“Comune Simone,” de la Grascia says, his tone impatient, “lower your weapon. If I need you to use it, I will order you to do so; and while I am your Tenente, you will take your orders from me and not any other officer, is that clear?”
“Ah,” Enzo repeats, “I see our German comrade is a Captain, which I suppose means he outranks you, Tenente de la Grascia.”
“Yes, Signor Ruggeri, he does. And while I would not order my men to shoot you, he, in all likelihood, will not hesitate to do so, so…”
“Then, by all means,” Enzo replies.
Mira steels herself and whispers, “Lie still, Nicholas, and for both our sakes do not speak unless you are spoken to.”
They lie and listen as the stamp of footsteps on the stone floor tells them Mira’s parent’s room is being inspected first.
“As I believe you have seen for yourself, Tenente, our house is modest in comparison to the airy villas of Bologna. One would need the competence of a magician to conceal much more than a goat in such a confined space.” Enzo’s humour falls on stony ground.
A chair is moved aside, a few more footsteps and a hand is placed firmly on the handle of the door.
The door swings open. Mira looks up from the bed.
Aldo de la Grascia stands watching her and behind him, craning his neck to see, stands a German officer; the same German officer with whom he had exchanged words outside her café only a week or so before.
They both stand and stare; the Italian officer looking for all the world as though whatever he may have held dear in life has just been ripped from his grasp; the German officer simply looking, part disinterested, part menacing.
Mira rubs her eyes and face, feigning a sleepy surprise. “Excuse me,” she says, “can you not see we are sleeping?”
De la Grascia coughs, embarrassed. “Yes, why of course, we–”
“Who is this man?” the German barks in his native tongue.
“He is her husband,” de la Grascia replies, his face deadpan if tinged with a shade of melancholy. “We have no interest in him.”
“You, what is your name?” the German calls, shoving the lieutenant aside, filling the room with his grey uniform.
“Leave him,” de la Grascia insists. “He is no danger to us. He is blind, perhaps like you?”
“What did you say to him?” Mira asks.
“I said, your husband is a danger to no one. He is blind and I asked the German officer if perhaps he was.”
The German captain ignores the insult and asks again, “You, what is your name?”
“What does he want?” Mira asks.
De la Grascia exhales, loud enough for all in the small room to hear. “This German officer wants to know your husband’s name. And frankly, I’d like to hear it too.”
Mira, incensed, sits bolt upright, uncaring that she is both naked and that she exposes her breasts; breasts that no man since her husband has set eyes on. “Aldo, you know my husband’s name, it’s–”
“My name is Carlo,” Nicholas interrupts. “Carlo Alberti.” He fumbles for her shoulder. “This is my wife, Mira, and whoever you are, you have no manners. Call yourself officers? Believe me, if I could see to strike you, I would do so. But, as I cannot, perhaps you should show this injured former serviceman some respect and be good enough to leave us alone.”
The German captain groans, “Damned Sicilians!” and he turns to barge his way out of the room.
De la Grascia, though, is not so swift in leaving. He stands, his expression glum, and watches. “Oh, Mira,” he says in a voice that is barely audible.
She pulls the sheet up to her shoulders and stares back at him; and whereas his expression is wholly dispirited, hers is equally apologetic. “I will explain,” she says.
“There is little point,” he replies and turns on his heels to leave.
“Aldo,” she calls.
He ignores her plea. “Thank you, Signor Ruggeri. I bid you a good day.”
“Well, Tenente, my day will be whatever it brings. Yours, on the other hand, may require some lifting.”
Mira appears barefoot at the door. She is clothed, though only in so far as she has put on her loose dress and is therefore no longer naked.
Enzo scowls at her and quickly turns back to the Lieutenant. “As far as your search goes, you will not find any deserters here. If there were any, thanks to your warning, they would be long gone. If I were you, I would go back to the battery. Why don’t you take your German dogs with you and call it a day?”
De la Grascia fixes him with a hapless stare. “Believe me, Signor Ruggeri, I would prefer little else.” He throws Mira a look that leaves her in no doubt he is disappointed with her. “Unfortunately, like the soldier you mentioned a few minutes ago I cannot absolve myself of my obligations, especially now that they are determined for me by our German allies. Of course, they may not be our allies for much longer, but until I receive orders stating otherwise, I’m afraid I will have, as it were, to play second fiddle. Signor Ruggeri.” He turns and salutes. “Signora Alberti.”
As the Tenente walks away up the water’s edge, Comune Simone follows, turning around every couple of paces to throw Mira and Enzo glowers of unadulterated loathing.
“What’s happening, Mira?” Nicholas asks when he hears her come back into the room.
“Nothing. Everything.” She hurries to put on more clothes. “I must go; they are headed towards Pipo’s house.”
“What is at Pipo’s house that makes you afraid for him, a deserter?”
“No, you remember the man you saved and who saved you?”
“Only vaguely.”
“Well, my father thinks Sottocapo Falanga is still there. I must go and follow them.” She slips on her shoes. “Nicholas?”
“Yes, Mira?”
“Your fever must be leaving you: that was very quick thinking.”
“Mira?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t so much because you were in bed with me; it was more the way you talk of your husband, with such affection and such tenderness. I was just thinking I’d like someone to talk about me that way.”
“Nicholas, you are a romantic and love conquers even the hardest of hearts; though judging by the expression on Comune Simone’s face, I doubt he has ever looked love in the face. I will be back, later.”
By the time she catches up with the patrol, they are threading their way through the alleys that will lead them to, amongst others, Pipo’s house. The soldiers grow aware of her following them and the Germans grin and exchange what are self–evidently lewd remarks. The Italian soldiers, all apart from Comune Simone who thrusts his rifle out straight in the hope that a deserter will run around the corner and impale himself on it, dawdle and linger to pick flowers that grow through the cracks in the walls. The lieutenant notices her and nods his head, as though encouraging an inquisitive dog to return home.
As they approach the last corner, a figure comes belting around it towards them.
When he sees them, he skitters and skids to a halt, grabbing hold of the wall to help arrest his progress. No longer painted in black oil, Sottocapo Filippo Falanga is barely recognisable, for now he wears dark grey pants and a black waistcoat over a white shirt, and would pass for a local were it not for his look of fear.
He turns to look back and takes off the way he has come.
Scenting their prey, the soldiers run after him, some cocking their weapons.
Mira, too, hurries to the corner where, filled with a dreadful anticipation, she waits and watches.
Where the sun has not yet reached to dry the moisture from the smoothed stones, the surface is treacherous and Falanga slips and falls. He drags himself to his feet and starts off again, keeping to the wall, peering and rattling at locked doors.
Behind him, not thirty metres away, the Italian soldiers l
oiter and watch; they are not remotely interested in apprehending a man who, up until a few minutes ago, they would have changed places with. However, before them, Comune Simone leads the German patrol as they break step and start running.
“Halt!” Simone shouts. “Halt or I fire!”
Tenente de la Grascia, realising that he has lost control of his man, starts off in pursuit. His cap falls from his head. “No!” he screams. “Do not fire! Stand down!”
The pack, though, will not listen; they cannot listen, for they are consumed by their hunt and like a pack of hungry dogs they run, their ears closed to anyone who might want to hold them back from their chase.
“Halt!” Simone screams again, cocking his rifle and pausing in his step to raise it. “Halt or I fire!”
“No!” de la Grascia screams again.
Falanga runs, he slips, he gets to his feet and runs again.
“Halt!” shouts Simone. He stoops to kneel, aims his rifle and fires twice.
The sottocapo hunches his shoulders, spins as though twirled by invisible fingers and comes to rest half–leaning, half–falling down the white wall of a house. In his wake, he leaves a ghastly smear of blood.
The shots echo up and down the confines of the alley.
Sottocapo Filippo Falanga slides down the wall. He twists, he turns, he stares at the patrol, his fear now replaced by a need to comprehend the fullness of what has just happened. Why in God’s name would one of my countrymen want to shoot me? Why would anyone want to shoot me? Why would… Why?
He slumps to the ground, his lifeblood pumping from his chest, his head resting at an unnatural angle.
Chapter 19
For the next three days, the village is submerged beneath a sea of trauma. Few, if any, are seen talking in public and people go about their business, such as circumstances permit, with their eyes unseeing and their spirits crushed. It as though a veil of silence has been drawn over the houses, forbidding the folk from either mentioning or discussing how it could be that one of their soldiers could be so callous as to shoot one of his own comrades.
The witnesses to the shooting had stood and stared until the German officer had marched up, inspected the body and, without the slightest sign of remorse, waved his men away to leave de la Grascia, his men and Mira all staring with unchecked hatred at Comune Simone.
The silence had eventually been broken by the opening of a door further up the alley. Out from the house had stepped Enzo and Pipo, and they had simply glanced at the stunned witnesses before turning to walk away in the direction of the village.
Tenente de la Grascia had watched them, then strolled over to Mira, put his arm around her and shepherded her away from the scene. “Go home, Mira. Please, go home. There is nothing more for you to see here.”
And he had been right; there had been nothing more to see other than the sottocapo’s lifeless form soiling the narrow lane, staining a previously chaste street where on a more normal day children would play with gay abandon, where wives would gossip while attending to their washing and where husbands would boast bright–eyed about the money their day’s catch would bring. No one denied that death and destruction had already been brought to Messina, and Villa San Giovanni and Reggio di Calabria across the Strait, and they had watched with detached disquiet as the columns of armoured convoys had trundled through their village. Yet so far, death had come only to those who, like young Gennaro Ganci and his brothers, had ventured out beyond the boundaries of their security. So far, they and their families had been safe out of harm’s way; now though, because of Comune Simone’s despicable act, death had been brought into their midst.
On Thursday, Milazzo had suffered and ships waiting outside the harbour of Messina had been bombed and several of them sunk. On Friday, Milazzo had taken yet another pounding and small, fast, red–nosed aircraft had dived and swooped and poured hails of bullets into those ships still at anchor in the Strait. By the weekend, no one was left in any doubt that after the thirty–five years it had taken them to recover from the great earthquake, they were once again falling prey to death’s insatiable hunger.
Mass on Sunday is a muted affair, even more solemn, if that is possible, than usual and de la Grascia arrives late. Many in the congregation turn at the sound of his boots clipping on the marble floor and whispers spread, shoulders shrug and heads shake in sorry bewilderment.
Afterwards, on the apron outside, the Tenente seeks out Mira, Enzo and Francesca.
“Signor, Signora Ruggeri, Mira, if you will permit me, I would like to greet you and the month of August with an apology on behalf of the Regio Esercito.” He thins his eyes and lips in an appeasing smile.
“And what does his majesty’s army feel the need to apologise for this time?” Enzo quips, playing along.
“Why, Signor Ruggeri, for the dreadful events of last Wednesday. I have since learned that the poor unfortunate who was shot was a naval rating. It appears he was a survivor from the sinking of one of our submarines on the night of 15th July, and rather than return to his duties he had decided to take his chances hiding out in the village until the end of hostilities.”
Enzo is again quick to reply. “A survivor from a naval engagement, eh? And you had him shot? I must tell you, Tenente de la Grascia, that in my experience when an animal starts to feed on itself, that animal is lost.”
“Yes, Signor Ruggeri, I believe you may be right. However, and if you recall, I tried to warn you that fugitives, and those harbouring them, were likely to suffer the consequences of their actions.”
“It is just as well, then, that no one was found to be harbouring this poor unfortunate man.”
“Exactly. Just as well,” de la Grascia replies, leaving his words to hang in the air, while all the time avoiding eye contact with Mira.
“How goes the advance or the retreat or the progress of whichever side we are betting on today?” Enzo asks.
“The Germans have built a defensive line from Catania through Adrano and Troina to San Fratello near the northern coast. They will hold the British, Canadians and Americans back for as long as they need to.”
“Need to?”
“Yes, need to. Signor Ruggeri, I believe I have more important news that concerns you and particularly those of your friends who live close to the water. And as the saying goes, you did not hear this from me, even though what I am about to tell you will become plainly obvious in the coming days.”
“Yes, all right, Tenente, we heard it from the fish, now kindly get to the point.”
“My news, Signor Ruggeri, is that the evacuation to Calabria has now been approved and this will be effected through several points. Our troops and artillery will leave from Mortelle on the northern coast, from Salvatore and from Messina itself. They will embark in landing craft and ferry steamers. That is, perhaps, good news.”
His expression grows more serious. “The bad news is that our German allies,” he rolls his eyes, “will leave from Pistunia, to the south of Messina, and from near our battery at Capo Peloro.”
“That is bad news?” Enzo interrupts, mystified.
“Please, Signor Ruggeri, let me finish. The greater part of the danger lies in that most of the German troops, tanks and artillery have been designated to leave by Siebel ferry and barge from three other points; namely from Salvatore and Paradiso to the south, and from here in Ganzirri.”
Not seeing any significance in what he is saying, Enzo interrupts once more. “But surely, Tenente, the quicker the Germans leave, the sooner we shall be left in peace?”
“That is true. Perfectly true. Unfortunately, though, that presents something of a paradox. And why? Because as soon as the British and Americans learn that German and Italian forces are escaping to the mainland, they will most certainly bomb all the embarkation points, and as the bulk of the German forces will be retreating from the central and western areas along the coast road in
this direction, most of them will be leaving through here. I am sure I don’t have to remind you that Ganzirri to Pezzo and Capo Peloro to Cannitello are the shortest routes across the Strait, which means that this area is likely to attract the most attention.”
Enzo, Francesca and Mira all look at each other in horror.
“No one here will lend a hand to help them across the Strait,” Enzo says. “Surely, they won’t be bothered with us?”
“Please, Signor Ruggeri, mark my words well, as soon as they find out, the British will bomb by night and the Americans by day; so if you have the chance, I advise you to gather as much as you can carry and leave the village.” He waits for a response; however, his audience is too tied up with their imaginings. “There, I have told you; what you decide to do is now up to you.” At this, he gazes at Mira with the expression of a doctor who has just delivered his closest relative a damning prognosis.
Enzo is for once silent, overwhelmed by the shock, and Mira looks all at once both grateful and apologetic. Francesca, one usually inclined to stand mute while her husband speaks for her, is though moved to both tears and words.
“Tenente de la Grascia, you have been so kind to us. You have kept watch over us and proved our salvation several times over.” She looks very directly and slowly at Mira, wanting the Italian officer to know she is very definitely and intentionally referring to the search of their house and the discovery of… “We cannot thank you enough. We are forever in your debt. In fact, I will return inside and say prayers for you.”
“That, Signora Ruggeri, I would be very grateful for, though I feel that through the next few days we will need more than prayers if we are to survive.”
“Yes, Aldo,” Mira adds, crossing her arms to stop herself from hugging him and thereby sending him the wrong message, “we will all pray for you, won’t we, papà?”
Enzo ceases his gazing at the ground and holds out his hand. “Yes, we will. Please try to keep yourself safe, Aldo. I will remember everything you have done for us, everything you have done and continue to do to ensure the safety of our village.”
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