AT FRANCESCA’S FUNERAL, Donata Palmisano presided next to Lady Angela and no one batted an eye, because by now they all considered Donata part of the Convertini family. When she entered the church of the Immacolata, she held little Giovanna and Vitantonio by the hand and she didn’t let them go throughout the entire funeral. Two hours later, at the Bellorotondo cemetery, they still hadn’t been separated: standing before the Convertini family vault, at the highest and most central part of the graveyard, they held hands tightly, heads bowed and fearful. Donata and Giovanna were dressed all in black, Vitantonio in a white shirt that contrasted with his mourning tie and armband.
Everyone came over and gave their condolences to Donata as if she were the deceased’s closest relative. Then they gently touched the children’s faces or ruffled their hair and started to cry. The small, helpless twins awakened a compassion in those rough, calloused Puglian farmers that they wouldn’t have allowed themselves in any other circumstances.
After the funeral, Donata went over to the Convertini brothers and kissed them one by one. First, Angelo, who had taken Antonio’s place at the sawmill and had become heir to the family fortune after his death. Then she kissed Matteo, Marco, Luca and Giovanni, known as ‘the four evangelists’: all four had studied in Bari, married there and stayed. Matteo worked with his father-in-law as a shoemaker; Marco was a lawyer; Luca worked at the Banco Popolare; Giovanni was an engineer, but he had just set up a chemical company with his brother-in-law from Otranto and was about to move there. She also kissed young Margherita, their sister, who had married the son of a Venetian notary and gone to live up north, mirroring in reverse the journey her mother had made years before. Lastly, she went over to Lady Angela. The two women looked into each other’s eyes for what seemed an eternity to Donata. Finally, Angela Convertini put her hands on Donata’s shoulders, pulled her towards her and kissed her twice on each cheek.
Still holding both children’s hands, Donata turned to leave the cemetery. The three of them moved forward with small, hesitant steps through the groups of neighbours who were discussing the tragedy in sombre tones. The crowd opened to let them pass, and when Donata and the children reached the gate and began walking up the long avenue lined with cypress trees that led to the centre of town, everyone found it perfectly normal that Vito Oronzo Palmisano’s widow, a poor peasant girl from Matera, had left with the two children of Francesca, the widow of the eldest son in the wealthy Convertini line. Nor were they surprised when neither the twins’ uncles, nor their aunt, nor their grandmother Angela, the true head of the family, moved to stop her.