Our Darkest Night

by Jennifer Robson

  She led them up the stairs and stood aside as Nico and the father of the little family helped everyone up the ladder.

  “Here is the lamp, but keep the flame low,” Nico cautioned. “There is a chamber pot, and I’ll bring food and more water in the morning. Try to sleep as much as you can. We’ll be on our way again as soon as night falls.”

  The ladder was pulled up, the trapdoor fell shut, and soon there was silence.

  “I’ll go down and fetch in my father,” Nico whispered. “I won’t be long.”

  Nina changed back into her nightgown and returned to bed, her mind brimming with questions, her heart tight with fear. She didn’t need to be told who the refugees were fleeing. She didn’t need to be told what would happen if they were found.

  She was afraid for Nico, too, and his family, and not only because of the people who now hid in the granary. They would be gone in a day, but she would stay on. The mere fact of her presence was enough to doom every last one of them, and never mind that they were unaware she was a Jew, and very nearly a stranger to Nico, and not truly part of their family. The Germans certainly wouldn’t care when they executed Nico as a bandit, consigned his father and brothers to labor camps, and stripped the farm of every animal, tool, and scrap of food. They wouldn’t think twice about leaving Rosa and the children to starve.

  Nico came back into their room, his footsteps soft and measured, and doused the light straightaway. He unlaced his boots, toed them off, and then got into bed, his movements slow and deliberate, his body facing her.

  “I don’t dare undress,” he whispered.

  “Who are they?”

  “Best I don’t tell you.”

  “They’re running from—”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that what you do when you go away?”

  “Yes. And the reason I’m not telling you everything isn’t because I don’t trust you. I do. But it’s safer if you know as little as possible.”

  “Is it a usual thing to bring people here?”

  “No—this is only the second time I’ve done it. I know it’s dangerous. I know I’m risking the lives of the people I love the most. Tonight, though, and the time before . . . it was the only way. I had nowhere else to go. There were too many of them to take to the rectory, and I needed someone to see to their injuries.”

  “There’s a doctor in Mezzo Ciel, isn’t there?”

  “Dr. Pivetti is a dyed-in-the-wool fascist. He’d turn us in and sleep all the more soundly for it.”

  “What does your father think? Rosa?”

  “Do you think my sister would let me do this if she didn’t agree?”

  It was almost enough to make her laugh. “True enough. Though I can’t help worrying that my being here puts all of you in danger. I think we should find somewhere else for me to go.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true. You shouldn’t have to risk so much for me. What have I done to deserve such kindness?”

  “It isn’t something you’re expected to earn, Nina. You have the right to be safe here. This is your country as much as it is mine.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you for looking away,” she insisted. “I would understand.”

  A whisper of movement, then his fingertips brushed across her forehead. So gentle. So kind.

  “You might forgive me, but I could never forgive myself. If I were to stand aside, I’d be no better than those who persecute you.”

  “I heard it on the radio tonight. The manifesto.”

  “Yes. And even worse . . .”

  “Tell me,” she implored.

  “There have been roundups. Not in Venice, not yet. But elsewhere they’ve been arresting all the Jews they can find. Last month in Milan, Turin, Rome. Last week it was Florence. The people they arrest are put on trains. Some they send to the camp in Fossoli. The others . . . I don’t know. We don’t know where they are sent.”

  “Mamma and Papà—”

  “Are where you saw them last. Can you hold on to that? If only for tonight? You need to sleep—we both do. And in the morning we’ll talk more.”

  In seconds the peace of sleep overtook him, and she was left alone with her thoughts. He wasn’t her husband. He wasn’t her lover. He was, instead, her beloved friend. A man who ought not to exist in a time such as this. And what had she done to deserve the kindness he had shown her? Why had she been rescued when others were pursued, captured, imprisoned?

  There was no reason for it. Pure chance had led her to Mezzo Ciel, to this farm, to this man. A stroke of fortune alone had saved her—and the same fortune might just as easily consign her to oblivion.

  How was she to sleep, to rest, with the weight of such knowledge pressing down upon her? And how might she learn to live with it?

  Chapter 12

  30 November 1943

  I’ve the last of the ironing to do this morning,” Rosa said to Nina after breakfast. “While I’m busy with that, you and the girls can go to the store for me. We’ve two dozen eggs. That should be enough to pay for everything.”

  “With eggs?”

  “How else would we pay? With gold? Don’t worry—Signor Favaro will be fair with you. He’d better, or I’ll have something to say about it. Here’s my list.”

  Nina hadn’t yet gone to the store; that task usually fell to Rosa or Aldo, who tended to be late returning because he liked to stop at the osteria for a glass of wine with his friends. Only on Sundays did Nina ever leave the farm, and that was only for Mass.

  The day was gray and cool, but the girls skipped along as if the weather was perfectly fine, and in a matter of minutes they were crossing the piazza. Compared to a Sunday morning, it was almost deserted, with only a handful of people coming in and out of the shops, and the osteria still shuttered.

  Nina and the girls had just passed the fountain at the piazza’s center when a car drove past them, circled the square, and parked in front of the carabinieri station. It was big and dark, as sleek and predatory as a panther, and the sense of unease it awoke in her was only bolstered by the black pennant of the SS that was affixed to its fender.

  “That’s a German car,” Agnese said fearfully. “Why do you think they’ve come here?”

  It was the first automobile Nina had seen in weeks, apart from the occasional delivery lorry trundling past the farm. And she couldn’t think of a single good reason for a Nazi officer to be paying a visit to Mezzo Ciel.

  “I expect they’re lost,” she fibbed, not wishing for the girls to worry. “That’s probably why they’ve stopped. To ask for directions.”

  Agnese was unconvinced. “But Papà always says Officer Dagosta can’t even figure out how to find his own nose, so how—”

  “Hush!” Nina insisted. “You know better than to talk like that in public. Besides, we need to hurry. We don’t want Rosa to be cross with us for taking too long.”

  The sign for Fratelli Favaro was inconspicuous, a small painted plaque above the door, but the shop itself was impossible to miss, its exterior flanked by garlands of baskets on ropes, sheaves of brooms and mops, and neat towers of stoneware crocks. Inside, the shop’s walls were tiled with shelves that rose to the ceiling, each packed tight with wares for sale. Food and grocery goods were at the front on the left, where a white-aproned Signor Favaro stood behind a shining walnut counter, while household items and hardware were to the right, and fabric and ready-made garments were at the very back. That was Signora Favaro’s domain, and if there was a second Favaro brother, as promised by the sign, he was absent.

  The shopkeeper offered a broad smile as they entered. “Good morning, Signora Gerardi. My felicitations on your recent marriage. How may I serve you this morning?”

  “Good morning, Signor Favaro. I have a list of items that my sister-in-law prepared.” She handed him the list and, in response to Agnese’s nudge, set the basket of eggs on the counter.

  “Good, good. Let me see,” he said, setting a pair of spectacles on his nose. “‘Eight egg
s of lamp oil, six eggs of washing soda, four eggs of cheesecloth, a spool of black thread and another of white if six eggs is enough. Otherwise only the black thread.’ Yes, that is quite in order.”

  He busied himself gathering the requested items without any further comment, as if paying with eggs rather than lire was entirely to be expected. The girls stood quietly beside her—their manners really were faultless—and together they waited, watching Signor Favaro as he bustled about. All the while, though it was almost impossible not to look out the window and see what was happening with the German car, Nina forced herself to remain still and silent and in so doing set a good example for the girls.

  The door opened and closed, a flurry of footsteps sweeping past so quickly that she didn’t have time to turn and see who had entered. The newcomers’ voices carried, however, and it was impossible not to hear what they were saying. Especially since they were talking about her.

  “What do you think of her? That Venetian girl Niccolò went and married?”

  “Such a timid thing. Have you seen the way she clings to his arm on the way in and out of Mass?”

  “Imagine what Rosa has been saying. I mean, you can just tell from looking at her that she hasn’t the first idea of how to do anything.”

  “What was he thinking?”

  “He wasn’t using his brain—that’s for certain. Typical man. They see a pretty face and pfft—they’re done for.”

  “That’s Papà’s awful cousin and her friend,” Agnese whispered. “Don’t listen to them. If Rosa were here she’d tell them off.”

  “It is true, you know,” Nina whispered back, and she added a smile so they wouldn’t worry. “I didn’t know a thing about cleaning and cooking and all the things you already understand so well.”

  “Maybe at first,” Angela admitted, “but you’ve learned a lot already.”

  “And I think they call you the Venetian girl because they’re jealous,” Agnese added. “None of them have ever been to the city. None of them have ever seen the sea.”

  “Have you?”

  “Not yet, but Nico says he’ll take us to the seaside after the war. To the Lido.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Agnese. We’ll all go. We’ll sit on the beach and go swimming and we’ll eat gelato in every flavor there is.”

  “I’ve never had gelato. Is it nice?” Angela asked.

  “It is very nice. Of course you don’t want to eat it too quickly or it will make your teeth ache, and too much of it will upset your tummy. But on a hot day there is nothing better.”

  She hadn’t been to the Lido for years. Not since the racial laws had come into effect and Jews had been banned from the beach there.

  Signor Favaro came hurrying back with their things, and if he’d overheard the conversation between his other customers he gave no sign of it. “Here you are, signora. Mind you don’t let the bottle of lamp oil tip over.”

  “Thank you, Signor Favaro,” she said, and she made sure her voice was loud enough to carry all the way to the back. “Good day to you.”

  The car was gone from the piazza when they emerged from the store, and as she and the girls walked home Nina resolved to let the exchange in the store fade from her mind. The important thing, of course, was that they knew nothing of Antonina Mazin. They only knew of Nina the Venetian girl, the hopelessly citified featherbrain who had turned Niccolò Gerardi’s head and was a burden to his entire family. That was the story people would remember, and it was an interesting and believable one as stories went.

  The basket was heavy on her arm, but if she carried it Agnese and Angela could skip and run and enjoy themselves for the few hundred meters that stretched between them and a day of chores. They were bright girls, both of them, and ought to have still been in school.

  And to know they had never seen the sea. If only she could gather them up and fly through the air to the seaside and buy them gelato and show them how to paddle in the water. If only, indeed. It was almost December, for a start, and the sea was ice-cold, and she had not a single lire in her pocket. Nor did she possess wings.

  “Nina! Nina!”

  The girls came pelting back along the road, their faces ashen with fear.

  “What is it? What is the matter?”

  The girls dragged her along, the basket bouncing painfully against her hip, and then they came around the curve and all three stopped short at the unwelcome sight of the car from the piazza, the Nazi officer’s car, which was parked in the very middle of the farm’s courtyard. Of its occupants Nina saw no sign, but Rosa was standing just outside the kitchen door, Selva a tightly restrained presence at her side.

  Every instinct she had told her to flee—to drop the basket and run into the fields, as far as her shaking legs would take her, before it was too late. Yet to do so would be to abandon the girls and Rosa.

  “What is happening?” she asked, her voice pitched low, as soon as she reached the other woman.

  “I’ll tell you in a moment. Girls—inside.”

  A German officer had emerged from the gloom of the stables and was striding toward them. If she’d met him under different circumstances, she’d have judged him an average sort of man, with an ordinary build and a pleasantly boyish face, his hair a medium shade of brown, his eyes an irresolute blue. One of those harmless types who never quite managed to work up the courage to talk to the prettiest girls at parties.

  She could not separate him from his Nazi officer’s uniform, however, nor could she forget the pistol that was holstered at his hip, nor the two soldiers who now stood a few paces behind him. There was nothing harmless about any of them.

  “Good afternoon, Obersturmführer Zwerger,” Rosa said evenly. “I’m sorry I was inside when you arrived. How may I help you?”

  “You know very well that I’m here to see your brother, signorina. He and I are old friends, after all.”

  Only with the greatest difficulty did Nina resist the urge to turn her head and goggle at Rosa. Nico was—had been—friends with this man?

  “My brother is away.”

  “Away? On what business?”

  “Helping our cousins slaughter the pigs,” Rosa lied. “He should be back in a day or two.”

  A faint look of distaste crossed the man’s features. “I see. Yet it was my understanding that he left the seminary in order to help your father with the farm here.”

  “He did.”

  “For a man whose presence is so essential to the operation of this establishment”—here his face contorted into another wincing sort of frown—“I am surprised he is so often away. This is, as you know, the third time I have come to call and found him absent.”

  “Our uncle died last year. Our cousins need Niccolò’s help. Shall I tell my brother you were asking after him?”

  “Certainly,” he said, and then his attention turned to Nina. “Who is this?” he asked idly. “Yet another cousin?”

  “No. This is my sister-in-law. Niccolò’s wife.”

  “You’re his wife.” He looked her over, his gaze assessing and openly contemptuous. “His wife,” he repeated, and still he did not look away.

  “Yes,” she managed, though her throat was tight enough to choke her.

  “Congratulations on your marriage, Signora Gerardi. Your very recent marriage, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask how you met?”

  “It was by chance. In Venice.”

  “You are from Venice, then?”

  She only had to stick to the story. Add nothing. Merely answer the question he asked. “Not originally, no. I grew up in Padua. I was only there for my schooling.”

  “Schooling?”

  “I was training to become a nurse.”

  “And your family? Was it not difficult to move farther away from them?”

  “My parents are dead.” Awful to say such words, but far safer. “I had no one left back home.”

  “You have known Niccolò for some time?”

  What ha
d they agreed upon? Had they ever discussed that part of things? What ought she to say?

  “It was a whirlwind romance,” Rosa broke in. “Not an unusual thing in these times.”

  “Indeed. It must have come as a shock to you all.”

  “A surprise, yes, but a welcome one. We are very happy to have Nina with us. She is a great help to me.”

  “Very well. Do pass on my felicitations to your husband, signora.” He spun around, his polished boots kicking up a flurry of dust, and made to enter his monstrous car. But then he paused suddenly, almost theatrically, and turned to face them once more. “Apart from your father and brother, Signorina Gerardi, there are how many men living here?”

  “There are no other men. Only my younger brothers.”

  “And their ages?”

  “Why do you—”

  “They are how old, signorina?”

  “The older boys are seventeen and fifteen,” Rosa admitted. “And the youngest is nine. A child.”

  “You keep them here in spite of the pressing need for labor elsewhere? Surely you cannot be ignorant of it.”

  “We need the boys here on the farm. And it is our duty to grow what we can for the war effort, is it not?”

  “A farm this size hardly requires the labor of four men.”

  “And you know this how? Have you ever worked on a farm?”

  “Certainly not, but I am perfectly able to judge when others are indolent and work-shy. Watch yourself, Signorina Gerardi. Your viper’s tongue does you no favors. In any event, I have wasted enough time here today.”

  He got into his car and was driven away, and even after the sound of its engine had faded and her heart had stopped racing—even then Nina was still afraid.

  This Nazi was not a man who would give up. He had come in search of Nico three times, and he would undoubtedly return again, and in the meantime he had taken note of her and seen her face and learned she had once lived in Venice. What was she to do?

  NICO RETURNED A few days later, tired and dusty from his long walk home in the late afternoon sun, and though she longed to take him aside and tell him everything, the children were hanging off him and it wasn’t fair, she knew, to burden him immediately with the story of Zwerger and how he had frightened her. It would have to wait.