The Golden Hour - Margaret Wurtele
Page 7
I tentatively poked my head around the corner of the first-floor kitchen when I arrived home. Rosa stood at the counter, her back to me, kneading a pile of flour and eggs into pasta dough for supper.
“Rosa?” I was keenly aware of the value of her time. As children, we had learned to keep our distance, to respect her territory. She turned her head briskly, her white-powdered hands still hovering over the emerging dough. No answer. She turned back to her task.
“Rosa, may I speak with you a moment?” I waited a beat. “It’s important.”
“Not now, Giovanna.”
I came up next to her, as if to examine the pasta dough, and stood there for a few minutes. I took a deep breath. “I’m in touch with Giorgio.”
Her hands froze. I knew what was going on inside her. If Giorgio was alive, if he was safe, then maybe there was hope for Gigi as well. “Tell me.” She took up the kneading again, leaning her weight into it, turning and pressing the elastic mass.
So I stood there next to her as she worked. In a low voice, barely looking at her, I brought her up-to-date. She took it all in, asking no questions, her face unmoving, her eyes trained on her task. Once she looked up. “Does your mother know?”
“Oh, no, she mustn’t. She would tell Papa, and he might force me to reveal their location. No, this must be kept a secret between us. I just know I can trust you.” I didn’t tell her about Catarina being in on the secret.
She mulled it over as she slowly turned the crank of the roller, feeding the long strip of flat dough carefully into the mouth of the hand-cranked machine. Minutes passed. I helped her catch the soft, pliable strips of dough, draping them over my arms, setting them aside to be cut into long noodles.
At last she stopped working and turned toward me. Her face showed no emotion; her eyes seemed not to blink at all. “There are two rules.”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to jump for joy.
“You will never—ever—take anything I have not prepared for you.”
“Of course not, Rosa.”
“And you will not tell Giorgio or anyone else I am involved.”
“If you like. I promise.” I knew better than to hug her or even take her hand. “You won’t regret it, Rosa. That much I know.”
Chapter Six
Rosa—dear, trusted, dour Rosa—became my touchstone, the axis around which my new world revolved. Every afternoon after working at the school, I would stop by and check in with her. I was never sure how she managed to spare such quantities of food, but one day she handed me a whole sack of dried beans, the next a dozen potatoes and a kilo or two of rice. There were onions from the garden, some garlic and shallots, and dried pasta in various shapes and sizes. We exchanged few words. I simply took the food, loaded it into the bag I carried daily, and then—either on the way to school the next morning or over the lunch hour—traced the well-worn path to the Santinis’.
Life there had changed in recent months, and—I’m sorry to say—it worked to my advantage. Luigi’s mother was very ill, spending more and more time in her second-floor rooms with their heavy velvet curtains pulled tight against the light. It was perhaps because of her illness that, at least until now, they had been spared from German occupation. Signor Santini was in residence, overseeing his vineyards and wine-making operations, but he kept regular hours focused on the winery and the new caves, far from the old cellar.
I could approach from the rear adjoining property, skirt the potting shed, and approach the trapdoor virtually unseen. There was a rusted iron ring attached to the door that lay barely visible in the long grass. I always held my breath, anticipating the loud creak of the loose hinges as the door swung up and back. Down a few earthen steps was a hollowed-out room lined with rotting wooden shelves that once held small barrels of aging wine. They stood empty now, laced with cobwebs. The dirt floor was littered with droppings, small bones, and tufts of rodent hair. I had taken over a couple of the cleaner shelves and quickly learned to be in and out, depositing the new supplies in less than a minute. I worried about Luigi and his brother and sister, but they never seemed to be about, so I soon forgot about them as I gained rhythm and confidence in the routine.
I would watch the pile grow to a satisfying stash, and then, a few days later, I would find the cellar empty. I presumed that Giorgio or one of his comrades had come and retrieved it all during the night. I left that day’s offering with a full heart. But one Friday, everything changed.
I was feeling useful in my new venture and right as rain, as if I were a legitimate soldier in a patriotic movement. That wholeness and sense of purpose carried over into my life at school. Working with the children was no longer my only role in the war. In fact, when I thought of them and their silly games, I couldn’t help but feel that they were keeping me from a higher calling, that I was superior to the work. The fact that I was risking myself to deliver crucial supplies to the partisans gave me a margin of moral capital that I felt I could spend as I wished. In retrospect, it explained why I decided to take the initiative with Klaus, to tempt both myself and him in a way that I knew was dangerous.
Wednesday morning I had left home very early to drop off a delivery. When I arrived at school, no one was around. So I scribbled a note—I’ll be in the kitchen after lunch today. See you at two p.m.?—folded it several times, and left it on Klaus’s desk with a sprig of pink bougainvillea. After it was done, I agonized, but there was no getting the note back. I had the option not to show up, but that felt even more dangerous. I didn’t want to anger him in any way.
At two o’clock there I was, self-consciously wiping the counters and appliances as if to be simply tidying the place. He came in quietly, having left his jacket behind. We were alone. This time he put an arm around my waist right away, led me into the corner, and kissed me before either one of us could change our minds. I felt molten metal oozing into the far reaches of my lower body. I ran my hands down the thin shirt over his back, lodging them into the tight place under his belt at the back of his waist.
“Giovanna.” His breath was uneven. “I have an idea.”
“You do?” I smiled up at him. “What kind of an idea?”
“Of how we can have some real time together.” He kissed me again, on top of my head, then on my ear. “You would like that?”
I nodded, not sure whether to give in to the excitement I felt or listen to the fear that gnawed at my stomach.
“We’ll have a picnic here at the school on Friday—in the evening after work, when everyone has gone. I’ll arrange it all. You need only to find a reason to stay late and not to go home for supper.” He smoothed my hair back down around my ears and rested his hands on my shoulders. “I promise it will be safe. You will come?”
Over the next couple of days, I avoided Klaus as best I could. I either pretended it hadn’t happened at all, that we didn’t have a plan, or that I was planning when and how to call it off. Yet I was afraid he would change his mind. It was insanely dangerous; I knew that. Nevertheless, in my mind I had managed to separate Klaus from his compatriots, the rough-talking occupiers who lived in our house, who I knew were threatening the lives of our friends and acquaintances, who were making life miserable for us in every way.
With great excitement Violetta agreed to let me sleep over on Friday. I didn’t tell her about Klaus, only that my family expected me to stay home for supper and that I would come after that. To complete my cover, I needed now only to work on my parents.
I came into the tiny parlor. Papa was sitting hunched over the radio, which was turned down very low. He put his finger to his lips and gave me a little wave of his hand, so I stood there waiting and listening with him. The announcer was broadcasting from newly liberated Rome, detailing the progress of the Allies, now working their way into eastern Tuscany.
That was all far to the south of us and all the way across Italy, but my heart leaped with excitement and hope. There had been steady progress reported each day, but it never seemed to change the
heavy blanket of occupation that lay suffocating our own beleaguered region. At last Father looked up. He was distracted, his face creased with worry and confusion.
“They are coming, aren’t they?” I offered tentatively.
“Who knows, piccola, who knows?” He pinched the top of his nose between his fingers. “The Germans have doubled their defenses south of us. They are strong and determined. We must never let them see that we are looking toward Allied victory. You know that.”
I looked away from him at the floor.
“Did you want to ask me something?”
“Yes, Father, I…” He looked suddenly so vulnerable, so reduced, perched on his chair, hemmed in by war. Love and concern flooded over me, and I felt a stab of shame that there was so much about my life at that moment that he didn’t know or have any part of. But I pressed on. I heard my own voice, coming from some source beyond me, casual and upbeat. “I wanted to let you know that Violetta and I want to spend tomorrow night at her house in the village. It’s been so long, and I need a little change of scenery.” I looked him straight in the eye, and I even felt a little smile lift the corners of my mouth.
He looked at me. “Well, I don’t know why not.” He stood up, leaned toward the radio, and turned it off. “There’s a curfew on the streets, of course.”
“Oh, I know that, Father. We’ll be inside.”
He nodded. “I’ll let your mother know. She’s gone to bed early.”
I rushed to him and threw my arms around his shoulders. “Thank you, Papa.” As I held him, my own duplicity pressed up in my throat and made me step back and turn away. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
After Friday’s lunch, I set off from home, lugging an overnight satchel that was heavier than usual. It concealed, in addition to my change of clothes, at least a dozen potatoes and a kilo of rice, which I dropped through the trapdoor on my way back to school. As I reached the school’s gate, I ran into the two sisters coming the other way.
“Going somewhere?” Sister Graziella looked down at my bag with a curious smile.
“Oh, Violetta and I are planning a night together at her house,” I said lightly, avoiding her eyes.
“How nice, dear. Give her my best, won’t you?” She patted me affectionately on the back. I stole a look at Sister Elena, who paid no attention to the exchange.
Then everything fell into place as easily as a perfect game of solitaire. We had an extra-large number of compositions left at the end of the day, so I volunteered to stay late and finish correcting them.
“Are you sure Violetta isn’t expecting you?” asked Sister Graziella.
“No, Sister. She lives close to the school, so I’ll have some extra time. It’s no problem.” I watched both her and Sister Elena leave by the front gate.
Shortly after that, as the soldiers began quitting too, the air was alive with loud laughter, slamming doors, jeep engines starting up. Otto was the second-to-last to leave. He clipped the leash onto Panzer, calling a bit of something in German to Klaus. Had Klaus asked him to take the dog home that day? Then he was gone as well, and I knew it was just the two of us.
When I look back on this moment, I am still astounded at my own hubris. There I was, on course for a rendezvous with a Nazi soldier. He was older than I was by ten years, and that’s a lot at that age. Not only that, he was married and a father. Worst of all, he was the enemy. But my fears stemmed more from my own inadequacies than from anything related to war. It occurred to me that Klaus might have expectations far beyond my own limited experience with boys.
All sound died away. I sat there as unmoving as a small rodent in the shadow of a hawk. The papers weren’t finished, because I’d been too distracted to work. I folded my hands and froze in place. Minutes went by; then footsteps approached along the wooden loggia. I stared straight ahead.
“Giovanna?” I looked up, and Klaus was leaning in through the open window. He looked young and eager and, well, kind. “Everyone is gone now.”
I nodded slowly. Then he smiled broadly at me, and my fears dried up like beads of water on a hot skillet.
“Are you ready for a picnic?”
I got up, leaving the pile of unfinished papers on the table, and headed for the door. He offered me his arm in an exaggerated gentlemanly fashion and walked me back to the school’s kitchen. The table was spread with an army blanket in lieu of a tablecloth, and two places were set with the school’s cracked, mismatched plates. There were forks and knives by the plates, and two of the children’s milk glasses standing empty. On the table were scattered a loaf of bread, a length of sausage, a hunk of cheese, a small jar of olives, and—placed in the middle of it all—a wicker-basketed bottle of Chianti. He grinned and looked at me like a proud child. “Shall we dine, signorina?” He pulled out one of the chairs and made a sweeping gesture, as if I were a princess.
“You must have just done this—so fast!” I sat down carefully, pulling my chair up to the table.
“I’ve had two days to plan, and it’s been much easier than mining a bridge.” He winked at me. “Now, buon appetito.” He poured me a half glass of wine and began to slice the salami and cheese.
It was delicious, and I was suddenly ravenously hungry. No one was about, and being alone with him was so new and so freeing. We both ate greedily, and, lulled by the wine, we let ourselves relax.
I wanted to know more about Mathilde and the baby, but instead I asked him about how he decided to be an engineer. He told me his father had been an engineer, and his grandfather before that. He had a sister, who was also married, and whose three small children were keeping his parents busy in Germany.
“They love to have the grandchildren, so they don’t miss me so much,” he said, and the other grandchild—his own son—dangled there in the air like a ripe peach. But I didn’t pluck it.
I was afraid he might move on to my own siblings, so I quickly said, “Tell me how the work around Lucca is going.” Now, this was odd, even insane, asking the enemy for details of his defense work, but the intimate setting made it almost feel that we were on the same side.
He told me more about the Todt unit (named for a Nazi soldier) that he and his fellow officers commanded, how they had taken over the railroad, and how important the bridges were to moving about the Serchio River valley. Apparently our whole area was a key part of the line of defense for the retreat of the German troops. Areas of our valley made up part of the Gothic Line of defense that stretched all the way across Italy from Pisa in the west to the eastern Adriatic coast. “So, for us to retreat, it will be important to destroy the bridges behind us as we go, you see?”
We had almost finished the bottle of wine. I was feeling tipsy and quite comfortable now. “You know what I think?”
“What do you think, my beauty?” There was something so attractive about him, so vulnerable and sweet when he was in a mood like this. He leaned toward me over the corner of the table and rested his chin on his fist. “I’m listening.”
“I think…” I started to giggle. “I think if you want to defeat the Italians, you should mine their wine cellars, not their bridges.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” He frowned in a mock serious way. “Mine their wine cellars! That is a brilliant strategy. I will pass it on to my superior officers.” He leaned over and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “And now for dessert.” He carried the dishes to the sink, rinsed them quickly, and cleared the table, putting the scraps into a small canvas army sack. “Bottoms up!” He poured the very last of the wine into my glass and added the bottle to the sack. I was waiting for him to bring out the dessert, but instead he whisked the blanket off the table and took me by the hand. “Come with me.” Where were we going?
He led me into the front part of the kitchen, into a cloakroom, open on one end, where in winter the children’s jackets and coats were hung. A few large duffel bags were scattered there, and he laid the blanket ceremoniously over them. “Now Bacchus will feed you grapes on a silver platter.”
My head swirled. I had never felt quite like this before: greedy, impatient, like I couldn’t get enough of his mouth, his tongue. There was now a tight knot of tension that burned in my stomach, then between my legs, that made me press my hips up, up, and pull him hard against me. I felt one of his hands reach up and begin to unbutton my blouse. He was actually doing that—unbuttoning my blouse! I drew in my breath and held it, waiting to see what it would feel like to have him touching my bare breast, when I felt the shock of his other hand going up my skirt between my legs. Both at once. What was happening? I pulled away a little, pushing him back at the chest. “Klaus, I’m not sure I should be doing this. I—”
He covered my mouth with tiny kisses to silence me. “It feels good, doesn’t it, my beauty?”
“It does; of course it does.” He opened the hand under my skirt and began to stroke the inside of my thigh. It felt soft and warm, and oh…that funny knot was tighter and tighter. I was so torn between the hot waves of desire shooting through me and the uneasiness I felt at the speed of it all. I was just closing my eyes again when he propped himself up on his elbow, drew the hand out from under my skirt, and began to unbuckle his belt. “I will show you now what feels best of all.” What did that mean? Was he planning to take his pants off?
No, no, the thought of that was too much. I pushed my skirt down again and rolled over with my back to him. “Klaus, I’m just not ready for this. I’ve never—”