What Love Is

by Grant, D C

  1 December

  Nonna wears that metal band, I suddenly remembered. I had noticed it on her finger when I was child, a contrast to the engagement ring next to it on her ring finger. I asked her about it once, why she wore something so dull and cheap next to the sparkling ring.

  She smiled as she twirled it on her finger. “Oh, this is very precious, my child. One day you will know how precious it is.”

  Now I know – does that mean that Nonna knows about the diary? Maybe not. It’s hard for me to think that my beloved Nonna could be the child that Lina carried.

  It’s strange, but I don’t think of Lina as my great-grandmother, but as a girl like me: young, pregnant, alone and afraid. It’s like reading a book in which my great-grandmother is the main character.

  I’m back at Nonna’s unit now. Mum will stay the night and leave in the morning. Nonna moved into the rest home today. It was strange to her see her in that room, she looked so small and lost. I felt bad when we left her, but the caregivers assured us that they would look after her. I guess they know their job, but I wanted to bring her back here with us.

  Mum is at the dining room table in the alcove off the kitchen; I can see her from here. She’s got Nonna’s bank statements in front of her and all the forms that she got from the rest home. She’s not good with paperwork. She’s going to gather as much as she can and take it back to Auckland with her and get Bevan’s dad to look over it. He’s an accountant or something, so he should be able to tell us what the deal is. It looks too complicated for me, and for Mum too.

  Bevan really hated it when I left again; he said that one night together was not enough. I thought after being apart for so long might have changed his mind about having sex, but no, he’s sticking to his guns, or maybe I should say his gun is sticking in his pants! Mind you it was nice to cuddle up to him again and feel his arms around me. He said I had gotten bigger, not me, really, but the baby in my tummy. I guess for me the growth happens a little bit each day, whereas he hadn’t seen me for two weeks, so in his eyes I must have grown a lot in that time. He keeps putting his hand on my tummy and feeling the baby, trying to guess what all the knobbly bits are, but I’m so used to it now that it’s not new to me.

  When it came time to leave, he held me tight – well, as tight as he could with a bump in the way – and whispered in my ear about how much he missed me and how he wished he could come down to help me, but he has to stay at home.

  I promised him I’d have everything sorted by Christmas and then we can spend the holiday together, alone in his house because his family is going away but he can’t. Maybe then I can lure him to bed, prove to him that I am still attractive even though I’m fat.

  The Only Real Home

  21 October

  It is raining and so windy that the wind gusts reach the back of the cave. I shiver as I lie on my bed of straw, and Aroldo tries to keep me warm. In spite of the rain and the swollen rivers, the Eighth Army has crossed the Rubicon and taken Cesena. Yet Patricio says that many of the Anglo-American divisions have been taken from Italy to fight the war in France and it is up to us now to hold the Germans at bay and make them run back to their homeland. But the Germans have built fortifications in the mountains which we cannot attack on our own. Patricio also says he is low on ammunition, and men – many have slunk back to their homes because of this cold weather and the lack of food. So now Patricio sits at the entrance to the cave and smokes and broods and counts ammunition. I think I will soon be doing another errand to fetch more rounds from wherever they can be found.

  I look around this cave, our brutal home, and notice that we are half the number we used to be. All that is left are those who, like me, have no home to go to, whose families have been murdered or transported to Germany. Or like Aroldo, a stranger in our land so far away from his own and now with an Italian wife that he doesn’t really want.

  Meanwhile planes fly overhead and we hear the distant sounds of mortars and bombs and wonder who is being killed today. We have suffered so much already, and there seems to be no end in sight. For the first time I worry about what will become of me when this child is born. This is no place to give birth, this rough cave in which we shelter, but it is too dangerous to go anywhere else. Besides, Patricio won’t let me go – he says I know too much.

  30 October

  The Germans are everywhere, murdering our people and leaving them lying in the mud. They even murder them in churches and in cemeteries, places of God, it is not right. The rain comes down every day, and there is no escape from the cold wind. I cannot believe that the weather is like this, the autumn is usually such a calm, dry time when we gather in the harvest and put the food away for the winter. This year I think God has forsaken us, left us alone with the German devils and spawned a devil in me.

  10 November

  I have a little bump – there can be no doubt now that I am pregnant, but my clothes still fit because I am so thin. We are starving here, and sometimes it is too dangerous to down to the villages for food. Indeed there is little food to be had anywhere at all, and it doesn’t seem fair to take it from the people in the village, though they give it up willingly enough. I go down often, my dress pulled tight so that the Blackshirts can see the bump and hopefully won’t shoot me, although it is not guaranteed because they are murdering babies and children now.

  “I have to get us away from here,” Aroldo said last night. “It is not safe for you or the baby. We can travel to Switzerland – we’ll be safe there.”

  “I’m not leaving my country and my people. And I don’t care about this bastard in my tummy. I’ll be happy to die if this baby dies too.”

  “Hush, you mustn’t speak like that.”

  Aroldo put his hand on my tummy but I pushed it away. I don’t like to think of the baby in there, growing inside me. At least I am no longer as sick as I once was and can keep down the food that they feed me – when we have it.

  13 November

  Aroldo has said that General Alexander has made an announcement on the radio that we must lay down our arms to preserve our ammunition, and wait for further instructions. I don’t understand what it is that the Anglo-Americans expect us to do. One moment they are telling us to fight and the next to lay down our arms. Patricio rages against our so-called friends, saying we cannot return to fighting in the shadows and that they are abandoning us because they want to take the credit for themselves – to say that it was them and not us that overthrew the Germans.

  Is that why we are not getting as many air drops as we used to? We are running out of everything, not just ammunition, but food, clothes and boots. And the rain continues to come down; I’ve not seen rain like this in my whole lifetime. It is like we are cursed.

  And the Anglo-Americans continue to bomb our cities. I know that they are trying to hit the Germans, to break their defences, but it is our beautiful cities that are being destroyed.

  Patricio is starting to regard me as a burden, but I have nowhere to go and I belong to my husband who must remain with them, therefore so do I. There is hardly enough food for me, never mind for the baby growing inside me. Aroldo gives me what he can but he needs to keep up his strength too.

  How I wish this war was over, but I think we have to get through winter first and it is not going to be easy.

  15 November

  We have had to move. We were betrayed and our hiding place compromised. We are further up the mountain now, accessible only by a narrow track that leads along a cliff face. It is a shepherd’s hut and we squeeze into it with half the men outside in the cold and damp, keeping a lookout. There is no fire and I can hardly see to write. I must put this book away before Patricio sees it.

  25 November

  A month until Christmas and we have a new place to stay. It seems that we will spend the winter here, as long as we are not betrayed again. Patricio took some men and dealt to those that gave us away. I refused to listen to their stories. However he came back with five fewer men, and there is li
ttle talk amongst them.

  Our new home is in a cleft between cliffs; no one would think of coming here because it is a dead end hidden by trees. The men cut down a few trees and used trunks as supports for the roof. They nailed sheets of corrugated iron to the roof, then covered them with branches so that from the air, the hideout would look just like the rest of the forest.

  “We will stay here for the winter,” Patricio said.

  They started a fire in the corner, near one of the cliff walls, ensuring that it drew well and did not make any smoke. We moved in our few supplies, bedding and clothes, and stored our meagre food stores at the back of the structure where the gap narrowed, forming a natural end wall.

  I was given the driest, warmest corner, and Aroldo, ever faithful, came with me. But there is work for him to do, Aroldo says, so he will be gone in the morning.

  I’m not sure why that makes me sad.

  3 December

  I’m not getting a lot done here. I keep on having to go to the rest home to sort stuff out for Nonna, and then I get tired and all I want to do is read Lina’s diary.

  Mum phoned me this evening and was as mad as hell.

  “Your boyfriend’s dad reckons we might have to sell the unit!” she cried down the phone.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Well, it seems that Mum is over the asset threshold, which means we have to pay for her to be in the rest home.”

  “What asset threshold?”

  “Oh, I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “It’s all too complicated for me. Something about her unit being worth so much, together with the little bit she has invested. It’s just too much!”

  She slammed down the phone. I don’t know why she’s taking it out on me. I put the phone back in the cradle. Nonna had one of those old-fashioned phones with a hand piece on a curly piece of wire that was twisted back on itself. I fiddled with the coils as I looked around the unit.

  I had grown up here, lived here from the time I was six until I was eleven, and it was practically the only real home I had ever known. When Mum came back from Australia and picked me up, we moved from place to place, I transferred from school to school until I was so disorientated I would forget which school I went to. I’d loved living with Nonna and hated Mum for taking me away from her. I suppose that’s why I rebelled, sneaking off from school, if I remembered where school was in the first place, hanging around the shopping malls and empty parks and losing my way, until I discovered boys and lost my virginity well before I met Bevan. I’d be the first to admit that I used sex as a tool to get what I wanted, and it usually worked, until now.

  It’s easy to look back now and see what an idiot I was. Now I’m paying the price – life down the toilet and my choices as limited as Lina’s.

  And now we have to sell the only real home I have ever known.

  4 December

  Aroldo is back, dirty and haggard. He has been with Patricio all this time. They have been helping a British Special Forces officer who parachuted into the country. This officer has been looking for a German general; he would not give his name. They have been following leads, chasing this man across the countryside. Aroldo was there as a translator, but when it became obvious that they weren’t going to find the general, the paratrooper arranged to be taken back through the Allied lines and asked Aroldo to go with him.

  “I said that I wouldn’t leave you,” Aroldo said as he put his arms around me. I found the act comforting after his long absence, and relaxed against his warm body, my own being chilled in spite of being close to the fire. “You are my wife and I have to look after you.”

  I don’t know where it came from, but I had a desire to kiss him. Before I knew it, he had leant down and kissed me on the lips, his tongue finding mine, and I surrendered to the passion in his kiss. But the spell was broken when we were seen by the men and they all started jeering. We broke apart, embarrassed, but later that night we lay together, fully clothed for we had no blanket and it was cold, and for once I welcomed the pressure of his body against mine. He slept with his hand against the curve of my belly.

  4 December

  I realize that I have caught up with Lina, she and I on the same day of the same month but many years ago. She’s just entering winter, which sounds really cold, even if it is Italy, and we’re warming up to summer. I’d forgotten how hot Hamilton can get in summer.

  I’ve made a proper start at clearing things out now. Mum says it’s looking like we might have to sell the unit for sure, although Bevan’s dad says we should try to apply for a subsidy first and if that doesn’t work, apply for something called a residential care loan subsidy. Either way, it seems that we’ll either have to sell the unit or rent it out, so I’d best get doing what I’m supposed to do, although Lina’s diary beckons to me constantly.

  I’m going to see a local midwife today to get checked out while I am here. The midwife in Auckland will transfer the file down, and then they’ll have to transfer it back up when I return to Auckland. Looking at the work I still have to do around here, I may not make Christmas in Auckland.

  Christmas Day and Nico

  6 December

  Aroldo is sick. He has a fever and is coughing all the time. Patricio says we are both a liability, Aroldo with his illness and me with my expanding stomach, but we can’t go anywhere else so Patricio is stuck with us. Amelia is grumpy and admonishes Patricio all the time. They argue like Mama and Papa did before Mama got sick and died, only then did I see how much Papa loved her.

  I fear that Aroldo will die. There is no medicine for him and we can only give him water for he won’t take any food, but he needs to eat as he’s so thin, because he’s been giving up his food ration for me.

  There is no movement on the Anglo-Americans line, the rain and snow have stopped them. It seems we must wait for the spring. How much longer must this war go on?

  16 December

  The men are out today, travelling to a location where supplies will be dropped from the British planes. I hope it is successful. So many times they come back empty handed, the drop abandoned due to bad weather or too many Germans in the area. Sometimes the cells smash open on impact, destroying the contents, and sometimes they land where the Germans are waiting. The snow is falling thick now and it is hard for the men to move about and carry the supplies that we need, but still they go out. They have to.

  Aroldo lies close to the fire, exhausted. The sickness has taken all his energy, and now it is I giving up my ration for him. At least the fever has broken, and apart from fits of coughing, he is no longer severely ill. His eyes follow me as I move around our hideaway, and it is nice not to have all the men in this small area. When Amelia leaves to scrounge for food, we are even alone for a few hours. We talk. He tells me about his home in New Zealand, the fields of green and mountains like ours. It sounds like heaven, so far away from this hell that our world has become.

  9 December

  The priest, Mark, didn’t just look up information for me, he brought me a pile of books.

  “I’m down on conference,” he said.

  We sat opposite each other at the small dining table with the books piled up beside us. I’d made some tea and got out the tin of biscuits that Nonna always kept topped up with ginger nuts and shortbread. Mark stirred sugar into his cup.

  “So this is where you grew up?” he asked, looking around the unit. It wasn’t that tidy, I’d been going through drawers and cupboards and sorting stuff out into three piles: keep, chuck and donate; I’d seen it on TV once. The keep pile was bigger than the other two. I was going to have to go through it again. “Yes, I lived here with my Nonna.”

  “You were happy here,” Mark said.

  It wasn’t a question. I wondered how he knew. Do all priests and ministers have the ability to read your thoughts?

  “Yes, how can you tell?”

  He smiled. “You’re more relaxed here and you move around with confidence. You seem happier here than I’ve seen you in Auckland.”
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br />   He was right. Being here felt good, like this was where I should be. I liked being here on my own, to do as I liked, when I liked to do it and not have anyone to get in my way.

  “We might have to sell it,” I told him. “To pay for Nonna’s care.”

  “Oh, I see. That’s unfortunate. I can see how much this place means to you.”

  I felt a tear roll my check. I brushed it away angrily.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Mark said. “Let’s change the subject. Bevan said that you found a diary written by your great-grandmother and that’s why you were looking for information on the war in Italy?”

  “Yes, I was looking for something on the partisans. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about them. My great-grandmother, Lina, was with a group of them in the mountains of Italy, but she never says who or where they were.”

  Mark nodded as he considered this. “She might have done that deliberately, so that if she or the diary were captured by the enemy, then they wouldn’t be able to use the information. That way the band of partisans would be safe.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, but I realized that must have been the case. Then I had another thought. “But if she’d been captured with the diary, they would have known that she was with the partisans, and from the diary I know that they killed people who were with the partisans.”