Lunch with Mussolini

by Derek Hansen

  Guido put aside his anger and reached for the priest’s hand. ‘Let me know if you change your mind. If I say any prayers tonight, that’s what I will pray for. Now go. Give my family my love.’

  Father Michele turned and began the long journey back down the mountain. His haversack was lighter but that didn’t compensate for the weight on his heart.

  Cecilia had no idea her fate was being decided high up in the mountains. Nor did the men who made the decisions realise the tragic chain of events they were setting in motion. Cecilia was happy to have survived the dinner, to have made a contribution and to have extracted a commitment from the Oberstleutnant to meet again. Beyond that she had no plan. She had no clear idea of what sort of man he was or what his interest in her was. Perhaps he did value her as a source of information, though she suspected it had more to do with the fact that she was seventeen years old and attractive. What if that was the case? What if that was the price of his friendship and the information she sought? When it came to the crunch, she wasn’t sure how she’d react. But that was a problem for later, if there was a later. The next move was up to him.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Friedrich Eigenwill sat in his office in the Menaggio barracks and contemplated the situation he found himself in. Mussolini’s Salo Republic was a joke. Il Duce’s government had responsibility but no power. The Nazis ran practically everything and even censored his government’s letters. Six hundred thousand Italians had been hauled away to Germany as cheap industrial labour, along with the machinery from entire factories. Those men and boys who had escaped the roundup had become partisans and there was little he could do to stop others joining them. Mussolini had dissolved the Carabinieri and replaced them with a Republican National Guard comprised of Carabinieri and old fascist militia. As a police force they were hopelessly ineffective and defection to the partisans became a daily fact of life. The Ministry of Police ran its own security force, the squadristi, who were a law unto themselves. To complicate matters, he had to contend with private police forces run by the local senior fascists. Then there was the Gestapo and the SS, whose job had grown from hunting down Jews and anti-fascists, to ensuring the full commitment of the Wehrmacht. It was a mess.

  All Friedrich had to help him round up partisans and keep the road to Switzerland open were his own troops, a combination of untested boys and First World War veterans numbering about fifty, and roughly seventy fascist soldiers, raggle-taggle remnants of Marshal Graziani’s forces. What the Italians lacked in skills and equipment, they made up for in local knowledge. What his men lacked in local knowledge they made up for in weaponry and discipline, so the two forces were reasonably complementary. He had five machine-guns, six mortars, three covered trucks, two field cars, two motorcycles, one motorcycle combination and two Lancia Aprilia staff cars. This is all he had to patrol forty kilometres of road and all the hills north of Menaggio and west of Lake Como. He had one other weapon which he was loath to use—fear.

  The previous commandant had posted warnings in every village informing the population that anyone possessing weapons or harbouring partisans would be shot; that soldiers would use their rifles against any gathering of more than two people; and that any village whose inhabitants insulted German soldiers would be burned to the ground. Coupled with these warnings was the threat of reprisals, the cold-blooded shooting of civilians in revenge for partisan activities. Friedrich prayed that that was one measure he would never have to take. Yet his first duty was to protect his men and that begged the question: What measures could he take to avoid the necessity for reprisals? He had no stomach for shooting innocent women, old men and children.

  All over northern Italy partisan forces were growing bolder as they grew stronger. Sooner or later activity would pick up in his area. At the moment they were no more than a nuisance with their strike and fade tactics, hitting and running before the mortars and machine-guns could target in on them. It was only a matter of time before the partisans engaged them in serious battle. More and more regularly the Americans dropped supplies to the partisans by parachute, and the last drops had included light cannon. The partisans had left the cannon behind on the ground because they were too heavy to transport. But one day soon they’d have the means and he was powerless to prevent it.

  He summoned his staff and the commanding officer of the Blackshirts and outlined his strategy. He intended that they would use the same tactics as the guerrilla forces they opposed. They would harry them constantly, and delay the day when the partisans could truthfully claim control of the hills. When that happened, all was lost. He wanted to step up the patrols and frequency of the combined forces’ sweep through the hills. But above all he wanted information. He wanted the Blackshirts and the local fascist militias to establish informants throughout the hills. He instructed them to offer exemptions from conscription, release of imprisoned relatives, money, threats and any other form of coercion they deemed necessary. The hills were too many and his forces too few to waste time chasing shadows. He terminated the meeting without allowing questions or anyone to introduce any suggestion that his requests may prove too difficult to fulfil. Then he turned his attention to personal matters.

  As he’d predicted, the Russian advance was proving inexorable. As dedicated and tenacious as the German armies were, the result was a foregone conclusion. Unless the Allies could speed up their advance through Italy and open a second front in France, the Russians would sweep through Germany. Before that happened he wanted to get Christiane and Helmuth as far west as he could. But getting them to move from Dresden was proving harder than stopping the Russians. He couldn’t order them or send direct instructions because of the censors and the threat of execution that hung over the heads of any defeatists. All he could do was allude to places in the west they’d never been and relatives they didn’t have, in the hope that Christiane would take the hint. He spoke of returning to those places after the war knowing full well she’d understand his meaning. But she remained in Dresden, stubbornly defiant. She played his game and never failed to mention her sister Lisl, Ulla or the unfortunate Käte, an obvious allusion to Wuppertal-Barmen and the devastating bombing of German cities. It seemed to him that Christiane still hadn’t grasped the seriousness of the situation they were in, and still clung to the foolish notion of Hitler’s infallibility. He knew that in her heart she still believed that somehow everything would work out all right because her father said it would. His despair and frustration grew. What chance did she have of seeing the light? The only information anyone in Germany got was the lies fed to them by Goebbels via the Nazi-controlled radio and newspapers. They were forbidden to listen to foreign broadcasts on pain of death. How could Christiane be made to face reality? Only the bombing and the desperate shortages of food, fuel and clothing gave any real indication of their plight. He wrote guarded letters to Gottfried in the hope that he could talk some sense into her but nothing had come of it. Daily his anxiety grew until he was forced to seek distraction.

  Friedrich was a loving husband and his love for Christiane was beyond question. But he was also a serving soldier a long way from home, and there’d been many days when he’d been fortunate just to survive to see the next. General Rommel’s advice had become his justification and he took his comforts where he could. The girls in the brothels provided solace of a kind but it was never satisfactory. They took care of the body’s needs but usually left the mind to fend for itself. He longed for the company of a woman with whom he could talk and relax, share intimacies and ultimately seduce. What he wanted was love and affection, not abstract and distant, but here and now that he could feel and touch. He was a soldier in need of gentle reminders that he was also a functioning human being. He needed Cecilia.

  He rang the Villa Carosio and invited himself to lunch on the pretext of discussing the morning’s strategy meeting with the Count. He specifically requested that Cecilia join them for lunch. He resolved to determine the extent of the Count’s hold upon her and her r
eceptivity to his advances. He was thirty years old yet he still felt the same thrill he had as a teenager, the thrill of the chase. That surprised him. But he would have been even more surprised if he’d known whose ears would ultimately share their lunchtime conversation.

  Chapter Thirty

  Colombina had every chance to become the Oberstleutnant’s killer, but instead she became his nurse. Time and time again she steeled herself to confront him but couldn’t go through with it. It wasn’t just her weakness but also his weakness that was his salvation. She simply couldn’t bring herself to commit the final act when the old man was so helpless and dependent upon her. Arguably, he was lucky to have survived the operation. For many elderly, the trauma and the effects of the anaesthetic often prove too much. The old man soldiered on, although he was nothing like his former self.

  Colombina stayed with him through most of the day and sometimes overnight, sleeping as best she could on his old sofa. He kept apologising to her and telling her how much he appreciated her help. But while his body was weakened, his spirits were high and he engaged her endlessly with his wit and humour. She was both mother and daughter to him and he both child and father to her. She cancelled Meals-on-Wheels and cooked for him instead. She bathed him and did his laundry and helped him to the toilet. And each time she guided him on his unsteady legs to the bathroom, she held his life in her hands. Sooner or later she’d have to face him and let him know what she intended to do and why. But she kept putting it off and putting it off, and every day her attachment to the charming old rogue grew. As he won more and more of her heart, the excuses for her inaction became easier to find.

  She justified her indecision in many ways, both rational and fanciful. The fact was, though, there was no urgency. The old man’s recovery was painfully slow. She decided she wanted to know about his life in Australia, to fill in the gaps in her knowledge. It seemed foolish to send him into the next world without discovering all he’d done in this. Afterwards, she’d always wonder, and never have the opportunity of finding out. So she asked him.

  He seemed taken aback by the question, and took his time before he answered.

  ‘What part would you like to know?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘How do I know? All you ever talk about is opera, food and football. And politics a bit.’ She laughed. ‘Come on! You’ve spent a lifetime here, something interesting must have happened. Start at the beginning, when you first set foot on Australian soil.’

  ‘All right,’ he replied slowly. ‘On one condition. When I am finished, you must tell me the story of your life in Australia from the time you arrived.’

  ‘I was born here. I told you.’ She looked hard at the old man. He’d definitely flinched. She laughed to cover his error. ‘I can tell you about my mother and father and the night when the moon was full and they made love beneath the stars and their fruit trees. Don’t you think that is a romantic way to begin life? I’m surprised they didn’t name me after a variety of plum or peach.’

  The old man laughed with her. ‘My parents never talked about such things. They were just like the English—they pretended they didn’t have sex.’

  Colombina wasn’t certain but an edge seemed to have crept into his voice, a tension, a guardedness. She felt a coldness in her belly. Perhaps their little game was drawing to a close. Perhaps today would see it reach its conclusion. Would she be up to it when the time came?

  ‘When I arrived in Australia, returned soldiers had the first pick of what jobs were going. Who could blame the employers? But it wasn’t exactly ideal circumstances for a non-combatant Swiss with a German accent. I ended up on the Snowy Mountains project surrounded by other Europeans like myself. I had trained as a lawyer back home in Sankt Gallen so they made me an explosives expert. The hours were long and the work was hard, but it was never boring. There is something about gelignite that demands the whole and undivided attention of the people who handle it. One day, one of my fellow experts didn’t concentrate hard enough. His charge exploded just as I was fitting detonators to fuses. When the blast hit me I was measuring off fuses. If I’d been holding the detonators I would have lost both hands. As it was, my clothes ignited and I had to beat out the flames with my arms. All I lost was skin, my colleague lost his life.

  ‘I would have stayed on but by then things were becoming unpleasant. There were Italians, Balts, Jugoslavs, Poles, Hungarians and Germans. Unfortunately, some of them brought the war with them to their new country and someone was always accusing the Germans of being war criminals. I myself was accused without evidence. It became an unpleasant place to stay. So I took to the road and did whatever work came along. For a while the burns on my arms restricted me and I was fired from some jobs. Can you imagine labouring for a bricklayer with burns up to your armpits? I thought I could hold my arms away from my body and I could, but not all day.

  ‘I got a job in a bakery in Melbourne making pastry. For two weeks I worked in the fridge carrying fifty-six pound blocks of butter and margarine from one place to another. They always gave Europeans the jobs in the refrigerator because they thought we didn’t feel the cold. Maybe they didn’t read about all the soldiers who froze to death on the Eastern Front. After two weeks they took me out of the fridge and put me on a machine which broke the butter and margarine into twelve pieces about five pounds each. I did that for ten weeks, then they put me on a brake which rolled out the pastry. For a year I rolled and folded, rolled and folded until I nearly went insane. I ran out of daydreams very early on and the only way I could keep my sanity was to compete against myself. So every day I tried to roll more pastry than the day before. There was a little counter on the machine so I always knew how well I’d done. Of course the bosses were delighted. Unfortunately the union wasn’t. They told me if I didn’t slow down they’d go on strike. They threatened to break my hands. Why? All because I worked too hard and showed up the laziness of others.

  ‘I left and got a job in a plastics factory making light-fittings. The same thing happened there. I found I was no good at repetitious jobs. That is, I was too good. I had to compete with myself or die of boredom. I worked as a storeman in a brewery, a lathe operator, and a bus driver for a private bus line which took kids to school. I liked that job but the company went broke.

  ‘I heard there was a shortage of electricians so I went to a company and asked them to take me on as an apprentice at apprentice wages. The boss was a good man. He said the law wouldn’t let him do that but he’d teach me anyway. For eight hours a day I learned my trade, then I put in another four hours in the warehouse packing heavy electrical equipment without pay. Once I qualified, I shook hands with the boss and left. With my new trade I found I could go anywhere and get a job. So I did. I crossed this country so many times I lost count.’

  ‘Did you ever marry?’

  ‘No. Sometimes I lived with a woman as man and wife. It’s fashionable now but let me tell you, it wasn’t very fashionable then. In the end, they’d leave me or I’d leave them. They always wanted more than I was prepared to give. They always wanted to pry. Pry. Pry. Pry! In the end I became a confirmed bachelor, confirmed and selfish in my ways. A bottle of Scotch, football and opera. They became my passions. And once a year I went back down to the Snowy to catch trout. Not much of a story. Not much of a life.’

  Colombina didn’t know how to respond. Everything except the incident with the explosives seemed to fit. Perhaps it had taken place and his friend was killed, but she knew damn well that wasn’t how he’d burned his arms. He’d lived the life of a fugitive, not knowing when to stop running. What had driven him on? Who did he think was pursuing him after all those years? Perhaps he’d simply spent his life running away from his guilt. She looked back at him and found him watching her closely. She smiled. ‘You should have stayed in Switzerland. Instead of making holes through mountains, you could have made holes in cheese. It’s a lot easier, tastes better too. I’ll go make a cup of tea.’

  She put the kettle on and noti
ced the worn flex. She’d become so familiar with it, it had ceased to represent a hazard. But why would an electrician put up with it? If anyone knew about the dangers, he would. It occurred to her then that the whole of his story might be fiction, a carefully prepared, deliberately boring history to be wheeled out on request. Had he been hiding for so long that he’d forgotten how to trust? She felt cheated and hurt. She was his friend, nurse, cook and companion. Her every waking moment revolved around him and his needs. The fact that she was also his would-be murderer was inconsequential. He didn’t know that. For most of her life she’d lived in two worlds and expected to be taken at face value in each of them. It rankled with her that the man who called himself Heinrich Bose did not repay her kindness and trust.

  ‘Here’s your tea. By the way I don’t believe a word of your story. I can’t imagine you as an electrician or a pastry cook.’ She said it flippantly, almost in jest, as if to convince herself that she didn’t care whether he told her the truth or not. For a moment he said nothing. He just looked at her steadily then cut the ground away from beneath her.

  ‘And I don’t believe you were born in Australia or that your name is Colombina. It isn’t, is it, Cecilia?’

  She was lost for words, stunned speechless. There it was. He knew. He’d probably known all along. He looked at her with a mixture of hurt and accusation. She didn’t know where to turn or what to think.

  Lucio stopped speaking and glanced over to Gancio, who caught his signal that the day had concluded.

  ‘Maria!’ Just as the name passed his lips to hurtle towards the kitchen, they heard the telltale hiss of the old espresso machine.

  ‘Subito!’

  ‘Maria’s improving,’ observed Neil drily.