Feeding the Enemy
Page 10
Pietro got up from his familiar spot and started to move around his farm. He was looking at what needed to be done now that spring was around the corner. He noticed that the barn needed some cleaning up around the outside. During the winter months even he got a little lazy and didn’t always clean up as he should. He entered the barn and grabbed his shotgun that was placed just inside of the door. It was warm and the rabbits would be running around the fields, which meant fresh meat for dinner. As he looked out to the fields, he could see the acres and acres of corn stalks that needed to be gathered and burned. They had done their job over the winter by stopping most of the soil erosion. The stalks also provided valuable nutrients that washed into the soil during the winter months, a natural fertilizer that cost nothing.
As he exited the barn, he noticed that he didn’t have to kick or push the usual flock of chickens that gathered around his feet. Anna must have sold some and didn’t tell him. Nobody could get a chicken ready for sale like his Anna. The chickens were not his prime source of income; the eggs were just as good as gold and as the war continued the eggs would be even more valuable. As Pietro walked the fields he noticed that the ground was getting warmer and the stalks of corn were generating heat. As he approached each stack, he would kick it to see what emerged from the center. Hopefully his reflexes would be fast enough to get a rabbit or two. He was about halfway through his major field when he noticed rabbit droppings. This was a good sign; they seemed to be to the left of the stack just in front of him. He checked his shotgun one more time to make sure it was ready and made his move to the stack. He kicked the stack and sure enough, a couple of adult rabbits came out running for their lives. Pietro got off one shot and was able to hit one of the rabbits as it darted to the right of the stack. He shot again and killed another. After he shot his gun, he heard what sounded like rustling in front of him and suspected it was more rabbits running away. As he was approaching one of the fallen rabbits, he noticed chicken feathers being blown around the corn stacks. He picked up the fallen rabbit and wondered how so many chicken feathers made it this far from the farm. Anna and Catherina were always great at keeping the feathers from flying away and collecting them for sale later on for pillows and mattresses at the farmers market.
He followed the trail of feathers to a corn stack at the very end of his field. He held up his shotgun not knowing what was in the stack but had a suspicion of who or what was inside. Pietro got closer to the corn stack, kicking it as he came to the base of the stack. He bent down to look inside and noticed some type of old, grey military clothing and pieces of dead chicken parts to the side. He also noticed a small fire pit, and then he heard a running noise coming from the main road just to the left of him. Two Italian soldiers ran from his farm towards the town of Cimpello.
Deserters, he thought. Could this be a start of the Italian army’s fall? Pietro would need to have another meeting with the other farmers and see if they have seen what happened here today, but until then he needed to protect his farm and his family. He tore down the corn stack that the army guys occupied and cleaned up the area. He wanted to make sure nobody else would see this and think it was fine to pillage his farm.
Pietro came into the kitchen with the two rabbits. Anna came into the kitchen as Pietro was washing up at the kitchen sink. She knew something was wrong because he brought the shotgun into the kitchen. Anna hated guns and made it perfectly clear that he was not to bring them into the house unless he needed to protect the family. Pietro was wiping the water off from his face and turned to his wife who was looking at the rabbits and the shotgun on her kitchen table. He knew that the rabbits were not the problem.
“Anna, we had some visitors at the end of the farm and they killed some of our chickens,” said Pietro. Anna didn’t say anything but took both of the rabbits outside to skin them and get them ready for dinner. Pietro followed her; she sat down on her chair near a tree stump that had been there for years and one she used as a butchers table. He stood next to her and waited for her to say something. After about ten minutes she finally asked, “What are we going to do to prevent this from happening again? This farm will not last if the army comes through here and takes everything.”
“Well the first thing I am going to go do is go to town and on my way to town I am going to stop by the Martin and Manzon farms and see if they have had this problem as well. If we do something now, it should stop future problems with the army. When I was in the army, if you stole food from a farmer you were punished very harshly and could have even been hanged.”
***
Pietro went into Bruno’s room and pounded on his door to wake him up. When he answered the door Pietro noticed that he looked like he had been out with friends drinking.
“What is going on?” asked Bruno.
“We had some army deserters that were living in the corn stacks eating our chickens. Have you heard of anybody else encountering or seeing army deserters in town or pillaging farmers?”
Bruno nodded.
“I am going to visit some of the other farmers and go to town to see if anybody else has been encountering deserters. I need you to watch the farm. The shotgun is in the kitchen and so is the ammo belt. I will be back by nightfall,” replied Pietro.
“No problem, and you should go by the Pelliccia place because something is not right. They haven’t been doing anything in preparation for the spring season and it looks as though it is deserted,” replied Bruno.
Pietro was nearing the town of Cimpello on his bike at around two o’clock in the afternoon.
He had stopped by the other two farms and both had not seen any deserters, but they had been missing some of their livestock. The state usually compensated farmers if they could prove they had lost livestock from being pillaged, plundered, or killed accidently. Pietro made his way through the main street towards the main building of the old police station, which was now the headquarters of the Fascists supporters and their German allies. He parked his bike in front of the building and made his way to the front desk of the station. As he entered the building, he noticed that he wasn’t alone in the lobby and that there were a few other people there to complain or to ask questions. He took his place in line and waited to be called. After about twenty minutes, he was called up to the clerk.
“What is your name,” asked the clerk.
“My name is Pietro Zucchet, and I am a local farmer,” replied Pietro. The clerk looked at Pietro and wrote down the information.
“What is your business with us today, Mr. Zucchet?” asked the supporter.
“I am here to let you know that I witnessed two army deserters pillaging from my farm,” replied Pietro.
The clerk raised his head. “What did they take, Mr. Zucchet?” asked the clerk.
“Well when I was hunting, I saw them run away from the corn stack that they made into their temporary home with some of my chickens in their backpacks,” replied Pietro.
“How many deserters did you see, Mr. Zucchet, and how many chickens did they kill?”
“I saw two running from my fields and three chickens were killed,” replied Pietro.
The clerk was writing the information down and when he finished he got up from his chair and went into the back. Pietro waited for him to return and was looking around the lobby at all the folks waiting. He recognized most and the one thing he noticed was the look of desperation on everyone’s face. The last time he had seen so many desperate faces was during the last war and this was just the start. The clerk returned and handed Pietro a voucher for the loss of the chickens. Pietro looked at the voucher and recognized it as the same worthless voucher he received for all the metal that they took from his farm, including Bruno’s new motorcycle.
“What am I supposed to do with this voucher?” asked Pietro.
“You will receive the three chickens or their lira value when the local authority meets next week,” replied the clerk.
“The other farmers in my region have been pillaged as well,” replied
Pietro.
“If the other farmers have been pillaged they need to come make a claim and have evidence that this has happened to them. We know this happened to you because we have the two deserters in custody and they had your chickens in their backpacks,” replied the clerk.
“What will happen to the young men?” asked Pietro.
“That is up to the local authority next week. You can come and see for yourself when they talk about your case,” replied the clerk.
Pietro picked up the voucher and walked out to his bike. He got on his bike and started to shake uncontrollably when he realized that he could have just sent both deserters to their deaths for stealing his chickens, but it soon passed because he knew desertion was probably what sealed their fates.
Pietro decided that he wanted to see what Bruno had told him earlier in the day about the Pelliccia farm. He took the long way home because it went by the Pelliccia farm. As he made his way to the farm he noticed that there was activity at the main house but that the land hadn’t been touched in some time. Pietro decided to ride down to the main house to go see Anthony, Gilda, and, of course, Anthony’s mother. As he approached the house, he started to see what was going on. His first instincts were to turn around and ride like the wind but that would have raised suspicions. It was Francisco and some Germans he had never seen before going through the main house.
There were two trucks parked next to the main entrance. One was being filled with items from the house and the other looked like another family’s items waiting to be unloaded. There was a family that Pietro didn’t recognized standing next to the truck. By the way they were dressed Pietro knew they were farmers, but not Italian farmers, more likely German farmers. There were about five to six family members moving furniture and suitcases off the second truck. Pietro couldn’t help but notice that in-between the main house and the barn there was a clearing of land that was usually filled with a vegetable garden that Gilda worked. Instead of the usual mounds of divided dirt for the different crops, it looked like something or someone had been buried in this area because the whole section was flat and just recently filled. Francisco was overlooking the operation from his car when he turned around to see Pietro ride up on his bike and looking in the direction of the garden.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Zucchet?” asked Francisco.
“Oh nothing I was just stopping by to talk with Mr. Pelliccia about farming and what he was going to do this season,” replied Pietro.
Francisco’s facial expression turned from pleasant to evil.
“The Pelliccia family no longer operates this farm. It has been taken over by the state and has new farmers that will be utilizing this land for the good of the government,” replied Francisco. Pietro knew what this meant and needed to be careful about how he responded to this news.
“Well let me congratulate the new farmers of this land and be on my way,” replied Pietro.
“They are busy today, Mr. Zucchet. Come by another day to welcome the new family,” responded Francisco.
“Very well. Have a nice day, Francisco, and thank you for the seed. It was very generous of the state to provide such a superior seed for us to grow.” Francisco looked at Pietro with a smile and returned to his task of moving the new family into the main house.
Pietro turned his bike around and started his long ride home. As he turned right heading onto the main road, he looked back at the farm and old garden section shaking his head. As soon as he was far enough from the view of Francisco, Pietro rode his bike as fast as his legs would let him. During the ride home, Pietro kept thinking to himself, Could I have caused whatever evil happened to the Pelliccia family? He started to feel guilty about what had happened to the deserters and the Pelliccia family, but there was no way he was going to jeopardize his family for the sake of others. Pietro trusted nobody but his family. This he had learned from the first war and his father.
***
After he arrived at home, he was exiting the barn after storing the bike when Bruno, who was still watching the house for more deserters, met him.
“So, did you see any other deserters running through the fields or the roads since I left?” asked Pietro.
“No, there were no other deserters or visitors while you were gone. What is the matter, Dad, you look really sad and confused,” responded Bruno. Pietro did not stop walking towards the main house and made a gesture for Bruno to follow.
“I have some news and I want to tell everyone at the same time. Where are your mother and sister?” Bruno was following his father back to the house still carrying the shotgun and ammo belt around his shoulder.
“They are both in the house,” responded Bruno.
“Good, you are not going to believe what I saw and heard today,” replied Pietro.
As Pietro walked into the kitchen from the back door, he saw Anna and Catherina sitting at the table getting dinner ready. Anna looked at her husband and knew right away something was wrong. Pietro grabbed the bottle of wine that was opened from the previous evening and poured himself some wine before sitting down in the kitchen. Bruno stood next to the kitchen sink waiting for his father to catch his breath before he started to tell everyone about the deserters and the Pelliccia family. After telling what had happened on such a troubling day, all he could do was to stare at his poor wife and daughter as they hugged each other and cried for the unfortunate farmers.
“What are we going to do if we have a bad crop, because it does happen?” Anna asked.
“We will do everything we can not to have a bad crop. I believe there was more to the story than just a bad crop; Anthony was too close to the Fascist movement. If you can’t deliver on certain promises then they can easily turn on you if things don’t work out. We have to maintain our space from this new government but yet deliver our goods as expected with the ultimate goal of surviving this period.”
“I will start to get the fields ready starting tomorrow,” Bruno said.
Pietro nodded with approval and added, “That is a good thing and next week I will be going into town to see what happens to the deserters. I need to know what they are planning to do because there will be more to come as the war continues.”
***
As Gino approached the farm, he could see the light in the kitchen. He didn’t want to scare anybody so he decided to head to Bruno’s place, which was in the back of the farmhouse. Catherina had mentioned in one of her letters that he was living there now to make more room in the house for Catherina and the baby. As he made his way to the door of Bruno’s room, he stopped just before he knocked to hear if anybody was up inside the room or if there was any movement from inside the room. Gino knew this farm like the back of his hand from all the time he spent there with Chester. Gino took a deep breath and knocked on the door ever so gently.
“Bruno, this is Gino. Are you here?” whispered Gino. Gino could hear something from the inside of the room and it sounded like someone was getting out of the bed and putting on their shoes.
“Gino?” Bruno said.
“Yes, it is me,” answered Gino.
“Oh my god, hold on give me a minute.” Bruno opened the door and shined the gas lantern that he had lit in the direction of Gino. “Oh my god, it is you!” He immediately gave him a hug and they both started to laugh together.
“It’s good to see you again, Bruno. Are Catherina and Maria in the main house?”
“Oh, yes, and it looks like she is trying to feed Maria again. She doesn’t like to sleep too much so your wife has to stay up late. Let’s go see them.”
Catherina was standing at the kitchen sink finishing cleaning the dishes that she used to feed Maria. Maria was sitting in her high chair that Pietro made out of wood watching her mother at the sink. Catherina heard the door in the back of the kitchen open up and continued to clean the dishes.
“Bruno, is that you?”
Bruno was the first to enter the kitchen. “Yes, it’s me, and I couldn’t sleep, so I saw the light on.”
Gino was sitting at the kitchen table with Catherina near his side when they told them the news about his father passing away. Pietro, Anna, and Bruno were all at the table when Gino received the news. He was so upset that he couldn’t even talk for about ten minutes. What he realized at that moment was that he hated the Germans and wanted out of the army. The anger in him was very strong and deep and would last for the rest of his life. There was no good reason to keep playing this game that Mussolini was pushing on the Italian Royal Army. Gino was going to find a way to get out of the army and avenge the death of his father.
Catherina made Gino promise not to desert because they all knew that Fascist supporters would come to the farm and look for him. There were rumors that deserter families were the first to suffer.
After Gino explained how he arrived at the farm, Pietro looked at him with a big smile that would be given to his own sons.
“What needs to happen tomorrow is that Bruno will go with you to the train station in Pordenone. He will make sure that you get back on the train to Rome without anybody seeing you. The last thing we need is to have someone recognize you and turn you into Francisco’s gang of thugs. In the future, you need to let us know when you are coming and we can make preparations for your arrival.”