by Derek Hansen
‘Against the wall!’ he commanded, and the soldiers lined their eight captives against the garage wall.
‘Out of the way, old man! Unless you wish to be shot as well.’
Old Mentore looked at Oberstleutnant Eigenwill in disbelief, but shuffled along the wall away from the women. When he judged he was safe he stopped and watched. What else could go wrong on this most terrible day?
The Oberstleutnant spoke good Italian, so the women were left in no doubt as to what was going to happen. Immediately some began to wail. Many prayed for forgiveness, seeking absolution in their final moments on earth. Giuseppina pleaded with the soldiers in her halting German, begged them for her life. Only Maddalena stood silently, defiantly.
Mentore Parente watched as the soldiers formed up in two ranks. The front rank down on one knee, the rear standing.
‘Prepare to fire!’ ordered the Unteroffizier.
The women, fearful and breathless, looked up to face their executioners. Only one spoke.
‘Men!’ said Maddalena disgustedly, and spat towards them. ‘You should all be drowned at birth!’
‘You …’ hissed the Oberstleutnant. ‘You can say this? After what you have done?’
Old Mentore closed his eyes as if struck by sudden, blinding pain. Now he understood. He wanted to cry out, to speak to the Oberstleutnant. At least he could save Maddalena. But how long does it take to have these thoughts? How long does it take an old man to react? Mentore never heard the Unteroffizier shout the order. He just heard the sudden explosion of gunfire that cut the eight women down and left a bloody pock-marked memorial on his wall.
Chapter Two
Colombina Galli was sixty-five years old and a widow of two years. She lived in a small house in Clareville overlooking Pittwater on Sydney’s northern peninsula. The house had originally been built as a weekend beach house but had been added to over the years until it had achieved some kind of respectability as a permanent residence. It faced north-west. Colombina could look through the forest of yachts moored beneath her home and across the estuary almost to Lion Island.
Her late husband, Mario, had provided well for her. He had been a kind man, eleven years her senior, and she had married him for his kindness. Colombina had learned not to expect too much from men and Mario had seemed the exception. She always maintained—and said so in front of her husband while he was still alive—that marrying Mario was the one smart thing she had done in her life. Mario had loved her for that.
Mario was a prisoner of war who had chosen not to return home. He had been captured in North Africa by an Australian patrol. He had been out on patrol himself during the night and had become separated from his squad. He was relieving himself with his trousers down around his ankles when the Australians stumbled upon him. They burst out laughing and Mario joined in. What else could he do? The situation was absurd. The Diggers were laughing so hard, they nearly killed him when one of their Lee Enfield rifles accidentally discharged. The bullet missed, but Mario had felt the wind of it as it passed overhead. His captors were apologetic and gave him a cigarette to calm him. They escorted him back to their base and wished him well before handing him over for interrogation. Mario shook their hands, glad to be out of the war—like most Italians, he had no quarrel with Britain or her colonies and no desire to fight them. He was put on a troop ship with almost a thousand others like him, and sent to wait out the war twelve thousand kilometres away in a country none of them knew anything about.
He was sent to a prison camp in Cowra in south-west New South Wales before being released into the care of a local farmer, Charlie Dwyer, and his family. Mario loved this new country, so far from the politics and turmoil of Europe, and he loved the Australian people. As his English improved he embarrassed the Dwyers with his enthusiasm for the land, the people, the weather and everything Australian he came across. Rather than being a prisoner, he became part of Charlie Dwyer’s family and worked hard and willingly on their behalf.
When the war ended, Mario chose to stay on in his new home. That is not to say that he didn’t miss Italy. He yearned for Italy, for his home in Lecco, for his job in the factory making tyres, and for his friends. But he knew there was no job waiting for him back in Italy and decided he was better off trying to make a life for himself in Australia. There was one other thing Mario yearned for—an Italian bride.
He wrote to his family to see if they knew of any girl who would like to come to Australia and marry him. They found girls who might consider marrying him, but none who were prepared to go half-way around the world on the off-chance, when there were American soldiers with similar offers right on their doorsteps. So he wrote to the newspapers in Lecco and asked if they would run an advertisement in the personal columns. He asked if they would withhold his name so that he didn’t embarrass his family.
Only one woman replied and they corresponded for six months before she consented to exchange photographs. Mario could not believe his luck. The black-and-white photo was very poor quality because of the post-war shortage of silver, and was already beginning to fade. But it helped flesh out the meagre description she’d already sent him; that she was nineteen years old, that her hair was light brown, her eyes also light brown, and that she was 177 centimetres tall. Mario could see clearly that the woman in the photo was a beauty—far more beautiful than his wildest dreams. But a thought crossed his mind which brought an abrupt halt to his elation. She would now be looking at his picture. He was much older than her—eleven years older—and no prize. Not ugly, but not handsome in the way that she was beautiful. What would she see in him? How could she possibly accept his proposal? He sat down immediately and wrote to her, explaining that he had seen how beautiful she was and releasing her from any obligations she might feel towards him. He told her she did not need to write to him, and apologised in the event that he had misled her. He offered to return her photo if she wished.
Fortunately for Mario, Australia had opened its doors to immigration and boats sailed regularly to and from Europe. He received her reply two months later and could not contain his joy. She had accepted. All he had to do now was get official blessing and send her money for her fare. He couldn’t know that his bride-to-be was as elated as he was, not so much at the prospect of marriage, but of leaving Italy and a past that held nothing but sorrow.
When Mario met her at the boat in Sydney nine months later, her skin was pale from four weeks of sea-sickness, and she stood apprehensively in her new, white suit. He put his arms around her protectively and immediately christened her Colombina, little white dove. That is what she reminded him of.
From that first moment, Colombina knew that she’d been right to follow her instincts. She hadn’t been sure until she’d received the letter absolving her of any obligations. That was the insight into the man she’d been looking for. She was desperate, but not so desperate that she would allow herself to be trapped like her mother had been. Nor so desperate that she would allow herself to be used once more. In that one kind gesture when Mario reacted instinctively and took her into his protective arms, she felt an overpowering sense of relief. It made her light-headed and her knees bent beneath her. She would have fallen but for the strong arms that held her. Only then did she realise how tense she’d been.
‘Colombina …?’ Mario asked gently. ‘Colombina, are you all right? Would you like to sit down?’
Colombina didn’t answer immediately. She was distracted by the sound of her new name. Colombina. Yes! She would happily become Colombina, little white dove, symbol of peace. The irony was not lost on her. Her real name belonged in the past. She would leave it behind along with Italy and her memories. She would walk away with this man, with a new name and a new life and she would never look back.
‘No, grazie. Va bene, va bene. Grazie a lei.’ For the first time she looked up into the face of her husband-to-be and was astonished to read the concern in it. She smiled and the face before her lit up in response.
‘Bene! Molto bene
! Come. I have a friend with a truck to carry your things. Where are your things?’
‘This is all I have.’ Colombina pointed to the battered, brown suitcase on the floor beside her. He reached over and picked it up.
‘Dear God, there is hardly anything in it.’
‘There is everything I need for the moment.’
Mario put his free arm around her and hugged her to him.
‘Colombina, I promise you. God as my witness I promise you. One day you will have everything you want. Just say it and it will be yours.’ Mario’s voice shook. Where has she come from? he wondered. What has she been through, this poor girl?
Mario walked her out of the Customs Hall and into a world as foreign as anything she’d imagined. She laughed out loud when she saw the truck Mario had borrowed to carry her and her suitcase. The old Ford belonged to the builder Mario worked for and had been emptied of tools for the occasion. Mario had even given it a wash, but no amount of washing could disguise the purpose for which the truck was used, and it bore all the scars of the trade. ‘M. L. McKeown, Lic. Builder’ was barely legible on the driver’s door. A young man with curly red hair looked out of the window at them.
‘Colombina, this is my friend Harry.’
Harry climbed down from the cab and offered his hand.
‘G’day,’ said Harry. He looked hard at her. ‘Jesus, Mario! She got any sisters?’
Colombina couldn’t understand a word, but she understood the sentiment. She put her head back and laughed. She felt good, really good. Was this what her new life would be like? She climbed into the cab and perched on the edge of the seat between the two laughing men. Could she really be that lucky?
In the nine months that Mario had waited impatiently for Colombina to arrive, he wrote to her twice and often three times a week. He told her all about his new country, his new job and his new friends. Her letters in return spoke of how much she was looking forward to joining him and how quickly—or how slowly—her papers were being processed. Other than that they told him nothing. So Mario had no information upon which to flesh out the beautiful young woman in the photograph before him. He did what anyone else in his position would do—he created a personality for her, one which naturally had no defects. He couldn’t help comparing other women with this woman of his imaginings and, of course, Colombina always came out on top. His new friends warned him, pointing out that his expectations were unfair to his bride-to-be and to himself. When he finally met her, how could he not be disappointed? No woman could be that perfect.
But Mario was not disappointed. The instant he saw her he fell in love. Probably he was already in love, that fact needing only the confirmation of her presence. He needed to love, and the pale, vulnerable and beautiful young woman needed to be loved by someone kind and gentle. So the foundations were in place. Yet the truth was that Colombina lived up to the image of perfection that Mario had created. His friends all remarked on it.
Colombina adapted instantly to her new country. She had banished Italy from her mind so made none of the sort of comparisons that can leave immigrants feeling disgruntled or homesick. She accepted every aspect of her new life. When people grew impatient with her lack of English, she calmly accepted that she had to get better at her new language. When people called her a ‘wog’, she calmly accepted that if Italians were ‘wogs’ in Australia then, as an Italian, she was also a ‘wog’. She bore no resentment. When Mario put her into lodgings with a family from Naples until their wedding day, she calmly accepted the propriety and necessity for it. That was the thing about her that everyone remarked upon. She was always so calm, so serene, so … well … un-Italian.
Mario would have liked Colombina to have been a virgin on her wedding night but, given the war and her flat refusal to discuss her past, he had virtually conceded that he was expecting too much. Colombina was not a virgin but Mario was not disappointed. She admitted him to the pleasures of her body and the delights of her love making as she had all the others before him: the Count, the Oberstleutnant, the partisan and, in her desperation, the faceless men in Lecco who’d given her money so that she could survive.
Throughout her marriage, Colombina put Italy behind her and refused to discuss any aspect of her past with Mario. She even refused to discuss his past in Italy. When she judged her English good enough, she insisted they spoke English in their home. This was too much for Mario and caused their first serious argument. Significantly they argued in Italian, and when Mario woke up to the fact, used it to end the debate.
‘See?’ he demanded. ‘Italian is a language of passion. We are Italians, we are passionate. How could we possibly express what we are trying to say in English, with all the right meaning? And even if it were possible, even if one of us could do this, the other would not understand. Where is the point? Besides, there are other things. I refuse to make love in English.’
Colombina had to laugh and a compromise was negotiated. Everyday matters and unimportant things were thereafter discussed in English. Serious matters or matters of passion were always discussed in Italian. When their daughter Alessandra was born, Colombina only ever spoke to her in English.
Another problem confronting Colombina was the fact that they lived among the Italian community in Leichhardt and most of their friends were Italian. From the day they were married and moved into their rented flat, Colombina began a campaign to move on to another suburb. She also made a special effort to strengthen their friendships with non-Italians—Mario’s workmates and people they met at church socials. The breakthrough came when Mario’s boss sent him over to the lower North Shore to help a friend who was building a patio and terracing his garden. Mario discovered three things. First, that he had a talent for landscape gardening—an occupation he never knew existed—which he immediately demonstrated by making suggestions that his boss’s friend seized upon. Secondly, he discovered he loved the job. He loved being outdoors, surrounded by flowers and bushes and the ubiquitous gum trees. He loved the visiting lorikeets, galahs and cockatoos. If he’d come across a black snake, he probably would have loved that too. He saw landscaping as a wonderful act of creation in which he could play a part. But more than anything, he realised, he had discovered the opportunity to do what every immigrant dreams of doing—to set up his own business.
Colombina was quick to see how Mario’s plans could advance hers. She encouraged him and promised to find work to help support them while the business was starting up. ‘But how,’ she asked him continually, ‘could he succeed in Leichhardt, an old suburb with no need for landscaping? Surely they would be better off in a new area where there were hills and where properties sloped? Like the lower North Shore?’
Mario loved Leichhardt and his friends there, but he had to accept the sense of what Colombina was saying. The most important thing in his life right then was to start his new business and make sure it was a success.
‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘We look.’
Bit by bit, Colombina shook off the shackles of her past. But there were always new obstacles to overcome. When Alessandra turned four, Mario decided they should all visit Italy so he could show off his family to his relatives. How could Colombina refuse to go? Yet she did, though she had to play a card she never wanted to play.
‘You remember when I first arrived in Australia and you saw the few possessions I had in this world, you made me a promise. Before God.’ She looked beseechingly at her husband. ‘You promised me I could have anything I wanted, anything at all. Mario, I have not asked you for anything till now. But I want to stay here when you go back to Italy. I never want to go back there. Take Alessandra. I am sorry, Mario, but I beg you, please, let me stay here.’
Mario reluctantly had to agree to her request, but what sort of triumphant return would it be without his beautiful, loving wife? Not for the first time nor the last he wondered what could possibly have happened during the war that made her this way.
‘Besides,’ she said, ‘one of us should stay and look after
the business. I can run the supplies yard, and send the boys on small jobs they can’t muck up. I can manage the business while you’re gone.’
Once again he had to acknowledge the wisdom of what she said.
‘Go quickly.’ Colombina smiled at her unhappy husband and put her arms around him. ‘Then you will come home sooner.’
Colombina’s calm and control also served her well in business—she projected confidence and that is a most precious asset. When Mario returned from Italy she stayed on as manager, leaving him free to do the landscaping, which was what he loved and was good at.
They moved house again as their business prospered. They bought a three-year-old brick home in Roseville with an acre of land, mostly bush, which sloped steeply toward the river below. Mario could hardly wait to landscape it. When they put Alessandra into the local primary school they were surprised to discover she was the only Italian child in the class. To Colombina, the move was another step away from her heritage, a little more distance between her and Italy.
But Colombina failed to give Mario the large Italian family and the son he desperately wanted. To be fair, she was hardly to blame—she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy. Colombina ignored the pains in her stomach until her tubes burst and her abdominal cavity erupted with peritonitis. She lost the child she was carrying and the ability to conceive another. It was something of a miracle that she didn’t also lose her life.
No family is spared grief and some would say that Mario and Colombina were fortunate that no other tragedy or disaster came their way. When Mario sold the business and decided to retire, they bought the little cottage in Clareville on the shores of Pittwater. They could easily afford a larger house but had no need for one. Their daughter Alessandra was now a married woman with children of her own. Besides, the cottage needed work and had a garden that needed landscaping. It would keep Mario happy until the day he died, building a seawall from sandstone blocks.