by Grant, D C
“No more of my men will die at the hands of the partisans or this will be the result. Do you understand?” I nodded desperately. “Let this be a warning to you and the other peasants – help the partisans and people will die!”
I didn’t dare to speak. Bleeding and torn inside, I watched as he did up his belt, and put his pistol back into the holster. It was only when they had all left that I crawled off the bed and staggered to the main room where Anna lay dead on the table where they had taken her. Papa is still outside. I don’t have the strength to go down to the village and get help; I have only the strength to write this so that when I am dead, you who read this will know on whom to take revenge.
I heard his men say the officer’s name – Oberleutant Fischer. Find him and kill him for what he has done to me and my family!
27 November, morning
I can’t read any more. My great-grandmother was raped and her family killed!! But what about Nico? I know that Lina didn’t die because she became pregnant with Nonna, so she must have survived this. But how could she survive something so horrible? This is unreal, so totally unreal. And here I was thinking that I was reading a cute love story. Instead the war came to Lina and destroyed everything. I should get back to sorting out Nonna’s stuff, maybe it will take my mind off that terrible scene. But I have to know what happened, I have to carry on reading, I just have to, no matter how horrible it is.
19 August, evening
Death didn’t come. The partisans came instead. When I heard their footfalls in the house, I thought it was the officer come back to finish me off. I welcomed that – it would end my agony. A strong hand on my shoulder made me cry out and a voice shouted “This one’s alive!” in Italian, not German. “Amelia, in here.”
A woman came into the room where I was curled up on my bed, holding onto the hurt inside me. She sat down on the edge of the bed, brushed the hair from my face and asked me my name. I told her, and then she asked if I had any family that they could take me to. There is only Uncle Silvestro in the village, and that’s when they told me that there was no one left in the village, that they had all been killed.
The news shocked me. The rastrellamento had come to us and I was the only one still alive, except maybe for Nico, but these partisans didn’t know him either.
As it was getting dark and they have an injured man with them, they’ve decided to stay in the farmhouse for the night, in spite of the danger, and leave in the morning. They say that I can go with them. I’m not sure that I want to.
Amelia stripped off my clothes and washed me with cold water from the well, using a cloth to scrub at the dried blood between my legs before helping me to dress in fresh clothes. I could hear the men, but it was only when Amelia led me outside that I realized what they’d been doing – digging a grave for Anna and Papa. They stood around it, caps in their hands, one holding a rosary as he recited a prayer. Two of the men had their backs to the grave, looking outwards, their rifles at the ready, constantly surveying the fields. When we reached the edge of the pit I looked into it and saw the bodies wrapped in sheets, and I fell to my knees and wept. Amelia held onto me. If she hadn’t, I would have fallen into the grave with them.
I wanted them buried in the cemetery in the village, but the partisans said that it was too dangerous to go there as the Germans were still in the area. It’s dangerous for them here too, but the wounded man needs treatment before they can move on, and rest of the men need to rest.
I think of the bodies in the makeshift grave outside and know that there is nothing left for me at farmhouse now, and that if I want revenge on the men who have done this, then I’m best to go with the partisans in the morning.
I will take this notebook with me – a reminder of the life I had before I was destroyed, before my family was killed. I don’t know if I’ll ever find the time or the place to write in it, for my life will be in the hands of this band of partisans and I don’t know where they will take me.
I shall leave a note for Nico in case he ever comes back. I must gather a few things to take with me, only as much as I can carry, but I will be leaving this life behind me. Now I shall become a partisan and help to kill the enemy in our country for Papa and for Anna and for me.
20 August
We have stopped in a cave for the night. They haven’t lit a fire but have allowed me a candle, as I don’t want to be left in the dark. I write by the light of the flickering flame. I had to force food down. I had no appetite. Patricio came to speak to me as I ate, because I am walking too slowly and holding them up, but I can’t walk any faster, I hurt too much inside.
I feel dirty too. No amount of scrubbing will make me feel clean again. Most of all I weep because I know I will never have a husband. No man will have me now that I have been made dirty by Germans.
Amelia says that she felt the same afterwards and that she cleanses herself by killing Germans. I don’t want to kill all Germans, just the ones that defiled me and murdered my family, but I’m not sure that that is going to make me clean again.
Patricio won’t tell me where we are going or how long it will take to get there in case I’m captured, then I won’t be able to tell the enemy anything. I am slow and there is a chance that I will fall behind or will be unable to flee if we come under fire. It is a discouraging thought. I asked Patricio if they were the ones that attacked the Germans at Ceserano and he said that it wasn’t them. I was grateful for that, because I believe it is that attack that brought the rastrellamento to us.
But I know that I cannot give in to the despair that threatens to overwhelm me. I can’t let them see that I am dying a little inside, for I know that they will not tolerate any weakness. This band of partisans fights a vicious and relentless enemy, and for that everyone has to be strong, including me. If I want to have revenge for what has happened to me, if I want to find Nico, then I must become a partisan and I must show that I can keep up with them. I will walk faster tomorrow and I will ignore the pain and the sorrow.
What else can I do? I have no family now and I don’t know how to find Nico. These people are my only chance of salvation.
A Room for Nonna
27 November, lunchtime
Mum came home and found me reading the diary. She wasn’t happy.
“You’re supposed to be sorting things out, not reading that book!” she said.
“I’ve done some of it,” I said. “Look, over there, at those piles of stuff.”
“Is that all? Really Gina, here I am day after day, trying to find somewhere for Mum to go, and you’re here reading that stupid book.”
“It’s not stupid! Did you know …”
I was interrupted by the ring of Mum’s mobile phone. I sat down and fumed while listening to the one-sided conversation.
“You have? From tomorrow? How much? Yes, I’ll let the hospital know. Thank you very much. I’ll be in tomorrow.”
She ended the phone call and sank into an armchair with a sigh.
“A room’s just become available at one of the rest homes I visited,” she said. “If I want it I’m going to have to go in tomorrow and sign some papers. And I have to pay to hold the room if Mum’s not ready to come out of hospital yet.”
I swallowed the anger that quivered at the back of my throat. This was good news, but somehow it felt like bad news.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“Not far from here, it was my first choice – a not-for-profit organisation. The staff seem nice. And I didn’t want Mum to be too far from where she has lived all this time. I was thinking I’d have to move her to Auckland, but this is better for her. Just means I’ll have to keep coming down to visit her.”
I looked around Nonna’s unit and tried to imagine it without her in it, all her possessions packed up. “How big is the room? How much can we fit in?”
Mum rubbed her eyes and said, “A chest of drawers maybe; there’s space for a TV and maybe a chair, but not much else. She’ll be able to put pictures on the wall, I think,
and there’s a wardrobe for her clothes. At least she has her own bathroom. So many places have a shared bathroom.”
“So what are we going to do with her unit?”
Mum sighed. “I may have to rent it out to pay for the rest home.”
I hadn’t even thought about paying for the rest home, I was just glad that we’d found somewhere for Nonna to go.
“But doesn’t the government pay?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I’ve got some information but its all confusing, talks about asset thresholds and subsidies, I haven’t looked at it too much. I can’t even manage my own money, never mind Mum’s.”
“Bevan’s dad knows something about accounts,” I said. “Maybe he can help.”
“Maybe he can. Now you’re really going to have to start doing stuff around here instead of reading that diary.”
I thought about what I had read in the diary, and decided not to tell her I’ll talk it over with Bevan instead. I’ll phone him tonight. I know he’ll be glad to hear me.
22 August
Finally we are at the partisans’ camp. It’s just an overhang in the cliff face, hardly even a cave. I made it here but it was hard work and I almost gave up, but Amelia pushed me on. Patricio hurried us over the meadows where we were exposed if a plane flew overhead, and allowed us to rest in the shade of the forest when he could, but we had to reach their base by the evening, he said. The group was under orders to move if he and his band did not return by this evening, as it meant that they had been either killed or captured and they would have to move to protect the group.
When we came across them, the light was fading and they were getting ready to move. The men greeted each other with delight, having thought that their leader was dead or a prisoner, and looked at me with enquiring faces. Instead of answering each man as they approached him, he waited until he was in the centre of the group before telling them how they had followed a band of Germans before finding me and my dead family in the farmhouse. The men exclaimed that they would search out the Germans and kill them all, but Patricio said that it is I that should have the honour of killing them as I have suffered the most. I wonder if he knew how much I have suffered just getting here. I have kept my pain and my feelings hidden from him so he could not see my feebleness.
While I stood next to Amelia with the press of the men around me, I felt a hand fall gently on my shoulder and I spun around to see who had touched me. To my surprise it was Aroldo. I don’t know why, but maybe it was just seeing a familiar face, a face I had known before my life had changed forever, but I fell into his arms and burst into tears. All the grief that I had kept trapped inside me just erupted as I wept all over his jacket. I’m not sure who was more surprised – Patricio or Aroldo. He led me away to a fallen log where he sat me down and waited until I finished my tears. Then I told him what had happened to my family.
“I’m sorry, Lina, that this has happened,” he said. “Your family were good to me.”
“Why are you still here?” I asked him. “Shouldn’t you be in Switzerland by now?”
“I broke my ankle,” he said, pointing to his left foot. “And I couldn’t travel.”
His Italian is much better. He must have been getting lots of practice, being with the partisans. I asked him if his foot was healed and when would he be leaving but he says that he’s staying for the time being because the British are dropping arms and ammunition by plane to arm the partisans, and he needs to train the men on how to use them. Also, they have a transistor radio and the BBC broadcast coded messages to the partisans in English and he translates for them.
“So I’ve made myself useful, as you can see,” he said.
I’m glad that he is here and that he is useful. As for myself, I’m not sure how much good I shall be. I want to be useful, but I fear that I shall be nothing but burden, and a weeping one at that.
Oh, how I miss Papa and Anna!
27 November, evening
“Hi, Babe,” Bevan said when he answered the phone. “How’s it going?”
I don’t know why, but just like Lina, I burst into tears. Hormones were really messing with my head.
“What’s wrong, babe?” I heard him ask through my sobs.
“The diary …” I stuttered.” Lina … my great-grandmother … she was raped … it was awful … I wanted to tell Mum but …” I drew in a deep breath, “… but she’s too busy trying to sort out Nonna and I had to tell someone.”
“That’s okay, babe, it’s okay to cry.” I did just that and he listened to my wailing without saying anything. It wasn’t just the emotion in finding out that a member of my family had been raped, hearing his voice made me emotional too. For once I yearned for him, for his presence, just to have his arms around me, to feel his strength and his love, to have him whisper into my ear that everything was going to be okay. The old Bevan would have shut me down, this new Bevan was full of patience and understanding. How could someone change so much?
My sobs subsided and I took a deep breath. I wanted to distract myself.
“What have you been doing?” I asked.
“I thought we were going to talk about your great-grandmother.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“I don’t want to talk about it now.”
I heard him sigh. I phoned him and now I didn’t want to talk. I realised how pathetic that was but I didn’t do anything about it.
“Mark’s been around,” he said. “He’s helping me with the assignment that I have to submit next week. I also went to the Artificial Limb Centre for another fitting. It was nice to get out for a while, but it was straight there and straight back or the police would’ve been around.”
I could sense his frustration at the limitations of the home detention, but it was part of his sentence and it was much better than jail. I waited for him to pause.
“Mark helped you when you were having those strange dreams, didn’t he?” I asked
“Yeah, he did, he got some books from the library.”
“Could you ask him about the war in Italy – what happened in 1944? There’s no internet here and I don’t have time to go to the library. I could look it up on my phone but it’s going to chew through my data. Besides, I’m going to be busy here. Mum’s found a rest home that will take Nonna but we have to pack up her things here at the unit. Mum thinks we’ll have to rent it out to pay for Nonna’s care.”
“I wish I could come down and help you.”
I wished he could too. I felt that Mum was leaving me to do the sorting while she was out, but then I was actually spending most of my time reading the diary anyway, so I suppose I couldn’t complain.
“You have to stay there, Bevan, you know that. It’s part of your detention order.”
Bevan sighed. “I know that, babe, but I miss you and our little one. I hope you get all this crap with your grandmother sorted soon so that you can come back.”
I smiled – his use of the swearword was the old Bevan that I once knew. It reminded me that he was still the same really, same but different.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“Can’t wait, babe, love you.”
“Love you too.” The phrase jumped from my lips before I could stop it. I ended call quickly and stared down at the disconnected phone in my hand. Is this what love is – this longing for his presence, this emptiness that can only be filled by him? Is it enough to sustain me and my child in the years ahead? I’m too young to be making these decisions. I’m too young to be pregnant!
A Courier for the Partisans
25 August
Now that I have arrived at the partisans’ hideout, I’m able to rest and I feel stronger, but there is no healing in my heart. Aroldo has stayed with me since I arrived, bringing me water and food and making sure that I am comfortable. He said it’s because we did the same for him when he was ill and in hiding, that my family took him in even when it was dangerous to do so. When he says it I’m reminded of my family and what I’ve lost. I
t only deepens my sorrow.
27 August
Patricio wants me to do some work for him. He says I can be a courier for the partisans as I’m young and I will get past the checkpoints easily. Amelia says that I will be killed if I’m found out but I don’t care. If I get the chance to strike back at the Germans, then I will do it.
I know Aroldo isn’t happy either but he understands that I have to do it. So tomorrow I get a bicycle and I cycle from one village to another, but I will be carrying vital plans underneath the flowers in my basket.
28 August
I did it! I really really did it, even though I felt sick to the bottom of my stomach. Patricio led me to the village where an elderly man had the bicycle waiting. He asked if I could ride. It’s been a while since I rode Renato’s bicycle when we were friends at school, but I could still remember.
The old man made me ride up and down the cobbled street, wobbly at first and then steadier before he nodded approval.
“We can’t have you toppling over and spilling everything onto the road.”
The words sent a shiver down my spine.
The plans were wrapped in a length of sacking and placed in the bottom of the basket, and then he carefully placed roses over the top of them. The thorns on them looked long and sharp.