“No, papà, he came. And he provided for me.” She places the bag of provisions that de la Grascia had left for her on the table. “Yet the coffee is so bad that it provoked an argument between Aldo and a German officer.”
“So why have you closed the café?”
“Because Aldo suggested I should. And before you criticise me for closing the café on his advice, I will say only that it was not particularly what he said, so much as how he said it. There was something in the way he told me that suggested it would be best not to ignore his advice.”
“Aldo, eh?”
“Yes, Aldo.” She moves over to stand behind where he sits in his chair and bending down, she drapes her arms affectionately around his shoulders and kisses the back of his neck. “Please don’t doubt him, papà. For me, please don’t.”
Enzo softens to her touch. “All right, my daughter, I will try. But what I don’t understand is why the generals have placed a man of supposed character and intelligence in command of a bunch of misfits. Surely, if he is a respected officer, he should be in command of frontline troops, not tucked out of the way up at Capo Peloro.”
“Of course, papà, and I cannot answer your question. Why don’t you ask him at mass tomorrow?”
“And how can you be so certain he will be there?”
“Because he told me he would be there. And because he also said that there would be no bombing tonight or tomorrow. For one thing, there is a full moon and for another, Aldo said the British and Americans are now bombing the airfields, and once they have flattened them and no more German or Italian planes can fly out from them, then there will be nothing to stop the British and Americans from taking the whole island.”
“He sounds like he wants them to succeed.”
Mira sighs and stands up, away from him. “Have you learned nothing of him, papà?” she says. “Can you not see that he is a man of honour and that he will fight until the King orders him to stop?” Exasperated, she balls her fists and plays at striking his head. “Now, how is our patient?”
“Dottore Roselli is with him and, judging by the silence, he is not happy. You’d best go and help.”
In her room, the old doctor is stooped beside the bed examining Nicholas’s face. He stands upright and glances at Mira.
Mira looks and gasps.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Nicholas mutters. He lies prone and naked but for the blanket arranged to preserve his modesty.
“No, and you should not. Young man,” the doctor begins, exhaling loudly and then drumming his fingers against his lips for a few seconds while he considers the best way to proceed. “Young man, some of the flesh, here, has necrotised.” He indicates areas at the corners of both eyes, where the skin has turned an ugly shade of white. “You see this, Mira.”
“That sounds even worse,” Nicholas says. “Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what you see. I realise there’s not much I can do to help, but I’d rather know than lie here and wonder.”
Dottore Roselli looks at Mira, evidently waiting for her consent.
She nods, thinning her lips in concern.
“Yes, that’s fair,” the doctor says. “I’ll tell you what I see and therefore what I know to be the case. Your legs are in better shape; the bad cut on your right thigh is weeping and obviously has some infection. I don’t think this is too bad and Mira can attend to it by cleaning and applying new dressings. The burn on your left thigh is responding well to the aloe; it is clean and moist, and shows no sign of infection.” He pauses for a moment, no doubt thinking not only of whether, or how, he should explain to a man the extent of his injuries, but also the manner in which he should couch a prognosis that will be sure to result in pain.
Nicholas is quick to realise. “I’ve always believed, doctor, that bad news is best delivered quickly.”
The doctor removes his glasses and breathing on each round lens, polishes them with the end of his shirt. He bends down to examine again, taking his time, first bridling his mouth in disapproval, then inclining his head from side to side as he weighs up the pros and cons of what he has decided.
“There is what we call an eschar.” He points for Mira’s benefit. “Three, in fact; one at each corner of your eyes and the third at the bridge of your nose. The skin at your forehead and cheeks is also wet with infection.” He pauses again, then comes to some form of conclusion. “We could persist with the aloe and wait for the eschar to dry and separate naturally. However, if the infection takes hold, you risk losing both your sight and your good looks, and what is of more concern to me, your life.”
“I wouldn’t want you to think me vain, Dottore Roselli,” Nicholas interrupts, “but I wouldn’t want to end up any uglier than I am now. So, what’s the answer?”
“Well, I…” His throat dries, his voice falters.
“Are you all right, Dottore? Do you need some water?”
“No, thank you, Mira. The Madonna has tested me with a difficult morning. Please, a moment.”
While waiting for him to gather himself, Mira grasps the nettle. “What Dottore Roselli is proposing is that he removes the dead tissue.”
“Debride is the correct medical term,” Roselli notes. “It may sound somewhat less threatening.”
In the face of such promised discomfort, Nicholas chuckles. “If you don’t mind my saying, debride sounds like something awkward that happens when a groom fails to turn up at the altar.”
“This is no laughing matter young man.”
“Sorry, Dottore. Sorry, Mira. Laughing in the face of pain: it’s a stupid habit my mother tells me I inherited from my father.”
“No,” she argues, “it is not only your father who laughs at such times; my father is the same.” Her hostility to his nonchalance dissipates. “It is no more than how men behave when they are anxious. Why should you be any different?”
Perhaps a little frustrated that the discussion has taken a conversational turn, Dottore Roselli coughs before continuing. “As I was saying, I will have to debride the tissue, which I can surmise will be painful. Extremely painful, both during and after. And the surgery carries with it the risk of further infection and a similar prognosis to that of doing nothing and waiting. This,” he shoots Mira an apologetic look, “is a far from sterile environment; though I cannot imagine, what with the high number of casualties arriving in Messina from the fighting in the south, that you would be any safer from infection in the hospital. Young man, whatever I do next, it must be with your blessing.”
“Nicholas?”
He turns his head, as though he can see her. “Yes, Mira.”
“How is your pain, now?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes,” she moans, “of course honestly.”
“Well, if you can stand me talking in my sleep, you could give me another shot of morphine: that might be a help both to me and the good doctor.”
Chapter 11
“Please, God,” Mira prays, “keep my brother safe and bring him back to us. If not for my sake, then for mama and papà. Please God, do this for me and I will be your servant for evermore.”
“Remember your servant…” the priest says, in a tone so forlorn it causes some to glance up to see who is missing “…young Gennaro Ganci, whom you have called from this world to yourself.”
As the boy is named, the congregation of the Chiesa San Nicholas di Bari issue a deep and mournful moan, a sound not unlike that of the sea when it retreats from the shore.
“So that is why Dottore Roselli had seemed out of sorts,” Mira whispers to herself. “Gennaro Ganci.”
Four days before, the eleven–year–old had insisted on going to Messina to ask for news of Rimiggiu, his older brother, one of many who were yet to return from North Africa. And not wishing to let the boy go alone, his uncle, the last surviving adult male of the Ganci family, had accompanied him and they had walked the
ten kilometres into the city in bright sunshine and a freshening breeze. However, when they got to the city the sky had turned black with American aeroplanes, their bombs had fallen, a piece of shrapnel had pierced the boy’s head and the uncle had carried him the ten kilometres home. Dottore Roselli, a close friend of the family, had examined Gennaro and immediately despatched him back to Messina, to the Margherita hospital, a decision taken much against the wishes of the boy’s mother.
Now, Gennaro was dead and all that was left was guilt and misery.
The priest continues: “Grant that Gennaro, who is now reunited with your Son in death, may also be one with him in his Resurrection–”
Mira finds herself praying for Carlo, her husband who had died in the same wretched establishment some six years before: an iron bed in a ward crowded with feeble men; the sweet and sour odours of suffering; the discordant melodies of souls in pain; wives and mothers cleaning and feeding husbands and sons where they lay. Hoping, please God, let them live; and despairing, please God let them die.
“–when from the earth, he will raise up in the flesh those who have died and transform our lowly body after the pattern of his own glorious body.”
Poor Carlo, it hadn’t really been his fault that he had died, just as it wasn’t Gennaro Ganci’s fault either. The two of them had simply been where they shouldn’t have been. After all, neither had planned to be where they were when God had called them.
Although to be fair, there was nothing wrong with being in Messina; that wasn’t really the wrong place, was it?
No, for Carlo, the wrong place had been a town the name of which she found difficult to pronounce, a town in a country many moons away that some referred to as Abyssinia; a town where Carlo had been stupid enough to permit himself to be captured. And though he had returned to Messina, Carlo had returned incomplete: the fingers of his right hand and those most private of parts without which a man cannot father children having been removed by some crazed demon. As a result, his spirit had fled in terror and all that had been returned to Mira had been an infected carcass that might once, if her imagination could have stretched that far, have resembled her husband. For four weeks she had nursed him; for four weeks he had refused to look at her; and for four weeks he had slowly, so very slowly, died.
“To our departed brothers and sisters, too, and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance to your kingdom.”
And Carlo and Gennaro had been, hadn’t they? The shadows of young men admitted from beds of grey linen only to pass into a world of greyer shadows.
And now? For Mira?
Alone, but for the attentions of a gallant lieutenant from Bologna and the needs of a blind and strangely intriguing Englishman. One moment alone, unwanted; the next, besieged at all sides.
Ah, Aldo; she had seen him come into the church just before they had closed the doors. He was always on time. Always, but always only just.
On hearing his boots clip against the marble floor, she had turned around and he had smiled and raised his hand in acknowledgement.
Her father had noticed and poked her thigh, at which she had wriggled further away along the pew. They would never be good enough for her, would they? Neither Carlo, nor the Tenente, nor the Englishman. None of them.
“There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all ages and praise you without end,” the priest joins his hands, “through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow on the world all that is good.”
Oh, but now she surprises herself; for why is she viewing the Englishman in the same way that she views the lieutenant? And exactly how is she viewing them? As possibilities? As suitors? And how is it that she finds herself so easily drawn to the Englishman when she has only spoken to him as a nurse would to a patient? How is it that she shares such a sudden familiarity with him? Is it because she has only ever seen the Tenente in uniform, whereas she has seen Nicholas undressed and the only other person with whom she has ever shared such an intimacy was Carlo?
On her way back to her pew after taking Communion, she cannot help but lift her head to search for the lieutenant. He is there, seated at the back, smiling at her, albeit with his head a little bowed; and for the rest of mass she has the most peculiar feeling that he is watching her.
With hands joined, the priest faces the congregation and bids them, “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”
And the people answer, “Thanks be to God.”
The priest then venerates the altar with his kiss, makes a profound bow and withdraws.
When the congregation file out, the light outside is bright and they hesitate and stumble as they shade their eyes. They mill about on the apron before the church, some clutching the white notices they have received from the Ministero della Guerra informing them that their sons are prisoners of war and therefore alive and accounted for; while others pause to offer the diminutive Signora Ganci their condolences. A few lift their faces in question: how can it be that they hear rumbles of thunder when the sky, though cloudy and the atmosphere only vaguely humid, holds no promise of storm?
“Signor Ruggeri,” de la Grascia startles them and bows. “Signora Ruggeri, Signora Alberti.”
They turn to find him waiting patiently for their recognition, his neatly pressed light green uniform in colourful contrast to the white shirts and black jackets of other men.
As he is the first addressed, Enzo responds: “Tenente de la Grascia, good evening,” but offers nothing more.
“Tenente.” Francesca smiles, politely.
Mira decides that is quite enough pretence and steps forward, offering her hand. “Aldo, good evening. How are you?”
“Thank you, Mira,” he raises her hand to his lips and plays at kissing it, “I am as well as one can expect given the circumstances and the pressures of my post.”
Enzo sucks his teeth a little too loudly.
“Aldo,” Mira begins, “what is that thunder we have heard all through the day? Are the planes bombing where we cannot see?”
He ushers them to a bench and waits for them to sit down. “What you can hear is not bombing; it is the British warships shelling the Catania to Messina road. They are trying to interdict the lines of supply to the south.”
“Interdict?” Enzo asks. “What is that, interdict?”
“Sorry, Signor Ruggeri. What I mean is they are trying to destroy the road so that reinforcements cannot be sent south to confront them.”
“Well, why don’t you say so instead of using military terminology that none of us understand?”
De la Grascia winces. “I am sorry, Signor Ruggeri, that my reliance on military speak confuses you.”
“And talking of speaking in tongues,” Enzo continues, “I hear that you speak German. How is that so, do you have Germans for ancestors?”
The Tenente glances at Mira, who frowns. “Papà?” Then she shakes her head, suggesting it wasn’t her who has let on.
“No, Mira, your father is right to ask for an explanation. Signor Ruggeri, before I was posted to Sicily, I served with the 3rd Cavalry Division Amedeo Duca d’Aosta in Russia. I learnt some German in school, in Bologna, and during my time on the banks of the River Don, I found it helpful to communicate with German officers.”
“Helpful to communicate?” Enzo presses.
“Yes, Signor Ruggeri. During my time there, I learnt that when it comes to intelligence, it is not always knowing what the opposing forces are planning that is important: knowing what our allies are up to is of equal use, particularly if one’s men are not to be sacrificed on the altar of Teutonic arrogance.”
“I see. You mean the Germans.”
Mira rolls her eyes.
“And how goes the glorious battle?” Enzo’s tone is undis
guisedly cynical.
“Not well, sir. Not well for either side, that is. Today, I received a report that some of our troops near Enna, that’s in the middle of the country–”
“Yes, Tenente, I know where Enna is. Please continue.”
“I apologise, I did not mean to–”
“Stop apologising, man. You sound like a man who feels he needs to apologise for the sins of the world. Please, continue.”
“Yes, of course.” He coughs back his embarrassment. “Well, I have received a report that some of our troops near Enna mutinied. Apparently, they shot the German officer who was commanding them and then surrendered to the Americans.”
“Can you blame them?”
“Papà?”
De la Grascia ponders for a moment. “Signor Ruggeri, how can I blame them when I was not present; I have no appreciation of their circumstances. However,” he hurries to deny the fisherman another opportunity to interrupt him, “I think it only fair to warn you, all of you, that my battery is about to be placed under German control. In the future, I am to take my orders not from Generale Guzzoni, but directly from the Wehrmacht, who now control the coast from Messina to Capo Peloro and round to Mortelle. Most notably, and perhaps unfortunately, I am to take my orders from the same German captain I felt the need to introduce myself to yesterday.”
“Oh, Aldo!”
“Yes, Mira. I have the most terrible apprehension that my good manners may be about to return to haunt me.”
“And all at my expense.”
“No, Mira. You must not blame yourself; the captain was in the wrong and that is all there is to it. And, if I might add, talking of men surrendering; increasing numbers of our soldiers are deserting. And by that, I mean in their hundreds. Now, whether or not you think these men justified in their actions,” he stares at Enzo, yet not unpleasantly, “anyone found hiding them will be answerable to the Germans and we all know how… let us say unsympathetic they can be.”
Enzo and Mira glance at each other; a look that does not escape de la Grascia’s notice.
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