Donna Maria was attempting to break the ice with Major von Feilitzsch. She had been urged to do so by both Grandma and Renato, but she made her own special contribution: the baron too was fond of horses, and in the stables there were now five of them, one for each officer, in addition to the carthorses.
Since the beginning of December the Villa had become a staging post, and two Imperial Army grooms were permanently lodged in the barchessa. The mules of contingents passing through were tethered under the portico, or in the courtyard of the inn, the only source of provisions in the whole place.
The invaders were thirsty for grappa and ravenous for polenta. Things that the innkeeper’s wife – he himself was stuck behind his bar counter all day long – obtained from the peasants’ wives in exchange for bags of salt and white flour, pretending not to know that thereafter, amongst the mules in the courtyard, every good wife got two sips of grappa and a slice of polenta if she offered the customer a little entertainment.
Everyone said the paper money printed by the Austrians was ‘bum bumf’. So it was that in that December of 1917 – after twenty centuries of ready cash – exchange and barter was rediscovered, even if there was little left to barter with: a few sacks of vegetables, oats, eggs, chickens and eros. ‘A chick with an empty purse is an easy lay,’ said Grandpa. ‘Even if a full purse is no chastity belt.’ And exchanges of eros and polenta – not restricted to the inn yard – had become a matter of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’. Don Lorenzo had good reason to shout and yell in church. Hunger had triumphed over honour.
The British fighter plane roared over at rooftop level. All eyes were glued to the skies, including those of the officers smoking by the window. Near the red, white and blue rings on the fuselage I noticed a blue bird set in a red oval. The SPAD flew over again twenty minutes later, but this time it was going in the opposite direction, towards the Pieve. Aunt Maria had barely had time to position the shutters, and there was nothing on the washing line. To hang out laundry just to have it freeze would have aroused suspicion.
Once past us the aircraft waggled its wings once or twice. The SPADs often did this on their way back to behind our lines. We’ll chuck the bastards out, was the message.
Grandpa and I, who were stretching our legs back and forth over the hundred metres between the chapel and the stables, both waved madly to return the greeting. The steward was coming towards us, a shovel and a rake over his shoulder. As he passed he gave me a wink and murmured, ‘The blue kingfisher…Our friend made it to safety.’
While Renato was on his way towards the latrine, the officer of the day caught up with us and, slowing to our pace though keeping eyes front, said quietly but distinctly: ‘N’oubliez pas Karfreit.’
‘Don’t worry, we remember Caporetto all right,’ rebutted Grandpa loudly, ‘but it’s not over yet. Not by a long chalk.’
The morning of Christmas Eve surprised us with its unseasonal mildness. Grandpa and I went to the bottiglieria in Solighetto, while Aunt Maria went out riding with the major. On the way we came across a group of prisoners busying themselves around the mangled bonnet of a lorry. They begged us for cigarettes. Grandpa, who smoked only Toscano cigars, and used cigarettes in lieu of tips, pulled out a packet which was torn to shreds in a brace of shakes. One fag even went to the lackadaisical Hungarian overseer, who grinned at us happily with his few remaining teeth.
The bottiglieria consisted of a huge dark room, ten metres by five, panelled in wood from floor to ceiling. It had only one window, with iron bars as thick as two fingers. On the oaken shelves behind the counter was a row of half-empty bottles with handwritten labels, and were one to believe the writing there was even whisky and cognac. But it was grappa that claimed the lion’s share, with at least twenty or thirty bottles. There were also two demijohns which gave off an acrid tang that turned my stomach. The beaten earth floor was saturated with alcohol at five pfennigs a flask, the ferocious stench of which contested the field with that of the few customers.
The hostess was short and robust. A lock of snow-white hair sprang from under the kerchief knotted beneath her chin, while in her oval face dark eyes expressed the melancholy born of much mourning. She asked what we wanted in the educated voice of a person who reads. Her husband approached her, seventy kilos of muscle for a metre and a half in height: ‘Give ’em some wine, woman!’
‘Cognac,’ said Grandpa. ‘For two, one of them with water.’
‘With what?’ barked the host in dialect. ‘Water will do for washing in, if you have any.’ And off he went with a sneer. ‘And to rot the piles, as they say in Venice.’
I hadn’t the least desire to drink. I gave Grandpa a glance.
‘We’re not here for the fun of it.’
So I had no choice.
‘Malingerers are the first to spot trouble,’ he said. ‘And to get wind of troop movements.’
We spent the morning in that stench of sour wine and sweaty humanity. I was nearly sick, my head was spinning. Luckily, at about midday Grandpa thought he had laid his hands on something to communicate to the three-mullioned window. Three Hungarian army battalions were expected at Sernaglia at the beginning of January. It wasn’t the kind of news to change the outcome of a battle, but at least it was something to transmit to the kingfisher.
For the festive occasion the baron had arranged a concert last thing before midnight mass. All of us were invited, but only Aunt Maria and I attended. We arrived a little late so there was no time for introductions. The dining room was lit by two carbide lamps. The oak table had been shifted to the side opposite the fire, which sparkled away behind the quartet.
The cellist was a lady of thirty at the outside, with hair as black as her silk dress and a décolleté gleaming with a double string of pearls which reflected the tenuous wavering of the flames. The fire gave the silhouettes of the musicians an almost sinister appearance somewhat at odds with the music of Mozart.
Seated with us in a semicircle were seven Austrian and three Hungarian officers, summoned from the neighbouring commands. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the cellist; her face enthralled me. At the end of the concert we discovered that the mystery woman was von Feilitzsch’s wife, who had been permitted to join her husband for Christmas. This had not pleased the major, who would rather have had leave to join her in Vienna, so he had said not a word about it to anyone, maybe because he knew she would be off again the next day. Madame von Feilitzsch had assembled her musician friends – amateurs, but esteemed in many drawing rooms in the capital – and obtained a pass thanks to her friendship with a colonel in the emperor’s graces.
We drank ‘à la fin de la guerre’ in sharp-tasting red Tyrolese wine. For the sake of politeness the officers forced themselves to talk French, but it was obvious that they couldn’t wait to get rid of us and chat amongst themselves. What’s more, Madame von Feilitzsch knew little Italian but was determined to speak it, making things hard for my aunt and me, scarcely able to understand what she was gabbling about. In the end, after the ritual formalities we took our leave with a sigh of relief.
‘Well, that’s something done,’ said Aunt Maria. ‘Now let’s go to church.’
I went with her as far as the church forecourt and said goodbye.
‘But it’s Christmas!’ she cried, her eyes shooting sparks at me. But I had a tryst with Giulia, and the threat of hell in another life little availed against the promise of a heaven, however brief, just round the corner.
On the evening of the thirty-first – a freezing Monday which I had spent reading in front of the fire – we went into a huddle in Aunt Maria’s room to review the situation. A frugal repast. Grandpa did his level best to raise our spirits, but whatever story he told, whatever joke he pulled out of his hat, he couldn’t make us forget we were guests in our own house, reduced to dependence on the goodwill of enemy officers. Loretta served at table. She was more self-confident now, and seemed pleased with herself, as if happy to see us downhearted. We were eating leftovers, as she
had often had to do, and our sheets were a little less white than usual – for even lye was hard to get – and now we too were not our own masters.
Teresa, on the other hand, was unhappy for her own sake and for ours, and one could see it in her face. Our feeling of loss, of humiliation, was hers also.
Sixteen
THE SLANTING EVENING LIGHT STRETCHED THE SHADOW of Beelzebub across the whole width of the desk. I picked up the top sheet of the pile, and as Grandpa followed my every gesture while fingering his long cigar, a smile came to his lips. I was the first person in the world to read one of his pages, the first to be admitted into the Thinking Den. At Grandma’s instigation we had thought his book a myth. He didn’t take his eyes off me, even if he pretended to busy himself with his cigar, which remained unlit, or with Beelzebub’s ribbon, which blackened his fingertips.
‘But your book then…actually exists!’
Reaching out his right hand, while his left snapped the cigar in half, he tore the page from my fingers and laid it atop the others, beside the typewriter. For a long moment he glared at the pile, then thrust it into a drawer which he closed with tremulous hands. I attempted to say something, but the words stuck in my throat. I still had to take in the emotional impact of the event.
I would have liked to tell him his style was really original, to tell him I loved him, but instead – in his bizarre and simple way – he said: ‘Dinner will be on the table.’ His voice showed no disappointment. ‘Don’t let’s keep them waiting, you know our womenfolk…We’ll talk another time.’
He raised his trouser seat from the cherry-wood chair which caged him round.
‘Tell me, how’s the redhead at kissing?’
I felt my cheeks burning. I started down the stairs.
‘Forgive me, laddie…I never did learn to mind my own business.’
Teresa had stirred some raisins in with the polenta. ‘Said to be good for you.’ After that came a stew of suspect flavour.
‘Rabbit,’ she said firmly. And we asked no questions.
After dinner I went for a smoke with the steward. The priest was with him. They were sitting on a bench before the fire, eating a leftover of stew. They were talking nineteen to the dozen, their plates on their knees.
‘Good evening.’ I came in, bringing the cold with me. I sat down on the stone hearth, my back to the barely flickering flames. Both men had long faces. ‘Bad news?’ I asked.
Don Lorenzo raised his fork to take the last mouthful. He put his plate down beside me on the hearthstone, picked up his glass from the floor under the bench and drank a long draught. I smelt the heavy odour of the wine.
‘All church bells weighing over fifty kilos are to be taken away,’ said Renato. ‘Orders from Boreovic.’
‘All the bells expropriated,’ Don Lorenzo began to read from a printed sheet he had taken from under his cassock and spread on his knees, ‘will be examined by a specially appointed art expert.’ He read one syllable at a time, and I had never heard such a note of sadness in his voice. He held the paper at a distance so as to focus better: ‘Bells certified as being cast earlier than the year 1600 will as a rule be considered objects of value, whereas bells of more recent date will be considered as such only if they are of real historic and artistic value.’ With a greyish handkerchief he wiped his brow, which was perfectly dry. ‘It is forbidden to proceed with expropriation during divine service, on Sundays and on Feast Days.’
‘If you were to say one mass after another without stopping…’ I pulled myself up short. It wasn’t funny.
‘The bell is the voice of the whole village, not just of the church,’ said the priest, folding up the printed sheet.
‘That’s why they’re taking them.’ Renato spoke with a spurt of anger. ‘Take away the voice of the people, the voice that announces their festivals and funerals, the voice that sounds the alarm…it’s like tearing the heart out of them.’
Don Lorenzo got to his feet. ‘No bells, no voices but those of the guns.’
A knock at the door. Renato said, ‘Come in,’ and a blast of cold air brought in Loretta. She was carrying a steaming dish, a slice of pancetta on a thick slab of polenta. ‘I’ve brought you some supper. A nice Kraut boy put it aside for me.’ Then she spotted us and her eyes widened. ‘You here too…’ Her eyes flicked back and forth between me and the priest.
Renato cut the pancetta into three pieces, taking a large knife from a hook on the wall. I made the most of the mouthful by taking a sip of wine. Loretta just stood there, sulking. The priest gave her a look of disgust to match her mother’s diambarne de l’ostia.
‘Scrumptious pancetta, this. I wonder who they stole it from,’ I said.
‘From the mayor.’ Loretta’s voice betrayed the poison of rancour. ‘The mayor’s larder was chock-full of every blessed thing, I tell you. All stuff stolen from the labouring folk, poor ducks.’
‘Pancetta…Haven’t had this for a while,’ said the priest with his mouth full. His pleasure-loving nature loathed abstractions. His god was in things themselves, as in that mouthful of pancetta that had put him in a good mood. Renato, though, was troubled. He had something on his mind that wouldn’t let up. However, the pancetta acted on him, and on me, like a healer’s balm. And all of a sudden we began to sing:
They say, they say that she fell sick
Because she didn’t eat polenta.
And then, with the priest joining in at the top of his lungs, we followed it up with:
A graveyard lies beyond the bridge
The graveyard of us soldier-boys.
I wondered what could be the source of the magic of such sad, disconsolate songs. Maybe in the dark we all feel at one with the river, the woods, the beasts of the field. Maybe we too are there in the mule that catches the scent of death and refuses the bit.
Seventeen
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WHITE SILK FLAG WAS THE COAT OF arms of Franz Joseph, the gloomy Apostolic King of Hungary, known to us as Ceccobeppe, topped by the crown of St Stephen. Giulia and I were walking together so close that our elbows brushed as my fingers furtively sought hers while hers kept making their escape. We circled the flagpole. The Austrian banner mesmerized us. ‘With a flag that beautiful,’ said Giulia, taking my hand, ‘they can’t win.’ On the other side, the middle of the white space was occupied by the arms of the Kingdom of Hungary, supported by two angels in flight, the outer one in profile, while the one nearer the flagstaff gave us the same embarrassed look as so many Madonnas who haven’t quite made up their minds how to hold the Babe. The background colours of the shield peeped through a mass of crowns, towers, heraldic beasts, and symbols of the feuds of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia and the grand-duchy of Transylvania, in which the gold of the crown, embellished with red, blue and green inlays, was at odds with the silhouettes of the angels, who seemed eager to wilt into the cloth, harbingers of fading glories.
‘This lavish display of symbols jars with the shoddiness of the present,’ I said.
‘Now you’re starting to talk like your grandfather.’
The blood rushed to my cheeks. I didn’t know what comeback to make, so I ran on ahead and into the barchessa, on my own. A few mules were tied up there, along with a stomach-turning stench of piss and a dozen bicycles leant against the wall. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness. A soldier with a pipe in his mouth was stroking a dog, whispering in its ear as if it were a restive horse. I left. I looked around me. Giulia was no longer there. Two non-commissioned officers were leaning against the boundary wall, smoking their long pipes.
It seemed as if the war had simply gone away. But as I approached the kitchen I heard the noise of crockery being smashed. In the corridor two soldiers with rifles and cartridge belts slung crosswise were rummaging in the dresser, among the pans and dishes. They glanced at me without the slightest interest and made no room for me to pass. I squeezed myself against the wall and entered the kitchen. Teresa was yelling, ‘To hell with you, misbegotten mangel-wurzel
mashers! There’ll be no Madonna for you, you’ll be supping with Satan!’ A pile of casseroles, coppers, wooden spoons and pots and pans of every shape and size blocked the area between the hearth and the table. ‘But what’re you after, eh, you scrofulous thimble-riggers?’
I went and stood by her. ‘Just as well they can’t understand you.’
Teresa regarded me with ill-concealed contempt. ‘Don’t know what these pilfering piddlers want. It’s been ten minutes they been messing among my pots, and him with the emperor moustache has said if they don’t find what they want they’ll go and stick their noses upstairs, may his moustaches moulder!’
The sergeant now came up and thrust his chest to within a centimetre or two of mine. He loomed above me by a hands-breadth. ‘You, out!’
I was about to obey when in came Grandpa. ‘What’s all this hullaballoo, Teresa?’
‘They’re just hurling everythin’ to hell here, and won’t even deign to tell me what they’re lookin’ for, the curs!’
‘It here, I know!’ growled Whiskers, glaring at Grandpa with his huge blue eyes.
‘Franzi-fancy Whiskers,’ murmured Grandpa. ‘What are you hunting for? Rather than turn everything upside down, wouldn’t it be better to ask?’
‘You, quiet. We search gun,’ he said, cocking up his thumb and pointing a pretend revolver. ‘You know where is? You say!’ And he smoothed down his moustache, challenging Grandpa’s scowl with his bright blue glower. ‘We know it be here,’ he added, repeating that childish revolver gesture.
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