The Antipodeans

by Greg McGee

  Il Pazzo asked Gigi where this son of his was, where his papers were.

  ‘There are no papers,’ said Gigi. ‘There is no son.’

  Il Pazzo put his hand on little Leo’s head, said ‘But this is your son, surely.’

  ‘My only son,’ said Gigi.

  Il Pazzo asked Klaus to describe Rico Zanardi.

  ‘When Klaus had finished describing you,’ said Donatella, ‘Il Pazzo said they had other descriptions of this man Rico, and produced the poster.’ He’d pointed to the capitano neozelandese and said, ‘This is Rico Zanardi.’

  ‘Loro sanno!’ cried Donatella. They know!

  Harry had been rolling and lighting a smoke while Donatella talked. He’d always had first dibs on whatever tobacco Charlie had purloined. He was showing no particular alarm. When she exclaimed, They know!, he exhaled a cloud of smoke and asked how it had ended.

  ‘They took my father and brother away, along with Carlo on the meat hook,’ said Donatella. ‘Then Il Pazzo patted little Leo on the head and said to Gigi: “Better one son than no sons.”’

  48

  For Joe, whatever game they’d been playing was over. For Harry, it was just another move by the opposition, which had to be countered. The distress and anxiety of the Bonazzons and Zanardis washed over him like a wave on a rock.

  In her son and husband’s absence Nina held sway. When Harry tried to speak she cut him off with a curt ‘Basta’. Enough. For Joe the message was clear. Go. Leave us alone. Don’t bring us any more grief.

  Harry was persona non grata in both households. Marisa, unlike her sister, was charmed by Harry, but the choice between her own son, Leo, and the interloper, was no choice at all. So Harry brought the bedding from his little burrow to the cave and put it on top of Charlie’s. That evening he sat on Charlie’s bed looking at the poster Il Pazzo had slapped down on the Bonazzon table. Harry seemed to be pursing his lips at the 750,000 lire sum, whether in approval or irony Joe couldn’t be sure.

  Joe was repeating that they had to go. Information had come from the CLN that Arch Scott had finally got his underground railway operating, that he was getting prisoners off the beach at Caorle into submarines. ‘We’ve done the best we can,’ said Joe. ‘If we can get to Arch at San Pietro he’ll get us off.’

  ‘Our orders from Fergie haven’t changed,’ said Harry. ‘What about that last train?’ It wasn’t like him to worry about following orders.

  ‘We’ve done our bit,’ repeated Joe. ‘The war’s nearly over — Major Ferguson said so. If we disappear, it’ll be apparent to Il Pazzo sooner or later and he’ll let Luca and Bepi go.’

  ‘You sure about that?’ asked Harry. ‘They’ll get nothing from Luca. Bepi, who knows?’

  * * *

  Bepi came home that evening, and almost immediately sought out Joe and Harry in the cave. He was red faced and looked like an overstuffed sofa in his ill-fitting uniform, puffs of flesh straining between the buttons of the tunic. He seemed unsettled, found difficulty in saying what he’d come to say. He told them he’d been separated from Luca, then brought before the Gestapo major who wanted Bepi to take a message to Rico.

  ‘I told him I knew no Rico, but he said he had no interest in who I said I knew or didn’t know. But the message is the message, he said, and if it doesn’t get through or if there is no answer, your son will be sent to Trieste to see my friend Colonel Globocnik at San Sabba.’

  ‘What’s the message?’ asked Harry.

  Bepi looked away, trying to find a way of answering. When he looked back at Harry, there were tears welling and he shrugged and said he was sorry, but there was his family, his son, Gigi’s son . . .

  * * *

  That night Harry had a last smoke outside and settled beside Joe as if he hadn’t a worry in the world. Joe lay there listening to Harry’s gentle snore, wondering if he should take his own advice and try to get back to Arch in San Pietro. He’d created enough trouble here for Bepi and Gigi and their families by bringing Harry and Charlie to them.

  He was still awake when Donatella came. He woke Harry, who went outside with her. Joe thought he could hear Donatella sobbing and Harry making reassuring noises. When he came back in, his face was grim but he said nothing.

  Joe must have found sleep because sometime later he was shaken awake by Harry, who was wearing the Republican lieutenant’s uniform with the black kepi. He asked Joe to come outside. There was no sign of Donatella. Harry lit another cigarette. ‘I’m going to see Il Pazzo,’ he said, ‘but there’s something I want to do first.’

  Joe was incredulous. ‘You’re handing yourself over?’

  Harry looked up at the clouds obscuring the moon. ‘It’s a great night for it,’ he said.

  * * *

  Harry’s plan seemed simple enough. Gemona’s last locomotive had begun working round the clock, and very slowly. The rails and points around the marshalling yards had been blown up and repaired so many times that the engine had to go carefully. It now pushed an empty coal wagon ahead of it to take the force of the blast in the event of a mine, which made it even slower. When it wasn’t working, it was kept in a heavily guarded yard. Harry told Joe they didn’t need to mine the rails this time, they could take out the engine itself.

  Joe protested, but Harry made the point that if they made a big statement while Luca was in custody, just the two of them, no other partisans involved, there would be less reason for the Gestapo to think that Luca was the mastermind. ‘Besides,’ said Harry, ‘Il Pazzo will be slavering for us like a rabid dog.’

  There was no denying the logic. Maybe Il Pazzo would be so incensed he’d shoot them before he could torture them. After what he’d seen, Joe realised there was no point in worrying about being dead, it was all about how you got there.

  He and Harry made for a cutting where they could see the marshalling yards. The engine was shunting rows of wagons from a siding off the main lines down into the yards. They waited until the engine came back for another row, then Harry walked up to the train in his Republican uniform and shot the German guard standing on the riding plate as Joe broke from cover, dodged round the front of the engine and came in from the other side. By the time he’d mounted the step, Harry had cracked the driver across the back of the head with his rifle butt and thrown him out. Joe quickly set the explosives as close to the boiler as he dared, broke the detonator pencil and jumped out. Harry stayed with the train for another fifty yards, pulling open the throttle.

  Joe had made it back to the cutting by the time Harry jumped. When Harry picked himself up he stood and watched the engine gathering speed away from him. None of the workers in the marshalling yards had heard the shot or had any inkling that the train had been sabotaged, until they saw it bearing down on them and still accelerating. They scattered as the train began bucking and jumping over the uneven lines. Joe had set the timer for ninety seconds but there was always a margin and the engine got to the built-up part of the track first, took off like a long jumper, twisted sideways as it hit a low wall, blasting through it and down an embankment, where it turned on its back. The boilers hissed, then seemed to sigh in momentary repose before Joe’s dynamite blew them up. It was like a fountain of steam and fire. If the crash hadn’t been heard all over Gemona, the explosion certainly was.

  49

  After a job the partisans would take to the mountains until things calmed down, but this time Harry led them back down the track to the stream they used to put the dogs off their trail to the farm. Then he continued past the cave and down through the furrows of the maize fields towards the town, retracing the steps they’d taken that first night when they’d run from Don Claudio’s betrayal.

  Joe considered trying to talk Harry out of surrendering to the Gestapo, but part of him believed they were doing the honourable thing for Luca and the families who had given them refuge for so long. Maybe the end of the war would come quick
ly enough to save them, or whatever was left of them after The Madman took his revenge.

  When they reached the road coming down from the town, Harry stopped, lit a smoke and surveyed the stone walls ahead of them on either side of the road. ‘This’ll do the trick.’

  ‘For what?’ asked Joe.

  ‘He’ll come,’ said Harry. ‘You take any outriders with the tommy, stop the car.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll make myself known to the man himself.’

  ‘I thought we were giving ourselves up.’

  ‘Did I say that?’ Harry took another drag.

  ‘What if he brings a truck full of stormtroopers with him?’

  ‘They’ll come from the barracks by the station. Il Pazzo will come this way from his apartment in town, if he comes at all. I’m betting he will, after the train.’

  Joe was used to being a step or two behind Harry, but this time felt completely misled. ‘You said doing the train would tell them Luca wasn’t involved with the partisans. Now you’re saying the train was just to goad Il Pazzo? The train was bait?’

  ‘Il Pazzo wants to meet Rico,’ said Harry. ‘That was Bepi’s message. I’m making sure he does.’

  Joe could think of nothing to say. He wanted to be gone. Harry knew it.

  ‘You’ve got a choice, dog’s balls. Help me get him, or run away. If you’re going, fuck off now.’

  Joe remembered Harry’s eyes when he’d dragged Joe off Charlie. Get a grip, or you’re gone too. Harry might let him walk, but he wouldn’t get far.

  * * *

  As the sky went grey up behind the dragon’s spine running east towards Trieste, they saw lights coming down the hill from town. More than one set. Joe had time to pray that one of them was a troop truck or carrier so that he and Harry could abandon this folly and slink back to the mountains. He’d resolved to get to Arch in San Pietro even if he had to run the whole way. That prayer went unanswered. The first set of lights was a motorbike and sidecar, the second was the Gestapo major’s staff car.

  Harry had Charlie’s rifle on the high wall to the left of the road. Joe had the tommy behind the lower wall to the right. A slight bend to the left gave Joe a straight field of fire up the road, so narrow between the stone walls that the vehicles couldn’t deviate.

  At fifty yards Joe began ripping the tommy right and left and right across the sidecar. Harry had told him to go low for the engine and tyres but he must have hit the rider, because the motorbike slewed sideways and lurched into the wall before the SS in the sidecar could return fire. There was now enough room for the car to get through. That wasn’t the plan. Joe had to stop the car. He stepped out into the road and ripped back and forth through ten degrees into blinding lights and roaring engine. He could see the radiator rearing at him before it began going sideways. Joe jumped left as it broadsided past him into the wall. Harry was right above him. He hadn’t even lifted the rifle to his eye, but was pulling a piece of paper out of the inside pocket of his Republican tunic.

  Joe could see past the car to the motorbike. The rider had been hit or had broken his neck going into the wall, but the SS man in the sidecar had adjusted his helmet and was retrieving his rifle. Joe killed him with another burst, then turned back to the car.

  Harry had opened the back door and dragged a small figure in black out onto the road. Joe checked the front seat and found the driver slumped over the steering wheel but still alive. He pulled him out so they could keep an eye on him.

  Behind him, Harry was shouting at the small man. He wore black boots and jodhpurs but had lost his hat in the crash and his glasses had slipped down below his nose onto the pencil moustache along his top lip. His breath was fogging the lenses as he whispered something. He had a holstered Luger at his hip but made no attempt to use it as Harry grabbed him by the collar and hauled him into a sitting position.

  ‘Vuoi Rico?’ Harry was shouting at him. You want Rico? ‘Eccomi!’ Here I am!

  When Harry drew breath Joe could hear the man’s whispers. ‘Per Dio, per Dio. Aiutami.’ Help me. Il Pazzo was an Italian. And Donatella was right. Without his hat and henchmen, the Gestapo major who had brought so much death and misery to this region looked like a clerk. A clerk in fancy dress.

  Joe was worried about someone coming, perhaps a truck of stormtroopers who might be following. The driver had recovered consciousness and was watching bleary eyed. Joe was concerned about leaving him alive to tell the story, but more concerned about having to shoot him in cold blood. ‘Rico . . .’

  But Harry was still standing over Il Pazzo, waving the poster at him. ‘Soltanto sette centocinquanta mila? Per Rico?’ Only seven hundred and fifty thousand? For Rico?

  ‘Shoot the bastard, Harry, please!’

  Harry put his rifle to the little man’s temple. ‘They reckon the difference between animals and humans is that humans have knowledge of their own death. I want to give this bastard enough time to know it. I want to see it in his eyes.’

  ‘Please don’t kill me!’ said the little man in perfect English.

  Harry smiled. ‘That’ll about do it.’

  ‘Please! I can give you whatever you want!’

  Joe wanted to ask him to free Luca, to promise to keep his animals away from the Bonazzons and Zanardis, but of course that would simply have confirmed their guilt.

  Harry forced the rifle barrel into the little man’s mouth, breaking rodent teeth.

  Joe turned away to the horror on the driver’s face, as Harry pulled the trigger. When he turned back, Harry had dropped the corpse and was reaching into the back seat of the car.

  ‘What do we do with the driver?’ asked Joe.

  Harry had retrieved the major’s hat from the back seat, was admiring the silver eagle and skull above the black visor.

  ‘Let him tell the tale,’ said Harry.

  50

  Joe woke with daylight streaming into the cave and Donatella kneeling beside him. ‘Dov’è Rico?’ she was asking, looking at the empty wire where Harry’s stuff had hung.

  Joe remembered Harry changing out of his Republican uniform when they got back just after dawn. He’d been expecting to go to the mountains but Harry had hung the uniform and the Gestapo major’s hat up with the rest, then told Joe fuck the mountains, he was tired and would go to his burrow to sleep first. Joe had been surprised at the change of plan, but also exhausted.

  Now he realised there had been no change of plan — Harry had never intended running to the mountains, he was running somewhere else. He must have come back to the cave as soon as Joe was asleep. The Republican uniform was gone, and Il Pazzo’s hat, and the Wehrmacht tunic and One-Eyed Jack’s cap and tunic and all his boots and leggings.

  Joe told Donatella the truth, as far as it went. ‘Rico non mi ha detto niente che se ne andava via.’ Rico said nothing to me about going.

  Her eyes filled, her head fell forward and she held her stomach and cried. When Joe put his arms up she crumpled beside him and he held her while she sobbed. It was the best moment of his life, and the worst: the only time that he’d lain with the woman he loved in his arms, a woman who was lost in grief for another man. When Donatella stopped crying, she looked at Joe with red-rimmed eyes and said, ‘Sono incinta.’ I’m pregnant.

  Joe remembered Donatella and Harry outside the cave the night before — her crying and his reassuring tone. ‘Did you tell Harry?’ he asked.

  She confirmed that she’d told him last night. She’d cried because he didn’t seem happy, but he’d said everything would be fine, the war would finish soon and they’d make a life together. She’d gone back to bed reassured, while Harry had put on his Republican uniform and planned a last, famous flourish for the legend of Rico Zanardi.

  ‘Tornerà, vero?’ asked Donatella. He’ll come back, yes?

  ‘Certo,’ said Joe.

  But when Donate
lla was gone, Joe walked across to Harry’s burrow, open to the day. Cigarette butts lined both sides of the bed slats, but the Feldgendarmerie gorget and his favourite short barrel Mauser were gone: it seemed fairly clear that the hunter had taken his weapons and trophies and fled.

  * * *

  Later that day Joe helped Bepi and Gigi in the vineyard, threading the ends of the vines into the wire so the new spring growth would be supported. They knew they might not see it, but what else could they do. There was no longer any banter between them. They’d of course heard about last night. Bepi said Gemona was pulsing with the stories — the train and Il Pazzo in one night! Rico was a hero. Was there anything the man couldn’t do? Already the reward on the poster had gone up to one million lire. The rest of the Garibaldis were ecstatic, even though both actions had been taken without consulting or warning them. Bepi and Gigi knew Joe had been with Rico last night and he wanted to tell them that he wasn’t consulted or warned either, that he’d had no choice. But there was always a choice.

  Joe didn’t tell them that Rico had gone. They thought he was hiding up in the mountains while things cooled. They didn’t ask why Joe hadn’t gone too. Gigi said nothing and Bepi dried up also, and they worked on with a dull dread hanging over them. When they heard the roar of the engines coming up the road, it was more confirmation than surprise. Gigi immediately began walking back to the houses like a man going to the gallows, while Bepi wordlessly shut Joe in the cave.

  Joe was sure that this time someone would tell the Gestapo where he was. Nina probably, to save her son in jail. Or Marisa to save her little son, Leo. Joe knew he was no Luca and doubted he’d be able to survive Gestapo torture without naming names. It would be best if he forced them to shoot him where he was, or saved them the trouble. He took one of the pistols off the rack, loaded it with one bullet and lay down with it on his chest. He crossed his arms and willed the earth to close over him.