by Joanna Scott
In a real war, soldiers hunted for the enemy, and mothers hunted for their daughters. Adriana must have run and hid herself when she heard the gunfire. Che coraggio! Or else . . . forget about or else. She would keep herself safe, wherever she was. Despite her waywardness, she was a resourceful girl. She would do what she had to in order to survive.
Giulia found a map in the writing desk, but instead of returning promptly to the kitchen, she continued to search for her daughter. She went outside to the loggia, surveyed the fields, and headed down the stone staircase leading to the front of the villa, where she discovered only one plausible hiding place, a little den behind the cantina’s old back door, which Ulisse had left propped against the wall until he found time to chop it up for firewood.
The space was empty—indicating either that Adriana had fled in another direction or that she’d been taken away. Where had she gone? Only many months later would Giulia reveal to Adriana that in a fit of despair at her uselessness she’d pushed the heavy slab of wood away, sending it toppling into the junipers, and then she’d stood there gazing at the emptiness where her daughter should have been, half-believing that Adriana would appear if she just waited long enough. But she couldn’t stand there forever—even if the soldiers hadn’t heard the noise of breaking branches, they’d be concerned by her absence and they’d come in search of her.
She returned to the kitchen, delivering the map to the officers and moving aside while Mario traced with his plump, well-manicured forefinger the unmarked roads around the island. The officers looked on, suggesting with their excessive show of interest that they didn’t really want Mario’s advice; rather, they wanted to make the Elbans feel that they were participating in the liberation—a ruse they were all willing to accept.
It was a quiet consultation that would have reached a quick conclusion if they hadn’t been interrupted by Luisa’s exclamation—“Madonna!”—at the sight of Ulisse, who had appeared in the kitchen and stood there with his hand pressed on the hilt of the hunting knife strapped to his belt. The robes of the soldiers wafted as they raised their guns. One of the officers gestured with his open palm, ordering them to wait.
Hearing the soldiers in the courtyard, Ulisse had locked himself and his family in the cantina, and since no one had come to find him, he’d finally ventured out to offer Signora Nardi aid. But he couldn’t bring himself to offer anyone anything while he was staring into the barrel of a gun. The soldiers, taking him for a German, were ready to kill him. They might have gone ahead and killed him. But when Luisa dropped the bread she’d been carrying, a loaf the size of a melon, so hard and hollow that it bounced with a clatter across the tile floor, the men burst into laughter. Did Elbans make their bread with sand instead of flour? they wanted to know. Did they bake it in one of their smelting furnaces?
“He is my gardener,” Giulia said of Ulisse, taking advantage of the laughter to offer information. “He and his family are staying here with us.”
How many in his family? one of the officers asked.
“Cinque,” Mario said.
“Sei,” Ulisse corrected him. There were six in his family, of course—three children, his wife, and his mother. Six, including Ulisse. An officer ordered two of his men to go count the members of Ulisse’s family, though he asked for permission from Signora Nardi first. If it wouldn’t be an imposition . . .
“Prego,” she said, gesturing to Ulisse to take the soldiers over to the cantina.
The officers studied the map while the others waited tensely. Giulia listened for gunfire but heard nothing, not even the baby’s restless wail, and within an unexpectedly brief time the soldiers returned, having left Ulisse in the cantina and indicating only by saying nothing that they’d deemed the family harmless.
Now the mood in the kitchen was a shared anticipation of relief that even the soldiers seemed to feel. While the officers continued to study the map, one of the men idly turned the faucet on and off, and for a moment Giulia forgot that Adriana was not in the cabinet below. Her thoughts narrowed into a warning to her daughter: silenzio. What a good girl, quiet as a statue. No one suspected that she was there. But she wasn’t there. She was somewhere else being a good quiet girl, and when the soldiers left she would come home.
She could come home very soon, for after a polite exchange—the officers’ French-inflected grazie, Mario’s prego, an exchange of handshakes, Giulia’s regal nod—the men were leaving, clacking in their boots through the villa and out the open door leading to the courtyard, one of the officers climbing into his jeep to join the driver, who must have been waiting the entire time the men were inside and was wriggling to alertness after having been caught dozing, while the other officer led his soldiers down the drive toward Portoferraio, their easy manner suggesting that their intrusion had been a deception from start to finish, a clever maneuver designed for the purpose of surveillance.
But at least they had left, and it was safe for Adriana to come home. “Adriana!” A daughter like a little song. Where was she? “Adriana!” A child who knew how to stay alive during a war. “Adriana!” And here she was, the clever girl, bursting through the opening in the hedge, running up the steps and into her mother’s arms.
Why Adriana didn’t tell her mother about the soldier in the garden, she couldn’t have explained. She should have told her mother about him. She had a good story to tell. Mamma, listen! There was a soldier in the garden, un negro, and he had grabbed her when the shooting started and dragged her—no, he didn’t hurt her—he’d led her into the olive grove. He’d been kind to her, and, yes, he was a good man. He believed in peace, didn’t he? He wasn’t carrying a gun. Actually, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. But he had been wearing a silver cross on a chain around his neck, she recalled.
For some reason she didn’t say this. She didn’t say that she’d seen the man climbing over the seawall, she’d sensed his presence in the boathouse, and she’d played “Non M’Ama Più” for him on the piano. She didn’t say any of this. Instead, she let her mother cover her with kisses and accepted her praise with wordless pleasure. What a good, clever girl to keep out of the way of the soldiers until her mother called for her. She was so very brave, the bravest girl on the island. She admitted that she felt ashamed for having run away when the soldiers arrived. No, she mustn’t feel ashamed, her mother said. She’d done the right thing. She was safe now and could forget about the soldiers. They wouldn’t be back. How did her mother know this? She just knew, she said.
Adriana settled between her uncle and her mother on the sofa. By then it was too late to tell them about her soldier. They were already deep into their own account, their earlier argument forgotten. The Allied troops had come and gone. La Chiatta had lost only one plate, and high up in the entrance hall there was a bullet hole, and another bullet had shattered the plaster in the corner. The officers had promised reimbursement for the damage—an empty promise, obviously, but it was reassuring to know that the Allied forces were not planning to punish Italians, and whatever atrocities had been committed in the midst of the offensive would be viewed by commanders as crimes.
Adriana understood this to mean that the soldier in the garden was trustworthy. And more than that, he and his comrades were fighting on behalf of the Elbans to rid the island of the occupying army. She offered her own opinion: she liked Africans much better than Germans.
What did she really know about Africans? her uncle demanded. Did she know what they did to little Elban girls? Did she know what would happen if she were caught by an African?
Adriana was shaken by her uncle’s challenge—she knew something about what the soldiers had done to Sofia Canuti, though she wanted to say that her own soldier was different. Her own soldier was kind. But there wasn’t a chance for her to speak, since her mother was replying in her place. “And what of the Germans?” Giulia demanded in a strained voice, though still speaking clearly, precisely. The Germans who massacred the boys at Montemaggio and Istia d’Ombrone . . . the Germans who
appeared with a white flag one day and the next day dropped their bombs on Portoferraio . . . the Germans who arrested brave General Gilardi and sent him to a lager . . . “i tedeschi brutti . . . i tedeschi che mangiano minestra d’ebrei”—the Germans who ate soup made of Jews.
“Mamma!” Adriana had never heard her mother say something so ugly. And neither had Mario, apparently, for he grunted in disgust and picked himself up off the sofa and marched from the room. A moment later they heard the engine of his Fiat revving. Adriana listened with her mother as the engine sputtered and died, then revved again . . . and died, revved and died. Uncle Mario must have been out there pumping the clutch and cursing. Adriana held her mother’s arm in response. She wanted her uncle to come back inside and apologize for his abrupt exit. She wanted him to stay on good terms with her mother so he would continue to invite his niece onto his sailboat and take her to explore the islands of Cerboli and Montecristo when the war was over. She wanted to hear what he really thought about the Germans.
But the engine finally came to life, Mario drove off, and before Adriana could ask her mother if it was true about the soup, Luisa appeared in the room with Paolo.
“Paolo!” Giulia stood up to greet him. She admitted that she’d forgotten about Paolo, who’d been asleep all afternoon and had managed to continue sleeping through the soldiers’ visit, waking only at Luisa’s firm prodding. Frowsy, sloppy Paolo, who, Adriana was convinced, would grow up to be one of those men who every morning perform some brief but important task and do nothing for the rest of the day.
“Stupido Paolo,” Adriana taunted as she brushed past him.
“Stupida Adriana,” Paolo said, shoving her with his elbow.
“Bimbi!” This was not a time to misbehave. It was a time to be quiet and pious and thankful to be alive, Luisa said. And it was time to eat. Hungry children must eat.
Adriana hadn’t been aware that she was hungry until Luisa introduced the notion. Yes, she was hungry, and this reminded her that the soldier in the olive grove was hungry, too—and thirsty. After running away from Germans, of course he was thirsty. He’d been too polite to ask her for anything. But she could help. She could bring her soldier bread and cheese, an onion, and water, filling Paolo’s knapsack while Luisa had her back turned, her mother was over at the cantina checking on Ulisse and his family, and Paolo was in the toilet.
She did not tell Luisa where she was going. She just kept moving backward as she feigned idleness, then she turned and ran through the pantry and into the courtyard, into the night.
She was surprised by the darkness. Daylight had seemed capable of lasting forever while she’d waited behind the hedge for the danger to pass. Between then and now the moon had risen, its light tinged brown from the smoke of burning forests. The fighting must have been continuing in the hills. Germans were cooking Africans alive, or Africans were cooking Germans. Everything that could happen was happening somewhere. But now that the soldiers had come and gone from La Chiatta, Adriana felt that the peace her own soldier had spoken of was beginning.
Surely he wanted to go home, back to his own country. First, though, he needed nourishment. “Soldato!” Her voice strained to break out of its whisper. “Soldato!” What was his name? He hadn’t told her. It wasn’t polite to address him as soldato. “Monsieur,” she whispered. Whoever you are. Wherever you are. In the hazy moonlight she couldn’t have seen if he were crossing the olive grove, approaching her. She listened for the sound of his footsteps but heard only the rustle of leaves in the breeze. She waited. How could she let him know that she wanted to return his good deed and was bringing him his supper? “Monsieur!”
But maybe he wasn’t in the olive grove anymore. He’d been running toward the wall and might have scaled it, climbing out of the Nardi property just as he’d climbed into it. Maybe he’d been captured by Germans—the same Germans who ate soup made of Jews. Maybe he was already dead. Or maybe, probably, he had found someone who could offer more than she could—someone who spoke better French than Adriana did and who would treat him with the respect due a good partisan. Surely he was as worthy as a partisan. For this, Adriana understood from her mother, was the secret story of the war: the story of the partisans, their leaders and their benefactors and the courage of resistance.
In her own small way, she was playing a part in that good story, a story that would be worth remembering. By helping the soldier who had helped her, she was aligning herself with those who were fighting to end the war. Further involvement might put her at risk, she sensed, but risk was a small price to pay for an exciting adventure. She found the idea of her potential consequence astonishing, even if she was confused about the difference between good and evil, allies and enemies. History could be trusted to sort out the sides. In history, she wanted to be remembered as a heroine. And her soldato, with his silver cross and bit of dirty cloth twisted around his arm, would be a hero. She may not have understood the exact nature of his ambition, but she was sure that he deserved to succeed.
Although she couldn’t know whether her soldier was still on the property, she left the knapsack just beyond the opening in the hedge and she went back inside to her room. She lay on her bed savoring the memory of what she’d done. She was filled with an intoxicating sense of power—this in the midst of the worst fighting the island of Elba had ever known. She felt as if she had commanded the war to leave her alone. Nothing could harm her. She was the bravest girl on the island and exceptionally clever. And there was more that she could do to help. After supper, after her mother had finally given in to fatigue and fallen asleep on the sofa, Adriana stripped a blanket from her bed, crept downstairs, and carried the bundle outside, to the edge of the terrace. At first she was disappointed to find the knapsack in the same place she’d left it. But she was pleased to see that the sack was empty, the contents gratefully received, she hoped, by the person who needed them most.
Cover of Darkness
TO EXPLAIN WHY A YOUNG SENEGALESE SOLDIER WAS LYING in a ravine on the southeast edge of the Nardi estate in the middle of the night, June 18, 1944, the second night of the liberation of Elba, it is helpful to consider the different views among the members of the Allied Command regarding the Italian theater. The objection had been raised that “Anvil,” the amphibious attack planned against southern France, was in danger of being weakened if major divisions were diverted for the offensive against Italy. Some of the Allied commanders argued that their forces should be concentrated against France. Others believed that Rome was the ultimate prize and insisted that the invasion of Italy required a maximum effort.
General John Harding and his staff members devised the detailed plan for the spring offensive that was finally approved, with some altering, by the Supreme Allied Headquarters. Harding predicted that the enemy would not be driven northward to the Pisa-Rimini Line, as was hoped; instead, the German resistance would continue—to the Allies’ advantage, paradoxically, if they, in conjunction with a push from the south, launched a major offensive up the Liri Valley. With a strategic regrouping of forces, the Allies could encircle and destroy a large part of the German army in Italy.
The success of the plan depended upon a complex deception. Harding proposed regrouping the Fifth Army in such a way as to give the Germans the impression that the French Expeditionary Corps were preparing to return to their homeland to launch a new offensive. The attack against southern France, then, would serve as a cover operation.
The Chiefs of Staff resisted Harding’s plan at first. They did not want France sacrificed to Italy. But in the last week of February, Eisenhower was persuaded that Italy should have priority, and the Mediterranean offensive, code-named “Diadem,” was set in motion.
When the Eighth Army had finally broken through Cassino and the Fifth Army was advancing to Rome, supporting Allied forces were working to strangle German supply lines and push through their blockades. It was at this time that the island of Elba began to take on new strategic importance. In an attempt to reinfor
ce the general success of Diadem immediately following the fall of Rome, the Allied Command sent French and British forces from Corsica to Elba in a tactical left-hook operation. The invasion, launched under cover of darkness, caught the Germans by surprise.
But Amdu wouldn’t have been where he was if in 1916 France hadn’t formally adopted military conscription for its West African territories, expanding the ranks of the Tirailleurs, along with the community of Frenchmen commissioned as officers and their Senegalese wives. Amdu’s great-grandfather had been a Frenchman who chose to stay in Senegal when the other officers returned to France. Conscription into the Tirailleurs continued through the early phase of World War II. In 1940, after aligning itself with Pétain, French West Africa endured unprecedented exploitation under the Vichy government, which cut off imports from France and at the same time assigned African farmers excessive quotas for exportable crops. Following the Allied landing in North Africa in November of 1942, Governor General Boisson joined the Allied side. The Senegalese fought in North Africa and Corsica with the Free French Forces. Many would go on to southern France. But first, those under the command of General De Lattre de Tassigny had to complete their mission on Elba.
War is war is war—this was Amdu Diop’s explanation for what happened on Elba. Though he had been trained to follow orders and was unprepared for the chaos of liberation, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that while Operation Brassard was deteriorating, crazed German paratroopers under the command of Colonel Trettner were brutalizing the Italian contadini as they retreated across Val d’Orcia on the mainland, and Moroccan soldiers were systematically raping the women of the Ciociara as the Allied forces moved through southern Italy. War is war is war, and in the midst of it anything goes. If anything goes, the logical connection between cause and consequence is broken. What happens happens by accident.
