“More than likely,” Sofia interjected.
“As I was about to say,” Giovanni Farina gave his wife a long suffering glance, before turning again to Beatrice, “you can’t go around every back street in central Rome, looking for a girl whose name you don’t know, whom you never met, and one you can hardly identify from Carlo’s drawing, even if you had it. Let’s face it, when he realises you’d be worried he’ll certainly get in touch. If he knows you’ve left home, he’d guess you’d come here or he’ll phone us to find where you are. It’s hardly been two days, and if she’s that beautiful he might not be aware of time passing.”
“Exactly what I’ve been trying to say,” Sofia reminded them.
“Please, Mamma,” said Beatrice with a sigh
“Please what?”
“Please let him finish.” Please shut up for a change was what she really had in mind, but didn’t want to stir up a row with her. There’d been too many of them in the past. She looked towards her father who’d remained quiet.
“Papà,” she tried to prompt him into continuing.
“I suppose I have finished,” shrugged Giovanni. “He’s a big boy.”
“An adult,” Sofia murmured.
“Of course,” Giovanni agreed. “He could turn up here tomorrow or the next day, full of the joys of young love and wondering why we’ve all been so worried.”
“Indeed he could,” Beatrice said. “I just wish he would so I could relax and start looking for a new job, as well as sorting out where to live. But since we’ve spent so many years working for this and risking my marriage, no that’s not accurate, wrecking my marriage—ending it, I do find it hard to just sit and not worry about him. All those days when we looked forward so much to this…” She could feel her eyes growing moist. “Bugger it, I think I’m going to cry and I only cry when I’m happy.”
“That’s true,” Sofia said. “I remember floods of happy tears, when the right boyfriend turned up. I think it frightened a few away.”
“A pity it didn’t work on Salvatore,” Beatrice said while mopping her eyes and saw Sofia exchange a smile in agreement. They both gave a start as the doorbell rang downstairs.
“Perhaps that’s him,” Sofia was the first on her feet. She gestured to Beatrice who had half risen. “I’ll get it, Bea. Sit down, relax. Be a guest for a change, darling. Fix your face.”
The bell rang again. “All right, Mamma, if you’re really going to answer it,” she said. Sofia seemed in no rush.
“I am, my pet. Look calm and casual, and don’t tell him you’ve been all over Rome in a search, as if he was a lost child. Coming!” she shouted as the doorbell rang for a third time, going out of the room, and down the stairs to the front door. Beatrice, who had stood up, sat down again. Her father looked across at her and tried to make her smile.
“She’s quick off the mark when the doorbell rings, darling. Sofia always says it might be someone with news we’ve won the lottery. But we never do win and, while I have a chance to say it, she does mean well, Bea.”
“I know she does, Papà. I love her, but sometimes…” She stood in front of an ornamental mirror on the wall to check her face. “I’ll stay a few days, but Mamma and I always get on best in small doses. We quarrel if I stay too long.”
“She’s just as worried as you are. Well, not quite as much, I daresay.”
They both reacted as they heard voices from the entrance below. Sofia’s voice and then the deep but quiet tones of a man. Beatrice tried not to show her disappointment. “Whoever that is, it’s not Carlo. Perhaps one of your students.”
“No, it’s not likely…” he began to say, then looked puzzled as he heard their two voices coming closer, and footsteps mounting the stairs. “Sofia,” he called, “is it someone for me?”
“For us all,” she said, entering with an army officer. He’s brought news.”
“A rather mixed bag, I’m afraid,” said Lieutenant Luigi Revira.
PART TWO
Nine Months Later
TEN
Carlo would never have believed the desert could be so cold. Brought up on stories and films about the Foreign Legion and Arab tribes on barefoot safari across the burning sands, he had not imagined the ground could burn by day, become cool as the sun was about to set, then drop suddenly to almost freezing at night. It was one of several discomforts his infantry battalion faced in their introduction to Il Duce’s desert war. The training had been too hasty, their transportation to North Africa far too rapid. War, the generals all concurred, had been declared too soon. Mussolini had been lured into it by Adolph Hitler and by the thought of being invited to the peace table when Britain surrendered, as they’d all expected must happen soon.
But there had been no surrender. In the eyes of his Chiefs of Staff, and in particular the Tenth Army commander General Rodolfo Graziani, their leader was a fool—a first world war conscript who had never understood modern military strategy.
After brief basic training, Carlo and recruits like him found themselves part of the army in Libya, supported by only small armoured vehicles named ‘tankettes’ and outdated artillery guns from Abyssinia. In their first months they were taught to march, to salute, and when rifles became available, to shoot at targets and to attach bayonets to slay the enemy—this ‘enemy’ being a line of chaff bags filled with straw. They were also taught to shout victory slogans while thrusting the steel of the bayonet into what would be the guts of their foe — should they ever meet. In a township near Tripoli, Carlo bought strips of white lining paper and folded these into a sketching pad. He produced cartoons of his comrades and amused them by drawing ‘the enemy’ as a row of chaff bags with comic faces. One looked very like Il Duce.
By now, like most of them in the desert, he had adapted to the tedium. But Carlo doubted if he would ever become accustomed to the shouted commands that assaulted him and his platoon from daybreak to sunset. It began with a command— get up, get dressed, then bellowed instructions to perform their ablutions, whether able to or not, followed by the monotony of other orders throughout each interminable day. March in step, slope arms, shoulder arms. Their entire life seeming to be enduring endless shouted commands, because no directive was given in less than a full-throated roar amid the daytime heat. The relief of silence only came with the encroaching chill of night.
That was how it had been until orders came from Rome to launch an immediate attack on Egypt, with the intention of securing the Suez Canal. It was the same imperial arrogance the Italian dictator had previously voiced against Britain and France, accusing them of entrapment in the Mediterranean, making it impossible for Italy’s naval and commercial fleets to have access past British-owned islands like Malta and Gibraltar. Il Duce’s speeches had grown in belligerence, as if trying to match the vitriol of Hitler. He now thundered in his weekly radio broadcasts that his army would neutralise British tactics by taking control of Suez and its canal. His Generals were far less certain.
Graziani protested his troops were not properly trained or equipped for this operation but Mussolini, having promoted himself Comando supremo of the Italian Navy, Italian Air Force, and Italian Infantry, ordered him to invade or return to Rome and explain why not! Carlo drew a cartoon of an inflated bullfrog clad only in his underwear, trying to decide whether he should wear the uniform of a soldier, a sailor, or an airman. It was a popular image but rather too close a resemblance. Eventually he decided on discretion by shredding it. Among his platoon there were some Blackshirt members still loyal to The Leader, for the tide of war had not yet turned the wrong way.
Against a smaller Allied contingent the Italian forces had made steady gains, celebrating a hundred kilometre advance when they reached Sidi Baranni. The small fleet of tanks was reinforced by large machines shipped from the Spanish civil war. The infantry even received the rare gift of letters from home.
In a dugout that seemed like a safe haven from their desert battle but a long way from the festivity of Rome, Carlo Minnelli
settled down to read his mother’s second letter. The first, just days after his forced enrolment, had taken two months to reach him. But it brought relief that she knew of his whereabouts thanks to Lieutenant Luigi Rivera, who had fulfilled his promise to find her and his grandparents. While this new letter had taken longer—it was dated August 4th, and arrived after Christmas—much of it contained fresh news of interest to him. In her first letter grateful references to Luigi had loomed large, it was the same again in this one, only with a slight difference.
My Dearest Carlo,
I’m finally installed in my small but comfortable apartment in the Via Appia Nuova, not far from the school where I’m again teaching artistic studies. Slightly older students than Lombardy but none I’d trust to draw a portrait of me like you did! Your friend Luigi helped me to move and is still pursuing the army over his hope they will grant you a discharge now France has surrendered. He said to tell you the mills grind slow but at least there hasn’t been a resounding NO from the High Command. There’s also been no further discussion of sending him and other part-time officers overseas, so he can keep reminding army headquarters of your existence. I’m glad for his sake, and mine, and of course yours. He has been most helpful, and it could’ve been quite lonely for me after leaving home, spending a few weeks with my parents then moving here. I enjoy his company for an occasional play or movie. We saw two good Italian films, ‘Grandi Magazzini’ and ‘Ai vostri ordini, signora…’ both with Vittorio de Sica and also a play by Noël Coward called ‘Design for Living’. Much laughter and nice to have someone to laugh with after a long absence…
Carlo stopped reading for a moment. “I wonder,” he said thoughtfully.
“Talking to yourself?” asked Steffano, his closest friend in the company.
“No, just wondering.”
“About what? Or who?”
“My Mamma.”
“The teacher?”
“Yes.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“No.”
“Then what are you wondering?”
“Whether she might be in love.”
Steffano turned and stared at him. “Mamma’s don’t fall in love. At least mine doesn’t. She just complains my father is boring and driving her crazy.”
“Perhaps mine is just thrilled with her new apartment,” Carlo said.
“You think she’s in love with the apartment?” Steffano laughed. That was when he noticed a photograph was included with the letter and requested a look.
“Just modest,” Carlo said, handing it to him. “Nothing special.”
Steffano studied it for a moment, then softly whistled. “Nothing special? You never told me you had a sister who looks like this.”
“A sister? Steffi, what are you talking about?” He saw Steffano tap the figure in the photo and laughed. “I do have a sister who looks a bit like that,” Carlo said, “but you’re gazing at my Mamma.”
“You’re joking, Carlo. C’mon. Nobody’s mother could look like this.”
“She does.”
“Oh my God! Really?”
“Truly. I’ll tell her you’re impressed. She’ll ask you to dinner.”
“But honestly, how could she look like this? She looks about twenty.”
“You’re not the first to say it. She’s forty…or thereabouts.”
“She is absolutely beautiful. Seriously, I could fall in love with someone like her.”
“You may be too late, amico mio.”
“You mean there’s a queue?
“Maybe just a queue of one. But now you can see why I might be starting to wonder…”
“And how do you feel about that?” Steffano asked, but he was never to hear the answer.
Carlo took back the photo of Beatrice, and was about to continue reading the letter when everything around him seemed to explode. First a shell blew a command post to pieces. A shrill whistle sounded the first danger signal then the full warning siren blared its panic alarm across the lines of tents. Startled infantrymen, unprepared for this, stumbled into reality from what had been a relaxed afternoon. A flight of Beaufort bombers with RAF emblems on their wings came from what seemed like nowhere, the late western sun behind them. At the same time a line of British tanks breached the skyline, with massed ground troops in support. It was such an unlikely time for an attack that terror and disarray made defence impossible.
Allied artillery guns commenced firing as an accurate cascade of shells blew up another command post. Noise from the aircraft overhead became intense, drowning the explosive bombs they were unleashing. There was no chance to fight back, the attack was too well timed and relentless; it was chaos, some in search of weapons, others running for their lives. Carlo had dropped the photo and his mother’s letter. In a hasty attempt to retrieve them the blast of a bomb sent him sprawling to the ground. For a moment he was dazed, nearly deafened and unsure of what had happened to him. Trying to rise, his limbs would not obey. He thought he heard Steffano’s voice from a far distance, shouting and urging him to get up, but still he could not move. The sunny afternoon vanished into darkness. Before he regained full consciousness Steffano and most of the platoon were dead. That was when Carlo found himself staring into the eyes of a British squaddie just a metre away, a rifle pointed directly at his face. It was a meagre knowledge of the English language that saved his life.
“Tough shit,” the squaddie spoke in what sounded to Carlo like a cockney accent, while taking aim and about to pull the trigger, “but we don’t take the fucking wounded along with us.”
“I’m not wounded,” Carlo said, raising his hands in surrender.
It was an austere time in Rome. Blistering cold weather was followed by more bad news from Africa. After the shock of the counter-attack at Sidi Barrani Australian troops joined their allies to win back Bardia and Tobruk. The desert war underwent a total change. Italian losses in these battles were massive.
Thousands of prisoners were taken and newsreels confirmed the size of these successive defeats. While the losses were kept from public view in Italy, word of them reached the streets and cafés of Rome where Beatrice Minnelli met with Luigi and other friends.
She’d settled into her new teaching job and the rented apartment but was worried by the lack of letters from Carlo. There had been no reply to her August letter with the photo of her, nor any she’d sent since then. Luigi did his best to explain the delays or losses that could occur in wartime; vessels with letters being sunk, troops moved from one battalion to another and mail going astray in the process. They were also facing the frustration of being unable to secure Carlo’s discharge from the army. Beatrice had read the bleak official statement Luigi brought to her apartment.
The application to the Royal Italian Army for a creative discharge of Private Carlo Minnelli is dismissed on the grounds that France did not submit to Italy, but conceded to Germany; therefore the entitlement to retain custody of the Villa Medici, its grounds and contents, including the scholarship in question, is upheld. All awards to the gallery known as The French Academy remain proscribed without further recourse to appeal.
Signed:
Major Aldo Zuchi for His Majesty King Vittorio Emaneuele lll.
It was dispiriting but what they had begun to expect after so long. It was also apparent the Villa Medici was going to remain shut, probably until the end of the war, however long that might take. It had been a faint hope but all chance of it was now extinguished and each day the lack of any letter brought a growing concern.
Knowing Carlo had been in the Tenth Army, she’d tried to follow their early progress in the newspapers and on the radio. She knew the British counter-attack had caused huge numbers to be taken prisoner, although this was not from official sources, but through Luigi. He’d made a search and been able to promise her some hope; Carlo’s name had not been listed as killed or missing in action on any communiqué. It was uncertain information, but it was a lifeline. She trusted Luigi and believed Carlo must still b
e with remnants of the 10th or else he was a Prisoner of War. Which left her in a quandary. She had to hope he was a prisoner; if so, he’d be alive and safe. But where and under what conditions? Would it be like a gaol or the secretive and harsh German camps they’d heard about?
Following their capture, POWs were searched and then interrogated, after which they were listed by their name, rank and number. The details were sent to the Red Cross who advised Italian Military Headquarters in Rome. Here the names were filed, cross-checked against recruitment lists, and letters went to advise their next of kin. But no one had anticipated the number of captive troops, or the length of time supplying these records would take. Relatives could not have imagined the months that would pass, or how the lack of information emerging from Libya would cause so many delays. During the interminable wait Beatrice could only hope her son was no longer a combatant. Even Luigi realised there must be a special reason for this unconscionable slowness. Later it became known why this had happened and why the British army’s conduct towards some of their prisoners had been suppressed.
No word was published about the treatment of certain POWs after capture. No reports were issued from the desert camp where Carlo and survivors of the 10th army were held, that prisoners had not been provided with food during their first weeks. Captives were given a ration of water but protests of hunger were ignored. In the next four weeks they were issued only with biscuits. All were seriously undernourished before being shipped to England. It was then that concerned British doctors insisted they be properly fed before an official examination. This was followed by a secret inquiry, with details and names of the victims suppressed. In this way their next of kin suffered twice; deprived of news about their loved ones for months, those same loved ones who’d endured this treatment were then assigned to distant and hastily established prisoner of war camps.
The Last Double Sunrise Page 9