A Thread of Grace

by Mary Doria Russel

  “Gesù!” Tullio fumes. “The first time you ever manage to hit something! We needed hostages, not more bodies!”

  “Va bene, Tullio,” his father says. “Gruppenführer Schlappschwanz will count extra.” Attilio Goletta laughs. “General Limp-Dick! That’s a good one!” he says. “Wait’ll I tell that one to Pierino!”

  THE HUNCHBACK’S HOUSE

  FRAZIONE DECIMO

  When moonlight finds Santino Cicala, he is lying on the sacking mattress filled with dry and crackly leaves, gazing at his wife of thirty hours. The night chill has raised gooseflesh, and he curls around her, belly to back, to warm her, not to wake her.

  Their first time, it was the stripping out: walls of awkwardness and modesty taken down. Thoughtful, deliberate, he stood behind her, kissing her neck, smelling her clean hair, reaching around her for the buttons. He pulled the blouse from her shoulders. Felt her bare back against his chest. Cupped her breasts, memorizing their weight and form. Most men go at it like bulls pawing the ground, but stones have taught Santino patience.

  When the time came, he did what he had to, as gently as he could: he hurt her. And when he was done, he kissed and kissed her. “The first time’s bad for girls,” he said, and promised, “It’ll be better from now on.”

  They talked, after, about the life they’d lead. The houses Santino would build. The garden Claudia would grow. The children they would have. They know life will be hard: one bad year can sink a mountain family for a decade. But there will be chestnuts to roast or boil whole, and to grind for sweet brown flour. Wood for tools and furniture, and to burn for warmth. Cornmeal for polenta. Eggs, and the occasional chicken to stew. “Stonemasons get paid in cash sometimes,” Santino said. “I’ll buy you some goats with money, or I can take them in trade. You can make cheese for us, too.”

  She giggled then and told Tercilla’s story about making cheese when she was a bride. There were a dozen ways for cheese to fail, and Tercilla found them all. When at last she proudly unmolded her first successful wheel of fontina, Domenico found a long black hair sticking up right in the middle. Solemnly he pulled it out and held it up for her consideration. Tercilla said, “I guess that’s why Mamma told me to wear a kerchief,” and for some reason it struck them both as madly funny. “Domenico and I— we laughed and laughed and laughed,” Tercilla said, “and from that time on, we were truly one.”

  Smiling, Santino rose on an elbow and kissed his wife again. He took his time. He found her rhythm. He kept his promise: this time it was better.

  Sleep overcame them, and they woke next to full light. They ate, and played house, pretending the hunchback’s place was their own. Santino walked around the ruined barn and told her how it could be repaired. There must have been a garden here last spring, Claudia decided. A few tomato vines survived bombing and neglect, their fruit sweeter than apples. A lone corn stalk stood in one corner. “Why aren’t there any ears?” Santino asked, lifting its leaves and finding nothing. Claudia told him, “They have to be in a big group of plants, or the ears don’t get fertilized—”

  She stopped, blushed, but did not turn away. Instead she held out her hand, and led him back into the house.

  Once, when he was fifteen and apprenticed, Santino worked in the garden of a rich man. There was an old statue of a naked girl, lean and strong, and unafraid. “Diana, the huntress,” the master told him. The marble girl watched over them as Santino swept stone chips, and packed the hearting, and learned how strength could fracture but be rebuilt.

  Now that girl is his. Living skin like cool marble. Lean and strong. No longer afraid. “Moglia mia,” he whispers, his fingers grazing her breast, her hip, her thigh. “My wife. My wife.”

  Claudia awakens, turns over. She meets his need with a woman’s certainty, her hands on his arms, his shoulders, his broad back. Measuring the shape and feel and weight of him. Learning him by heart. “My Santino,” she whispers when he shudders. “Always my Santino. No matter what.”

  She does not cry when her husband leaves. Save your tears, she thinks. You may need them later.

  BORGO SAN MAURO

  19 SEPTEMBER

  Sunlight glints off a river that looks chrome-plated. A sudden, sharp heat headache begins, just behind Eduard Knyphausen’s eyes. He sweats in full battle dress under the Italian sun’s assault. Summer’s last stand, he thinks. Not even noon, but hot already.

  San Mauro’s been sealed off for three days, surrounded by a reinforced company of an armored grenadier division, part of three Waffen-SS battalions in position all over Valdottavo. “Sturmbannführer, there are no combatants in San Mauro,” the peg-leg priest claimed. “Only women and children. Old people, sick people!”

  “And where are the men who have left all these poor people behind?” Knyphausen asked icily. “In the mountains, among the partisans and bandits, that’s where! Listen carefully: I want the bodies of my men back. I want the guilty to surrender. If they choose not to turn themselves in, they will be responsible for what happens here, not I.”

  Finally the church bell strikes ten. Knyphausen nods. Noise erupts. Officers shout through bullhorns. Troops standing ready at the edges of the town yell, “Raus! Raus! Raus!” smashing open every door, pounding through every building. Houses vomit skinny-legged old men, women ugly with fear, screaming children.

  With whips and dogs, squads of soldiers herd them toward the center of town. It seems like chaos, but every move is choreographed. Several hundred townspeople join scores of peasants relieved earlier of their market produce and corralled since dawn in the central piazza. There are machine gunners at the corners, riflemen on rooftops. Men with dogs patrol the perimeter. Knyphausen glances at his watch. Seventeen minutes, he notes with pleasure. All set in motion by his nod. “Get a head count,” he orders.

  A sergeant approaches and salutes. “Sturmbannführer, there is a man trying to get into the town. He has no papers— he says he’s a Volksdeutscher from Bozen. He claims the bandits have taken Gruppenführer von Thadden prisoner, along with eight other Germans. They want to negotiate.”

  Von Thadden failed to arrive last night; that much is true. Knyphausen flicks at his boot top with a ceremonial riding crop. “What proof does he offer?”

  “Oberleutnant Schmidt’s papers, sir. He says Schmidt was killed, but the bandits want to arrange an exchange for the others. The man’s unarmed. Shall we let him through?”

  Temples throbbing, Knyphausen says, “I’m getting out of this sun. Send him to my office.”

  His headache worsens when he hears what the Volksdeutscher has to say. His name is Ugo Messner, and he has been held prisoner since June, when bandits confiscated a truck and the load of fabric he was delivering to the Vaterland. Perched on a wooden chair, Messner looks nervous and ill-fed. His well-made suit is dirty and ragged. He claims to know both Reinecke and von Thadden personally. Schmidt’s papers are genuine and bear rust-colored evidence of a wound, although there’s no telling how serious or whose.

  “I’m not sure how many Germans they’ve taken hostage,” Messner says. “At least nine. If the bandits see your troops withdrawing, all prisoners will be released. If not, they’ll execute the captives. They say those five German soldiers who were killed— they were caught raping a local girl. The partisans are peasant boys, Sturmbannführer, sentimental about their sisters’ purity. The whole incident is unfortunate, but with a little finesse, no more German blood need be shed over this.”

  Neither of Knyphausen’s choices are attractive. Negotiate with terrorists or be held responsible for a general’s death. Less than two hours to deadline…

  Messner says, “Bitte—if I could just speak to Standartenführer Reinecke myself?”

  It’s an out: pass the problem up the line. Raising his voice slightly, Knyphausen calls, “Buntenhof: get Reinecke for me.”

  Waiting, Knyphausen goes to his office window to check on the situation in the piazza. The crowd is nervous but cowed. Messner asks for a cigarette, coffee, a
nd food, relieved to be among Germans, and full of questions. The bandits told him that the Führer had been wounded in an assassination attempt, that the Wehrmacht has lost ground in France, the Low Countries, in the East, in southern Italy. Reluctantly, Knyphausen confirms it all. In the past two weeks, the Soviet army has reached Yugoslavia, linking up with Tito’s partisans. The Americans and British have taken Brussels, Antwerp, and Liège. Messner looks stricken, but Knyphausen is happy to provide the facts he pins his own hopes on. “We’ve blown up the dikes and flooded the lowlands. That will slow them down. And the Führer has a stupendous new weapon, even better than the Vengeance 1 missile. What we need are more tanks and a little time. We can turn this—”

  Buntenhof appears in the doorway. “Sir, I have Standartenführer Reinecke for you.”

  On the telephone, Knyphausen briefs Reinecke on the kidnapping. Messner watches worriedly. Wincing at Reinecke’s response, Knyphausen holds the handset a few centimeters from his ear. Messner motions for it. When Knyphausen refuses, Messner shouts, “Helmut, my friend! You must help! Think of Martina!”

  “Buntenhof!” Knyphausen calls. “Get this man out of here!”

  Messner is pulled from the office, still pleading at the top of his voice. It’s difficult to follow what Reinecke is shouting. Clark’s Fifth Army has launched a huge attack. A ferocious battle is under way. Kesselring wants the partisan threat behind his lines liquidated.

  “But Gruppenführer von Thadden—?” Knyphausen asks.

  “Damn you, Knyphausen— we have our orders!”

  Reinecke cuts the connection. Knyphausen stands, straightening his jacket with a tug. Outside, a sergeant is waiting for him. “A total of 318, Sturmbannführer: 231 from the town, plus 87 peddlers here for the market, sir.”

  Six hundred short of the figure in their own municipal records. Lies. Deception. They had their chance. “Messner!” Knyphausen shouts. When the anxious Volksdeutscher presents himself, Knyphausen points to the mountains looming above this wretched little nest of vipers. “Tell those bandits they are to release the hostages unharmed by noon, or pay the price. There will be no negotiation.”

  Messner looks stunned. “Sturmbannführer, an hour and a half! Even on a motorcycle, I couldn’t— Please! Allow me to ask Reinecke for a little more time!”

  Knyphausen turns on his heel. He needs to get out of the damned sun, back into the relative cool of his office—

  “Prego, Sturmbannführer! A moment! I beg you!”

  It’s that damned one-legged priest again, at the edge of the piazza crowd with a stocky little goblin of a man at his side. “Sturmbannführer, I have the man—”

  “I’m the one,” the ugly brute is saying. “Just me! No one else—”

  Messner shouts something. The sergeant shoves him on his way.

  “They were abusing a girl,” the priest says. “Santino only wanted to—”

  Knyphausen stomps down the steps, into the glare, his head pounding. “Are you telling me that this— this one man, this one man, this single piece of stinking shit killed five German soldiers?” Knyphausen draws his Luger, points it at the priest’s head. “He is some kind of spaghetti-sucking Übermensch? Is that what you expect me to believe?”

  The crowd surges forward, their shouts and cries drowning Knyphausen’s rage. Sentries push back with rifles at present arms. Dogs lunge. Officers’ arms rise and fall, whips striking at anyone in range. A soldier smashes his rifle butt into the priest’s shoulders. Cawing and clawing her way to the priest’s side, an old black crow screams abuse at the soldier, and then simply screams when she, too, is knocked to the ground between the goblin and the priest.

  Three flat, loud reports echo against the buildings. Bodies jerk, flop, go still. In the sudden silence, Knyphausen does not need to shout. “Get the rest of these people into that church.”

  Hazy sunlight yields to featureless cloud cover. By late afternoon, the valley seems to steam. Claudia Cicala sits on a high rock ledge, her husband’s Carcano ’91 cradled in her arms. A man she does not recognize works his way up the mountain toward the hunchback’s house. Trudging doggedly, he disappears around a switchback or behind the trees, reappearing whenever a terraced field interrupts the forest. His limp is obvious, but long before she can see his face, she knows this is not Don Leto. He has two arms— not Pierino then. He is too tall, too slim to be Santino.

  Two hours later, close enough to speak, he shows himself unarmed, and removes his hat. “Giulietta, I have bad news.”

  She looks more carefully. He is changed, but she remembers the day he called her that. He is not a German, Don Leto told her. He is a Jew. An Italian Jew who was once a soldier.

  “Sono desolato,” he says. “Your Romeo was an honorable man.”

  With painful effort, he lowers himself, sitting at her side. For a long time, they watch the darkness gather. A widow of sixteen. A cripple of thirty-one. In the distance, thousands of birds coalesce in the smoky dusk, wheeling, diving, soaring in unison on scythe-shaped wings.

  The man lifts a hand toward them. “Apus apus, of the family Micropodidae,” he says. “I was killing time in a library once, and looked them up. ‘The common swift is the most aerial of birds,’ ” he recites, “ ‘so perfectly adapted to flight, the species’ feet are nearly vestigial.’ ”

  “Micropodidae,” she whispers. “Tiny feet…”

  “They never land on the ground or perch on branches. Swifts ride air currents all night, sleeping. They eat, and preen— even mate in the air. I wouldn’t have believed it, but I saw them when I was a pilot. They collect nesting material on the wing. Straw, dry grass, flower petals. Anything light enough to be carried by the wind. Swifts nest just long enough to raise their young, and then… They return to their element.”

  “We thought if he turned himself in, no one else would be hurt,” she says.

  The wind rises. To the south, there are flashes of white light within and below the clouds. Lightning, and artillery. She knows the difference now, instructed by Pierino. Each evening all summer, Mussolini’s San Marco brigades have blindly lobbed 155mm shells into Valdottavo; the partisans replied with captured 81mm mortars, aiming just as blindly at the sound of the San Marco guns. Any effect on the opposition was purely accidental. Today was different. Across the valley, there were battles and skirmishes. Fires, everywhere. Borgo San Mauro and a dozen other towns smolder. Santa Chiara is gone. Zia Tercilla, she thinks. Bettina. Cesare Brondello. All the people who took Claudia and her father in, and treated them like family.

  The temperature begins to drop. Outrunning the coming thunderstorm, birds swarm in a blurred, shadowy shape that swirls into the next valley. Tonight’s rain will be a blessing and a curse: dousing fires, chilling the dispossessed.

  The man gets to his feet, graceless as a grounded swift. “We have a roof,” he says. “We should get inside.” The first fat drops hit her face. She lets him help her up. “Prego,” he says, trying to take the heavy rifle from her hands. “Let me carry this for you.”

  She lifts the rifle, holds it closer. She studies this strange, scarred man she barely knows. “Will you use it?” she asks. He looks away, then meets her eyes. She waits until he nods, and then she hands it over.

  Standing at his window, Helmut Reinecke stares at the teeming rain while his adjutant reads the draft report. “ ‘In response to recent partisan ambushes and attacks, three battalions of the 2nd SS-Panzerkorps Regiment, 12th Division Waffen-SS Walther Reinhardt, were ordered to engage the enemy in Valdottavo, where partisan bands have roamed freely. A show of force near their strongholds was sufficient to cause the male population to flee into the mountains, carrying firearms and grenades. The bases of these bandits were destroyed. A number of houses were burned to the ground when partisan munitions hidden within them exploded. Several Communist sympathizers were executed.’ ” Scheel looks up. “Should I have mentioned the civilians in that church, Standartenführer?”

  Reinecke’s conscience is
clear. Huppenkothen said it: when soldiers take off their uniforms and conceal their weapons, they are no longer protected by the Geneva Convention. And neither are those who support them. “Items of military importance only, Scheel.” Perimeter floodlights create pyramids of gilt raindrops so close together they seem solid. “What is it the French say? Après moi, le deluge! Something like that…”

  “I don’t speak French, sir.” Scheel waits a beat. “It never seemed to be of military importance.” Reinecke grunts a laugh. Scheel continues reading: “ ‘Following these engagements, the regiment was attacked by men in civilian clothing. We estimate their numbers to be close to twenty thousand. Despite heavy fighting and a number of casualties, we broke their resistance. We are presently regrouping. Gruppenführer Erhardt von Thadden and eight others are missing in action, presumed killed.’ ”

  Hands behind his back, Reinecke turns from the rain to stare at a silver-framed photograph recording his daughter’s first Christmas. Anneliese holds little Margot, dazzled by the gorgeously decorated Tannenbaum. Erhardt and Martina von Thadden look on, like proud grandparents. “Type the report up for my signature,” Reinecke says. “Make arrangements for me to go to Sant’Andrea. Don’t inform Frau von Thadden yet. I’ll bring the news to her myself. And contact Artur Huppenkothen at Gestapo headquarters. Set up a meeting.”

  Two, perhaps three months before they must retreat behind the Alps. We’ll make them pay, he’ll tell Martina. Before we leave this place, we’ll make the bastards pay.

  CASTELLO RITANNA

  21 SEPTEMBER

  Nine men, unshaven and half-dressed, sit morosely in close quarters. Stripped of their uniforms, given dirty peasant trousers to wear, they were brought here blindfolded, shoved into this little cell. Each has a story of ambush or attack. They’ve had no food for twenty-four hours. The water jug is nearly empty, the slop bucket nearly full. No one expected to live through the night, so they count themselves lucky when they awaken to hunger and the stench of their own waste.