Cecilia smoothed down her midcalf-length, black dress with its gathered waist loose around her slender, adolescent figure. The dress was still clean enough for serving the next customers, as was the long, black apron.
"You look fine," her friend Angelika said. She sat at one of the wooden tables Cecilia had just cleaned.
Another dreary day as a waitress and cleaning lady in her father's little hotel and restaurant in Falkensteig. This was her life ever since her mother died two years ago back when Cecilia finished the eighth grade. Having gone to the early church service, Cecilia began her Sunday morning by wiping off the ten solid, wooden tables in the restaurant area. The gray tile floor sparkled, and the dark wooden walls shone.
The Italian workers hired to build the Höllentalbahn, the Hell Valley Railway, had finished their breakfast, collected their lunch bags, and were out working, even on a Sunday. The parish priest had given them a dispensation after representatives of the Grand Duchy of Baden persuaded him. The church tended to obey the state whenever possible.
In half an hour, the regular church service would be over with and paying guests would flood into the restaurant. Every Sunday noon the restaurant made more money than it did the whole rest of the week. Until this past year, though, the restaurant had seldom earned enough to pay the bills, not even with bounteous Sunday dinners.
Cecilia sighed and looked around to see if anything else needed cleaning. She was conscientious, even when the work itself bored her and when she didn't enjoy it.
Cecilia looked out the restaurant's spotless windows that she had washed the day before. She was tall for a sixteen-year-old girl, actually taller than most grown women in the area. She towered over Angelika. Cecilia felt awkward most of the time, but her height was helpful when she needed to clean the windows and doorframes. She never needed to hunt for the ladder.
The occasional tourists praised the landscape around Falkensteig, with the mountains of the Black Forest towering over the plain on three sides. They called it magnificent and mysterious.
The whole Dreisam Valley landscape at the foot of these mountains depressed Cecilia, though. In all directions, she saw nothing other than dried-out fields with clumps of dirt hidden in cold fog and half-heartedly babbling brooks not yet frozen over.
In contrast, the snow on the peaks of the mountains, normal for the end of November, was beautiful. Like most working people, though, Cecilia never had the opportunity to see the mountains up close. That was something for wealthy tourists who could pay for chauffeur service up the narrow, winding highways.
Cecilia's job, and the fact that her father even paid her for her work, made her the envy of her girlfriends, but she wished she could be doing anything else anywhere else.
It was the end of 1882. According to what people said in the restaurant, everything was better than ever before. Otto von Bismarck had united all of Germany under one Kaiser and given people health and retirement insurance. The war with France was long since over with. Strasbourg was now a German city. People had enough to eat and even some free time.
More importantly, as her father insisted, they started building the Höllentalbahn, the Hell Valley Railway from Freiburg up the mountains to Neustadt and beyond. As soon as it was finished, people would be able to take the train all the way up to the Black Forest. That meant more and more tourists would come to the surrounding areas.
In the meantime, every little hotel east of Freiburg was full of Italian workers who were building the railway. The Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways paid generously and reliably as long as rooms remained reserved for the company employees.
Cecilia's father's hotel had been full ever since the past January. He had paid off all his debts, had had running water installed in the hotel, and was finally saving money from his profits.
"At least you have your own money," Angelika said as Cecilia wiped off the bar area next to her table. "I have to slave away on my father's farm just for room and board."
Angelika was a chunky girl with a cheerful, chubby face and long, curly, dark hair, a contrast to Cecilia's long, thin, somewhat horsy face and uncontrollable, straight, blonde hair that stuck out in all directions. Angelika was Cecilia's best friend.
"I miss school," Cecilia said sadly, as she walked over to wipe off the "Stammtisch", the huge, round, wooden table without any tablecloth, reserved for card players. "It's not fair that girls have to leave school after the eighth grade."
"I hated school," Angelika said. "The teachers always made me feel stupid."
"I love to learn new things," Cecilia said. "I wish I could go to an upper-level secondary school where I could learn other languages like English or Spanish or French. My grandmother was from Strasbourg, and she taught me some of the Alsatian dialect, but that's not French. When we used to visit her, people there spoke real French."
"You remember our teachers said foreign languages were nothing for simple girls like us, only for the wealthy or for nobility," Angelika said. "Those girls go to finishing schools where they learn to sing and play instruments and speak foreign languages. That's not our place in life."
"Who says?" Cecilia grumbled as she placed the small vases of flowers onto the tables with tablecloths.
"Father Hollenbeck," Angelika said. She looked shocked. "Don't you listen to the sermons when you go to the early services? God determined a place for each of us in this world, long before we were even born."
"Yet some people ended up with better places than others," Cecilia said. "If I feel like I want to learn more things, who is to say that God doesn't want that for me?"
"Father Hollenbeck," Angelika said firmly. "He says that girls shouldn't learn mathematics or chemistry. That would dry up their wombs and they wouldn't be able to have babies."
"As if he would know," Cecilia said.
The massive wooden door of the restaurant opened and the crowd, led by Cecilia's father, a short, bent-over man of about fifty, burst in.
"Cecilia," her father said. "Would you start taking the orders while I fire up the stove?"
The hungry customers started pushing and shoving to get a seat at one of the tables.
"I'll work as fast as I can, Vati," Cecilia answered him as he disappeared into the kitchen.
"Let me help," Angelika said. "I don't have to be home until late afternoon when I have to feed the pigs and chickens."
"Thanks," Cecilia said. "You have to get the orders right, though. Otherwise, the people complain. Vati is an experienced cook, but you have to write what the customers want down for him or he will mix things up."
The next few hours flew by. Vati managed to cook fast enough to satisfy all the customers. His restaurant was famous for good-tasting, traditional, home cooking. The menu didn't contain anything exciting, but the customers knew they would get something familiar that they liked.
By three o'clock, the restaurant was empty. Vati came out of the kitchen and announced, "I'm exhausted. You'll have to clean up the kitchen for me. I need to sleep for a few hours so that I can cook for the Italian workers when they return tonight."
"Will do, Vati," Cecilia said. She was shocked at how fatigued he looked. "Don't worry."
"Sorry," Angelika said. "I have to start for home. It takes me an hour to walk up the mountain to our farm outside St. Märgen."
"You've helped enough," Cecilia said. "Thanks!"
"Your father looked awfully tired," Angelika said as she put on her heavy coat. "How much longer do you think he can keep this hotel and restaurant going?"
"No idea," Cecilia said. "He's been harping about a successor ever since I left school. He wants me to find a hard-working cook and marry him so that Vati can retire."
"You have to marry a cook?" Angelika asked.
"What else?" Cecilia said sadly. "Women only cook for their families. Men cook in restaurants for people who pay for the food. I actually like to cook, and Vati agrees that I'm good at it every time he lets me make some simple dishes, but that doesn't count. I can't ever be the cook here."
"Still," Angelika said. "Your prospects are better than mine. My brother will inherit the farm, and I can either stay on as an unpaid servant or find another farmer who will marry me. I hate farm work. It's dirty, and the animals are vicious." She sighed and left.
Cecilia headed toward the kitchen but stopped when she heard the outside door open. "Did you forget something, Angelika?" she called.
"I'm not Angelika," a deep masculine voice answered. "And I hope I haven't forgotten anything."
A man with a dark moustache stood in front of the door dragging a battered suitcase. He wasn't much taller than Cecilia and looked to be in his mid-twenties. "I'm Luca Carrisi," he said. "The Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways told me they reserved a room for me here."
He smiled, unbuttoned his heavy, winter coat, and took off his ski cap and thick gloves. He looked quite muscular, and his hair was thick, dark, and curly.
Cecilia was surprised because he spoke perfect German, though with a thick Austrian accent. The other Italian workers in her father's hotel only knew a few useful words in German, generally related to food, drink, or washing clothes.
"I'm sorry," she began. "My father does all the reservation work for our little hotel. He was very busy cooking this morning and is taking a little nap. I'd hate to wake him unless it's absolutely necessary."
"No hurry," the man said. "Do you mind if I sit down? I walked here from Kirchzarten because I was only able to get a ride that far."
"No, of course not," Cecilia said. "You must be hungry and thirsty. My father is the cook here, but perhaps I could make you lunch."
"Thank you," the man said. "That would be nice."
"You speak perfect German," Cecilia said. "The other guests we have now only speak Italian."
"I'm from Trento in South Tyrol," he said. "Everyone there speaks Italian and German. The Italians think we're obsessively hardworking Austrians, and the Austrians think we're lazy Italians. We just think of ourselves as South Tyrolean."
"I wish I could speak more than one language," Cecilia said and sighed. "I just know a little of the Alsatian dialect, thanks to my grandmother. Let me see what I can get you for lunch."
She brought him a bottle of mineral water and returned to the kitchen to see what she could find. It would be nice to cook for a real customer.
Yes, there was some pork left over from the schnitzels, also cheese, ham, and spaetzle, those Swabian noodles her father developed a taste for so many years ago during his cook's apprenticeship in Tuttlingen. She fried a plate of cordon bleu with spaetzle noodles and gravy for the new hotel occupant. She added a small plate of corn salad and carried the food out into the restaurant eating area.
By this time, Signore Carrisi had drunk most of the mineral water, and so Cecilia put his plates and silverware down on the wooden table and quickly brought him another.
By the time she got back, he had already eaten half of the cordon bleu. "This is delicious," he said. "Do you make it often?"
"My grandmother in Strasbourg taught me how to prepare her favorite dishes," Cecilia said. "Ordinarily, I only cook for my father and me."
"I'm not familiar with your father's cooking yet," Signore Carrisi said. "But I already think he should let you cook everything."
"Women don't cook in restaurants here," Cecilia said sadly. "Only men can be professional cooks."
"Don't tell my mama that," Signore Carrisi said as he scooped up the last spaetzli noodle in gravy. "She has been running our restaurant in Trento as long as I can remember, and the restaurant is famous for her cooking. She is also of the opinion what women can do anything they choose."
"Well, I'm glad you liked it," Cecilia said.
"And I'm happy that you serve noodles," Signore Carrisi said. "When I signed up to work here, all my friends warned me that I would have to get used to eating potatoes three times a day."
Cecilia had to laugh. "My father doesn't prepare a big variety of different meals, but he fixes more than just potatoes," she said. "So far your colleagues who are building the railway haven't complained."
She noticed that he hadn't touched the corn salad. "Don't you like corn salad?" she asked, pointing at the little plate.
"I didn't want to insult you," Signore Carrisi said. "Do people really eat that? It looks like clover, something we only feed our cows and pigs in South Tyrol."
Cecilia smiled. "It is one of the most popular salads we eat in the fall," she said. "It keeps growing until the ground is completely frozen, which doesn't even happen here in the Dreisam Valley every winter. It's very healthy, and people here love to eat it. I might have poured too much vinegar and oil dressing on it, though."
Signore Carrisi took a forkful from the plate and ate it. "It's a little unusual," he said. "But I think I could get used to the taste. The salad dressing is fine."
Cecilia's father walked into the room. He still looked exhausted. "Signore Carrisi," he said. "Sorry to keep you waiting. We have a room for you."
"I haven't been able to clean up the kitchen yet," Cecilia said. "But I will. I didn't know what to tell Signore Carrisi about his room."
"Right," Vati said. "Sorry. I forgot to tell you that we were getting one more guest. I already fixed up the little room in the back for him."
"Mama's old sewing room?" Cecilia asked. "Isn't that much too small?"
"I squeezed a bed into it," Vati said. "The people from the railway company were desperate to get a room close to where they want to build the first tunnel. Signore Carrisi here is a detonation expert. He's going to blast a hole in the mountain for the tracks to go through."
"Wow," Cecilia said as she looked at Signore Carrisi. "You blow things up?"
Signore Carrisi laughed and finished eating his corn salad. "We've been using dynamite for tunnels through the Alps for quite a while now. I finished my apprenticeship in detonation techniques several years ago."
"Show him the room," Vati said. "I'll see what still needs to be done in the kitchen before the supper guests arrive."
Feeling guilty that she hadn't cleaned up the kitchen at all yet, Cecilia motioned for the new guest to follow her. The old sewing room was on the ground floor, between the kitchen and the backyard.
"The room is very small, Signore Carrisi," Cecilia said to him as she opened the door. "But you have the advantage of having the toilet and bathtub here right next to the kitchen. People in the rooms on the two upper floors have to come down the stairs whenever they want to use the bathroom."
Her mother's former, tiny, sewing room was completely filled with the single bed and clothes closet. There wasn't even room for a chair. However, the light-blue featherbed, pillowcase, and rug on the wooden floor were clean and cheery. Mama had been an expert seamstress and had sewed all the linens and towels for the hotel.
"It will be fine for the short time I'll be here," Signore Carrisi said. "The railway company said they would send more of my salary back to my mother in Trento since they could only find me a small room. But please call me Luca. I'm not old enough to be called Signore yet."
Cecilia smiled. "Gladly, Luca," she said. "If you call me Cecilia."
Then on a whim, she asked, "Could you teach me some Italian while you're here? I always wanted to learn another language."
He laughed pleasantly and started pointing at objects around the room and naming them in Italian. Cecilia loved the sound of his deep voice when he gave such everyday things romantic-sounding Italian names. She had no trouble remembering the new words.
They quickly developed a routine. Every morning when the Italian workers ate breakfast in the restaurant, Cecilia pointed to objects and Luca or one of the others told her what it was called in Italian. Then they left for the work on the railway. In the evening when they returned, Luca pointed to objects to see if Cecilia still remembered the Italian words.
He laughed when Cecilia asked for the Italian word for the mountains of the Black Forest that she could see out the restaurant window. "You call those overgrown hills mountains?" he asked. "In Trento we are surrounded by the Alps, real mountains so high that the snow-covered peaks reach all the way to heaven."
Cecilia couldn't imagine mountains so high that they were always covered with snow.
After a week, whenever Cecilia was done helping Vati clean up the kitchen, she knocked on Luca's door and he talked to her in Italian, translating when she couldn't understand.
"He's teaching me Italian", Cecilia said to Vati each time before she went to Luca's room.
"As long as that's all he's teaching you," Vati grumbled. However, he didn't forbid Cecilia to go to Luca's room. Cecilia wondered if Vati was considering Luca as a possible son-in-law, even though he wasn't a cook.
Soon, of course, Luca did want more than just pleasant conversation. Cecilia was tempted. Luca was so handsome, so much more considerate than the other men she knew. She loved the sound of his deep voice when he spoke Italian to her.
Still, she continued to refuse any serious lovemaking, explaining to him in German so that she made herself clear. "Unwed mothers with their bastard children don't have a good life here," she told Luca. "And you will be leaving after they build all nine tunnels between here and Neustadt."
"There will be other tunnels," he objected. "I have a contract to blast tunnels all the way to Donaueschingen, where the Danube River starts."
"But you won't come back," Cecilia said.
"I don't know what I will do after my contract runs out," Luca admitted. "My mama didn't want me to come here in the first place, and every letter I get from her pleads with me to come home. She says there are plenty of tunnels I could blast through the Alps."
"Would you take me with you to Trento?" Cecilia asked.
"I don't know if you would like it there," Luca said helplessly. "Everything is so different. I wouldn't ever want you to be unhappy."
"Then those are the facts I have to live with," Cecilia said. "Good night." And she left.
Things continued as before. She still went to Luca's room every evening and since she refused any serious intimacies, they talked and talked. The more they talked, the more she admired him. He was a kind and thoughtful man, concerned about the welfare of the other Italian workers. She loved to hear about his home in Trento and about his family there. His family was so important to him.
Cecilia improved her fluency in Italian and Luca told her all about the tunnels they were building for the railway.
First, they blasted a hole to make the short Falkensteig Tunnel. Then they blasted the Lower Hirschsprung Tunnel. The Upper Hirschsprung Tunnel was next. After Christmas, they would blast the long Kehre Tunnel.
On Christmas Eve, the Italian workers all went to Midnight Mass. Father Hollenbeck had insisted that the workers had to be allowed to go to church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, even though they were paid to work seven days a week.
Vati didn't expect any customers in the restaurant on Christmas Day, since everyone celebrated Christmas at home, but he still bought what he needed to prepare meals for the Italian tunnel workers who would have to work after the church service.
On the walk back from the Falkensteig church on Christmas Eve Cecilia asked Luca what he had thought of the service. "It was all right," he said. "I'm used to the German pronunciation of Latin in church services. A lot of the priests in Trento are Austrian. Most of the workers here, though, are from Calabria, the southernmost part of Italy. For them, listening to Latin spoken with a thick German accent makes them even more aware that they are in a foreign country. They are terribly homesick."
Vati gave everyone in the restaurant a free glass of wine to celebrate Christmas, even Cecilia. She went to Luca's room afterwards as usual. Maybe it was the wine or the thought that it was Christmas or the fact that she was falling in love with Luca. This time she didn't refuse Luca's advances; she encouraged them and joyfully gave herself to him.
The next day, of course, she started worrying that she might be pregnant.
When Angelika came to visit on the Feast of St. Stephen, she waited until the restaurant was empty and asked her "How soon will I know?"
"Uh, it depends," Angelika said. "It can take a while to be completely sure, either way."
"You're not being very helpful," Cecilia said. "They start blasting the Kehre Tunnel today, and after that there are only three more tunnels to blast until they get to Hinterzarten. After that, the whole crew will move to a hotel in Neustadt and one month later to Döggingen. Luca will probably only be here for another two months."
"Your father is a good man," Angelika said. "I'm sure he wouldn't make a fuss about a bastard grandchild. After all, you're all he has."
"I'm just so angry," Cecilia said. "Angry at myself."
"That's what I never understood," Angelika said. "I would give anything to work here in this hotel instead of slaving away on a farm and never having any money of my own. Let me help you clean up before the noon customers come."
Angelika was even more skilled at the hotel and restaurant tasks than Cecilia. Either she had a natural talent for it or she just enjoyed the work. Not many customers came at noon, but she took the orders enthusiastically and joked around with Cecilia's father.
On January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, the Italian workers were late getting back from the tunnel.
"I shouldn't have started cooking so soon," Vati said. "Usually the workers are here before dark."
Finally, the parish priest dropped in. "Have you heard the news?" Father Hollenbeck asked. "There has been an accident with the dynamite in the Kehre Tunnel. All the workers are trapped behind rocks and boulders. We'll be meeting later in the church to pray for them."
Cecilia felt a twinge deep inside. She knew. She was sure she was expecting Luca's child.
Everything was ruined. Her life was over. Even though he hadn't offered to take her with him, she knew that she loved Luca, and now he was most likely dead. She didn't want to live without him. But what about Vati? He needed her help in the hotel.
The Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways immediately sent equipment and Italian workers from Freiburg to start digging out the tunnel. When mail arrived for the trapped Italian workers, Vati stacked the letters on the Stammtisch.
Whenever she could get away from her duties on the farm, Angelika walked down the mountain from St. Märgen to help. Cecilia felt dead inside and couldn't even clean well any more.
Four days after the accident Angelika was wiping off the tables while Cecilia stared out the restaurant window. Suddenly, the door opened and a crowd burst in. Cecilia recognized some of the workers. Men she didn't recognize helped them walk in. They were all covered with dust, but seemed able to walk on their own. No one was bleeding.
The last one to walk in, naturally without any assistance, was Luca. He ran over to Cecilia and almost crushed her with a dusty hug.
"I love you," he said and coughed. "The whole time we were trapped in the tunnel, all I could think of was that I wanted to live. I wanted to live the rest of my life with you. I don't want to risk my life blasting tunnels any more, no matter how much money they pay me. Please come to Trento with me. We can get married. You can learn to cook Italian food and help Mama in her restaurant. You already speak better Italian than most people there. You can even plant corn salad and teach people to eat it if you want."
"You're alive," was all Cecilia could stammer. "I was so sure you were dead. I felt sure that you were leaving me."
"Well, your feelings were wrong," Luca laughed.
"How is this possible?" Cecilia asked. "People prayed for you, but I couldn't even do that."
"Well," Luca said. "The Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways will take credit for rescuing us, which they finally managed to do."
Cecilia said. "I love you. I'm so grateful that you're still alive."
One of the other workers was pawing through the pile of letters on the Stammtisch. He brought one over to Luca, who opened it right away.
"It's from Mama," he said. "She writes that I have sent home more than enough money and all she wants is for me to come back with my beautiful bride."
"Bride?" Cecilia asked.
"I've written Mama about you," Luca said. "She already loves you. Please say that you'll come with me."
"I," Cecilia began.
"Don't worry about abandoning your father," Angelika said. "We've been talking and he is willing to hire me to replace you. I'm as good at cleaning and serving as you are, and I would do anything to get away from the farm. I promised him I would keep my eye out for a young cook I can marry."
Cecilia looked at Luca. "I might be pregnant," she said.
His face lit up. "A bambino," he said. "I wished for a child while we were trapped in the tunnel. I wanted so much to live. Nothing would make Mama happier than a grandchild. When can we leave for Trento?"
Cecilia closed her eyes and thought. There were things to organize, but she felt empowered.
"On February 2, the Feast of Candlemas, when everyone takes down their Christmas decorations," Cecilia said. "That's when the holidays end and the perfect time for us to begin our new life together."
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