A Pair of Silver Wings

by James Holland

‘But I mean it. That was the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.’

  Her face, solemn one moment, broke into a smile and she kissed him again. Once more he felt her breasts brush across his chest as she moved.

  ‘Now I feel I love you completely,’ she said. ‘I feel wedded to you now. Maybe not in the eyes of God, but in my eyes. In my mind and in my heart.’

  He felt intoxicated by her words. It still seemed incredible to him that she could feel this way. Why? How was it possible? He wondered what he had done to deserve such fortune. ‘I want to know everything about you,’ he said. ‘Everything, starting with your body.’ He began to kiss her again, lightly, a mere brush of the lips. ‘A thorough examination.’ He kissed her eyes. ‘What happened here?’ he said, looking at a narrow line in her eyebrow.

  ‘I fell down the stairs. At Pian del Castagna when I was little. There was so much blood – I cried and cried, and now I’m scarred for life.’ She giggled as he ran a finger down her back and then her arms, kissed her breasts and then her belly, the hair between her legs and then her thighs, shins and feet. ‘You’re perfect,’ he said, meaning it. ‘Everything about you is perfect. Even your eyebrow.’

  She laughed again and then her expression changed to one of wistfulness. ‘We must go,’ she said, ‘but I want to stay here with you forever.’ She sat up and rubbed her face. ‘I could scream, really I could. It’s so unfair. What is the point of this ridiculous war? Nothing. Why can’t we all be left alone?’

  ‘We will be one day. Soon,’ said Edward. He sat up too, and held her to him, a hand stroking her hair. ‘You know Father Umberto gave me a talking to.’

  ‘Father Umberto? Why?’

  ‘He wanted my word that my intentions were honourable. That after the war I wouldn’t go back to England and forget about you.’ He paused, feeling her head tilt upwards – and will you? ‘And I told him that I would do no such thing, and that if you would have me we would marry as soon as the war was over.’

  She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. ‘My darling, of course I’ll marry you.’

  ‘I don’t know what we’d do, but I want to be with you forever, Carla. I mean that. I really do. I’m going to love you ’til my dying day.’

  ‘Buongiorno!’ exclaimed two walkers in unison, waking Edward from his reverie.

  ‘Buongiorno,’ he muttered, and looked down at his feet so that they would not see the tears that were running freely down his cheeks. They said something about the summit, he nodded, and then they stopped a moment, admiring the view. They were young – a man and a woman, both wearing shorts and walking boots, and colourful T-shirts. The man took a long draw from his plastic water bottle.

  ‘Una bella vista,’ said the girl, smiling.

  ‘Si, si,’ nodded Edward. Please go.

  They smiled at him again then said, ‘Arrivederci!’ and carried on up the mountain path.

  ‘I’m going to love you until my dying day,’ Edward mumbled to himself, and rubbed his forehead. He stood up and was about to leave, when he looked back one last time at the place where the hut had once stood. Where are you? he thought – those two young lovers for whom this place had been so secret. He looked at the ground – at the countless footprints stamped into the damp mud, then stared up the trees. The leaves rustled gently, but no, there was nothing. No trace at all.

  Italy – August, 1995

  Edward had gone straight back to Bologna after his visit to Monte Luna. As he had walked back down the path, feelings of grief, and regret for a life that had never been, had been so overwhelming that he had known he had seen enough for one day.

  Sitting in heavy traffic, he looked around at the hundreds of cars, scooters, buses and other vehicles, and at the multitude of people, and he realised he had never felt more alone in his life. He began to wish again, not for the first time, that he had never left Monte Luna, that his life had ended there, or even earlier, on Malta. That he had died instead of Harry; instead of countless others.

  He was wallowing in self-pity, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. Go home, he told himself. Get on the plane tomorrow and go home. He thought again of the imaginary funeral he had discussed with Lucky, about the few mourners that would be there. How could that be, when Carla had loved him so passionately, so completely? When he had once had so many friends? What had he become? A man who shunned others, who was barely able to communicate with the small amount of family he had left. Would the Casalinis have ever allowed that to happen to one of their own? Would any of those contadini families on Monte Luna? The waste of it, he thought. Again, he felt his throat tightening and tears welling from deep within him.‘Bloody hell, man!’ he told himself. ‘You don’t seem to be able to stop bloody blubbing these days.’ He sighed, as if to scold himself, then added, ‘Get a bloody grip of yourself.’ He breathed out deeply several times, then switched on the car radio. Good to improve your Italian, he thought to himself. Keep your mind off things.

  The next morning, he felt better. He had been dreading going to sleep, fearing nightmares and long hours brooding on the past, but the day had exhausted him and the wine he had drunk at supper had ensured he slept deeply and without interruption. He had woken with stiff legs, however. You are nearly seventy-three, he reminded himself. Not the sprightly young man you once were.

  Over breakfast at a café in the city centre, he thought about the Casalinis – about what a close family they had been. Of course they had bickered with one another, but family life had been at the very heart of their existence. How different from his own family! A pang of remorse swept over him. Cynthia had been a good wife, but he’d been a difficult husband: taciturn, more irritable than he should have been, and, if he was honest, emotionally cold. They’d not made love once in the twenty years before she’d died. And she’d put up with him, being the constant friend and companion that had helped make his life bearable, and getting so little in return.

  Simon, on the other hand, had created a much closer family: he adored Katie and the children and their house was an untidy mishmash of colour and mess, but a happy, family environment. The Casalinis would have approved of Simon’s home; they wouldn’t have sat there stiffly staring with distaste. Edward cringed to himself. He wished he could furl back the years. Make amends. ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake with Simon,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘A terrible, terrible mistake.’

  When I get back, he told himself, I must try and atone. But first there was this journey to finish – a journey, he realised, he had begun in many ways because of Simon. He now wanted to tell everything to Simon – to offer an explanation – but not until his task was complete. It had to be that way.

  It was mid-morning by the time he was leaving Bologna behind. He was about to turn off the main valley road and cross the river, when he noticed a signpost for Tolé. He’d not noticed it the day before – he’d been thinking too much about seeing Monte Luna again – but it now reminded him again of the raid they had made on the fascist barracks there – a trip to the far side of the valley that had been more successful than any of them had ever at first imagined.

  On a whim, Edward turned right towards Tolé. The road followed a narrow valley beside a small river that fed into the Reno, rising gradually as the stream climbed into the mountains of its source. He stopped at one point, looked at his map, then smiling to himself drove on, until he reached a convergence of five roads. Instead of turning to Tolé he turned right, following a signpost to Bologna. Ah, yes, he thought, this is right. ‘There should be a church along here somewhere,’ he mumbled to himself, and sure enough a church soon appeared. He smiled to himself again, slowing as he came to a bend in the road. Somewhere here, he thought. Yes, there was Monte Vignola, looming above him to his right, thick woods of chestnuts and pine covering its slopes. Spotting a track running down on his left, he turned into it and parked the car, then walked back a short way and crossed over the road. I’m sure this is it, he thought, as he stiffly clambered up the bank to the
edge of the trees . . .

  It was as they’d been returning from the raid on the fascist barracks at Tolé – one morning in the summer of 1944 – and had been Giorgio’s idea. They had noticed that the Germans were using the valley roads less and less, particularly the one along the Reno Valley, presumably for fear of partisan attack. But Giorgio knew there was another lesser road – a strada bianca – that wound its way through the mountains roughly parallel to the Reno. ‘Let’s set up an ambush along here,’ he’d suggested. ‘You never know what might come along.’

  ‘It’s got to be worth a try,’ Edward had agreed.

  There were just six of them: Edward and Giorgio, Jock and Billy, Pietro, and another Italian from the headquarters company known as Toro. They’d heard the car coming long before it turned the bend, slowly climbing through the gears as the road rose. Then there it was, a German kübelwagen, with a driver in the front and two officers in the back. It was travelling slowly – not more than twenty miles an hour – and before Edward had properly taken aim, all three had been shot dead and the vehicle had careered off the road and down the bank on the far side.

  Scrambling out of their positions, they had scurried over to the wrecked car. One of the officers had been a doctor, the other a colonel in intelligence. He had been carrying a briefcase with him, which Giorgio took and gave to Billy – the only one amongst them who could read any German.

  ‘Christ,’ said Billy as he rifled through the papers inside. ‘We’ve struck gold.’ He scanned the pages, again, his eyes darting across them.

  ‘What are they?’ Edward asked. ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘Well, I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but I think these are details of all the fortifications along the Gothic Line.’

  They whistled, and congratulated one another. ‘The Allies’ll be happy with us,’ said Giorgio.

  ‘We need to get them to Colonel Bianco right away,’ Edward said to Giorgio.

  Giorgio nodded. ‘But first we should hide this car.’ He looked around. ‘We need the help of some contadini round here. Then we’ll bury it.’

  And that was exactly what they had done, rolling the car further down the hill, out of sight, then digging as deep a pit as they could manage and covering the remains with bits of wood and other vegetation. In the end, Giorgio had shrugged and said, ‘That’ll have to do,’ and then they had set off back towards Monte Luna, crossing the Reno again that night.

  Fifty years on, Edward now crossed back over the road, and peered down the densely covered slopes, wondering whether the car and those three Germans were still under there somewhere. He hoped the men had been dug up and given a proper burial; that their families had been given a chance to grieve properly. He paused a moment, looking at the silent wood, then walked slowly back to his car.

  Colonel Bianco had been delighted, Edward remembered, as he drove back down towards the Reno Valley; the Colonel had managed to ensure the documents safely reached Allied hands. This had been confirmed a few weeks later, when during another arms drop they had discovered a note of thanks. Their achievement, they were told, in capturing such important information would considerably help the Allies in their efforts to liberate Italy.

  Edward tried to remember when exactly they’d captured those documents. June some time? Or had it been July? Rome had definitely been liberated by then – of that he was sure – and the Allies had been closing towards Florence. Ah, well, no matter, he thought, as he reached the Reno once more and crossed the bridge towards Monte Luna.

  Another warm day, yet up in the mountains the air was fresh and today, at any rate, there was a cooling breeze. Edward parked the car in the same place as he had the day before, and retraced his route of the previous afternoon, the crickets loudly chirruping in the long grass. He had a stick with him this time – a simple, tall, hazel walking stick he’d spotted in the window of a shop in Bologna. Even so, he took his time. His legs were still stiff and it took him time to feel them loosen up. Still, he didn’t have far to go – a mile at most, and then back again. He could manage that all right. You might be getting old, he told himself, but you’re not that old. He passed some more walkers – a group of them this time – and wondered whether any of them knew that such scenes of violence had once occurred on the mountain. Probably not – and that was just as well.

  This time, when he reached the path to the summit of the mountain, he took a deep breath and continued on as the track gently descended through the trees. He passed no-one, but then began to think he had gone too far; he didn’t remember the distance between the farm and the hidden path being more than a few hundred yards. Perhaps he was wrong, though, he told himself, and so he walked on. But then the path joined a small mountain stream; that had been away below the farm, leading to the nearest village, Saragano, a mile or two further down on the lower slopes of the mountains, overlooking the Reno River. ‘Damn,’ he said to himself, pausing. For a moment he felt confused, doubting his memory.

  Turning back, he soon discovered where he’d gone wrong: the path now forked, but the right-hand fork was so overgrown he’d not noticed it initially. Picking up a stick, he swished at the ferns and nettles that blocked his way and stumbled through the undergrowth until the trees thickened and the path at last began to clear.

  The trees stopped abruptly and Edward stepped out onto the Pian del Castagna. Immediately, he felt a lump building in his throat, and for a moment he paused, his hand over his mouth. ‘What’s become of you?’ he asked out loud, and wiped his eyes and face where tears were once more running.

  Standing on an old terraced field, he looked down at the orchard and the remains of the farm. His legs suddenly felt weak and shaky, he picked his way down into the yard. Grass and weeds sprouted up through the stone. The roof of the old house had partially collapsed, while the barn had completely done so. The woodworm got the better of you at last, thought Edward. All that remained of the hayloft where he had spent so many nights were the stone steps on the outside, now leading to nothing but the sky.

  He crossed the yard. The main door that led to the kitchen stood haphazardly closed, held there by one screw on one hinge. He pushed it open, disturbing a number of pigeons as he did so, which made him jump back in alarm. Having recovered his composure, he gingerly stepped inside. There was nothing left. The room was empty: no table, no Arturo waving his stick in the corner; no picture of the long-lost son, Franco, on the dresser. The air smelled dank and musty. Bird droppings and mud covered the flagstones. The stairs still climbed to the next floor, but he’d never been up there, not even when he’d been living with them; the three bedrooms had already been spoken for.

  Edward went outside again and walked round the back of the house to the well, now surrounded by overgrown grasses and nettles. With his stick, he cut them down and sat on the edge as he had done the day Carla had sewn the slit in his jacket. He picked up a stone and dropped it down the well. ‘One, two, three,’ he counted softly, then heard the gentle splash forty feet below.

  It occurred to him that there were few more depressing sights than a derelict and deserted house; a place where there had once been such life and vitality. He wondered who owned the place now. The mezzadria system of farming, the feudal sharecropping to which all the contadini had been tied, had, Edward guessed, vanished long ago both on Monte Luna and throughout Italy. Was there still a padrone, an old family, who owned much of this land? It had to belong to someone, he reasoned. Perhaps even a member of the Casalini family.

  But it was irrelevant. The fact of the matter was clear: no-one lived here now and no-one farmed this side of Monte Luna any longer. There had been scarce little money to be made from it fifty years and more ago, and clearly no-one believed a living of any sorts could be made here now. Instead, it had been left to nature, crumbling and decaying further with each passing year, so that now it was entirely forgotten about, hidden even from the main track. Edward suspected he was the first person to have walked around it in years.
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  What had you expected? he asked himself. Ah, well. He wiped his face again: more tears, then stood up. ‘Pian del Castagna,’ he mouthed. Perhaps one day someone would rebuild it, live in it again, and banish the weeds once more. But what a sorry sight it was now, fading as the imprint of the Casalinis was fading. All too soon enough, there would be no-one left who remembered anything about them at all. He closed his eyes, imagining the sound of the animals, of Orfeo yelling at the dog; the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen and the soft sound of the piano with Eleva humming gently along to the tune. He could remember it all so vividly; the image, the sound – they were so clear, that it seemed impossible to think these things belonged to half a century before. Sometimes fifty years seemed so little time – almost yesterday. And yet as he looked at the decrepit remains of the farm now, those long years seemed more like a century. Edward wiped his face and eyes again, then, with a heavy heart, began picking his way back to the main path.

  Italy – August, 1944

  By the middle of June there were over a thousand partisans in the Blue Brigade. Word of the exploits of Volpe and his men had spread wide, a magnet for every roaming prisoner of war for miles around, for every frightened young Italian, disenchanted carabinieri, ex-convict, Russian deserter, and escaped Todt labourer – slaves brought into Italy by the Germans. Volpe had split them into four working battalions, all answerable to his headquarters company. In practice, however, they were largely operating independently of one another, in different parts of the mountains and across both sides of the two main river valleys. Roads were blown up and repaired, then blown up again. The same happened to the railway. A bridge near Veggio was bombed by the Allies, and the central brick structure collapsed into the River Setta. Within days, the Germans had repaired it with a temporary span of steel. A few days later, after another visit to Volpe’s headquarters from Colonel Bianco, the partisans destroyed it again.