“Has there been anything except pain? It seems like forever that the burning of this arm has been my whole existence. All I can really remember is sleeping and dreaming—frightening dreams of looking for my mother, of losing things, of being chased by wild animals. Whenever I’d wake up, I was in a fog, a strange house, a kind woman, more pain, and now and then”—he looked at me shyly—“a girl with a halo of curly hair and lovely eyes. Who is she? I would think. Her smile lit up the place. Her voice was like music.” He looked away again. “I can’t believe this is all happening, this running away, this hiding. I’m not like that—not at all. I’m used to being strong, competent, to having the world go my way. Where are my friends? My family? Where is my city? How did I get here? We were on our way south, trying to break through into the Allied side, when we ran into Giorgio and his gang. Then that explosion, and…” He sat there for a long time in silence.
“I’m so worried about my brother,” he said. “Do you know if he ever found Giorgio again?”
“No—I haven’t seen Giorgio recently.”
“You haven’t? Why not?”
I took a deep breath, then launched into the story of what had happened since he and Cecilio had been delivered here, from Rosa’s taking over the food supply cellar to the Fox’s death. Mario shook his head sadly, and I was conscious of leaving out how his own recovery was a direct function of the Fox’s demise.
“Do you think you could get a meeting with your brother? I just have to find out whether Cecilio is with them or not.”
“Maybe. I suppose I could leave a note in the Santinis’ cellar.”
Mario took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
I pressed forward. “He’s so angry, Mario. Honestly, I’m sorry to say this, but I hope he’s not with my brother. He could put them all in danger.”
He fidgeted with the bedcover. “I know, I know. He’s always had a short fuse, ever since we were children.”
“What was he like then?”
“I think he was born with a nervous streak. He could never concentrate in school, could never sit still. He annoyed his teachers that way, and then had problems finishing his homework. Usually the older brother is the achieving one, but work came more easily to me. I just plugged along, doing what I was expected to do, and before we knew it, we had fallen into these contrasting roles. He was all trouble and rebellion; I was the one they could count on, Mr. Responsibility, my mother’s favorite, her baby. I became the one who looked after him—like I was the big brother.” He shook his head. “It’s not a role I wanted.” He looked up at me then with a little smile. “But he’s still my big brother, and I’ve always looked up to him in my own way.”
I nodded. “Giorgio and I are a little bit the same way. My parents, especially my father, think he’s the big man, but…” I laughed a little. “When it’s just the two of us, sometimes I’m the braver, steadier one, you know?”
“Have you told your parents you were helping him?”
“No—I don’t want to worry my mother any more than she already is.”
“But, for all she knows, he could be dead, right?”
“Right.”
“It might help her to know he’s alive, at least. Couldn’t you just tell your mother? Ask her to keep it secret?”
“But wouldn’t Father notice a difference in her? She wouldn’t be so worried anymore.”
We sat for a while, each submerged in our own thoughts, listening to the sounds of pots and pans clinking and banging in the kitchen.
“Giovanna?” He broke the silence. “I don’t know how to thank you for finding this place for us—for me—and for the medicine. You didn’t have to do that.” He smiled. “You’ve got guts.”
I took in his compliment and felt, in its glow, a wave of resolve. “Mario, I will try to contact my brother and find out if he’s seen Cecilio.”
Within three days, Rosa had a response from Giorgio, asking that I meet him at our usual spot on Sunday, July thirtieth. The moment I caught sight of him slumped against the mossy marble pillar, I knew he was in bad shape. He didn’t rise to his feet at the sound of my footsteps, but only tossed a morose look my way. He wore a new brimmed beret, but his clothes were filthy and even more tattered. Over his shoulder a leather cartridge belt hung at an angle, and two grenades dangled from the belt around his waist. There was a new weariness and solemnity about him that seemed to forbid any kind of pleasantry or small talk. I sat down beside him on the platform and inched up close. “You know about the Fox?” I asked.
He nodded. “Word travels fast around here, mia sorella.”
“He was nearly gone when Violetta found him in the field. He wasn’t able to last the night even in the clinic. I’m so sorry. There was nothing they could do.”
“It’s a rough business we’re in, this war. But we’re making trouble for those bastards all up and down the valley.” He stared at the ground. “How’s Mario?”
“He’s a lot better. I think he’s going to be okay. But Cecilio took off, and I—”
At that, Giorgio stood up and turned his back to me.
“Have you seen him, Giorgio? Mario’s so worried.”
He expelled a long sigh with his lips tight together like the mouthpiece of a pinched balloon. “Oh, I’ve seen Patch, all right. He showed up at our camp last week. He was agitated, impatient. I was letting it all run off my back, because I know the guy from school, know how he can get, right? But he started accusing all of us of playing it too safe, of not risking big enough missions. He wanted to stay—said he wanted to prove himself so we’d keep him on. I told him, told all of them, we couldn’t let him stay, that it was too dangerous for us. But he started pushing the others. ‘What do you want most? What do you really need?’ So this one kid, maybe too young to know any better—we call him Baby Face—he piped up, ‘Guns—we need guns, that’s what.’
“So Patch kept after them until they told him about an outbuilding at an occupied villa where the Germans had a big store of weapons. Long and short of it, he convinced the kid to go with him the next night to try to steal some guns. We’d all been watching the place, and we knew when they ate dinner, when things would get a little loose around there.”
Giorgio was talking fast, looking past me. A knot began to tighten in my stomach. “Where is he now? Just tell me that.”
“So anyway, they hid nearby, and they saw a bunch of the soldiers leave. The guard was gone too, so they sneaked in and up to the door. They were just about to try the lock when the door opened and there was a big tall Nazi staring down at them.”
I could hardly breathe, so I said nothing.
“He said, ‘What are you doing? This here is German property now—entrance strictly verboten.’ The two of them turned to run, when another guy in uniform appeared just outside the door behind them, trapping them like a sandwich. So the way the kid told it, he just stopped, stood his ground, and looked the first Nazi straight in the eye. ‘I know it’s German property, sir. That’s why I’m here. This man’s Jewish. I came to turn him in.’”
The casing of my heart curled inward like a leaf of lettuce in the first hard frost.
“According to Baby Face, Patch went berserk. He started screaming obscenities, flailing his arms, said he was going to kill the kid. The Germans grabbed Patch, held his arms behind his back, and tied him up. Patch was yelling so loud and fighting so hard it took both of the Nazis to hold on to him. So while this was going on, Baby Face apparently just backed off and walked slowly away and back to camp.”
I sat still, staring at my brother. “Safely…back…to camp. And then at camp? What did you do to him, Giorgio? Did you welcome him with open arms, the slimy little traitor? Did you let him stay? Did you try to rescue Cecilio? Did you do anything?”
Giorgio sat down heavily next to me and put his head in his hands. “No. Baby Face is not with us anymore. He’s just a damn kid, and we told him to get lost. I should never have let him stay with us in the first place.”
“And what about Cecilio?”
“We couldn’t do a thing. We asked around—we’ve got informers everywhere. Turns out they took him to the station the following day under heavy guard and put him on a train bound for Verona.”
“Why Verona? What’s there?”
“They say there’s some camp where they’re keeping a whole group of other Jews—women and children even. Word has it another train is scheduled out of there next Wednesday to take them out of the country.”
“Out of Italy? Where? To a labor camp? In Germany?”
“Jesus, Giovanna. How should I know? I really don’t have any idea. But tell Mario something like that anyway. Tell him his brother’s working somewhere. There’s at least some hope in that.”
“But what do you really think?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t put anything past those bastards. The rumors aren’t good. I can tell you that.”
That was the moment of reckoning for me. As the crackling, hazy film of memory slowly unspools, that’s where it catches time and again, then stops: on a picture that exists only in my imagination. I see Cecilio, pressed on all sides by a crowd of nameless women and children, herded onto a train at the Verona station. He cries out in anger, in desperation, but his shouts are swallowed in a hissing cloud of steam. They are picked up by the train’s departing whistle and cast out over a field of sunflowers nodding in the early August afternoon sun.
We never heard from Cecilio again. The war was heating up around Lucca. Once Violetta’s family and the other residents had evacuated the villages of the Serchio River valley, the Germans had begun to do everything they could to put barriers into the routes the Allies might use to advance into northern Italy. They blew up bridges, made the roads impassable, wreaked havoc on houses and other buildings, pillaging wherever they went. This was happening all along the road, from Lucca up into the river valley that led to Modena, and eventually to the Brenner Pass, the Germans’ intended retreat route out of Italy.
Chapter Nineteen
Birthdays had always been important to me, and—surely out of habit, for nothing was the same during the war—I found myself looking forward to this one as I always did. In spite of all that was going on in my life that summer, as August fifth neared, I dreamed about how we would celebrate and what, if any, gifts I might receive. I was dreaming of maybe my own small radio to listen to the war’s progress, or a new journal in which I could record my feelings, to help me figure out what to do about Mario.
Overt celebrations of any kind in those days were considered unseemly, so my mother suggested that we have dinner alone, just the three of us, but said that she and Rosa would make an effort to make it a special one. Traditionally, we would have gathered around the big table in the dining room early in the afternoon, but of course that was off-limits. So Mother came up with the idea of celebrating my birthday outside at a table in the garden, not far from the entrance we habitually used to enter our cramped space upstairs. In a rare burst of courage and defiance, Mother had decided not to ask the Germans’ permission, but simply to go ahead and set a table under the huge, spreading linden tree. If challenged, she planned to use my eighteenth birthday as an excuse and hoped she could prevail upon their goodwill. I had wanted to include Violetta in the celebration, but Mother worried that even one more guest might add to the noise and make it riskier.
She and Rosa had spent all morning preparing for the occasion. They had spread the table with a blue-and-white-checked cotton cloth and laid silvery green olive branches down the middle. Here and there among the clusters of stiff oblong leaves, they had tucked three small blue-and-white pitchers filled with bouquets of rosemary, lavender, oregano, and thyme. At each place there were tumblers for water and heavy stemmed wineglasses.
An occasion like this would normally have called for a large roast, or perhaps some plump birds grilled on the outdoor open barbecue. But shortages were such that the two of them opted instead for a vegetables-only feast right out of the garden and the countryside. There was bruschetta—small, crunchy slices of toasted bread, spread with ripe tomato and roasted garlic and drizzled with olive oil. Next, we each had a whole artichoke, steamed, then cut in half and laid over the open fire just long enough to impart a smoky flavor and crisp the edges of the overlapping leaves. We tore the leaves off one by one and dipped them in a rich, garlicky aioli made from our own first-press virgin olive oil.
Catarina and Tonino had brought over a special treat: a small kerchief knotted around a dozen or so fresh chanterelles that Catarina had found in her secret wooded spot. Rosa had cleaned and chopped them and combined them with dried porcini mushrooms in a rich farrotto—a creamy risotto-like casserole, made with nutty farro instead of rice, and seasoned with fresh rosemary and thyme. On the side, there were fingers of zucchini and just-opened zucchini blossoms, dipped in batter and fried to a light crispiness in oil.
At about twelve thirty, the preparations complete, we gathered around the table for our meal. I had made an effort to look nice, slicking my hair back as best I could into a bun at the back of my neck, and wearing a skirt and blouse. I knew Mother thought the skirt was too short, but it being my day, thank God, she held her tongue. We could hear the voices of the Germans and occasional bursts of laughter rising up over the house from the terrace in front and on the other side. It was a Saturday, so they were around, but for whatever reason, they chose to ignore us.
Father stood, and with great ceremony held out a special bottle of our estate wine for inspection. It was from 1926—the year of my birth—one he had discovered in the far reaches of the cellar, dating back to the days when the winemaking operation had still been in the purview of Mother’s family. The bottle was covered with a fine dust, the label yellowed and rumpled where it was beginning to come unglued. “A magnificent year, piccola,” he intoned as he inserted the corkscrew and ceremoniously turned it until the cork rose enough to be pulled from the bottle’s neck. He poured an inch or so into his glass, swirled it, and brought it to his nose.
Mother and I waited, poised in anticipation, but instead of reaching to pour us each a glass, he wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Corked, I’m afraid.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Eighteen years is a long time, I guess—too much to expect of these little plugs of bark.” He examined the cork, which had become soaked nearly all the way through with the dark, blackened leakage. “Luckily I have a bottle of last year’s Chianti here, just in case.” He uncorked the fresh bottle and spilled the thin, translucent liquid into our glasses, filling them with the bright cranberry red of a brash young wine.
Now it was Mother’s turn to stand. “Before we begin, I would like to propose a toast to our darling Giovanna.” She passed me a warm look, then stared at her raised glass while she spoke. “I was thinking about you yesterday, dear, turning eighteen, while I pruned my rosebushes. You are just at the point in your life when I would choose to cut a rose, to bring it in from the garden, a bud, full and swollen, beginning to show its color clearly, but not yet open or ready to give off its full fragrance.” She paused, gathering her thoughts, without looking up at me. “There are thorns, to be sure, ringing the stem and prickly to the touch”—she shot Papa a conspiratorial glance—“but before the flower is put on display, these can always be stripped off for a smooth and easily handled stem.” She grinned, took a deep breath, and held her glass out to both of us. “So here’s to you, la nostra carissima rosa. Happy birthday to our precious flower. May you open into your full glory and fill our lives with beauty.”
“Salute!” Father stood as well, and they both held out their glasses at arm’s length, grinning broadly.
I did not feel like a flower, exactly. Not then. Not with a man’s fate resting on my own ingenuity and daring. Not with a brother fighting and risking his life every day. But that was Mama—it was genuine sentiment on her part. I smiled and ate my delicious meal like a grateful daughter should.
When we had scraped the last of t
he sweet torta with mascarpone sauce from our plates, Mother handed me a package wrapped in thin tissue paper and tied with a bronze cloth ribbon that must have been saved from some past celebration. It was lightweight and irregularly shaped, so I knew it would be (as presents from Mother usually were) some item of clothing. She had often criticized me for carelessly tearing into packages, so I took my time, carefully untying and rolling the ribbon, loosening the tissue paper, and folding it again.
The dress was sewn of a rich, deep crimson, a cocktail dress, cut low in the front of its satin bodice over a full, floating chiffon skirt with a fabric flower attached to the belt of grosgrain ribbon that encircled the waist. I stared at it as I held it up. “It’s beautiful, but when will I ever—”
“It’s time you had something worthy of an adult,” she interrupted. “Something in your closet besides school clothes and basics.”
“But when…what possible occasion would call for it?”
“Who knows? The war won’t last forever, and soon enough you’ll be out and about. You’ll see. You’ll be glad you have it, dear. It will be a stunning color on you, my lovely rose.”
I nodded slowly and smiled. “Thank you, Mama. It’s beautiful; really it is. I’ll look forward to a time when I can wear it.” But I was thinking, as I folded it carefully and set it down on the tissue paper, how little Mother knew me, the person I was becoming.
Father interrupted my thoughts with a grunt as he fished in his pants pocket and pulled out a small velvet box and held it out to me. “What’s this?” I asked, surprised, as Papa always left the gift giving to Mother.
“Just open it,” he said, grinning.
I took the small jewelry box covered in worn black velvet, crushed flat around the button at the front. I pressed the latch and lifted the lid. Inside was a locket of deep, antique eighteen-karat gold. It was small and oval, hinged, and embossed with an asymmetrical floral design. It hung on a gold link chain, satisfyingly heavy, one that I knew would feel smooth and comfortable next to my skin. “Oh—it’s so lovely!” I smiled at Papa and inserted my thumbnail to open the locket. It was empty, but there were two places for photographs, one on each side. “Is it an antique?”
The Golden Hour - Margaret Wurtele Page 18
