As they neared the Maiella mountains, Vitantonio was growing more and more anxious to meet up with Giovanna. He thought about her all the time. Maybe he had been too hasty that day at the river when he’d questioned whether they could really be lovers. Now so many miles and months from the day at the pool, he deeply regretted the common sense that had made him say that they were still like brother and sister despite both knowing that they weren’t related at all.
At dusk on the third day, when they were about to cross the Trigno river, they happened upon a group of five fugitives who were also heading north to try to penetrate enemy lines and reach the mountains. A huge man, standing at nearly six foot five inches, made way for them.
‘They say that in the Maiella there are groups that are getting ready to fight the remaining Germans. We want to join them,’ confessed the giant when he saw that they were on the same side and he could speak freely. His name was Primo Carnera and he was leading a small group of Italian former soldiers who were trying to join the partisans.
‘Primo Carnera’
AFTER THE ARMISTICE in early September, Italian soldiers had started returning home. Convinced that things would finally go back to the way they used to be, they found the exact opposite was true: everything had changed. Short of manpower, many families had lost their harvests and their land; those who had avoided conscription had got rich at the expense of the others; women driven mad with loneliness had gone off with opportunists instead of waiting for their husbands to return from the front; young children no longer recognized their fathers and recoiled from them when they suddenly reappeared.
But fate had really sharpened its claws on Primo Carnera. He arrived back to find that his parents had been evicted and hadn’t survived the disgrace; his wife had gone off with some passing braggart; and when his children saw him they burst into tears and wouldn’t go anywhere near him. It took Primo less than two days to come to a decision. He’d long felt that his fellow soldiers were his family; on the front they had sworn lifelong friendship and he was convinced they wouldn’t betray him. He got together with some other soldiers who were as disenchanted as he was and they headed off towards the mountains.
The partisans never knew his real name and he told them that he couldn’t even remember it. He liked the nickname he had been given. He was tall, weighed eighteen stone and was as strong as an ox. When Primo Carnera won the world heavyweight title in New York, his friends decided that he was just like him and they rechristened him with the boxer’s name. From that day on he was always ‘Primo Carnera’ and proud of it.
Vitantonio and Roosevelt soon adopted him; they quickly saw he was too good a fellow to just leave him there alone in that band of hardened men who were regrouping in the mountains. All the partisans were loyal to the cause of freedom, but many were disillusioned and embittered by the war. But Primo was an innocent; he was always willing to give it his all and he trusted everybody. He was like the boxing giant in that way, too.
‘You have to prepare yourself for when this all ends. After the war we’ll all go home and you’ll be left alone,’ said Vitantonio, trying to get him to reflect. ‘I swore lifelong loyalty to everyone in my class at boarding school and I haven’t seen a single one of them since I left Bari. The same thing is going to happen to you.’
Primo laughed and grabbed a fennel blossom, put it in his mouth, and started to chew. Then he pulled it out, pointed the chewed stem at Vitantonio and threatened him.
‘You’d better not ditch me! You and Roosevelt are my family.’
‘But we met just a month ago.’
‘I never had a girlfriend that lasted that long. Not even my wife!’
Then he put the fennel back in his mouth, chewed it a bit more and walked off, laughing.
When they reached the Maiella mountains they found that volunteers were arriving there by the dozens, ready to take the Germans on – even if the odds were stacked against them. They came from all over Italy, willing to see past the ideological differences that had separated them all those years; most of them were former soldiers who refused to accept that the war was over for them. At the first camp they shared with partisans, Vitantonio soon discovered that Giovanna and Salvatore had been in the Maiella mountains for some days.
Overjoyed to know Giovanna was nearby, Vitantonio prepared to search for them. But before he could begin, the Englishman received orders from the Allied command: they were to wait for a partisan column travelling with an American captain, Lewis Clark, a specialist in chemical weapons whom they had to smuggle into the German rearguard. The goal was to find facilities capable of storing and producing mustard gas. The wholly unexpected order may have meant that Vitantonio had to scrap his plans to find Giovanna and Salvatore, but he was about to get an altogether different sort of surprise.
In the Mountains
THE PARTISANS ESCORTING the American wore long coats that reached to their knees, and hats pulled down to their ears, because in that gloomy November the mountain passes were so cold they froze the innards of all who dared to travel through them. Vitantonio saw the American and his escort approaching and watched them from a distance. His heart began to race: Salvatore and Giovanna were leading the column. Their bulky outerwear didn’t disguise them for Vitantonio; he would have recognized Giovanna anywhere. Her laugh was unmistakable.
They hadn’t seen each other since that day in Matera nearly two months earlier and he was disheartened to learn that the squad of partisans planned to stay at the camp for only a few hours, just enough time to rest and have something to eat. Giovanna didn’t manage to take him aside until the partisans were already preparing to leave. Vitantonio and Giovanna had promised each other that while the war was still going on they would take things as they came, that they wouldn’t make plans or talk about their future, but she had some news to give him.
‘I’m pregnant.’
He didn’t even have time to react. The sun was dropping behind the mountains and the partisan column was already on its way back. Vitantonio accompanied them to the edge of the forest and watched them silently head up into the mountain. Giovanna and Salvatore were again in the lead and when they jumped over a dry riverbed he took her hand and held her by the waist. Vitantonio felt that stab again, aware that while the physical pain would last only an instant, the real pain was deeper and less easily healed. He had found that out long ago, the second summer they’d spent in the countryside, at Concetta’s farmhouse.
That summer in the trulli, in the afternoons, Vitantonio would sit in the shadow of a walnut tree, and let his mind be carried off in contemplation of that hot, rugged land that robbed them of their energy but somehow still gave them all they needed.
‘Harsh but dignified,’ said Skinny’s father when he talked about life in the valley.
On the other side of the path into the farmstead were two huge oaks, with trunks so wide that not even three men could encircle them. Vitantonio had always found it amazing that in such dry land there were trees with such enormous trunks and majestic boughs. He didn’t know from where those ancient oaks and those tender fruit trees got the strength they proudly displayed in many hues of green: the vibrant greens of the cherry trees, the darker green of the fig, the reddish green of the pomegranate, the muted green of the plum and the light green of the grape vines, which by late August were already turning yellow.
To the right of the oaks was the outline of Bellorotondo’s hill, standing proud like a sentry in the middle of the valley. Further to the right, to the east, stood the town of Cisternino, scattered over the slope of the mountain that discreetly folds itself back to let the sea breeze off the Adriatic pass. The sun was going down in the other direction, near Alberobello, and a yellow late-afternoon light spread over the fields, drawing shadow silhouettes on the reddish earth.
When Zia and Concetta called them in for supper, in the distance Vitantonio saw Giovanna and Salvatore coming down from the path to the olive grove, walking between drystone walls. He wat
ched them as they slowly approached, sharing laughter and confidences. Grandpa Vicino, who took care of the olive groves when Skinny was at the sawmill, often complained that summer that Salvatore was shirking his duties.
‘Luckily you’re helping us out,’ he would say with a laugh to Vitantonio. ‘Lately Salvatore isn’t good for much of anything. You know what they say: when your donkey falls in love, you’re pulling your own cart!’
Vitantonio couldn’t stop staring at the couple as they drew close at dusk, but by the time they’d reached the threshing floor it was only Giovanna he couldn’t stop looking at. Sweaty from the walk, her dress clung to her body. He felt that familiar discomfort, but there was also that same strange warmth he’d first felt when she’d teased him in the bedroom doorway the day he was ill and she had surprised him by appearing in her dress printed with blue and red flowers, and with cherries dangling from her ears.
That night, at the makeshift camp in the Maiella, Vitantonio slept badly. The cold was awful and he felt sharp needles of pain all over his body. He was tormented by Giovanna’s words. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she had said very calmly. Then she had looked at him with those emerald eyes of hers. She had kissed him on the lips and ordered, ‘Take care of yourself. Don’t be too brave, not now. I need you safe and sound.’
Pregnant? Since when? How long had it been since they’d made love by the pool? Had that meant anything to Giovanna? Was she still sleeping with Salvatore as if nothing had happened? After all, they had only been together that one day and Giovanna hadn’t been apart from Salvatore in weeks. They’d been on the move through the mountains since they’d got him out of the Alberobello jail and they’d joined the group of activists that the Communist Party was secretly reorganizing, taking advantage of the collapse of the regime.
Turning and twisting beneath his blanket, Vitantonio couldn’t get to sleep in the freezing cold. He stood up, wrapped the blanket around his shoulders like a shawl and spent the night walking from one end of the camp to the other, pacing with his thoughts.
Dr Saroni’s Weapons
THEY MET ONLY once more before November ended. This time it was Vitantonio’s group that was crossing the mountain range towards the north and stopped in the well-hidden camp of Giovanna’s squad. They were there just long enough to rest and restock their provisions, so once again the pair didn’t really have time to talk. They were barely able to give each other a hug and ask how the other was. He didn’t have a chance to ask her any of the questions that were tormenting him.
Vitantonio and his comrades still had days of walking ahead of them to take Captain Clark north of Teramo to the forests near Ascoli Piceno, where they were to leave him in the hands of some Allied agents, who would take him on to the Po valley, way past the Gustav Line. In those months, the line between Teramo and Cassino marked the border that divided Italy in two: to the south, the territory liberated by the Allies; to the north, Mussolini’s puppet government in the service of the Nazi occupying forces, who in September had freed Il Duce in a bold move under direct orders from Hitler.
‘What are we looking for?’ Vitantonio had asked Captain Clark the day they set off.
‘Chemical weapons.’
Clark spoke Italian with everyone in the group and English only with Lieutenant Donovan. His mother had been an immigrant from Lipari and he had grown up in Italian Harlem, the most Italian part of Manhattan. He spoke his mother’s language fluently, making him perfect for the mission. He had been tasked with tracking the chemical weapons that the German troops may or may not have taken out of Foggia in late September, before they withdrew and blew up the most productive chemical plant in Italy: Dr Saroni’s factory. If the Germans had managed to smuggle out the chemical weapons, the bombs must have been provisionally hidden somewhere north of the Gustav Line – and Clark had pinpointed, among the possible locations supplied by the Allied spies, where this stockpile was most likely to be. The bombers of the US Fifteenth Air Force stationed in the southern aerodromes were waiting for this last vital piece of information.
‘Doctor Saroni’s factory in Foggia was one of the world’s best. The plant manufactured more than three hundred tons of chemical products each month: phosgene and mustard gas. An incredible output!’ declared Clark.
Sheltered in a small cave, the group slept little at the end of that first day on the road. Vitantonio had begun to regret accompanying the American on his mission: he had been banging on about chemical weapons ever since he’d arrived. All night he had to listen to him talk about the repugnant subject.
‘A single mustard gas bomb can kill hundreds of men and, almost straight afterwards, there’s no trace left. We can liquidate an entire German division without firing a single shot or damaging any of their weapons: just hours later we can gather them up intact. Can you imagine?’
Vitantonio hated chemical weapons. Huddled in a corner of the tiny cave, he listened to Captain Clark and started to dislike him as much as he disliked the treacherous war tactics he talked about. His mother had told him of his father’s terror in the trenches of the Austrian front; she said that Vito Oronzo mentioned mustard gas in every letter and described with horror the anguish he felt at seeing the contorted faces of the dead soldiers they found gassed in the trenches. With a jolt, Vitantonio realized it was the first time he’d thought about Vito Oronzo Palmisano’s experiences of war since learning that he was his real father. And Vitantonio’s dislike for that bombastic American who sang the praises of inhumane weapons was rapidly turning into hate.
‘Can you imagine?’ repeated the American, enthused. ‘We could take all their tanks and everything. Without risking a single American life!’
Vitantonio could imagine it, and it made him nauseous. He went outside and relieved Primo Carnera from his guard duty.
‘That American bastard is sick!’ he said in greeting when he reached the gentle giant’s post. Primo looked at him, not understanding what he was talking about, and gratefully went to sleep, surprised to be relieved an hour early.
The operation behind enemy lines went better than they’d been expecting. Clark and the spies in the north located the factory, got close to it, saw the trucks entering and exiting the plant, recognized the products they were using and the weapons they were manufacturing and radioed the coordinates to London, so they could send them on to Allied HQ in southern Italy. A week later, the agents left the American near Ascoli Piceno with Vitantonio’s group. But when they began their retreat to the south their luck ran out.
On the outskirts of Montorio al Vomano, in a mountainous area not far from Teramo, they were met by a contact who couldn’t have been even eighteen years old. All the other partisans had scattered in small groups into the forest, fleeing the German attacks. Approaching the old manor house they had used as a refuge earlier on the way north, Vitantonio and his group decided to surround it first to avoid any nasty surprises. They monitored the house from a distance through binoculars, and Vitantonio spotted a wall daubed with a slogan supporting the king and Badoglio, which was hard to read because it had been painted over with a coat of whitewash. Higher up on the same wall someone had written in a clearer hand: ‘Death to Badoglio and the traitor king. Long live Mussolini!’ Crouching in the woods, with the binoculars in his hand, Vitantonio had a bad feeling, which was confirmed when he saw an armoured car and two German motorcycles arrive at the house.
The manor had become a vipers’ nest of Germans. The group retreated into the deepest part of the forest and when they felt safe they pressed on south. But less than half an hour later they heard voices and had to retreat into the forest again. This time, though, Clark was lagging behind and when he saw the German patrol approaching him, he froze.
Vitantonio watched from a distance as the American was gripped by panic and heard the Germans shout ‘Halt!’ at him. He saw how they forced him to his knees and rammed a rifle butt into his stomach when he refused to answer the questions they were asking him in a mixture of German and Italian.
Then he heard them shout, ‘Schnell! Schnell! Svelti! Svelti!’
He looked up and saw that they were shoving Clark forward, forcing him to march with his hands behind his neck, back towards the manor house. The American was shaking and looked like he was about to faint. Vitantonio followed them cautiously until he saw that the Germans had stopped to have a cigarette. Then he took aim at the soldier about to light up and shot him in the back. The other soldier was slow to react. By the time he had grabbed his weapon, Vitantonio had fired again, sending a bullet through his head. Leaping out from cover, Vitantonio went over to Clark, took him by the arm and dragged him up the hillside, until they ran into Primo Carnera and the Professor who were coming down to meet them.
They changed their route. Walking away from the coast, they put some distance between themselves and the German patrols that had infested the area. It took them four days longer than planned to get back to the Maiella mountains. When they reached the camp, they saw that hundreds of Italian deserters had gathered there, along with dozens of Brits, Americans, New Zealanders and Croatians from the prisoner of war camps abandoned after the armistice. And they also found that they had new orders.
‘We have to escort the American to Bari before the thirtieth of November,’ the Englishman told his men. ‘We leave tomorrow.’
But in the morning, a storm made the roads impassable and kept them in camp all day. It was still raining the day after and Vitantonio was beginning to feel desperate. Now that he knew they were going back to Bari, he was hoping to have enough time there to search for Donata: he hadn’t seen her since the day she had confessed to being his mother.
The Last Son’s Secret Page 20