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Rainy enters the bakery, the panificio She waits her turn behind two other wonora?”

“Pane, per favore”

There is only one type of bread currently available—a foot-long, flattened dome made of equal parts wheat and sawdust—and no one is allowed to buy more than one But the formalities h she has a choice Rainy takes her loaf of still-warrocer It is a ss to be found on those shelves She gathers a can of sardines, a packet of dried beans, pasta, a can of to low on cash and is very careful to husband it, but the grocer has been keeping his customers alive on credit so he is always happy to see her and her lira notes

Since arriving in Italy, the land of fabled foods, Rainy has lost twelve pounds between the fever, her constant hunger, and the exercise of walking to and from town, as well as her optiarden She is thin but not weak If anything, Rainy has hardened—there are few better exercises than cli hills

And she has perhaps hardened in hts with no one to talk to, no books, newspapers, or radio have forced her to think s: the war, God, her family, Halev, her future

She is conte slope back to her borrowed hoain The pistol, retrieved fro and she’s quite used to it noould feel naked without it

Back at her temporary abode, Rainy uses the rusted knife with a broken-off tip she’d found in a drawer to cut off a hunk of bread She slices a wedge of cheese, considers the sardines, and decides to save them for later Instead she piles the cheese and a half dozen olives on her slab of bread, sticks an opened bottle of red wine under her aroes outside to eat atop a stone wall beside the well The weather is fine, just a bit chilly but sunny and very clear

A bite of cheese A bite of bread An olive A swig of wine

“Life could be worse,” Rainy says She has long since stopped worrying about talking to herself, though for safety’s sake she talks to herself in Italian

“It will be worse soon,” she answers h

erself, taking on a glum tone “You’re down to three thousand, four hundred and seventy lire” Perhaps thirty-five dollars in round nues worsen and as the authorities have ceased to show

Thirty-five dollars in cash is more than most people in Genazzano have, but most of them have jobs or farms, and all of them have local family and connections to help out

If only she had so on in the war The local newspapers are censored and useless, good only for reading between the lines It’s clear that the Allies have taken Sicily, but beyond that, no news at all No news and of course no letters Her parents one this long without writing to them

Halevwell, he’s surely found someone else by now Not that they really even had , and she owes hi herself to dismiss Halev—friends, family, the memories of home have become vital to her survival

She worries at times about her father and Vito the Sack No doubt Tomaso and his father are furious that she’s escaped without killing the priest, but her deal ith Vito Camporeale to deliver Cisco, and she delivered Cisco So no one should have any beef with her father