Picture of Defeat

by John Harris

  They had just reached the junction when they heard the roar of an engine from the Crocifisso road, and a truck lifted into view over a rise.

  ‘Germans!’ Pugh said. ‘Look straight ahead.’

  Marco and Foscari dragged Tassinari from the back of the hearse, where he had been happily dreaming of being at home and in bed with the war over and the Germans defeated, shook him to life and held him upright between them as he came to wakefulness, all three of them stumping along on weary feet in a sombre, shabby procession behind the hearse.

  The German lorry roared past without stopping, a large crate labelled Nicht Stuerzen – Don’t drop – in the back, and they were just congratulating themselves on their ruse when a black Mercedes appeared over the same rise. As it passed them, Pugh recognised the man beside the driver as Hoggeimer.

  He seemed not to notice them and the car shot past without stopping, and Pugh was just flicking a quick smile at Tamara when he realised the car was slowing down. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw it was pulling to a stop at the side of the road.

  ‘Oh, Mamma mia,’ Tamara moaned.

  The car was reversing at speed. As Pugh drew the horse to a stop Hoggeimer smiled up at him.

  ‘What is this?’ he said cheerfully. ‘I thought you buried Boccaccio Detto Banti two days ago. Who can this be?’

  ‘Enrichetta,’ Tamara said quickly, before Pugh could gather his wits. ‘Enrichetta Arsini. She was his housekeeper. For twenty years.’

  Marco nodded his agreement. ‘Very faithful, Signor Tenente,’ he said.

  Hoggeimer had climbed from the car now and was walking slowly round the stationary hearse, peering inside it.

  ‘Making away with the curtains, too, I see,’ he said cheerfully, indicating the folded bundle beyond the coffin. ‘Still, why not? Times are hard and you’ll be able to sell them.’ He glanced at Tamara. ‘They could make a splendid dress for you, Signora. The colour would suit you.’

  Tamara went pink and glanced at Pugh. ‘That’s what my husband said.’ His hand felt for hers and she grabbed his fingers and clutched them tightly.

  ‘And what’s this?’ Hoggeimer was staring at a flat parcel propped against the end of the hearse. ‘It wouldn’t be one of those missing Detto Bantis that the Herr Kapitän is seeking, would it?’

  It was clearly going to be a case of bribery. The suggestion was obvious in Hoggeimer’s expression.

  ‘It’s not a very good one, Signor Tenente,’ Pugh pointed out. ‘We thought it wouldn’t be missed, and when the others were taken into the vaults of the Palazzo Municipale, we thought we might keep that one for ourselves and held it back. As you say, times aren’t easy.’

  ‘So they are in the vaults,’ Hoggeimer smiled. ‘That will please the Herr Kapitän. In the meantime, I think perhaps I might have this one.’

  ‘What about us?’ Marco demanded hotly.

  Hoggeimer smiled. ‘Perhaps your government should never have surrendered. When they switched sides it changed things a little. Take it out.’

  Pugh scrambled into the hearse to reach the painting. Bringing it out, he handed it as sullenly as he could manage to Hoggeimer, who peeled off the wrapping paper and stared at it.

  ‘What’s it called?’ he asked.

  ‘A Farmer Selling a Cow,’ Signor Tenente.

  ‘I’ve seen better.’

  ‘So have I, Tenente. That’s why we thought the Führer wouldn’t be interested.’

  ‘He won’t be! His agents are buying him Canalettos and Tiepolos – though, in fact, his tastes are stunted and he cares more for the cliché-ridden stuff turned out by Buerke and Uhde, or the vulgar nudes of Hans Baidung. I’m different. I could use it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hang it over my mantelpiece,’ Tamara said sharply.

  Hoggeimer smiled. ‘Neither would I, Signora. I shall sell it. What is it worth?’

  ‘Only a few thousand lire,’ Tassinari said.

  ‘Nearer five million I would say. That’s worth having in anybody’s language.’ Hoggeimer smiled, his handsome face creased with mirth.

  He rolled the canvas carefully and gestured at the hearse with it. ‘I’ll not take the hearse. I don’t think it’s worth much, and you doubtless need it. Ciao, Signori, Signora. Enjoy your escape.’

  He turned and began to walk back towards his car, the painting under his arm, still smiling, still very satisfied with himself. As he reached the car, he turned, unrolled the painting and studied it again. He was still studying it when the silence was shattered by a tremendous volley of gunfire. It came from among the trees and the rocks about them and lifted Hoggeimer off his feet.

  Not knowing who was firing, Pugh grabbed Tamara and pushed her under the hearse. But the bullets weren’t coming anywhere near them and when he lifted his head he saw Hoggeimer’s body was still rolling across the road, nudged along by the bullets that were ripping into it, until finally it ended head-down in the ditch, the booted feet in the air in a ludicrous manner. The driver of the car, who had been struggling to start the vehicle, had fallen over the side of the door. The painting, ripped and torn by the bullets that had passed through it into Hoggeimer’s chest, had skated into the ditch at the opposite side of the road.

  For a long time there was utter silence, then they began to hear voices. Raising himself to his knees, Pugh grabbed the reins of the frightened horse as a group of men emerged from the trees and began to straggle down to the road. They wore red armbands and were dressed in a mixture of civilian and military clothing, some of them in flat caps, one or two in the narrow-brimmed feathered hat of the Italian Alpini regiments.

  They carried a variety of weapons, from sub-machine guns to rifles and pistols, and even shotguns.

  Among them was Della Croce, the red-faced student-butcher’s boy from Vicinamontane, who was carrying the ancient muzzle-loader Marco Detto Banti had given him.

  Ten

  The Italians were clambering over the drystone wall now and jumping across the ditch.

  The German driver moaned and moved slightly, and one of them opened the door and drew his pistol. Firing it into the German’s head, he kicked the body as it rolled into the road.

  ‘Tedesco swine,’ he said.

  As Tamara hid her face in her hands, Pugh put his arm round her shoulders. Sadism, cruelty and brutality ran through the history of Italy, despite the fact that through the same blood flowed a torrent of love and affection, a mingled current of dark and light that set the Latin soul apart from the rest of the world.

  For a long time nobody said anything. Even the birds seemed to have stopped singing. Dust stirred from the road by the bullets was still hanging in the air and there was a smell of new blood and cordite. Marco was standing with his arms held stiffly upwards, a fixed grin on his face. Tassinari was slack-jawed and sick-looking, shocked by the killing, though after four years of war and the air raids on Naples he must have seen plenty already. Foscari had moved behind Pugh and was trying to look as small as possible.

  The man who appeared to be the leader of the group was studying the Mercedes. He was a sturdy man, with angry lines on his face, a shock of dark hair and a large moustache. He reminded Pugh of someone he knew.

  ‘I am Salvadori, Giovanni, known as Uragano,’ he said, ‘chairman of the Crocifisso Branch of the Partito Communisto Italiano,’ and Pugh realised that he had deliberately made himself look like the man who was without doubt his hero: Stalin.

  ‘Nobody escaped,’ he went on. ‘We’ll take the motor car and the weapons.’ He paused. ‘And their boots and trousers. I don’t think anyone will want the rest.’

  The dusty surface of the road was puddled with blood but the Italians seemed unmoved. Della Croce passed in front of Pugh, grinning at him. ‘Nobody escaped,’ he said, repeating the words of his leader. ‘And now there will be a gun for me. I can throw this old thing away.’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ Pugh advised. ‘It’s an antique. You’d find a buyer for it among the Americans for certain. They li
ke things as ancient as that. They don’t have a lot that’s old.’

  Della Croce studied the gun then he looked up and nodded. Slinging the gun across his back, he picked up the rifle from alongside the dead driver. Someone else had wrenched Hoggeimer’s belt, pistol and holster from his body and was engaged in wiping the blood from them with a piece of dirty rag. Another of the men had tossed aside the battered shoes he wore and was dragging on the lieutenant’s shiny boots. Money, watches and trinkets were pushed into ragged pockets.

  ‘There is only one thing for an Italian male,’ Della Croce said. ‘Revenge. War to the knife. In the resistance we have found our patriotism again.’

  ‘Some men get married,’ Pugh pointed out in a flat voice.

  ‘Pah! Italian girls are impossible. Either they’re peasants who just want to fill the house with babies, or they are stupid and just want to marry counts. But we’re different in the south. In Naples we shot our Fascists. When Rome falls they will form a new government with them. A pity we couldn’t get the lorry as well. It means they’ve got away with The Adoration of the Lamb from Crocifisso.’ He gestured at the hearse. ‘Who’s that you’ve got in there?’ he demanded. ‘Surely not old Detto Banti?’

  They glanced at each other and it was Marco who spoke. His words came out in a rush.

  ‘It’s Enrichetta.’

  ‘Enrichetta Arsini?’ Della Croce seemed startled. ‘Dio, that was sudden, wasn’t it? I saw her only two days ago. What happened?’

  ‘They said it was her heart.’

  Salvadori looked at Pugh for the first time. Then he turned to Marco and gestured. ‘Who are these people?’

  Tassinari answered for Marco. ‘I am Avvocato Tassinari from Naples,’ he said.

  ‘What are you doing behind the German lines?’

  ‘I am administering the estate of the late Boccaccio Detto Banti, who died four days ago.’

  ‘Was he worth much?’ Della Croce asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Salvadori looked at the others.

  ‘And these?’

  ‘Signorina Detto Banti. Abandoned daughter of Bocco Detto Banti. She would have been heir to his fortune if there had been one to leave to her.’

  ‘He was wealthy?’

  ‘“Was” is the operative word. It was all gone. He hadn’t painted for years.’

  ‘I heard there were paintings.’

  ‘Removed to the vaults of the Palazzo Municipale, I heard, Leader,’ Della Croce said. ‘It was destroyed by German shells as they entered. The Germans are still trying to dig them out.’

  ‘And this man?’

  ‘A British soldier.’

  ‘And this one?’

  ‘An escaped British prisoner of war,’ Pugh said quickly, in case the partisans tried to force Foscari to join them.

  Foscari nodded speechlessly.

  ‘You can join us if you wish,’ Salvadori invited. ‘Many have. Deserters from the Italian army. English. German. Russian. We are known as the League of Nations.’

  Pugh said nothing. What Salvadori said was right, and it was indicative of the chaos and tragedy of Italy.

  The dead driver was dragged away from the Mercedes, and Della Croce climbed into his place, tried the horn and started the engine.

  ‘We could catch the lorry up,’ he said. ‘And get the Tintoretto back.’

  Salvadori frowned. ‘Don’t be stupid. We’re too near Vicinamontane. We’ll head back into the hills.’ He looked at Pugh. ‘You can keep the hearse, Englishman. It’s not fast enough for us. Where are you going?’

  ‘Naples.’

  ‘The Germans are in front.’

  ‘We thought we might get through them.’

  ‘There’s a gap between Crocifisso and Vermagna. At Bagnano. If you go by Moccino you might get through. But you’ll need to hurry before the tedeschi close it. The Anglo-Americans are regrouping to push them back. We heard by radio. We’re going to meet them.’

  As they talked, Della Croce was turning the car round.

  ‘We’ve been told to ambush anything we see,’ Salvadori went on. ‘The Americans are going to send aircraft to drop weapons and plastic explosive. To blow bridges.’ He grinned and raised a clenched fist. ‘Long live Communist Italy!’

  As Della Croce finished his manoeuvres with the car, the resistance men clambered aboard, clinging to the running boards like flies on a jam-pot. Della Croce tooted the horn again and the car moved off with such a jerk two of the men fell off. There were shouts, Salvadori slapped at Della Croce and the car stopped. The two men picked themselves up and climbed aboard again, and this time the Mercedes moved away slowly, picking up speed, until it disappeared over the hump in the road to Crocifisso, where they had first seen it climbing into sight.

  For a long time, the five people standing by the hearse said nothing. Tamara still had her hands to her face, frozen and mute with shock. Pugh touched her shoulder and she swung round and buried her face in his chest. For a while he stood with his arms round her, then she pushed herself free.

  ‘Non c’è niente,’ she said with an effort. ‘Far worse things than this are happening every day in Italy. And they were Germans and we are unhurt.’ She essayed a look in the direction of Hoggeimer. Bluebottles had already arrived and were feasting on the blood. Her face twisted. ‘Can we bury them?’ she asked.

  There was a spade strapped on the underside of the hearse. Clearly at times, Agente di Pompe Funebri Ciasca had been obliged not only to attend the last rites for his clients, he had also been obliged to dig their graves. Working one after the other, Pugh, Foscari and Marco managed to scrape a shallow grave in which they placed the two bodies side by side. Covering them up, they placed stones on top. By the time they had finished, Tassinari had fashioned a crude cross by tying together with the yellow curtain cords two pieces of wood he had found among the trees. They planted it at the head of the grave and Tassinari muttered something over it.

  As they turned away, they saw Tamara on her knees in the road, studying the remains of the painting. The bullets had cut straight across it, destroying it completely. Only one fragment, the head of the farmer who had been selling his cow, was worth saving, and she borrowed a knife from Pugh to cut it free.

  ‘I think I’d like to keep it,’ she said slowly. ‘After all, it is a Detto Banti and he was my father. Perhaps it still has some value.’

  ‘Probably more than before,’ Tassinari said. ‘With the history it’s just acquired.’

  ‘We’d better go,’ Pugh urged.

  ‘We’d better also have another picture to barter for our lives,’ Tassinari suggested quietly.

  Pugh glanced round at the others. Only Marco objected.

  ‘We’ve lost one,’ he said.

  ‘I would say it was worth it,’ Tassinari pointed out calmly. ‘Without it, we might all have been heading back towards Vicinamontane behind the lieutenant’s car. And you know what the Germans do to people who steal art treasures.’

  They drove towards the trees and, pulling off the road, Foscari unscrewed the lid of the coffin and removed a second canvas. They had foreseen the possibility of the need for more than one and had placed them in order, with what Tassinari and Pugh had considered the worst ones at the top. Pugh looked at the back of the canvas. It was another allegory. It consisted of a crucified Christ at the top of the picture with, at the bottom, a scene of warfare with armoured soldiers moving about with flags.

  ‘Prince of Peace,’ he read. He looked at Marco. ‘Bocco was in a cynical frame of mind when he painted this,’ he said.

  Since the wrapping from the Farmer Selling A Cow was covered with Hoggeimer’s blood, they decided to use the new picture as part of the decoration of the hearse, because it was far from unusual for Italian hearses to be placarded with religious pictures.

  Foscari screwed up the coffin again and they propped the picture by the glass doors. With the flowers hiding the bottom half, it looked like a straightforward representation of the cr
ucified Christ.

  As they closed the doors, they decided to take a rest for food. Foscari unharnessed the old horse and tethered it to a tree so that it could graze, and as it wrenched at the grass, the rest of them sat in a silent huddle and ate the rest of the bread and sausage and finished the wine.

  The sun was warm and Marco, still sullen, was just stretching out for a doze when they heard the sound of an engine. It was the Mercedes returning. This time it contained only Salvadori, Della Croce and two other men. Della Croce was grinning all over his red face. As the car halted, he jumped out and, followed by Salvadori, marched straight up the slope to where the hearse stood.

  Immediately, he spotted the canvas propped up by the rear door. He turned to Salvadori and gestured with his thumb.

  ‘That’s a Detto Banti,’ he said. He grinned at Marco. ‘I thought you’d try to get away with one of them.’

  ‘We tried to get away with two,’ Tassinari snapped.

  ‘Where’s the other?’

  ‘You destroyed it.’ The old lawyer reached into the hearse and produced all that was left of the Farmer Selling a Cow. ‘It no longer has any value.’

  Della Croce was opening the doors of the hearse. ‘They used to say a Detto Banti would fetch a million lire.’

  ‘Four million, in fact,’ Tassinari commented.

  ‘That will buy guns for the party’s action group.’ Salvadori turned to Della Croce and swung a flat hand at him. ‘Idiota! Cretino! Why didn’t you warn us of the value of these paintings? We might have saved them both. That would have meant twice as many guns, twice as many comrades armed.’

  ‘I never thought!’

  ‘Comrades are expected to think.’

  Della Croce placed the canvas reverently on the rear seat of the Mercedes, then they all climbed in after it and drove away.

  Marco stared after them, his face a picture of fury and indignation. ‘Two,’ he said.