the middle of the room, cold wooden floors biting the skin as they sat cross-legged before their instructor who gave them sympathetic smiles.
"We'll be having our Christmas Recital soon, be sure to remind your parents to book tickets and their seats."
Silvestro made a mental note to check her calendar for the date she had marked, remembering she had an appointment with the old doctor Orazio coming up and had to make sure it didn't clash. She hummed as she fiddled with some switches for a moment more before snapping the knob three notches clockwise and a burst of hot air hit her with the ignition.
"Miss Maddalena, I got the heater working," the ex-militant grunted, getting to her feet.
"Oh, wonderful. It'd be absolutely freezing in here if you didn't, thank you," she smiled, coming over and warming her palms in the hot atmosphere. "The studio should warm up quickly with this."
"In that case," Silvestro sighed, picking up the hardcover manual and gently kicking the panel at the bottom of the heater shut. "I'll be heading back down to my shed."
"Why not stay here?" Amelia asked, gesturing to the class that was slowly realising that it had become a more bearable temperature. "Let us keep you company."
The bulky woman was about to respond when Susanna grasped her, two little hands grabbing her much larger one, and pulled her deeper into the room, where the other students began chattering excitedly about the quail that still cooed in her office. She shuffled awkwardly in the mass of children, trying to soften her voice like she had seen before, but finding it to come out like she was chewing on stones.
"Gentle, Silvestro, gentle," Amelia hummed from behind, making the woman scowl in self-consciousness and frustration.
"I'm trying," she hissed quietly.
"Maybe try less?"
The ex-militant blinked at the words before shaking her head and returning to pay attention to Susanna's hesitant questions, huffing out answers with the bite of a gruntled dog. She felt too huge surrounded by the little beings, and felt her body squeeze itself in on itself, lest it bump and break a glass vase child.
"How is your boyfriend, Ms Russ? Is he going to come again?" Someone asked gleefully, the class perking in interest.
"He is not my boyfriend, I assure you," she grunted exasperatedly. "And if he comes back here, I need you to tell me."
"Why? So you can do kissing stuff with him?"
"Because he's trespassing; which can be considered a breach of security."
Amelia covered her smile coyly, enjoying the deadpan nature of her larger companion, children snickering as they bounced around the huffing mountain lady.
000
Silvestro raised an amused eyebrow as she sat on the cornerstone of the town square fountain. The plaza was bursting with coloured lights and glittering things, a tree hauled in from the green and wrapped with decorations and spotlights. She smiled and pulled her coat tighter; the twilight letting the place glow a peached shade.
"Doc's still the town Santa, I see," the ex-militant hummed, Valentina coming to stand beside her in a large, fur-collared jacket.
"Always is," she sniffed, handing her niece a steaming cup of cocoa as they watched the plump old doctor Orazio cater to the wild imaginations of the town's children.
The man was dressed up for the part and it fit him like it was his true self, the elderly GP having grown his beard out since early November in preparation, as he always did. Silvestro and many others in the town had come to use that beard as a way to tell the shift to the holiday season, people beginning to get a skip in their step just as the stubble began to show in his rounded cheeks.
"And Giulio's still his right-hand elf, the poor man," the Primadonna huffed in laughter, drawing mahogany eyed attention to the tall man dressed up in green and red, large cartoonish ears clipped over his human ones as he bent oddly over the shoulder of Santa Orazio to speak to the man. "I will never understand why he puts up with it."
"Because the Doc loves it, so he has to too," Silvestro snorted, taking a long warm drink of her cocoa.
"As is the curse of love," Valentina sighed, "So glad I never got married."
"I'm sure you would have if artsy-toes had been a little less attracted to mirrors."
The familiar feeling of a feathered fan cracking down on the back of her head was not a missed one as the ex-militant hissed out in pain, putting aside her cocoa to clutch her skull as her aunt glowered down at the woman.
"Manners, Silvestro, remember them."
"It is negative-six degrees out here, aunty, what the hell are you doing with a fan!?"
Valentina didn't give her an answer and merely turned her head away as she opened her fan with a delicate flick of her hand, redirecting the slow fall of snowflakes with man-made breezes.
Silvestro snorted at the brush off and took up her steaming cup again, taking long drags of the warm, sweet drink with a happy hum.
"I really shouldn't be giving you that," the Primadonna sighed, looking at the beverage.
She paused and then pulled the cup to her chest protectively, narrowing her mahogany eyes up at her aunt.
"You can't take it back, it's mine now."
The aged woman scoffed at her niece's behaviour but didn't fight her for the cup, watching the younger woman all but guzzle her drink and hum into the cup with childish glee.
"You're going to get a stomachache soon," she huffed.
"A sacrifice I am willing to make."
The two women loitered around and watched the town's volunteers build the nativity scene in the square, children bustling about. They hummed along to choirs singing carols and drank from their steaming cups, before Silvestro got to her feet and dusted snow off her pants.
"Time to get to the post office."
"You know they won't arrive until December 25th, right?" Valentina chuckled, falling in step with her niece who trudged along with a childish spring in her step. "Checking the post office every morning isn't going to change that. They'll arrive when they arrive."
"Leave me be," the militant pouted.
000
Silvestro paused painstakingly spreading cheap chocolate spread on her toast as the little honk of mailman's peddle bike rung out from the wall of mailboxes down by the street. The woman took in a sharp breath before a wide smile stretched across her face and she abandoned her slightly burnt toast to stomp on her boots and thunder down the stairs.
Silvestro grinned and pulled at her no.27 letterbox and grabbed a thick, handful of envelopes. There were multiple styles of handwriting on each, ranging from absolutely illegible chicken-scratch to well-spaced, curling running writing. Her cadets still remembered her.
"Merry Christmas, Silvy!"
The woman turned before giving a surprise shout as Amelia barrelled into her chest. She scrambled to catch the ballet instructor as they lost their footing on the icy pathway, envelopes crunching in her hand as the snow slipped out underfoot.
"God, you're embarrassing," Quinto groaned, bundled up in a warm jacket and scarf, nose going red from the chill of the morning. "Can we go upstairs now? It's cold as shit."
"Upstairs?" Silvestro echoed, furrowing her brow in confusion.
"Well, yes!" Amelia cheered and Silvestro barely noticed how she had been shepherded back into her apartment building, still clutching her letters. "We're celebrating Christmas together! Family and friends!"
"Indeed," Valentina agreed, stepping out of the snow, a bag of wine hanging from her hand. She looked as impeccable as ever as she continued to say, "I've lost too many holidays with you to that military camp, I won't miss another."
"Let's just go!" Quinto whined, already halfway up the stairs.
Silvestro blinked as she found herself dumped on the old, worn couch. Quinto was crouched in front of the radio and was fiddling it to life while Amelia tore into Silvestro's kitchen, bags of produce and baked goods hauled up the stairs to be used for a Christmas feast.
Ruggine yawned widely from his place near the radiator, curled up on one of the ex-militants jackets that he had no doubt ripped from the coat rack. He kneaded the material and glanced around at the guests which invaded his domain, but paid them no real mind even as Quinto came and began scratching behind the rust-coloured ear.
Valentina poured out three glasses of wine and another of juice, handing the teen boy his appropriate beverage before distributing the wine to the women. The Prima ballerina smiled thinly as she sat down on the couch, a kind of disgruntled huff coming from her lips as she shifted her weight on the cushions.
"...It's been a while since I've had a Christmas like this," Silvestro admitted, looking at the people bustling in her apartment, a warm filling the space in a way that could only come with human company.
"Yes, this is...much better than what we used to have," Valentina agreed, and they decided to end the topic there, happy to listen to Amelia screech about her latest hyper fixation as she bashed at pots and pans, Quinto playing with Ruggine on the carpet.