Wolf on the Mountain

by Anthony Paul

  ‘I’ve missed you, uncle Roberto. And I can’t tell anyone I’m missing you. My friends say I look so sad, but I don’t tell them why. I’m keeping our secret very well, aren’t I, Mamma?’

  ‘Yes you are, Anna. I don’t know how, because you talk so much. And uncle Roberto and I have things we must talk about.’

  ‘Mamma says you’ll be going home to England when the summer comes. When you go home, will you send me some toothpaste? I love toothpaste, and it’s so long since we’ve had any.’

  ‘Of course I will, Anna, but I’m not going back yet. You’ll have to keep our secret a little longer, until I go.’

  ‘I promise. It’s lovely having secrets. And if I don’t keep it you won’t send me any toothpaste.’

  ‘That’s quite enough, Anna. Now why don’t you go off and see if you can find some butterflies while I talk to your uncle.’

  –

  ‘It’s bad in the village’ Elvira says. ‘The bombers don’t come so often now, but they’d be wasting their time if they did. There’s nothing left to destroy. It only seems to be fighters coming now, and they only pick on the German traffic. You heard about the riot at the station? It shows how desperate people are if they’re prepared to risk being shot for food. They’re even eating their dogs now. Your army had better come soon, before we all starve to death.

  ‘If only they’d sent us radios. We could be telling them these Germans were ready for the taking. All they do is hide when the fighters come. And all the time our young men are digging trenches for them alongside the very roads the English fighters are shooting at.

  ‘We worry so much for Luigi. He’s being fed by the Germans, but not much. It’s some consolation, I suppose. I just hope that when the fighters come they’re just finishing a trench, and can dive into it, rather than just beginning to dig it.

  ‘We still haven’t heard from Enrico. It’s eighteen months since the fascists sent him to Russia, a year since we had his last letter. He must be lost. And if we lose Luigi too…

  ‘I mustn’t cry. It hasn’t happened yet. And I must be brave for Anna.

  ‘Vincenzo says you’ve decided to stay until the Allies come. I’m glad. You’re almost another son, and I’ll be proud if you help us get rid of these Germans. Every day counts if we’re not to starve. Don’t get yourself killed. I couldn’t stand another death.’

  –

  Roberto watches Elvira, holding little Anna’s hand, set back down to the village through the bare trees. Anna turns to wave goodbye, but her mother does not.

  Elvira has changed: instead of the proud, stocky country woman, taking the mountain in her stride, there is someone so much older, smaller, than when he first met her in December, then full of energy and optimism for liberation, both from the Germans and the old regime. Now she is careworn, hunched in the shoulders, seemingly resigned to bereavement. The doctor was right. The villagers do need the partisans to do something to raise their spirits.

  maggio

  35

  Over the last few days the thaw has gained in pace. Every morning, after a period of cool white haze, the sun has burned the dawn’s moisture away and pushed the snow further up the mountains, although some mornings they have awoken and seen that last evening’s shower of rain has dusted the lower slopes white, picking out the shapes of the bare trees once again. Now the mountains are showing higher features blue and arcs of white and the vertical streaks up the gullies show the contours hidden from the sun. There is a constant downhill trickle of water, moistening the soil and the roots of the trees. Every day different wild flowers, yellow, pink, white, blue, purple, some large, some small, appear in the grass; a clump of trees further up the hill turns reddish, another shows a shower of white or grey buds, another tentatively uncurls its little leaves. Every afternoon, as the temperature slips again, the tops of the mountains turn dazzling in the sun as the thin layer of the day’s thaw freezes again and doubles the golden reflection from the snow.

  Vincenzo and Roberto are on a spur looking down into the valley, hidden in the tangled roots, like mossy snakes, of a tree undermined by an earlier spring. Ever since the petrol tanker was blown up it has been their pastime to come to this spot and wait for a Spitfire. There is no fixed time. Sometimes no plane comes. It is as if the pilots have been given carte blanche to go off and find some Jerries and give them hell. They sit and pass the day, scanning the horizons, listening for the sound of an engine from a hidden valley above the sound of the constant trickle of thawing water down the hill. When one comes they watch and admire the perfection of the machine, its speed, the power of its engine, the beauty of its shape, its camouflage until it bears away from them and shows its underside of duck egg blue against the far side of the valley, its responsiveness to the pilot’s controls that makes its cannon fire so accurate. It is like a man-made hawk which has the natural predator’s accuracy, but greater speed, when it spots its prey and swoops down for the kill.

  The Germans are clearly worried by the appearance of these planes in the valley. Daylight traffic is dwindling and all along the roadsides slave-gangs are at work digging trenches for their masters to dive into if a fighter comes, dog-leg trenches so that there is cover whichever way the fighter comes. There are two gangs at work below them, all the workers stripped to their shirts as they labour in a valley to which spring has come at last.

  Up on the spur it is still cold, the dwarf trees barely in bud. They are two weeks further back in winter.

  Their calm is broken by the sound of a Spitfire coming up the valley from their right.

  Down below them the men in the gangs are still oblivious to the sound, blocked off by the shape of the valley, muffled by the rustling of the leaves on the trees.

  –

  It is warm work. Luigi has never had to work so hard before. At least there is food of sorts in the workers’ camp, but it is poor, the Germans seeing no need to look after the nation that had betrayed them by surrendering as soon as the Allied armies arrived on their soil. Each night they troop back under guard to the concentration camp, pass through the gate in its barbed wire fence, eat thin maize porage, and fall asleep exhausted in their bunks. Each dawn they are woken again and marched unfed to swing their pickaxes and mattocks down into the stony soil to make the trenches.

  On the other side of the river their fathers and mothers and sisters are also tending the soil, made heavy by the water from the thawing snow on the mountain that has run down into the valley for days on end. Already the first green of growing corn is showing through the reddish earth, the fig trees are in bud, the olive trees showing small white blossom. There is hope for fresh food in a few months’ time. But instead of digging the soil for food these farmers’ sons are digging holes to save their oppressors, delay their liberation.

  Yet the warmth of the day brings hope. It is warmth that will swell the growing of the plants that will bear the food. The almond and pear trees are showing white and pink blossom that in time will become nuts and fruit. The poplar trees have in days shown red buds, then orange leaves, then yellow, and are now in full green leaf to provide shelter from the sun when summer comes. The snowline on the mountain opposite has risen higher every day. It will also have risen on the mountains to the south over which the Allied army will come.

  The workmen chat as they swing their tools, pointing out new signs of the spring and warmth that will bring their liberation. The guards shout at them to renew their efforts, but know that in the heat they need from time to time to rest on their tools, wipe the sweat from their brows that trickles down and refracts the sunlight through their eyelashes. But for the digging of the trenches it would be a lovely day. Brilliant red poppies are appearing all over the verges, other flowers of white and yellow and blue. The wind whishes through the poplar leaves. The molten snow of the valley rushes down the river now so full that its banks might overflow.

  Everything around them, but for their German guards, speaks of growth and hope. Yet every one of th
em is scared. The guards, their rifles slung on their shoulders, spend as much time looking to the sky up and down the valley as at their charges, would rather a man escaped than that they failed to spot a fighter plane bearing down on them. Always at least one of the workers, taking his turn, is looking for the same threat to their lives, ready to shout the warning that will send them running and diving into the trench they were digging yesterday.

  Luigi is distracted by a movement against the high mountain opposite. An eagle is floating slowly on a current that sets him sometimes against the high white snow and then the sky. Suddenly the eagle resets its wings and with no effort it seems is diving towards its prey. He stops digging, leans on his mattock and wipes his eyes to better watch its dive. It distracts him for a second as the roar of an aircraft engine comes from around a spur behind him, a guard shouts ‘Spitfeu!’, and spurts of dust and soil are kicked up by bullets travelling a straight line along the road and then its verges towards the working men.

  –

  The plane is gone but for the first time Vincenzo and Roberto are not cheering a victory. The men around the trench are huddled, not working. Someone has been shot. If it were a German they would be scattering for their freedom while their guards were distracted. It must be one of the Italians, someone they know.

  ‘Why did he open fire, Roberto? He must have known they were local workers.’

  ‘They had soldier guards, with helmets and rifles. How was he to know they weren’t all soldiers?’

  ‘If only we had a radio and could tell them. So many innocent people are being killed. They don’t know that. And they don’t know how weak the Germans are. They could just walk in here if they wanted to. How many more will die before they come?’

  The Germans commandeer a stretcher party to take the man back to the village. Vincenzo and Roberto walk back to the shepherd hut in silence, knowing they will soon hear who the man is, wondering how badly he is injured. No-one speaks over supper that night. Roberto sneaks back to his hide to sleep alone, but barely sleeps.

  –

  All the partisans are hiding in places where they can look down into the village. The danger is too great for any of them to go down for Luigi’s funeral. The Germans will know that every man in hiding wants to be there. They have come down as close as they can. The tolling of a single, deep, church bell rolls out across the valley and up its sides.

  Four old men drag a two-wheeled cart up the street of the Golvis’ house. There are no horses or oxen left to draw it. A bare wooden coffin, a posy of wild poppies on its lid, is carried through the front door and laid on the cart between its high spoked wheels. The family follow it out and take their places behind, Carlo holding Elvira up, Anna’s face buried in the fold of Nonna’s black cloak. Most of the village it seems is lining the streets and, as the cart goes past on its circuitous way to the church, joins the back of the procession. Everywhere women are slapping their hands in front of their faces, falling to their knees, crossing themselves and being helped to their feet. From time to time the sound of communal wailing is carried up on a whiff of wind. The crude catafalque reaches the church where the priest is waiting on the steps and the crowd disperses to leave the family to their god and their grief. The family, pitiful, stumbling, alone, are ushered in through the doors.

  The partisans remain silent. None looks at another, none looks at Roberto.

  The English captain is struggling to recall his English prayers, but the words ‘valley of the shadow of death’ are all he can manage. The thoughts they encompass are in his head but the words come out as a meaningless jumble of English and Italian. That it is come to this, the son of the family that has risked its lives to protect him killed by a careless Englishman, buried like a pauper with no pomp and ceremony, unattended by any of the young men of the village, his friends.

  –

  Vincenzo and he go for a long walk on the mountain. ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ he had said, ‘these things happen in war. Do you want to talk about it?’

  They walk for hours: in and out of sheltered glades where the small oak trees are already in brilliant green leaf, their coarse grey barks suddenly lifelike, making the evergreen bushes that had provided the only colour in winter look dull and lifeless; over bare moors; in and out of the upper beech forests where last year’s leaves, now dried out after their winter under snow, are being teased up and skittled around by the wind; occasionally to the lower pastures where lambs should be feasting on the bright new grass. Everywhere patches of nature are rejoicing in their own private springs.

  ‘They don’t deserve it, Roberto. Enrico missing, Luigi dead, both at the hands of the armies fighting to liberate us. And after losing Giuseppe to the fascists.’

  Roberto stops. ‘Giuseppe? Who was he?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? Giuseppe Golvi, the schoolteacher. He was Carlo’s elder brother.’

  ‘My God, they never told me. And I asked Elvira about the teacher without knowing.’ He slaps his palm to his forehead. ‘The Giobellinis had said what had happened to the schoolteacher was “unfortunate”, I asked her about it, and she told me the story in a way that never suggested he was kin. In fact she described it as the reason why the doctor was so anti-fascist.’

  ‘Ah yes, the doctor. He and the Golvis share the same griefs. Did you never wonder why they were so close? Why they hated the fascists so much? Why they were so suspicious when the Giobellinis offered to help shelter you? Can you imagine what it was like for them to have to co-operate with them?’

  ‘Were they involved when the schoolmaster was lynched?’

  ‘In the gang that did it? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But the fascist party covered it up, and Natale was one of its strongest supporters.’

  ‘Why didn’t Elvira tell me?’

  ‘Did the Golvis tell you their names before the Giobellinis told you?’

  ‘No, they didn’t.’

  ‘There you are. How do you think the anti-fascists managed to keep their organisation going for twenty years without learning to keep their secrets? You’ve never heard the doctor’s name, have you? And you’d never have learned the Golvis’ names but for that fascist bastard. The Gestapo could have tortured you to the edge of death and you’d have been despairing to know a name you could give them and end your pain, but you wouldn’t have known a single one.’

  Vincenzo looks over his shoulder down into the valley, looks for movement, pulls Roberto’s arm to start him moving again. ‘The doctor has never once been up to the camp, even before the raid in December. You and I are the only ones up here who know he even exists. Why do you think that only Elvira and her children ever came up here? It’s easier for a woman. People just assumed she was another mother coming up to feed the young men of the village. Every evening she’d go back to the village with our news, every morning she’d come back with food and news from the wireless in her house and give our leader the capo’s instructions, passed on to her by who knows who, when they were alone. Wasn’t it she who took you down to listen to the radio?’

  Roberto fell silent. Unexplained things were suddenly understood. He had the aegis of the family of the murdered schoolmaster, mentor to so many children of the village. So many people owed them a debt of sorrow, people who had turned away the first time Elvira had taken him into the village, had done so again the next night when he went in on his own. It was no wonder that his visits behind Luigi as his guide had been unremarked. Curious they may have been at this tall stranger slipping into the village, but their curiosity had been kept behind their teeth.

  How much else could be explained by this? The oppressive secrecy in the Golvi house itself, a house stripped of books or anything that would reveal its family’s station in life? Elvira’s reaction when she heard of the capo’s death?

  If only he could remember what the doctor had said at their last meeting.

  36

  Luigi’s death cannot pass without the locals knowing that there are partisans fighting on
their behalf. It is time to foray down into the valley, but further south, where it is wider and there is flatter cover to the sides of the roads, farmers to see them and spread the word amongst the countrymen.

  With two rifles between the six of them, easy to show to the peasants, easier to discard if they see a German patrol, they descend into a warm day. On the lower reaches of the mountain the trees are fully out, their rustling leaves a welcoming sound. Green lizards appear on the skull-like rocks to watch them cautiously by. The odd yellow butterfly flutters from new pollen to new amongst the wild flowers of every colour. A solitary cicada rubs his legs, then thinks better of it, but has given a hint of greater warmth to come. At this height the valley smells of spring, an intoxicating scent that is still absent further up. Wild sage is showing grey and pale mauve in the pastures, scents of pine and thyme and the heady musk of yellow broom are carried on the breeze.

  Guido has an uncle who lives nearby and goes off to find him while the others crouch behind a dry stone wall. They sit on the uncle’s pile of stones. It is warm in the sun and the olive trees shimmering their silver leaves promise greater heat to come. Around the bases of the trees green grass and scarlet poppies tussle for moisture and the stony earth between is newly hoed. Above the wall tripods of canes show where the beans have been planted in the next field. All is in good order for the summer, but the farms are strangely empty.

  Guido returns. ‘No Germans. Not a single vehicle today. The planes have obviously got them worried. He says it’s because of the English radio operator they haven’t yet caught, and they never will, he says, because the locals wouldn’t turn him in for a million lire. Does that make you feel happy, Roberto?’

  ‘The bombers coming would make me happier. You all know what to do when they come?’

  ‘Have patience’ says Guido. ‘If they come, we’ll know what to do. If they don’t, they don’t. My uncle’s bringing us some food.’