The Partisan Heart

by Gordon Kerr

  They did not head for the church this time. Instead, they pulled up outside a long, low building that looked like it might be a village hall. Inside, men – the same men, it seemed – were seated haphazardly across the space of the hall. At one end was a table and seated on one corner of it was the priest, talking to a large, long-haired man wearing a leather jacket and jeans too tight for a man of fifty-ish.

  ‘Ah, signor Bellini, thank you for joining us again.’ He reached out his hand and Sandro took it. ‘May I introduce to you Antonio Ronconi, son of Luigi Ronconi.’ He indicated the man standing beside him. He smiled. ‘I don’t think you’ve seen him for quite some time.’

  Sandro felt the ground shift beneath his feet. He saw a baby grizzling in Angela’s arms, smelled once again the forest floor, heard the rain rattling on the boulder above them and felt Angela’s skin beneath his fingertips.

  ‘But … but how can it be …?’ The priest saw the anguish pass over Sandro’s face and placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

  ‘Signor Bellini. Padre Gaspardi has told me what happened between my mother and you …’

  ‘But you are dead. I mean, the baby … Antonio … is dead. The camps … How can it be you?’

  ‘I was lucky, signore. My mother gave me away to a German guard whose wife was unable to have children. I wasn’t Jewish or a gypsy, so I was a good find for them. They brought me up for a few years and my father, Luigi, who had been searching Europe for me, having heard that I had somehow survived, eventually found me and brought me back to Italy to live with him.’

  ‘And Angela? Your mother?’

  ‘She did not share my luck, I fear, signore. She died in the camp not long after she handed me over. My German father told me later.’

  ‘And your father? Luigi Ronconi?’

  ‘Like you signore, he is old, and he is also not a well man. He is probably in his final months.’

  Just then, a couple of men entered the hall and nodded to the priest and Antonio Ronconi. The priest went over to them and they started a hushed conversation.

  Sandro could not take his eyes off the man whose mother he had loved as much as he had loved anyone or anything in his life. He could see her face once again in front of him – the dark eyes and the large, sensuous lips. Even the long, dark hair reminded him of her. He felt almost faint as he stood there and had to lean on the table for support. Still, however, the eyes of the elderly partisans bored into his body like bullets.

  ‘Okay, signori.’ The priest addressed the men who gathered together around the room. ‘You all know signor Ronconi. With his help we have discovered some unexpected new information, or rather testimony which we think goes some way towards supporting what signor Bellini told us two weeks ago.’ He nodded to the men at the back of the room and they disappeared through the door for a few seconds.

  They re-emerged with another elderly man, a stooped figure with white hair and a severely disfigured face. His left ear was missing and he wore a patch over one eye.

  ‘Signori,’ the priest began. ‘you will recall that signor Bellini told us that he had been told by a German officer – Obersturmführer Erich Weber – that Luigi Ronconi was the informant.’ He stopped and looked around the room. A few heads nodded, but the old men sat impassively. ‘Well, signori, the man standing in front of us now is Obersturmführer Erich Weber.’

  There was a gasp around the room. Sandro himself almost collapsed. Weber. Yes, even with only one eye there was still that haunted look about the man. There was still a cruelty, even behind the red welts that landscaped his face.

  ‘But I left him for dead! How …’

  ‘Ah, it’s you. The one-armed soldier.’ He straightened up and stared hard into Sandro’s eyes across the room. His Italian was broken, as it had been fifty years ago. ‘How I have hated you all these years for not finishing me off that night.’ His face, or at least, the half of his face that had not been rendered inhuman, broke into a sneer.

  ‘But, the rats, how did you …?’

  ‘Oh, the rats were doing their job, don’t you worry about that. You see the results before you.’ He laughed. ‘I managed to dislodge the gag you put on me and screamed so loudly that they could hear me a couple of streets away. A patrol came and freed me, but it did take some time for them to find me, as you can see.’

  The priest spoke again. ‘Signor Weber has promised to tell us what he knows about the informer in return for being allowed to return to Zurich where we found him and proceed with his life.’

  There was a howl of protest around the hall.

  ‘No!’ The priest raised his voice. ‘Quiet!’ The room became silent. ‘I gave my word that this would be allowed.’

  ‘But he is the scum who killed our fathers, our friends. He can’t be allowed to just leave. He deserves to be shot!’

  ‘No! That will not happen. I have given my word, as a man of God and if any of you take the law into your own hands you will be acting against the will of God and I will see that you will suffer for it.’ The voices were stilled. He looked around the room, catching the eyes of every one of them. He then hissed between clenched teeth, ‘The war is over. It ended more than fifty years ago. Many men did things they are ashamed of. On both sides. This is the only way we are going to find out the truth.’

  ‘Ah, the truth,’ laughed Weber. ‘I agree, it is time for the truth.’ He walked away from the men who had brought him into the hall towards a chair. ‘Please excuse me if I sit, meine Herren. My aged legs are not what they once were, when I used to run up and down these lovely mountains of yours like a chamois. In fact, it was on one of those runs that I first encountered the object of your attention, the informant. He knocked me over as I ran on a trail just above Morbegno. I remember it was pouring with rain and he was soaked and covered with mud. It was dripping off him, as if he had been rolling on the ground. Perhaps he had. I thought he was going to kill me then and there. I had been warned about my habit of running, especially as I was, naturally, unarmed – difficult to run with a pistol strapped to your side, eh? Anyway, he told me that in return for information he would in turn pass information to me.’

  ‘What information could he possibly expect you to give him?’ the priest asked.

  ‘Well, padre as it was, of course, none other than Il Falcone, himself – Luigi Ronconi – there was only one thing in which he had any interest. Where were his wife and child and could he exchange them for information?’

  Sandro looked around the room. Many heads were lowered. The old men had ceased looking at him and were staring now at the German who told this story as if he were in a bar, regaling his friends with a joke or a funny story. Antonio Ronconi looked on without expression or emotion.

  ‘I asked him for something on account, as it were,’ the German went on. ‘He told me about the San Giorgio operation. I told him I would do what I could about his wife and child. We met again in the same manner a week later. His information had been good and so I lied to him and said that I could probably get his family back from Germany, if he would just give me some more information.’

  ‘You never had any intention of returning his wife and child?’ the priest asked him.

  ‘No, or, at least, even if I did intend to do it, it would have been absolutely impossible. Once people went into those camps they were lost forever. At the same time, however, I wanted the information that Il Falcone was giving me. It was gaining me a wonderful reputation and I was heading for a big promotion if I could string him along a bit longer. So, he gave me the information about the monthly rendezvous and, well, signori, I think you know the rest.’

  ‘Bastardo!’ shouted one of the old men, tears of anger rolling down his face.

  ‘We’ve heard enough. Take him away.’ said the priest quietly to the men at the back of the room.

  Weber turned as he got to the door and spoke directly to Sandro.

  ‘Remember what I said about the look in a man’s eyes in the instant before death, my friend
? I see it in yours now as I see it in mine every morning. The shadow of death brings us together once again, it seems.’

  A light drizzle played across the valley, obscuring the peaks. Sandro had set out before the town had wakened, his pack filled with a chunk of yesterday’s stale bread and a bottle of Sassella, the local wine that he had always drunk in New York in the forlorn hope that it would give him a sense of place, of this place. It never did, however.

  He had picked up his bottles of brightly coloured pills and had put them in his pocket. For all the good they did. The pain was evolving now. It was almost constant and could really only be dealt with by filling his mind with other things. Even that, however, was becoming difficult.

  He had walked for half an hour before getting on the first bus of the morning. At the village before Dulcino, he got off and climbed a narrow, pot-holed road that led him up beyond the village. He stopped and gazed up at the jagged top of the mountain on whose lower slopes he stood, looking for familiar landmarks. Gradually, the memory of the mountain came back to him. He could once upon a time have mapped its every part.

  He plunged off the road and headed steeply upwards, the trees shielding him from the drizzle, which was now turning into a heavier shower. He made slow progress as the morning wore on. The going was hard and he was experiencing increasing pain in his stomach. Every ten minutes or so he had to stop and catch his breath.

  Eventually, he reached his objective: a large slide of gravel and rocks. He had last stood there, looking down on the Valtellina so long ago – how different it now was. Buildings and roads stretched across the valley floor and even up the opposite side of the valley. He took out a piece of bread and sat on a large rock, chewing it and surveying the view. After fifteen minutes, he picked up his bag and started heading back down the mountain in a different direction to the one by which he had arrived at this familiar place.

  He rounded the boulder unexpectedly, just as he had the afternoon that he had bulldozed into Angela and had knocked her and the baby to the ground. Once again, however, the breath was sucked from his body and his legs trembled. He stopped and placed a hand on the rough grey stone that had sheltered them back then. He waited, but there was no sound save the constant Morse code of the rain battering the higher branches of the trees.

  What had he expected? Angela bursting through the trees, rain dripping from her long, dark hair, her beautiful smiling face flushed and cold to the touch? He smiled at his ludicrous notion and then grimaced as the pain that had subsided for a few minutes returned with a vengeance.

  He knelt down and crept beneath the boulder, lying on his side. Pulling his bag towards him, he took out the bottle of wine, held it between his knees and removed the cork. He looked out from his vantage point and once again he smelled the scent of the pine trees and the odour of the rain. For several minutes he lay there, taking long draughts from the bottle and examining the grass and stones around him for signs of his past self, for signs of Angela. He then put his hand in his pocket and took out the bottles of pills. He took another long drink from the bottle and unscrewed the tops of each of them, lining them up in front of him.

  He poured the contents of the first into his cupped hands and put them into his mouth, washing them down with the wine, now beginning to feel a little drunk. The contents of the second bottle followed and then the third.

  He lay back on the slightly damp grass and closed his eyes. Around him, the rain shifted blades of grass, bounced off tiny stones that had not moved for decades and dripped from the boulder above him into tiny puddles that the earth swallowed up immediately.

  She emerged from the bushes, untouched by the rain. Walking towards him, she ran a hand through her hair, pulling it away from her face and smiling, reaching out her hands to him. Slowly, he stood up and walked towards her, feeling already her cool, smooth skin under his fingertips, the movement of her body beneath his and the draught of her damp breath on his cheek.

  Once again, he removed his jacket and laid it on the ground under the boulder, pulling her towards it. She lay down and he lay beside her, enveloping her with his arms. Slowly, their bodies began to melt into one another until they existed no more.

  The only sound was once again the careless rattle of the rain, running in rivulets to the edge of the clearing, washing away memories.

  19

  17 November 1999

  Beldoro

  North Italy

  ‘This doesn’t fit you, does it?’ Helen was holding up the jacket that the manageress of the Lighthouse Inn had sent Michael.

  ‘God, no. It’s the jacket your … whatsername … Stewart …’

  ‘Oh, Jacquie, you mean?’

  ‘Yes – Jacquie – sent me. Remember, that was the reason I went to that stupid hotel of yours.’

  ‘Christ, he is a big lad, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, and I haven’t done much about finding out who he is.’

  ‘Och …’ – he loved it when she said that – ‘maybe that’s a good thing.’ She folded the jacket up. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Helen. I just haven’t had time to even think about it and it was the real reason I came back here. I guess I feel I need to know. I don’t think I’ll be happy until I find out. You know, closure and all that.’

  ‘Have you thought about where the jacket was made? Who made it?’ She stretched the soft, checked cloth out again across her arm, stroking the material. ‘This is a beautifully made piece of clothing. You don’t pick up this kind of quality at Burtons, you know.’ She opened up the jacket in front of her, examining the inside. ‘There’s a label here.’ She inspected it closely. ‘Alberto Espagni, Sarto, Roma.’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad we have such a precise address,’ he said with a sneer that came from the guilt that he felt for suspecting his dead wife, not realising at all how bad he sounded.

  ‘Well, bloody hell!’ she snapped, throwing the jacket down on the bed, ‘Pardon me for trying to help someone the entire Italian police force are trying to arrest because they think he’s done away with two people. Pardon me!’ She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. She really wished there were another room into which she could make a dramatic exit. Instead they were within six feet of each other in her tiny hotel room, with absolutely nowhere to escape to.

  He realized immediately that he had been in the wrong. This girl was helping him, after all. He stood up, and placed his hands on her shoulders.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was very wrong of me. Look, I do appreciate what you’re doing for me here. You don’t have to, and you could be putting yourself in great danger.’ He pulled her close. ‘I sometimes wonder why you’re doing it.’

  Her hair brushed the side of his face as she buried her face on his shoulder.

  ‘Well, I don’t mean to get too cheesy or anything,’ her voice muffled against his shoulder. ‘but it might be because I think, you know, I quite like you.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, smiling. ‘Always dangerous. Your mother must have warned you about that.’

  ‘Oh yes. She did. But I don’t listen to everything she tells me.’ She raised her head, looking into his eyes and kissed him. They staggered back against the wall and then fell slowly onto the bed, her hair falling over his face, her tongue exploring his mouth.

  Outside, as the afternoon slowly darkened, the ferry began yet another journey across the lake.

  He woke with a start. It was dark outside and Helen’s bedside lamp was switched on. She was emerging from the small bathroom, dressed, brushing her hair. He blinked and looked at the clock that sat on the bedside cabinet.

  ‘What are you doing? It’s four-thirty in the morning, for God’s sake. Are you running out on me?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Michael.’ She sat down on the side of the bed. ‘What I’m doing is I’m getting the five-thirty train to Milan and from there I’m going to book myself on a flight to Rome.’

  ‘To Rome!’

  ‘Sì, Signor
Keats. Roma,’ she said, smiling and brushing his hair back from his forehead. ‘I’m going to visit our little tailor friend, Signor Alberto Espagni.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, understanding and relieved that she wasn’t walking out on him. ‘But when will …?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be back by this evening. I’m not going to buy postcards on the Spanish Steps, you know, attractive though that idea is.’ She stood up and started to fold the jacket and put it into a small bag. ‘I’ve already phoned Directory Enquiries for Rome – I think they were glad of the conversation in the middle of the night – and they’ve given me a phone number for signor Espagni. As soon as I get there, I’ll phone him and get his address. If I show him the jacket, he’ll probably be able to tell me who it belongs to.’

  ‘God, you’d do that for me.’ He fell back onto his pillow.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Michael, you can give me the money later.’

  He smiled.

  ‘And don’t open the door. I’ll tell the guy on the front desk that I don’t want the maid in my room today. Get some rest. Watch TV and see what they’re saying about you. But keep it turned down low. I’ll try and call you later.’

  And she was gone, even before he could tell her to take care of herself.

  The station had been cold and deserted at five-thirty, only a few desultory early morning commuters littering the platform, yawning and adjusting themselves to another new day. She marvelled as the sun rose like a lion over the mountains to the east as the train pulled out of the station, but for most of the journey she slept soundly, oblivious to the beginnings of Milan’s urban sprawl spreading across the train window.

  From the station she jumped into a taxi to Linate Airport. Time was of the essence, as she did not want to leave Michael alone for too long. Why, she did not know, but it felt right.