Page 52

“You consider yourself to be an Italian?” Mauro asks with a twinkle.

“Conosci i tuoi fiori dalle loro radici.”

“Mynonnadied twenty years ago and yet you know her.” Mauro laughs.

“They are all the same,” I assure him. We agree that you know your flowers by their roots. An auspicious start for a friendship or, fingers crossed, a commission.

“Can we grab a ride with you to town? We can talk business on the way down,” Conor says cheerfully.

“Andiamo.It’s a better trip in the truck,” Mauro says.

“I hope so,” I say.

“Bigger wheels, better shock absorption.”

“You could always fix the road,” I offer.

“The government owns the road. Let them fix it,” Mauro says, sounding a lot like Uncle Louie.

Once I’m settled in the back seat, Mauro makes eye contact with me in the rearview mirror. “Tell me about your company,” he says.

“It’s called Capodimonte Marble and Stone. I am the third generation to sell and install marble in homes and buildings in New Jersey. How about you?”

“My stepfather bought the quarry around the time he married my mother in 1974. He trained me to use the diamond cutter himself.”

“You were one of those men hanging off the face of the mountain? I could’ve guessed it.Forza!” I tell him.

“We stopped using explosives and went back to the way the old artisans worked. We measured and cut; that’s why the mountain looks like a wedding cake that is cut one thin slice at a time instead of a pile of slag. Without explosives, the quarry looks like it did during the Italian Renaissance.”

“You took your mining technique back to its roots.”

“We had to. We try to preserve the mountain for environmental reasons and yet extract what we need to sell. We do our best in that regard. We have machines now, of course. Automated hoists, cranes, and instead of ropes made of hemp, we use steel.”

“I’m trying to imagine what the work was like when my uncle was here in 1971.”

“I wasn’t born yet. But they were still blasting then. Every excavation had a team of stonemasons,la compagnia di lizza. They blasted the stone and cut it away from the mountain. The man in charge is calledcapolizza.” Mauro explains, “He leads the team of men calledmollatori. They’re the quarrymen in charge of the hawsers—the ropes. They were strong men, tough, deft—they had to calculate how to move the haul; they controlled it with the ropes. We move about four tons of stone down the mountain a month. It takes tremendous skill. It is a great honor to be part of themollatori. They say themollatoriknow the mountain better than God, who created it.”

“It also took guts.Coraggio,” I offer.

“Sì.The job that required the most courage was the job of thelegnarolo. He had to be a fast runner. His job was to run ahead of the marble block that themollatoriwere sliding down the mountain. The locals used to gather on thevia di lizzato watch the transport.”

“How can a man outrun a block of marble?” I ask.

Mauro’s expression changes. “There are times he can’t. You must pray that the hawsers don’t break. I lost my father in an accident, so I know something about it. He died before I was born. So, you see, I have a love-hate relationship with the mountain. I make my living from it, but it came at a cost.”

When Mauro drops us off at the piazza, we thank him and promise to return to the quarry.

“Bring me those sketches,signorina!” Mauro says as he drives off.

“I will!” I call after him. “How’d I do?” I ask Conor as I walk him to his car.

“He liked you.”

Conor gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. He gets into his car to drive home to Lucca while I cross the piazza as the sun sets. When I reach Signora Strazza’s building, I race up the stairs and into my apartment.

I have vowed never to miss a sunset in Carrara. I pour myself a glass of wine and go out on the balcony. I sit and rest my feet on the railing. Today, I expanded my view because I went to the mountaintop.

I sip the earthy wine, a rich red. Soon, the mountains recede into shadow as darkness falls, and the marble peaks emerge, catching the last of the light. The peaks become the glittering points on a crown that appears to float on the horizon. Here below, I live where Michelangelo, the duchess, and my ancestors once walked. There is so much to learn because so much is hidden. I didn’t know the quarry would conjure such an emotional reaction in me. People have secrets, but places have them too.