‘Chap,’ said Comanche. ‘Go get some fresh air, my friend.’
‘We’re in the fresh air.’
‘Well, go breathe someone else’s air for a minute, yeah?’
Comanche had been doubly promoted: PFC first, then leaping over Frank to corporal. Frank was glad, he honestly was. There’d been a bunch of promotions after Seravezza, commendations too, but Frank hadn’t covered himself in glory. He’d barely survived. No, son. You Bearly survived. Bear had found him clinging to an overhang of rock. The fear had got to him. It wasn’t the Krauts, it was the height; an angry blast of vertigo spinning his brain, so the fall had seemed more alluring than the climb. It was Bear who unprised his fingers, who shoulder-shoved his ass, bawling, bawling, until Frank was thawed enough to shift.
‘What can I do, sarge?’ he’d asked afterwards. ‘Next time. We’re in mountain country.’
‘Don’t look down. And have someone you trust behind you. Another sergeant would’ve shot you, baby bear.’
Least he and Bear were cool again. Frank still hadn’t forgiven him for Lucca. But he knew Vita hadn’t been duped. She would have walked over broken glass to get to her momma; Bear simply offered a smoother path.
He lit a Lucky Strike. He never did go to her nonna’s house. Sure, he took a crate of food with him, tins mostly so’s they’d keep, plus as much fresh stuff as he could purloin (the quartermaster did deals with the locals: fresh greens for army sweaters). Frank went there all right, ready to knock on the grandmother’s door. Was one doorstep away from the blackened bell-pull when he’d glanced at his wrist as it flexed towards the button. The colour of him. The line that sliced dark to light. To Vita’s nonna, he was a Moor, an enemy on several fronts. Along with wonder, Frank saw the filthy looks the Buffaloes ignited. The cusses and forked cornuto fingers. The grandmother couldn’t speak any English. How could he explain where her granddaughter had gone; it would be too upsetting, she most likely wouldn’t eat the food; he was talking himself into this being the only practical solution. Kidnap someone’s little girl, and leave a basket of cookies. His momma would be proud. But that’s exactly what he did. Left a crate of food and a scrawled note. Slunk away. He figured Vita’s sister could translate.
Dear Vita’s nonna, please accept this food from the US Army. Vita is very very safe (he underlined the verys) and she tells you PLEASE not to worry. She has gone to Barga and will be home soon.
He had signed it: ‘A friend’. For ‘friend’, read ‘dick’. The woman would be frantic with worry. But Vita was resourceful; she would get a message to her grandmother. If she’d made it home.
She would. She had to. The girl was smart.
No fucking way was he going to the 366th. Being with your buddies was the only endurable thing about this piece-of-shit war. With every advance the Buffs made, the front was shrinking to a smaller, denser field. Both sides playing volleyball by hurling bombs, but one side was pushing, pushing against the net while the other side got crammed against an unforgiving wall, all that concentrated fury trashing everything on the court. Yeah, it was a crap analogy. Frank was an athlete, not a poet. But it was what he drew in his journal; a bouncy image in which to hold the chaos. Vita, and thousands like her, were caught someplace in between. He’d asked Bear if the transmitter had been used yet, did OSS know these things, could he ask Dedeaux, could he find out maybe? Gently, Bear had tugged on Frank’s ears, touched Frank’s forehead with his own.
‘OSS don’t exist. And neither does that dame of yours, nor that little black case. You mention it again and I will skin your ball-sack to make me a pair of winter mitts.’
The skies were no longer warm. The air had a sharp, iron tang to it now. Frank blew a smoke ring. Perfetto. The ring floated in a halo, over a mountain flanked by towering, pewter clouds. Guns thumped on in the next valley. Constant, heavy bore through the ground beneath your feet. They called it the death rattle.
‘Buonasera.’
Comanche perched on the rock beside him. ‘Spoke to Bear. He says to ignore Dedeaux. Just keep your head down and your mouth shut. We’re getting trucked out in one hour anyways.’ He lifted the cigarette from Frank’s mouth, took a drag.
‘Yeah. Where to? Venice?’
Frank helped prepare the nightly maps meant to clarify enemy positions and Allied gains. Communications flew between local command posts and divisional command; you would expect there to be a cohesion to all this activity. Yet frequently, the Buffs would find themselves on the brink of reaching some town they’d been aiming for, then get pulled back miles and miles, ordered to make for some other random point instead. Reason for these abrupt changes never came. Ensconced in the hotels of Viareggio, Fifth Army Command’s ambitions knew no bounds. Nor sense.
‘Relieving the Brazilians,’ said Comanche. ‘Out near that Lama Ridge?’
‘So where they headed?’
‘Fuck knows.’
Frank was fascinated by the Brazilians; that easy blend of black and white slick-smart troops who spoke Portuguese and fit with everyone. The Italians loved them, the Yanks loved them. And they seemed to love themselves too.
‘Gonna be right on the Gothic Line. Some place called Barga? You heard of it?’
Frank’s mouth went dry.
‘Between us and the Bosch they been blasting fuck out the place. Christ knows what state it’s in. But it’s of stra—’
‘—tegic importance.’ They finished the sentence together.
‘But, more important than that,’ said Comanche, ‘it’s sock day! Ain’t nothing can’t be cured with a fresh pair of socks, my friend. Hey!’ He nudged Frank’s elbow. ‘You OK?’
‘Sure.’
‘Well, come on, sock-buddy. Let’s boogie.’
Frank ground the Lucky Strike beneath his heel. Veins fizzing. The Buffs were going to Barga.
Chapter Twenty
October 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26
Vita ran her finger along La Limonaia’s kitchen wall.
When the Axis soldiers left Barga, there had been one week of peace. The occasional German patrol would return to forage the ruins like feral beasts, then slink back to their hillside lairs above Sommocolonia, and on the mountains all around. People blinked. Emerged. They thought about rebuilding.
The partigiani moved in, Tiziano taking the reins, a new Commissario, he wore it well. Then, as quick as it came, the eerie peace was broken. Partisans put down their rifles and raised hammers instead, smashing or prising off every mention of Fascism, tearing those angular posters from walls. Men were beaten, women sheared. Vita overheard Renata’s name mentioned as Lenin and Puccini searched La Limonaia for scissors. ‘No,’ she told them. ‘You do not touch her.’
‘She was at a party—’
Vita had removed her scissors from Lenin’s grip. Deliberately drew the point of the blade across his fist.
‘You. Do not. Touch. My cousin’s wife.’
‘Calm down, girlie. I presume when Joe called you Dolce Vita it was ironic?’
‘Ironic as your beret, amico.’
She took no part in retributions. A fortnight after the Germans fled, and Barga was occupied again. Vita couldn’t have left even if she’d wanted to. Occupied or liberated, it didn’t matter, the song remained the same. The overture: a cheering crowd welcoming the troops; this time, the multi-hued Brazilians, who tooted horns and rode on trucks adorned with pictures of the saints. They threw coloured sweets as if it were a circus, told everyone to stay indoors. Why, when they were free? Except they weren’t.
The Brazilians ousted Tiziano – though he insisted they were working in partnership. The timpani resumed. The Brazilians were a magnet. And the pounding bombs began.
October 27, 29, 30, 31
Thudding from every side, directly onto Barga. They were in the crossfire of a music which had no conductors. Worse than it had ever been, because now it was on top of you. You’d fall asleep to the double-bass of shelling. Wake to the cymballing of bullets. And endless, end
less rain. Some local men got to work on patching up the aqueduct, and were shot by German snipers. Three barghigiani died when their homes were hit by shells. Days later, six more perished. A few more days, and you almost stopped counting. Except Vita did not. She wrote them on her kitchen wall. All the days the bombs hit.
November 3, 4,5 – cannonball on Duomo
It was her way of staying sane.
Shelling camposanto (can’t even rest in peace).
She’d scribbled this, then thought it crass. But it would look less bold if she scratched it out, and Vita was earning a reputation for boldness. She was running a partigiani safe house, for Godsake, right under the noses of the enemy. There were too many tedeschi on Lama di Sotto ridge for the mountain bothies to be safe any more. But La Limonaia was tucked in the overhang of a halfway hamlet, at the end of an empty road. A couple of contadini with hoes, a shuffling man with a cart of hay? You’d expect to find these folk on a farm track.
The partigiani said Vita should return to work at the Canonica. ‘It’s ideal,’ Lenin said. ‘But keep living up here. Means you can move freely between Barga and. Catagnana, no matter who’s in charge. We can use that. Plenty food stashed at the priest’s house too, I bet. You can swipe some of that for us.’
‘There’s not actually.’
Lenin waved a dismissive hand. ‘And you’ll get the gist of Comune meetings – especially now they’re shutting Tiziano out. Eavesdrop on the Monsignor too. Find out which side he’s on this week.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Isn’t it?’
Today, then. She would go back to the Canonica today. She picked up the sack by the door. The rain had stopped, briefly, but the damp remained. It dripped from rocky outcrops, fell inside her clothes. Patched zoccoli were no barrier against the sodden forest. But the old pair of Papa’s trousers she had belted tight? Who knew a seam cut through cloth could be so liberating? Vita loved the clean flap of fabric as she strode, no petticoats to encumber progress. Walking with purpose lifted her spirits. Moss glistened, trees were strung in jewels. The earth smelled new. She heard a voice inside her say: Another dreich day, Dolce Vita.
No, she thought. I can’t face another dreich day.
Guilt came, mingled with the sadness that happened when she woke or washed her face or stepped in a ray of watery sun. Always the waiting pit. She had tried to write to Cesca, many times.
Darling Ces,
Mamma is dead. Joe is dead, and Carla and the boys, and the Tuttos and probably Andromeda too. Papa is in Germany and I am here. I love you and I miss you. God willing, I will see you soon. Look after Nonna.
V x
Vita hefted the sack onto her shoulders. She never sent any of the letters. Touching the paper hurt. Everything was raw. Things you didn’t even know were there would lurch and trip you unawares. So she shrank into herself. Whenever an unguarded memory stabbed her, she taught herself to shrink more. She found it useful to wear her mother’s ring. When the world got too bright or boisterous, it was a point on which to focus, condensing everything to one small circle, which she could weigh and hold. It allowed her to shut out every other distraction. Because grief, loneliness – these things were distractions. They didn’t keep you alive. If you laid out what was lost in some infinite line, to try to make sense of it, it reared up to strike you like a whip.
Sometimes, she made herself go even smaller, until she was inside the iron band itself, and the band was round the whole of her; sometimes it became the spinning cylinder in which Joe had made gelato. Cold, dark metal wrapped in ice, with Vita safe inside.
Leaves skirled at her ankles. Above, a clear hollow of sky was framed by dark branches. She felt the familiar, soft give of earth; then the forest floor began to rumble, before the artillery boomed behind Lama di Sotto ridge. A staccato of gunfire in retort. Couple of kilometres off, at least. She was getting good at judging distance. If you waited too long, the fear of walking anywhere could paralyse you.
It was good to be busy. To focus on the hour before you, and nothing more.
Vita slowed as she approached the swollen Corsonna. The rubble from the blown-up bridge lay where it had fallen, an island of broken stone creating two rivers from one. At first, you could ford it, using the debris as stepping stones, but the autumn rains had made the river much deeper and faster. The Brazilians had erected one of those temporary pontoons to get their trucks across. Helpful for the locals, but it also meant Ponte di Catagnana was a target, an ideal narrowing where, from the German vantage points above, enemies could be picked off one by one. It was crucial, when approaching, that you looked as civilian and unthreatening as possible. Even then, you crossed with your heart raging harder than the torrent below you.
She picked her way over the swaying bridge, waiting for the mosquito-whizz of a bullet. It was fine. All quiet; so quiet you could hear your own breath ease through gritted teeth.
Barga was caked in brick dust. Some of the modern villas were still intact; others had been blasted flat. Cinema Roma nestled within a film set, where facades and walls stood with empty air behind. Trucks packed with Brazilian soldiers passed her, along the rubble-strewn roads. There were so many. It wasn’t the normal movement of supplies; it felt like another evacuation.
Ponte Vecchio hadn’t been repaired, so she had to go the long way, up by Porta Reale. More Brazilian troops marched through the old town, moving down the streets in squads. They carried full knapsacks as well as rifles, tin cups clinking in time with their boots.
When she saw the Monsignor again, Vita wanted to cry. He looked thinner. Of course, she didn’t need to appease him; he received her as he always did, with one raised brow and a tiny sigh. His spine no longer seemed ramrod straight when he stood, but he embraced her, whispered, Welcome home. And she held on to him until the threat of tears had passed, and they could be normal again.
‘Pantaloni, child? Really?’
‘They are practical and serviceable, Monsignor. Like me.’
The Conservatorio had become a barracks and a hospital of sorts, too full of humanity in which to breathe or think properly. There were Brazilian officers and refugees sleeping in the basement of the Canonica as well, beside the wounded. But the upstairs and the kitchen remained the Monsignor’s domain. And it did feel a bit like returning home. The nuns hugged and petted her. Vita was given Brazilian coffee, then put to work. They were using the Monsignor’s study to sort out clothes for those who’d been left with nothing. There was something nostalgic about the nuns’ fastidious approach to compassion. It was almost fascista: checking lists, counting garments, assembling appropriate bundles.
‘It’s the only way to make it fair,’ said Sister Agatha. ‘Two jumpers per child under ten, one jumper and a coat for the rest. Or just a jumper if we run out. And they only get them if they have a chit.’
The nun’s belly rumbled as she bent to fold a large blanket.
‘What time is it? Have you eaten today, Sister?’
‘Me? No. I am sustained by prayer and hard work.’
‘Why are the bells not ringing?’ It dawned on Vita: she’d been there for ages, in the lee of the Duomo, yet not a single doleful clang had sounded.
‘Mah. The Brazilians told the Monsignor to suspend them. All the bells. And the organ. Clocks too. They think it encourages spying.’
‘How?’
‘They believe some barghigiani are sending signals to the Germans. Coded in our bells. I ask you.’
What a genius idea. Too late for the partigiani to adopt it, unfortunately.
Vita had brought a load of stuff from La Limonaia: dresses, shirts, any old children’s clothes she could find. At least five pairs of yellowing bootees. It seemed her mother was a terrible one for preserving baby wear. She could feel the nuns’ hesitation as she smoothed and folded the contents of her family’s wardrobe.
‘Might as well let some poor soul get the use out of these.’
Trousers spilled over jackets and dres
ses, legs and sleeves curled in empty apostrophes. The flatness and the perfumes of the jumbled garments were terrible. Deft, decisive, her fingers barely touched the various fabrics as she divided them into big and small. She wanted them squashed into bags and gone. Her hand turned over a calico shirt; it was a small thing, made with a deep hem for letting out. She shook it open, and an embroidered blue rabbit danced on the yoke. It was the nightshirt Dario had slept in.
The Monsignor’s desk began to shake. Then a deep, low sound filled the room, not especially loud, yet it seemed deafening, far closer than the thuds behind the mountains. The force blew the study window open, shattering a pane of glass. Sister Agatha seized Vita’s hand. Began to recite the rosary. Vita could pinpoint the bang exactly, to a fizz of firework light, and the magnificent circles of blue, green and yellow that flared as the mast of a power-line cracked down outside.
Falling missiles punctuated their hours and days, every one of them like a hard, banging punch. It was difficult to describe the complexity of sound when the bombs came. Exploding thunder and whistling kettles, screaming air and chiming glass. Afterwards came human sounds, and the low crackle of flame licking the debris clean. The war did not discriminate. Ambulances, schools, farmers in their fields.
The nuns stood immobile, waiting for the noises to summon them. But the power-line must have been the only target, for it remained quiet outside.
Bombs and dynamite. Scarlet blood and spurted cries. Actual, lethal firepower held a strange energy. In its aftermath you got this wild, invincible rush – you were vulnerable, yet you survived. Such a clever energy; they must pass it down in their marching and their songs, so that, when the old made war for the young to fight, they passed them this energy too. Vita tingled with it now. Alive on the frenzied energy of not being dead. She regarded her hand, her brown fingers, Sister Agatha’s pale ones and the white calico beneath. If there was nothing but a brief, brutal life ahead, surely you should live it?
The Sound of the Hours Page 24
