IN THE SICILIAN SEASIDE village of Siracusa in the summer of 1916, men and boys circled Lucia Medina Cicolina like a flock of horny vultures.
They were only after one thing.
“Fly after one of my sisters! You don’t want me!” Lucia always used to sing.
She had nine beautiful sisters (much to her doting papa’s everlasting dismay).
At first the randy birds swarmed around the other Cicolina girls, but they always flapped back to the one with the corn silk hair and emerald-green eyes.
Lucia Cicolina.
The Sicilian prize.
Some of the suitors offered slaughtered animals as gifts.
A few wrote poems.
Some sang songs.
The handsomest, a mandolin-strumming merchant from Catania by way of Napoli named Manolo Antonio Donato, presented a bushel of the most succulent tomatoes Lucia had ever tasted. While her lips dripped with juice and seeds, he regaled her with tales of a place he called America on the other side of the sea.
He told her America was Paradise.
The Promised Land.
“The streets are paved with gold! The rivers run with milk! The ponds are flooded with honey!”
Lucia laughed at him. “Oh, really?”
“I am going to sail there and plant my tomatoes! I’m going to be rich and raise a great big, happy American family! You’ll see!”
He strummed his mandolin and tried to seduce her with a honeyed rendition of “Santa Lucia.”
Birds fainted out of the sky.
Goats cried.
The wind sighed.
But Lucia felt nothing.
Not that she didn’t try.
One by one, she sniffed and kissed each of her suitors on the lips.
Too salty. Too nasty. Too stinky. Too stiff.
“Soon I will have to choose a suitor for you,” Lucia’s papa tearfully professed.
“Love is for idiots!” Lucia sneered. “I won’t have any of them!”
When true love finally found Lucia Medina Cicolina, it took her completely by surprise.
It happened while she was picking cherries in a crooked tree at sunrise. Reaching for a succulent-looking cluster, her foot slipped, and she dropped into the arms of the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.
A face full of Italian sunshine. Eyes the color of the Sicilian sea.
One kiss was all it took.
Lucia had never tasted anything so sweet.
“Who are you? What’s your name?”
“I am Tino Scarabino.”
“I am Lucia Medina Cicolina.”
Together, they flew down to the ocean and splashed their way into the waves. They fed each other cherries on the beach. They climbed the rocks along the coast and made love in the cliffside caves.
To seal the deal, they danced into Siracusa’s only Studio Fotografico hand in hand and had their picture taken, arm in arm, cheek to cheek, hearts beating like two airborne birds waltzing.
Lucia cooked delectable dishes for the two of them to eat.
Fried cassatelle (ravioli-shaped pockets of pizza dough stuffed with fresh ricotta, orange zest, and bits of chocolate), the most delicious timballo di anelletti (a deep pasta pie stuffed with homemade ziti, meat, and cheese), pasta chi sardi (spaghetti with fennel and sardines), and Tino’s favorite, pollo al forno (breaded chicken thighs, breasts, and legs braised in a stew of potatoes, onions, and Manolo Donato’s succulent tomatoes).
It wasn’t long before wicked whispers about the affair swirled around Siracusa. The salacious stories found their way to Lucia’s papa, who refused to believe them until he followed his daughter to the ocean one day. When he saw her in the arms of Tino Scarabino, when he witnessed what they were doing, he fainted straightaway.
The next day Tino Scarabino disappeared without a trace. (Island whispers told a tall tale of Tino being tied into a rock-filled sardine sack and tossed to the bottom of the Sicilian sea.)
“How dare you bring such shame upon our family!” Lucia’s brokenhearted papa yelled when he found his daughter sobbing in front of the waves. “Tomorrow you will marry Manolo Donato and you will sail away. You are no longer my daughter! You are dead to me!”
The wedding was the most miserable the island had ever seen. Feast-topped tables sadly stretched through the village fruit groves.
Paper lanterns frowned in weeping trees.
The wind died.
The birds stopped singing.
The bride was a despair-filled vessel cinched in satin and lace.
“Look how she cries!”
“Tears of joy!”
“Tears of happiness!”
That night Manolo took what was rightfully his. He pounded into his new wife until she was raw and empty.
The next morning, when their boat set sail, Lucia resolved to jump after Tino into the sea.
But Manolo wouldn’t let her out of his sight. While the ship bucked and rocked, he held her in his arms. He held her tight while he strummed his mandolin and sweetly sang,
Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!