Fire in the Hills

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “If there are ever Germans watching, eat standing up,” said Volpe Rossa. “Jews never stand when they eat.” She got a bowl and perched on the edge of a bed to eat. The other women did the same.

  When he’d finished, Lupo helped carry the pots into a small kitchen. The three women washed up, moving around one another with intimacy, as though they’d been friends all their lives.

  Their talk turned to the real business fast. There were two possible jobs Volpe Rossa and Lupo could help do. One would carry them northwest to Rome. The other would carry them northeast, much farther, all the way to Florence. The second was more perilous—but, then, nothing was without danger.

  “We’ll go to Florence,” said Volpe Rossa.

  Florence was closer to Venice. Lupo wondered if Volpe Rossa had made the choice for his sake.

  The next morning Lupo found himself on a bicycle, pulling a milk cart behind. He had hated waiting to start the journey. It was better to act fast on decisions that scared him. But no one would deliver milk at any time other than morning. So there was no choice.

  Volpe Rossa was on a bicycle, too, but she rode ahead of him, and she didn’t pull a cart. Her bicycle had a wire basket with another basket inside it—a large woven one.

  Lupo’s cart held five rifles, under a layer of straw, with milk jugs on top and an oilcloth covering it all. Volpe Rossa’s basket held sticks of dynamite under a pile of ribbons. Her hair was tied in ribbons, too. They were to deliver everything to a farmhouse halfway to the next town. And they had a rule, the only rule of the partigiani: do your job. There was no discussion of at what price. They were to deliver their cargo. Period.

  The irony of Lupo, who hated guns, carrying these rifles didn’t escape him. But guns could be used to stop violence as well as to do violence. That’s what Volpe Rossa said. That’s what Lupo held on to.

  A kilometer before the farmhouse they’d see a pile of stones beside the road. That’s how they’d recognize it.

  They had been on the road only half an hour when they heard a car behind them.

  Lupo pedaled hard and came up beside Volpe Rossa. He hooted at her lasciviously. That was their game.

  If the car held Germans, Volpe Rossa was supposed to answer in Italian—because Germans couldn’t tell one Italian dialect from another. But if the car held Italians, then Lupo had to be the one to answer.

  The car pulled alongside them. “Young lady,” called the German officer in Italian. “Is he bothering you?”

  “I’m managing.” Volpe Rossa gave the officer a smile.

  “Get out of the way, boy,” said the officer. “I want to speak to this young woman. Can’t you see that?”

  Lupo fell back a little.

  “A girl as pretty as you is target practice for these bumpkins,” shouted the officer over the rumble of the car motor. “How about I throw your bicycle in my trunk and give you a lift wherever you’re going?”

  “You’re generous,” said Volpe Rossa. “But you have important things to do. And I can handle boys like him.”

  The officer pulled his car in front of Volpe Rossa’s bicycle and stopped, blocking her way. He got out.

  Volpe Rossa put her hand behind the small of her back and secretly waved Lupo on, past her.

  Lupo pedaled around them. His ears rang with fear. He dared to look back. Volpe Rossa held her basket and the officer was putting her bicycle in his car trunk.

  No!

  Should Lupo stop?

  He looked back again. The officer’s hand was on Volpe Rossa’s back as she stepped up into the car. His hand slid down her body.

  Lupo looked straight ahead and pedaled faster.

  The rule was do your job. That was the only rule. And his job was to deliver those guns. If he did something rash, both he and Volpe Rossa would be in trouble for sure.

  Right now she might be in trouble and she might not.

  No. He knew she was in trouble. That officer’s hand told him.

  The German’s car zoomed past, up the road.

  Tears blurred Lupo’s vision. Volpe Rossa had to know how to take care of herself. She had to.

  He pedaled and pedaled.

  Volpe Rossa was in a German officer’s car.

  He pedaled and pedaled.

  He was alone.

  Again.

  He’d been alone so many times, and still the sense of desperation never lessened. If another German officer came, he had no game to play now—no Volpe Rossa to pretend to be flirting with.

  He wiped away his tears and pedaled furiously. He passed clusters of houses, and wagons now and then. Men on scooters whizzed by. And one car.

  He’d been pedaling for hours, searching the sides of the road. Had he missed the pile of stones? What if someone had moved them? A sour taste filled his mouth. He was sure he’d missed it now. Stupid stupid stupid him. He couldn’t do it without Volpe Rossa.

  And there it was. Finally. Such a little pile. Only a kilometer more. He pedaled right up to the farmhouse.

  The farmer’s wife was outside before he got off the bicycle. She was enormously pregnant. She put her hands on either side of her belly and looked up and down the road. “Bring it into the barn.”

  17

  LUPO LAY ON OLD STRAW in the barn. He couldn’t fall asleep. Fear swirled in his head. Volpe Rossa was gone. He had failed her. He knew that now. The rule might be to do your job, but how could anyone do their job if their partners abandoned them? He should have done something.

  The wide wagon beside him held a layer of rifles under a false bottom—guns that had accumulated there from milk carts over the past few weeks.

  He’d be given another job in the morning. A job involving all those rifles.

  That was crazy. Lupo had no experience at this partigiano thing. He was lousy at it. He needed Volpe Rossa. Without her, he was a bumbler. No good to anyone.

  If she didn’t show up, he’d get back on the road to Venice. Head home. He had never stopped wanting to do that the whole time he was at Rina’s—he had just planned to wait till the Germans were gone first. But at the rate this war was going, they might never be gone.

  He rolled onto one side. Then onto the other side. Then onto his back again.

  Samuele had died. Maurizio had died. Ivano had died. Anytime Lupo loved someone, they died. He’d be better off never caring about anyone. And if Volpe Rossa was still alive, she was better off without him.

  It was true. He couldn’t save anyone. So there was no point trying. And there was no reason he should feel so ashamed of his thoughts right now.

  He stared unblinking until his eyes burned. He needed to sleep. He was too tired to think straight.

  The barn back at Rina’s farm had been a good place to sleep. This barn would be good, too, if he only let it. He opened his senses to the barn.

  Horses weren’t as noisy as oxen, but they swished their tails and stamped. And one of these four horses had the habit of throwing back its head and snorting.

  The barn door creaked loudly. Lupo lay dead still.

  “Lupo?” came Volpe Rossa’s whisper.

  He ran to her and they clung together in the dark. She was here. Breathing warm and strong. Lupo went weak with relief. “How did you get away?”

  “He let me off in the next town. But I had to wait till I was sure he was long gone. Then I pedaled back.”

  “Let’s go up to the farmhouse. You must be hungry.”

  “He fed me.” She pulled away. Then she walked past him and lay down on the straw.

  Lupo lay beside her. “Did he . . . Are you all right?”

  “I’m always all right.”

  “No one’s always all right.”

  “I am.”

  “I shouldn’t have left you. I’m sorry.”

  Volpe Rossa sat up. “Don’t talk stupid. You did your job. And we’re both still alive.”

  “I’m glad you’re alive. I was so afraid.”

  “Don’t waste your energies worrying about me.
Ever.” She lay back down.

  “What happened to the basket with the dynamite?”

  “I found a good person in town. I gave it to her. Riding back with it would have been too risky. He might have passed me again.” Her voice broke. She rolled onto her side, so her back was to Lupo. “So I didn’t do my job. But you did yours. And these are good people. Sleep now.” Her voice sounded defeated.

  Lupo wanted to touch her shoulder, to comfort her. But he didn’t dare.

  After a while, he sang in a hush. Volpe Rossa joined him.

  When they finished, they lay there in silence.

  “Lupo,” whispered Volpe Rossa after a long while, “I’m glad you’re alive, too.”

  In the morning, the pregnant woman climbed onto the wagon bench with Volpe Rossa by her side. She never told them her name. Lupo sat in the wagon with two bicycles. If they were stopped, the story was that they were delivering the wagon to a farmer outside the next town—whatever the next town might be at that point—and the bicycles were so that the woman and girl could return home, while the boy stayed to help the farmer.

  They left the woman’s two brothers behind, only twelve and fourteen years old. They would take care of the farm chores in her absence. They’d even return the milk cart Lupo had brought. Nobody fretted over leaving everything in the hands of mere boys; it was clear this had happened before.

  All day long German jeeps and cars passed in greater numbers the farther north they went. The cars slowed down, but when the Germans saw that big pregnant belly, they tipped their military hats and went on.

  The woman had told Lupo that pregnancy put a woman beyond suspicion, but he hadn’t really believed it—not till now. He knew enough of war to suspect anyone and everyone. Why didn’t those German soldiers know the same?

  The wagon made slow progress, though they didn’t stop except once, to eat. The roads wound through hills, past small towns. Trees bloomed white and pink and purple everywhere. Grasslands waved red with poppies. Lupo’s arms and legs flexed. So much pent-up energy. He wanted to be back on Rina’s farm, hoeing, planting, working himself into physical exhaustion. Riding in this pokey wagon made him feel half-mad.

  That night Volpe Rossa and Lupo slept in another barn, fed by more good people, as Volpe Rossa called them. The pregnant woman slept in this new farmhouse, with the family. At dawn, she got on a bicycle to ride back. It wasn’t one from the wagon—no, those had to stay put, as props for their act if Germans stopped them. This bicycle was extra, for general use. It was a good system; someone rode a bike in one direction, and then left it; someone else soon came along and rode it back in the other direction.

  The pregnant woman said she’d get home by afternoon. Lupo watched till she rounded a curve, out of sight.

  The new farm woman turned to Lupo with a circumspect smile. “You haven’t developed a stomach for this yet, eh? Don’t worry. She’s far enough along that if she needs help, anyone will give it. And she’s not so far along that an upset will cause a premature delivery. We’re careful that way. We’ve learned the limits.”

  They’d learned. Oh, Lord, the price of lessons.

  The next day started as a repeat of the last, only this woman wasn’t pregnant. She was remarkably pretty, though. And she unbraided Volpe Rossa’s hair and brushed it shiny and fluffy and dressed her in clean clothes.

  They hadn’t been on the road an hour when a pair of Nazi officers stopped them. The Germans spoke good Italian, and the Italian girls flirted outrageously. They could both have careers in cinema after the war, Lupo was sure.

  One of the Germans asked Volpe Rossa, “What do you want most, a girl like you?”

  Volpe Rossa put prayer hands together at her chin, as though in thought. “A piece of cake. And, oh, yes”—she curled a shoulder forward coquettishly, like Lupo had watched her do before—“with whipped cream.”

  The officers laughed and talked in German about how foolish Italians were. They gave the girls German sausages and stale pastries, then left with a lustful backward leer.

  When they were out of hearing distance, the farm woman laughed. “Che schifo—what disgusting stuff,” she said as she scooped the soldiers’ food together.

  “We could get hungry later,” said Lupo.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t throw anything away.”

  “You never know what could be useful,” added Volpe Rossa.

  Later her words proved true. A German soldier, alone on a scooter, pulled them over and interrogated them without showing the least susceptibility to the girls’ charms. He was large and maybe forty years old. Stern and businesslike. He spoke only German, so Lupo had to be the one to deal with him.

  “We’re delivering this wagon to a farmer,” said Lupo, in broken German. After all, how would a farm boy have learned good German?

  The soldier came around the back of the wagon. “Empty?” He jiggled a side hard. “Nothing hidden under here?” He brushed straw away and exposed a swath of the bottom—the false bottom.

  Volpe Rossa unwrapped the German food from that morning. “Here, here, brother,” she said to Lupo in Italian, twisting and passing him the food. “Please offer this fine man the food our friends prepared for us.”

  Lupo held the food out to the soldier. “Would you like something to eat?”

  The soldier looked dubious. “German officers’ food? How did you get it?”

  “Friends of my sisters—they gave it to us. You’re welcome to as much as you want.”

  The soldier stuck a whole pastry in his mouth. He wiped the sugar from his lips with the back of his hand. “Everything looks in order here.” He got on his scooter and drove away.

  And so it went, day after day, always with a new woman on the bench beside Volpe Rossa—a woman who spoke the local dialect and returned home the next morning. It took five full days to deliver the rifles to Florence. But they did it. With the help of good people.

  18

  VOLPE ROSSA AND LUPO STOOD near the front of the noisy crowd outside Fascist headquarters, which was directly across the piazza from the hotel the Nazis had taken over for their headquarters. An empty net shopping bag hung from Volpe Rossa’s wrist. A larger sack was slung over Lupo’s shoulder.

  They were with the middle-aged, matronly woman who had taken them in the night before, when they’d finally arrived in Florence. She introduced herself as Giovanni’s mother—that’s all. Lupo was accustomed to that by now. Many of the resistance women he’d met identified themselves as someone’s mother, wife, sister. Giovanni’s mother. Probably something awful had happened to Giovanni.

  Giovanni’s mother made a tsking noise and pointed with her chin. Lupo and Volpe Rossa looked. A woman of maybe twenty-five crossed the piazza in a fancy dress. Her legs were shiny. She hurried into the Nazi headquarters.

  “Silk stockings,” said Volpe Rossa. Her lip curled in disgust.

  “What’s so bad about stockings?” asked Lupo.

  “She’s not hungry, that’s what. Where do you think she gets them? What do you think she’s going to do in that Nazi hotel?”

  “She’s the enemy,” mumbled Giovanni’s mother. Then she let out a tired sigh. “This system makes no sense. We wait hours to get coupons from the Fascists, only so we can change lines and wait hours to buy milk, fuel, supplies.”

  “If we’re lucky,” said the young woman in front of them. She was pregnant. Two small children clung to her skirts. “The last two times I came, when I got up to the front, the official announced there were no more coupons. They’d run out. Can you imagine?” She held up her shopping basket. “I went home with this basket empty. That’s why I came early today. I was here before the sun.”

  “The whole system stinks,” said Giovanni’s mother.

  Lupo and Volpe Rossa exchanged glances. That was dangerous talk. You never knew who might overhear. Volpe Rossa put her hand on Giovanni’s mother’s arm.

  Giovanni’s mother brushed it off in quick annoyance. “Don’t you have anyon
e you can leave the children with, so at least they don’t have to spend all this time waiting?”

  The pregnant woman shook her head. “My husband’s at home—out of work, like everyone else. But he’s sick in bed. My brother is off somewhere in Germany, slaving for those Nazis. My other brother’s in prison in Russia—if he’s still alive. And . . . well, why should I tell you? You know how it is. We all know. Everyone’s miserable.” She reached into her basket and came out with a handful of boiled chestnuts. The children immediately set to peeling and eating them.

  The crowd suddenly hushed. A Nazi officer had come up. He worked his way through the people, asking to see documents. Everyone fumbled with purses and dug around in bags.

  Lupo’s mouth twitched involuntarily. He had phony documents. So did Volpe Rossa. So far he’d avoided having to show them. Were they up to snuff? He’d seen people dragged away because their documents weren’t in order.

  Volpe Rossa touched the back of Giovanni’s mother’s hand. Their eyes met.

  When the officer got to the front of the crowd, Giovanni’s mother took the documents from Volpe Rossa and Lupo and added them under hers. She handed all three to the officer at once and put a hand on her forehead, as though she had a splitting headache. “When is this door going to open, officer?” Her voice was a shrill whine.

  “Yes, when?” chimed in Volpe Rossa. “We’ve been waiting hours. Can’t you teach these Italian Fascists some of your German efficiency?”

  The officer shrugged and gave a little laugh. He checked the top document and handed all three back to Giovanni’s mother without opening the other two. He glanced at the documents of the pregnant woman and left.

  The crowd went back to talking among themselves, but quietly now.

  Finally the door of the Fascist headquarters opened. But not wide enough for everyone to rush in and press together in front of the coupon table. Instead, an officer stepped outside and closed the door behind him. He stood straight in his black shirt and beret with a skull on the front, and bellowed, “Go home, everyone. The coupons aren’t ready yet.”