Street Boys

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  The tiny cellophane packets landed on the ground like hard rain pellets. A Nazi plane flew low over the city, opened its bomb slots and scattered thousands of chocolate caramels on the abandoned streets below. Vincenzo stared up at the moonlit sky, candy falling around him as if in the middle of a winter storm, his arms spread out, speechless at the eerie sight. Connors sat on an embankment, his rifle in both hands, looking down at the assorted candy that now lay littered across the full spread of the museum roof. He didn’t move, his eyes frozen on the pieces resting by his boots, his mind awake to a horror he was too frightened to even imagine. “How soon can you get word out to the streets?” he asked Vincenzo.

  “They don’t need to hear it from me, American,” Vincenzo said, turning to look at Connors. “They can see for themselves.”

  “They can see the candy,” Connors said. “But they won’t know not to eat it.”

  “You think they would poison it?” Vincenzo’s happiness quickly dissipated into terror.

  “You know them better than I do,” Connors said.

  Vincenzo looked down at the candy spread around his feet, pieces bouncing off the sides of his legs and back. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

  Connors bent down, picked up a caramel and held it out to Vincenzo. “You want to prove me wrong?” he asked.

  Vincenzo ran for the door that led down the stairs and out of the castle. “I’ll need help,” he yelled over his shoulder. “We’ll warn the ones hiding in the tunnels first.”

  “I’ll drive,” Connors said, running past Vincenzo and down a narrow flight of steps. “You just say where.”

  “It should take a half hour to spread the word,” Vincenzo said. “Maybe less since they’re not dropping any bombs.”

  “What they’re dropping is a lot worse than any bomb,” Connors said, taking the steps two at a clip. “Remember that now and remember it tomorrow when it really starts to get hot.” He stopped as they both entered the large ornate castle hall and grabbed Vincenzo by the shirt. “In fact, if you’re half as smart as you act, you’ll never forget what you saw tonight. It might help keep you alive.”

  Vincenzo slowly nodded his head, lines of sweat running down his forehead, his upper body shivering, leg muscles tight and weak. He stood in place, watching as Connors ran past him, heading for the jeep he had left parked in an alley alongside the castle. For the first time in his life, Vincenzo Scolardi had glimpsed the true face of his enemy and was left with a taste of his own fear.

  35

  PIAZZA BOVIO, NAPLES

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1943

  Connors and Vincenzo stood in the center of the square, their backs to the Fontana del Nettuno, looking at the small army of children, their hands crammed with the candy that was falling, as if by magic, from the sky above. Across from the gathering were the remains of the Palazzo della Borsa, the heart of the Neapolitan stock exchange. Both Connors and Vincenzo had raced like a crazed pair through the empty city streets, warning all those in hiding not to eat the candy. Instead, they were asked to grab all that they could and bring them to the Piazza Bovio, where the pile was now high enough to fill Neptune’s basin. Many of the children pleaded for just one piece, their empty stomachs immune to the harsh words of warning that were being shouted at them. “How do you know for sure?” one innocent voice pleaded with Vincenzo. “You only think they’re poison. You don’t really know.”

  “They want it to look like kindness,” Vincenzo explained, still shaken by the night’s events. “They know we’re hungry and scared. They want us to think they’re our friends. But look around. Look at what’s happened to our lives, our homes and our families. Those are not the acts of a friend. Only an enemy would do such things.”

  “Maybe only a few of them are poison,” another boy shouted out. “Some of the candies might be good to eat.”

  “And how will you choose the safe one?” Vincenzo asked.

  “So what do we do with all the candy?” a voice from the back of the crowd shouted.

  “We leave it here, in the center of the piazza,” Vincenzo said, pointing to the fountain at his back. “To remind us of our enemy.”

  A tall, lean boy in an ill-fitting cotton shirt and torn pants stepped forward, his hands in his pockets, eyes on Vincenzo. “You’re wrong,” he said in a loud voice that carried through the huge square. “You and the American are afraid of the Nazis, it clouds the way you think. I say the candy is good and is safe to eat. Letting it sit here and go to waste while we walk around with empty stomachs is foolish.”

  The boy moved toward the mound of candy lying inside the dry fountain dedicated to the glory of Neptune. Connors brought his rifle to his side and held it out toward the boy. “What will you do, American?” he asked. “Shoot me? For wanting some candy? If you do that, then you have us wonder who is the real enemy. The one who drops candy from the skies or the one who kills to stop us from eating it?”

  “This is not a good time to turn stupid,” Connors said. “Think it through, slow and clear. If you do that and come away still able to tell yourself candy is worth dying for, then don’t look for me to stop you. I’m not making it my decision anymore. That call belongs to you now.”

  Connors lowered his rifle and moved away from the pile. “You can’t let them eat the candy,” Vincenzo whispered to him.

  “I can’t shoot them, either,” Connors said. “And I don’t know any other way to stop it.”

  The boy stepped forward, past Connors, his eyes fixed only on the sweets spread around him. He bent down, reached into the fountain and picked up a thick piece of caramel. He brought the candy up toward his face, smiled and began to peel off the thin wrapping.

  “Don’t eat that one!”

  Connors and Vincenzo both looked toward the crowd when they heard Maldini’s voice. “Have what’s left of Roberto’s candy. He can’t finish what he took.”

  The boy dropped his caramel and, along with Vincenzo and Connors, turned to watch the crowd part and Maldini walk past. He was carrying the body of a dark-haired, shirtless boy, his head resting against the older man’s chest, his loose hand still gripping the candy wrapper. Maldini’s face was red from the horror he had seen and the anger he could no longer control.

  Maldini stopped in front of the boy, stared deep into his eyes and lowered his head toward the body of the child he held. “Forget the candy,” he said in a softer voice. “And come help me bury our friend.”

  Maldini turned and walked down the darkened streets of Naples, the gathered boys following close behind him, their heads bowed, their voices silenced.

  36

  SAN DOMENICO MAGGIORE, NAPLES

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1943

  It was the church where Saint Thomas Aquinas once sat and prayed. On its walls, spread through five ornate chapels, hung some of the richest and most beloved artwork in all of Italy, including Teodoro d’Errico’s masterful Resurrection and Roberto d’Odorisio’s Maddonna dell’Umilta. It is a church that houses the body of the first Catholic bishop of New York, who died in Naples within days of his consecration. On a far wall of one of the chapels hangs a reproduction of the Crucifixion, the drawing of Christ long-rumored to have spoken to a penitent Saint Thomas. But on this night, it was a church whose floor was filled with boys, their heads bowed in prayer, their hopes for a future clinging to the isolated wishes and the desperate dreams that theirs was a destiny that could bring defeat to an army fueled by hate.

  Large votive candles were lit in every corner of the church, bringing forth a warm glow to all the shadows that knelt before the main altar. Through cracks in a ceiling built to withstand the age of centuries but not the force of bombs, a steady rain of poisoned candy fell on the marble floor, their insistent patter ignored by all of those in the church. Maldini knelt in the front row, the body of the dead boy at rest on the top step of the main altar. Nunzia was next to him, one hand thrust under his shaking arm. Next to the body, a thin boy with an oval face sang the words to the “Ave
Maria,” his voice filled with a passion he would normally have been too young to possess. Connors and Vincenzo knelt on the other side with little Fabrizio gripping the soldier’s arm, his eyes frozen on the body of a boy his own age. Next to him, the bullmastiff spread out, his massive girth squeezing them all into a tight row.

  They stayed there for as long as they could, finding comfort inside the walls of what had always been a haven, even for those least likely to seek forgiveness.

  They knelt, prayed and sang until the sun rose and brought a fresh day to a battle-weary city.

  BOOK

  TWO

  Courage is to feel

  The daily daggers of relentless steel

  And keep on living.

  —DOUGLAS MALLOCH

  THE FIRST DAY

  1

  VIA TOLEDO, NAPLES

  SEPTEMBER 28, 1943

  The first blast from the tank shattered the weathered walls of a building that had stood since the sixteenth century. The second sent shards of brick, glass and mortar spilling into the clear morning air. Two German soldiers tossed grenades through the cracked windows of an empty storefront, causing the already weakened structure to collapse. A young, lanky junior officer lifted the top lid of his tank, gave a furtive glance down the empty street, and waved on three other tanks that were idling behind the smoldering turrets of his Mark IV.

  The tanks motored past and stationed themselves on the right-hand side of the wide boulevard, each surrounded by six armed soldiers, two brandishing flame throwers. The sunny silence was shaken as they fired one destructive shell after another into the facades of the wobbly buildings that remained. The two soldiers armed with flame throwers moved inside the smoldering homes and offices, thick pockets of dust clouds wrapping them in their mist, and torched what little was left. “Leave them with nothing,” the young officer shouted to his men above the din, his tank slowly moving past them. “Only when you can see clear through to the next street will you be free to move forward.”

  The second hand on a clock in the middle of a medieval tower that rose above the area, just two streets north of Via Toledo, slowly inched forward, its bells ringing out the start of a new hour. It was eight o’clock on a warm Tuesday morning and the final destruction of Naples had begun.

  Connors and Vincenzo were huddled inside an apartment doorway, a long thin hanging curtain separating them from the edge of the smoky street. Connors parted the curtain with the end of his rifle and stared out at the tanks, firing shell after shell into the gaping holes of the buildings that lined Via Toledo. “Looks like they’re splitting the division four tanks to a street,” he said.

  “How many soldiers?” Vincenzo asked. He was on his knees, an old hunting rifle by his side, holding two wine bottles filled with kerosene and topped with torn rags.

  “Thirty-five, maybe forty,” Connors said, sliding his head out for a better look. “That’s counting the ones inside the tanks.”

  “Will we have the time we need?” Vincenzo asked, resting the bottles next to the rifle and looking up at Connors.

  “It depends on Maldini and Franco,” Connors said. “If they get there at the right time and are where they should be, we have a good chance. But right now there’s not a sign of them.”

  “Don’t worry,” Vincenzo said. “They’ll be there. They have no other plans for this morning.”

  The tanks were now targeting a string of row houses several hundred yards down the wide avenue, flames rising toward the sky, thick plumes of smoke offering a soft blanket of cover. Connors stepped away from the curtain, leaned down and grabbed one of the wine bottles. “You wait here,” he said to Vincenzo. “I’m going to try and get closer. Keep your head down and don’t make a move until you hear the signal.”

  “With all these explosions going off I might not be able to hear anything,” Vincenzo said. “What then?”

  “Look to me,” Connors said. “I’ll tell you when to move.”

  Vincenzo nodded as he watched Connors push aside the curtain and head into the dirt, soot and danger of Via Toledo, running with his head down and his body in a crouched position, rifle at the ready. Vincenzo sat with his back against a chipped stone wall, barely hidden by the edges of the curtain. He rested the rifle on his legs and stared out at the carnage being waged on the street. He looked across at the nearby buildings where there was still no sign of either Maldini or Franco, then back down the avenue, peering into the thick smoke, Connors now a shadow amid the debris. He closed his eyes and laid his head against the moist wall.

  It was then that he heard the footsteps.

  They were thick-soled and heavy, coming down at him from the cobblestones to his rear. Vincenzo stiffened and gripped the rifle with both hands, one finger gently poised on the curve of the trigger. He slid deeper into the doorway, making sure the curtain hid his entire body. He stayed back and watched the blur of the footsteps pass, a breeze slightly unfurling the curtain. He waited until they had moved farther past him and then quietly brushed aside a corner of the hanging drapery. Through the smoke and haze he glanced at the person who seconds earlier had been close enough for him to touch. He rose up to his knees, let the rifle fall to the ground and felt a slow panic set in.

  The footsteps belonged to young Angelo.

  The boy was dressed in an all-white communion suit and he lit up the dark street like a low-watt bulb. He had his hands folded behind him and a wide smile on his face, his mind unfazed by the sounds and dangers of the loud explosions and the collapsed buildings. He was an open target stepping onto a field of battle and there was little that could be done to stop his advance.

  Vincenzo watched the boy walk into the thickness of the brown maze, Nazi tanks positioned to his left, soldiers spread out across the avenue, their focus on the homes and storefronts. He looked for Connors hidden away in a remote hallway and searched the smoky skies for signs of Franco and Maldini. Vincenzo braced himself against a side of the wall, his breath rushed. He wanted to stop Angelo, but didn’t know how without risking detection. He should have told the boy to hide and not given him any false hopes of being able to help in their fight. Instead, he had wrongly given Angelo the impression that he was of value to their cause. As a result, a boy who should have been far removed from any danger zones had now stepped into the center of a killing field.

  Vincenzo ran along the side of a building, crouched down, his eyes tearing and his throat raw from the influx of smoke. He needed to get to Angelo before the Nazis caught sight of him. He would use the burning mist as an ally, making him invisible to the armed soldiers standing only a short distance away. He reached the far corner of the building, eyes searching through the haze for the slow-thinking boy. There was an eerie silence on the street now, the tank fire quieted, the flame throwers at ease, the sun fighting to break through the thick envelope of smoke that engulfed them all. Vincenzo saw Angelo standing alone in the center of the street, his arms by his side, German soldiers with their backs to him, only a heave of a stone away. Vincenzo ran from the building, moving to his left and stopping against the side of an abandoned cart. He picked up a small rock and threw it toward Angelo, hoping to get the boy’s attention. The rock landed just in front of Angelo and caused the boy to turn around, his eyes squinting into the smoke, a wide smile, as always, lighting up his face.

  Vincenzo stepped in front of the cart, waved his arms in the air and saw Angelo nod his head in his direction. Vincenzo put a finger to his lips, begging the boy to stay silent, praying that he would simply walk over toward him and safety. “Vincenzo, sei tu?” Angelo asked, breaking the silence, his voice an echo off the cracked walls of the nearly ruined street.

  The German soldiers turned as one as soon as the words were spoken. They raised their guns and pointed them at the back of the white suit, a perfect target on a sun-drenched morning. “Alt,” one of them said, his word a dare as much as it was a command. Angelo turned from Vincenzo and looked across the way at the soldier. For the first ti
me, he seemed to notice the Nazi uniform and his smile quickly faded. His battered mind flashed on the fallen bodies of his dying parents, beaten by the butt ends of hard rifles, and he rushed with arms spread out toward the soldier.

  The soldier raised his rifle to eye level, took a quick measure of his target, and fired two rounds into the center of Angelo’s chest, thick patches of red quickly coating the front of the white suit. Angelo clutched at the wound and fell to his knees, turning his head back toward his best friend.

  His bloody hand waved in Vincenzo’s direction before the German fired a third time.

  The bullet hit Angelo in the neck and sent him sprawling, dead, to the ground.

  Vincenzo stared at Angelo’s body, trembling, as the return fire came from out of a collapsed building to his right, four bullets taking down two German soldiers, including the one who had killed the boy. From the rooftop above, he heard the church bell ringing, the signal that Maldini, Franco and the rest were in place. The Germans aimed their guns toward the houses and the rooftops and began to fire. Their tanks inched away from the buildings, switched gears and headed down the center of the street, firing shells as they went. One hard blast landed two stories above Vincenzo’s head, bricks and concrete crashing down around him. But he didn’t move, his body frozen, his eyes looking down at the body of a boy he had promised to protect.

  Maldini ran out of a building behind where Vincenzo stood, a wine bottle with a lit fuse in his hand. He tossed the bottle at an approaching trio of soldiers and then made a jump for Vincenzo, grabbing him around the waist and dragging him back into the alleys leading out of Via Toledo. They turned a corner and hid against a cracked stone wall.

  Above them, from the remaining rooftops, two dozen street boys stood and let loose a heavy rainstorm of kerosene cocktails and cylinder tops of the unexploded bombs that had been collected, watching them crash and explode on the tanks and soldiers below. Connors came up from the rear and fired two rounds at a German soldier carrying a flame thrower. The soldier landed facedown on the ruined soil of Via Toledo, then Connors unhooked his belt and pack, slung his own rifle over his shoulder, and picked up the flame thrower. He raced toward the tank taking up the rear of the German attack and jumped on its side. He steadied himself, took a quick scan of the action around him, soldiers falling, bottles exploding, cylinders landing with explosive thuds against the base of the tanks and snapped open the lid. He hung the circular head of the flame thrower in the mouth of the tank and set loose its power, torching those inside. Smoke and screams rose out into the sky.