The Road Beyond Ruin

by Gemma Liviero

  She turns, not looking at him, but at something behind him, responding to the tone in his voice. He can see the scarring at the hairline. He touches it briefly, thinks about the moment she took the lives of his siblings and attempted to kill herself. Tears spring to his eyes, and he blinks them away. He can’t remember the last time he cried. He takes her hand, bends down to kiss it. And his head stays bowed, not in prayer, but to reflect on all the good that she has done.

  “You also said to be merciful to animals, to never let them suffer. You taught me that as well. Do you want me to be merciful, Mother?”

  He stands up suddenly and lifts her from the armchair so they are no longer visible from the street. He helps her lie down on a sofa. She looks stiff and uncomfortable, and her mouth moves as if she wants to say something.

  He takes a cushion and places it over her face and applies pressure. Perhaps unnecessary force since she is light, but it must be done swiftly and humanely. She makes a sound, beneath the thick fabric and padding, and one hand reaches out to grab weakly at the air, at something she can’t see. He presses the cushion down harder and holds it there. There is little resistance until her body becomes limp, and her arm drops suddenly to the floor beside the sofa. He leaves the cushion over her face. He doesn’t want to see her again.

  He packs a small case, then shuts the door behind him.

  There are things he has to know.

  CHAPTER 26

  STEFANO

  Rosalind has stopped crying now, and she is pensive, watching silently from the window, perhaps willing Georg to appear. The soldiers, Stefano has told her, will likely come back to report on Georg’s condition.

  “Where’s Michal?” She turns, her mind suddenly back in the room and her fingers grazing the bruises around her throat.

  “He is next door.”

  “It is probably best,” she says, and he wonders why it is best, since there is no Georg here who might harm him.

  “I just took him some food,” he says. “Fortunately, he did not witness the shooting.” Though the boy has likely seen worse.

  Rosalind disappears to her bedroom, then returns moments later to retrieve the kettle with boiling water from the stove. She has replaced her bloody housecoat with the dress he first saw her in.

  “I’m making some tea,” she says, and he finds it odd that she now appears serene. Her face, though, is still damp and reddened from her previous outburst.

  Stefano feels the sweat building under his armpits. He wipes his forehead with the back of his sleeve. It is still early in the morning, and already it is too hot. He exits the back door again to survey the area; he wonders about Erich’s whereabouts and whether he’ll appear.

  “I think I will go to town,” he says, coming back to the table. “See if I can learn something more.” He does not like the waiting. He looks around. He is sure he left his satchel near the sofa. There is no sign of it now.

  “Erich should be returning soon. You cannot miss your train . . . I would rather you stay for the moment. Until my nerves settle.”

  She turns back from the sink and places the tea in front of him, then sits down opposite.

  “Thank you,” he says, sitting down, though he is still thinking about the location of the bag while he sips at the hot tea. “You are feeling better?”

  “Yes,” she says too quickly, “but I am wondering what you said in Russian when Georg first came out of the house.”

  Stefano pauses, trying to remember the words he used.

  “You told them the Nazis were gone.”

  “I shouted something, anything to stop them from shooting.”

  “It was strange. That’s all. The tone. The urgency. As if those soldiers needed to be elsewhere.”

  “I’m not sure I understand you.”

  “I heard those words you used many times these last months when I saw soldiers in the street in the town grab someone to interrogate them. It is something we learned to say after the war ended. Though your tone was strange. As if you were frustrated, disappointed. Or a warning to the Soviets perhaps.”

  He looks at her, absorbs the gentle accusation of collusion, and searches for an answer that will suit her. She is digging. She is deeper than he thought.

  “It is what I said,” he says finally. “I was hoping that my warning would stop him, but Georg did not want to stop. I was just trying to save him, make sure he was not mistaken for a Nazi on the run.”

  She stares at her cup; there are other things on her mind. He thinks he must explain further and begins to talk; he reminds her how he learned some Russian, and that he loved languages, liked to read, to study words, but she bursts into his explanation to interrupt his attempts.

  “It doesn’t matter now. Georg is gone. Perhaps Erich is, too.”

  He takes several mouthfuls of tea, wondering if there is a message beneath the words.

  “And soon you will be gone, too, and I will be left here alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Stefano, draining the last of the fluid that was thick and black and strong, with too many leaves. Bitter also, like her, he is thinking. Her mood has changed from last night, and he wonders if she is ashamed that she revealed so much and whether she wishes she hadn’t. “It should never have happened.”

  “What was supposed to happen?” she asks.

  He looks at her then.

  “Just that they should not have shot him. He was unarmed,” he says, and looks suddenly wary. “Do you think I had something to do with Georg being shot?”

  “I don’t know. I lived through a war. I lived through all sorts of disappointment, heard and saw many horrors. I just thought that when the Russians came, you were expecting something to happen, that you ran out to greet them rather than try to send them away.”

  He opens his mouth to speak in his defense, but there is a sudden pain in his stomach, and he grabs at it. His head feels fuzzy. He tries to stand but finds that the floor beneath him is shifting.

  He can just see her through the haze. She sits across from him. She has not touched her tea. Her large pale eyes that emerge from the mist are in sharp contrast with the circles of black that surround them. His hand releases the cup, which smashes to the floor, and Stefano falls to the side of the chair.

  January 1944

  Stefano watched his mother play with her grandson, and the sight lightened his heart and just briefly blocked out the events they were faced with. Nina wanted Nicolo baptized in a church as soon as they reached the South, and Toni had agreed.

  They spoke only briefly of the mission that had gone badly. There was no blame, but Toni vowed there would be no more failures. After the women and Nicolo were safely on their way the next day, they would draft up plans.

  In the early hours of the following morning, a truck would take Julietta, Nina, and Nicolo to a church that had been assisting refugees. From there they would be moved southward with the help of the Vatican. They’d had word of others who had been safely transferred to the Allied-occupied territory.

  “Finally,” said Toni, “the church has come in handy.”

  “Don’t blaspheme,” said Nina. “You will come around eventually.” Stefano was glad that his mother had left the room and hoped she didn’t hear the way Toni talked. Better that she thought well of him now that he was part of their family.

  Stefano went to the room where his mother would sleep and spoke to her briefly. She was restless with the excitement of returning home.

  “I am sorry for the delay,” said Stefano. He did not like that the mission had postponed his family’s travels.

  “I trust that you are doing everything you think is right,” said Julietta to her son. “But you must promise me that you will come to us soon.”

  “I promise, Mamma, before God, that I will come when I have done what I need to here.”

  “And what is that exactly?”

  He was tired, bits of soil from digging still under his nails from the work two nights earlier. He did not want to ex
plain.

  “Mamma, get some sleep, and I will tell you all about it when I see you in Campania!”

  His mother at least believed him in part. Nina entered the room, and he hugged them both a little longer than usual, since he had no idea how long they were to be parted, and then Stefano went to speak with the others.

  In recent times, Toni and Nina had become more active. Nina would carry messages in the baby’s pram and deliver them in cafés. They were fortunately never implicated as members of the southern traitors, but Stefano and others in his group had heard of many executed, and whole villages nearly destroyed in recent weeks. The more death, the more fearless both Toni and Nina had become.

  “After the failed operation, the streets will be littered with soldiers, so it is better to have this small delay,” Toni said.

  Jews were also being successfully smuggled through another local church that had joined their movement. The refugees were set up with false documents, if time permitted, then taken south. With talk now of all Jews being rounded up and taken to camps in unknown destinations, the work of Il Furioso was even more important. Mussolini, once reluctant to dispense with Jews the same way as Germany, had eventually agreed. But with a puppet government and Germany then pulling the strings, he had little to say on any matter of Italian governance.

  Il Furioso planned to blow up train routes to Austria and Poland where they had learned most of the prisoners were being transferred. They would do whatever was required.

  Stefano had just lain down on the floor to rest a few hours when there was a knock on the door. He crept toward the window while others sat up to reach for their rifles.

  “Are you expecting anyone?” Stefano whispered, and Conti replied that he wasn’t. Only Fedor wasn’t with the group. He had left to say goodbye to his parents who had refused to leave for the South.

  Stefano peered out the window. He recognized the visitor as a boy from Teresa’s neighborhood and opened the door. The boy told him that Teresa wanted to meet with him urgently. Perhaps she’d had a change of heart and decided she wanted to go also. He hoped so.

  “Be careful,” said Toni.

  Stefano felt that his aunt and uncle would not be aware of the meeting. Despite her beliefs, Stefano knew that Teresa would always be loyal to their mother, even if they fought.

  The message said to meet near a bridge, and he headed there straightaway. It was a part of Verona that he rarely visited, and he guessed she had chosen the location because it was far away from both their homes. Whatever it was she was about to tell him was highly secret, and the closer he got, the more he disliked the idea of meeting at all. She was there waiting in the darkness at the edge of the bridge, her face hidden in the night.

  Stefano hugged his sister, her body cold and trembling.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why are we meeting here?”

  “It is not safe for you or me.”

  He was suddenly alarmed. “What has happened?”

  “They came around to ask us questions.”

  “Brigades?”

  “No, an SS officer . . . someone that Enzo knew,” she said. “Someone he thought would advance him somehow if he gave him news. Are Mamma and Nina safe?”

  There was a break in her then-timid voice when she asked the question. She was breathing heavily as if she were carrying too great a weight. He could sense that she was very nervous, something that his unbreakable sister rarely showed.

  “Yes, of course.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Tell me, Teresa, what is going on?”

  “They know that you and Toni are deserters, and they believe you have already gone south. But they also know that Conti is a focal point for the resistance.”

  A car turned toward them, its headlights flashing across Teresa’s face before it passed them by. In those brief seconds Stefano saw tears streaming down her cheeks.

  He gripped her by the arms, the fear of treachery circling.

  “What have you done?”

  “They are coming for him. I called you away because I knew you would be there. I have seen what they do to deserters.”

  “What do you mean? Who?”

  “We had to give them something. The Nazis are coming for Conti tonight.”

  “No!” said Stefano, every muscle in his body tensing. “Tell me you didn’t!”

  “It was either you or him. But you must leave tonight. You must go straight to the church also and follow Mamma and Nina to the South!”

  “They are still in Verona!”

  “But I said goodbye to them several days ago. You told me they were leaving the following day.”

  “Teresa!” he yelled. “They are not yet at the church. Mamma and Nina are staying at Conti’s.”

  He had time enough to sense her horror before he turned and ran, sure-footed, his legs taking flight, jumping over rails and fences, across yards and down narrow streets. He had to beat his enemy there. He was thinking of his mother, curled up asleep, dreaming of the Mediterranean, hopeful, and the others, Nina up perhaps to feed the baby, the others dozing, waiting for his safe return.

  As he grew closer he could hear screaming, and from his position several houses away from Conti’s, he saw Nina being dragged from the house by a member of the Brigades, while another carried her baby. There was no sign of the others. Stefano slipped unseen down the side of a neighbor’s house and crossed the fence to Conti’s. He stood behind the corner of the house to peer around toward the street for a closer view. There were two official vehicles parked in front of the house. There were half a dozen Black Brigade members and several SS, all with guns ready. They had been prepared for a battle.

  Stefano leaned back against the sidewall. He regretted not taking a gun, having only a short knife, which he kept on him always. Car doors slammed and engines started, and in desperation, and with no time to think, he turned the corner toward the vehicles, with the hope that his appearance would divert attention, halt their departure, and give Nina enough time to run away. But his mother’s short and sudden scream and the sounds of unrecognizable voices from inside the house put a stop to this suicidal plan. He was torn in half, helpless, as he watched the first vehicle drive away with Nina and Nicolo, followed by the second.

  As he moved cautiously closer to the front door, he was met with the smell of gasoline. Someone shouted something terse, which was followed by a burst of fire from inside the house and the smashing of the front-window glass. Two brigades hurried from the house and headed on foot in the same direction as the vehicles. In their rush to leave, they had not seen Stefano approaching the entrance.

  Stefano could see through the window that fire had engulfed the front living room. He wondered then if some of the group had already been taken before Nina, but they could also all still be inside, perhaps wounded and unable to flee. The crackle of the fire turned to roaring as flames caught rapidly, and it became obvious that gasoline had been spread throughout the entire house.

  Stefano rushed back to the side of the house where the bedrooms were and called out to his mother. Over the sound of the loud crackling fire and splitting timber, he faintly heard her cries. He smashed at the window glass with his fist and climbed through the jagged opening, pieces of glass piercing him as he entered. The heat and smoke were too much, and he was forced back again to the window, flames threatening to smother him. His eyes and throat were burning, and he could barely see. He climbed back out and fell to the earth coughing, his chest very painful. People from the other houses had arrived with buckets of water. Someone bent down to check on him and yelled that he was badly injured and needed a doctor.

  It was only when he looked down that he saw the fire had burned through his shirt to the skin on his chest, and his forearm and the back of his hand were a sticky, blistering mess. He clawed at his chest from the smoke trapped in his airway, and the feeling of suffocation collapsed him to the ground. He began to sh
ake violently.

  Fedor appeared and wrapped him in a sheet, and, with the help of a stranger, Stefano was carried elsewhere in the dark. It no longer mattered where. At that point he had lost all thoughts of a future.

  He was taken below the grounds of the church that had been assisting Jews escape. A doctor arrived and spread salve across his body and bound the injured areas with gauze. He eventually fell asleep, and sometime in his dreams he heard Nina and his mother screaming but woke to an empty silence and a loss that no words could quantify. His heart ached for his mother, sister, and friends.

  By the third day he expected the SS to come, but they didn’t. He was safe, said the priest, in a secret passage below the building. He wondered what Nina must have gone through to have not given up the church to the authorities. He closed his eyes in an attempt to block out images of faces in the fire, but for several more nights the pain of what had happened worsened. He tried not to think of Nina and his mamma waking in the night to their deaths. They had paid the ultimate price for his defection, and he was now bearing the blame.

  Fedor came to see him often, concerned for his friend and with talk of revenge. He believed that, from Stefano’s description of events, their friends were knocked out or shot by the Brigades and SS prior to the fire. It was only Julietta who must have woken to stare into the face of her death, and the image was something he would wake with for most of the coming years.

  For three more weeks he stayed like that, was treated for his wounds, and counseled by priests and others loyal to the South. More came, those who supported his cause, and then members of a partisan army offered condolences and something that was much more important: the opportunity to fight alongside them. Fedor and Stefano listened to the stories of the resistance, listened to what they had already done, and how much they had lost also, and the two friends left one night without mercy in their hearts.

  Present-day 1945

  Stefano wakes to a strange taste in his mouth, a mixture of bile, metal, and tea. He struggles to open his eyes. His head is slightly forward, hair across his face. He goes to reach for his forehead, then realizes he can’t. His arms are tied behind him. He is in the barn, tethered to the center pole.