by Angela Petch
Lucia read aloud to her mother as they stood in the queue outside the butcher’s shop. Somebody had said there was tripe available, and already a long queue was forming. Tripe with beans and fresh herbs would make a change. Maria Grazia was illiterate, and she listened carefully as her daughter read from the poster pinned to a tree in the piazza:
‘Mothers, Wives, Sisters and Fiancées, denounce your young men to the nearest military command and you will help rid our country of these brigands.’
‘That again… who would report their own child to the authorities?’ Maria Grazia said with a snort of derision. ‘Setting family against family. That is pure evil.’
Over the next couple of weeks, whenever a message filtered through, Lucia joined Rossa and other young women at night, their faces blackened with charcoal, wearing dark clothes to merge with the shadows, to cover government posters with their own. But they had to be careful. Il Duce’s pseudo-government of Salò had broadcast that being part of the revolutionary resistance would result in death by firing squad. The corpses of three young partisans had hung recently from trees in the piazza for three days as a warning. But rather than deter the resistance fighters, it increased their fervour, making them more resolute than ever to fight for liberation.
Twenty-Three
It was three weeks before Lucia could introduce Babbo to Florian. With all the recent activity, it had been hard for Lucia to leave her message. When the two men eventually met, it was awkward. The sky was black as Lucia led her father to the cave. Florian was sitting near the back, and Lucia rushed to greet him.
‘Leave him be,’ Doriano said, holding her back. ‘I will deal with him directly.’ He approached Florian. ‘My daughter tells me you want to defect and meet the partigiani. How do I know you are telling me the truth?’
‘Why do you think I have risked coming here in the middle of the night to meet you?’ Florian answered.
‘It could be because your leaders have sent you. How do you think you can help us?’
‘By revealing to you the latest troop movements, new positions, our plans for attack. I have a roll of film with details of maps I’ve copied. With the English moving further north, there are many changes afoot. You would be wise to trust in what I have to tell you.’
‘Trust!’ her father said with scorn. ‘Trust is an impossible word in time of war.’
Lucia listened to the two men who meant so much to her dancing around each other’s comments in the cave. They were both tense. So much depended on the outcome of this meeting. She longed for her father to be gone so she could sit and talk quietly with Florian, but she knew it was impossible; her father would never leave them alone.
‘Lucia, you will stay here while I take signor Florian up to the partigiani.’
‘Let me come with you, Babbo.’
‘You will stay here.’
It was useless to protest. As the two men moved to leave the cave, Florian’s fingers brushed against her hands in the lightest of touches, and she wanted to grab hold of him and never let go.
‘We have to walk for three kilometres. Can you do it with your injury?’ Doriano asked. ‘My daughter told me how you feigned a walking accident.’
‘I am fine.’
‘I am armed, so if you make one false move, then I won’t think twice about using this,’ Dorian said, pulling his hunting rifle round from where it was slung across his back.
Lucia gasped. ‘Babbo!’
‘This is a matter of life and death,’ he said, his gaze fixed on Florian.
‘I have as much to lose as you, if not more, signor Gori,’ Florian said. ‘You need to trust me.’
‘We’ll see about that. Keep abreast of me and say nothing while we walk. Come! They are waiting for us.’
Lucia made to follow, but Doriano stopped her. ‘No. You stay here.’
‘But…’
‘No buts. Stancko is expecting two people. If three arrive, he will shoot.’
Florian lifted his knapsack onto his back and Doriano ordered him to reveal the contents before they left.
‘It is for your partisans,’ Florian said. ‘Hand grenades. I can procure more, with help.’ He handed the bag to Doriano. ‘Here, look for yourself. There is no trick, signore. As I said, you need to trust me.’
* * *
As the two men walked away from the cave, Florian willed himself not to panic. If his idea was to succeed, he would need to keep a very cool head. He had to believe the partisans would accept him. There was no going back. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, pushing away anxiety behind the physical act of simply keeping up with Lucia’s father. His leg was still sore, and the scar pulled where the stitches had been, but the pain was bearable. Not a single word was exchanged between the two men as they walked. It was a windy night, the branches striking against each other in the thick woods lining the mountain path. No torch was used, though the moon threw scant light, and only when they emerged from the forest into a meadow was visibility slightly clearer. Against the night sky, the eerie outline of a huge cross loomed over them.
As they drew nearer, what he’d thought were rocks at the foot of the cross moved, and half a dozen men stood up in the gloom. Florian heard the unmistakable sound of a gun’s safety lever being pulled back to firing position and then Dorian called, ‘Hold your fire! It’s me. Gori. I have the Tedesco with me.’
The man known as Stancko walked over to the pair and briefly flashed torchlight into their faces, lingering longer on Florian’s.
‘Come,’ he ordered.
Florian and Gori followed the partisan leader to a shelter of stones near the cross, a shepherd’s hut, and the three men bent double to enter a low doorway. The other men remained on guard outside.
Stancko pulled a piece of sacking across the entrance and lit a stub of candle that rested on a niche coated with wax.
‘I’m told you want to defect,’ Stancko said.
‘Yes. I want to help you.’
‘How do I know you’re not a spy for the Tedeschi? What use are you to me? I have enough men to feed as it is.’
‘I believe I can be useful.’
‘Prove it.’
‘I have photos of a map that I copied, and I can get you plenty of guns and ammunition.’ He handed over the film and his knapsack. ‘This is just for starters. There’s plenty more where these came from.’
‘A few grenades? An undeveloped roll of photographs?’ The Slav looked at him with distaste. ‘We need more than this. In fact, we already have more than this.’
‘We know that you receive supplies from the British,’ Florian said. ‘That you are expecting another drop soon.’
Stancko muttered, ‘The fact that the Germans know that airdrops occur is not a useful piece of information to me.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re wasting my time.’
‘They know about your wireless,’ Florian continued. ‘They located the source by switching off the electricity in the Badia area hamlet by hamlet until your last broadcast was cut off… they’re in the process of working out your code. They also know about the planned airdrop on Mount Simoncello.’ He produced a rough sketch of the map he had photographed. ‘I stole into my commander’s office to get this. Look, these crosses mark the spot where they expect the plane to land.’
‘Dio cane,’ Doriano swore as he scrutinised the copy. ‘We need to warn them to abort—’
‘No,’ interrupted Florian. ‘You should let it go ahead and arrange a counter-attack. That way, you kill two birds with one stone. Eliminate the men who come to the drop to catch you – and there will be many – and stage a simultaneous attack on the munitions store in Badia while most of the German forces are deployed elsewhere. I have made a careful reconnaissance of this store.’
Florian sat back, his heart thumping, hoping that his idea had struck home.
Stancko was quiet for a few seconds.
‘I still do not know whether I should believe you. You need to tell me why you
are doing this.’
Florian sighed. ‘I am sick of this war,’ he said. ‘My heart is stone cold at what I’ve witnessed my own people do.’ He paused as images from the most recent massacre replayed in his head.
‘I was at Campo Gatti a few weeks back,’ he resumed, his voice low. ‘I witnessed how innocent people were shot, even a child. This is not the first time this has happened, and I feel revulsion in my bones, in my whole being…’ He clamped his hands over his mouth as bile rose and he made for the doorway. But he didn’t make it; vomit splashed over his shoes and against the stone wall of the refuge.
‘If that was an act, Stancko, I should say it was a very good one,’ Doriano said.
Stancko shouted in Italian to one of the men outside to keep guard on the German, as he was coming outside to breathe in fresh air.
‘And when you have composed yourself, you will outline what you have discovered. We must make plans.’
* * *
Lucia had almost dozed off in the cave when a couple of hours later she heard footsteps. Her father was alone, and she feared the worst. ‘What have they done to him?’ she asked, clutching her father’s jacket.
‘He made his own way back. He needed to return before dawn.’
‘And did they believe him?’
‘We will see what happens. Now, hush. We need to hurry before your mother realises you are gone. I told her I was poaching for tomorrow’s supper, but there is no excuse for you not being in your bed.’
Back in the house, Lucia tiptoed up the stairs to her room, under cover of the noises her father was making through the thin walls. She heard him throw his boots onto the floorboards and grumble to his wife that there was not even a hare leaping about the Tuscan meadows at the moment, and that he might just as well have stayed at home in his bed. ‘I caught nothing except most likely a cold,’ he complained.
Alba listened to the sounds of her parents’ mattress rustling with its stuffing of dried corn leaves, and her mother telling him to settle down and stop his noise. She willed herself to sleep for the remaining couple of hours, but all she could think of were the risks Florian was taking. ‘Please keep him out of danger, dear Lord,’ she prayed. ‘He’s a good man. You know he’s a good man.’
Twenty-Four
Tuscany, Present Day
The following Sunday, Alba took herself up towards the Mountain of the Moon to the partisans’ house once again. She needed time to herself after the stress of the last few days with Alfiero. Massimo and the other residents of the care centre had been taken on a coach trip down to the Maremma coast, and she hoped the change of scenery would lift her old friend’s spirits after all his talk of war, and the courageous acts of Florian and Lucia. Today, she intended to walk and paint. The carpet of wild flowers that she’d seen on her last walk here had withered in the heatwave, the scent of scorched herbs culinary, and she walked slower with the extra weight of her watercolours and supplies on her shoulders. But with each step she felt her mind straighten out. Massimo’s simple advice had helped, and slowly but surely her guilty feelings over James were diminishing.
She worked for an hour, sitting in the shade of a large pine. A lizard kept her company, scuttling up and down the bark hunting for insects, and she included an image of the little creature, transposing it to the broken stone wall in front of the partisans’ house. If only she could apply artistic licence to real life, she thought to herself, and sort out arrangements to let Massimo live in his own place, where he was happiest, with his memories.
It was the small shapes in front of her that she captured: an empty snail shell next to a pine cone, a rusting cooking pot housing an old sage plant, the withered petals of the rose that had bloomed so luxuriantly the last time she was up here. As she painted the shape of the partisans’ house, she wondered if this was the place where Lucia had been brought blindfolded. How frightened she must have felt; how brave she was; how in love she must have been to have taken the enormous risk of approaching her father with her request to be taken to the partigiani. Alba wondered how she would have reacted had she been there during the war years. Her generation had never been tested in such a situation.
When the water in her jar was empty, she walked down the path and bent to refill it from an old iron bath. Despite the drought, the water still gushed from the spring-fed spout, drowning out other sounds, so that when her eyes were covered by somebody’s hands, she screamed and kicked out.
‘Porca miseria, Alba. That bloody hurt.’
It was Alfiero. He removed his hands almost immediately from her eyes and rubbed his knee.
‘Don’t ever creep up on me like that again, you idiot,’ she yelled. ‘You frightened the life out of me.’
He held up his hands in apology. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘What are you doing up here anyway?’
‘Nice welcome! Hey, Alfi, how great to see you. How’s it going?’ he said sarcastically.
Her heart had stopped its crazy thumping and she relented, despite the invasion of her much-needed solitude.
‘Sorry, I thought you were a mad axeman,’ she said. ‘What are you doing up here?’
They walked to where Alba had been working and she sat down, indicating a large stone opposite for him. He looked so much better than when she had left him at Lodovica’s a week ago, his face tanned, the scar on his cheek beginning to heal.
‘I’ve been let off for the afternoon for good behaviour. So I thought I’d walk up the mountain. I didn’t know you’d be here too.’
‘How are you finding living with Lodovica?’
‘She’s a slave driver! She had me digging in chicken manure all yesterday afternoon. Seriously, Alba, she’s amazing. I was sceptical when you left me with her. But we’ve talked and talked. I feel like a new man.’
‘That’s great,’ she said, dipping her brush into the jar to wet a fresh square of paper. ‘And what are you going to do about Beatrice?’
‘Change the locks, warn her I will take out an injunction if she pesters me again…’
‘Wow!’ Alba stopped, brush in mid-air. ‘Alfi, I can’t believe the change in attitude.’
‘This week’s given me perspective. I hadn’t realised how out of hand it had all become, how much I was putting the blame for her behaviour on myself.’
‘You and me both. Massimo has helped me realise James’s death is not my fault. Why can’t we work these things out for ourselves?’
‘We lose sight of what’s real when life turns dramatic… something like that.’ He shrugged his shoulders.
She changed her brush to a sable, mixed two greens and pressed the brush down firmly, one eye on the line of trees on the ridge above them. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to stick to your plans?’
His pause was momentary, but it showed he knew it wouldn’t be easy. ‘Lodovica has promised to stand by and be my mentor. I shall try my best. Incidentally, she wants to see you. Something about a silver jug. What does she mean?’
Alba paused, her brush hovering over her work. ‘It’s weird, Alfi. She has a piece of silverware with a crest identical to the one on those Davide and I found up here. She told me she’d found it in the forest.’
‘Really? I didn’t see it this week. She uses earthenware pottery. Silver doesn’t seem her style.’
‘Exactly. I wondered why she had it. Interesting. Maybe I should try and phone her.’
‘She hardly ever has her phone switched on, remember. You’ll be lucky.’
‘Then I’ll have to pay her a visit.’
She continued to paint the line of trees and Alfiero watched her, noticing how, as she concentrated, she endearingly rested her tongue on her bottom lip. He moved over to look at her work. ‘Love it, Alba.’
‘Thanks… I have so many ideas for this project.’
She abandoned the watercolour, not being able to fully lose herself in it with Alfiero present, and searched for the bread rolls she’d made up that morning.
; ‘Want to share lunch?’
‘Let’s pool what we’ve got. Lodovica fired up her oven yesterday and made rosemary focaccia.’ He pulled a brown paper bag from his rucksack. ‘And I have plums from her tree. Do you know, I was worried about her vegetarian diet, but I really haven’t missed not eating meat,’ he said, patting his stomach.
‘Tell me that again when you have a plate of garlic sausages and a T-bone steak and chips in front of you,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘Yep, you’re right. It’s easy not to be tempted if it’s not in front of you.’
‘I feel that way about Lodovica’s escapist way of life,’ Alba said, biting into her ham roll, ‘but each to their own. She’s doing no harm.’
‘She’s done me a load of good. In fact, she’s recommended I take time out of work and try to get away to sort myself out and distance myself from Beatrice.’
‘Out of sight, out of mind?’
‘Yeah! But the idea appeals, anyway. I can’t remember the last time I had a break.’
The words were out of Alba’s mouth before she could think them through properly. ‘How about escaping to Tramarecchia and helping me keep an eye on Massimo? He’s so desperate to live in his own little house.’
‘I’m not so sure I’d make a good carer. I wouldn’t have to wipe his bum, would I?’
‘Honestly, Alfi. He’s frail, that’s all.’
‘It would certainly give me space from Beatrice. She would never find me there. She’s a city girl, through and through.’
‘Have a think about it. It’d only be for one or two days a week while I’m at work. The rest of the time, I can take over. We could work out a shift system. I’ll talk to him.’
‘This is a wonderful idea,’ Tanya said when Alba broached the subject the following morning. ‘He’s in the garden. Go and tell him your plan.’