The Last Son’s Secret

by Rafel Nadal Farreras

  The musicians had come to play at a party so, taking stock of the mood in the square, they didn’t think twice before siding with the popular insurrection. They turned their backs on the carabinieri commander, who was still exhorting them to play ‘The Royal March’ with more conviction, and they started up with the first notes of ‘Fratelli d’Italia’ at a lively pace and the crowd burst into applause.

  Angelo was following the scene from the palazzo garden, on the other side of the wall, and when he heard the resounding victory of the Republican anthem over ‘The Royal March’, he crossed himself twice. He had inherited the house when his mother, Angela, died, and less than a month later he had moved in, a clear sign of his aspiration to be recognized as the new Lord of Bellorotondo.

  Just as he was crossing himself the second time, Carmelina arrived. His wife considered the event a huge disaster and, taking advantage of the conflict between the carabinieri commander and the band over the anthem, she had left the official entourage and slipped in through the side door from the square. She was anxious to seek her husband’s opinion. He had stayed in the garden awaiting the arrival of the bishop and the governor. And even then only to be polite, because after the ceremony the dignitaries were invited to lunch at the palazzo and he was in no rush to see them.

  ‘What a disaster! It seems the king has moved the court to Brindisi and everyone’s gone there to welcome him instead.’

  Carmelina’s disquiet was painted clearly on her face and she sought comfort in her husband. She scrutinized his gaze, but found that he too seemed upset.

  ‘Don’t you think you should have made an appearance in the square?’ she asked him.

  ‘This whole event is a mistake, but in any case the mayor and Father Constanzo were there to represent me. What was all that clapping for earlier on?’

  ‘They were applauding the mayor.’

  ‘That’s hard to believe. What on earth did he say to them?’

  ‘Nothing! That was what they liked! He put his speech back in his pocket and just unveiled the monument.’

  ‘For the love of God, I don’t understand a thing: the king moves the court to Brindisi; Il Duce is in prison; the people applaud leaders who don’t speak; the peasants insist on the Republican anthem; and the stupid priest and mayor let themselves be convinced by the veterans to throw a big party for the inauguration of the new memorial to the Great War. Can’t they see it’s a slap in the face to the Germans?’

  ‘It hadn’t occurred to me that the Germans might be offended by such a modest little monument …’

  ‘Well, they could be. In the last war they were the enemies!’ He took a deep breath and continued in an increasingly frightened tone. ‘And as if that weren’t enough, our idiot of a son goes from being a soldier to being a policeman, and starts chasing anti-fascists in every town in the county; our niece Giovanna is coming home to conspire after parading around half of Europe with the International Brigades; and our nephew Vitantonio is a fugitive hiding in the mountains. Both of them are probably communists by now. If the communists come to power they’ll string us up by our balls in the town square!’

  Carmelina crossed herself and invoked the Virgin Mary. ‘Holy Mother of God, don’t say such things!’

  She went quickly into the house and came back out a little while later with two rosaries.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Angelo with an irritated expression.

  ‘Let’s say a rosary for our son. And one for the king.’

  ‘A rosary at the Angelus hour? For the love of God, you’re not right in the head. Our world is falling apart and you bring me a rosary!’ shouted Angelo nervously. He had stood up and was pushing her towards the house.

  She had never seen him like that and she went back to the stairs by the conservatory. When she got to the door, preparing to take refuge in the sitting room, she heard her husband calling her.

  ‘Come back! Maybe we should invoke divine providence: Franco’s fighting with the fascists, Vitantonio and Giovanna have turned anti-fascist, and the imbeciles in town are provoking the Germans. We’re lost. Whoever wins will have something against us. This can only turn out badly.’

  He stretched out a trembling hand towards the rosary that Carmelina was offering him and shrank back into the wicker armchair.

  ‘You start …’ he said.

  ‘Which prayer do you want? The Angelus or the rosary?’

  ‘Let’s do both,’ said Angelo. He crossed himself and began to recite: ‘By the sign of the Holy Cross, deliver us, Lord our God, from our enemies. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen …’

  Then they said an Our Father, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be and an Apostles’ Creed. When they started in on the Hail, Holy Queen, Angelo stopped short. With his voice choked by a sob he was struggling to contain, he announced, ‘Let’s go to Venice, to my sister’s house. The south is no longer safe for us.’ Then he returned to his praying.

  Frightened by her husband’s demeanour, Carmelina kept her hand firmly in her pocket and she kept touching, one by one, all the scapulars and saints’ images she had hidden there.

  They were both surprised by the cook and the maid entering the garden: they wanted to know what they were supposed to do with the lunch they’d prepared in honour of the bishop and the governor.

  ‘Forget about lunch and pray with us,’ ordered the head of the house, about to begin the Angelus. Then, even though it didn’t follow naturally, he recited the Act of Contrition in a trembling voice. ‘O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, who art all-good and deserving of all my love …’

  By this point Angelo was openly sobbing and when he heard himself saying, ‘I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments …’ he started to snivel and had to wipe his nose on his jacket sleeve. He led, one by one, the four Mysteries of the Rosary: Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful and Glorious. And then he introduced the prayer to St Michael and a few others that the servants had never heard before.

  When it was time for coffee after lunch, the mayor and Father Constanzo appeared, trusting that despite the absence of the regional officials, Angelo’s invitation still stood. But as soon as they came in they looked at each other, puzzled: Angelo and his wife were in the garden, sitting beneath the trellis with the servants, reciting psalms from Father Felice’s old breviary.

  ‘Sit down. Sit and pray with us. You’ve really made a hash of things by offending our German friends.’

  ‘To raise the morale of the troops fighting this war we had to properly commemorate those killed in the last one. The old memorial was crumbling …’ the mayor said in his defence, emboldened by the acclaim he’d just received in the square.

  The priest, overwhelmed by the excessive display of religious fervour before him, chose to remain silent.

  ‘Well, you’ve really put your foot in it. You could have waited to see how the war played out … Now, whatever happens, we’re totally screwed!’

  And since they didn’t know what was happening nor what could happen in the future, and they didn’t understand what Angelo Convertini was talking about, the mayor and the priest joined the group and began to repeat the psalms in the magnificent shade of the bougainvillea and jasmine that Lady Angela had planted with her own hands fifty years earlier.

  The next day, Angelo and Carmelina hastily shut up the palazzo, left Bellorotondo and fled far from the south. No one understood what safety they could possibly find in the north, nor why they moved to Venice, which, given its geographical location, was far more likely to suffer the vicissitudes of war for far longer. But Angelo had made up his mind: for some time he’d felt that the townspeople of Bellorotondo were too familiar with him. Venice, on the other hand, was a noble city and he trusted that there everyone would know their place.

  The Landing of the British at Taranto

  ON THE SECOND Sunday of September, Vitantonio waited in vain all day long for Donata to appear for their usual meeting at the shepherd’s hut.
He finally gave up at midnight, left Roosevelt’s cabin with an aching heart and took the road back to Matera, having made up his mind to remain in hiding in the Sassi caves, where he would wait for news of his mother. His arrival back at the cave woke everyone up. They still hadn’t gone back to sleep when another commotion had everyone on their guard.

  ‘The British have landed at Taranto!’ shouted Roosevelt from the stairs, coming in all wound up, forgetting the safety rules and risking a bullet. ‘It sounds like they met with no resistance and they’re heading east and north, towards Brindisi and Bari. They might even have already occupied them,’ he added as he climbed down into the hideout, in an unprecedented state of euphoria.

  Vitantonio and the Englishman might have felt safe in their cave, but with each passing day they also felt more and more trapped and desperate to see action. Roosevelt, the only one of them who could move about freely, regularly went out in search of news. Giuseppe ‘the Professor’ only came by when he could get past the increased supervision that the mayor of Matera had imposed on those in internal exile. They had all been spending their waking hours dreaming that the war would come to Italy and they could finally take part, and the continuing tension had begun to have a dangerous effect on the group’s morale. Until the morning that Roosevelt had come running from Montescaglioso to bring them the good news of the landing.

  ‘The British are chasing the Germans towards the mountains. In less than a week they’ll be up here to liberate Matera,’ he explained. ‘They say that Australians, Canadians, South Africans and New Zealanders have landed too; everyone except the Americans, who they say will land at Naples. I’m really irritated by that,’ he added. And he laughed in that strange way he had of laughing at his own witticisms.

  ‘Americans? English? Who cares who comes to liberate this miserable country! The only thing we care about is seeing some action and finishing off that bunch of bastards once and for all,’ interjected Giuseppe. Before being exiled to Basilicata, the Professor had endured both Mussolini’s torture and prisons. ‘We need to get moving and warn everyone. Let’s meet this evening at the church.’

  ‘You might not care, but I would have liked to fight alongside the Americans,’ insisted Roosevelt.

  He liked to imagine that in New York he had forged a secret bond with the many strangers that he had travelled to work with, and that the moment would come when they would recognize him as a real American citizen and fellow combatant.

  ‘Fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Yanks against the Germans would have given meaning to the ten years I suffered living in America.’

  ‘Stop daydreaming! With Mussolini out of the picture, this is going to happen fast,’ insisted the Professor. ‘The liberation of Italy is going to be a piece of cake and we’d better get moving if we don’t want to miss it!’

  ‘Don’t you have anything to say?’ asked the Englishman, surprised by Vitantonio’s silence.

  ‘Zia hasn’t missed one of our meetings in three years,’ was Vitantonio’s response. He still hadn’t found the right moment to reveal to his fellow cave dwellers that his aunt was actually his mother. ‘Today is the first time she hasn’t shown up. Something’s not right.’

  ‘If the British are making their way to Bari, the roads will be cut off by the fighting. When the front stabilizes, you’ll have news from your zia,’ said Roosevelt, trying to reassure him.

  ‘We need to collect up our weapons and hide out in the forest. When the Germans attack the British, we’ll attack their rearguard …’ the Englishman said, as he began to plan.

  The imminence of action finally got Vitantonio’s attention.

  ‘We might be more useful here, in Matera. The British won’t have an easy time finding their way around the Sassi if the fighting turns into a house-to-house scrap.’

  The Reunion

  THE SOUND OF hurried footsteps that suddenly stopped when they reached the top of the stairs had the group in the cave immediately on their guard. They hadn’t dared move since receiving the news from Roosevelt, afraid they would miss the Allies’ arrival in Matera. They’d been inside the cave all week and it was only their conviction that the British were on their way up to the town that kept them going and prepared for action.

  ‘Vitantonio?’ came a stranger’s whisper.

  They all leapt from their beds and grabbed their guns. They aimed them at the cave’s entrance, trying to identify the figure that was coming down the stairs. Only Vitantonio ran straight over, recognizing the voice he’d been longing to hear all through those years of confinement.

  ‘Giovanna!’

  They hadn’t seen each other for four years.

  Rushing into each other’s arms, they embraced tightly. They touched each other’s faces, backs and hair. And they kissed each other on the forehead and cheeks. They repeated each other’s names out loud, as if chanting a spell.

  ‘Vitantonio!’

  ‘Giovanna!’

  Suddenly, Vitantonio remembered that he had forgotten to ask about his mother. ‘And Zia? Why didn’t she meet me at the hut on Sunday?’

  Giovanna burst out laughing.

  ‘She’s working as a nurse in Bari. Doctor Ricciardi came back from his exile on Lipari and convinced her to go with him and help out in a military hospital. She’s living in an apartment on the Borgo Antico, in one of those streets near the cathedral. Before she left she asked me to give you a message: “Tell your blockhead of a brother that I’ve gone off to war, too.”’

  Vitantonio hugged Giovanna again, lifted her in the air and twirled her around. When he put her back down he held her tightly around the waist and kissed her all over. Giovanna was crying and he couldn’t hold back his tears either.

  Then he remembered the others’ presence and said, ‘Let’s go outside, down to the river.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ spat out the Englishman and the Professor at once. The Germans had been patrolling the city’s perimeter for a week.

  Giovanna hadn’t seen the others in the cave and she jumped.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Friends,’ he reassured her. Then he addressed the group. ‘We won’t run into anyone at this time of day. And the patrols don’t like going down to the river: they’re afraid of the peasants and the cliffs.’

  ‘You can’t risk it. Not today!’

  ‘I’ll be back by dusk.’

  ‘Don’t let him go,’ the Professor begged the Englishman.

  ‘A ddo tres usol’ nà’n tres u nidch,’ added Tatònn.

  Recognizing his voice, Giovanna ran to hug Grandpa ’Nzìgnalèt. She had always liked the grumpy old man who was willing to pour scorn equally on the fascists and the Germans.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ complained the Englishman. He hated it when Vitantonio and his grandfather spoke in the Matera dialect.

  ‘Where there’s sun, there’s no need for the doctor!’ translated Roosevelt. ‘He means that a bit of fun will be good for this young man who’s in love with his little sister.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Vitantonio laughed, pushing Giovanna towards the stairs.

  ‘I don’t know how you can claim she’s your sister!’ the Professor kept teasing him. ‘A beauty like that can’t be related to an ugly monster like you.’

  ‘She’s your sister?’ asked the Englishman, completely mystified. Up until that point he’d assumed they were lovers. ‘This country’s filled with degenerates!’ he shouted in indignation.

  Giovanna and Vitantonio gave each other a look and went up towards the surface, still laughing. They had both just realized that it was the first time they had seen each other since discovering that they weren’t siblings.

  ‘Bell i brìtt s’spòs’ntítt,’ declared Tatònn from the depths of the cave as they were leaving.

  Roosevelt quickly translated. ‘He says that everybody gets married, pretty and ugly alike.’

  Beside the River

  VITANTONIO WAS RIGHT: they didn’t run into anyone. As usual, the Sassi peasant
s had woken up while it was still dark so as to reach the fields by dawn; the carabinieri were still asleep. The sky was clear, but the sun rising beyond the Murgia plateau heralded a muggy day, unless a breeze were to come in off the sea. That year, the summer had seemed to stretch on and on. They made their way down to the ravine along the right side, the more difficult trail, and just when they were almost down to the main path, Vitantonio had a strange feeling and he stopped short. He wasn’t willing to wait to find out what it was; something simply wasn’t right. He moved like lightning, grabbed Giovanna by the waist and pulled her back roughly, covering her mouth with his hand. A second later they heard voices.

  ‘Germans – don’t move,’ he whispered in her ear.

  Peering around the rock, they saw a German patrol follow the road parallel to the ravine and stop when it reached the path. They held their breath, overwhelmed by panic: the Gravina di Matera had hardly any vegetation and there was nowhere to hide except for the rocks. The Germans had halted to discuss something; then they resumed their patrol northward along the path and disappeared behind some brambles. Crouched down, Giovanna was leaning on Vitantonio, and he was now breathing heavily near her ear. They remained still for a while and she finally turned her face towards him. Their lips were almost touching. When she opened them, it was to confess: ‘I’m glad you’re not my brother.’

  He looked into her green eyes, which had hypnotized him even as a child, and trembled slightly. He softly touched her lips, as if tasting her. Then everything happened very fast. He moved his right arm, which was still around her waist, slid it decisively down to her hips, turned her to face him and kissed her with all the passion that had been pent up inside him, without him even noticing, since the day when he was ill and she had appeared in the doorway in that flowery dress, with cherries for earrings.