“Tell me what?”
“Those two guys are Jewish. You’ve got to be really careful about this, little sister. They can’t stay with us long—it’s too much of a risk for everyone. But I told Moses I’d get help for his arm. Can you come back midweek? I don’t think it can wait until Sunday.”
I glanced back over my shoulder, quietly absorbing this piece of news, looking at the two brothers with new eyes. Everyone knew the Fascist party had some laws on the books about Jews, but I wasn’t aware that they posed any real danger to them.
“What do you mean, too much of a risk?”
Giorgio looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Are you so naive as that?”
I stared blankly back at him.
“Since September, since the occupation, the Germans have had an all-out manhunt for Jews anywhere in Italy. If they’re found, they’re put on trains and sent…I don’t know—east somewhere. I guess they’re put in prison camps or forced to do hard labor.”
“But why?” I knew of Jews, of course, but as far as I knew, that term had always just referred to their religion. They’d worked with Father as bankers or in the textile business.
“It’s happening all over Europe, Giovanna.” Giorgio was whispering now. “It’s part of what Hitler is trying to do. Don’t you remember hearing about the racial laws? It’s all connected. The hard-core Fascists believe Jews are inferior—polluting our population—and they just want them out of here, separate.”
I looked back at Patch and Moses again. There was nothing to distinguish them in looks or manner from any of the other friends my brother had shown up with over the years.
“Giorgio, are you sure?”
“Am I sure? Do you remember the Lazzato family, the guy who worked with Father and moved to New York a couple of years ago?”
I did. We knew the Lazzatos well when we lived in Lucca most of the year. Signora Lazzato was a fine pianist who used to play duets with Mother on occasion. Her husband had a reputation as an ace salesman who Father thought was destined for big things. Then, all of a sudden, they had left the country. “I thought they went to New York to start a business there.”
“That’s what they told everyone, of course, but those two could see all of this coming. They were smart—and damn lucky too, let me tell you. Today it’s impossible to get out. Most of the Jews in northern Italy are hidden away somewhere. They’ve been on the run since September, but now it’s really bad. These guys are red meat to the German wolves.”
How could I have missed all this? No one talked about it; that much was certain. I wondered what Klaus would say. “Where are they all hiding?”
“How should I know?” Giorgio looked away, irritated and impatient. “We’ve got to go now, keep moving. Just tell me you’ll get the medical stuff and be back here Wednesday about five.”
I nodded, studying the two men.
“And, Jesus, don’t tell a soul about this, Giovanna.”
I spent the next twenty-four hours mulling over what I had just learned. I just couldn’t believe it was true, that a whole segment of the Italian population was being singled out and hunted down. Were Jews a threat to the Germans in some way? What were they afraid of? Were the marchesa and others like her hiding Jews along with the escaped prisoners? Mostly I was ashamed that all of these new developments were not new. They had been going on for months—years, really—while I had remained oblivious.
I resolved to try to find out what my parents knew. We were gathered around the small table as usual the following evening. After Rosa had left the room, I took a tentative sip of wine. “Do you know about what’s been happening with the Jews?”
Father looked at me and laughed. “The Jews! Now instead of talking about Jews, let’s talk about you, young lady. Sister Graziella stopped by again this afternoon looking for you.”
I felt my hands go cold.
“I told her you were working at the clinic, but she didn’t have time to go there. She said she needed to see you about an important matter, and that she would expect you to be at the convent on Friday afternoon.”
“Did she”—I stared at my plate, pushed a piece of spinach with my fork—“say what it was about?”
“No, she didn’t. But, Giovanna, I have to say I didn’t get the feeling she was pleased. Has something happened? Does she have some new reason to be upset with you?”
She had not told them about the substituted note. An image of her plump, warm hands with their neatly trimmed nails and single gold band flashed in my mind. How could I possibly repay her? On the other hand, I knew that Father had not yet forgiven me; nor was he likely to give me a second chance anytime soon. There was an edge of sarcasm in nearly everything he said to me since the incident with Klaus. He was seeing me with new eyes, and he wasn’t sure he liked what he saw.
“No…but…Papa, what about the Jews? Do you know about what has been happening to them?”
Silence. Father looked at Mother. “What do you mean, ‘happening’?”
“Well, I’ve heard they’re all being hunted by the Germans, having to hide out to avoid being sent to prison.”
“Who told you that?” Father was being deliberately casual.
“Oh, someone at the clinic mentioned something about it today.”
“Someone Jewish?”
“No, just someone. People were talking about it. What exactly are the racial laws?”
He clenched his jaw. “Giovanna, what does this have to do with you? This doesn’t concern us.” He tore off a piece of bread.
“I just want to know. If there are laws, why can’t we talk about them? You’ve been part of the Fascist party, Papa. What are they for?”
Father put down his fork and pushed his chair back a little as if to give himself space. “They were just something Mussolini had to do—to get along with the Germans, that’s all. They’ve been on the books, but I don’t think anyone’s taken them all that seriously.”
Mother shook her head. “Until now, that is. The truth is, they are cruel; that’s what they are.”
“But why? Just because of their religion? What have they done wrong?”
“Nothing, Giovanna. Nothing. It’s just a policy, something the government decided to do.” Father’s fingers were turning white where he was gripping the edge of the table. “Your mother and I have no problem with those people. As you know, I worked with a couple of Jews in Lucca at the company. They went to military school with your brother. We’re not part of this at all. So just forget about it. It doesn’t concern you, and it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
As I sat there, looking at Father and listening to him, inside I began to rise, to swell. I felt for a moment as if I were watching the scene from above, perched high like a bird on a branch. I knew he was wrong about this, and his being wrong shrank him somehow to the size of a child or even a tiny animal. But it was funny, because the wrongness, the smallness, made him suddenly—despite his unhappiness with me—easier to love. Like he couldn’t hurt me in the same way anymore, like being his daughter was now, oddly, something I could accept with equanimity.
“Okay, Papa, I’m going to bed now.” I kissed him tenderly on the forehead, and my lips lingered there, feeling the deep lines between his eyes.
I tossed and turned for a long time, trying to let go of the day, of Father and the meeting I would have to have with Sister Graziella. At one point, thinking about my time at the gazebo, I remembered a tiny thing. Giorgio had herded the three others away like a mother dog with her pups. Just before the forest swallowed Moses’s camouflage, I saw him turn back to look at me one more time. It wasn’t anything you’d notice, really, but I happened to catch him. He knew it too, and being sure of that allowed me finally to drift off to sleep.
Chapter Twelve
Father’s words insinuated themselves into the base of my skull and stayed there, pricking and irritating me like a rough collar that I couldn’t loosen or take off. It doesn’t have anything to do with us. But it
did; of course it did. Maybe we couldn’t change the Germans’ determination to rid Italy of Jews, but couldn’t we at least talk about it? And couldn’t we—no, shouldn’t we—be actively doing whatever we could to help?
I agonized about this for the next day or so, not saying anything to anyone, but thinking about it all the time. The thought of them hiding gnawed at me. Somebody was aware of what was happening and cared. But who? Who was worrying about the Jews? Everyone in my life was so busy worrying about the partisans and their own missing sons. Of course, Giorgio and his fellow fighters were in mortal danger too. If the Germans got hold of them, they could and probably would be shipped off to prison or labor camps as well, so what was the difference?
I knew there was a difference and that it lay in the racial laws and everything they implied. But it made me boil, and the anger I felt started consuming me. I needed to get back to Patch and Moses so I could find out more.
“Violetta, I need some advice.” She was busily making her rounds, moving from bed to bed, intent on her tasks, and not really paying any attention to me. I padded after her like a dog. “What exactly should you do for someone who has an infected arm?”
“How big is the wound? What does it look like?” she asked absentmindedly, bending over and smoothing the sheets under a bearded old man who was snoring loudly in his sleep.
How could I have been so stupid as not to look at it? Typical me, worried more about my own stomach than helping Moses. I would have to make this up. “It’s a wound that came from getting too close to an explosive,” I began, pretending to be both confident and casual. “The flesh is…open and bloody, and now…” I searched, hoping for inspiration. “It’s infected. It’s kind of…” I remembered a skinned knee I had had years ago. “There’s pus around it, and it’s turning sort of green.” That was the best I could do.
“Okay, Giovanna.” She sighed impatiently, turned to face me, and wiped some sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Come with me.” I could tell she just wanted to get rid of me, but at least I’d gotten her attention. “Whose arm is it?” she asked as I followed her down the narrow stone stairs and into the chapel, to the supply room. “Anyone I know?”
“Just a guy who’s working with my brother,” I said. “I don’t know him either, but he was in Giorgio’s class in school.”
Violetta rummaged in the shelves, pulling out a roll of gauze, tape, and a bar of soap. “Clean it really well before you bandage it. Then, if it’s seriously infected, you could give him a shot of penicillin.” She added a small bottle of sterile water.
“A shot? Come on, Violetta; you know I couldn’t do that.”
“Well, if he has a fever, you really should. An infection like that could be dangerous. It’s a new medication and there isn’t really much of it available, but we have a little here. If you need it, I’ll give you a dose and show you how. Here, take a thermometer for now.” She bundled everything in a piece of paper and handed it over. “Good luck, and let me know what happens. If it gets worse, you could always bring him here.”
I nodded, but I wondered, Could I? Were any of these patients Jewish? I didn’t think so. I certainly couldn’t risk it until I knew more.
Giorgio, Moses, and Patch were already there when I arrived at the gazebo on Wednesday afternoon. The medical supplies were tucked into the bottom of my bag along with some fresh bread and as much extra rice and beans as I could carry. I had been trying, on the way there, to recall Moses’s face. I could remember the greenish eyes, the curly hair, and the sly, intimate grin, but I couldn’t put them together into a cohesive whole, one that would tell me why he had felt so familiar, as if I’d met him before.
I put out my hands to my brother right away, but it was Moses’s face I looked at: It was open, fresh, and innocent—utterly unguarded. That was the quality I had been unable to re-create. He must have been Giorgio’s age, but he looked younger, so vulnerable, and utterly trusting. That didn’t fit with the camouflage clothing or what I now knew him to be: a hunted Jew.
Giorgio’s face lit up as I unpacked the food and handed it over one sack at a time.
“I can’t tell you what a difference this is making for us,” he said, tearing off a piece of bread and handing the loaf to Patch. “I don’t know how we’d survive without you.”
Patch took the bread without comment. His one eye refused to look at me or make any connection at all. He turned his back and began breaking little pieces off, hungrily, almost angrily, and stuffing them in his mouth one after another. Moses stood patiently by, looking at me, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Then he winced suddenly as Patch thrust the loaf under his bad arm from behind. “Hey, watch it, will you?” His face had a satiny sheen that erupted here and there on his upper lip and his forehead with drops of perspiration.
“Did you bring something for Moses’s arm?” Giorgio was pacing nervously, impatiently.
I nodded.
“I’m going to take Patch with me and leave you here. Moses, you know how to get back, right? You’ll be okay by yourself?”
He gave his assent, and the two of them were gone in a flash, making hardly a sound as they headed off through the woods in a slightly different direction from the last time.
We watched them go, standing there side by side, looking after them a little too long. Then we faced each other, suddenly shy. “I really appreciate this,” Moses said. “My arm is killing me. Normally I’m not one to give a little pain too much attention.”
“How did it happen?” I asked him.
“Oh, God. We had a small sample bomb, just to see how the detonation would work. I carried it way out and put it on the ground, and someone else hit the plunger. The fuse was so long they couldn’t see me, and I guess they thought I had let it go. It went off so fast—the damn thing exploded before I knew it. I was wearing gloves, but it tore into my arm.” He loosened one end of the filthy strip of cloth.
“Could we go sit down?” I was feeling light-headed, not at all sure I was up to this. “I need to get some stuff out of my bag.”
“My name is Mario, by the way,” he said. “Mario Rava. And my brother’s name is Cecilio. I guess we haven’t really been properly introduced.” He smiled.
We perched side by side on the mossy edge of the marble platform, and I watched, mesmerized, as Mario began unwinding the makeshift bandage. It caught now and then and stuck where the blood had dried into a kind of glue. Then I had to look away as he reached the soft heart of the wound. His breath was uneven, stopping while he held it, then hissing as he let it out hard. “This really hurts,” he said, and, at last, “Okay. That’s it.”
I made myself look. The cloth lay in a heap on the ground. There were small scrapes and scabs scattered from his wrist to just above his elbow, but the whole top of his forearm was torn away. An exposed mass of flesh lay open, wet with blood and rimmed with yellow-green pus, a faint odor of rotten meat rising in the heat. An insistent pressure at the hinge of my jaw made me start swallowing fast. An image flashed—of Father’s face, laughing at the thought of me keeling over at the clinic. No, I thought. You are not going to vomit or faint again. Not again. I looked away, up at the treetops, and gathered myself. I rummaged busily in the bag, unrolled the paper bundle, and pulled out the bottle of water and the roll of gauze. I can do this. I will do this.
Mario fished in his pants pocket and pulled out a knife. “Do you need this, maybe? To cut the bandage?”
I hadn’t even thought of that. Gratefully, I let him saw off a length of gauze. Then I doused it with water and rubbed it over the bar of soap. “Close your eyes,” I said. “This is going to sting.” Gently but firmly, I stroked the open wound in slow pulls toward me. When the gauze was soaked and filthy, I unwound more, formed a new pad, and began again.
“Giorgio tells me you’re Jewish,” I offered tentatively. I thought maybe some conversation would take his mind off the pain.
“Well, with a nickname like Moses, I gues
s that’s pretty obvious.” He laughed and squeezed his own knee hard while I went on stroking.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean I’m sorry you’re Jewish, but sorry…” What was I sorry about? Sorry the Germans want to get rid of you; sorry my parents think it’s none of our business? “I’m sorry. This is a horrible war.”
The silence hung over us. I finished cleaning and rinsed with plain water. He began to relax, stopped clenching his fist and squeezing his knees together.
“This might sound naive,” I began again, “but where are all the Jews hiding?” On second thought, that was too big a question. “Where are your parents?”
Mario took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked at me full in the face and shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”
“When did you see them last?”
“In early January.” He gazed off into the distance. “I can’t believe it’s been almost six months. They were just gone when we got home.”
“What do you mean? Who got home?”
He sighed. “Oh, God, Giovanna. This is a long story, and it’s not easy to tell.” He looked down at his arm. “But I guess we still have to bandage this, so I’ll tell you a little.”
I said nothing, hoping he would go on.
“My papa is a military man. He was a decorated army officer in World War One, very big in the unification efforts. So in the beginning, we were exempted from the racial laws.”
“Because he was a war hero?”
“Yes. At first anyone like that was eligible for a special category on a case-by-case basis. My father was even a member of the Fascist party for a while. He was a Blackshirt in the march on Rome that installed Mussolini in power in 1922. He was so patriotic—passionate about our country—and just got carried away by the Fascists’ dreams for a strong and powerful Italy. Mussolini wasn’t anti-Semitic at all in those days, you know. So Father definitely qualified for the exemption.”
The Golden Hour - Margaret Wurtele Page 12