The Garden of Letters

by Alyson Richman

  The Resistance had been made aware that the Germans would now be entering Italy any day. Unbeknownst to Elodie, Maffini and Zampieri had already boarded a night train to Verona and were rushing home to arrange an emergency group meeting.

  While Elodie slept, the men conferred with Colonel Eugenio Spiazzi, a distinguished military officer whose allegiance was to the king, not to Mussolini. Believing the north had to be protected at any cost, Spiazzi corralled his own soldiers and established a strategy with Maffini and Zampieri. They needed to defend three bridges of Verona from the German tanks: Ponte Garibaldi, Ponte Nuovo, and Ponte Navi. The German army would be trying to enter Verona the next morning, when the fight to protect the city would begin.

  At 7:00 A.M., there is a knock on Elodie’s door. She looks through the peephole. It is Lena, her blonde hair wrapped in a long scarf.

  “Elodie, I need to speak to you.”

  Elodie, groggy, opens the door and hears Lena giving her orders.

  “You’re needed at once. The Germans are already outside the city. They’ll begin the attack on Verona within a few hours. Beppe says Colonel Spiazzi is telling us that we must wrangle every man and woman willing to protect Verona.”

  Lena’s words are uttered like rapid gunfire. She is more alive than Elodie has ever seen her; Elodie can smell her adrenaline like perfume.

  “I’ll get ready right away,” Elodie responds. She is about to turn to go to change her clothes, when she sees her mother in the threshold of the living room. She has heard every word Lena has said.

  She looks at the two girls. Lena in her scarf, her blue eyes radiant and defiant. Her daughter, whose recent behavior she now understands, is a creature of incredible strength, a courage that runs far deeper within her than just her music.

  Orsina feels a rush of energy permeating her body, as though the passion and courage of the two girls has surged into her as well. Her husband’s death was caused by the Fascists, and she’ll not let her daughter fight them alone.

  “Lena,” she says before Elodie can even speak. “Count me in, too.”

  Orsina and Elodie quickly change into their street clothes. Lena leaves them, telling her she’s taken her bicycle and must inform all the other staffette about the situation. She tells them to go to Café Dante in Piazza dei Signori, where they will be told what to do next.

  Just before leaping onto her bicycle, she runs back to Orsina and embraces her. “Thank you for helping us.”

  Orsina wraps her arms around Lena’s body. “My daughter is fighting and my own husband died because of this brutality. How could I not?”

  Lena looks back at Elodie and Orsina one more time before readjusting her scarf and barreling down the stairs of the apartment house. The two women can hear her footsteps as they slip on their own shoes.

  There is shouting in the streets. Men who have gone out for their early morning coffee at the bar and women who have gone to the market to do their errands, are suddenly besieged with the terrifying news: the German army has already started its assault at the outer barracks and are making their way closer to the city. For years, the Fascists have ruled the city and no one dared speak out against them for fear of imprisonment—or worse—from the Blackshirts. But no one wants to see their city invaded by the Nazis. Even the Italian soldiers at the garrison do not want to find themselves under German occupation.

  People flee back to their apartments and close their shutters, afraid of being arrested. The Fascists were brutal, but now with the looming threat of the Gestapo, nearly everyone is terrified of being sent to prison or shot. A few are willing to ignore the danger and volunteer to spread the information on how people can assist the Resistance; women whisper into one another’s ears about where to stockpile food and clothing for the men who will need it. Elodie thinks she can tell with a single glance who is willing to help and who is not. Their eyes alone reveal their allegiance.

  Elodie and Orsina arrive at Café Dante, where Brigitte is instructing all the staffette what to do. She is standing on a stool in what looks like borrowed military khakis and a white blouse. Her hair is pulled tightly away from her face, revealing her sharp features. Her expression is fierce and confident. Across her body is a long, heavy rifle and a rope of ammunition. “Ragazze!” she yells over the chatter. “Girls.”

  Suddenly the room falls quiet. No one is used to hearing Brigitte speak, and her voice resonates with power and a sense of command.

  “Today I need every one of you to forget you are women. Today there are no men and there are no women, only soldiers.”

  The women begin to cheer. Around the room, Elodie recognizes familiar faces from the meetings at Luca’s bookstore, and also from around the city as well. There is the woman from the cheese shop and the young widow who lived on the floor below them who lost her husband in the Russian front. Every one of them is furious over losing her loved ones to Mussolini’s campaign for power, and adamant she will not live under Nazi rule.

  “Tell us what to do!” one of the women shouts. She is not a staffetta, but a matron eager to be useful.

  “Berto is already with Maffini. The last report I’ve received is that they were heading toward the Caserma Ederle, where the 8th Artillery in Campofiore is set to join forces with Colonel Spiazzi and his garrison troops. So we need to be ready back here if the tanks enter the city.” She gives a quick tap to the rifle on her chest.

  “First of all, are there any nurses here?”

  Two women raise their hands. Another says she has no formal training, but raised three boys so knows a lot about dealing with bruises and injuries.

  “Go home and make bandages from sheets. Sterilize instruments if you have them. If anyone has an attic, start storing blankets and provisions in it. We need to be prepared for every outcome.”

  As Brigitte is giving out her orders, Elodie turns and sees that Lena has come through the door. She is soaked with perspiration, her hair wild, and her eyes are shining like two steel-blue bullets.

  “The Germans have already passed through Brennero. They’ve attacked the barracks of Rovereto and Val Lagarina, and trampled our men on the outskirts of the city in Boscomantico and Parona. They are now going toward the Caserma Ederle, where our men are with Colonel Spiazzi.” Lena reaches into her pocket for her scarf and mops her brow with it. “I have a special message from Spiazzi himself, telling us that it’s absolutely essential that we delay the enemy’s advancement. Brigitte, if you know where the spare weapons are, they want them moved to the Piazza delle Poste.”

  The room becomes completely silent. Brigitte lifts her chin and adjusts her rifle. She is still standing on the stool. “I do.” Pointing to Elodie, Lena, and Orsina, she barks, “You three come with me.”

  Mother, daughter, and Lena all follow Brigitte to Berto’s studio. A sense of déjà vu hits Elodie as she walks up the hallway to the apartment, having been there only a few days before. Brigitte adjusts the rifle on her back as she reaches to find her key.

  The sculptures have been moved to a corner. On the table are four empty glasses, an empty bottle of grappa, a few scattered books, and some pens. Elodie can only imagine what sort of rushed activity happened last night, when Berto arrived home after his meeting with the colonel. If she and Luca were packing guns into books back at the store, then Berto’s studio must have been filled with other unprecedented activity.

  “Girls, quickly!” Brigitte orders them. Elodie shoots a look at Orsina. She can tell that being called a “girl” had invigorated her mother.

  The women follow Brigitte to the bedroom. None of them look at the unmade bed or the messy end table. They stand there focused, waiting for Brigitte to tell them what to do.

  “Come, we need to get these books off first . . .” She points to a large trunk at the foot of the bed covered with books. The four of them work quickly so that within seconds the books are on the ground. Brigitte
turns toward the dresser and reaches deep into a ceramic pitcher to pull out a key.

  She returns to the trunk and opens the lock, lifting its lid to reveal four ninety-one-millimeter rifles. On the side of the trunk are six hand grenades.

  She orders Elodie and Lena to take a rifle. The gun is far too heavy for Orsina; Brigitte instructs her to take a canvas sack and fill it with the grenades.

  The women do as they are told, their bodies weighted by the weapons. Brigitte takes the spare rifle and straps it to her chest, carrying the other one in her arms. She instructs Elodie to close the trunk, and all four women march out the door.

  Elodie straps the gun across her body. For years, she has carried her cello in her arms or across her back, but the rifle has a wholly different sort of weight. It carries the weight of danger.

  Elodie walks toward the Piazza delle Poste now not like a staffetta riding her bicycle or wielding her bow, but like a full-blown partisan. Nothing seems real anymore. She can hear the sound of gunfire and explosions throughout the city. The advancing enemy feels like a tremor running underneath the pavement. She cannot believe the sight of her gentle mother, slender as a reed, walking in front of her in a black dress, carrying a bag full of grenades.

  Lena is walking beside Brigitte with a rifle strapped across her chest. Her blonde hair is the color of gold in the autumn sunlight, and her face is fixed with determination. For Elodie, this sight of her friend is the only thing she can fix upon. It is the only constant.

  When they arrive at the Piazza delle Poste, they hear that three German tanks have already crossed the Ponte Navi and will be storming through the Piazza delle Poste any minute. There are forty Resistance fighters coming into the piazza. Like ants out of crevices, Elodie has no idea where they’ve come from.

  “Orsina!” Lena shouts. “Go back to the café. Start organizing the older women. We’re going to need to get food and water to the men. The fighting could last into the night.”

  Orsina looks at Elodie, a short, silent glance to see if her daughter would come with her so they could stay together.

  “Mamma, go! I will be there as soon as I can to help. But leave me the grenades!” Elodie can hardly believe the words she is speaking. Never in a thousand years would she have thought she would be in a position to instruct her mother what to do with a sack of grenades. As Elodie dips down, her thin body already strapped with a rifle on her back and another in her arm, Orsina touches her daughter’s cheek. “Don’t let anything happen to you. You’re all I have left.”

  Elodie pulls her mother closer, a gun now between their skin. “Listen, Mamma, you need to get out of here, right now. It’s too dangerous. Get to the café!”

  Her mother’s eyes send a desperate silent message. She doesn’t want to go.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I get these weapons to the men.” She gives her mother a small push and turns to run as the sound of bullets fills the air. Her body is trembling from the weight of all the weaponry. Elodie runs for cover behind one of the small archways in the building across from the post office.

  Lena has come out from one of the doorways and grabs Elodie by the sleeve. Brigitte is waving them to come behind the post office, and the girls run in her direction.

  “Stand here!” she barks. “The men are coming. As soon as they come near, you give them your gun. Theirs will soon be empty, and ours are fully loaded.”

  Elodie and Lena nod their heads.

  For the first time in her life, Elodie hears the sounds of grenades exploding. From the top of buildings and through windows, handmade bombs, furniture, heavy books lit afire, whatever heavy things the people can find, these invisible fighters are throwing them down on the Germans.

  In addition to the approaching tanks, trucks with German officers and Fascist military commanders drive through the streets. Armed German soldiers pile out of the back of trucks and begin shooting blindly at the Resistance snipers, hidden among the roofs.

  The men have come down from Campofiore and are now shooting directly at the tanks storming into the city. Giuseppe Bettero, a veteran soldier who joined the fight, places his rifle with two other fighters at the entrance of the bridge and starts directly shooting at the tank, which they succeed in immobilizing. Ironically, the enemy’s bullet-riddled machine becomes an obstacle for others trying to pass through.

  Within a few minutes, Elodie sees Luca and Beppe running toward the piazza.

  “Get out of here.” Luca is running into the piazza, carrying his rifle close to his chest. His face is covered with gunpowder and his hair is wild.

  He pushes Elodie into a wall.

  “Get out of here, Elodie! Now!”

  Her eyes are wide. “Where the hell am I going to go?” She pushes back at him. He turns and starts shooting at some Germans in the street.

  “Just get out of here!” he yells again. “You’re going to get shot.” In his eyes, she sees not only terror, but a desperate concern for her safety.

  Elodie is still standing across from him, immobilized. Luca, frantic to get her out of harm’s way, gives her a violent push, sending her in the opposite direction of the gunfire. Luca stands in the middle of the road, shooting into the oncoming tank, as Elodie runs toward Café Dante.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Portofino, Italy

  OCTOBER 1943

  The small room that Angelo has given Elodie is so white it appears almost monastic. The plaster walls are smooth like marble. The blue and white coverlet shows no wear.

  Alone in her room, she hears the telephone ring and Angelo answer it, telling a woman that he will come and check her son’s fever. In a soft, low voice, she hears him instructing the mother to keep a cool washcloth on the boy’s head.

  When he speaks, she hears kindness. The same lilting she had heard in her father’s voice.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Try to keep him comfortable,” he says, hanging up the phone. He doesn’t tell Elodie he is leaving. She just hears him open and close the latch on his medical bag and then shut the door.

  For a few minutes, Elodie considers staying inside her room, but the chance to learn more about the man who has given her temporary shelter overpowers her. Over the past few months, she has learned to harvest as much information as she can, especially when no one is looking. She unlocks her door and comes to the small living room, where he had read aloud to her a few days before.

  She walks past the small kitchen. The bowl of persimmons. The ceramic plates with the painted flowers. Above an end table, there is a small painting of the Madonna and child tacked to the wall. Underneath it is a miniature carved lion in a dark, exotic wood that seems out of place among the novels and seashells.

  Soon she finds herself at the end of the main hallway. There the arched door is closed, like a secret. A clenched fist. But she cannot help herself. She puts her hand to the doorknob and finds it unlocked. She pushes inside.

  Elodie has no words for what she discovers. The room is papered in words. Letters that are now yellow and faded, their edges coffee brown.

  She feels like she has stepped into a tomb of lost love letters. She looks up; she looks down. She look to every side and to every corner. In between patches of blue and white clouds, yellowing letters have been glued to the walls. Between the two twin beds, each still neatly made and covered in a quilt of pale blue flowers, rests a wedding portrait.

  Elodie picks it up and stares at the picture, which she knows must be Angelo and his bride. The features, although clearly younger, are surely him. She sees the thick hair and the arch of his brow. And finally his mouth, which is not full like Luca’s was, but thin.

  His bride is haunting in her beauty, especially her wide, doe-shaped eyes. She is wearing a dress that is sweet and innocent, lacking any sophistication. In her black hair, she has woven a garland of white blossoms.

  Elodie places the pho
tograph down gently and cranes her neck to the ceiling. There isn’t a single patch of white plaster exposed, as every inch is covered in either glimmering blue paint or paper. She looks at one of the letters that is closest to her and observes the perfect handwriting. She reads the rolling sentences that talk of the desert heat, the longing for his bride, and the excitement to see his son.

  Just above it, nestled like a leaf to the vine, is a poem. Above that is another letter that speaks of a man named Tancredi, a boy named Nasai, and a heart that is longing to see his limonina.

  Elodie’s heart is in her throat. She feels that she has now trespassed on something that was not meant for her eyes; a voyeur to a private dance that is meant for two people, not three.

  She walks quickly to the arched door and passes through to the hallway, making sure to close it tightly behind her.

  Even without Angelo at home, the house weeps in silence. She can hear the sadness, like a low moan sweeping through the hall.

  She returns to her room and curls into her bed, trying to erase the thoughts of the room with the letters pasted to the walls. At the same time, she wishes she now had something written in Luca’s hands. His scent on his sweater is now fading. Even now she isn’t sure if it’s the smell of damp wool or of his perspiration that she has carried with her for weeks, inhaling it every time she needed to feel close to him.

  She wants to erase all of the other tragic thoughts that fill her head. She doesn’t want to think about the notes crying out from the Wolf’s wife’s composition, or the woman who had gifted it to the man she loved. She doesn’t want to think of her mother alone without her, or the fate of her cello.

  She is still so tired, she can’t think of escaping to another place just yet, or taking another boat to a place where she can try to become lost.