by Angela Petch
‘Platz!’ Florian commanded calmly and authoritatively, holding up one hand. The dog hunkered down on all fours in submission. They had shooting dogs at home; he knew how to control them. Dogs needed to be led and Florian was the dog’s new leader. When he was sure the dog was sufficiently subdued, he used one of the recent phrases he had learned by heart: ‘Cerco dei fossili. I’m looking for fossils.’
She pointed to some rocks in the corner of the meadow and he made his way over to where swirls of ammonites were embedded in limestone boulders. Halfway there, he remembered her scarf in his pocket and he turned, holding it out to her. She looked in amazement as he thrust it into her hands. ‘Grazie,’ she stammered, looking puzzled.
‘Prego. I found it at the river. Al fiume.’
She was shivering. The air was cool, but it could have been fear too that made her tremble and not simply her thin shirt. He unwound the scarf from his neck and offered it to her.
‘No, no,’ she said, shaking her head.
Florian wondered if she expected to grant him some favour in return, so he simply placed it on the grass at her feet. ‘Per voi, signorina,’ he said, using the polite form of ‘you’. ‘For you.’
Her eyes widened and she giggled before bending to pick it up, fingering the fine wool and then wrapping it round her neck. ‘Grazie, grazie!’ she said again.
She stayed near to the rocks, watching him with curiosity as he chiselled out a couple of the fossils. He took care to hammer far enough around the specimens so as not to cause damage. Occasionally she turned to check on the sheep, calling a command to the dog when one of them wandered too far away.
‘Lupi,’ she said to Florian, and when he shrugged his shoulders, she mimed the howling of a wolf, which set the dog off, and she laughed. And he laughed too.
Before they parted, Florian went over to the rock where he had removed the fossils and examined the ground. An idea was forming in his head. He would have to be careful in the way he carried out this idea, but in his heart he knew it was the right thing to do.
It was easier than Florian had imagined. At headquarters next day, he measured the small golden door to a tabernacle, removed by order of his commander, Major Schmalz, from the front of a fixed box used for housing consecrated hosts, near the altar of the abbey church. It was almost thirty centimetres square. Choosing the moment carefully and working in the far corner of the cavernous storeroom, his heart pounding in case he was discovered, he pretended to bend to retrieve a rag he’d been using to polish the metal and instead slipped the precious door into his knapsack. Standing up again, hunched over his work to cover what he was doing, he wrapped a block of wood of the same dimensions in a piece of sacking, adding an extra layer of oilcloth before securing the package with cord and labelling it. In his neat handwriting, he wrote the details in the vellum ledger that listed all the purloined artwork. Item 67: one gold-plated tabernacle door, highly decorative. Purported to be the work of Cellini. Sixteenth century. Location: twelfth-century abbey church of St Michael the Archangel, Badia Tedalda.
For the rest of his shift, he behaved himself. He wrapped up and listed three rather ugly eighteenth-century oil paintings by an unknown artist, an ornate silver chandelier and a delicate china coffee service taken from the sindaco’s house. All the while, as he chatted to the two other soldiers in the storeroom, he assessed the items that he could realistically squirrel out and rescue in the future. He had his eye on a small and charming intricate piece from a larger altar panel that had been plundered from a country church in a mountain village. It was known as a predella. The compact images of the Madonna and Child were exquisitely sculpted and fired in glazed ceramic. He thought it probably dated from the early sixteenth century. It felt so wrong to Florian that his countrymen should be stealing pieces of Italian heritage to ship abroad. His quest was to ensure that one day at least some of these works would be returned to where they belonged. Anything he removed would have to fit easily into his knapsack, together with the fossil tools he always carried with him and his butterfly net. This would be his cover, his excuse to escape into the countryside to hide the loot.
He wanted to see the girl again. When he returned to the meadow in his free time the following week, he brought a slab of dark chocolate marzipan that Mutti had sent him in her latest parcel, and a couple of bananas from the officers’ canteen. She accepted them with a smile and told him she had never tried a banana before and would take the gifts home to share with her family. He had something else in his knapsack, but it would remain there until he was alone.
On that day, the sun was high in the sky and they sat together for a while in the shade of a majestic oak while the sheep grazed, their tinkling bells reminiscent to Florian of the sounds of the flocks on his own Bavarian mountains. He pressed tobacco into his pipe and puffed smoke into the air.
‘Il vostro nome?’ he asked, once again using the formal ‘you’ to ask her name, and she corrected him, saying he could use tu – she was only a shepherdess, a simple girl.
‘If I can say tu to you,’ he said, ‘then you must do the same to me.’ He was pleased he could communicate successfully. And it was much more agreeable than talking to his textbook. When she smiled, she was truly beautiful. She reminded him of a Renaissance painting by Raphael he’d seen in the Palazzo Pitti. He longed for a time when he could return to visit Florence at leisure, as soon as this war was over.
‘My name is Lucia, and yours?’
‘Florian.’
She plucked a daisy from the grass next to her and shyly handed it to him. ‘Fiore, flower,’ she said. ‘Like Florian.’
He had never thought of his name like that, and he liked it. Mutti had christened him after Saint Florian, not a flower.
‘And your name means “light”,’ he said. She nodded and smiled.
The tree was encircled with stinging nettles and she began to gather young, tender ones, using her green headscarf as a kind of glove to protect herself from the stings. He handed her the mittens from his knapsack and she smiled.
‘Mamma is making gnocchi tonight. She asked me to pick these to add to them. Buoni, buoni,’ she said, making a gesture with her index finger held against her cheek. He’d read it was a way of saying something was delicious, but he’d never seen it done before and he copied her.
‘Maybe next time Mamma cooks gnocchi, I could save some for my lunch up here, and then you can try them.’
He smiled at the offer and watched her as she continued to collect the nettles, moving gracefully from clump to clump, her long plait swinging as she moved. He wondered what it would be like to free her hair and run his fingers through it. Then she came to sit near him for a few more minutes and he pulled a photo from one of the pockets in his shirt. He felt her breath on his face as she leant in to look. Her eyelashes were long, her skin olive and smooth and he wanted to kiss her. Instead, he pointed out his mother and father standing in front of their summer house in Bavaria. ‘Mama und Papa,’ he said. ‘Like in Italian. And we also eat gnocchi, but we call them Knödel. My favourite is Schweinbraten mit Knödel.’
She wrinkled her brow and, giggling, tried to repeat the difficult words and he smiled. ‘Schweinbraten is like your porchetta,’ and he made a noise like a pig grunting. They were very easy with each other, and the war felt distant as they laughed together. Then she fetched a small basket she had left by the rock and showed him mushrooms that she had collected that morning.
‘Pfifferlinge,’ he said, correctly identifying the chanterelles that also grew in the countryside in his homeland.
Again, she tried to copy the word, stumbling over her efforts. ‘We call them girolle or gallinacci. They are my favourite. Buoni,’ she said, rubbing her stomach, ‘with olive oil and parsley.’
He loved the wholesomeness of her, could have spent all afternoon and evening in her company, but it would soon be time to report for duty. He stood up to go and took her hand in his, bowing his head. ‘Auf Wiedersehen. It is the same
meaning as arrivederci. Maybe we could meet again?’
He turned to wave before the road curved, but she had already moved on with her flock. Only the dog stared back. When he reached the rock where they had sat together the first time, he looked around to check he was alone. He examined his compass and measured five paces to the south and began to dig a hole with his fossil chisel. It was hard work. He would have to get hold of a small spade for next time. When he was sure the hole was deep enough, from his knapsack he pulled the biscuit tin his mother had sent to him. Making sure the lid was firmly closed on the precious tabernacle door inside, he placed the tin in the bottom of the hole and covered it with earth. There was the usual pile of stones at the corner of the meadow, removed before ploughing, and he used half a dozen of these to cover the fresh patch.
When he was sure he had left no signs of his work, and before he forgot, he wrote ‘S5’ on an empty page of his notebook. His spirit felt lighter as he hurried back to headquarters, not only because he was enchanted with Lucia, but because he had set a plan in motion to right some of the wrongs done by his fellow countrymen. It was a beginning. That evening, he sketched the rock from memory onto the page of his notebook where he had written S5 and picked up the ammonite to copy, finishing with a signature of Cellini in the corner. If anybody were to pick up his notebook and flick through, they would find sketches of his visit to Florence as well as insects, plants, fossils and landscapes. Portraits of Italy. But for Florian, it was the first clue on his treasure map.
The next time Florian and Lucia met, his knapsack contained another gift. Her face lit up when he showed it to her. ‘My mother sent me this sweater for winter nights,’ he said. ‘But I don’t need it, Lucia. Will this do?’
He watched her finger the soft cashmere.
‘It is bellissima. I haven’t seen anything so special.’
She smiled at him, hugging the garment to herself before pulling it over her head. ‘What do you think?’ she asked him as she did a twirl. ‘It’s too big, and it’s obviously a man’s, but I could embroider flowers on the cuffs and round the neck, and it will be so warm.’
Then her face fell, and she pulled it off, handing it back. ‘I can’t possibly wear this. What am I thinking? My parents will ask me how I got it.’ She stuffed it back into his hands.
‘It is such a shame. I would love to wear something so fine,’ she continued, plucking at the shirt she wore. ‘Mamma made this for me from one of my brother’s. And for the winter months, she adapted a coat from an old blanket. But it’s so thick, and it scratches my legs when I walk.’
Florian looked down at her bare legs and the wooden clogs she wore today instead of the ugly men’s boots. A strip of material covered the toes, presumably to make them resemble shoes. He noticed she was wearing the green headscarf he’d returned to her.
He held the sweater out. ‘Hide it somewhere. It may be useful to you one day, Lucia.’
‘No,’ she said, throwing it down as if it scalded.
The woollen garment lay between them on the grass, a symbol of the impossibility of their forbidden friendship; a simple thing made difficult.
He picked it up and replaced it in his knapsack.
‘How long do you have today?’ he asked.
‘Longer than usual. My parents have gone to market. Not that they have much to sell.’ She looked at him. ‘Your people take everything from us to feed themselves. We do the work and you reap the rewards. Not that it was much different before you came. The rich and powerful always take from the poor. If I ruled the world, I’d make sure there was justice. I wanted to study at high school, but my parents made me stay at home. My brother was allowed, but he’s dead now. What was the point of all that? I wish I’d been born a man.’
‘I’m very glad you’re not a man,’ Florian said, a shy smile on his lips.
She blushed, but she was still angry.
‘The men and boys are all gone now, because of your stupid war,’ she continued. ‘We women and old men do the haymaking and ploughing now… when we can get to the fields. Nobody ever knows what you Tedeschi will order us to do next: “Cut the hay for our horses”, “No working in the fields this week”, “Clear this area – it is needed for trenches”. All these commands mean there’s no longer any rhythm to our farming. Crops are strangled by weeds and left to wither in the fields. If we disobey commands and slip out to hoe, we are shot on the spot. The war has changed everything.’ She looked at him. ‘I don’t even know why I am talking to you…’
She got up to go but he pulled at her arm. ‘I’m so sorry. Entschuldigung, mädchen. Please stay.’
She flopped down again on the grass, plucking at strands. Despite everything, she wanted to spend time with this man who was her enemy. There was silence between them, the sounds of the bells on her sheep filling the space.
‘Let me show you one of my special places,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s not far. Let me go first to make sure there is nobody else around. I’ll whistle when it’s all right for you to follow. The sheep will come too, but that’s best – anybody watching will think I’m leading them to the next pasture. Be sure to keep to the edge of the wood and not walk across the open meadow. We don’t want to be seen together.’
He sat under a beech tree in the shade and waited for her signal, looking around, all the while scouring for another suitable hiding place. A cannon boomed somewhere further down in the valley towards Rimini. It was like the distant rumble of thunder. Up until now, there had been little exchange of gunfire up here, but he knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. The Allies were making progress, despite Hitler’s orders to extend the defensive line across the mountains.
A low whistle interrupted his thoughts, followed by the tinkling of half a dozen bells as the small flock gambolled over the grass towards Lucia. As he passed the edge of the wood, a cock pheasant flew up and he ducked to the grass, his heart pounding. For a while he lay still, his nerves shot. An ant crawled over his nose and he smacked it away. Then another piercing whistle sent him into a spin again. What if the girl had set a trap and summoned partisans to finish him off? After all, he hardly knew her. Could she be trusted? When he lifted his head, there was no volley of guns; just the beautiful vision of Lucia hurrying over, the dog trotting at her heels.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked.
He stood up and brushed grass and earth from his trousers. ‘I’m fine. Fine. I tripped, that’s all.’
‘Come on, then. There’s nobody around. It’s safe.’
She led him to a corner of a field where steam rose into the air like a stage effect he’d seen at the theatre.
He chuckled. ‘A hot spring. I didn’t know there were any in this part of Tuscany. Near Siena, yes. But not here.’
‘Very few know about this place.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t like the smell, but in winter it’s magical to sit in the water, snow on the ground, and to feel warm. We used to bring Nonna to ease her arthritis. But nobody has ventured here for a long while.’
‘Then when this war is over, we can return when it snows, and we will drink wine and dine up here together. How about that? What would you choose to eat, Lucia?’
She laughed. ‘I’ve forgotten what good food tastes like. I even dream about food sometimes.’ She closed her eyes and then spoke in a dreamy voice: ‘Roast suckling pig with garlic and rosemary, potatoes baked in good olive oil. My nonna’s delicious ciabatta. And gelato… We went to the sea at Riccione before the war and I ate my first ice cream there: pistacchio… And you? What kind of food do you eat in your country?’
They talked for another half hour. Or at least, Lucia did most of the talking while he listened. He told himself that it was because he wanted to learn more Italian, but he knew he was kidding himself: he wanted to spend more time with this girl. Lucia brought out a tenderness in him that he thought the war had killed. A stone had fallen from his heart. He was late reporting back for duty that afternoon, but he had found hiding place nu
mber two for his treasure map.
Eight
Tuscany, Present Day
Alba took a little-used path to Tramarecchia. It was obvious nobody had come this way for a while: a stony track soon changed to an overgrown path, brambles snagging at her fleece, and she was glad she’d brought along secateurs at the last minute, as her father had suggested. The thread from a cobweb brushed her cheek and she snatched it away from her face. She pushed her way through a juniper bush, the straggly thorns catching on her sleeve. And then she realised James hadn’t entered her head at all that morning. Instead, her thoughts were full of the partisans’ house and the silverware. How life had changed.
James hadn’t enjoyed walking. He’d resented her disappearing from his bed to Richmond Park on a Sunday morning, wanting her to stay in, to make love and read the newspaper afterwards. But after a week of travelling on the Tube to work, breathing in the sooty underground odour, crammed up against sometimes sweaty men – the negative side to London – she needed to escape to a park and pretend she was in the countryside. Eventually, she’d given in to him. How many times had she done that? How far had she strayed from being her true self? Part of her felt a pang of guilt for thinking ill of him now he was dead. But his loss had helped her look back with perspective, rather than with rose-tinted spectacles. The unkempt path met with a wider path and a drystone wall, crumbling in parts and overgrown with ferns, lined the sides. Every now and again she heard a dog bark and voices and laughter drift in her direction.