Restoration

by Olaf Olafsson

  First to arrive were the paratroopers, followed by the artillery, with the sappers bringing up the rear. We had been warned about the paratroopers and not without reason: they are brutes. The majority of them bear the marks of having spent months at the front, though perhaps it is the glow from the acetylene lamps that makes them appear even more menacing. Their clothes are torn and filthy, their faces dirty, their eyes sunken with exhaustion. We stand at the foot of the stairs, not daring to go any closer. I try to attract their attention but when no one answers, Pritchett eventually steps forward to ask who’s in charge. He is shoved aside, however, because they have just brought a field telephone into the house, and some of the soldiers go straight into the drawing room and slam the apparatus down on the first table they come across. They start pouring into the house in groups, yelling and shouting, charging around and completely ignoring us. The front door is open, and outside in the darkness I can see one vehicle after another coming up the hill. I go outside.

  What a sight! The house is surrounded by cars and trucks, some so battered that I can’t understand how they made it up the hill. One of them is on fire and when the soldiers drive Melchiorre off to fetch a hose, he doesn’t dare refuse. There are two tanks beside the villa; they have been driven into the garden, over flower beds and shrubs, and the soldiers are standing up inside them, apparently lacking the presence of mind to climb out. The moon dips in and out of the clouds and the whole scene is like a bad dream.

  When I finally spot the officers, I hurry over to them. There are two; one from a parachute regiment, I find out later, the other artillery. They are quarreling fiercely and don’t stop until I’m right beside them.

  “Entschuldigung,” I say again, but get no further because the parachute officer interrupts.

  “We need the buildings. You must leave.”

  I’m speechless but somehow manage to stammer: “Where can we go?”

  “You see to her,” he says to the artillery officer and stalks off.

  “There are children here,” I begin. “Orphans. We can’t go . . .”

  He takes off his cap and rubs his forehead. He’s of medium height, neither fat nor thin; his expression is blank.

  “There will be fighting here,” he says. “Have you made any plans for moving the children?”

  “Where can we take them?” I ask.

  “You have two choices,” he says. “Neither of them good. You can either take them down to the cellar and hope it will hold or else dig trenches in the forest. In my view the forest is safer but of course that could change like everything else.”

  “Where is the front line now?” I ask.

  He looks at me as if I’m completely ignorant.

  “This is it.”

  Total chaos reigns inside the villa. The soldiers are charging around, and the children are terrified. Signor Grandinetti and a maid are trying to comfort those who are in tears. Pritchett is standing by the door to the room where they sleep, denying the soldiers access. Some of them look as if they are ready to lay hands on him but something holds them back, at least for the moment. I go up to my room and dress in frantic haste. I’m in the bathroom when I hear someone come in. Returning to the bedroom, I see that one of the soldiers is halfway across the room. I ask what he wants and he leaves without answering. After watching him retreat downstairs, I lock the door to my room.

  The harbinger of dawn is visible in the east, a faint gray luster. Some of the soldiers have flung themselves down on the floor and fallen asleep despite the hubbub. The air is thick with cigarette smoke, the floor muddy from all the tramping feet, and there is a stench of men who have not washed for days, if not weeks.

  Pritchett is facing a tricky situation in the kitchen where the soldiers are demanding food. I call the artillery officer and after some wrangling we persuade him that the children should be fed first. Then we will see what we can do for the soldiers.

  “We don’t have food for all these men,” I say. “You must understand that.”

  “I can’t be answerable for them if they don’t get something to eat,” he says, and it is clear that this is neither an exaggeration nor a threat.

  The artillery men make their preparations for the day. The guns have been set up under the trees in the garden, and the soldiers are hard at it chopping down young cypresses to camouflage the trucks and tanks. I wander around the buildings, watching the countryside emerge from the darkness of night, crawling with troops. They have taken over the garden and are still streaming up the hill from the road in the valley or down the slopes from the east, some on foot, others on horseback. Signorina Harris approaches across the courtyard accompanied by two men she’s been caring for in the clinic and takes them into the kitchen. Apart from this, our people stay indoors.

  I make my way to the chapel. The doors are half open and I am of two minds about whether to lock them. When I approach, I hear the muffled sound of voices and see two soldiers praying before the altar. They don’t notice me and, turning away, I walk across the courtyard and in through the back door.

  The morning passes swiftly. We give the children breakfast, then hand over an agreed ration of food to the Germans—bread, eggs, and shoulders of pork. An army chaplain who arrived in one of the last trucks has been ordered to liaise with us, to my great relief. He is a Franciscan missionary, Father Augusto, and does not seem the fanatical type. He advises us not to leave any valuables lying around and to make sure that the girls and women do not go anywhere unaccompanied. He also urges us to bake as much bread as possible as this will reduce the soldiers’ need for food that is harder for us to spare. We take him at his word and the aroma of baking bread now wafts through the courtyard from the ovens in the fattoria, utterly at odds with the surrounding scenes of turmoil.

  There is fighting farther down the valley; we see the planes descending from the clouds over the slopes of Monte Amiata and hear the distant booming of guns and the crackle of machine-gun fire. It won’t be long before the fighting reaches us. The Germans are everywhere on the retreat, and the army chaplain says that they have suffered heavy losses. The clouds continue to gather, forming a gray roof over the valley; we can only see halfway up the hills above the buildings, and ribbons of fog, torn from the base of the clouds, hang in the trees. As the morning passes, people from the tenant farms and properties to the east of us start coming down the slope, materializing out of the clouds, some on horseback but most on foot with their children in their arms and packs on their backs, bewildered and frightened. A crowd has formed in the courtyard by the back door and is growing by the minute. We give the people bread and something to drink but advise them to turn around and go home because there is no room for any more here and we are more likely to come under attack than are the outlying farms. Few object, not in front of the crowd, not until they get a chance to talk to us privately. Pritchett and I listen and try to comfort them, but this is not easy.

  The farmer from one of the outlying farms says that the Germans have taken both his cows and emptied his pantry; another complains that they have stolen his donkey, his cart, and his food. We nod, then urge them to return home with their families and keep their heads down for the next few days. It is not until we begin to walk away that those who have suffered the worst losses step forward.

  The farmer from Fontalgozzo, a small property highest up the hill, speaks so quietly that we have to strain to hear the words. As he begins to weep, I feel the strength sapping from my body and my stomach shrinking inside me.

  His son was engaged to his neighbor’s daughter. I’ve known them since they were children; they were going to be married in the autumn. This morning the boy encountered two soldiers who had dragged the girl off with the intention of raping her. When he tried to come to her rescue, they shot him. His father carried his body into the house where he is still lying, and his mother refuses to leave him. His fiancée is here with the crowd in the courtyard, he explains when we ask after her, along with her mother and two younger s
isters.

  “Can we bury him in your cemetery?”

  The request catches me unprepared. They still have to fetch the body and bring it down here. By then it will be midday, if they are not held up, and the fighting will have started. But I can’t refuse him, although I explain that they will have to take care of it themselves, as we have neither the manpower nor the time to help them.

  He leaves him, and Pritchett and I watch them go. We do not speak and are still standing there after he has disappeared from sight; it is not until Signor Grandinetti comes running up that we recover our senses.

  “Kristín’s missing,” he says.

  “What?” I exclaim.

  “No one’s seen her this morning.”

  We follow him into the house, slipping past the soldiers, climbing over discarded clothes, ammunition, and rubbish, hurrying as fast as we can to the dining room where Schwester Marie and the farmhands are waiting for us with the children. Schwester Marie tries to keep them amused while we discuss what to do and, strange as it may seem, she succeeds in holding their attention.

  Melchiorre and Giorgio go in search of Kristín, while Fosco, Signor Grandinetti, and Schwester Marie lead the children down to the cellar since the bombs are now falling close enough to rattle the windowpanes.

  “We’re going to play hide-and-seek!” they cry.

  Just as Pritchett is about to leave the room, I hear myself say, “Do you think he’s ever coming back?”

  He comes over and puts his arms around me, laying his right hand against my cheek and pulling me against him. We are standing like this in the middle of the dining room, both exhausted although the day has hardly begun, when the first bomb falls on our hill.

  A WARNING, NO MORE FOR THE MOMENT. ONE BOMB, of medium size, that fell on the uncultivated land halfway up the slope, leaving behind a crater a meter deep in the ground and terror in people’s hearts. The Germans respond with a barrage of counterfire, but the plane has disappeared. The cloud cover sinks lower and lower, turning the world gray: buildings and sky, soldiers and vehicles. We are out in the forest, racing to dig a trench ten meters long in which we can take refuge with the children if the cellar fails to hold. Two soldiers help us, both artillerymen. The trees too are gray, the ground dry and hard. The sky is lit up with flashes in the distance and the air is heavy, humid, and still. Progress is slow. Pritchett tells me to go inside and rest, but physical labor does me good. I enjoy sweating and feeling my muscles grow tired; it provides a respite from thought.

  I take a break at noon and go back to the house. It’s a ten-minute walk and Pritchett insists that one of the workmen accompany me. As I approach the buildings, I see Melchiorre and Giorgio crossing the courtyard with Kristín between them. I hurry over, imagining the worst when they say they found her lying in the stable. She seems distracted and doesn’t look me in the eye. She says nothing until I suggest that she go and take a rest, at which point she shakes her head and apologizes repeatedly, so quietly that the words are barely audible, and for what I don’t know.

  “I want to go to the children,” she says, but instead of answering her, I ask the farmhands to go and help with digging the trench. Then I lead her to the back door.

  My own hand is not large but hers is lost in my palm. It is cold and when I ask her what she was doing in the stable, her hand begins to tremble.

  “I failed,” she says. “I gave up.”

  Not understanding what she means, I hastily try to comfort her.

  “They’ll be happy to see you,” I say, taking her arm and leading her up to her room. “You must rest. I’ll ask Signorina Harris to look in on you.”

  But she won’t lie down. Instead, she stands in the middle of the room with an anguished expression on her face, clenching and releasing her fingers and staring into space.

  “I’ll ask her to look in on you,” I repeat on my way out.

  “Alice,” she says again, “I failed . . . I did a terrible thing . . .”

  I pity her but I can’t stay with her any longer.

  “Rest,” I say. “It’ll get better.”

  Signorina Harris is in the clinic and I ask one of the maids to fetch her before heading down to the cellar to check on the children. They are busy putting on another performance of Snow White; the set and costumes have been brought in from the greenhouse and Signor Grandinetti has dug out the script and started to rehearse the group again. A little girl comes up to me as I stand at the bottom of the stairs and says, “There’ll be more people to watch than last time.”

  Dear children. Whatever is to come, we mustn’t let anything happen to them.

  On my way up from the cellar I come face-to-face with Kristín. The nurse can’t possibly have seen her yet; Kristín hasn’t even waited for her. She doesn’t look at me as she slips past, but I notice that she pauses for an instant on the bottom step before joining the group. Then I hear their cries of joy and understand why she didn’t wait for the nurse but hurried straight down to the children in the cellar, to their healing innocence.

  In the afternoon it rains. At first it is only a fine mist, but then it grows heavier and soon it is falling in a dense, unchanging curtain. The German soldiers are waiting either beside the guns they have set up under the trees in the garden or in the trucks; there is condensation on the cab windows and from time to time a hand emerges to tap the ash from a cigarette. The rain drums on the hoods of the vehicles and on the paving stones of the terrace, or vanishes into the sea of leaves with a low hiss. Our world shrinks; visibility is now down to the middle of the hillside, the fields are lost in the gloom, and the road is far beyond our horizon. The rain gushes from the eaves of the buildings, runs in rivulets along the walls, and collects in large puddles that reflect the gray sky. The soldiers wait.

  They have finished digging the trench and at intervals have inserted pieces of wood onto which they have fastened a waterproof awning. Not that it helps much in this rain; water pours into the trench and the thought of huddling there with the children is terrible. Melchiorre takes a cow into the forest and tethers her to a tree beside the trench so that we won’t run short of milk.

  The fighting has drawn closer. We have lost contact with the outside world, but Father Augusto tells me that the Allied infantry is now approaching Contignano on the other side of the valley and a little farther down. The Germans need reinforcement, so it comes as no surprise when half the artillery starts preparing for departure. I am relieved to see the guns dragged out of the garden and the trucks starting up, the tanks crawling down the hill.

  I am just about to go in the back door to talk to the cook about supper when I see them coming down the slope above the chapel. Although I can only make out vague shadows, I know immediately that it is the family from Fontalgozzo and their neighbors who have come to bury the young man. I hurry across the courtyard toward them. My shoes squelch and I can’t get the noise out of my ears when I come to a halt beside them.

  The farmers lead the way, their womenfolk follow, and three young men bring up the rear with the body. They stare at me without saying a word, drenched, shoulders bowed, and in the end I am the one to break the silence.

  “Won’t you come inside while the grave is being dug?”

  I direct my words to the women, and they glance at one another but then his fiancée answers, “No thank you, I want to stay with him.”

  And then neither the mothers nor the sisters will budge either, so I say, “All right, I’ll ask the farmhands to help you.”

  The fathers have brought their own spades; they’ve carried them all the way here.

  “Will you show us where can we bury him?” his father asks.

  I fetch Fosco, seizing some lanterns on the way, and then head up to the cemetery with the families. We move slowly to avoid slipping in the mud; the rain has grown heavier, if anything, and the twilight has now deepened into darkness that presses in on the feeble gleam of the lanterns. They have dressed the dead man in his Sunday best and wrapped
him in a blanket that is now soaking wet and heavy. The young men pause, wring out the blanket, then lay it over the body again. They catch their breath and their fathers look back to ask if they need help. They shake their heads and carry on. The light flickers, casting our shadows into the gloom; the cemetery lies ahead, beyond it the forest and endless darkness.

  Close to Giovanni’s grave is an empty plot under a large olive tree. I often sit there on hot afternoons. It is a beautiful plot, with a view that is just as fine as the one from my son’s grave—between the tall cypress trees and over the fields and the river down in the valley. I show them the way there and the men start digging; Fosco and the fathers first while the young men lay the body on the stone wall. I move closer to my son, talking to him in silence as I watch them dig, the young men taking the spades from their fathers. I tell him everything will be all right, repeating those words again and again, terribly afraid that it’s a lie. The women move over to the body, the mother holding a lantern, the fiancée drawing the blanket off his face. His eyes are closed and she brushes his hair from his brow and the rainwater from his cheeks and then starts shaking. Unable to watch, I walk into the darkness.

  Our priest has not been seen for two days. Pritchett has heard that he is trapped in Montepulciano; I hope that’s right and that he will stay there. I fetch Father Augusto and ask him to accompany me to the cemetery, telling him what’s happened on the way.

  They are just finishing the digging when we arrive. Fosco has fetched Melchiorre and they have brought a coffin from the workshop and placed it on the path by the grave. The boys lift the body from the wall, unwrap it from the blanket, and lay it in the coffin. The young man’s mother kneels on the ground and tidies his jacket and shirt, saying something I can’t hear. Is it different losing your son to violence rather than illness? I ask myself. Is it different losing him when he’s grown? Or is the pain always the same? The never-ending, unbearable pain.

  They stand in a tight knot while the army chaplain performs the last rites. His words briefly interrupt the noise of the rain, which enfolds us again as soon as he falls silent.