Vita had grown quite fond of this austere man. She liked the way the straightness of his profile allied to his clean, sharp actions. When he spoke, he spoke with gravitas. Even so, even with his direct line to God, how could anyone know for sure?
‘Watch they don’t think you’re a spy.’
‘Christ, Joe. Don’t do that.’
Perched on a low parapet, legs dangling. ‘What?’
Tongue thick, her brain tumbling with the what to say. He was thin, filthy. Each time she saw him, he was skinnier and darker. He rubbed his nose, bones protruding from his wrist like pearls. His thinness was pitiful.
‘You shouldn’t swear, Dolce Vita. It’s very unbecoming. I thought you’d be pleased to see me?’
He sounded a little pathetic, and it spiked her anger again.
‘What if those Germans see you?’ she said. ‘You being a draft dodger and all.’
‘Me? I’m a local hero.’ He jumped from the wall. ‘So. How you been?’
Vita started to walk downhill, but he was walking faster. The heat of his mouth was at her ear. ‘Here. Do you want to know a secret? I know what they’re doing.’
‘Good for you.’ Cara, I’ve missed you. Cara, how beautiful you are.
‘They’re building a great big wall.’
‘Is that right?’ Don’t make fun of me, Joe. Say something kind.
‘Yup. Way across the mountains. It stretches for miles.’
‘Rubbish. If it was that big, we’d see it.’ She was trembling. All she wanted to do was cry.
‘Oh, but you can, if you know where to look.’ He put his arm through hers.
‘Leave me alone.’
‘Why? What have I done now?’
Vita increased her speed. Everything wound round and up and down here. Barga was a jumble of dusty stairs and thin, shady passageways, of cluttered palazzi and high walls. She headed down a narrow staircase, navigated a pile of rubbish. Still Joe followed.
‘Hey! Dolce! Wait!’
She didn’t know why she was running.
‘Vita!’
Could hear his footsteps echo behind. She ducked under a low arch, but he grabbed her wrist.
‘Vittoria, wait!’
‘What is it? What? I’m late.’
‘Late for what?’
‘Joe, I can’t stand this any more. Why are you here?’
‘I thought this was my home.’
‘How can it be, when you’re never here?’
He took her hand. ‘Because I love it, right? The colour of this place. . . And maybe I’m trying to fit in – but I never do, do I? Your mamma doesn’t think so for starters.’
‘That’s not fair.’
His grip was clumsy. ‘It’s true. Jesus, I can’t win. See in Scotland, I’m the Tally-boy.’
‘Ssh, please.’
Vita’s hands were greasy with sweat. She pulled away from him. Turned the corner, and a line of white sheets filled the alley. They were beautiful, how they bounced and swelled like sails.
‘Then I come to Barga, and I’m a halfling too. Or maybe a secret agent—’
‘Will you stop shouting?’
‘See? Definitely an embarassment – according to my own family. Your mamma turned on me quick enough. Fuck, even my girl runs away from me.’
‘Your girl?’ She seized one of the dancing sheets. ‘You think I’m your girl?’
‘Aren’t you?’
As her anger flamed, that curious sensation came again, of observing herself, of noticing how even her voice sounded cold. ‘When have you ever asked me, Joe? When have you ever even kissed me, or talked to me like an adult? Do you want to know the truth? I think you’re a coward.’
Silence, intensifying. She gazed at her hands: full of damp white linen, creasing fabric some woman had worked to clean.
‘What would you have had me do? Enlist in the Royal Italian Army? Only they don’t exist now, do they? Stick on my kilt and march with the Highlanders?’
There was a harsh edge to his voice she couldn’t bear. ‘What proud Jock wouldn’t have signed up, eh? All those Union Jacks. All those cheering crowds outside, only they were jeers. My mamma in the kitchen, crying. The glass fanlight over the café door. Bastards smashed it. Did you know my papà got arrested, Vita?’
He moved the washing aside so he could pass. Didn’t wait for her reply.
‘Joe, please. I’m sorry.’
‘Hundreds of men like my papà – me too – arrested on our doorsteps. Strip-searched, jailed. Sent to a concentration camp, only we’d not to call it that. Internment, they told my mamma. She was clutching her heart, Vita. Clutching her heart and crying in our own front room. Stop your hysterics, woman! I heard them shout that as they put us in the van.’
‘Oh, Joe.’ Wanting to unsay it. Wanting to comfort him, to run her finger along the side of his face. But she was afraid.
‘Took us all the way to the Isle of Man, so they did. Nice beachfront hotel, ringed with barbed wire and dogs. Ten to a two-bed room. Papà kept begging: Is my wife all right? Please, she doesn’t keep well. Paid good money to see the commandant. They told us she was fine. She was, then.’
Sunlight dazzled. They had reached the wide crossroads at L’Alpino. An ambulance idled there, the driver with the window open, watching the world through cigarette smoke. When the man saw them, he sat up, ground his cigarette against the side of the van. He signalled to Joe, a slicing motion across his throat.
‘Look, I have to go.’
She caught his arm. One or both of them were shaking. ‘Joe, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.’
The engine revved, and the back door opened. Another man peered out, sporting a red beret. ‘Ho! Gelato Boy!’
‘Who are they? Is that who you’ve been hanging out with? Bandits?’
‘They’re not bandits. What’s it to you anyway?’ Joe ran across the road, barely looking back. ‘I’ll see you, Dolce. Maybe.’
He threw himself into the rear of the ambulance before it sped away, lights flashing. Too bright. Too loud. She squeezed her eyes shut for a minute and leaned her hand against the wall of the bar. When she looked up again, she saw Sergio, waiting at the top of the Giardino, with his donkey and cart. Vita walked over.
‘Did you see them?’ she asked, absently scratching the donkey’s muzzle. There was a ringing in her ears.
‘Who?’
‘Those men with Joe. Ciao, Andromeda.’ She could feel a pain behind her eyes, ringing and pounding, as if she’d been standing close to bells. She pushed her face into the donkey’s fur.
‘Ach, child, I’m too old to be seeing anything much. Now.’ He climbed down. ‘You promise you’ll be careful with her?’
‘I promise.’
‘She likes it if you sing.’
‘Signor Bertini, I will guard her with my life. Is your appointment not at quarter-past?’
Poor Sergio was getting the last of his teeth pulled.
‘Sì,’ he said mournfully. ‘And you’ll come back for me at six?’
‘I will. My mamma says to say thank you very much for this.’ She swung herself onto the cart.
‘Watch you don’t tug her mouth—’
‘Grazie, Signor Bertini. Grazie.’ Vita clicked her tongue. The cart creaked off, drowning out Sergio’s instructions.
It seemed half the valley had come to Barga-Gallicano station, bringing their rolls of bedding, their squawking chickens, their goats and dogs and children who were weaving through the throngs, clumps of soldiers, families embracing, weeping. As many folk leaving as arriving; so hard-crammed you could barely move, and the noise a physical pulse. At least Vita’s head had stopped ringing. Gone dull and heavy; a not-quite ache that spread to her jaw.
Joe wasn’t a liar; at least, she didn’t think he was. So, Mamma had been right. The Allies were their enemy. Scottish policemen had locked her family in a jail. Scottish people had smashed up their shop. She felt sick. Sicker still for what she’d yelled at Joe. She flinched
as a whistle shrilled. The stationmaster stood at the front of the platform, shouting at a woman. ‘I told you. The train’s not going to Piazza al Serchio. It’s stopping here, then straight back to Lucca.’
‘But that’s no good to me. One train a day, and you can’t even run the proper route?’
‘Signora, it’s no good for any of us.’ The stationmaster pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘But it’s not me machine-gunning the tracks. Now, are you getting on or not? Be grateful anything’s moving at all. There might be no more trains this week.’
He clutched his whistle, moved on. Vita tried to get past two women and an old man sitting on a bench, but their suitcases cluttered the way.
‘Permesso?’
They ignored her; focused on the train, on a teenage boy at the edge of the platform. He was swaying slightly, and wearing only a vest and muddy trousers. A brace of German soldiers moved towards him. It was such a casual saunter; they were chatting, lightly holding their rifles as they might a baby. No sense of wariness: a person could easily have ambushed them and seized their weapons. Yet the crowd parted to let them through. These neat foreign soldiers, occupying their station. Folk coughed. Looked away. They lowered their heads, and looked away.
‘This is not your land,’ said a young boy beside Vita. ‘Tedeschi.’ His mother smacked the back of his head.
‘Mah.’ The old man got unsteadily to his feet. Leaning on a walking stick, he picked his way across the platform. ‘Meine Herren. Can you help? I think I’ve lost my ticket. Do you have more tickets?’
It seemed as if the hordes had suddenly grown even greater, a high tide of people swelling, putting distance between the boy, the old man and the Germans. Vita was distracted by another voice.
‘Papà, I can’t.’
A young soldier was hesitating, one boot on the train, the other planted on the platform. He wore the feathered cap and emerald flashes of the new Monterosa. It was Pietro from Albiano. Jittery Pietro, who used to speak with horses, who had a plan to grow sunflowers and make better oil than any olives. ‘Please don’t make me go.’
The German soldiers were laughing. Wringing their fists, one of them pretending to cry. She watched Pietro’s father pull his son’s head towards his own, until they were brow to brow. Heard him say: ‘You are no coward, son.’
Then Pietro nodded. Broke away, and was swept onto the train with the other boys. What she’d said to Joe; it kept repeating, over and over, like these seethes of people. But it was true. Boys who’d been injured, boys like Pietro – they still had to fight.
Vita didn’t want to look at Pietro’s father. She was here to meet her mamma’s cousins, come all the way from Rome. Except she’d no idea what they looked like. She searched for a woman and two small boys. Mamma had already claimed Vita’s room for them. So many folk here she didn’t recognise; the station was all steam and bobbing heads, battered suitcases, a girl dropping a potted plant – a plant, you would bring your aspidistra all the way from Rome? Another lot of soldiers moved towards the train. These wore black shirts. Red fasces on their tunic lapels, and death heads on their breasts. Brigate Nere. Shiny and sharp, the soldiers broke the air around them with metallic vigour, their steps ringing like tin cups on the platform. They were the kind of swaggering men at whom her mother beamed, and her father scowled. Any Fascist who had fled was back, bigger, bolder – and this new force of soldiers had arrived with them. The Black Brigade.
‘Hello! Vittoria? Hello there!’ A small, fat woman waved through a cloud of steam. Two little boys emerged alongside. ‘Cousin Vittoria?’
‘Carla?’
She seized Vita, kissing her once, twice, thrice. ‘Oh, dear Vittoria. You look so like your mamma.’
For that, cousin, you can carry your own suitcases.
Carla’s powdered face was sheened with sweat. ‘Dario, Marino, say hello to Vittoria.’
They were only babies; both boys pink and curly, as if they’d stepped from a Botticelli canvas. The smaller was clearly exhausted. Nudged by his mamma’s hand, he stumbled into the path of one of the Brigate, who shoved him back to his mother again, harder. Caught off-balance, the little one trod on the soldier’s boot.
‘Ho, stupido! Watch the polish, you!’
The sugar-mouse cheeks flared red. Dario burst into tears. Small legs bowed, the crying releasing his whole pent-up little frame. A stream of piss hit the platform, splashing upwards, Vita moving backwards, away from the mess, Carla fussing her son. Laughter from the watching soldiers. The older boy, Marino, set at them like a terrier. ‘Shut it! Just shut it or—’
‘You’ll do nothing,’ Vita whispered in his ear. The soldier who’d pushed Dario stared at her, his mates catcalling, whistling. He had a stupid, soft face, made hard by the scar across his lip.
‘Come on.’ Vita steered her cousins to the exit. ‘Let’s get you home.’
Sergio’s donkey was chewing the vine that grew up the front of the station house. She’d managed to pull off a hunk of plaster too. A lush frond hung either side of her muzzle; it made an impressive moustache.
‘Horse!’ Dario ran to where the donkey was tethered.
‘She’s called Andromeda. And she’s a donkey. Watch she doesn’t bite. Right. Up you go.’ Vita tried to lift Marino into the cart. He went rigid. Carla was way behind them, lugging cases.
‘You need to sit down.’
‘You should have kicked that soldier! He made Dario pee his—’
‘I know. I’m sorry. You were really brave. But it’s best not to argue with the soldiers.’
‘Why? If they’re bad?’
‘Because. . . can you just please sit down?’
She put Dario into the cart beside his brother, only touching him under his arms. Mamma was worried about ‘Roman diseases’ and fleas. Well, now she’d have the perfect excuse to scrub these kiddies Catagnana-clean.
There wasn’t room in the cart for everyone. Vita was halfway into the driving seat when she noticed the tremble in her cousin’s hand. Carla’s coat shifted open – she was wearing her winter coat in summer. Two cardigans underneath and a dirty blouse, and the bones, the bones of her neck like blades. A body held together by face powder and air.
‘Here,’ Vita said. ‘Andromeda’s a lamb. I’ll walk. You take the reins and I’ll hold her bridle.’
Carla made a non-specific half-gesture. ‘Oh, no.’
‘Please.’ She helped Carla up, then clicked her tongue at the donkey. Andromeda sighed her whiskery sigh, plodded on. They crossed the road behind the station. More tedeschi had parked their truck on the diagonal. Vita tried to guide the donkey round them.
‘Nein! Nur rechts.’
‘Scusi?’
‘Go right.’
‘But we need to go this way. It’s just up—’
The soldier was insistent. ‘Strasse geschlossen.’
‘Why? Look, I don’t want to go left. I just want to cross, then go straight up. Up, ja?’
‘Is closed.’
You couldn’t see his face beneath his helmet, just the chin, thrusting out.
Carla was anxious. ‘Just do what they say. Please.’
‘Oh, for Godsake. We’ll have to go all the way round. It’ll take ages.’
‘Vittoria?’ said a small, steady voice from above. It was the older one – Marino.
‘Yes?’
‘I thought we hadn’t to argue with the soldiers.’
It was a long, slow climb to Barga. Vita’s breathing synchronised with the donkey’s, willing her not to stop. If the laden cart pulled them backwards. . . well, it wouldn’t. Not with Vita pulling and pushing her on. The wheels made a rhythm of clunk and roll, like a slow, creaking train. She thought of the train taking all those boys away from Barga, and her cheeks ached. Would it not make you want to fight? The unfairness? The anger? Would someone putting handcuffs on your father not stiffen your resolve? Joe should have told her. She pressed under her eyelids, expecting tears, but none came.
&nb
sp; In the cart, her cousins were very quiet. Vita looked up. ‘How was your journey?’
Carla’s eyes were closed. ‘Long.’ A tiny shivering shake. ‘My goodness.’ She sat up, brightly. Stroked Dario’s curls. ‘I didn’t expect it to be so busy here. We thought we were coming to the peace and quiet of the country, didn’t we, boys? Are there many. . . people like us?’
‘Refugees? Yes. They’ve started coming in from everywhere – Pisa, Viareggio.’
‘But no war?’
‘No. Plenty planes flying over, but no war. Though they have started firing at the trains. You were lucky you made it.’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it hard?’
‘Hard?’ Carla echoed. Frowning at Vita as if it was some foreign word she’d used. ‘We were under siege for half a year.’
‘Sorry. No. Of course. I meant, was it hard to get out? To escape.’
‘Not really. The Nazis left, the shooting stopped and we managed to get on a train. And that train took us to one station, then we walked for miles, then another train, and so on.’
Two suitcases in the cart. Carla’s husband had been killed last year. So that was it, those cases. That was her salvage. Vita saved her breath for the remainder of the climb. The road wound in bends, Carla hopeless at navigating Andromeda round its steep corners. Vita nudged the donkey with her hip, the boys cheering her on. At last, they entered Piazzale del Fosso. Here, at the top of the tortuous hill you’d just scaled, your eyes were drawn away from the view, and onto the towering, upward spring of Barga’s walls; their blank, lofty importance hinting at grand palazzi and the Duomo beyond.
‘Are we here?’ Carla wiped her brow.
‘No, sorry. We’ve the same again to go yet, to get to Catagnana.’
Marino leaned in to whisper to his mother.
‘Ssh, darling. It’s fine.’
‘But I’m hungry.’
‘Am hungry too!’ cried Dario.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Carla. ‘We’ve been travelling for so long. And there wasn’t much time.’ Mouth slack, face powder crusting at the corners.
They were five minutes from the Canonica.
‘Come on, folks,’ said Vita. ‘Click her reins again, Carla.’
The Sound of the Hours Page 7
