LoveMakers

by Gould, Judith

  Charlotte-Anne struggled to lift her head. Her face was starkly pale.

  'She is dying,' she heard the doctor say.

  The priest turned away from the window, his soutane swirling around his legs. He shook his head sadly.

  'My . . . baby,' Charlotte-Anne tried to say. She stared up at the nun. 'My . . . baby. Was it. . . found?'

  The nun smiled gently down at her. She leaned over Charlotte-Anne and stroked aside a stray lock of her moist hair. 'Do not try to speak,' she murmured.

  Charlotte-Anne gazed at her and let out a thin, reedy moan. The nun tucked the sheet around her neck.

  'She is dying,' the doctor said again. 'There is nothing more than I can do. It is now in the hands of God.'

  The priest turned back to the window, his hands clasped behind him.

  She is dying.

  The soft inflections of that sentence kept floating lightly in Charlotte-Anne's ears. She closed her eyes to try and shut out that voice, but it kept repeating itself, like a recording, the three words playing over and over in her mind.

  She is dying.

  She is dying.

  Sister Maria Theresa prayed quietly, her lips emitting an occasional sibilant whisper.

  She was still seated beside Charlotte-Anne's bed in the Mother Superior's cell. Two and a half days had passed since the Principessa had been brought in, and still her condition was unchanged. It seemed a miracle that she was alive at all.

  Sister Maria Theresa attributed it to the power of the prayers she offered up to God. She prayed for the Principessa, for all the wounded and dead, for all of poor, ravished Italy. After not being able to sleep at all through the days and nights of bombing, and now with caring for the wounded, she was surprised to find that she was still wide awake. Her body felt heavy and burdened, but she was mentally alert. That too was a miracle. It was as though God had blessed them all with incredible strength to see this tragedy through. Even while she prayed her eyelids never drooped and her eyes never left her patient's quiet, prostrate form.

  The Mother Superior floated soundlessly into the little cell. She placed a hand on Sister Maria Theresa's shoulder. 'How is she, Sister?' she asked softly.

  The nun looked up and saw that the Reverend Mother's usually serene face looked haggard and sad.

  'She is unchanged, Reverend Mother,' the nun whispered.

  'I suppose that is more than we could hope for. She is in the hands of almighty God. Whatever He decides, it is His will.' The Mother Superior nodded and then managed a faint smile. 'Would you like to take a few hours and rest, Sister. I can have one of the other sisters replace you. It is going to be a long night and an even longer day tomorrow.'

  'No thank you, Reverend Mother. I'm still fine. Perhaps later, when I need it.'

  'Bless you, Sister. I am proud of you. You are very brave.'

  Sister Maria Theresa said nothing.

  The Mother Superior cocked her head to one side. 'What on earth is that noise?'

  Both nuns listened for a moment. The faraway chant seemed to be made up of a multitude of voices. Sister Maria Theresa rose from her chair. 'It seems to be coming from outside,' she said.

  Both nuns drew over to the tiny window and looked out into the night. They saw a bonfire burning in the middle of the village, the pink glow of which flickered on their faces.

  'There are torches everywhere,' Sister Maria Theresa interjected. 'And those chants . . . It is as though a celebration is going on.' She stared at the Reverend Mother.

  'Either that, or yet another tragedy,' the Mother Superior mused gravely. 'Somehow those chants do not seem happy sounds. I hate to think what could be going on now.'

  A flurry of sounds echoed from the stone-paved corridor outside and caught her attention. A muted roar drifted up from the valley below and filtered into the little room and through her consciousness. Charlotte-Anne was too weak to speak or to move, but upon waking her hearing was again exceptionally acute. Every nuance, every rustle, even the faintest faraway whisper made a loud impression through the thick scrim of her mind.

  'The Mother Superior said so,' a hesitant, meek woman's voice said. 'There are many more wounded coming in, and there is no more room downstairs. We must put them in our quarters.'

  'In here, Sisters?' It was a much louder, deeper voice. Without thinking about it, Charlotte-Anne realized it belonged to a stretcher bearer.

  'No, no, not in there. That is the Mother Superior's room. The Principessa must be alone.'

  'Even in defeat, the fascist princess is living like a queen,' one of the men grumbled.

  The nun ignored the comment. 'Here, put him into this room. Line up the cots close together.'

  There was a loud commotion as hobnailed boots clicked down the corridor.

  'What is going on?' one of the men asked.

  Charlotte-Anne recognized what she thought was a familiar voice. She did not know where she had heard it before, but it seemed it had been sometime since her foggy consciousness had swallowed her up.

  'There is madness in the village!' someone shouted breathlessly. 'If it isn't stopped soon, there is going to be an ugly riot!'

  'But why? I thought the Allies had moved in. They are supposed to be keeping the peace.'

  From somewhere far away came the cracks of gunfire. 'See? Listen! Even the Americans cannot stop it! The people are angry!'

  'I don't understand. I thought it was all over. That the battle had moved to Cassino.'

  'So did I.' The man gave an ugly laugh. 'But that's not a battle you're hearing. That is a mob. It seems that Prince Luigi di Fontanesi, Mussolini's right-hand man, has returned to the village. They discovered him trying to make his way back home on foot, disguised as a peasant of all things. They've killed him and hung him upside down from a scaffold in the piazza and . . . and . . . I'm afraid it's not for your ears, Sister.'

  A nun's scurrying footsteps and swishing robes echoed faintly and then died away.

  'Well, what?' another of the stretcher bearers hissed excitedly.

  'They cut off his cock and balls, that's what,' the man whispered, 'and shoved them into his mouth!'

  Sister Maria Theresa, sitting motionless in her chair, overheard the terrible conversation. Her hand flew up to her forehead and she quickly made a sign of the cross. 'Oh my God,' she whispered, aghast that such terrible things should be discussed in a holy place. Turning quickly to look at Charlotte-Anne, she prayed that the Principessa was still asleep.

  Charlotte-Anne stared up at the ceiling, her paler-than- pale eyes unblinking. Only much later, when the Principessa still had not moved, did Sister Maria Theresa realize that she was dead. Muttering a Hail Mary, she smoothed Charlotte-Anne's eyes shut and pulled the sheet up over her.

  'Thank you, oh Lord,' the nun prayed as she fell to her knees on the cold stone floor and bowed her head. 'Thank you for sparing the Principessa such terrible news. It is far better that she died, rather than hear such an awful thing.'

  But Sister Maria Theresa was wrong. Only Charlotte-Anne's love for her husband had driven her to cling shakily to life. The instant the brutal words had registered, the fight had gone out of her. At the awful realization of her beloved's fate, she had allowed herself to drift up, up into that welcoming, peaceful nothingness which was death.

  22

  The shadows beneath the hill crowned with the convent became long and purple. All around, the incredible destruction seemed out of place against the familiar magnificence of the pink streaks of sunset.

  Never in their wildest nightmares had they imagined such devastation.

  The Principessa's face was tear-streaked and dirty. From more than a week in the storm cellar, and then wandering through the ruins, her clothes had become torn and mud- smeared. She looked more like a haggard peasant than the proud, well-groomed matriarch of the di Fontanesis.

  Prince Antonio stumbled after his wife. He had taken off his jacket and wrapped it around the newborn infant in order to keep the little girl warm
. He carried her gently, full of fear because the baby had become so listless and quiet. She had not cried for hours and she lay so still that he was afraid she was already dead.

  From somewhere in the north came the distant booms of shelling. The Allied army had moved on to conquer another hill at Cassino. More deaths, more destruction, would follow. The Prince shook his head mournfully. Would the nightmare never end?

  The Principessa sank down on a heap of stones which had once been part of the western wing of the Palazzo di Cristallo. She covered her face with her hands and began to weep noisily. All that remained of the proud palazzo were jagged fingers of wall reaching up into the sky, and mountainous piles of shattered crystal which reflected the setting sun like a king's ransom in diamonds.

  'Gone,' Marcella whispered in a strangled cry through her tears. 'All gone.'

  'Come, come cara mia,' the prince said gently. 'It is time we moved on.'

  She turned her face up to him. 'Why? Why did this have to happen?'

  'Because the world has turned insane,' he replied with a peculiar, quiet dignity. 'Because too many people, our own son included, came to look upon Il Duce as some kind of god, because he promised a return to the times of the Roman Empire. Too few people realized Il Duce was nothing but a power-hungry, mad buffoon.' He too started to shed tears, but unlike his wife, his crying was soundless. 'We had to learn the hard way that long ago, the twilight of the Caesars marked their end for good. Ghosts cannot be resurrected. It was the scheme of a madman.' He paused and wiped his eyes. 'Come, while I am talking foolishness it is getting dark. Soon we will not see where we are going. We must find food for the child and a place to spend the night.'

  'I don't want that child,' Marcella whispered numbly. 'The whore from America has brought Ill luck upon our family. Her offspring is the spawn of evil things.'

  'Hush! Do not talk such nonsense.'

  Her eyes blazed. 'Nonsense, you say? Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that she should have had the foresight to dig that hole in the vineyards?'

  The prince did not reply.

  'It was she, Antonio. I tell you, she had her hand in this.' She began to wail louder. 'She was a spy of some sort. How else could she have been prepared for what has come?'

  He took his wife by the hand, pulled her to her feet, and they began to stumble downhill, careful to skirt the treacherous, yawning bomb craters which had opened up the earth. Everywhere, the landscape was pockmarked with them.

  The sunset became twilight, and then night fell quickly. It was a dark, cloudy night, with only occasional, ghostly patches of moonlight to aid them. It seemed an eternity before they reached the base of the hill. Above them towered the silent ruins where once their proud palazzo had stood sentinel.

  'Listen,' Prince Antonio said sharply. 'I think I hear something.'

  'What could you possibly hear other than the sound of that bombing?'

  'No, I do hear something approaching.' He listened again, and then his voice grew excited. 'It is a horse, I think.'

  'So?' she hissed. 'What good do you think a horse will do us?'

  'Perhaps none.' He shrugged. 'Then again, perhaps everything. But whatever you do, Marcella, this is not the time to play the lady. Say nothing of what you are. We are simply ordinary people who have lost everything and have nowhere to go.'

  'Why should I want to do that?' she snapped. 'I am the Principessa Marcella di Fontanesi!'

  'Because,' he explained patiently, 'Luigi is too well known, and too hated for working with Il Duce. Believe me, it is much safer for us this way. Otherwise, God only knows what fate might befall us. There are those who would find great joy in tearing us from limb to limb.'

  And that, he noticed, took the wind out of his wife's sails.

  Suddenly he felt the bundle in his arms shifting slightly, and once again he offered up a silent prayer of thanks because the child was, incredibly, still alive.

  As the horse-drawn wagon neared them, Antonio Di Fontanesi hurried forward to meet it. In the dim glow of moonlight breaking through the clouds he could see the crude, creaking wagon was packed full of people. As he walked past the horse, it radiated such intense heat that he knew at once it was on the point of collapse.

  'Please, help us,' the prince begged as the wagon drew to a halt. 'My wife is Ill, and we have a newborn child with us. Have pity, please. We must get it something to eat, or else it will surely die.'

  The man sitting on the driver's seat looked down. 'We can't take you, you gotta walk. The horse is already half dead.'

  Wait,' an authoritative voice said from the back of the wagon. There was a scuffling sound, that of people moving, and a man jumped down to the road. He moved quickly forward. 'Let the woman ride in my place. I can walk.' As the man drew nearer, Antonio di Fontanesi could make out the dark soutane and the white clerical collar of a priest.

  'Thank you, Father, thank you,' Antonio murmured gratefully.

  Antonio walked Marcella to the back of the wagon, and with his free hand helped her climb up into it. People shifted to make room for her. Many appraising eyes glittered in the moonlight. Antonio lifted up the child to Marcella, but she recoiled and refused to take her. 'You want her,' she snapped, 'you carry her.'

  He nodded miserably. He was too hungry and tired to argue with her.

  The wagon began to roll on, and Antonio di Fontanesi and the priest walked alongside it.

  'Where are you headed?' Antonio called up to the driver.

  'To the convent,' the driver replied. 'We hear the Sisters have turned it into a hospital. Many of us are hungry, sick, or wounded. They say there's food and medicine there. And Father Odoni says they are probably short-handed. He's going to offer his help.'

  Antonio di Fontanesi fell silent and hung his head. Despite the overwhelming tragedy and devastation which had befallen everyone, little signs of humanity and caring were cropping up as people tried to cope with their own pain and help others. Sometimes it seemed as though it took a tragedy to bring out the best and the worst in people.

  He was ashamed to realize that for both Marcella and himself, it had brought out the worst.

  Only by a mere fluke of fate did the di Fontanesis' path cross with the Vigano's. In peaceful times, when the lines of society were strictly drawn, the closest they might have gotten to each other was by passing on the road, one family trudging along on foot while the other roared past in the luxurious confines of an expensive, chauffeur-driven automobile. They had nothing in common, other than that in years past, Paolo Vigano had at times toiled, along with hundreds of others, in the fertile vineyards of the di Fontanesis.

  Until the bombing had started, Paolo Vigano had always considered himself a lucky man. He was hardly rich, being a mere grape picker, but he had always felt wealthy. True, at times the meager contents of the kitchen cupboard had to be stretched, but he had never known a day of sickness in his entire life, nor had he known real hunger. In his simple mind he equated hunger with laziness, so he had made certain that he always worked hard. Everyone said that no one knew the grapes like Paolo Vigano, and when he heard the compliments his chest would swell with pride. He had even been spared the tragedy of leaving his family to fight in the war because of his clubfoot, which was not bad enough to hurt his work but did keep him from being a useful soldier.

  His wife, Adriana, was a simple, large sun-browned woman with gentle eyes and a quietly pleasant smile. In her youth she had been a great beauty, one of the rare and treasured blonde-haired, blue-eyed Italians. But she had never wanted more than her Paolo. The love they shared had only grown with each passing year of their marriage. She helped out at harvest-time, picking grapes in order to supplement their income. Other times she kept the house and tended the kitchen garden and the goats and chickens she raised.

  Their six-year-old son, Dario, was turning into a lovely, intelligent child. He was possessed of a quick mind and studious manner, and he filled Paolo with pride. When one day Dario startled his parents with an
announcement that he was determined to become a priest when he grew up, both Paolo and Adriana had been filled with warm pleasure, though they regretted the possibility of having no grandchildren. Then six years after Dario was born, Adriana found herself pregnant again. With that joyful news, Paolo's joy was complete. He had felt rich indeed.

  Now, waiting by the roadside, he felt neither rich nor blessed. His wife, whom he had half-carried for miles, was resting beside him against a tree, watched over by Dario. Paolo was as devastated as the shelled, war-ravaged land around him. Two nights earlier, at the height of the bombing, his wife's time had come. One moment she was in the kitchen baking bread; the next, she could no longer stand on her feet. There was no doctor or midwife to be found, and Adriana was sick, burning up with a fever. The child she gave birth to died within the hour. His wife had been too delirious even to comprehend the tragedy which had occurred. Paolo, sure that she was going to die, felt frightened and helpless. He could not conceive of a life without his beloved Adriana.

  When Paolo heard the horse-drawn wagon approaching in the distance, he held his breath. Was it possible that his luck had not deserted him after all? With growing anxiety he waited for the vehicle to round the curve, then cried out to them.

  'Please,' he desperately urged the driver. 'My wife is terribly sick. I'm afraid she is going to die. Could you find it in your heart to give her a ride?'

  'Can't she walk?' the driver asked gruffly.

  'No, she is much too feeble. I've already had to half carry her for kilometers. She is so sick she can hardly move.'

  'Then you are in luck,' the driver told him. He motioned up to the hill and the convent etched blackly against the weak moonlight. 'We are on our way to the Sisters. We hear their convent has become a hospital.'