by E. Graziani
The summer passed in a climate of apprehension and uncertainty. In its wake the mountain air turned colder. Autumn allowed the trees in the woodlands and peaks surrounding the valley to show off their brilliant hues of red, orange, and yellow. The tapestry of warm colors gave an almost warming effect to the crispness of the October mountain air. It was harvest time in Eglio.
The changes in Italy had been more than I, or any other young person, could understand. “Explain the part about Il Duce being Hitler’s puppet again,” I would pester my brother as we worked in the fields for the harvest. We siblings did most of the work in their fields, since our nonno was very ill now and Nonna was becoming increasingly confused. Hay had to be prepared for the animals and stored in their barn in the valley below the village for the winter.
“Hitler’s men brought Il Duce back to the north. The Nazis are strong here. Mussolini is our leader again,” said Cesar, swinging the sling blade deftly through the hay. “Meanwhile the Allies have taken over the south of Italy. This means that our country is divided into two parts.”
Though much had changed for the worse in our village that fall, life in the big cities was more dire. Because of the constant threat of looming air raids, people sought refuge in the country if they could.
Aurelia came home from her job as a cook in Pisa. When she returned, she and Dante, the son of our neighbors, Oreste and Ida, declared their engagement. They hoped to be married when the war was over. Pina came home from Livorno, where she too had been employed as a cook.
Both Pina and Aurelia told stories of Jewish families in the cities where they worked. Some already had had their rights and property snatched from them by Il Duce’s fascist government. When the Nazis invaded northern Italy, things got even worse for the Jewish people. They were rounded up and sent to concentration camps where many of them were murdered.
To protect themselves, Jews were forced into hiding. Some Jewish families were given refuge by loyal Christian friends or by former employees. Others were hidden in the many crevasses and secret passages in churches, monasteries, and basilicas by priests and nuns. They fled to the countryside where farmers hid them in barns or cellars. Some Jews concealed their identities by buying false papers and calling themselves Christians to avoid being captured by the Nazis. They attended church and took communion wafers to avoid suspicion. I was horrified to think that people would be treated like this because they were of a different religion. How could evil like this triumph?
“Believe me, Bruna, it is best to be with family at times like this,” Pina told me. And in spite of the horrors around us, in spite of the situation, I loved the fact that most of my family was back in Eglio. I was delighted that Pina’s cooking skills could even make beets taste good.
Nora was the only one still away from home. Besides Alcide of course. Alcide was never far from anyone’s mind and neither were the other men who were still missing.
Nora was still working in the orphanage in Florence. She could not bring herself to leave the children. She had let it slip that there was someone special there. His name was Mario and he was quite the urban gentleman. His family owned a pensione, a hotel, in Florence.
“Are you daydreaming, Bruna?” Cesar asked me, smiling. “Quickly, let’s gather up the hay.” Cesar hacked at the hay furiously. “Enough about politics. I’m growing tired of it.”
“Very well.” I obeyed my older brother. Still I couldn’t help but think of how life had changed from before the war. How I longed to have it back the way it was. Little did I realize we had not seen the worst of it yet.
Chapter 12
As close to us as the German soldiers were, the dreaded winter was much closer. All of us villagers had tried to store away as much of the fall harvest as possible. We knew that supplies would never get through now that the country was divided. We hid as many turnips and potatoes as possible in inconspicuous places in our homes. Under the beds, covered with blankets, in the chestnut driers in the fields, anywhere but in plain sight.
We knew that there were regiments of German soldiers based strategically in the Valley along the Serchio River. The Nazis had come boldly into Eglio and Sassi twice in the last two weeks. They had entered several homes looking for food, but had also taken valuables from the villagers.
White-faced, our friend Alice burst through our doorway after the Nazis had left her house. “Oh, heaven help us! Those brutes forced their way into our house, ransacking everything in sight. They took all the food they could find. And then they seized our silver candlesticks, the ones that were a wedding gift.” Alice wailed in despair.
“They helped themselves to my woolen blankets and good linens, too. Poor Paolo was powerless to stop them. They put a bayonet to his throat, those thieves.” Mamma nodded her head in compassion.
Alice and Paolo weren’t the only ones who had things taken. And the Nazis weren’t only taking things. They were taking people, too.
When the soldiers came to Eglio, I saw them with my own eyes as I hid in my grandmother’s house. Her window had a relatively clear view of the entire bottom half of the village. I saw one of the soldiers taking a villager out of his home, a bayonet pointed at his skull, his helpless wife left wailing inside the house. The sight frightened me so much I had nightmares all the next week. For the first time in my life, I did not feel safe in my own town.
The German soldiers looked for healthy men in the villages. They sent them to fight on the front lines against the enemy. Many of our men who had come back to the village from the war, now had to fight for the Nazis. Some managed to hide, but others were taken away at gunpoint.
One evening when my mother and sisters had gone to Evelina’s to shell dried chestnuts, I heard my brother and some other men of the village talking in our kitchen. I was in my bedroom trying to get to sleep. But I was curious and listened to the voices of the men below.
“Those villains are sweeping through our villages and taking us like dogs off the streets,” snarled Cesar. “We must do something.”
“Not only that,” said Paolo. “They take whatever they want from our homes and we can’t stop them! Soon they’ll take our women. I saw the way they are, the cold bastards.”
I gasped when I heard this.
“I heard that they slaughter people without remorse, if they don’t cooperate. They line them up against a wall three or four deep and shoot them in the head at close range to save on bullets. They hang men who are suspected of working with the partisans along the road leading to the village,” cried Demetrio, angrier than I had ever heard him. “Children and babies are bayoneted to teach everyone a lesson!”
I felt sick to my stomach. Silently, I crept out of bed and tiptoed over to the top of the stairs and watched the men below as they talked and smoked.
“We may not be able to fight them, but we must protect ourselves,” responded Cesar.
“But how?” asked Oreste.
“They have guns,” growled Edo. “We have nothing.”
“We have our brains,” replied Cesar. “We can use our brains to outsmart them.”
“They are an army,” snapped Edo motioning his disgust. “How can we? If they see me and anyone else who can walk, they’ll take us. They’re devils!”
“They can’t take us if they don’t find us,” said Cesar.
“Come on, Cesar. We can’t hide in the shadows forever,” said Enrico. “We have work to do.”
“Animals to tend and feed, we must go to our barns and storage houses…”
“Gather food, plant and harvest our fields…”
“Yes, yes, I understand, but, thank goodness, they are not here all the time,” said Cesar, exhaling cigarette smoke. “We need to hide only when they’re coming.”
“But how will we know when they’re coming?” asked Paolo.
“We need to find a way of warning everyone,” said Cesar, thinking out lou
d.
Demetrio snapped his fingers. “My house is almost in the middle of the village. If I keep an eye out for the Germans, maybe I could warn the village somehow.”
“How can you warn everyone in Eglio including those who are working in the fields?” asked Paolo. “Your house can’t be seen from all points.”
“No, Paolo, maybe not from your house,” said Cesar to Oreste slowly. “Your house wouldn’t be right, but Evelina’s would be!”
A spontaneous chorus of “Evelina’s house!” resounded in the little kitchen.
“Quickly, let’s go now!” said Demetrio gravely. “We’ve got to get this sorted out tonight before the Nazis come back.”
In what seemed like an instant, they were all gone. They had run out the door into the night, I guessed to Evelina’s. I was by myself, praying that they had thought of a way to protect themselves and the others. I wondered what they could possibly be planning. How would they get word to an entire village when the Germans were coming?
Now that they were gone, it was so quiet. I shivered and reached for the blanket at the foot of my bed, and wrapped it around my shoulders. I crept downstairs and pulled a chair close to the fire in the hearth, stoking it to enliven the flames. I watched the flames dance in the hearth, yellow, orange, and white blending together and then parting. I thought of Alcide and wondered what he was doing now. He was one of the soldiers who had not returned home. I prayed he was still alive somewhere.
The embers were bright and the smell of burning wood was comforting. Although I was afraid to be in the house by myself, I was beginning to feel terribly sleepy near the warm fire. My head began to nod and my eyelids grew heavy. Giving in to sleep, finally, I arose and went to my own bed. For once, sleep was victorious over fear.
Chapter 13
The next morning came quickly. Although it was still relatively dark outside, Paolo and Alice’s rooster down the lane crowed like it was set by an alarm clock. The January days were short and cold and I felt it in my bones that the fire had died during the night. Turning over, I saw that mother was still asleep. The one lone candle in the room cast a long shadow over our quilted covers sewn lovingly together with a variety of fabric scraps. Then I remembered. The women had all been at Evelina’s when the men left our house in a rush. Mamma must know about the plan they came up with.
“Mamma,” I said, nudging her gently. “Mamma, wake up.”
“Yes…what?” she murmured, sleepily. She turned her head slightly to look at me.
“Last night, Mamma, what happened at Evelina’s? Did the men come up there?”
She yawned and gave me a sly smile. “You’ll see today, when you climb the steps up to the top of the ridge to go to grandmother’s. You can see if you go to the fields below the road, too.”
I couldn’t wait to see the plan they had hatched last night.
“How very clever,” said Armida later that day. We friends were all together looking up at Evelina’s kitchen window from the street below.
“Yet perfectly simple and not in the least suspicious,” agreed Beppina.
“And the blanket can be seen from nearly everywhere in the village and the fields,” I boasted, filled with pride that I had been present at the moment the plan had been hatched.
Mamma had explained it to me earlier that day. “Do you see the white blanket over the sill of the window?” She pointed to the innocuous looking bedspread.
“Yes?” I answered, a bit puzzled. “You mean Evelina’s coverlet is going to protect us from the Nazi soldiers?”
Mamma laughed and shook her head. “It’s not the blanket. It’s what it means.”
“What does it mean?”
“Someone will always be on watch at Evelina’s house, either she or one of the men. From her house you can see the road, right to the bend around the hillside of Campi della Regina, leading up to the village and the entire valley below. Everyone working in the valley can see her kitchen window, which faces the farming fields. If she, or whoever is on watch, spots anything suspicious coming around the bend, they will hang a red blanket outside on the windowsill to warn us. We will know this is the signal to hide in whatever we are closest to — in barns, drying huts, the woods. The men will stay hidden until the soldiers leave. When it is safe, a white blanket is the signal that all is clear. Right now, we can see the white blanket, which means that all is well.”
A grin crept across my face as I repeated the details to my friends. Then I drew my lips together and became more serious, vowing to myself that I would be strong and brave. “So keep an eye out for it,” I explained, “when you’re working or about the village. If you see red, then warn anyone who may not be able to see it. Spread the word.”
As the weeks unfolded, the plan worked well and the villagers were comforted by the fact that they had a plan that might give them some control over their lives. Yes, we were at the mercy of the Nazis. We experienced fear whenever soldiers came into our village. But the red blanket was a small measure of victory that kept us going for a while. The men were vigilant in their look-out duties and the plan was hailed as a triumph. It gave us the chance to hide our loved ones, our food, and our belongings.
One night, Cesar gathered up the empty steamer trunk that had held their clothes on the voyage back from Brazil. Cesar and my older sisters hiked to the family barn in the shadowy fields below the town. The trunk was heavy, but Cesar was strong and he held it securely on his back.
Earlier that day, Mamma had carefully gathered up all her treasured belongings and placed them in bundles. “Here,” she said, with determination. “Wrap fabric around all the breakable items for protection.”
In the bundles, she placed the matrimonial sheets and blankets that she had embroidered as a bride, along with her best linen tablecloth sets with matching napkins stitched with her initials. Among the cloths, my sisters hid some of our grandmother’s belongings from her days in the hotel business, such as silver candlesticks, flatware, and crystal. We had to hide them from my nonna who would never have parted with them otherwise. I was certain that Nonna wasn’t even sure there was a war going on. Her dementia grew more severe as the months passed and Cesar was constantly having to retrieve her from wandering in the woods.
We worked at night under the dark sky so as not to attract attention. My sisters and mother carried the treasures balanced on their head and on their backs. They hiked back and forth from Poggetti to the barn in the valley below. Cesar neatly cleared the dirt floor of hay. Then he set to work digging the hole. Once all of our possessions were safely laden in the trunk, my sisters took small spades and shovels and helped him dig a hole deep enough to bury the trunk.
The donkey was moved outside so it wouldn’t be spooked and the chickens and rabbits remained in their pens as Cesar and we women worked quickly to finish before the sun came up. When the hole was large enough, they lined the bottom with dry, crunchy hay and then lowered the bursting trunk into it. Once it was securely in place, they stuffed hay along the sides and filled it to the top to absorb excess moisture. Cesar had fashioned a lid with barn boards and they placed it carefully over the top. This was covered with heavily patted down dirt, followed by a thick layer of hay. No one could possibly see the hole underneath. The donkey pen was moved over the top and the soil from the hole was carried out with baskets and pails and thrown far from the barn so that it would not be obvious.
Our family’s treasures were safe for the time being.
Chapter 14
Winter had pulled a heavy gray blanket over the skies above the village. The Christmas of 1943 would be another lean holiday. Cesar cut a little tree in the woods and brought it to the house. Mery and I decorated it with some homemade trinkets and dried fruit from our grandparents’ orchards. There were no gifts under the tree. In our home, gifts were exchanged on the Epiphany in January, as was the Italian custom. We knew that there would be nothing
save for the socks that Mamma had knitted for each of us from the wool that we had sheared from Nonno’s sheep earlier that year. The woolen socks were a bit scratchy, but they were warm and kept my feet cozy at night.
Christmas Mass was a solemn event and our Christmas feast was simple: chicken, potatoes, greens, and some dried fruit for sweets afterwards. My family ate in silence, the specter of Alcide’s absence never far from anyone’s mind. At one point, despite putting on a brave face, Mamma’s eyes grew mournful. Alcide’s place at the table was empty, and so was Nora’s. It felt like a huge piece of our family was missing that year, even though there were six of us around the modest meal. Everyone knew Nora was safe, but no one could possibly guess what had become of our brother. This was too much for Mother to bear.
“Mamma, don’t cry,” pleaded Pina. “The fact that we don’t know is good, isn’t it Cesar? He could be alive somewhere, hiding.”
Cesar set down his fork and wiped his mouth. “I think so,” he answered without raising his eyes. “He can be strong and very resourceful.”
“Yes, Cesar is right,” said Aurelia, draping an arm around our mother. “He’ll be back. As loud and boisterous as ever.” She forced a laugh.
Mamma wiped her eyes. Even with this heaviness in her heart, this great sadness, she maintained her dignity and strength. She held up her head. “Wherever he is, I pray that he knows we are holding him in our hearts. Buon natale, Merry Christmas.”
“Buon natale,” we repeated. Outside, it smelled like snow, but in our kitchen, the fire in the hearth burned warm and bright.
Chapter 15
Snow fell on the mountain peaks like sugar dusting a panettone. In Eglio, food became ever more scarce in the winter months. Food rations had been in place now for four years and some of the younger children could not remember a time when the cupboards and pantries were full.
