Liberation

by Joanna Scott

  Forgetting in her sleep to hope that eventually the sun would rise, the door to the cabinet would open, and she would tumble out into her mother’s arms, more confused than she’d ever felt in her life, joints aching, mouth parched. Only after she’d been revived with a cup of water would she consider it her right to demand from her mother proper recognition for her hardship. But Luisa would scold Adriana for this. She would tell her to give thanks to God for protecting her during a night when so much had been lost.

  Not guessing what would be involved in the many stories she’d have to hear before she really understood what had gone on that night and through the following days around the island while the savage fighting continued up in the mountains. It would be three days before the Germans surrendered—and longer before the interim government secured a reliable peace and demobilized its troops, ending officially what the French would call Operation Brassard, the Italians would call La Liberazione, and the British Royal Marine Commandos would call a bloody little sideshow.

  SIXTY YEARS LATER, the woman known to others as Mrs. Rundel is riding on a train through New Jersey. Mrs. Robert Rundel—with her cap of hair a blend of gray and white and streaks of satin black; her face fitting neatly inside the frame of her curls; dark pools of flesh completing the circles of her wide dark eyes; her right eyebrow raised at a sharp angle, pushed upward by a chronically swollen lachrymal gland; her overlapping front teeth hidden behind the beak of her mouth—this is who she has become, a woman who is convinced that she will always, everywhere, be perceived as a foreigner.

  The truth of her own future would have shocked her when she was a young girl if a Gypsy had told her what was in store, though after decades of the same routine there should be no surprises. She is on the train heading into New York. Today is no different from any other weekday. She is staring indifferently out at the factories and warehouses, the parking lots, the FABCO sign, Shakey’s Garage, the ninety-nine-cent value promised at Shoppers World, the power station, the graffiti on the concrete wall below the flyover: “Leo DaMan,” “JJ Excavator,” and “I Luv Pedro.” Her mind drifts to her husband and children, their faces and voices, and their gathering the previous evening in celebration of her seventieth birthday. She thinks about how this need to mark the passing years seemed strange to her as she raised her glass in a toast. So she is officially seventy. Seventy! She’s not the only one who finds it hard to believe.

  She’d like to indulge her pride—how often she is complimented on her vigor!—but she is distracted by the slow sharpening of a new awareness. She felt fine just a moment ago, but in the time it takes to clear her throat, she feels less than fine. She wonders if the feeling has something to do with the memory of last night’s dinner and the conversation with her family, the stories she told and retold at their urging. Could it be that despite all she said, she didn’t say enough? There’s always plenty left out of any account. Still, she might have missed an opportunity. There wasn’t enough time. There is never enough time. Why didn’t she understand this before it was too late? Too late for what?

  Forget about it. She has to concentrate on breathing. Her body longs for a saturating inhalation, yet for some reason she can only take quick, shallow breaths. Panting like her daughter’s little terrier on a hot day. In her flustered state she imagines that she is on the verge of drawing attention to herself. Really, the inconvenience of it is appalling.

  The sensation of mild heartburn seems to spread backward, gripping the thoracic vertebrae, causing her to stiffen in her seat. She presses her right hand against the plastic armrest, though at the same time she is seized by the desire to lift her arm and curl the fingers into a tight fist. But the plastic has turned to glue, binding her hand in place.

  She reminds herself that she has felt worse on other occasions. In her seventy years she has survived whooping cough, pneumonia, and malaria—all this after surviving the war. It occurs to her that she talked about the war with her family last night. What part of the story did she forget to tell? What is she trying to remember? All the reasons not to panic. She is admirably fit for her age, according to her doctor. Surely this disorientation will pass in a few seconds. The dizziness could be attributed to . . . She doesn’t bother to finish the thought. It’s enough to have confidence that her condition could be attributed at all.

  Outside, beyond a band of junipers, brown smoke hangs motionless between the chimneys of a foundry and the sky. If she’d noticed, the scene would have added to her mistaken sense that the world had momentarily paused to accommodate her, like traffic waiting for an old woman to cross against the light. Then be quick about it, Mrs. Rundel. Avanti, svelta! Had she been on her feet, the momentum would have caused her to stumble. She can’t stumble, not here. She must get to the other side and can’t risk even a quick look back. All her concentration must be focused on getting the air she needs into her lungs, from her lungs into her blood. The brain is hungry—breathe, Adriana! Memory needs oxygen. Breathe. She will not panic. Breathe.

  The confusion at the Newark Station—passengers spilling out of the train, passengers trying to get on—keeps others from noticing that the elderly woman in a window seat is having difficulty breathing. Even the man who occupies the seat beside her doesn’t notice. He’s got his ear pressed against his cell phone and the newspaper folded open to the front page of the Business section. Across the aisle from him a woman is absorbed in a thick report on freshwater resources: water stocks and flows, desalination, international watersheds. Beside her by the window another woman is refreshing her lipstick.

  “It had something to do with the anchor on the service door,” the man in the seat directly behind Mrs. Rundel is saying to his companion. “No one would explain what was wrong, but we sat there on the runway for three hours. . . .”

  A college student in the seat in front, exploring the brown-bag lunch his mother has prepared for him, groans, “Liverwurst again!”

  Two seats ahead, a man whispers into his phone, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  Hubbub of lives lived by strangers. . . . It was like, like, it was so incredible the way you said there on the runway what is called I said it doesn’t have to be this way if you she they . . .

  Mrs. Rundel doesn’t notice them, and they don’t notice her. That’s good. She wouldn’t want to give anyone a reason to stare. In another state of mind, she would have recollected past occasions when she inadvertently drew attention to herself, such as when she lost an earring while waiting for the crosstown shuttle to take her from Times Square to Grand Central or screamed curses in Italian at a newscaster on the television screen above a bar. Really, Ma, her daughter has said, can’t you be a little less impetuous?

  If like the time, you know, if you’d listen to me when I it would if he she having been advised concerning arsenic poisoning of Bangladesh groundwater if only.

  ALTHOUGH THE FIGHTING continued elsewhere, the sounds around La Chiatta were ordinary again—leaves rustling, roosters crowing, gentle waves sloshing against the rocks outside the back gate. But because Adriana had a faint notion that something terrible had happened the night before, the ordinary sounds were newly ominous. What had happened, exactly? Paolo would explain. While Luisa was brushing Adriana’s hair, Paolo, Luisa’s nephew, skidded on his bicycle into the courtyard. He was fourteen years old and small for his age, with handsome features but skin so marred by blemishes that it seemed tinged with a perpetual blush. Adriana laughed whenever she saw him, even in the middle of a war, even now, as he bumped through the doorway into the kitchen. She laughed into her cupped hand, and Luisa tapped her lightly on the ear in admonishment.

  Paolo had ridden his bicycle across the island to bring the news that Marina di Campo had already fallen to the Allies and the German antiaircraft batteries had been bombed into oblivion. Luisa’s sister and her family were safe, he said, but the daughter of Sergio Canuti, a girl who never did what she was told, had opened the door when the African soldiers came knocking, an
d they’d dragged her away and killed her. Luisa collapsed into a chair, her exclamation of “Madonna!” escaping like air from a bellows. Sergio Canuti—who was that? Mario asked what Adriana was wondering. Sergio Canuti, Paolo explained importantly, was a grocer, and his daughter, Sofia, who everyone always said would come to a bad end, was dead. How exactly had she died? Adriana wanted to know. Paolo didn’t bother to reply. He said that the forest on Monte Bacile was burning and that the French flag had been raised over San Martino. He said that he’d seen an unexploded shell half buried on the beach at La Foce. He said that he’d passed Lorenzo’s Angela on the Santa Clara road, and from her he had learned that the Ambrogi family and all the servants at La Lampara were unharmed—they’d spent the night up in the hills and saved themselves from an encounter with roving soldiers. But Belbo the pig had been killed and left to rot in the yard.

  When Luisa heard about the pig, she stopped genuflecting, wiped her eyes, and said they must send for the carabinieri. “Ma che,” Mario said. Think about it: What good were the carabinieri in a war? he asked. Or priests, for that matter? Adriana wanted to add. Either you were spared or you weren’t. Either you were Adriana Nardi and the soldiers didn’t bother to walk down the long drive to La Chiatta to torment you or you were Sofia Canuti from Marina di Campo and you were dead.

  How did she die? No one would explain it to Adriana. She shouldn’t even ask the question, her uncle said. But she understood enough to know that what she’d imagined had been confirmed. First one soldier taking advantage, then another and another. There were African soldiers involved, apparently—Moroccans and Senegalese. After spending most of the night inside the cabinet, she was not afraid to imagine it: soldiers taking turns while the girl just lay there with her skirt up to her neck.

  She watched the bump in Paolo’s throat slide up and down beneath his thin skin as he gulped a cup of water. It occurred to her that in general skin was an inadequate surface. For that matter, the whole human body was needlessly vulnerable. All a soldier had to do was plunge a bayonet into that bump in the throat. It was far too easy. Maybe those who were still alive were simply lucky. Lucky for Paolo that he had survived. He’d ridden his bicycle all the way from Marina di Campo. Would Adriana have had the courage to do that?

  Mario lit another cigarette while Paolo stood with his hand on the shoulder of his aunt, who was bent in her chair whispering a prayer. Giulia, sitting beside Luisa, looked helplessly at the table, as though recalling that once she would have been able to find an answer there. The question they couldn’t ask themselves was what to do next. It was clear to Adriana that beyond what information Paolo had brought, none of the adults knew anything worthwhile.

  She left them, wandered out of the room, and quietly unlatched the door to the courtyard. The inland breeze slipping past her already carried the warmth of the midmorning sun along with the perfume of jasmine and an unfamiliar tangy residue. Somewhere someone was chopping wood—the distant clacking of the ax was reassuringly steady. And the buzzing of a lone plane passing overhead was as serene as the chortling of the doves. Adriana heard the birds but did not see them, though she knew they liked to tuck themselves beneath the roof or hide in the palms.

  There were many places to hide around La Chiatta—in the walled garden, in the bushes at the edge of the fields, or between the rows of vines. How could she be sure that soldiers weren’t hiding in the vineyard now, crouching behind the thick tangle of wires and leaves, waiting for an opportunity to jump out and seize her and carry her off and do to her what the Africans had done to Sofia Canuti? The glint of a metal pail at the end of a row made her think of a soldier’s helmet. How many soldiers were hiding in the vineyard? Merely to contemplate it gave credence to the fear, and fear gave irresistible power to her curiosity. What would happen if she were as brave as Paolo and ventured out alone? she wondered. How does God reward courage?

  She set her bare foot tentatively on the stone step, as though testing its strength. She was so prepared for the sound of a voice calling her back that for a moment she actually thought she heard the sharp command to return—Adriana, vieni qua! But no one called, and she broke forward, skipping lightly, surprising herself with her convincing performance of ordinary cheerfulness. An ordinary girl on an island lit with the creamy sunshine of a perfect June morning, the fields still damp with dew, the sky a tranquil blue, everything in place and everything that was dangerous either elsewhere or nearby and invisible.

  Although she knew she was supposed to stay inside, where, if necessary, she could be stuffed back inside the cabinet within a moment’s notice, she craved the freedom to prove to herself that there was nothing to fear. Either there were soldiers hiding in the vineyard rows or there weren’t. Either they would try to catch her or they wouldn’t. The only way to confirm the truth was to go see for herself.

  Maybe the bleating horn of a ship in the harbor was signaling that the world was safe again, or maybe not. Maybe the Germans had already surrendered, or maybe not. What would happen if she padded in bare feet across the courtyard, where the cobblestones were furred with moss, the cracks yellowed with tile dust, and if she crept along the first grassy row of vines, keeping close to the wires, using her hands as though to propel herself through water? How much would she risk in order to know the truth? She should probably figure out the real value of truth before heading off in pursuit of it. But already she was moving with the ease of a snake slipping through grass. No one would suspect that she was there. Where? Here in the second row. Here in the third row, where she just missed stepping on a pair of rusty shears—a useful weapon, a gift of coincidence or divine grace. Which was which? How did anyone ever tell the difference? And would the difference matter if she were compelled to make use of the shears, plunging them through the paper-thin skin of an enemy soldier?

  One element of the truth was that Adriana Nardi couldn’t distinguish enemy from ally. Last year the Germans were said to be friends. Last month they moved among the Elbans like guards among prisoners. Last night the French Colonial troops killed everyone they found. Who could be trusted?

  Adriana was better off stuffed inside a cabinet—then she wouldn’t have to find answers to unanswerable questions. Short of that refuge, she could crawl through the vineyard, and now and then she could squat on her haunches and sniff the air for the scent of a predator.

  The pale green grapes were tiny and hard—she slit one open with her thumbnail and dropped the shreds in the dirt. As she peered through the vines she let the velvety underside of a leaf brush against her face. That felt good, along with the sunshine warming the back of her head and the crumbled earth beneath her feet. The freshness of the morning was a comfort not quite sufficient to distract her from her search. She was looking for the soldiers who had killed Sofia Canuti, in order to prove that they couldn’t do the same to her. She was armed with rusty shears. She was stealthy and agile and would vanish into the thicket of vines as soon as she inflicted the necessary fatal wounds. Wasn’t vengeance as fair as consequence was inevitable, after all? Maybe, or maybe not.

  “Madonna!” That was Luisa’s common exclamation of surprise, and Adriana borrowed it only sparingly. She used it now, or at least part of it, dropping the shears as Luisa’s nephew, Paolo, came up from behind and caught her by the wrist.

  “Paolo, tu sei un’idiota!” Sneaking up on Adriana like that and startling the breath from her . . . But Adriana was a troublemaker of the first order. A young girl shouldn’t wander off at any time, and especially not during a war. Now come inside, Adriana. And keep your head down in case there are snipers nearby looking for a target.

  So far, the war hadn’t bothered to come to La Chiatta. The war had passed them by. Adriana couldn’t admit that she was secretly disappointed not to see more evidence of the invasion in the vineyard or the olive groves—a trampled path, for instance, or empty shells. Or a corpse. With all that she’d witnessed in the ten years of her life, she still had never seen a corpse.

/>   Had Paolo seen the dead body of Sofia Canuti? Adriana asked, but he didn’t answer. He just trudged ahead, his back to her, his shoulders hunched in a pretense of impatience, as though he had to let her know that he had better things to do than to go chasing a silly little girl through the vineyard.

  “Guarda, Paolo”—look at that. But he didn’t look. He ignored Adriana and didn’t see what she saw: the group of planes in the sky, each the size of a hummingbird, so high up that she could barely hear the sound of their engines. They were heading inland toward Marina di Campo, flying in an even V. Maybe they were carrying bombs or maybe not. Maybe more people would be dead in a few minutes or maybe not.

  Adriana squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed the sunblind from them. She blinked and purposefully stared at her grimy toes to regain her vision, then raised her eyes to scan the hectare of vines extending toward the seawall, looking just in time, as though in expectation, to see what at first she took to be the peak of a powerful wave. No, it was a man—he had clambered up the opposite side of the wall and was heaving himself over the top. A shirtless man, shrunken by the distance, his dark back glistening like the quartz-speckled granite in the mountains, plummeting toward the ground, disappearing into the weeds.

  She stared at the place where he had been, expecting to see him pick himself up and run. Vaulting the wall, he had given the impression that he was running for his life. Amazingly, he’d gotten as far as the Nardi vineyard, yet surely this wasn’t far enough. Get up! Run! Without considering the sentiment, Adriana wanted to cheer for him. He’d been trying to escape. She wanted him to escape. But the scene remained absolutely still, devoid of even a ruffling breeze. The solidity of the wall and the pristine line of its top edge made action seem an impossible concept. Nothing moved or would move again.