Once Night Falls

by Roland Merullo

  In the days between these acts, he visited Sarah in the cabin, left notes and money at the church, checked the ceramic jar in Masso’s back field for messages, stopped for a quick visit with his mother, made trips like the one he had made to Milan—just to see things for himself and pass on any messages that had been sent from Archbishop Maniscalco, through the mustachioed priest at the Duomo. He gathered mushrooms, herbs, berries, made weekly trips to the towns north of Gravedona in Masso’s cart, caught a few fish in the lake or trapped a pheasant, and sold them in the town to keep up his disguise and to feed himself and Sarah. But the urge to do more gnawed at him like a cancer. Today it was even worse. He was going to be a father now—father to a son, he was sure of it. He wanted, years down the road, to be able to tell his son that his one-eyed, weak-armed father had made a difference in the war, had played a role in bringing peace and freedom to Italy, something grander than stabbing a lone Fascist on a mountain path or cutting a few telephone wires.

  When darkness fell, he waited another hour until the moon rose and then, using his flashlight sparingly, going step by precarious step, made his way back to a point he’d scouted out earlier. There, he lifted the largest rock he could lift and placed it strategically above an alluvium of stones and gravel. He listened. No sound. No lights on the roads above. He released the boulder and heard it clatter down the slope and veer off into the trees. And then silence. Working awkwardly with his mismatched arms, he lifted another large stone, set it in place, pushed it forward at a slightly different angle. Same result. Frustrated, he tried four more times before he heard the released stone banging its way down along the slope, disturbing the gravel as it went, gathering smaller stones behind it, like a partisan leader gathering recruits, that had been lying in wait for centuries. He held his breath and listened: this one would work. By the time it reached the guardrail at a particularly precarious turn, two hundred meters below, it would be leading a small battalion of granite and quartz. Some of the rockslide would be stopped by a partial guardrail, but most of it would spill out onto the pavement in what he hoped would be the most natural-looking display of nature’s caprice.

  He waited until the sound slowed and gradually stopped, until the last trickle of moving gravel had ceased, and then, wrapped in a moonlit silence, he waited another hour, trying to stay awake, nurturing a seed of hope. At last he heard the engines of what he assumed to be the regular nightly troop transport making its slow descent. Loud gears sounded on the straightaways, then they were muted as the vehicles turned behind a hill. Then loud again. And then, precisely what he’d been hoping for: the squeal of brakes, the sluicing sound of locked tires on pavement, a resounding crash as something—a truck filled with men and weapons?—skidded off the road and into the rock face. Perfect. The accident would delay one load of supplies for an hour or two. That would have to be his contribution for this day.

  Twenty-Eight

  Late at night, not five minutes before Maria was going to tap the broomstick twice against the attic entrance, she heard a scuffing of feet at her front door and then two light knocks. “Signora?” A man’s voice. German accent. Familiar. She barely had the strength of will to walk down the hallway and pull open the door. There, on stone steps her husband had laid in their first days in this home, stood the redheaded officer.

  “Did I wake you?” he asked politely in his broken Italian. I you wake up?

  She managed a shake of her head.

  “I came to say I am sorry for the actions of my friend. May I come in?”

  She hesitated a second but, deciding that she had no choice, led him down the hallway, directly beneath the trapdoor, and into her kitchen. Without asking, he took a seat at the table and gestured for her to join him there. She was at the point of asking if he wanted something to drink, but it was nothing more than a hospitality reflex, born of thirty Italian generations. She held it in her heart and sat stiffly.

  “Again, I apologize.”

  She nodded, struggled to swallow, to speak.

  “Have I disturbed you?”

  Maria shook her head, clasped her hands, willed the words out of her mouth. “It’s very late,” she said. “Usually I’m in bed.”

  “The dinners are delicious.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We won’t ask for any more of your chickens. You can keep them for eggs.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But the actions of my friend . . .” The officer shook his head sadly and left the sentence unfinished. “I realized you don’t even know our names. My name is Rolf.” He reached his hand across and shook hers, but too forcefully. It almost hurt.

  Her cheeks were twitching. She made herself speak. “Why did you come here?”

  He hesitated, perfectly sober it seemed, looked from her face to her breasts and back again. He smiled just by pinching the muscles of one cheek, but there was something wrong with the smile, a note of superiority, of evil. She thought she heard a tiny noise above her head and willed herself not to move or change expression. Rebecca was waiting for her food.

  “You are not in danger from me,” he said in a sly tone she didn’t trust. “In any way you can imagine.”

  She nodded again. He was mocking her, glancing at her large, sagging breasts, her fat thighs, stifling a grin. The Germans wanted their women young and lithe and without morals.

  “I’d like to help you if I can,” Rolf went on. “I could see that you are hungry, so I would like to help you.”

  “I have enough,” she said. “But I don’t want to be treated like that again. Here in Italy, men don’t treat women that way. Good women.”

  He gave her a false nod, seemed to be forcing himself not to burst out laughing. “I’ll be happy to speak to my friend on your behalf, Maria.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are quite welcome.” Rolf put the fingertips of one hand on the table, palm lifted, and arranged them there as if on piano keys. His nails were perfectly clean, expertly trimmed. He relaxed the hand and raised his eyes to her. “In return for one small favor.”

  She waited, blinked, felt a prayer begin inside her.

  “I would like you,” he said, “to bring me one Jew. Only one. If you can point out to me one person in the town who is Jewish, or half-Jewish, or even someone you think has sympathy for Jews and is helping them in some way, then I can guarantee that you will not be hurt or insulted, and we’ll even give you a healthy ration of our food to take home with you on a regular basis. As a reward.”

  “There are none,” she said quickly. “No Jews left here.”

  “Ah. I have heard that. But I don’t quite believe it.”

  “I’m not lying to you. There were two Jewish families in Mezzegra, but when the . . . when the war started, they ran off. Maybe to Switzerland.”

  “The Swiss won’t take them. No one will take them. Only us. We’ll put them to work, that’s all. Nothing worse than that. They’ll be kept away from the war. In a way, we’re saving them.”

  Maria shrugged. “I have no idea where they went. They didn’t leave any word. Two families.”

  Rolf stared at her for a moment, then removed his hand from the table, pushed his chair back, and made as if to stand. She saw his big thigh muscles flex beneath the cloth of his gray trousers and noticed again his powerful shoulders and neck. “But if there were Jews here in this town, you would tell me, yes?”

  “Of course,” she said immediately. “We know the laws. We’ve known them since long before . . .”

  His pinched smile stopped her. “Long before we arrived in your beautiful land, yes?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “That’s fine,” he said, standing. “We know you don’t want us here. That’s perfectly natural. But we deal in facts, in logic, not feelings, and the fact is that we are here, probably for many years. Generations, perhaps. And another fact is that we enforce the laws a bit more strictly than what you have been accustomed to with your Duce. He’s gone now, as you no do
ubt know.”

  “I’d heard. Yes. At the market. I thought it was a rumor.”

  “No rumor,” Rolf said wearily, standing now. “Gone. Disappeared. Perhaps he fled to Switzerland . . . with his girlfriend.”

  She stood, too, watching his crooked, malevolent grin. She was trembling in a way she hoped he couldn’t see, her ears alert to the smallest sound above them.

  “But for those who obey the laws, we have nothing but respect. So thank you for your promise. I shall hold you to it, and you shall hold me to mine. You won’t be treated that way again as long as you help us, and I will not make any more late-night visits. Please act as quickly as you can, however, because some of my colleagues are not as . . . understanding . . . as I am. Nor as patient.”

  She saw him to the door and made no response when he bade her good night, and she watched him as he crossed the lot in the moonlight, not looking back.

  Twenty-Nine

  The size of the advance payment from the mysterious half-American, found in the top drawer of his bureau exactly as promised, pleased Silvio Merino greatly. So greatly, in fact, that he decided to turn the trip to Milan—not without risk, of course; it would have been safer to send a surrogate—into a weekend vacation. Lisiella Aiello lived there and would no doubt welcome a visit. If her bed happened to be otherwise occupied, there were always other pleasures: the Grand Hotel de Milan with his manager friend Bella and its American bar and exquisite food.

  That same night, he made the short walk to Via Sistina, to the garage where he stored both his vehicles: a simple yellow Fiat Cinquecento, which he used for his more mundane outings, and a lime-green 1942 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser convertible. Five-speed. White-walled tires, white canvas top, lime-green leather seats. His excursion car. The vehicle that seemed to him like an extension of the truest part of his personality.

  For a little while, Silvio paced in circles around the two vehicles, studying them, letting his intuition settle the matter. Which would be better for the trip to Milano? The Fiat would attract less attention. Then again, the truth was that, these days, any private vehicle attracted a certain amount of attention. Logic counseled the more modest choice.

  After he’d pondered for a while, however, it began to seem to him that the Oldsmobile was the wiser option. Yes, it would be slightly suspicious to be seen driving an American car, but the more successful members of society were often seen in American cars. He’d look more important, less like someone the Germans or police could intimidate. His intuition, always trustworthy, nudged him in the direction of the Oldsmobile. He didn’t resist.

  He left at dawn the next day and took the coastal route, E40, heading north and west from the capital. He passed through Argentario and Grosseto, then a series of small villages with clusters of stone houses on the hilltops and fields spreading out below. He went as far as Livorno before turning inland. All was well to that point—he loved the feeling of piloting the magnificent vehicle and kept the top down in the warm day—though here and there, he saw evidence of Allied bombing raids. Except for assaults on a few factories and rail yards, the raids were relatively infrequent this far north, at least for now; still, people were suffering, and he felt the smallest twinge of guilt as he glided through the streets in the coupe with a thousand lire in gold packed into a ceramic statuette of Saint Jude—Giovanni’s “package”—in the glove compartment.

  All was well. But then, just at the southern border of the city of Milan, he came upon a checkpoint. Nazi soldiers, six of them, strutting about like show dogs in their shining leather boots and matching black holsters. One of them waved him to the side of the road. Silvio pulled over.

  The officer took his time about approaching, seemed almost to be ogling the car. He walked behind and checked the plate, circled around front and fingered the grill, actually kicked the tires, and only then came up to the driver’s door and looked sternly down at the man behind the wheel.

  “Papers,” he demanded, pronouncing the word in more or less understandable Italian.

  “Of course, sir.” When Silvio reached into the glove compartment, the loaded Saint Jude tumbled out. He laughed, mumbled something about good luck, returned the statue to its place, and calmly produced his papers. Impeccable, they were. Beyond question. He’d designed and printed them himself.

  “From Rome?”

  “Si. Roma.”

  “Purpose of the trip?”

  “A girlfriend in Milano and a bit of business there.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “It says on the papers,” Silvio said, pointing. “Restaurant consultant. We have the Grand Hotel de Milan. Business is poor. They’re thinking of closing, and I’m going to try to talk them out of it.”

  The officer smirked, studied the papers, lifted his face to Silvio, and engaged in some kind of eye-contact battle. Silvio smiled, allowed the man to win. It meant nothing. At last, the officer handed back his papers. And then, just when Silvio thought he’d be free to travel on, the man said, “What about taking a German friend for a ride?”

  “When, now?”

  “Exactly. I’m a car lover. This is a classic. If you’re not in too much of a hurry, take me for a short excursion.”

  The man’s face did not show the slightest evidence of a smile.

  “You’re serious,” Silvio said.

  “Absolutely.”

  On the two-lane highway, with the officer sitting at his ease in the passenger seat—an arm’s length from the gold-filled Saint Jude—Silvio focused on the road and kept a pleasant expression on his face. A spider of nervousness had taken up residence in his lower abdomen, but he tried his best to give off an aura of satisfaction, hospitality, Italian good-heartedness. The German appreciated his beautiful car; he was happy to oblige.

  But as they passed through the small town of Caverna del Valle, the officer said, in a tone that might have been casual and might not have been, “Why aren’t you in the military, fighting for your country?”

  “A bit old,” Silvio said.

  “The documents said thirty-four. I, myself, am thirty-eight.”

  “And heart issues. Inherited.”

  “Truly?”

  Silvio nodded in a sad way, as if nothing would have pleased him more than to be able to fight for the Axis powers, to be sent by the idiot Duce to bake in Libya or freeze on the road to Moscow, to give up good food, wine, women, the company of friends and the comfort of his apartment—all for the great cause of bringing the disaster that was Fascism to the rest of Europe.

  For a little while, the German said nothing. And then, “Take me on a winding road. Let me see some of the famous Italian driving skill.”

  North and west of the city, winding roads weren’t difficult to find. Silvio turned toward the hills near Lake Como and pushed the Oldsmobile into a fast climb. Soon, they were making switchback turns and, engaged in the steering and shifting, he’d half forgotten the man beside him and all concerns about his military eligibility. The wind rushed over him, twirling strands of hair at his temples and rustling the open collar of his shirt. Stunted pine trees flashed past. He loved the song of the gears, the hum of the tires, the way the weight of the Oldsmobile shifted left and right on the turns. They crested a rise and began to descend, still at a high rate of speed. Soon the road flattened. Silvio found himself behind a farmer’s delivery truck, running alongside a set of railroad tracks two kilometers north of the city center.

  “Pass him,” the German said, just as the road made a gradual turn to the right.

  “But—”

  The officer unbuckled his holster and held his pistol up to Silvio’s right temple. “Pass him. Let’s see if your bad heart comes into play.”

  You people enjoy playing the bully, Silvio thought. It’s what you have instead of good food. But he had long ago mastered the art of the falsely confident laugh. He let the laugh settle into a wide grin, shifted, pressed his foot down on the pedal. He could feel the tip of the pistol hovering a few cen
timeters from his right temple, but he didn’t flinch in the slightest. He slipped smoothly into the opposite lane; the driver of the truck had nowhere to move over, the road in front of them blocked by the hillside; he could see only a hundred meters ahead.

  The nervousness was gone now. He could feel the fear trying to take hold of him as he focused on the road, but something much stronger than fear was upon him, his pride rising up like a wounded prince on the field of battle. If the German wanted to die, that was no problem. He himself had been ready to die from the time he’d been fifteen years old—that was the key to enjoying life! One had to die. One didn’t want to spend ninety-five years avoiding death at all costs only to waste away in a casa di riposo, fed by nuns and shitting in a diaper. He kept the grin in place, felt the wind battering his face, felt the weight of the big car shifting left, the pressure on the wheels there, the tires singing.

  And then, from behind the hillside, he saw the front of an intercity bus appear, coming directly at them like the face of a joking devil. Perfect. He pressed down even harder on the pedal. The German lowered the pistol, pushed the soles of his boots nervously against the floor. Without changing expression or making a sound, Silvio kept the coupe at top speed, raced up to within twenty meters of the bus, then slid deftly to his right, past the delivery truck and into the other lane just in time. An angry horn wailed and faded behind him. He laughed again, downshifted into the turn. The German wiped his free palm on his trousers, and when Silvio glanced sideways, he saw a small dark sweat stain there. The pistol had gone back into its holster.