The sickly lamplight shone on the Monsignor. On Vita, wrapped in the warm smell of linseed and papery wood, on Papà’s tool bag tucked behind a stool, on the table edge he’d been smoothing. The yellowish cast of lamplight, flowing like brackish water, right inside of you. To the place where that boy touched you, to the sharp burst of joy when you heard he was dead.
She nodded.
‘I see. In that case, perhaps you are right to be concerned.’
‘About what?’ Mamma was like an unknotted thread, loose wisps of her drifting.
‘Further reprisals? It’s hard to know. Where is Giuseppe now?’
‘On his way to Sant’Anna.’
‘Ah.’ He let a little pause grow. ‘I learned something else today. It might explain why the tedeschi are gathering all in their wake. The Allies have taken Lucca.’
‘So close?’
‘Indeed. And I gather there was little in the way of struggle. Now, your mother still lives in Lucca, Elena?’
‘She does.’
‘Possibly that is an option? I could get a message to Don Nello.’
‘I’m not abandoning my house, Gino. They are not driving me from my home.’
The Monsignor’s swivel-neck stare, alighting on Vita. ‘What about your daughters?’
‘No, Mamma. We’re not leaving you. We are not being boarded out at Nonna’s.’
‘Only if you come too,’ said Cesca.
‘How can I? What if Papà comes back? Out of the question. If I leave La Limonaia, we will have nothing to come back to. Tedeschi will seize it, or refugees will move in. . .’
Churning again, the mamma-tide, sweeping up and down the workshop. Even the Monsignor stepped out of her way. Vita had seen this in his repertoire too, where he dropped a notion, like an acorn, then carried on being mighty and steadfast until the notion rooted, deliberately, where it was meant to.
‘You really think it will become worse here, Gino?’
‘Mamma—’
‘Be quiet, Vita.’
‘Yes, Vittoria, please stop interrupting. I believe so. I fear the Germans are entrenching themselves. Sealing off the mountains so that any escape that way may prove impossible. Including the route to Sant’Anna, alas. And with the Allies continuing to push forward—’
‘When you say “Allies”, you mean americani? Is Lucca not overrun by Moors? I will not have my daughters become marocchinate.’
‘Please. The soldiers there are rough, but I do not believe they are beasts.’
‘Americani, francesi. . . those blacks are all the same.’
Every woman had heard of the marocchinate. Thousands of wretched women and girls at Monte Cassino, given the Moroccan treatment by their liberators. Many had died. Many others killed themselves afterwards.
‘Elena, Lucca is a place of relative order and safety. Compared to what you might risk here.’
The Monsignor frowned, Mamma glowered. They were carving up Vita’s future, hers and Cesca’s. She tried to think clear thoughts. Her scalp throbbed. She wanted to run after the bastards who’d taken her father. And she wanted to take her family and run very far away.
‘I’m not going to Lucca. Not without you.’
‘But you’re always so keen to leave.’ Her mother placed her hand on Vita’s neck. ‘How will Francesca get to Lucca if you do not take her?’
‘Hey, I’m right here. Don’t I get a say?’
‘Monsignor, I have a job. Nico is old.’
‘Nicodemo and I can manage, child. Your safety is of more importance.’
A gift-wrapped blow.
‘Well, I vote we all go to Lucca,’ said Cesca.
‘Good counsel,’ said the Monsignor. ‘There may only be a brief window of opportunity. The Germans are increasing their reinforcements round Borgo a Mozzano.’
Mamma. No longer walking, but waiting, intently, beside her daughters and the workbench and the glint of Papà’s chisel. ‘What if you two go on ahead with the Monsignor, and I’ll wait a few days, in case Papà is released? Then I’ll come to Nonna’s too. I promise.’
‘What about Renata and Rosa?’
‘That’s up to them.’
‘But you just decide for us.’
‘Renata’s a grown woman.’
‘So am I! You can’t keep controlling me like this.’
The Monsignor laid his hands on her shoulders. ‘And what would you choose to do, Vita? For the sake of your father and your mother? For the sake of your sister, who is not yet a grown woman—’
‘I am.’
‘—and relies on you all?’
The tallow lamp guttered, its greasy smell masking the fragrance of the wood. Vita snaked her finger through sawdust, tracing a curve. C for colpa. For fault.
‘I would. . .’ She looked at her sister. Cesca’s hair sprang up lopsided at her temple, the way it had when she was a baby. Kiss-curls, Papà called them. ‘I suppose I would take Cesca to my nonna’s.’
Mamma nodded at the Monsignor. The decision had been made some time ago, without Vita even realising. They were going to Lucca.
Chapter Twelve
To Frank, war was a series of clean surprises. With the suddenness of snapped bone, orders would be countermanded, about-turns turn to forward marches. Mealtimes might end, not with jello, but with the man next to you becoming dead, and a momentous battle for which you had prepared for days – waking up sweating with the thought, the flavour of blood; doing push-ups and running hills till you’d moved beyond tiredness to some lightness of being – would melt to anticlimax. Be sidestepped by a partigiano in an ill-fitting jacket, opening a gate.
Lucca had been liberated. Not by the US Army, but by local partisans. Sure, it was a domino effect; if the Buffaloes hadn’t been battling forth and the Nazis hadn’t been shitting bricks, La Resistenza would have stayed shadows within Lucca’s walls, unpicking and disrupting where they could. But with a Buffalo onslaught on the horizon, the partisans had become emboldened.
Since Monte Pisano, the 370th had been pressing forward, through minefields and machine guns, artillery and snipers. A shower of phosphorous bombs hit them just outside of Vorno, a cymbal clang in the threat-filled symphony which bounced off Frank most every day now. Not symphony. His pops listened to classical music after work, on his phonograph. A symphony was a planned, conducted thing, which rang with coherence and could be sublime. This war was discordant screaming.
In their withdrawal north, the Germans had left fields of mines and barbed wire. Blown every bridge across every river. The Buffaloes navigated it all. Frank had seen his first white officer killed at Ripafratta. Shrapnel to the skull. Nice guy, a boxing heavyweight from West Point. You could be two hundred pounds and death would still scoop you up. Human skin was featherweight – and colourless, to a bullet, or a bomb. Man, the bombs? Constant as the weather. The Germans kept shelling their positions, five hundred rounds a day, moving when they moved. The very tanks protecting the Buffaloes, that were deployed to dance cheek-to-cheek with the infantry for maximum impact, were attracting death. The noise and dust they kicked up could be seen from miles off. Every time the tanks rolled in, Jerry guns rained down. But you grew used to the artillery pounding, and the hiss of incoming shells. Where they kissed was a movable feast, but at least you got some warning. Mortars were untrackable. The ground erupting beneath you. That was your warning.
Calluses had formed on Frank’s hands and feet. Possibly inside his ears. Rub and chafe and fire and chafe. Sweat and chafe. Don’t look and chafe; don’t cry and chafe. Yeah. He was mostly callus now. Some days he got to ride in a truck or a tank, others he could barely walk as the olive cambric of his boxers sandpapered his balls. That part of him used to be private and plumply happy. Excited about the future. Now he pissed freely on the march, while his balls wizened in the heat. He wished he’d fucked that dame when he’d had the chance. It was plain that he would die here. Claude explained it. A brothel was for reward and refuge, not love. That dumb-ass shar
ecropper knew more than straight-A Frank. When you deep in there, you saying, I’m alive, man! Might not be no next time, see?
Frank wouldn’t have the energy to fuck now. Sleep came with a caveat, in that it could never be deep. One part of your brain remained on constant alert, a reptilian eye that kept you alive. Deep sleep meant dreams – and you sure as shit didn’t want any of those. Sweet dreams, boys. That’s what that woman’s voice told you, night after goddam night. The sexy voice of reason which came from the sky. No angel; she was a witch, a propaganda witch. Axis Sally, the troops called her, and the Krauts blared her out across loudspeakers, to mess with the Buffaloes’ heads. She played soothing music alongside her ravings, so you learned to appreciate the bits of her you could.
For Frank, Lucca would forever be a Sleeping Beauty city, guarded by water and blown bridges instead of thorns. They arrived to find a Committee of Liberation had driven the Germans from the city, then closed the gates. Various factions were quarrelling over control. Shady men snuck out for meetings with Colonel Sherman. The Bishop of Lucca requests that the americani enter and take command. The city had little food or water; the Krauts had destroyed the aqueducts before they left. But they still controlled the roads around Lucca, and all the vantage points above.
That night, a platoon from Company F had crossed the canal, seizing both south and west gates. Two other companies encircled the thirty-foot walls, posting a perimeter defence right around the city. Frank’s platoon was focused on the rearguard action, of which there was plenty. Inching, shooting. Creeping, blasting. Frustrated you so bad, not to know where your enemy hid, so when you did see the fuckers, man, you just lost it. An army’s greatest weapon was fear. Men wound up tighter and tighter with fear, to be fired like skittish missiles into the great beyond.
At one point, Bear crawled uphill to a Kraut machine-gun placement, lobbed two grenades, before getting pinned behind a wall. They thought he’d been shot. ‘Fuck this,’ said Frank after ten minutes. He and Luiz sprinted over exposed ground, to fetch the lunatic back. Found him puffing on a Toscano. ‘What kept ya, children?’
Once the Buffs had established a command post inside Lucca, the game was up for the Germans. Three dead Buffaloes, forty-nine wounded. Objective gained. Same as in Pisa, it would seem Frank was never to set foot inside the city he’d risked his ass for. Two days resting on the outskirts, then they were to launch a new drive. Up the Serchio Valley, and the infamous Gothic Line.
Except the line wasn’t a line, it was a hellish fortress. Built like the Great Wall of China, using the Apennines as a bulwark, but with concrete gun-pits, ditches, mortars, vicious iron wire and steel. The Buffs talked about it, hushed and awestruck – This big. . . That wide. . . My buddy flew over it. An engineer might appreciate its efficient precision – if only it weren’t bristling with Nazis. Thousands upon thousands of Sauerkrauts, raining down fire.
The battalion had reverted to regimental reserve. This meant fixing vehicles, cleaning gear, retrieving equipment cached along the route. It meant clipping toenails and reading letters, washing socks and patching skin. It meant counting your losses and filling the gaps. That was another bone-snap. One man’s death was another man’s promotion. Frank was now a Private First Class. Lieutenant Garfield had called him over, handed him a little cloth chevron. ‘Get that stitched on tight, Chapel. ’Fore they take it off you.’
‘Yessir.’
Back in the tent, Comanche and Ivan saluted. Luiz gave Frank the finger. ‘Son of a bitch. That’s ’cos you got to Bear first.’
‘Son of a Bitch First Class, private.’
‘You coming for some chow, suh?’
‘Nah. Not hungry.’
‘PFC wants a little private time, private.’
The rest of them trooped out, Luiz flicking the chevron off Frank’s belly and onto the dirt. Frank didn’t care. Sure, it was nice some lieutenant thought he was a good soldier, same way teacher giving you a gold star was nice. But when some guy dying down the line bumped a corporal to a sergeant and a PFC to a corp? That was bravery? That was shit. Least his pay grade would jump a few cents. Yeah, because he was in this for the money. Still. It would make his mother proud.
He took out his journal. Last two pages: Dust and Bombs, over and over, real neat. Through the canvas, he could hear the distant spit of machine guns. The climate of constant sun and artillery fire no longer made him flinch. Frank felt like an old, numb man. He’d christened Villa Orsini, where they were camped, the Slough of Despond. Only Comanche and the lieutenant got it. Shamefully, Frank had expected Comanche to be illiterate, because that’s what folks told you. Them redskins can’t even read. Folks told Italians that Buffaloes were devils, that they’d horns and tails. Those posters of fat-mouthed monkey-men about to pop a woman in their mouths were in every town they’d travelled through.
Frank’s momma wasn’t stuck-up. She was a kind-hearted Christian, who’d raised her kids to love thy neighbour. Just not necessarily mix with them is all. Their neighbourhood straddled shoddy to aspirational – what developers called ‘on the up’ – and the Chapel home sat firmly on respectable road, with its trim lawn and painted mailbox, its white porch and green front door. Momma made sure they went to church, that Francis and Willis had music lessons as well as basketball practice. Study time was every night after supper, because education is the key and if you worked hard and spoke nice, you got results. She fed them wholesome food and wholesome wisdom, all of it well meant.
He lit a cigarette. Supposed to be overseeing the stripping down of an engine in some captain’s jeep. But the captain had been moved already, to make up numbers elsewhere. Or was he the one who’d got shot in the eye? Frank pursed his lips, trying to make a smoke ring like Bear did. It looked so cool. Did he even want to be a PFC? Frank, who would take copious notes, sit straight in class, keep his teeth clean and please his superiors. For so-fucking-what? To wind up dead in a Tuscan ditch? Being promoted would open him to scrutiny and judgement. What was the point in being ‘good’? Any niche you might have carved for yourself got subsumed by the fact you were black. And when a two-foot mortar tornadoed the ground, spitting shrapnel 360 degrees into black flesh and white, into college boys and farm boys and hoods, none of it mattered anyway.
Tracing the energy of the tornado with his pencil. Round and round in coils, the blackness getting harder, tighter as he pressed. In the looping centre, he drew a little diamond, shadowing the bottom facets for perspective. Truth gleamed from several sides, and maybe his momma just hadn’t seen them all yet. Jews weren’t dirty; redskins weren’t dumb. Foreign food could be delicious, and there was no natural order of things that made you wait your turn.
He went outside the tent. Air thick with bright light, too much gaudy light, all spilling cheerful and full of dust. Sharp, contrasting panes of shadow, the mountains were like a Cubist painting. The foreground was a shipwreck. Smoking funnels of tree stumps. Distant heaps and disjointed spars that could have been broken masts, but were broken homes. This blasted landscape.
Over by the mess tent, he could see his guys crowded outside, with a bunch of other Buffs. This was a big camp. The tank crews were white, and the army excelled in division. Rank and speed and accent and size and money and colour all mattered. In places like this, when the men entered the mess hall, the dividing began again. All Negroes over here. Didn’t matter who they’d fought and bled alongside. What mattered was they knew their place.
The segregated tables ate mostly in silence, because to do otherwise would draw attention. To the monkey enclosure. You were supposed to laugh at that. But it looked like today, they weren’t even getting to go inside.
‘What’s up?’ said Frank to Comanche.
‘Usual. Life on the reservation.’
A white corporal stood at the inside flap. ‘I told you. Your tables have been taken.’
‘Lord,’ said Ivan. ‘We got to call ahead now? Food here ain’t all that.’
‘Come on, Corp,’
another remonstrated. ‘There’s spaces at the end.’
The segregated tables were occupied by white men. White men, some in dusty greenish-grey, others in canvas tunics with PW stamped on their backs.
‘You’ll need to wait. Or go round the back and we can feed you outside.’
‘Do what?’
‘You can’t eat till these men are finished.’
‘They ain’t men. They’s Krauts.’
‘Listen, boy. You can eat round the back or you don’t eat. It’s your call.’
‘Hey, corporal,’ said Frank, shoving to the front. ‘Can’t we do a deal? If you push those Krauts along the bench, they could all fit on one table. Then our boys could have—’
‘Our boys? Who the fuck you talkin’ to? You think I’m some kinda albino nigger?’
‘OK, OK, cool it, man,’ said Frank, palms upright.
‘You raise your hand—’
‘Fu—’
‘Yo, Chapel,’ Bear’s voice boomed behind him. Frank’s sergeant slapped him on the back. ‘When you last have a wash, boy?’
‘Sarge?’
Bear was steering him from the tent. ‘You heard me. Five, six days ago?’
He thought about it. ‘I dunno. Maybe ten? But, sarge—’
‘Go take a shower, chile. You stink.’ Still nudging him, fatherly paw in the small of his spine. ‘And then I want you to run an errand for me.’
‘Sure, sergeant.’
‘I want you to go into Lucca.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He waited for his instructions. Deliver a message? Fetch a crate of oil cans?
‘Thas it. Just go into Lucca for me. You didn’t get to see Florence, did you? Or Pisa? Where the pizzas come from.’
Frank laughed. ‘No, they don’t, sarge. They come—’
‘From Napoli. I know that, boy.’
Over by the big stucco villa, there was a commotion of vehicles and men saluting. ‘Stand by your beds,’ said Bear. ‘Colonel Sherman’s away.’
‘What’s he doing here anyhow? Thought he was in some palazzo miles off?’
The Sound of the Hours Page 15