Liberation

by Joanna Scott

  He opened his eyes, and what he saw he couldn’t immediately comprehend. Did the velocity of the egg decrease, so a fall that should have been almost instantaneous now was stretching over several seconds? Did the egg actually hover above the stone and then lower gently, as though being set down by an invisible hand? Had time slowed? Did the girl look at the egg, then look at Amdu’s startled face, then look at the egg, then look again at Amdu? Before she ran outside to pick up the egg and return it to its nest, did she whisper urgently, “Merci, Amdu,” as though she really believed that what she’d just seen had not followed the laws of nature and Amdu Diop of the Ninth French Colonial Division was responsible for a miracle?

  WHEN MARIO TONIETTI RETURNED to La Chiatta, he was comforted to see that the routines of the estate had resumed. Driving toward the villa in a car he’d borrowed from Dino, he caught sight of Ulisse and one of his boys turning over the soil around the olive trees. On the hill to the west, he saw two of Lorenzo’s cows pegged out to graze. And after he stepped from the car into the courtyard, he smelled the good, garlicky fragrance of a broth left to simmer for hours.

  Giulia greeted him at the door, offering her stony face for him to kiss. Mario hoped she’d be the one to initiate some sort of reparation, if not an apology, then at least a mild expression of concern for him. But instead she asked for confirmation that the entirety of the German troops had either been taken prisoner or retreated from the island—a question that Mario perceived was filled with resentment.

  But there was more to her resentment than a political disagreement. There was the shared memory of their brief courtship, enjoyed in their youth, and the rupture that remained unresolved. Without any apparent cause, Giulia had become suspicious and broken off the romance, expelling Mario from her life with such indifference that he could only assume her earlier love for him had been no more than a performance—artful, confident, and false.

  Though he’d gone on to marry her younger sister, his anger toward Giulia never disappeared entirely. Neither did his love for her, though he wouldn’t speak of it. His manner with her was brisk and formal—as artful a performance as hers had been, and Mario succeeded in perfecting it over the years, convincing everyone, except himself, that Giulia Nardi meant nothing to him.

  He did not bother to hide his affection for his niece, however, especially after Teresa’s death, when his solitude became a burden. And it was the thought of Adriana—her innocence and vulnerability disguised by her stubborn pride—that stirred him to outrage after Giulia told him that a Senegalese soldier was asleep in one of La Chiatta’s beds.

  “An African! What are you thinking, Giulia? We are still at war!”

  “He has a fever.”

  “He could have a bullet in his heart for all we should care. He must leave immediately!”

  “Please do not interfere, Mario. I have invited him to stay with us. He will leave when he is ready to leave.”

  They were still standing in the front hall; a rustling around the corner indicated that someone, probably Adriana, was listening to their conversation. Mario lowered his voice but formed his words slowly, precisely, so Adriana would be able to hear.

  “If you haven’t yet heard the news, Corrado is dead. My friend Corrado. Do you want to know how he died? Of course you don’t want to know, but I will tell you anyway. Those Africans, they drenched him in petrol and threw a match on him. Corrado is dead. Maybe your invalid soldier had something to do with the bonfire in Corrado’s yard? No? Yes? You cannot say for sure one way or the other. What are you thinking, Giulia? You are putting your daughter at terrible risk by playing nurse to an African. These soldiers who have come in the name of liberation—they despise us.”

  “I am very sorry about Corrado.” She said this gently, with a tinge of pity in her voice.

  “And yet you will continue to defend his murderers!”

  “I don’t defend their crimes. But that they have reason to doubt the purpose of their sacrifice . . .”

  “Sacrifice, you call it!”

  “They can see for themselves that we have not resisted German rule. They can see that there is a fine line between occupation and collaboration.”

  “In your eyes, only in your eyes, Giulia, to survive one’s enemies is the same as collaborating with them.” Mario wanted to rip off his shirt and show her his bandages as proof that he was no collaborator. The Germans had done this to him. Or the British had done this to him. Or the French Colonials had done this to him. It didn’t much matter who had hurt him. What mattered was that he could have died. If he had died, Giulia Nardi would have been obliged to join the many Elbans who would praise Mario Tonietti for his heroism, his charity, and his famous honesty.

  “Mario.” Giulia said his name with some tenor of affection—real affection, he believed. “You have tried to help. But in this war, kindness has an affiliation. Don’t worry”—she silenced him before he could speak—“I don’t blame you. And I don’t blame the Senegalese boy sleeping under this roof. He is a good boy, Mario. I am sure of it. He is well-educated and well-mannered. He intends no harm. But how could he harm us? He has no weapon. He is weak from his ordeal. Anyway, soon he will leave us, and you can forget him. Now, come in, sit down. Tell me about Corrado.”

  Following her around the corner, he only pretended to be surprised to find Adriana standing by a table, brushing brown petals into her hand. The roses were over a week old, but no one had thought to throw them out.

  “Adriana, my vain little owl,” Mario said, drawing her into his embrace.

  “Uncle.” Her voice was muffled by his shirt. “Uncle!” As she pushed herself free, the petals fell to the floor.

  “Good morning, beautiful girl.”

  “Uncle, what happened to your friend?”

  “Corrado?”

  “Yes.”

  “Corrado is with the angels.”

  “Why was he killed?”

  “Mario . . .” Giulia spoke his name to caution him against saying anything more in Adriana’s presence.

  “There is an African under this roof, yes? Why don’t you ask him what happened to Corrado?”

  “Mario, please, that’s enough.”

  Mario and Giulia exchanged icy stares. Then Mario shrugged in concession. “Little owl, you shouldn’t be listening to talk about death. You should be concerned with life. Thank God nothing happened to you. But you are not safe as long as you have to share your home with a soldier. Come stay with me in town. There will be a dance tonight in Piazza Repubblicà. La Gargotta has opened its doors again. Will you dance with me? My clever girl. Just like your mother, you will make all the boys miserable.”

  With a glance, he saw that his last comment earned the twitch of a smile from Giulia, a woman who ordinarily existed in her body as though it were a uniform, with every action an expression of duty. She had grown rigid, uncompromising in her goodness. But Mario was pleased to find that even she liked to be reminded of her beauty.

  “I’m glad the Germans are gone,” Adriana declared.

  “Everyone is glad,” Mario agreed, taking his niece by the wrist and leading her across the room. “Each day the war moves closer to its end,” he said, “one liberation after another. We can say to ourselves, We are free again. We will return to work, and you will return to school. And someday soon, Adriana Nardi will be famous!”

  “Why will I be famous?”

  “Because you will be the niece of the mayor! Now I would like to hear your music. Play something for me, little owl. I will sit here and listen. That will be pure happiness for me. Dear Giulia, sit beside me and listen to your daughter play. We are alive and well. This is reason to celebrate.”

  Later, he found the soldier lying with closed eyes on his bed in a guest room, breathing softly through slightly parted lips. He looked too young to be a soldier—too naive and tranquil. Only his knotted forehead suggested deeper thought, as if he were working through some endless calculation in his sleep. Or maybe—more likely—
he was dreaming about the crimes he’d committed, the girls he’d raped and the men he’d set on fire. Mario waited, listening carefully in case the soldier whispered something revealing or incriminating. He thought for a moment that he recognized him—a startling, inexplicable mistake. Mario couldn’t have recognized the boy, for he was the first Senegalese infantryman he’d ever seen up close.

  The liberation of Elba was over, two thousand Germans and a few hundred Italian Fascists were either in retreat or in captivity, and the French Colonials would be deployed to the mainland soon enough. But here in a sunny room in La Chiatta, one of the liberators was taking his time recovering from a scratch on his arm while he enjoyed the unearned luxuries of clean sheets, a bright, clean room, and fresh springwater. Clearly, he considered himself deserving, and he was too innocent to consider how vulnerable he was, alone and unarmed. How easy it would have been to clamp a pillow over his face and suffocate him. Even easier: stirring poison into the water in his drinking glass.

  Mario picked up the glass and studied it in the sunlight. It hadn’t occurred to him that the soldier was only pretending to sleep. But when the boy suddenly opened his eyes and said with startling ease, “Bonjour, monsieur,” Mario knew that his distrust had been warranted. The soldier was a charlatan, taking advantage of Giulia Nardi’s wealth. Maybe all he wanted was the experience of luxury. Or maybe he wanted something more. Perfectly capable of getting up and walking out of La Chiatta back to his regiment, the soldier preferred to take his time and enjoy himself while he persuaded others that he wouldn’t survive without their help.

  Mario wasn’t fooled by the soldier’s deception, no more than he’d been fooled by the false reasoning that had gotten the world into its current predicament. All along he’d been convinced that power succeeded in maintaining itself only when it resisted the temptation to expand. Mussolini had understood this best when he’d put the emphasis on order rather than on conquest. “In a certain sense,” he had famously propounded, “one might say that the policeman preceded the professor.” Mario would have liked to remind him of this now: his police agencies had been assigned to watch over the nation, and even if Il Duce had spent a good portion of his day lying on his bed leafing through old magazines, as rumors suggested, he’d given the impression that he never slept and never wavered in his ability to govern absolutely.

  The mistake for all sides came with the ambition to expand the domain of power, an ambition that a native Elban like Mario Tonietti, who rarely traveled to the mainland, couldn’t share. An island was its own empire, and the inhabitants who prospered were the ones who accepted the confinement. A little island, and the sea surrounding. Wasn’t this enough?

  It was more than enough—more than Elbans deserved, according to the Germans, who had dared to claim the island for themselves. And now the Allies had arrived, posing as saviors. But the Elbans didn’t need to be saved. They simply needed to be left alone.

  After securing a promise from his niece that she wouldn’t go anywhere near the African soldier, Mario set out to see for himself the damage in Marciana Marina, where, according to Dino’s report, the fires had been brought under control. As he drove west, he told himself that he’d return to La Chiatta and send the African packing before the day was over.

  WHEN SOMEONE EXACTS FROM YOU a promise you don’t intend to keep, you shouldn’t just cross the fingers of your left hand behind your back. You should cross the fingers of both hands, and your toes, as well—the big toe overlapping like a cat’s paw over a mouse. And you should make sure you open your eyes wide when you nod.

  Mi ’spiace, Zio Mario. Sorry. Adriana was not innocent, and she was not telling the truth when she promised to stay away from the African. Why would she stay away from him when she considered the soldier named Amdu a friend? Better than a friend. He was as good as a long-lost brother, as interesting and deserving and sometimes just as annoying, like when he had pretended to be dying after she’d found him in the ravine. Brothers played all sorts of dirty tricks. Maybe he was her actual brother—her birth mother’s child by another man, born on the continent of Africa and adopted by Senegalese parents who never bothered to tell him about his origins.

  This freedom to concoct relations was the best thing about being a foundling. Adriana could pretend to be related to a Russian czar. Or to the exiled emperor Napoleon. Or to the African soldier who had fallen into the vineyard on June 18, the second day of the liberation. It was possible that Amdu and Adriana were related. And if something was even slightly possible, then she could imagine a case for it as a probable fact.

  Yet she wouldn’t necessarily have chosen Amdu to be her brother. He was très gentil, but he was also molto strano—very strange indeed. The way he’d sparkled in the distance when Adriana had first seen him tumble from the top of the wall. The influence he’d had over her since she’d met him, as if he could control her thoughts. Why hadn’t she been terrified of him? A foreigner, a soldier, a black man—he would have frightened any other Elban girl. But Adriana wasn’t like other Elban girls. Che coraggio! She’d have a story of her own to tell when the war was over, though first she needed to know more about one of its main characters. Who was he? Why had he run away from his regiment? And what had really been the source of the glow emanating from the ravine?

  Adriana waited for her uncle’s car to disappear up the drive before she went to the pantry to fill a bowl with pine nuts. Luisa, who was conferring with Ulisse at the kitchen table, saw her with the bowl but didn’t bother to question her. Only Paolo interfered. He stopped her in the hall and reminded her of the promise she’d made just moments earlier.

  She didn’t say that she had already visited the soldier alone, in secret. Instead, she pointed out that her mother had concluded that their Senegalese guest was not to be feared—she’d said as much to Mario—and so she wouldn’t mind if Adriana took him a few pignoli to nibble.

  Paolo tried to block her way. When he frowned, his thick eyebrows met, like two hedgehogs nuzzling, Adriana thought, and she laughed aloud.

  “Why do you always laugh at me?” he demanded.

  “Because you are ridiculous,” she replied, pushing past him.

  “And you are, you are . . .” His inability to complete the sentence amused her, but this time she stifled her laugh, for she was realizing the meaning of his anger. Luisa’s nephew, Paolo, the son of a fisherman, was jealous of Adriana’s attention to Amdu!

  “Tu sei . . .” Adriana echoed. You are . . . jealous. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. But she knew that Paolo must have heard the echo as pure mockery. You are, you are. You are ridiculous, Paolo. You are a fisherman’s son and the nephew of the cook. You are ordinary.

  Whatever the soldier named Amdu was, whatever his origins and affiliations, he was not ordinary. It didn’t take any unaccountable phenomena to convince Adriana of this.

  Later, after she’d dropped the dove’s egg and Amdu had murmured some hocus-pocus in French and the egg, which should have shattered, had settled intact on the cobblestone, Adriana came to a conclusion about her soldier. He was a stregone—a witch doctor. Un buon stregone, hopefully. A stregone who wanted to help rather than harm.

  She had never before met anyone who combined opposite qualities in such a serene demeanor. He was young and old at the same time, robust and frail, apprehensible and mysterious, earthy and sophisticated. He could, when necessary, suspend the law of gravity. He could radiate a soothing light. He could perform any magic that suited the occasion.

  Adriana’s willingness to believe that the soldier was a witch doctor had nothing to do with her belief in God. Nor did she equate Amdu’s strangeness with exoticism. There was something quite familiar about him, as though he were someone she’d long ago prepared herself to meet—not just a brother but a twin, a mixed-up version of herself, related to her in spirit if not in blood. Thinking back to the moment when she’d first met him, when he’d grabbed her and kept her from running home when La Chiatta was full of
angry soldiers, she remembered feeling surprised at herself for so quickly relenting, as if even before she knew him she sensed that she had reason to trust him.

  But though she liked to imagine a connection, in the long run she preferred the more logical explanation: she trusted the soldier because he was obviously trustworthy. His goodness was indicated in his radiance, his gentle voice, the graceful way he nodded. On an island full of all sorts of coarse, common minerals, he was as rare as the small diamond a German soldier claimed to have found on Volterraio back in February.

  Adriana felt brave and justified in her affection for the African. But she wasn’t without some reservations. A soldier from the Allied forces had wandered uninvited onto the Nardi estate and needed rest and nourishment before he returned to the war. Everyone else at La Chiatta treated this as no more than a temporary inconvenience. But in Adriana’s estimation, Amdu wasn’t an ordinary soldier, and his effect would be profound.

  Even when she’d been aware of no more than a shadow in the boathouse, she had been drawn to him. Without reason, she had become progressively convinced that some element of her destiny involved him. And in the hours since he’d arrived at La Chiatta, Adriana had come to believe that her guest had magical abilities. But this same belief stirred in her confusion and doubt. Why did she care so much about this stranger? Had he cast a spell on her? What did he want?

  It wasn’t enough that he had saved an egg from smashing. She wanted him to prove himself in other ways, to demonstrate once and for all that he was as much as or more than she believed him to be. She wanted to be sure about the nature of his magic and know that she was right to trust him.

  The egg had dropped through the thick pudding of air onto the stones below Amdu’s window, and that’s where Adriana found it. Cupping it in her hands, she was surprised by its warmth, like the deep warmth of a cat that had been sleeping all afternoon in the sun. She thought for a moment that she would like to keep the egg for her collection. But Amdu was already leaning over the sill, stretching his arm to her, so she handed him the egg and watched as he carefully returned it to the nest.