The Wedding Officer - Hardcover

Anthony Capella spends part of each year travelling in Italy. He is based in London and this is his second novel.

Chapter One


The day Livia Pertini fell in love for the first time was the day the beauty contest was won by her favorite cow, Pupetta.

For as long as anyone in Fiscino could remember, the annual Feast of the Apricots had incorporated not only a competition to find the most perfect specimen of fruit from among the hundreds of tiny orchards that lined the sides of Monte Vesuvio, but also a contest to determine the loveliest young woman of the region. The former was always presided over by Livia's father, Nino, since it was generally accepted that as the owner of the village osteria he had a more subtle palate than most, while the latter was judged by Don Bernardo, the priest, since it was thought that as a celibate he would bring a certain objectivity to the proceedings.

Of the two competitions, the beauty contest was usually the more good-natured. This was partly because it was unencumbered by the accusations of fixing, bribing and even stealing of fruit from another man's orchard that dogged the judging of apricots, but also because the girls of the village were remarkably similar in appearance–dark haired, olive skinned and built along the voluptuous lines that a diet of fresh air and pasta invariably produces–and it was thus a relatively simple matter to decide which one combined these features in the most pleasing way. The apricots were another matter altogether. Each time Vesuvius erupted, it covered its slopes with a deep layer of a remarkable natural fertilizer called potash, and as a result the mountain supported dozens of species of fruit and vegetables which grew nowhere else in all Italy, a culinary advantage which more than compensated for the area's occasional dangers. In the case of apricots, the varieties included the firm-fleshed Cafona, the juicy Palummella, the bittersweet Boccuccia liscia, the peachlike Pellecchiella and the spiky-skinned but incomparably succulent Spinosa. Each had its ardent champions, and the thought of the honor going to the wrong sort of apricot provoked almost as much debate as the decision over which farmer had produced the finest specimen of fruit.

Livia was too busy to pay much attention to either contest. A feast day meant that the little osteria would be even busier at lunchtime than usual, and she and her sister Marisa had been up since before dawn preparing the dishes that would be spread out on the tables lining the length of the terrace, where vines provided shade from the fierce midday sun. In any case, she had a rather low opinion of both kinds of competition, her view being that with apricots it very much depended on what kind of mood you were in, while in the case of female beauty all the girls in the village got stared at quite enough already. Besides, everyone knew that one of the Farelli sisters would win in the end, and she didn't see why she should give them the satisfaction of beating her. So, while everyone else was out in the piazza, arguing, cheering, booing and clapping for the contenders, she concentrated on preparing the antipasto, deftly wrapping burrata in fresh asphodel leaves.

"Hello?" a male voice called from the little room which doubled as a bar and a dining room. "Is anyone here?"

Her hands were full of wet burrata and shreds of leaf. "No," she shouted back.

There was a short pause. "Then I must be talking to an angel, or perhaps a ghost," the voice suggested. "If there's no one around, I don't usually get an answer."

Livia rolled her eyes. A smart-ass. "I meant, there's no one to serve you. I'm busy."

"Too busy to pour a glass of limoncello for a thirsty soldier?"

"Too busy even for that," she said. "You can help yourself, and put your money on the counter. It's what everyone else does."

Another pause. "What if I'm not honest, and don't leave the full amount?"

"Then I will curse you, and something very unpleasant will happen. I wouldn't risk it if I were you."

She heard the sound of a bottle being uncorked, and the sound of her father's lemon spirit being generously poured into a glass. Then a young man in a soldier's uniform appeared in the kitchen. He was holding a full glass in one hand and some coins in the other. "It occurred to me," he said, "that if I left my money on the counter and some other rogue came along later and stole it, you would think that it was me who was the dishonest one, and something unpleasant would happen to me after all, and that would be a terrible thing. So I thought I'd bring you the money myself."

She pointed with her elbow at the dresser. "You can put it over there."

He was, she noticed, quite extraordinarily handsome. The black, tailored uniform recently redesigned by Mussolini showed off his lean hips and broad shoulders, and his dark eyes grinned at her from beneath a soldier's cap that was set at a jaunty angle on the back of a mass of curls. Caramel skin, very white teeth and an expression of confident mischief completed the picture. A pappagallo, she thought dismissively, a parrot–the local expression for young men who spent their time trying to look handsome and flirting with girls.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked, leaning back against the dresser and watching her. "I thought everyone was outside."

"I shall pray to Santa Lucia for you," she said.

"Why's that?" he said, surprised.

"Because you are clearly afflicted by blindness. Either that, or you're a cretin. What does it look like I'm doing?"

This sort of remark was usually enough to deter unwelcome visitors to her kitchen, but the young soldier didn't seem at all put out. "You look like you're cooking," he remarked.

"Brilliant," she said sarcastically. "The saint has performed another miracle. You can go now; you're completely cured."

"You know," he said, crossing his legs at the ankle and taking a swig from his glass, "you're much prettier than any of those girls in the beauty contest."

She ignored the compliment. "So that's why you're here. I should have guessed. You came to stare at the girls."

"Actually, I came because my friend Aldo wanted to come, and there's not much else to do around here. I'm stationed in the garrison at Torre del Greco."

"So you're a fascist?" she said disapprovingly.

He shook his head. "Just a soldier. I want to see the world. All my life I've lived in Naples, and I'm bored with it."

"Well," she said, "you can start by seeing the world outside that door. I don't have time to chat to you." As she spoke she was putting balls of burrata inside the asphodel leaves, weaving the leaves through each other so that they formed a natural basket for the cheese.

The handsome soldier was unperturbed. "You're very rude," he said conversationally.

"No, just very busy."

"But you can be busy and talk to me at the same time," he objected. "Look, you've done a dozen of those already. And I can take away the plates you've filled and bring you new ones." He fitted his actions to his words. "See? I'm making myself useful."

"Actually, you're in the way. And those plates need to go on the other table."

"I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll go away if you give me a kiss."

She glared at him. "Quanne piscia 'a gallina,* cazzo. Not in a million years, dickhead. Now get out of here."

"But my intentions are completely honorable," he assured her. "You see, I've fallen in love with you. And what's wrong with kissing someone you're in love with?"

She couldn't help it. She smiled slightly, then put her stern expression back on. "Don't be ridiculous. We don't know each other from Adam."

"Well, that obstacle is easily removed. I'm Enzo. And you are–?"

"Busy," she snapped.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Busy. Would you like to kiss me now?"

"No." She had finished the antipasto, and began to chop lemons to accompany the friarielli, a kind of bitter broccoli.

"Then I shall just have to use my imagination instead." He leant back and closed his eyes. A smile played across his face. "Mmmm," he said thoughtfully. "Do you know, Busy, you're a very good kisser. Mmmmmm . . . Let's do that again."

"I hope that hurt," she said pointedly.

"What?"

"I just imagined kneeing you in the coglioni."

Enzo clutched his privates and fell to the floor. "Ow! Ow! What have you done? Now we'll never have those twenty adorable bambini I was planning."

"Get up," she said, laughing. "And get out of the way. I have to drain this pasta."

He jumped up. "Tell me one thing, Busy. Do you have a boyfriend? Am I wasting my time here?"

"The answer to one of those questions is no," she said, "and to the other one, yes."

For a moment his brow furrowed as he worked it out. "Impossible," he said firmly. "Anyway, one good answer is sufficient to be going on with. Aaargh!" He leapt back. "What in God's name is that?"

Hearing an unfamiliar voice in the kitchen, Pupetta had put her head through the window to see what was going on. Her head was rather large, and was topped by two massive horns, backswept like bicycle handlebars. The horns were considerably wider than the window, but she had long ago worked out how to ease one in before the other. It was this horn which had just claimed Enzo's hat. The soldier turned and regarded the beast with horror.

"That's Pupetta," Livia said, reaching across to give the buffalo's massive forehead a frien...