The letter came from her husband on the last day in May.

Nola,

Your crazy sister Sabina arrived in New York, and I curse her coming. Better she had died at sea and been fed to sharks than have brought such grief and humiliation to my brother. On the day that Mario arrived in New York to marry her, after a week on a damn train from Colorado, he found that Sabina ran off with a strange man. You caused this. You had that trollop write to my brother, knowing that I never liked her. Now, that puttana is somewhere in America at Mario's expense. He sent her a great deal of money for the voyage and her trousseau. It turns out the shameless slut is also a cunning thief. She should be hanged. I'm disgusted with both of you.

Luca

The next morning, Nola stepped from her doorway to join her sister Marianna in the line of village women on their monthly trek to the river with their laundry.

"Nola," whispered Marianna under her breath. "How could you come out looking like that? Your hair looks like a rat's nest. You know these women gloat when they think you're unhappy."

Nola did not answer her sister as she balanced a large, heavy basket of linens on her head with the aid of her hands. This forced her and the other women to parade with regal carriage down the steep, stone street steps of the mountain village to the river below. More women joined the procession as they emerged from both sides of the parallel rows of attached, two-story stone dwellings. The wide street steps between the houses created passageways for the women as steps and homes sloped down the mountain. The closeness of the shadowed buildings did not allow for much privacy, and inhabitants knew their neighbors' business. Gossip flourished and became entertainment for the secluded locals whose strict moral codes, severe class system, earthy lusts, and hard lives occasionally provided sequels to the village's tragic history.

Nola remained silent as she trudged down the stone steps, her face showing the weight of her burden. However, it was not from the laundry but from the wrath of her husband and betrayal of her sister.

"Nola, speak to me," Marianna whispered again. "Your silence speaks your sorrow."

"Marianna, you read the letter. How could Luca hurt me like that?" Her choke-filled words vanished into the thunderous roar coming from the river.

"I know that letter hurt you, but Luca's anger was toward our sister and what she did to his brother."

"I always knew that girl was crazy."

"Nola! Sabina is not crazy. Frivolous, perhaps. Spoiled."

"What she did was criminal, and you know it."

The hundreds of steps ended when the women reached the valley and a dirt road led them to the shore of the Orfenta River. Padding their knees with their long, full skirts and aprons, the women knelt and lathered their clothes over huge rocks scattered at the edge of the riverbank. Although separated in space, the women sang together the love songs of their ancestors, and as one song ended, someone started another so that there was a continuous flow to the music.

These women dressed in dark-colored skirts and blouses, cooked alike, and even baked the same crusty bread, borrowing the starter dough from one another when a mishap destroyed a batch. Nola did not always conform to custom, especially in dress and hair. She preferred lighter-colored linens and a softer bun rather than the heavy hues and severe buns that seemed to be the village uniform. This day, clumps of auburn hair flew about in disarray while she lathered a linen sheet on the huge, smooth rock. Around her, the women continued to work and sing while Nola anguished over her husband's scorching letter. "Oh, Luca," she whispered, "not even a loving word from you. That's what I need in your letters to give me hope." There had been no joyful salutation. Only "Nola" and the heart-wrenching words that followed

True, Luca had written to her, requesting names for Mario, who wanted to marry someone from their village. Sabina had seen the letter and insisted on writing to Mario. He wrote back, and they fell in love through their letters.

"That Sabina," Nola whispered as she sat back on her heels and closed her eyes. "She was born selfish." She looked up at the bright Mediterranean sky. "Please, God, don't let Luca desert me over this. Don't let me be the next sport for the gossip mongers." She struggled to pull out the rest of the heavy, water-soaked sheet to lather, and she remembered the last night that she and Luca lay on the cloth — five years ago, when he came back from America for a month's visit.

He had said, as he gazed at her body with those dark, penetrating eyes, "Nola, you rival those marble statues in Rome."

She had smiled and stroked his face. "You think I'm like stone?"

"Oh, no! Your flesh is like the softest, cream-skinned beauties of Rome."

"How do you know about ..." Luca had kissed her. The question, like many others she had concerning his two-year service in Rome and then later, when he was away in America, went unanswered and unresolved.

Nola gripped the sheet, recalling how she clung to her husband five years ago when the schoolmaster woke them in the middle of the night and warned Luca of an imminent arrest. "Luca," he had said, "the Fascists will arrest you in the morning for talking against Mussolini. You must escape tonight or face prison." After only one week's stay, Luca was gone, unable to take his family back with him to America as planned.

Each time Luca left her, she was pregnant: Carlo, conceived during Luca's military service in Rome in 1920; Gino, before Luca went to America in 1921; and Alissa, that fateful week when he returned, and left again, in 1928.

"Why must love bring such pain and suffering?" she asked the relentless river.

Her unhappy state brought to mind Glorita, whose husband in America deserted her after two years. Deprived of funds, Glorita became the mistress of Cristoforo Costa, the village lawyer. And like the other villagers, Nola looked forward to the latest gossip about the lovers. Now, for the first time, Nola had compassion for Glorita. She felt in league with her and understood the despair the woman must have suffered when her husband abandoned her.

"Mamma! You crying again?"

The child's shrill voice broke Nola's trance. She swung around the bank to face her four-year-old daughter who had run ahead of her to the river with the other children.

"Alissa! Why are you sitting there? Go play with your friends."

The child's mouth quivered. She sprang to her feet, glared at her mother, and ran toward the youngsters who played hide-and-seek near the power mill.

"Oh, Alissa. When will your father meet you to see how pretty you are?" In a fury, Nola pushed the sheet back into the river and plunged the large, heavy cloth in and out of the water with both hands until it was rinsed and she was spent. The women around her continued to sing, and as their song trailed to the end, someone started "Campagnola Bella," the passionate love song to a country maiden, which was a favorite of Luca's.

Meshed with the children's lilting laughter, the symphonic sounds of river and chorus rose in waves from the valley to the village above, soothing the old people sitting at doorsteps, the men working on sloping fields, and the older children studying in school.

Gradually, the singing faded as each woman finished her wash...