“I am sure you have come very far and are very tired,” she said soothingly. The young man nodded; perhaps he understood her.
She turned to see what had become of Nico, but he had vanished. She would have to explain, then. “We have a place for you to hide and rest. We have food for you. We will help you.”
The younger man whispered to the others, presumably translating her message of comfort, and though his words were almost impossible to discern, they felt familiar. For a moment she thought he had spoken in Spanish, but then the syllables untangled themselves and became clear.
It was Ladino. Her father had spoken it very occasionally with elderly patients, and, more recently, with younger ones who had come from Greece. Centuries ago, before her people had been expelled from Spain, it had been her own family’s language.
Nico had counseled her more than once to say as little as possible to the people they sheltered, not only for her sake but for theirs as well. She knew he was right, and she knew he would be upset with her for disobeying, but she couldn’t stop herself now.
They were fellow Jews. They had to be—and she had to let them know they were not alone. “Shalom,” she whispered. “Me yamo Nina. Te ayudaremos.” Welcome. My name is Nina. We will help you.
They stared, their eyes widening, but then the older man nodded, and a fraction of the fear that bound them seemed to drain away.
Rosa came to stand behind her. “Can you tell them we have some soup? And can you ask if they want any milk for—”
“Komm her! Hier! Sie wohnt hier!”
Nico was at the door before Nina could even blink. “Hide them.”
“Who’s out there?”
“A pair of German soldiers, both of them so drunk they can hardly walk. But that only makes them more dangerous. Get everyone upstairs, Nina—now.”
“Come with me,” she implored, gesturing frantically to the refugees.
They ran with her up the stairs and to the end of the hall, to the bedroom and the promise of safety—but only if she could get them hidden in time. She grabbed the chair and all but threw it across the room, then stood on top and reached high for the trapdoor, but she was too short and her fingertips scrabbled at thin air.
“Come here,” she hissed at the younger of the men, her few words of Ladino forgotten. “You need to push back the door there. Do you see it? Yes? And can you pull yourself up?”
He was shorter and slighter than Nico, but desperation lent him strength, and in seconds he had pulled himself through the open trapdoor. “There is a ladder,” she told him, still whispering although there were no sounds, as yet, coming from downstairs. What was the word . . . ? “Eskalara,” she remembered. “Lower it so the others can climb up. Yes—the eskalara.”
Someone began to hammer on the front door, and not the polite knock of expected visitors, but the ruthless pounding of invaders.
“Open up! Open this door!” The voice was accented. German.
Where was Nico? Surely he would refuse to open the door.
“Who is it?” came Rosa’s voice. “You know there are thieves and bandits about.”
“Not thieves,” the German shouted. “Just honest soldiers. And we’re hungry.”
“Why should we feed you? Go away!”
“If you don’t open this door we’ll kick it in!”
Nina ought to be telling the refugees to get up the ladder and into the hiding place, but any movement now, even a creaking floorboard, would betray them. Instead they waited, paralyzed, as Rosa unlatched the door and their enemy entered the house.
“Who was here just before?” one of the soldiers demanded.
“No one. I was setting the table for breakfast.”
“It’s the middle of the night.” The soldier was drunk, but he wasn’t entirely witless.
If Rosa was frightened she gave no sign of it. “What of it? We rise before sunrise every day. Will you not tell me why you are here?”
“I told you already. We’re hungry, and the food at our barracks is no good. Me and Meier here want something to eat.”
“How is that my concern?” Rosa snapped, and Nina braced herself for the moment when the German would lose all patience with her.
“We’re lonely, too, and you’re much prettier than the fellow who cooks for us.”
“Get away from me!”
“I’m just trying to be friendly,” the soldier protested, and it sounded, to Nina, as if he was pushing a chair out of the way.
“Leave me alone! My father will be back soon. My brothers, too.”
Where, oh where, was Nico?
The man laughed, a slow and sinister noise entirely devoid of humor. “If they were home they’d be here already. You’re on your own, aren’t you? And those men of yours are off in the hills. Setting traps for good German soldiers—that’s my guess.”
He didn’t sound the slightest bit drunk anymore. Only angry, and vicious, and mean.
“They’re in the stables,” Rosa insisted. “They’ll be back any minute.”
“Liar.”
A clash of pans. A shriek. Rosa’s voice rising in pain. “Leave me alone!”
“Signora—” came an urgent whisper from above.
“What is it?” she asked, not even looking round.
“No ladder. No ladder here!”
She turned, and only then did she realize that none of the refugees, save the man who’d pulled himself up earlier, was in the hiding place. Instead they were huddled beneath the trapdoor, staring at her, too frightened to move.
The ladder was under the bed—Nico had moved it there after Zwerger’s last visit. She hurried across the room and pulled it free, wincing as it scraped against the floor. “Here—take it. Get them up it as quickly as you can, and pull it up after you.”
She had to help Rosa. She had to stop those men from hurting her. Nina ran into the corridor, her lamp in hand, and shut the bedroom door behind her. If only there were a way of locking it from the inside.
She froze at the sound of rough, stumbling footsteps on the stairs.
“Where is he going?” Rosa shouted.
“He’s lonely, too, and I know you have sisters up there. Pretty ones, too.”
Rosa gasped in horror. “What kind of pervert are you? They’re children.”
“The one with the curly hair isn’t a child. She’ll do.”
“My sister-in-law? Are you insane? My brother is just outside.”
“So? What’s he going to do? I’ll tell you—nothing. If he even puts a finger on me or Meier he’s a dead man, and you know it. So shut up and stop fighting me.”
Nina stood in the dark, waiting, willing her hand to stop shaking and her roiling stomach to settle so she might think. Just think, and somehow find a way to keep both of the intruders at bay.
The man was almost at the top of the stairs, his footsteps growing ever louder, and if a giant were to have jumped from the shadows she wouldn’t have been surprised. She waited, her pulse thundering in her ears, but the soldier who finally appeared was no figure of terror. Instead it was the boy whose hand she had stitched not quite two weeks before.
“What is the matter? Why are you here? We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“You are very pretty,” he said carefully, his Italian so heavily accented she had trouble understanding him. “I want only to talk. Maybe to kiss you. Maybe more.”
“My husband is outside—”
“Stop talking,” he warned. “Stop now.”
“But the children—you’ll wake the children.”
“Then be quiet.”
Something moved in the shadows behind him, and some nameless instinct told her to keep talking. Keep him occupied.
“All right,” she said. “But I need a minute. Just a minute to . . . to get ready. Is that all right?”
He flushed, and she wondered if he might be ashamed. If she might be able to urge him to reconsider what he was about to do.
“I’m begging you,” she whispere
d. “Please go. Please leave us alone.”
He opened his mouth, about to answer.
Would have answered if not for the blur of movement in the darkness, the hand that wrenched his head back so roughly, the startling gleam of metal. The awful choking, struggling sounds of a dying animal that followed.
A hot spray of liquid hit her face. Still not understanding, Nina wiped at her eyes and was surprised when her hand came away dark with blood. Was it her blood? Had he stabbed her?
But no, for Meier was sliding to the floor, his legs still jerking, and Nico was behind him, Rosa’s good knife in his hand.
She would not scream. Could not, or the other German would hear. She covered her mouth with her hands and was surprised by the coppery taste on her tongue. She forgot to scream.
Nico was gone, lost in the shadows again, but the other soldier was still in the kitchen. He was only meters away, and when he came upstairs and saw the blood all over the floor he would know. He would know what they had done.
“Meier?” the man called up, and he was saying something in German to his friend, and she was too panicked to even try to make out his words. “Meier?” he called again, his voice rising. Still no answer.
“You bitch,” he spat out. “What have you done with him?”
Overturning furniture. The piteous sound of Rosa’s cries. The bang of a door being flung open. Footsteps on the—
A grunt. A wheezing gasp. And then silence once more.
She rushed to the landing and looked down. Nico was crouched at the bottom of the stairs, and he was pulling his knife from the ragged remains of the other soldier’s throat. There was so much blood. More blood than she had ever seen.
She dropped her lamp. The glass shade shattered.
Nico looked up at her, his face a mask of horror. “Forgive me.”
She nodded. “What do we do?” she whispered. It seemed important to be quiet, even now. Even though the men were dead.
“Go back into our bedroom and check that everyone is hidden. Make sure they know to be quiet. I’ll get my father and the boys. It’ll be light in a few hours.”
“Should I—”
“Just listen to me. We have to move quickly or we’re fucked. Do you understand?”
Shocked by his coarse language, she nodded and returned to her bedroom. Everyone had made it up the ladder, but the trapdoor was still open. The younger man’s face appeared at it now.
“What was that?” he asked, his eyes wide.
“Do not worry. I will bring you food very soon. For now, try to sleep. And you must keep the baby quiet.”
Back in the hall, Nico had taken hold of Meier under the arms and was dragging him to the stairs. Without a word, she grasped the dead man’s boots, trying hard not to look at his face. Her hands were slippery with blood and sweat, and she kept dropping his legs, but Nico made no complaint.
They were almost at the landing when Matteo pushed past and took over. She followed behind them, unsure of what to do, certain only that there was nothing she could say that would help.
Aldo had brought out Bello, and now he helped his sons to heave the dead men onto the mule’s back. Without a word of farewell they set off across the fields, heading up into the hills, Bello’s bridle clutched tight in Aldo’s hand.
“Nina,” Rosa said, and her voice was careful. Hesitant. “The blood. You need to wash it off.”
Nina went to the sink, for there was no time to fill the bath, and opened the faucet. She let the water run over her hands, waiting as it grew ever colder, ever more numbing. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to scoop some soft soap from the jar and rub it over her forearms, her face, and her hair. She found a rag and began to scrub, dipping and rinsing, again and again, running her fingers through her hair until her ringlets lay flat against her scalp and the terrible metallic taste in her nose and throat had been washed away.
“That’s enough,” came Rosa’s gentle voice. “Now go change.”
“What did you say to the children?”
“That you dropped the lamp and cut yourself on the broken shade. I don’t think they could see how bad it was in the hall. And I couldn’t think of a better explanation.”
“How will we clean it up?”
“We can soak up the worst of it with sand. Papà keeps a pail of it with his tools. Just spread it out and scrape it back into the pail. Then we’ll empty it into the stream. Soap and hot water should be enough to clean up what’s left. I’ll deal with the mess down here, and you can clean upstairs.”
Nina changed into a fresh dress and apron, balling up her bloodstained garments and hiding them under her bed, and then she set to work. It wasn’t long before the door to the children’s room creaked open a few centimeters. Without looking up she knew it was Carlo.
“There’s so much blood on the floor. Will you be all right? Rosa said you cut your finger.”
She sat back on her heels and tried to smile for him. “I’ll be fine. It wasn’t a bad cut at all. It looks much worse than it is.”
“What was that noise? It sounded like someone fell on the stairs.”
“It was Nico,” she said, the lies flowing from her mouth like honey. “He heard me drop the lamp and he tripped coming upstairs.”
“Did he hurt himself?”
“No, not one bit. Now please go back to bed, or you’ll be too tired to pay attention at school tomorrow.”
She scrubbed and scrubbed, and after a while she began to hope she’d got out the worst of the stains. But there was still the matter of the droplets of blood on the walls. Likely they would have to sand them down and then give everything a fresh coat of whitewash.
The sky had begun to lighten by the time she emptied her bucket for the last time, but she still had to carry the pail of sand, now revoltingly black, uphill to the stream. She knelt at the water’s edge and dumped it out in one disgusting, claggy splash. The water flared red for an instant and then flowed bright and clear. If only it were so easy to wash away memories.
The look on Meier’s face. The sound as the knife came searing forward through his throat. The terrible knowledge in his eyes. He had known he was about to die. He had known, and he had been frightened, and she had stood by and let it happen.
Rosa was sitting alone in the kitchen when Nina returned. Her knife, washed clean, was on the table.
“It was my best knife,” she said as Nina came in. “I don’t know how I’ll ever use it again.”
Nina wasn’t sure how to answer. “The sand is gone,” she said instead.
“Good.”
“Did he hurt you?” she thought to ask.
“Not badly. Only my knees where I fell. They’re a bit bruised. And there’s a cut on my lip. Just in the one spot. From . . . well. You know.”
“Is it safe to take them something to eat?” Nina asked, remembering the family upstairs.
“Not yet. Not until the men return.”
She would wait for Nico outside, under the olive tree. It was strange to be idle—she ought to have been knitting or doing the mending—but her hands were still shaking, and her skin was raw from the hours of scrubbing, and all she could bear to do, in that moment, was wait for him to come home to her.
She sat there for at least an hour, so exhausted it was hard work just to remain upright. Simply sat and watched the stars vanish from the brightening sky. And then, when she had almost lost hope, the four of them came around the side of the house, and Aldo took Bello straight to the stables, and the boys went into the kitchen. She heard, as if from a distance, Rosa’s words of concern as she fussed over them and insisted they change and wash and eat some soup.
Nina was aware of the others, but her attention was entirely focused on Nico. He sank down on the stool next to hers and let his head loll back against the rough brick.
“We took them into the hills. There’s a cave there, far from the road, and we dug a hole at the very back of it and buried them. If we’d had more time we’d have filled in
the entrance, too.”
“Won’t the Germans wonder what happened to them?”
“They will. But I’m hoping they’ll assume it’s a case of straightforward desertion. Judging by their accents, both of them were from Austria. And the border isn’t so very far. A determined man can walk there in a few days.”
“You’re sure?”
“No. But it was the best I could do.” His eyes still closed, he reached out and grasped hold of her near hand. “Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. If not for you, Rosa and I would both have been raped. And what if Meier had opened the door to our room? He’d have seen everything.”
“I know. That’s why I did it.” Now he turned to look her in the eyes. “I need to help Papà with the animals, and I need to wash, too. Go back to bed. I’ll be up as soon as I can.”
She waited for him, shivering and alone, and though it could only have been a scant hour before he returned, it felt like far longer. He undressed as quietly as he ever did, and then he went to the window and knelt before it, and she heard him murmuring in prayer. Just as she was falling asleep he slipped in beside her, his hair still damp and smelling of Rosa’s homemade soap.
“Are you all right?” she whispered. In that moment, she’d have gladly surrendered every object she owned, every dream she’d ever had, just to take away his pain. He was good and gentle and kind, and he’d suffer for the rest of his life because of those two wicked men.
“No.” The despair in his voice tore at her heart. “My family tease me, you know. I’m the one who can’t bear to see the pig slaughtered. I’m the one who used to faint at the sight of blood. And yet . . . it was so easy to kill those men. Just like he’d told me it would be.”
“Who?”
“An Englishman. A prisoner of war I met. He showed us some of the ways he’d been trained to fight. To kill. I’ve no idea why. Maybe he was bored.” Nico held her even closer, his arms tightening around her back, one big hand cradling her head to his chest. “You take a knife, and you come up behind the man you are going to kill. You pull back his head and stab him in the neck, in the side, just under his ear. Then you punch your arm forward, before you can think twice, and rip out his throat. Just like I did tonight.”
Our Darkest Night Page 12