Fire in the Hills

by Donna Jo Napoli

  Yesterday the basket had held a water bottle filled with brandy, as well. The four partigiani had drunk till they couldn’t feel the pain from their torturing.

  The guard left. That was part of the routine, too. He wouldn’t come back till he was sure they had finished eating. At least an hour.

  All seven prisoners—Volpe Rossa, Turbine, Lupo, and the four other partigiani—came forward and sat in a circle around the girl.

  “You’re going to make someone a fine wife someday,” said one of them.

  “Me,” said another. “Marry me.”

  Lupo had heard it all before. These prisoners had been hooked to an electric shock machine just this morning. They were doomed. Yet they kept up the banter with the little girl. They laughed at their own jokes till she smiled.

  And there was Lupo, barely able to keep from crying, when no one had laid a hand on him. They got caught before Turbine could even fire a single shot. Caught and tied up and marched off to this prison.

  Lupo had no idea where Pecora was. Turbine said he was dead. Either that, or he’d been the one to betray them. A Fascist. Whichever, he was dead to them.

  “Did you help cook today?” the third prisoner asked the girl lightly.

  “I love your cooking,” said the last one. “And especially how sweetly you fill a water bottle.”

  The four of them laughed.

  The girl shook her head. “Strip,” she said. “Hurry.” She opened the basket and passed out trousers and shirts. Nice clothes. The kind of clothes an ordinary person would wear, not a partigiano who’d been living in the hills for months on end. There were seven outfits.

  “And here.” The girl took out a shaving razor, a hairbrush, scissors, and a mirror.

  Volpe Rossa grabbed Turbine by the elbow, and they jumped into action. She cut one of the partigiano’s hair while Turbine shaved him, and the rest of them looked at the sizes of the clothes and figured out who should wear what. They dressed and used their own spit to try to clean their faces. Then Volpe Rossa and Turbine processed the next partigiano, and the next. They were a synchronized pair, brushing past one another easily, snaking their arms through one another’s intimately as they worked. They cleaned up all the prisoners, including Lupo. Finally, Volpe Rossa cut Turbine’s hair while Lupo stepped in to shave him.

  Then Volpe Rossa put the scissors in Turbine’s hands, and, without missing a beat, he cut her hair. Those wondrously thick curls—gone. How had Turbine known so fast that that’s what she wanted him to do? With trousers on, she looked like a thirteen-year-old boy. It shocked Lupo what a good disguise it was.

  Volpe Rossa scooped up her cut locks and tucked them away inside her shirt in one sweep of her hands. Lupo understood; no telltale locks could be left behind. If they actually managed to get out of here, the police would be looking for a girl, not the boy she now appeared to be. She was so smart—all the time thinking.

  Everything happened quickly and silently. The seven of them moved like a single animal. The beast of the resistance. It felt right to Lupo, natural, inevitable.

  They put on hats, tilting them this way and that to cover electrocution burns. They put hands in pockets to hide missing nails.

  “Act like you’re the king,” said the girl, with her hand on the doorknob. “That’s what my mother said. No one stops a king.” She opened the door.

  They walked out. Turbine took the girl’s free hand. Her other held the basket. They didn’t even know which way to turn, but the girl did; she guided them.

  Lupo put his hands in his pockets so he’d look just like the others. This couldn’t possibly work. He’d heard about all kinds of prison breaks, but nothing as obvious as this could work. Two of them shuffled, they’d been hurt so badly this morning. And all of them had hollow eyes. No one could think they were anything but prisoners. They’d get shot. And that girl, that little child, she’d get shot, too.

  She led them down a corridor, across a lobby, out past the entrance guard. Lupo’s mouth and throat were so dry with fear, they scratched. He almost gagged, holding in a cough. But the guard hardly gave them a glance. It was visitors who entered that got inspected, not visitors who left.

  The prison was a converted school in the middle of the town of Modena. Lupo linked his arm with one of the slower partigiani, and Volpe Rossa linked her arm with the other. The group walked more quickly now and turned down the first street. Two partigiani bolted.

  “Wait,” called the girl. “This way.” She ducked into a house.

  But those two had already disappeared down an alley. The remaining five pushed through the door behind the child.

  Girls around Volpe Rossa’s age huddled in the living room.

  “Who wants to be my beau?” said one of them, stepping forward. “I know a nice walk we can take. And a good place to end up at, with people who can help you get back out in the hills. We must walk slowly. We’re out of work and we’re lovers, after all.”

  “Slow is just my speed.” A partigiano offered his arm.

  She looked at him as she might look at a lover. And he somehow seemed handsome, transformed by her look.

  They went out the door.

  Another girl stepped forward. “Who wants to work at the bakery with me this afternoon? It’s not that hard, and you get hot bread. Afterward, I’ll take you to the same end point.”

  The other partigiano smiled. “They don’t call me Mangiapane—‘Bread Eater’—for nothing.” He followed her out the door.

  Only Lupo, Volpe Rossa, and Turbine remained.

  “You,” said a girl, stepping up to Lupo, “you’d make me a fine little brother. We can walk to my house, quarreling, if you want.”

  “I’m not leaving her.” Lupo moved to Volpe Rossa’s side.

  “People walking alone, with a clear purpose—they do okay. Pairs manage, too. But once you’ve got three together, the police stop you if the Nazis don’t.”

  “Then you take her as your little brother,” said Lupo, jerking his chin toward Volpe Rossa. “She looks the part better than me, anyway. I’ll follow alone.”

  The girl frowned.

  “Wait,” said the little girl who had led them out of prison. She left the room and came back with a pair of soccer shoes and an old soccer ball. “Can you fit in these?”

  Lupo put on the soccer shoes.

  She handed him the ball.

  “Stay far enough behind that no one connects you to us,” said the older girl, who already stood by the door with Volpe Rossa in tow. “If you lose us, go to the main piazza and wait. Someone will come by for you later.”

  “I don’t know where the main piazza is.”

  “You’ll find it. The Nazi headquarters are there, in the big hotel. Just follow an SS officer.”

  “What about him?” asked Volpe Rossa. She pointed at Turbine and locked eyes with him.

  “I have a hiding spot big enough for one till nighttime,” said the little girl. “Don’t worry.”

  The older girl pinched Volpe Rossa in the arm. They left, arguing loudly about who was supposed to do an errand for their grandmother. They sounded just like a sister and brother.

  A few minutes later, Lupo went out the door and followed them, kicking the ball against the walls and around parked motor scooters. He dribbled it from foot to foot. It had been years since he’d played soccer, but it felt like yesterday. He used to play in the Campo Santa Maria Formosa in Venice with his big brother Sergio. Half the boys from his part of Venice played there almost every day.

  The girl and Volpe Rossa turned, out of sight. Lupo’s heart flipped. He fought the urge to run after them. He dribbled fast to the corner. There they were, turning another corner.

  A policeman turned the same corner but coming toward Lupo. He pointed his finger and headed right at him.

  Lupo did the only thing he could think of; he passed the ball to the policeman.

  The policeman jumped in surprise, but he automatically kicked it back. They passed that ball up and
down the empty street for a good half an hour. Then another policeman came running up and talked to the first policeman. The first policeman told Lupo to get off the streets, because prisoners had escaped and they’d be questioning everyone.

  “Yes, sir.” Lupo picked up the ball and ran down the street Volpe Rossa and the girl had taken. They were nowhere in sight, of course. He couldn’t keep running; that would attract attention. He put down the ball and dribbled.

  Before, back when they were in the prison, Volpe Rossa and Turbine and Lupo had agreed that if they ever got free, they’d meet up in the barn of the first farmhouse to the north of town, taking the main road. The other four partigiani had told them the family there would help them. That’s probably where the two partigiani who had bolted were headed right now.

  But the girl who had gone off with Volpe Rossa had said to go to the main piazza, and someone would come for him later. He’d be with Volpe Rossa sooner that way.

  The question was, where was this famous piazza?

  German soldiers came running down the street toward Lupo. He bounced the ball against a wall with his head. Bonk, bonk, bonk. He could still do it—after all this time. Bonk, bonk, bonk. The Germans ran past, talking fast. But it wasn’t about a prison break. Lupo made out something about fighting in Bologna. Open battles. The uprising must have been spectacular from the level of the soldiers’ excitement.

  He ran into the first coffee bar. The bartender looked at him with quick alarm, then seemed to relax again. People huddled around a radio. Lupo stood by a wall and listened. The Allies had been fighting in the Po River Valley for ten days. A day ago, April 19, open fighting had broken out in Bologna. It was the partigiani against the Nazis and Fascists. But the Allies were coming. They would be there by the next day at the latest.

  Lupo crossed his arms over his chest. Did he dare believe it? The Allies had been supposed to come for so long now.

  But everyone else seemed convinced. They talked happily, all at once. Florence had been liberated way last August while poor Bologna, fewer than a hundred kilometers to the north of Florence, was still occupied. All that would be over now. They congratulated one another.

  Let it be true. Oh, Lord, let it be true. Those good people that Lupo knew and had worked with in Bologna, let them be free. If Allies and partigiani fought side by side, they’d win. They couldn’t help but win. The radio said the partigiani had killed over one thousand Nazis in Bologna that first day of fighting alone. Imagine what they could do if the Allies were with them.

  Just five more days and it would be Lupo’s sixteenth birthday. Maybe he’d actually celebrate it with his parents. Lord, let it be.

  “It’s our time, too,” said a man. “Modena’s hour. If we make it so. It’s up to us.”

  The cry to arms went from person to person, and the coffee bar was suddenly empty, but for Lupo. Even the bartender had disappeared, going into a back room.

  A moment later he returned with two rifles. He handed one to Lupo. Then he went behind the bar counter, reached underneath, and set two large canvas sacks on the counter. He opened one; it held cartridges. He loaded his rifle, filled his pockets with cartridges, and went out the door into the street.

  This was it. They were going to fight for Modena. For freedom. For dignity. There were no more messages to carry or supply boxes to pick up or telegraph lines to tear down. The job was with that rifle.

  Lupo loaded it. He put cartridges in his pocket. Then, on second thought, he put an entire sack over his arm. He moved as though he knew what he was doing, but he felt like he was dreaming.

  He went out into the street and ran, staying close to the building walls. He heard shots ahead and came out on a piazza. A German truck was parked beside him. He shot out the tires. It was an act without thought—but, oh, it was the perfect way he could help. He felt awake again. He ran up and down the streets, shooting out the tires of German vehicles.

  A bullet whizzed past his head.

  “Here!” A girl of maybe twelve opened a door and pulled him inside. She locked the door. “Go upstairs and shoot from the window. Shoot from my room.”

  Lupo took the stairs two at a time, his heart banging like a wild thing in a box. He knelt by the window of the girl’s room and shot at tires as jeeps and cars and trucks went past. After each shot, he flattened himself on the floor till the barrage of retaliatory bullets ended. Then he got back up and shot at the next vehicle’s tires. Shots came from other windows, too. Shots came from everywhere.

  Lupo finally hit a tire.

  Now a jeep clogged up the traffic. No other vehicles could come down that narrow road.

  If he was going to be useful, he had to find a way to shoot at vehicles on other streets—so he could clog them, too. He had to get himself in a position to see those streets without having to pass by the jeep he’d debilitated out in front of this house. And, oh, he knew exactly how to do that. He was from Venice, after all, and all Venetian boys knew how to get around the city without ever touching the ground.

  Lupo ran downstairs and found the girl in the kitchen, cutting bread.

  She handed him a slice, and a chunk of cheese. “I was going to bring it to you. You didn’t have to come find me.”

  “How do you get out onto the roof?” Lupo asked, stuffing his mouth with the heavenly food.

  The girl ran ahead of him up the stairs, up a second set, and opened a door.

  “Thanks so much.”

  “Wait,” she said. “Kiss me first.”

  He stared a moment, stunned. He kissed her, one tentative kiss. Then he ran along the roof to the next home, and the next. He ran over the connected roofs till he got to the end house. From here, he could see the road that ran perpendicular to the one blocked by the disabled jeep. It was a bigger road, and a German truck rumbled along it. But he was a poor shot. He’d never hit anything at such a distance.

  Still, he knelt, aimed, fired. The front right tire of the truck blew. Just like that.

  He lay flat on the roof.

  Bullets zinged past. He heard screaming and shooting. A loud crash. A grenade.

  He ran back along the roofs to the other end. It overlooked the next street perpendicular to the one blocked by the jeep. He shot. He shot and shot, till he finally blew out a tire.

  The street on one side was narrow, but nowhere near as narrow as the alleys of Venice. It would be impossible to jump across to the next block. So he ran along the roofs, scouting the streets below. Finally, the jeep he’d crippled before was rolling again, with a new tire. He shot out another tire.

  He passed the day that way, shooting out tires every time he heard traffic start again on one of the three streets he could aim at. In between, he lay on the roof and stared at the sky. The city exploded around him in intermittent battles. His upper-right chest hurt from the recoil of the gun. His neck ached from bending over the gun sight.

  Eventually the sack of cartridges ran out. And eventually night came. The sound of bullets stopped. It was time to find Volpe Rossa.

  He returned to the house of the girl who had helped him before. The girl who’d given him his first kiss. The roof door was unlocked. He went down the stairs as quietly as he could, rifle in hand, and out into the street.

  There were no streetlamps on. And the moonlight didn’t make it to the ground, the buildings were so tall and this street was so narrow. He hunched over and ran in the dark, turning onto whatever street seemed bigger. A patrol of German soldiers marched back and forth in front of a building on a piazza. This must be the Nazi headquarters. Lights were on inside.

  Lupo hid in the shadows and scanned the piazza. He moved slowly along one wall, to get a better view of the whole place.

  “What took you so long?” A boy came up beside him. It was Volpe Rossa—still in disguise.

  Turbine was behind her. “With those soccer shoes, we expected you to be faster.”

  “Come on.” Volpe Rossa scurried down one street after another. If a noise came fr
om the left, she went right. If a noise came from the right, she went left. No matter what, she kept moving. Eventually, they emerged on the edge of town.

  They ran into a field and didn’t stop till the houses were far behind.

  “Here’s our choice,” said Turbine. “We can stay and fight. There’s no doubt that the Allies will finish the job in Bologna by tomorrow at the latest. Then they’ll head this way. The skirmishes of today were nothing compared to what’s going to happen. Modena will be free within two days, mark my words. We can be part of it.”

  Volpe Rossa touched the rifle in Lupo’s hands. “Do you think you can use that?”

  “I’ve been using it. I’ve blown out tires. Give me another cartridge and I’ll blow out more.”

  She smiled. “Good work.”

  “What are you two talking about?” asked Turbine. “You mean Lupo won’t kill anyone?” He put his hand on Lupo’s shoulder. “Listen to me, Lupo. The one who survives is the one who shoots first. I can’t take you into battle if you won’t use that rifle.”

  Lupo brushed Turbine’s hand off his shoulder. “I take myself wherever I go. I use this rifle however I choose.”

  Turbine hung his head and shook it. He looked off into the night. Then he looked back at Lupo. “You’re right.”

  “You said we have a choice.” Volpe Rossa crossed her arms at her chest. “What’s the other possibility?”

  “We can head toward the Veneto, where the Nazis are still strong,” said Turbine. “And we can help where they need it even more.”

  “I know Lupo’s vote,” said Volpe Rossa. “I vote with him.”

  “Then we’re unanimous.” Turbine picked up the rifle he had set on the ground when they stopped. “You have a birthday soon, right, Lupo?”

  “April 25.”

  Turbine took a cartridge out of his pocket and handed it to Lupo. “An early present. We better hurry if we’re going to see Venice liberated in time for your cake.”

  28

  BY LUPO’S BIRTHDAY, all the things Turbine predicted would happen did. And more. Bologna was liberated on April 21, Modena on April 22, Reggio and Parma on April 24.