The Golden Hour - Margaret Wurtele

by The Golden Hour (epub)

“I didn’t say that.”

  “No, but you thought it. You hoped it, didn’t you? Just for a little moment that’s what you hoped. Get out of here, Mother, and leave me alone. I never want to see either of you again.” I ran out of the library and slammed the door behind me.

  The very next day marked the beginning of the Allies’ spring offensive, and the lull in the fighting came abruptly to an end. This was the Allies’ all-out push to win the war. Divisions had been redeployed and brought into Italy from France and elsewhere in Europe.

  Reports came daily and, when the land wires were permanently severed, we had only the radio and word of mouth to rely on. We learned after the war that the Germans were worried about an amphibious landing on the Ligurian coast, so to divert them and prevent them from moving their defenses that far west, the Allies sent a dummy armored division, manned among others by our buffalo soldiers, up the Serchio River. Skies to the west of us exploded with fighter bombers along the coast, while American and British commanders sent the 8th and 5th armies in two strong aggressive attacks up the Italian boot from the south.

  Our days in those weeks were marked not by the clock, but by military triumphs.

  What was clear to all of us was that the partisans were the heroes of the day. Scrappy, tenacious, and organized, they knew the territory better than the Allies. Often our liberators would arrive in a town and find that the partisans were already in control and had sent the enemy into retreat. I had no idea where my brother was, and as for Mario, I was a victim of my own worst fantasies. My interior life was one long extended prayer.

  The emptiness and sadness of my separation from my parents and from home were overwhelming. The marchesa, Leonardo and their daughters treated me like a member of the family but I was ultimately and painfully alone.

  One night looms in my memory and has become a touchstone for those weeks of agony. We occasionally listened to the radio during dinner, trying to keep abreast of the offensive as it moved up the coast. There were light exchanges between us over the droning of the correspondent. “Please pass the sauce,” or, “This is delicious, Balbina,” and occasionally real conversations, but one ear was always on the alert for a new intensity in the crackling static that was a backdrop to our gatherings. I remember the marchese was holding forth, speculating on what the postwar market for his premium olive oil would be, when I caught a new edge of passion—or was it anger?—in the radio announcer’s voice:

  Today, only minutes before the Allied forces closed in on the outskirts of Castelnuovo di Gogagnana, thirty-one partisans…

  “Shhhh—” I hissed, at once frantic and horrified at my own rudeness. “I must hear this.” The marchese broke off midsentence, and the table grew silent.

  …unruly sheep and lined up against a tall fence bordering a fallow hay field. One by one, their bound wrists were tied to the fence posts above their heads, leaving them hanging there, facing a line of Nazi sharpshooters. No sooner was the last one strung up than a barrage of rifle fire burst forth. Within seconds all thirty-one guerrillas hung lifeless from their shackles. Helpless bystanders stood and watched while the Germans filed off in formation without bothering to cut them down.

  Now to the east and the Adriatic front…

  The marchesa leaped to her feet and snapped off the radio. “Come, come. It’s time for dessert,” she said. “I won’t have this nightmare spoiling our dinner.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, standing so fast that I tipped the dining room chair over backward, “but I must excuse myself.” I righted the chair and, without looking at any of them, I turned and left the room.

  I ran down the hall, out the front door, and picked my way across the rutted field in the gathering dusk toward the tower. I clambered up the stairs into the empty room and let myself down on Mario’s abandoned bedroll. There I curled up and shut my eyes, unable to erase the images of smoking rifles and slumped bodies, hats dropping one by one from dark heads of curly hair that hid their faces from the horrified crowd.

  Chapter Thirty

  All around me, spring was spreading her largesse like a profligate empress throwing coins to a suspicious and ungrateful peasantry. Fresh shoots pushed up through newly plowed fields. The air was thick with pollen and the heavy perfume of this seasonal wantonness, but to us it all felt wrong. We were suspended in time, turning a deaf ear to the melodious birdcalls, blind to the colorful riot of crocuses and primroses at our feet. Numbly I trailed after the marchesa at the clinic as she cared for the last few men. Frederick, Violetta’s lover, had recovered and been discharged to rejoin the Allies’ offensive. Violetta herself came only once a week or so, for—as the line of liberation moved up the coast—we were too far south to receive any new cases.

  Though the Allies had planned the spring offensive to take advantage of April’s drier weather, the heavens opened as the month wore on. Relentless and heavy, the rains flooded the fields, rendering the roads nearly impassable. However, the news from the front was encouraging—each day marked steady progress against a stubborn but faltering enemy. Nevertheless the military triumphs couldn’t ease my anxiety or give me any comfort. I could not rest until I knew Mario and my brother were safe.

  On the morning of the twenty-first of April, Bologna fell to the 5th Army with unexpected ease, and the Allies pushed forward to the Po River. The German line had been broken and their forces split in two.

  As the end of the month neared on the western front, our northern cities were the last bastions of enemy entrenchment. The partisans went into action, sabotaging railroad tracks and setting up roadblocks to prevent the movement of German troops, cutting off water and electrical service to their barracks. Their ranks swollen overnight with new volunteers, partisans dominated those northern cities and prevented the Germans from doing any more damage. Coastal units entered Genoa without opposition and found partisans in control there, having forced the surrender of four thousand Germans the previous day. The momentum by then was tremendous, and we lived from hour to hour waiting for news of a final victory.

  On the twenty-ninth, a truck carrying Il Duce was making a run toward the Swiss border, trying to flee as the Allies closed in on northern Italy. As his convoy neared the town of Dongo, a cadre of partisans ambushed the trucks. Mussolini, concealed in the back of one of the trucks, was wearing the green greatcoat and helmet of a German soldier, but his expensive leather boots gave him away. The partisans whisked him to a neighboring farm, where he was soon joined by his lover of thirteen years, Claretta Petacci. The next day, the two were driven to the nearby Villa Belmonte and ordered out of the car. A partisan leveled a machine gun at them, but the gun jammed. He grabbed a second gun and fired, killing Claretta. Then Mussolini, holding the lapels of his jacket, ordered, “Shoot me in the chest.” The partisan leveled two shots, and Il Duce was dead.

  Their bodies were taken to Milan and dumped in front of a garage in the Piazzale Loreto. Laughing and screaming obscenities, local residents gathered around. One woman fired five gratuitous shots into Mussolini’s corpse, shouting that she wanted “to avenge her five sons.” The two mutilated bodies were strung up, jeered at, and spit upon by the angry civilian crowd.

  In the hours and days that followed, we continued to hover over the radio, listening to the mounting toll as Germans and Italian Fascists surrendered by the thousands, as Hitler committed suicide. Then, finally, on May 7, the Germans surrendered to Allied forces. The war in Europe had come to an end.

  Our war was over…but wait. My memories suddenly come to a stop right there, exploded into a million tiny pieces. Are they fireworks I see, or is it artillery fire from the retreating German troops? I swim up through layers of fog, as if from weeks underwater, toward the light of this brilliant day so many decades later. Hitler and Mussolini were dead, weren’t they? What a moment to savor—a delicious one, filled with heat and light…springtime and peace both at once. And yet…and yet…here my stomach clutches in fear. This is why I have never trusted victories of a
ny kind. No, no. Triumph is just a warning sign, a cruel diversion. Oh, how naive I was, how easily seduced. How I wish I could go back now and stop time there on May 7 when Italy was rejoicing.

  Three days of peace passed with no word. I refused to leave the villa. The marchesa and marchese took the girls into the village a couple of times and came back with stories of chaos and jubilation. Violetta came to see me. Her cheeks were pink as peach blossoms; her eyes blazed. “We were dancing in the streets last night,” she said. “There are bonfires everywhere. People have draped themselves with flags and are jumping in the fountains. Come with me.”

  But I shook my head and refused to leave. “What if he comes back and can’t find me here?” I said.

  The following day we began cleaning out the clinic. The patients were gone, so we piled up soiled sheets, bed curtains stiff with old rubbing alcohol and adhesive. We scrubbed stains off the floor and gathered bedpans, rolls of new bandages, and unused needles to give to the hospital in Lucca. The shutters were thrown open so that shafts of morning light pierced the dust in the air. The marchesa trilled like a nesting bird, her voice rising and falling as she tackled each new task.

  Even amidst the chatter and the sounds of work, I heard it before anyone else did: a car, its gears grinding down on the dirt track. Then it became louder, enough so that everyone could hear it. We ran to the window and leaned out as the brakes squeaked to a stop. Without waiting to see who was at the wheel, I tore away from the ledge and ran down the chilled, dark stone stairwell, skipping steps, my feet seeking the worn, smooth spots from memory.

  Outside the light was blinding. I stopped to shield my eyes from the sun in time to see the passenger door open and a familiar silhouette step out and straighten up slowly. “Mario!” The name roared from my mouth, hoarse and throaty. He opened his arms without a word, and I ran into them, pressing myself against his open vest and tasting the grit of sweat and dirt as I buried my lips in his neck. He held me, his arms locked tightly around my waist, squeezing the breath out of me.

  But then they loosened. What was this? My heart flew back into my body and up into my throat. I pulled away to see his face. He did not look at me but across the roof of the car to the driver, who had just emerged. I had never seen him before. Tall and bearded, his tattered clothes hung loosely on his gangly frame.

  The marchesa, followed by two nurses, was close behind me. She was smiling, her arms spread wide in welcome. “Oh, how good to see your face, my friend. We have been so worried.”

  Mario did not even greet her. Looking beyond us both to the two women standing by, he whispered, “Is there someplace we can go? We need to talk.”

  The marchesa shot me a worried glance. “Of course, let’s go up to the villa. If you want privacy, we can find it there. What is it, Mario?” He didn’t answer, but opened the backseat of the car and ushered the two of us in. As we drove the short distance to the house, I peppered him with questions: Where had he been? Had he been fighting? Had he come face-to-face with any Nazi soldiers? Mario said nothing, but reached an arm over the back of the front seat and offered me his warm hand. Silenced, I reached for it and held on. I could feel my relief slowly dissolve, until the whole substance of it—as if eaten by a thousand termites—had been blown away like a pile of dust.

  We filed into the library. Mario, who had been gripping my hand so tightly, let go. Then he put both hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes.

  I remember only isolated seconds of the next hour. I can see Mario’s face with a terrible clarity as he pronounced the words, “Giorgio was killed.” I can smell the musty odor of the Oriental carpet as I fell to my knees and pressed my forehead into its stiff, worn pile. I can feel the marchesa’s arms around me as we rocked back and forth. She held me like a small child, murmuring words of comfort into my ear, sounds I registered but could not hear. Mario stood by, awkward and unbending, a statue reduced to nothing but a terrible messenger.

  Then I began to give voice to the questions eating my gut from the inside: Are you sure he’s dead? Did you actually see his body? He’s the only person in my family who still loves me at all.

  I glared up at the messenger then, sharp and accusing, and what I saw were tears coursing down his cheeks, his chin trembling. So I turned and threw myself into his arms, letting his shirt muffle a new torrent of sobs.

  Slowly, my anguish began to subside. The people around me came back into focus. The driver was gone, replaced by the marchese, whose tall, soft presence was an anchor.

  “I set out on Easter before dawn almost on an impulse, with nothing but the clothes on my back,” Mario began. “I felt terrible, knowing how frightened you’d be, but—as I said in the letter—I could not let another day go by sitting on my ass in that isolated room, knowing that Giorgio and the others were risking their lives every day, putting themselves on the line—for what? For Italy, certainly, but for me. In a terrible way, for me, for my family, my brother. I couldn’t live with myself if I did not try to find them and do what I could to help, even if I died trying.”

  I listened in silence while the marchese gently prodded Mario’s memory this way and that, giving voice to the questions I could not possibly have formed.

  “How did you ever find them again? I had no luck myself trying to find you.”

  “I went directly to the river and followed it upstream. The front was quite far from here, so for the first few days I felt pretty safe. I pulled scallions and greens from a couple of early gardens. I rummaged through garbage cans for stale bread and bones. I bedded down on the hay of an empty horse stall, then on a pew in the back of a church—”

  “The offensive really didn’t begin until about four days after you left,” interjected the marchese.

  “Right. I heard the planes bombing on the coast first. Then, as I moved upriver, the sound of artillery fire got louder. I counted on the fact that Giorgio’s group would have stayed in the Serchio valley. It made sense to me that they’d stick to the territory they knew best. I wasn’t afraid to talk with people. They were eager to let me know what they’d been through, to tell me stories of partisans blowing up this or that truck or bridge, how they’d carried messages for them here or there. Now and then I’d hear a nickname I recognized—Rabbit once, then even Hermes—so I knew I was on the right track.”

  At the sound of Giorgio’s name I let out a whimper, but Mario ignored me and kept going.

  “I finally caught up with them at Sommocolonia about ten days after I left. I found a woman who had worked as a go-between, following and aiding the partisans for weeks. She was able to tell me pretty accurately where they were holed up. It was almost sunset when I stumbled into their camp.”

  Here he stopped and took a deep breath, looking at me steadily. “Giorgio was there, all right, still in charge, full of energy. He was so glad to see me, Giovanna; he just hugged me and held on, clapping me so hard on the back I thought he’d knock the breath out of me.” He grinned in spite of himself, but then he sobered, looking to the marchese as if to get his approval to continue. He raised an eyebrow and gave Mario a little nod.

  “That’s when it began to get tough. That next day, the eleventh, I think it was, our division of the buffalo soldiers must have taken a hundred rounds of mortar artillery. They fought like hell, with a terrific spirit, but they were pounded hard on the advance. Men were falling everywhere. We had to run around them, stepping over bodies. It was…” Mario stopped and swallowed hard.

  “Did you actually fight with them?” The marchesa had read my mind.

  “No. That wasn’t our role at that point. We weren’t equipped or armed for battle like they were. We stayed on the edges, relaying messages forward and back as to the movement of troops, both ours and theirs. That had always been our mission throughout the war, but by then so many wires were down that they had to rely completely on radio and runners for communication. They really needed us to time attacks and anticipate the enemy’s movement. The good news is that we
were gaining ground, and the Germans were clearly in retreat. There was so much gunfire and blood, I just—” He broke off, lost in the memories, staring out the window. It was so quiet you could hear the wind pick up outside the door.

  After a few minutes, Mario ran his fingers back through his dark curls and took a deep breath. “When I think of those guys, all so far from home, left on the battlefield, it’s just so pitiful. We did what we could, rounding up villagers to dig them decent graves. God, it was awful.” But then he looked at me, suddenly remembering where this was headed.

  “So, now, what happened to Giorgio?” Leonardo gently reminded him.

  “Giorgio was single-minded, completely dedicated to the cause. His energy was incredible. He never tired, never got discouraged. He would just plunge into any task that confronted us, encouraging the rest of us, pushing forward, never thinking of himself.”

  I closed my eyes, lulled into a kind of dream state by Mario’s voice. As long as he keeps talking, keeps us all in the “before,” it is as if nothing has happened at all, as if Giorgio is still alive and can walk in the door any minute.

  “By the twenty-second we were fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Americans. We’d taken guns and ammunition off the fallen buffalo soldiers, and we joined in, backing up their attacks on the Germans.”

  I shuddered and looked at the marchesa, who glanced quickly my way, but trained her eyes back onto Mario’s face.

  “Giorgio, it turns out, was unbelievably accurate, taking deliberate aim at one retreating German after another and firing carefully. He was a good shot. He really was.”

  An image flashed into my mind of Giorgio, Papa’s shotgun pulled up to his shoulder, firing at a flock of migrating geese and watching one spiral down like a maple seedling, twirling, drifting sideways in the wind, while another—its mate?—broke out of formation and flew back honking. Then another single shot, and Giorgio had put that one out of its misery.