Constant Tides

by Peter Crawley

  Though he cannot see her, Nicholas is sure she is smiling. He can sense her smile in the same way he senses the rubber tube when she lifts it to his lips. Somehow, it is there and he knows it is so. “What else did I say?”

  “You spoke of your mother. You spoke of her the way I speak of my father.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. We will speak of it later, when what you say is not decided by the morphine.”

  “Yes, Mira, let’s talk later. I’m awfully cold and tired.” He lifts his hands.

  Gently, she presses them back down, just as she has so many times already. “Here, I will give you one of my blankets. Now, go to sleep, Nicholas. You save your strength for Dottore Roselli and I will save mine for the café… That’s if some kind soul has left me some coffee to serve my customers.”

  Chapter 9

  Young Maria is sitting on the low wall opposite the church in the Piazza Chiesa, kicking her feet. “Ciao, Mira,” she calls, smiling, waving and brandishing a paper bag.

  “Ciao, Maria.” Mira waves back and quickens her step just enough to let the girl know that she is really, very pleased to see her. The light innocence of her youthful enthusiasm buoys Mira’s spirits and quietly she thanks God that hope has not yet been stamped flat beneath the boots of war.

  “Your secret benefactor has left you a gift,” Maria giggles. “The contents are getting smaller though.”

  Mira takes the bag, glances inside and frowns. “So they are. No real coffee, and only a little corn flour and sugar. Well,” she sighs, “today we’ll just have to be magicians, eh? Come on, at least we have some oranges for juice, let’s open up.” She grasps the girl’s hand and leads her across the square towards her café.

  As they walk, Maria studies her bare feet and frowns in imitation of the woman who, to all intents and purposes, is the older sister she doesn’t have. Of course she would like to, but some things are never as one would like, are they? She raises her face and glances up, pulling on Mira’s hand as if her arm is a bell–pull and Maria an impatient duchess summoning a servant. “Does that mean the Tenente will come this morning? I mean, whenever he leaves you a packet in the morning, he always shows up later, isn’t that right?”

  “That is right, my darling; that does seem to be his way.” Mira stops, nods her head briefly in the direction of the church and pauses to gaze across the Strait. The waters are in shadow.

  “Will it rain?” Maria asks, guessing that must be why Mira has paused.

  Normally, she would take five minutes, step inside the already open doors of the Chiesa Parrocchiale Madonna della Lettera and kneel to say a few prayers for her brother. Today, though, is Saturday, she will have time for prayers tomorrow and she cannot help but think of the waters and how they can appear so calm one moment and yet so restless the next. “No, no rain today. Tears maybe, but no rain.”

  In the front door to the café is jammed a leaflet.

  Mira pulls it free and examines it.

  “What does it say?” Maria asks.

  “It says that we can choose either to die for Mussolini and Hitler, or live for Italy and for civilisation.”

  “What does that mean?”

  At first, Mira doesn’t answer, she simply scrunches the leaflet into a ball, takes a long iron key from her pocket and unlocks the door. As she stands back to let Maria walk in front of her, though, she reconsiders her silence. “It means, we don’t have a choice. It means we must cherish the life we have been given.”

  Later, the sun breaks through the cloud and the day casts off its grey cloak.

  To the corn flour she takes from the bag, Mira adds some of the wheat flour, sugar and raisins she has left. She lights the oven and bakes some small cakes which, she hopes, will excuse the absence of brioche.

  Her first customers, though, turn out not to be as she and Maria have been hoping.

  An open German staff car sweeps into the square and close on its heels follows a truck, in the back of which sit a dozen soldiers who, even in the face of the day’s heat, wear their coal–scuttle helmets and tunic buttons fastened.

  The car stops by the low wall that Maria had been sitting on while she’d waited for Mira to appear. The driver leaps out and trots around the front to open the door for the officer who, before getting out, waits for a moment while he pats the dust from his uniform. The driver stands patiently at attention.

  When the officer does eventually get out, he is pursued by the two officers seated in the back. The senior of the three struts up and down, surveying first the Strait, the far shore and the water’s edge immediately below the wall, and second the campanile of the church and the breadth and length and solidity of the stone surface of the piazza. Once he has satisfied himself with whatever he’d needed to see, he strolls across the square towards the church and pauses briefly, hands on hips, to inspect the statues looking down from their pedestals. Then he walks over to the café, removes his cap and sits down at the only table. His officers follow and the troops alight from the lorry to mill about, talking amongst themselves.

  New customers in unusual uniforms prick Maria’s curiosity and before Mira can hold her back, she rushes out to serve them.

  Mira, her blood running cool, watches as the senior officer leans across the table to pinch Maria’s cheek and ruffle her hair. The officers smile and laugh as the young waitress shakes her head and looks pleadingly towards Mira.

  She grabs a tray and joins Maria, who quickly hides behind her.

  One of the junior officers asks for früstück, which she takes to mean the menu.

  Slowly and concisely Mira recites the options.

  The junior officer frowns, hunches his shoulders and then laughs. “Only coffee, orange juice and cake?” he says in some language approaching Italian.

  “Yes,” she replies, “coffee, orange juice and cake.” Though if the officer only knows what she is thinking, he will probably shoot her out of hand.

  He glances at the others, who nod back. “Please, bring it,” he says.

  Maria looks up, bemused.

  Mira smiles in gratitude, and although she recognises only the positive if reluctant tone of his acceptance, she knows full well he won’t understand her response. “As if I would have anything else on offer in this stupid, bloody war of yours.” Turning back into the café, she drags Maria with her.

  “What did that man say?” Maria asks, as Mira places the kettle on the stove and adds a dribble of the fake coffee concentrate.

  “He said he would like the heaviest of the cakes we baked this morning. So be a good girl and see what you can find.”

  “The heaviest?” Maria asks. “Why?”

  “Because he has the hardest of heads, so he would like the hardest of cakes. Now be a good girl and select only the cakes you would usually throw to the fish, eh?” She winks.

  Maria’s eyes light up like altar candles and she clamps her hand over her mouth to suppress her giggles.

  While the officers sweat in the sun, wince at the acidity of the orange juice, stare unconvinced into their cups and gnaw at the rock–hard cakes, the soldiers relax in the shade of the church wall and sip from their water bottles.

  In the café, the two girls, or rather the young Maria and the adult Mira, are remembering the joy of a child who gets away with playing a trick on a disliked uncle and they do their best to keep from bursting into fits of hysterical laughter.

  However, their amusement is short–lived as a few minutes later an old Alfa Romeo flatbed truck careers inelegantly into the piazza from the northern end and grinds to a halt in front of the café. As it does so, the four men standing in the rear are launched against the back of the cab, in which is seated Lieutenant de la Grascia. Comune Simone, at the wheel, notices the German officers seated at the table and he jumps smartly out, runs around the side of the truck, hauls open the door and st
ands to attention, his spine as vertical as the façade of the church. The four men in the back cease checking that they are undamaged and on noticing Simone’s performance, they look at each other and snigger.

  The Lieutenant steps down from his perch, adjusts his jacket so that it sits more squarely on his shoulders and bows in respect to the German officers who appear to be seated at what would, under more normal circumstances, be his table.

  Comune Simone slams the door, runs back to the driver’s side and, climbing back into the cab, starts the engine, grinds the gears and reverses the truck so that it no longer blocks the view of the Strait.

  The junior officer stands and salutes. “Heil Hitler!”

  “Yes, of course,” de la Grascia responds. He hesitates just long enough to let the man know he is considering whether or not he should salute, before slowly extending his right arm and raising his palm in a more casual version of his own Roman acknowledgement.

  As this is all happening and in order to save the Lieutenant’s face, Mira rushes out with a second table and places it as quickly and quietly as she knows how to the left of the door to the café. Maria, by comparison, struggles out clumsily and noisily with two chairs.

  “Good morning, Signora Alberti.” De la Grascia grins to let her know she must not mistake the formal nature of his greeting for anything other than what it is, namely a display of good manners in front of other officers and his men.

  “Good morning, Tenente.”

  “If you are not too busy, may we…”

  With a theatrical wave of her hand, Mira offers him the newly positioned table. “Please, whichever table you like.”

  He turns and nods to his men.

  Seemingly with one bound, they leap out of the back of the truck and join him at the table, whereupon they proceed to chatter and gesticulate as though they are discussing the merits of their favourite opera.

  The German officers are clearly irked that they now have to share the café with non–commissioned officers and other ranks, and they sniff, look skyward and shun the cakes that moments before they had been trying so hard to eat.

  Comune Simone strides over and, because there is no seat for him, he stands behind his Tenente, an attentive butler.

  Maria appears, holding unsteadily in her slender arms a tray on which stands a pot of coffee, some cups and a plate of softer cakes.

  “Thank you…” de la Grascia begins.

  “Maria,” she replies, grinning mischievously, plonking the tray on the table.

  The Tenente catches the pot before it falls over. “Thank you, Maria.” He pours the coffee and pushes the cakes towards his companions, who help themselves and munch away with gusto, if not comparative ease.

  The young girl waits to see their reaction to the fake coffee.

  One of the men shrinks at the taste and looks over at his Tenente who, in turn, smiles and takes a generous sip from his cup.

  De la Grascia winks, grins and nods in the direction of the standing Comune.

  His sergeant catches on, passes back a cup and a cake, drains his own cup and sighs in appreciation.

  The German officers grumble amongst themselves.

  Comune Simone sips, grimaces, tries a cake, chews, blanches, swallows and fingers at a loose tooth.

  Mira glides to their table. “How is your coffee? Are my cakes to your liking, Tenente de la Grascia?”

  He smiles, playing along. “Thank you, Signora Alberti, my coffee is delicious and your cakes the perfect accompaniment.”

  One of the Germans purses his lips and makes an all too obviously sour remark to his fellow officers. They nod their approval and, ignoring what remains uneaten of their breakfast, rise as one and make to leave.

  As they do, the three men suddenly halt, come to attention, turnabout, click their heels and salute, their arms straight up and angled, perfect in both timing and elevation. “Heil Hitler!”

  Tenente de la Grascia returns his cup to the table, hauls himself slowly upright and salutes in return, though without any particular enthusiasm.

  The senior officer swears and though his words are unintelligible to the Italian artillerymen still seated, the message is unmistakable, so as one they stand, ready to respond to the insult.

  The Panzergrenadiers watching, cut short their conversations and one by one they turn to take an interest.

  Tenente de la Grascia waves his companions back down and smiles, immediately disarming the officers as though by magic he has relieved them of their weapons.

  He speaks to them in their native language, his manner easy, his words as soft and sympathetic as his basic knowledge of the German language will permit him. Whatever it is that he says is clearly meant to mollify them and it does so until his final sentence, the tone of which grows harsh and unforgiving.

  The two junior officers wither beneath his assault, their faces reddening with the increasing blood pressure their apoplexy provokes.

  Mira witnesses the charade play out, admiring de la Grascia for the manner in which he stands up to the German officers and at the same time being uncomfortably aware of the malice transmitted in the expressions of the soldiers, who toy nervously with their rifles. When she looks back at the artillerymen still sitting, as de la Grascia has ordered them, Mira notices the look on Comune Simone’s face. It is one of surprised horror, as though he can neither comprehend nor countenance why his officer has been so disrespectful to the Germans.

  Under de la Grascia’s glare, the two younger German officers are unsure of how to react and they stand and wait for a lead from their senior, who stares back, his expression stark, cold and resolute.

  When the Tenente has finished, the senior officer replies, and though his tone holds no threat, whatever it is he says to de la Grascia, it is plainly obvious that his words hold a world of unwanted promises.

  The German captain turns and speaks to one of his lieutenants, who returns to the table and places a couple of bank notes beneath a cup.

  “Thank you, gentlemen. Have a good day,” De la Grascia says, this time in Italian.

  They don’t respond to his good wishes; they simply turn away and begin strolling back to their car. One of the lieutenants barks at the men and they begin climbing back into the truck.

  As they drive away, the captain refuses to look at de la Grascia; he merely instructs his driver to turn around and leave in the same direction from which they’d arrived.

  The car and truck disappear, and it is as though a great balloon of tension has burst and pursued them noisily out of the piazza.

  The men at the table guffaw, snort and slap each other on the back. “Bravo, Tenente. Bravo,” one shouts.

  De la Grascia, unlike his men, is not so amused. He doesn’t reclaim his seat and neither does he join them in their irreverent rejoicing; he simply stands, rooted to the paving, and stares spellbound after the departed Germans.

  Mira decides to break his spell. She strides to the now empty table and loads her tray with the dirty cups and plates. Picking up the bank notes, she counts them and whistles in surprise. “Whatever did you say to that officer?”

  Hauled from the reverie of his thoughts, he comes to and smiles at her. “I merely reminded him of the fact that to leave a café without settling the bill is, even in times of war, a crime, and one which I would have no alternative but to report to his commanders.”

  “Was that all?” Mira stands, resting her tray against her hip. “It sounded much worse to me.”

  “Oh, it is difficult to be other than formal in German: the language lacks any latitude.”

  “And what was his reply? He didn’t like seem to take to you too kindly.”

  De la Grascia smiles, a wan, pitying smile. “Oh, the poor fellow said your coffee was so bad that he couldn’t understand why anyone would risk their life defending people who served such appalling coffee.
So, I was forced to inform him that while he is a guest in our country, he should respect the people who work in our cafes even if their coffee is unpalatable. And furthermore, I informed him that your coffee is German and that if he had to complain, he was digging a rather large hole for himself. Perhaps that was the part that upset him.”

  Mira moves closer to him, so that his men will not overhear. “Where did you learn German, Aldo?”

  At her use of his Christian name, he glances at his men and glowers playfully at her. “Oh, in Russia.” He pauses, studying her quizzical expression. “Yes, I know. That is yet another facet of this ridiculous war, that one should journey all the way to Russia to learn German.”

  The captain turns to his men. “Come, it is time to go. That is more than enough excitement for one morning.” He fumbles in his pocket.

  Mira places her hand over his; an act that she is aware Comune Simone takes notice of. “I cannot ask you to pay for something you have supplied.”

  With his free hand, De la Grascia gently removes hers and drawing a couple of notes from his pocket, places them on the table.

  Glancing towards Simone and the other artillerymen, he whispers, “That is for us to know and, even if they believe it is so, they must not see it.” His look is now solemn and as he speaks, he very gently squeezes her hand. “Mira, you must be aware by now that I hold you close to my heart… No don’t look so uncomfortable; I tell you this so that you will take what I am about to tell you seriously. Please, my dear one, when we have left, close the café and go home. I will explain when I see you at mass. Please, now, do as I ask.”

  Chapter 10

  “So, your angel of mercy stayed at home today, eh?” Enzo quips, when Mira walks in.