A shot rang out, not from the sentry, nor the brush-wielding soldier. It was a quick-glinting barrel higher up the escarpment; Vita saw it slide in and out, heard the heavy plash of water as a missile hit river and the woman ahead screamed. The sentry laughed.
‘Quick, Ces.’ A wire fence separated them from the river. ‘We need to get over there. I’ll hand you the bike. Watch in case it’s slippy. Hold on to the fence the whole time, sì? And keep your head down.’
She could hear a German voice calling: ‘Nein ingresso! Nein ingresso! Capite?’
There was another crack, and one of the figures fell.
‘Go! Hurry up!’
Cesca scrambled over. Vita tried to swing the bike too, but it was sticking, the handlebars lodged in the fence.
‘Just leave it! Come on!’
Vita flipped on her belly, climbing over the bike. One last tug, and she managed to yank it free. Shielded by the trees, they crept, dragging the bike along the sloping riverbank, below the line of the road.
‘Can they see us?’ Cesca whispered.
‘I don’t know. Crawl.’
‘Isn’t this where the mines are?’
‘Just shut up and move.’
Vita hauled the bike along on its side, alternating arms. Hands and knees bleeding as tiny thorns and twigs punctured in. They crawled and did not speak and did not look up or back. Time flowing round a single, pin-sharp point. Would it be now? Surrounded by green, waiting for a yell, for the thud-ping of gunfire, Vita wondering if she’d have time to fold herself over Cesca; dull with fear and that one burning thought, over and over, and still they crawled.
When Ces couldn’t go any further, they lay, face down. Vita’s muscles burned.
‘Right, piccola. You had enough of being a snake?’
‘I’m scared.’ Cesca’s mouth was in the grass.
‘Trust me. We’re well away now.’
‘What if they’re everywhere?’
‘All the more reason to get back into the hills. Now, ready? One. Two. Three.’ Together, they stood. Blood-rush, head-rush. The fence had become a thick hedge, more difficult to surmount, but they used the bike as a battering ram. The road was clear. Borgo a Mozzano lay behind them; Vita recognised its two square towers.
They climbed back to higher ground. Sometimes they cycled; at other times they pushed the bike along precipitous mule tracks. They were spiders, navigating their country sideways. At some point, the tanks and uniforms changed colour, going from blue-grey to green. The soldiers’ skin got darker too: while the Germans had been mostly pale and neat, these new soldiers were rugged. There were men with gleaming hair and sunglasses; there were black-skinned, dangerous-looking Negroes and men with turbans and daggers, doing the exact same dance of march-and-reel-and-dig-and-shout. Vita watched them all from above.
Where did the front line happen? It was a permeable, viscous thing, it seemed to shift and coil like the tide. They stayed alert for random patrols. Apart from a few contadini, and a young boy walking his calf, they encountered no one on the mountain tracks.
As they neared Lucca, evidence of the dull thuds and lights that were faint in Barga became stark. Homes with gaping holes, burnt curtains still fluttering. Great craters in fields and roads. Whole villages that were skeletal and ghostly, unreachable via amputated bridges. Once or twice, they saw the flash of steel as a temporary bridge was lowered into place. This rebuilding was brutal: crude girders replacing weathered stone. Walls were pocked by bullets; you could see their dark splatter on every solid thing, as if a great plague had come and sickened Tuscany. From Vita’s vantage point in the foothills, you could pretend it was a film. Glass-clear light up there, and a deep quietness, with the wash of blue shadow down below. If you stared too long, though, the land began to shift and ripple.
‘Where is everyone?’ said Cesca. ‘The people, not the soldiers.’
‘Hiding?’
‘D’you think Joe will have got them there by now? It’s way further than this, isn’t it?’
‘It’s Joe. Of course he will.’
‘Are you sad he’s gone?’
In the fierce blue sky above them, a bird wheeled, looping the sun. Closer and closer. An Icarus bird.
‘I’m sad they’ve all gone.’
‘Guess he didn’t fling himself down on one knee before he went then?’
‘I didn’t want him to.’
Cesca skewed her head round. ‘You mean that, don’t you?’
The bird soared freely across the sky and the wide grass plain, a runway of green on which they could not step. Looking at it made Vita feel calm.
‘Careful, Ces, or we’ll fall.’
They met Cousin Nello as arranged. He took them on, through the farms and orchards on the outskirts of Lucca, towards Nonna’s house. Up close, the devastation was worse. Lemon groves and vineyards laid waste, ripened fruit blasted on the vine. Sliced-open houses, where you could still see the supper table, or a child’s doll in the rubbled yard. People too, small, frightened people who walked in the margins. Folk stopped shuffling as Don Nello approached; deferential nods to the priest in their midst. Don Nello would smile, and carry on. Did they think he would help them? Mamma’s cousin was a pleasant man, but Vita resented his presence. He wittered at them, slowing them down to his walking pace. This was their adventure, hers and Cesca’s. And they had done it on their own.
Inside the girth of its walls, Lucca was remarkably unscathed compared to the landscape around it. Nonna’s house was also untouched; its blue shutters jarring with the rest of the street’s douce green. Nonna was waiting for them in her rosy salotto. Her maid, Serafina, led them in, down the corridor of plaster saints and classical busts. Pride of place was still afforded to the photograph of Il Duce, nailed to the arch below the staircase, requiring an act of homage as you dipped below. Next to him was a picture of Mamma’s brother. Cesare was almost as lantern-jawed as Il Duce. A large, spidery crack in the plaster spread behind both frames.
‘Nonna!’ Cesca ran into her grandmother’s belly.
‘Oof! My goodness, Francesca. Have you no manners? Stand up straight so I can look at you.’
‘Buona sera, Nonna,’ said Vita.
‘Cosi! Francesca, were you not able to wash at all?’
‘Nonna,’ said Vita, ‘we’ve just cycled fifty kilometres.’
‘I hardly think it’s that far – is it, Nello?’
‘I’m not sure, zia.’ Don Nello beamed good-naturedly. ‘Are we to have any food? I’m sure the girls are hungry.’
‘That depends. Did you bring me anything, from your vast store of goodies?’
‘Ah. . . I only—’
‘Come, we all know that priests get fatter while the rest of us starve. You’re practically swimming in oil and butter.’
‘Zia, I—’
A rapid, indifferent flick of her hand to quieten him. ‘What about you girls? Did your mother send anything to help with your keep? Some fresh eggs perhaps? A few vegetables?’
Cesca was about to cry. Standing by the side of her grandmother, she looked lost and exhausted. Could the woman not even offer her a drink? Vita sat down on a blush-coloured sofa, deliberately plumping the cushion with her dirty hand.
‘Sit by me, Ces. Nonna, we have nothing. The Germans have taken it all.’
Nonna sighed. ‘Well, if your mother had stayed in the city, you wouldn’t be in this predicament, would you? Here.’ She passed Vita a cotton handkerchief. ‘Will you sit on this, please? We’ve managed to keep ourselves decent, despite the deprivations we’ve been forced to endure. Haven’t we, Serafina? Personally, I have found the German soldiers to be perfectly fine, if you speak to them nicely. It’s the Moors I worry about. Filthy blacks, rampaging about the city. How your mother thinks you’ll be safer here, I have no idea. And why is she not with you? I told her she must come immediately. Does she have any idea how fraught my nerves are, worrying about you all, stuck in that little hole?’
‘Sh
e’s waiting for our papà.’
Nonna’s mouth pressed in on itself. ‘What was your father thinking of, getting himself arrested? What did he do, for heaven’s sake?’
‘He didn’t do anything,’ Cesca shouted. ‘Stop being horrible about my papà, Nonna. Just stop it!’
‘Well. I hardly think making a simple enquiry is being horrible. Perhaps you are very tired, Francesca. Serafina, will you please take my granddaughter up to her room?’
‘Fine.’ Cesca slid off the sofa. ‘It smells funny in here anyway.’
Vita also stood. ‘Don’t be rude, Francesca. Nonna, she needs a drink first. And maybe a little bread if you have any? Serafina always makes such lovely bread.’
Nonna wasn’t a bad woman, she just had to be managed. Deep under her ribs and layers of black clothing, there was an actual heart. Soften her with a little wine and there was even a sly sense of humour. Vita loved her grandmother. Widowhood had come early; that’s what had made her brittle, Vita was sure. She found Nonna easier to love than her own mother, because it was less intense. Nonna did not need to impose her will and Vita did not need to impress her. It freed them simply to like each other.
‘Nonna. Are you wearing a blanket?’
‘No!’ Her grandmother regarded the sleeveless cardigan she wore, head pecking as if seeing it for the first time. ‘No, it’s called a weste, dear. Like a gilet? Do you like it? One of the German officers gave it to me, after they’d come here for caff è.’ She glanced down at the shapeless thing again, a little shame-faced. ‘Perhaps it was. . . some kind of covering once. But it is clean. They are very clean, the Germans. Not like those Moors.’
‘Signora Teresina, shall I get the girls some food?’
God bless Serafina. They were given polenta, some hard cheese and a pudding of wizened grapes. Thus began their sojourn in Lucca. Don Nello didn’t stay for dinner after all.
They had been in Lucca forty-eight hours. Vita was growing more worried. No sign of Mamma. Serafina knew a man from Sommocolonia, who’d arrived the day after them. He said La Limonaia was shut up. Why was Mamma not here? Surely she could have sent a message? There was real fighting now at Borgo a Mozzano. We were lucky to get through, Serafina’s friend told them.
‘Be patient,’ Nonna said. ‘What is the use of agitating? All life will pass in front of you if you are patient.’ Vita begged her to send Don Nello back to Barga. They wouldn’t hurt a priest. But Nello was too busy: there was a backlog of funerals, he said. Vita thought he was scared. Oh, where was her mother? If Papà hadn’t been released, he’d be in one of their labour squads by now. When she thought about that, the panic was overwhelming. It gnawed inside her. It was always there, she realised. Like walking through a field and seeing a bull, and the bull seeing you. You walking, walking faster, then it was moving faster. And if she didn’t fight it, the panic swelled and flashed to an anger too big for her to contain. The anger was worse, it was exhausting, because she had to do something with the energy of it. No matter how hard you crammed it down, this need to do something gobbled you up until you were nothing but this need, and you understood completely why Joe had killed those men. And then you had to shake yourself, and be a girl again, be useful by going to the market.
Except there was nothing left to eat. Like two mangy curs, she had just fought another woman for a lump of gristle the butcher assured her was pork, and for which he’d charged her handsomely. It would never feed the four of them. Vita had been expecting to see Zio Cesare too, but he’d remained in Amalfi. Doing important war work, Nonna said. Shame it didn’t include looking after his mother. Vita was tired. Hot. Lucca was stinking. She needed a wash – the aqueducts were ruined, and there were no mountain streams here to splash in. Now these two moronic soldiers were stopping her from getting home. They didn’t think she understood them, drawling their obscenities.
—You wanna fuckee-fuckee?
—Oh, Momma. Lemme suck on those titties.
Americani. The Moors her mother and Nonna warned about. One of them dangled a bar of chocolate over her head. The other blocked her path.
—You want candy? You suck my dick, I give you candy? Or beef. You want some corned beef, baby?
Vita had brought a couple of Nonna’s candlesticks, with a view to bartering them when the cash ran out. Since there had been nothing else to barter for, they were still in her basket. Her fingers itched. They were heavy, proper brass. Not plate. Though the passage leading from the Anfiteatro was dark, she could see both ends of it: the piazza in one hemisphere, the street she wished to reach in the other. She wasn’t trapped, she wasn’t even scared – because these men were pathetic – but they were preventing her from doing what she wanted, and they were laughing while they did it.
Churning, pacing, until a weird release pounced, and took her unawares. A sound came up; it came from inside her clenched, hungry belly. It churned up from her need for her papà, her fear for her mamma, her cousins, the woman she’d just shouted at by the butcher’s stall, for the butcher who had nothing left to sell, for Signor Tutto, for her splitting headache and sweating armpits and her terrible aloneness – and it was aimed at every one of these bastardi who did not own her country yet behaved as if they did.
‘Will yous just piss off and leave me alane?’
The impact was immediate. Beautiful. No need of candlesticks, Vita’s words blasted jaws slack and eyes wide.
‘Hey! Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t realise you were English.’
‘I’m no. And how would it matter if I understand yous or no? You are still saying those things. You don’t have sisters? Mothers? What would your mammy say if—’
‘Hey, baby. It’s cool.’
‘Don’t bloody call me—’
‘Damn, you got a mouth on you, girl.’
Oh, she was flying. Fleeing and flying, and she was as high above them as she’d been on the mountain tracks, could feel crisp wind beneath her wings, now she would swoop down low, spit, spit out words she didn’t know she knew, in love with their rawness and the Scottish dregs of her, how she was bad to the bone.
‘Scusi, signorina.’
Another americano voice. It came from behind, so now she was actually a wee bit trapped. Wings slipping. Vita spinning, candlestick in hand, because three against one just wasn’t fair, and he caught her at the wrist, this one. This one caught her like a fish, but if was a nice catch, a cupping, holding motion. Soft. The boy’s whole face was soft, not like the other two. Soft eyes under his daft, squinty cap. Soft mouth, which had understood the need to twinkle, instinctively. You could tell. Slick-thin moustache that emphasised the softness, like an underlining of it, except above, if that made sense, and it probably didn’t because he was grinning like a loon, and the grin was also soft. Was lovely. Where his skin touched hers there was a shading, their two skins making a colour that was entirely theirs; Vita had seen it on a colour chart on the wall at the Conservatorio. Mother Virginia insisted all the girls take art, because art was holy, it was creation, and there was a chart of all the colours, a square rainbow where one colour shaded into the next so you had a spectrum of indigos and blues and greens and golden-fawns and yellows in one glorious burst of possibilities, and here were they, here, this boy and her, making their own colour which was latte, the good, warm kind you want for your second morning cup, the kind Mamma says is babyish but you don’t care.
And there was a pause in the air, a space that nothing and nobody filled. Because the thing hadn’t happened yet, nothing had happened, and yet it had, in that small safe space in which she was flying, flying forward to the thing that had not yet happened and was happening and had always been happening, or should have been. Yes, she thought. Yes, that’s it.
Chapter Fourteen
Frank took the girl back to camp with him. He didn’t know how else to stop her slipping into Lucca’s labyrinth. Told the two other Buffs to beat it. Amazingly, they did. Frank wanted to think it was down to his new chevrons, but he bet it was the
girl. She was crazy. Amazing, but crazy.
‘You speak good English.’ First thing he said. They both burst out laughing then; it was the kind of delighted glee you got after battle, when you realised you were still alive, and the liveness is infectious, and brighter; it fizzes sharper than it ever did in the hour before you fought. Before is the quiet time, a praying time for those that wanted it, but Frank had moved beyond asking for intervention. There was nothing divine about grabbing your screaming buddy’s arm to help him up, and it coming clean off in your hands.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked. Dumb small-talk you would ask in a dance hall. He wanted to say something bigger, but he needed a tether. A name was a thing you could hold on to, could pour stuff into, like a container. With a name, when he was someplace else and she was here, or a page in his notebook, he could imagine her.
‘Vittoria,’ she said. ‘But they call me Vita.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘That’s two questions. What about my turn? You have nae manners.’
‘Neigh?’
‘It’s true what they say? All you Moors are savages?’
He pretended to be hurt, but she wasn’t buying it. Frank did not think he had ever encountered a human being so sharp. This girl’s face had a complex geometry: lines and curves, but even the curves were flat and bony. Gauntness was hiding there – not the emptiness of the emaciated faces he’d seen in Naples, not yet, but it whispered. Or it might just be how Frank was seeing things. Actual features of people were beginning to rub out, the bits and quirks that made them distinctive, so now when he looked at them, he saw only hunger or fear, not people. This girl, this Vita, did not allow for that blurring. She was so alive she shone. But the hunger was there all the same.
He nodded at the candlestick. ‘You buying or selling?’
‘Neither,’ she said, putting it in her basket. ‘Just taking it for a walk.’
More laughter, the honest, can’t-stop-it-spilling stuff he realised he’d missed. ‘What is this place?’ His voice echoed in the stone corridor which led from the square.
The Sound of the Hours Page 17