The Train to Orvieto

by Novelli, Rebecca J. ;

  “God and Mussolini will take care of the children,” Signora Marcheschi said, waving her arm. “Vincere e vinceremo.” To win, and we shall win.

  Willa picked up the child and gave him another toy. He groaned softly. “But we must try.”

  “If he’s not better by morning...,” Gabriele said. Willa knew Gabriele wouldn’t seek a doctor even then. He believed that time and Grazia’s so-called medicine resolved everything, especially a child’s illness, as though it were a matter of the turning of the clock or a change of season. “I’ll have to take Etto to Arezzo by myself.” She handed Ettore to Gabriele and unplugged the radio. “There’s no real news, anyway.” She hid radio in the back of a low cupboard. German soldiers always demanded radios. They used the parts in their own equipment or bartered them on the black market for a few lire to get cigarettes.

  “You just don’t want to hear the truth,” Signor Marcheschi said. “Credere, obbedire, combattere.” Believe, obey, fight.

  Willa opened her mouth to reply, but Gabriele put his finger to his lips and stopped her with a kiss. She stacked her art supplies in front of the radio, the ones she had scarcely used since Silvana’s birth. It seemed to Willa that the pencils and paint, brushes and blocks of paper belonged to someone from another life, a life so unlike hers that she was unable to imagine it or aspire to it. With a fleeting sense of regret, she busied herself opening the package Gabriele had brought. It was from her parents, and she had been expecting it for weeks. It contained a box of fine soap wrapped in pleated tissue the color of a brown paper bag and smelled like carnations. They had remembered her favorite fragrance. There were other much-needed things, too: clothing for the children, shoes, canned soup, plus three small teddy bears and some crayons. Willa checked the stitching on the teddy bears and squeezed them feeling for money inside. She wasn’t sure. Tonight, after the children went to sleep, she would cut the bears open, look for money, then sew them up before the children awakened. She gave one of the bears to Ettore. He let it fall on the floor. There had been more in the box, but an inspector had opened it first and crossed out certain items on the customs list in heavy black ink and stamped “Proibito”—forbidden—in red next to the marked-out items.

  “Probably cigarettes,” Willa said. “Customs agents are thieves. We’re lucky to get what we did.”

  “Cigarettes aren’t proibite,” said Signora Marcheschi. “The black market is illegal. The inspectors are just doing their job.”

  “They take whatever they can to sell on the black market,” Willa replied in a tone that betrayed her impatience with her mother-in-law’s Fascist sympathies.

  Signora Marcheschi took the newspaper from her husband and spread it on the kitchen table. She put some hardened bread unfit to eat in the center of the paper along with the end piece of the very dry salami that she had made the previous spring. Next, she took off her gold earrings and put them on the table, tore a scrap from an old dishtowel, wrapped the earrings in it, and then set it next to the salami and bread. On top of the pile she put a few lire from a ceramic jar she kept on the kitchen shelf along with her marriage and baptism certificates. “Basta!” Enough. “I never put too much in one place.”

  Since the allied march north had begun, Signora Marcheschi had hidden many of her things from passing soldiers by burying them around the Marcheschi property. She made a list of what was in the pile on the counter, folded the paper, and put it inside her dress with her other lists. With a length of string she tied the newspaper around the pile and put the package in a scarred wooden box the exterior of which had once been painted with the images of the three graces. She closed the hinged lid, locked the box with a key, and tied the key onto a black ribbon that already held several other keys. Then, she put the ribbon around her neck and dropped it inside her dress, too.

  “If they think you’ve buried supplies, the Germans will execute all of us and dig until they find them,” Willa told her mother-in-law as she removed the pleated paper from the soap. “Give me a knife.” Grazia handed her a paring knife. Willa cut into the side of one of the bars. It split open without effort. “There it is,” Willa said, pulling out a sheaf of bills. She imagined her father working on the concealment, perhaps with the help of his friend, a dentist, who had special tools suited for such exacting deception. “Let’s see what’s inside the others.”

  “Thanks be to God, Mussolini has taken care of us.” Signora Marcheschi said. She crossed herself.

  “If that were true, then why do you bury your food and valuables?”

  “Santo cielo!” Signora Marcheschi waved as if she were swatting a fly. “Now that you have money in your pocket, no one can say anything when you’re around.” She unlocked the wooden box and added some matches, two pairs of socks, and a small doll that belonged to Silvana. The little girl shrieked and rushed for the box.

  “Wait, cara. This way it will be here for you when the soldiers leave,” Signora Marcheschi said. Silvana wailed, but her grandmother ignored her. “Gabriele, come help me dig.” She smiled through brownish teeth. Willa hugged the sobbing child, who pointed to her small shovel and bucket and then renewed her cries when she was not allowed to help with the digging either.

  “It’s a secret,” Signora Marcheschi said to her. “No one must know, cara.” Willa stood with Silvana, watching through the window as Gabriele excavated a new hole in the soft soil near the compost pile. When the hole was nearly three feet deep, Signora Marcheschi put the box into it and waited while Gabriele shoveled the dirt on top and tamped the soil down. When they had finished, Gabriele and his mother scattered leaves and other debris over the ground. Around the property, Willa could see the sunken outlines of other burial spots containing Signora Marcheschi’s secrets. At night, feral dogs sometimes smelled the buried food and tried to dig it up, necessitating daily reburials. This time would be no different.

  “I hate nonna,” Silvana said. Willa kissed her.

  “Let’s find you a teddy bear just like Etto’s.”

  “Does she really think soldiers would want her old salami?” Willa said to Gabriele when he returned.

  “If it makes her feel better, what difference does it make what she buries or why? You promised to leave her alone.” Ettore woke up and whimpered in the crib, but this time he didn’t stand up or call for Willa as he usually did.

  “I don’t give a damn what she does,” Willa said, “as long as the rest of us aren’t executed for withholding supplies from the soldiers.” She picked the baby up. He felt even warmer than when he had gone to sleep. She took his temperature. The child lay limply in her arms with his eyes closed. Willa checked the thermometer. “It’s just over a hundred and four American. We must find a doctor now.”

  “It’s nearly dark,” Gabriele said. “It’s too dangerous to go out.”

  “Soldiers will understand about babies. I’ll make them understand.”

  “No, they won’t. They shot a woman who went out after curfew to get milk for her children.”

  “This is an emergency.” She handed the baby to Gabriele and put on her sweater.

  “Willa, there’s no place to go. The road is gone. The bridge, too. It’s cold. Going out will only make him worse. You’re a mother. Think of your child.”

  “Then you must find a doctor who will come here.”

  “Willa, there are no doctors. We have to do our best.” Willa took Ettore from Gabriele and carried him into the kitchen where she laid him on a towel on the kitchen counter and took off his clothes and his diaper.

  “He’s been dry all day,” she said. Ettore’s lips looked like wrinkled paper. She washed him with cool water and gave him several teaspoons of fresh water. He swallowed the water and vomited almost immediately. She smiled at him and held his hands in hers, examining them, touching his fingers one by one, as if each were new to her, the fingernails, thin, like the papery layer of rice paper on the torrone, the white moons taking up nearly half of each nail. She turned his hands over, running her
finger across each of the knuckles, seeking the absent dimples. She touched his forehead. His eyelids fluttered, but remained closed. Then, he opened his eyes and looked into hers.

  “Here, Etto here,” he said softly. It was a game they played with each other.

  “Here, mamma here,” Willa said to him. She laughed and ran her fingers through his dark curls, noticed that they were no longer shiny or lively. She remembered a lullaby and sang it to him. The muscles of his abdomen tensed making a small dome, but he didn’t cry out. Perhaps, he’s in less pain now. He shivered. She saw the goosebumps on his legs and arms and dressed him quickly. When she tried to swaddle him in a blanket, he resisted, opening his eyes and pushing at the blanket with one hand.

  “Caldo,” he said. Hot. She touched his forehead again. She could feel the heat of his body even when she held her hand just above him. His skin looked dry and yellowed. It must be the poor light in here. She gathered him in her arms and sat down. With one hand she touched his chest softly. Through his shirt, she felt the hardness of his stomach and the racing of his heart. She watched the synchronous pulsing at his temples, heard his short, quick breaths. At last, he seemed to relax and go to sleep. She sat with him in the rocking chair, rocking him back and forth.

  “Let him sleep in his crib,” Gabriele said. “That way both of you can rest.”

  “I want to hold him.” Though Gabriele and the others urged her to sleep while Ettore slept, Willa refused. The hour grew late. Everyone went to bed, leaving her alone with the child. As the hours passed, she continued to rock him, felt the pulsing in his chest. From time to time he writhed in her lap, then lapsed back into her arms. Late in the night, she thought that his pulse felt slower beneath her fingertips. She could not be sure, but he seemed to be resting more comfortably. Just before dawn, she, too, dozed. With a start, she awakened from a dream in which Ettore stood before her, waving goodbye. She looked down. He lay still in her lap. She placed her hand on his chest. She felt nothing. She listened for his breath. He’s just asleep. In the dawning light, she saw that Ettore’s skin had become pale, almost colorless. She touched him. At last, he felt cool. Finally, his fever has broken. He’ll be well soon. She carried him to the window. He remained still in her arms. She touched his face, his arms. His skin felt stiff, unyielding. She shook him lightly, waiting for him to stir.

  “Etto,” she whispered, “Here. Mamma here.” She touched his face and his lips with hers. He remained still, his skin unnaturally cool. She pinched his toes. Shook him. Again. Harder. “Gabriele,” she shrieked. “Gabriele.” Her calls aroused the family. One by one they gathered around her. She held Ettore close. “He doesn’t move anymore.”

  They shook their heads, looked at one another. Grazia crossed herself. “Against death no house is strong enough.”

  “See what you’ve done to my Etto.” Willa held the tiny corpse in her arms and wept uncontrollably. “Now he’s dead.” She rocked the bundle in her arms.

  “Willa, don’t,” Gabriele said. He knelt down beside her, reached for her hand.

  “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  “Etto is my son, too,” Gabriele said, weeping. “He’s my son, too.”

  “You abandoned us when we needed you.” She looked around wildeyed, seeing nothing, and shrieked, long high-pitched cries. “What could I do?” Gabriele asked her.

  “I curse you for all time. I curse all of you and your ignorance.” She sobbed. “My innocent Etto. You let him die. I curse your soul and the God who made you.” She looked at them as from an abyss, no longer caring what happened.

  “Call Father Enrico,” said Signora Marcheschi. She wrapped a shawl around Willa’s trembling shoulders. Willa threw it off. Then Signora Marcheschi brought Willa some tea.

  “Get away from me,” Willa said through her tears. “Now do you see? This is how your damn Mussolini takes care of the children!”

  21

  Father Enrico was away. Some said that he had been captured because of his work with the resistance. Another priest came to say the prayers. Afterwards, Willa held Ettore’s body until evening, until Gabriele and his father had finished making a coffin, until Signora Marcheschi and Grazia had lined it with soft, blue fabric cut from ragged blankets. Only then did Willa let go of Ettore and allow Gabriele to put him inside the box. She covered him with his favorite blanket and put the new teddy bear next to him, those things only because she couldn’t think of anything else. Afterwards, they lit the candles that would burn all night. Willa sat beside him in the rocking chair, her hand covering Etto’s hand.

  The following morning Gabriele and his father went to the Marcheschi family graveyard at the top of the hill just beyond their vineyard. There they dug the grave among the weeds that had grown up around the markers. When they returned, Willa went outside long enough to gather the few wildflowers she could find, and then Gabriele and his father carried the coffin to the grave. Behind them the family followed in a single line. It was nearly afternoon before Willa allowed them to put Ettore’s coffin into the ground. On top of it she dropped the flowers she had gathered, then lifted the first shovelful of dirt herself and tossed it onto the top of Etto’s coffin. After the burial, she placed the rest of the wilted flowers on the freshly turned earth. Everyone returned to the house except Willa, who remained next to Etto’s grave until the stars moved across the black sky, until the nighttime cold enveloped her. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, observing herself from a distance as if she were someone else, unable to will the movement that would mean walking away from Etto and letting go of the thread that had connected them. What would she do without his small warm being next to her? His fingers caressing hers as he fell asleep? A slight breeze carried the smell of the fresh earth at her feet. The long grasses rustled nearby. A dog barked in the distance. She tested herself, the letting go, whether she could give him up, allow the thread to break, will it, will herself to let go. She reached down and took a handful of fresh dirt from the new grave and let it fall through her fingers.

  “Here. Mamma here, Etto,” she whispered to him. Then she said it aloud for the first time: “Goodbye, Etto. Goodbye.” She let the dirt fall from her fingers. Tears poured from her closed eyes. She gasped at the memory of him, so large that it included all of her, leaving nothing of her separate from him. Beyond the broken thread, beyond the letting go, an abyss of loss closed in around her, cut her off from the person she had been just a few hours earlier. A few hours. So short a time, she thought. Just a day. She could still remember who she had been before, when Etto was alive. Minutes passed, one after the other, faster and faster. They would become hours, days, weeks, carrying Etto farther away from her, her away from him, expanding the time and the distance between them, lengthening the thread that had bound them together until it broke, leaving her only a memory of him, a memory that would inevitably become a story about what never happened, a catalog of what never was, until Etto would be utterly and finally and always lost to her. She reached down and took another handful of dirt. She would keep some to remember this day as it really was. Again, she let the dirt tumble from her fingers.

  At last, Willa stood up and brushed her dress off. Dirt and pebbles fell softly onto the ground. Her chest felt crushed, unresponsive to breath. She heard gunfire in the distance, but she neither desired nor sought shelter. The image of Silvana and Raffaele’s round eyes as they stood holding hands, looking at Ettore’s casket came to her, but they, too, felt as distant to her as her own heart. She heard noises on the road and unfamiliar voices from the direction of the vineyards. Probably soldiers. The sounds grew nearer. The thought of going to Gabriele for solace or to comfort him opened within her a river of grief, a torrent that carried her beyond any act of her own choice and swept away all that they had been to one another. Her eyes blurred. Could she pretend a life with Gabriele that no longer existed?

  A dog barked next to her. “What are you doing here?” The soldier stood in front of her with a lantern i
n one hand. He held it up next to her face. He was young. In the glow she saw that he had a round face and large eyes. Curls tumbled out from under his cap. Would Ettore have become a soldier, too? “Answer me. What are you doing out here?”

  “Waiting. Waiting with my son.”

  “It’s after curfew. I have orders to shoot.” He unslung his rifle. “Where is he hiding, your son? Tell him to come out.”

  “There.” She pointed at Ettore’s fresh grave.

  The soldier kicked at the dirt. “You don’t belong here,” he said. “I have orders to shoot.”

  “I won’t leave him out here alone.”

  “Go. Before it’s too late.”

  “He was just a little more than a year. A baby. He still had curls like yours.” The soldier put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Go home or I’ll arrest you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Go! Now!”

  Willa stumbled over the broken stones toward the road, careless of whether she fell or whether the soldier emptied his gun into her body, a bit of matter in a dark universe caroming off the blank walls of an empty galaxy.

  22

  How does one measure grief? How to measure something that lacks dimension, shape, consciousness of itself, consumes itself only to propagate itself anew, creating a larger blackness than before, infinite in its absence and its presence, lacking beginning, middle, end, height, or depth. Although Willa continued to attend to the older children, she moved in silent abstraction within the family, scarcely noticing anyone. When the War ended more than a year later, there was no relief, no change. Merely emptiness. We survived, but for what?

  Willa became a familiar figure at the Duomo. Wrapped in a black shawl, she often sat alone in St. Britius’ Chapel, while outside the cathedral, where Allied bombs had once fallen, the Orvietani undertook the task of rebuilding their town and their lives. Many days, she walked from the Duomo beyond the walls of the city by way of the necropolises, past the newly planted vineyards, and beyond to the Marcheschi family cemetery where she sat next to Etto’s grave.