by Angela Petch
‘Where are your padrone’s guns?’ he asked the old man.
‘The key’s in his desk drawer. Don’t shoot,’ he pleaded.
‘You’ll be fine as long as you do as we ask,’ Stancko replied, sending Quinto and one of the other partigiani off to find the guns. ‘Anything else you can think of, old man? Pistols?’
The servant shook his head. ‘Only the one he carries on him.’
‘I’ve seen this man before,’ Florian said as he bent to search Petrelli’s pockets. ‘In Badia headquarters more than once. He reported a group of youngsters to us who were hiding in the woods.’
‘Porca boia. Bastardo,’ swore Stancko. ‘They were shot – all of them – and hung in the piazza.’ He spat on Petrelli’s body and then pulled out his automatic, aimed at the unconscious man and shot him between the eyes. His body twitched and his brains splattered onto the wool carpet.
Lucia jumped and watched, horrified as blood and gore mixed with the exotic patterns of birds and fruit. Seeing her distress, Florian moved to take her hand as Quinto limped into the room with a stocky young man carrying half a dozen rifles. ‘If that one can’t stand the sight of blood, then she’s no good to us,’ Quinto said, gesturing at Lucia in Florian’s arms. He pointed to the young man holding a haul of rifles. ‘This is Mattia. He’s been most helpful. He’s told me there are more guns in Petrelli’s cupboards upstairs. The old bastard carries the key on him somewhere.’
‘Take me with you,’ Mattia said, his hands raised after he had deposited the rifles next to Stancko. ‘I’m strong. I can turn my hand to anything, and I’m an excellent huntsman.’ He looked over to Petrelli’s body. ‘And I hated that dirty bastardo.’
‘If you hate his type so much, why haven’t you come to find us before?’ Stancko asked.
The old manservant intervened. ‘He’s my grandson, from Arezzo – he’s only been here a couple of weeks, since the rest of his family were killed in the air raids. He’s a good lad.’
After a short hesitation, Stancko said to the boy, ‘You stick by my side and I’ll see how we get on. Lead me to the rest of the firearms. Florian, you come too. And then we must leave.’ Turning to the old man, he said, ‘If you want to live longer, my friend, then you will keep quiet about this.’
‘Take me with you,’ he pleaded. ‘I’m old, but I can cook. I could be of use. Petrelli held meetings here with the militia. I overheard them talk.’
‘He’s too old. Shoot him as well,’ Quinto said.
‘Go and load up the rest of the guns,’ Stancko told Quinto, ignoring his suggestion, ‘and be quick.’
‘We’ll set you free,’ Stancko said, turning back to the servant. ‘But we know who you are, we have your grandson and we will find you if you don’t keep your mouth shut.’ The terrified old man nodded.
* * *
Three of the partisans, together with Mattia, made their own return journeys on foot as the cart was now laden with spoils. Rossa, armed with a hunting gun, and Florian, his pistol in his hand, sat beside Stancko at the reins while Lucia and Quinto huddled in the back under the tarpaulin.
‘Not the most romantic place for a cuddle,’ Quinto muttered.
‘In your dreams,’ Lucia retorted, trying to move away.
‘If I was your big Tedesco, I’m sure we would be at it already. I’ve seen the way you paw at each other. How could you stoop to fornicate with the enemy?’
‘You have a foul mouth. You always did have,’ Lucia said, pulling at something sticking into her back and producing a silver teapot. ‘What use is this to a band of partigiani?’ she said.
‘That’s mine. Hands off,’ Quinto said, snatching it and lunging at her.
‘Get off me,’ she screamed.
Stancko stopped the cart and jumped down to rip the tarpaulin off. ‘What the fuck is going on? This is not a frigging school outing.’
Quinto was unable to hide the silverware in time and Stancko leant over the side of the cart to yank it from him. ‘What is this?’ He pulled at a sack that Quinto was clutching. It jangled with a metallic sound as he lifted it.
‘More spoils of war,’ Quinto said.
Looking inside the sack, Stancko swore. ‘Why take this? The family silver is no use to us. It was not in my orders to loot this.’
‘I can sell it.’
‘Who to? It has the fucking Boccarini estate crest stamped all over it,’ Stancko said, holding up a jug and an oval platter. ‘You obey my orders, or else you’ll be the next one to get a bullet.’
He strode to the edge of the track and threw the sack into the forest. ‘There are posters all over the place branding partigiani as brigands and thieves, and this doesn’t help. You’re a fucking waste of space, Quinto. Get up here beside me where I can keep an eye on you. Florian, you climb into the back instead.’
The rest of the journey was spent in silence. It was not the most comfortable place for a cuddle, but Florian and Lucia lay close as the cart bumped down the track.
The carabiniere was fast asleep at his post. A few hundred metres further on, Stancko steered the cart where the path forked to the left, and at the sound of his approach the doors to an old barn were opened by two men. He parked at the back and they pulled two false doors across to conceal it. They spent the next half hour piling up firewood to hide the false doors and left in different directions before first light, each carrying a sack on their backs of what they could immediately take from the cart’s load. Stancko led the horse loaded with the guns back up the track.
Quinto swore under his breath as he saw Lucia reach up on tiptoe to kiss Florian goodbye. Nothing had gone right for him tonight, but he would salvage what he could. The girl might be off limits, but the silverware wasn’t.
* * *
The following night, Quinto slipped away from Seccaroni. He had memorised the spot where Stancko had stopped the cart and flung the sack of silver into the woods. It was close to a rock known as the Madonna of the Beeches. A group of local girls had claimed to have seen an apparition there in the last century and it had become a place of pilgrimage in the area. It didn’t take Quinto long to find the sack and most of the silverware scattered across the forest floor. The moon was full, and light glinted off one of the platters like a mirror. He jumped at his own reflection staring back at him as he bent to retrieve the plate. When his heart had stopped hammering, he collected three of the items. To smuggle them all back in one go would make it difficult to hide his prize. The remainder he concealed under a pile of dead branches for collection the next time he could get away.
One hour later, he walked back into camp, the silverware hidden under his cloak.
‘Been for a crap,’ he told the partisan on guard. ‘Don’t know what they threw into that fucking stew last night. It’s given me a dose of gut-rot.’ Back in the stone hut, he tiptoed past the sleeping partigiani and, lifting the lid of his box that contained his few ragged items of clothing, he gently placed the platter and two goblets inside.
On the following night, he waited until the house rang with the snores of his sleeping comrades and crept out to bury his box in the rubbish hole used for kitchen and human waste. He grimaced as his hand touched a warm mound of excrement, but he told himself nobody would ever think to plunge their hands here. His treasure was safe. At the end of the war, he would have a little nest egg to show for the years of misery he had suffered.
But it was not to be.
Quinto’s screams echoed around the cellar where he was being tortured. He had been caught on his final trip to the forest. Extra guards were patrolling the area around the Boccarini estate that night, focused on reprisals, and he was caught red-handed by the militia, who arrested him and took him back to their headquarters at Le Balze. It was unfortunate that he ended up in the brutal hands of the IVth Battalion of nazifascisti, under the command of Oberleutnant Lehmann.
One by one his teeth were extracted until he confessed. Bending nearer to hear his agonised murmurings, the torturer, a short Sicilian called Sal
vatore Puglisi, more used to mixing with mafiosi than police, threw his hands up in exasperation.
‘Stancko, Stancko,’ lisped Quinto.
‘Yes, I am growing stanco, too,’ the Sicilian said, brandishing the pliers in Quinto’s face. ‘Stanchissimo. Fucking tired of you not telling us anything useful about the murder. Figlio d’un cane. Names. We need names. Who killed Petrelli?’
The two words sounded identical: Stancko, the name of Quinto’s leader, and stanco, the Italian word for tired. Quinto’s meaning was completely lost on Puglisi.
Quinto howled as another tooth was wrenched from his bloody mouth, and he gripped hold of the perpetrator’s arm. ‘Florian,’ he gasped, his mouth distorted, the words indistinct as he tried desperately to work his tongue around the letters. ‘Florian the Tedesco,’ he said, over and over, until Puglisi finally understood.
Quinto’s suffering ceased for a couple of minutes while the German’s name was registered. But when the interrogation continued and boiling oil was poured onto Quinto’s withered leg, the pain was so intense he passed out. He never came round, his heart too weak to survive the ordeal.
‘Take him out and throw him in the cesspit,’ Puglisi said, frustrated that no more information would be forthcoming. ‘Leave his body to rot.’
There was no priest to pray over Quinto’s dead body; nobody to record his passing. Up at the camp, Stancko assumed that Quinto had done a runner. He was not missed; he’d been more trouble than he was worth.
Within hours of Quinto’s confession, posters displaying a photograph of Florian were displayed in all the villages of the area.
ACHTUNG! BANDITEN! PARTISANIN!
Have you seen this man? His name is Florian Hofstetter. He is a dangerous criminal. Do not approach him but report his whereabouts to the German headquarters in Badia Tedalda. A generous reward is on offer for the person who hands him in.
Giacinta and Agata, Lucia’s neighbours, read the poster on the board outside the office of the carabinieri. They looked at each other and moved fast. Inside, they told the young militia behind the desk where Lucia lived and how she had been seen fraternising with Hofstetter.
‘When will we get the money?’ Giacinta asked.
‘As soon as we have caught this man.’
The hunt was on.
Twenty-Eight
Tuscany, 1946
Massimo set himself several projects over the next few days to stop himself from climbing up to the cave. He wanted so badly to get through to his childhood friend. She must have endured so much, but he knew that he had to tread carefully.
He travelled down on the bus to Sansepolcro to visit his parents. While he was there, he quizzed his mother on how to cure pork. Another of his plans was to buy a piglet, once he had saved enough money from the odd jobs he was doing for the sheep farmer up the road. Pork would make a pleasant change to his diet of eggs, and fish from the river, and it would mean he didn’t have to spend money on sausage and cured ham from the little grocer’s shop. His mother had always hung hams and home-made salami in the storeroom to season, when he was growing up. His parents were in good health, but they still couldn’t understand his need to stay alone in Tramarecchia, and he found it hard to explain his reasons. He left after a couple of hours, pleased to escape the dusty, busy city.
He constructed a large run for Lupino. It seemed cruel to chain him to the kennel when he was on trips to town and the market. As the cub grew, it was becoming more and more obvious he wasn’t an Alsatian dog. Massimo also patched up an outbuilding, mending the roof with tiles scattered about the ruins of Lucia’s old house, making it weathertight for the arrival of his pig. While he was in the ruined house, he sorted out good timbers from the useless, leaning what could be salvaged against the only remaining sound wall, its stones blackened from fire. The rest he chopped for firewood, piling it neatly and protecting it with a length of tarpaulin from the back of his own storeroom. Maybe one day Lucia would return to live in Tramarecchia and he could help her rebuild her family home.
Robertino wandered over to see what he was up to. ‘This place is like a morgue,’ he grumbled. ‘Everybody’s gone. Dino to America, Fausto dead, his parents down in Sansepolcro where there’s more work. The place is full of ghosts and sadness. What is the point of repairing this hovel?’
For some reason, Massimo didn’t want to tell him that he’d found Lucia, so he mumbled something about the building being an eyesore whenever he opened his door.
‘Nature will take care of that for you,’ Robertino said. ‘There’ll be creepers covering your eyesore before long.’ He poked at a fallen piece of masonry with a stick. ‘We’re leaving too, next week. My signora is always nagging at me to go to her mother’s house in Badia, and I’ve had it up to here anyway with this place. I’ll be in my grave too soon if I stay. Got myself a job as a labourer for the comune as a street-sweeper, and I get a house with running water and electricity.’ He turned to go. ‘You’ll have this dump all to yourself, Massimo.’
‘I wish you good luck,’ Massimo said, thinking to himself that he wouldn’t miss the surly family. It was true that it was hard to scrape a living from the stony meadows aslant the mountainside. He had to fetch water from the fountain and burn paraffin lamps and candles at night. But Massimo relished his childhood home, and the freedom.
When the day came, he helped Robertino pack his belongings high on his cart. The sight of rolled-up mattresses, pots and pans reminded him of the times when families in the villages left each September for the Maremma coast. Down there they worked picking artichokes, or helped with shepherds and herdsmen who’d left with their animals on the annual transumanza. It had always been a way of scratching a living in the winter months, but even this custom was waning; another result of the war interfering with lives and traditions.
* * *
A couple of days after Robertino had gone, a thick mist enveloped Tramarecchia, something which often happened high up in the mountains. There would be no outside work for a while, so Massimo sat in the kitchen, sharpening tools, repairing a handle on a hoe and patching a pair of his father’s rubber boots. He hated days like these when he couldn’t be out in the open. There was too much time to think, his mind wandering back to the wretched days of fighting in Libya. He remembered how he and the other prisoners were forced to sit outside their tents in the searing heat during the day so that the Australian sentries could keep an eye on them. His thoughts turned to different scenes, and he wondered if Molly missed Suffolk and what she was doing far away in America with her GI husband. Denis would probably be walking now and keeping her busy. He couldn’t imagine her living in a place like Tramarecchia.
Late that afternoon, there was a knock at his door. Massimo had been dozing in a chair and he woke with a start. Stumbling across the kitchen, he opened it slightly to find Lucia shivering on the step. He hadn’t seen her for over two weeks, and she looked thinner than ever. Her hair was plastered to her scalp and she was soaked through from the mist. He opened the door wide and she went straight over to the hearth and extended her hands to the lazy flame. Throwing on more kindling, he coaxed life from the embers before placing a pan of milk on the heat. From upstairs he pulled a blanket from the single bed and brought it down to drape over her shoulders. He rustled up a frittata, adding porcini mushrooms that he’d collected the previous day, slicing them thinly into the bubbling eggs.
Slowly, some colour returned to her hollow cheeks.
‘Can I stay with you until this fog is gone?’ she asked. ‘I shan’t bother you.’
‘You can stay as long as you wish.’
‘When the mist descends, I feel unsafe. I can’t see if anybody is coming to get me.’
‘Who would be coming to get you? The war is over now, Lucia.’
‘There are still people who hate me.’
‘You’re safe here. Everybody has left.’
‘I saw Robertino and his bitches leave on the cart. I was watching from the pass.’
Her face was tense, worry lines furrowing her brow, and he wanted to smooth them away. He wondered how long she had been living on her nerves.
‘My mother left some of her things here,’ he said. ‘Let’s sort out some dry clothes for you.’
He went upstairs again to the trunk at the end of the double bed and pulled out a blue and white overall dress, a cotton blouse and a darned shawl. Downstairs, he placed them on a chair, and she picked up the pinafore, holding it against her.
‘Trousers are easiest. Do you have a spare pair?’
‘Only my best ones.’ They were trousers Molly had given him to take to Italy. He was loath to part with them.
‘These will do for while I’m here,’ she said, picking up his mother’s clothes and going to the storeroom to change.
When she returned, he looked at her in dismay. The dress hung off her even though she’d wound the ties around her waist twice to fit. She looked like a scarecrow with her bony arms and tatty hair. As a girl she’d been stocky and sturdy, her long plaits streaming behind her as she overtook the boys, even barefoot. He cursed inside at whoever had done this to her, but not wishing to upset her, he tossed out a compliment. ‘Better than your old rags,’ he said, and she did a twirl.
‘I look ridiculous, Massimo, and you know it. But these will do for now.’
She perched on a stool near the fire, and he let her settle, waiting for her to talk.
‘Even when I have the fire burning all the time, it’s never warm in that cave,’ she said, stretching her hands to the flames. ‘At first, I couldn’t bear to light one. The flames reminded me too much of…’ She bit her lip and then continued. ‘But I couldn’t get warm, so I forced myself to collect wood. The matches we’d stowed away were still there and I was proud of myself when I conquered my fear. But there’s never anybody to share moments with. I talk to myself a lot these days…’