by Angela Petch
When darkness fell, she made her way down to a spot where she could spy on Tramarecchia. The ruins of her home smouldered, little pockets of flame lapping at the wooden beams that had crashed down in the heat. The village was ghostly quiet. She watched for half an hour without seeing anybody. No smoke seeped from the chimneys of her neighbours’ houses. The only signs of life were a strutting cockerel and a couple of hens scratching in the dust. She crept nearer to peer through Robertino’s kitchen window. No fire burned in his hearth.
She came across the scorched body of her faithful Maremmano, Primo, half-eaten by flames. And when she moved closer to the place she had once called home, her mouth opened in a scream, no sound issuing from her mouth. In the little piazza in front of her house, the bodies of her parents lay on top of each other, as if in a last embrace. At first, she thought they were asleep – she willed them to be asleep – but as she stumbled towards them, she saw the blood that had soaked their clothes from the bullet holes in their heads and she knew that they could not possibly be alive.
Lucia ran up the mountain path back to the cave, brambles tearing at her face, snagging at her clothes, her head filled with the horror of what she had seen. She threw herself to the ground and her whole body shook. She couldn’t cry; her emotions were frozen. All night she lay there. Not even sleep came to rescue her from the nightmare.
Sometime after dawn, she felt a flutter in her stomach. It wasn’t hunger; the sensation was like nothing she’d ever felt. It was like a beating of tiny wings. She placed both hands against her stomach, so flat until recently. She hardly dared breathe while she waited for the butterfly within to whisper to her again. And when it did, she understood that there was life after all. A new life that she and Florian had made together.
She sat up and scrabbled around in the half-light to find matches to light a fire from the kindling that her lover had stacked so neatly. With tears now streaming down her smoke-streaked cheeks, she made a silent promise to him that she would keep going. With her bare hands she dug in the dirt at the back of the cave and pulled out his last gift. She stayed very still for a few minutes, cradling the plaque to her body, rocking back and forth. A blackbird sang from a nearby tree and the cockerel crowed again, as she thought of the tiny being growing in her womb.
Thirty
Tuscany, 1946
Late one afternoon, Massimo’s father walked down the track to Tramarecchia and knocked on the door of the red house.
Lucia escaped from the back as soon as she saw him arrive and Massimo was left alone to talk to his father, who stood there, twisting his felt hat nervously round and round in his hands.
‘Come in, come in, padre mio,’ Massimo said. ‘Shall I make us coffee?’
‘Isn’t that woman’s work? Where is she?’
‘If you mean Lucia, she’s up on the meadow with our cow,’ Massimo lied. ‘Did you know I’d managed to save enough to buy one? And we have six goats for milk now, as well as the pig we’re going to slaughter in the new year. Come and see the orto. I have planted it with fennel, broccoli and cabbage for the winter.’
‘I haven’t come here to talk about your farming, son. Your mother has sent me.’
‘Ah,’ said Massimo, feeling sorry for his henpecked father, ‘then we shall need something stronger than coffee.’ He ushered him into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of grappa from the corner cupboard.
‘Your mother is upset that you are living in sin. People are talking.’
‘We are not living in sin, padre mio. She is living in this house because otherwise she would live in a cave, banished there by people in this hamlet who did nothing to prevent what happened to her and her family.’ He paused, staring angrily at his father. ‘What were you and my mother doing that evening to stop it?’ He poured a glass of grappa for his father, slopping some onto the table in his fury. ‘And I hope you understand that I don’t care what people think or say.’
‘A man and a woman living in a house together. People put two and two together, you know.’
‘They do not know how to count. Lucia and I do not even share the same bed.’
‘Nevertheless,’ his father said, ‘you are living in the family house and we are not happy.’
‘If you want me to leave, I shall.’
Massimo’s father put his hand on his son’s arm. ‘We thought we had lost you once. I do not want to lose you twice. Would you not think about marrying the girl?’
‘It takes two to decide such a thing,’ Massimo said, getting up and showing his father to the door. ‘Tell my mother she should not concern herself with the tittle-tattle of stupid people.’
He watched his father’s stooped figure as he made his way out of the hamlet. He was irritated with the small-mindedness of his own parents, but he would laugh about it with Lucia when she reappeared.
* * *
‘Well, I think it’s a good idea,’ Lucia said as they ate polenta and sausage that evening.
He looked at her in amazement.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said, shovelling in another forkful. ‘It would have happened anyway if the war hadn’t come along.’
‘But—’ he said, and she interrupted before he could finish his sentence.
‘I think we’re fond of each other, aren’t we? We’re getting along fine as we are. Having a ring on my finger won’t change much, as long as we don’t make a song and dance about it. We’ll say what we have to say in front of God, and then people will shut up and leave us alone.’
He continued to stare at her, dumbfounded.
‘You’d better close that mouth of yours, Massimo Conti, before a hornet flies in.’ She rose from the table and fetched the pan of polenta from the side of the fire, ladling more onto his plate. ‘And if you want me in your bed, that’s fine. And if you don’t, that’s fine too.’
‘So, you’re proposing to me, are you?’ he said, pushing his plate away.
‘Well, I’d probably have to wait until we’re old and past it for you to ask me.’
‘And shall I kiss you now, or go down on one knee?’
‘I shouldn’t have to tell you what to do.’
He picked up his coat from the back of the door and left the house. It felt wrong to him, and he needed to think.
He took Lupino down to the river. At the weir he leant against the side of the dam wall and the wolf stretched alongside him as he stroked the fur on the back of the animal’s neck. ‘What am I to do with her?’ he asked. Massimo lit up and dragged nicotine deep into his lungs. The water rushed past on its unwavering course, flowing down to the sea, knowing exactly where it was bound. He couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning Lucia, but at the same time her proposal was the last thing he had expected. They had both experienced the innocence of a first love: he with Molly and she with her German soldier. But to marry without passion was wrong, in his mind. And passion couldn’t be conjured from thin air. He lit another cigarette with the butt of his first and the wolf stood and stretched first his front, then his hind legs, opening his big mouth to yawn before wandering away along the riverbed to scent the undergrowth. He let the animal do as it wanted, and he decided that he would treat Lucia in much the same way. Eventually, Lupino returned to his side and they set off together up the hill to Tramarecchia.
She was sitting at the table when he returned, but she’d washed and tidied the pots and pans away and combed her hair back from her face. It was almost reaching her shoulders now, and she would soon be able to tie it back.
He sat down opposite her at the table and took both of her hands. ‘This is my proposal to you, Lucia. When I have found a ring, we will go to the church up in Montebotolino and we will make our vows. There’s a new young friar arrived in that parish. I think he will oblige. And then we will continue in the same way as we have done so far. What do you say?’
She squeezed his hands slightly with her own and whispered, ‘Grazie.’
* * *
Massimo had an old brass b
ullet case that he’d kept as a souvenir from his war, and he took it to his blacksmith friend, Giorgio, and asked him to fashion a ring. Next, he visited the Franciscan who had moved into the vacant house at the side of the church high up in Montebotolino, and briefly explained both their histories. ‘My wife-to-be and I want no fuss, and we aren’t churchgoers. Will that matter?’
Fra Amos smiled, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his brown habit. ‘A fancy wedding does not necessarily lead to a good marriage. God sees into your hearts anyway. Come next Saturday at seven in the morning.’
Massimo did not linger to talk. If God knew what was in their hearts, then He must indeed be clever, because Massimo was at a loss to fathom his feelings for Lucia. He thanked Fra Amos and hurried back to Tramarecchia.
She wasn’t at the house, and neither was Lupino. He busied himself hoeing weeds in the orto, cutting back extra leaves from the last of the tomatoes and pulling up withered courgette plants to throw on the compost heap. Lucia often disappeared for hours on end; he was used to it. He understood her need for space, and he let her roam wild, like he would have done if he’d been able to afford a horse to ride up and down the mountain tracks. He thought no person or beast should be tethered all the time.
The first time she’d gone off he’d been concerned, and he’d followed her as she walked down to the river. She’d rolled up her trouser legs and waded along the bed, climbing over sun-bleached boulders where the river gushed foam into little pools. She and Lupino had reached a spot where wild flowers grew, splashes of deep pink vibrant against the white-grey riverbed. He watched as she gathered an armful of the long-stemmed rosebay willowherb. Then, suddenly, she’d turned in his direction and shouted, ‘I know you’re there, Massimo. I swear I’ll go crazy if you keep following me.’
He thought she must be a little crazy already, and her words echoed back to him from the walls of the narrow gorge they were crossing: crazy-azy-azyyyy.
He turned to leave her.
Just before dark, she’d slipped back into the red house and taken herself to bed. He wondered if he should ask her where she’d been; if she was all right. But he’d said nothing and not long afterwards, he climbed the stairs to his own bed, and nothing was ever said. Since that time, she’d disappeared frequently without explanation. They lived around each other in the same house, without really connecting. Like two moths hovering over a candle flame but never drawing near enough to burn.
Fra Amos was waiting for them at church the following Saturday. He had picked flowers to fill two enamel jugs, one at each side of the altar: the blue from cornflowers and chicory, together with yellow buttercups and hypericum, bright against the plain plaster walls of the musty church.
Lucia had dithered over what to wear that morning and as a result they were slightly late. First, she’d put on the cotton dress from Molly’s parcel. It fitted her perfectly, its tiny waist making her look womanly after her everyday patched trousers and shirt. She’d woven a coronet of rosemary and thyme for her hair and studded it with dog daisies. Massimo thought she looked enchanting. But then, at the last minute, she’d undone the mother-of-pearl buttons, and in her haste, she’d ripped a couple from their threads. They rolled away across the kitchen floor. ‘I can’t wear this,’ she’d said. ‘It doesn’t suit… I’ll make curtains for the windows with the material instead.’
She’d reappeared, dressed in one of his mother’s old wrap-around pinafores, a plain white blouse underneath – the country uniform of the middle-aged woman. She looked at him defiantly, her green eyes flashing a warning at him not to say anything. ‘I’ll wear this today to remember my own mother,’ she’d said. And Massimo had no arguments against such sentimentality. He kept quiet, thinking how drab she looked. But then, what did it matter? This wedding ceremony was only a formality. It was never going to be the best day of their lives.
When the friar gave his short homily, Massimo was pleased with the words. They were true to the simplicity and humility of the Franciscan way, and the friar didn’t preach or spout an unintelligible, irrelevant lecture. He seemed to have taken on board everything he’d been told about the newlyweds.
‘I adopted the name Amos for very good reasons when I joined the Franciscans,’ the young friar said, speaking to them where they sat together in the front pew. ‘I love his way of thinking, and the passages from his book in the Bible. This world is governed by the wealthy and there is too much oppression of the poor. I fought in the last war too, and saw many bad things. So I decided to devote my life to praying they would never happen again, like Amos.’ He paused and then quoted from a battered Bible, bound in an old leather cover. ‘I understand what you have both been through. I pray that “justice will flow like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry”.’ He placed his hands on both their heads and gave them a blessing. ‘Now, go away and learn to love each other.’
* * *
For their wedding breakfast, Massimo had prepared a simple picnic and wrapped it in a cotton kerchief. ‘We should at least mark this day, Lucia,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to the river. Today is warm enough.’
She accepted, walking side by side with him when the path was wide enough and, like a gentleman, he ushered her forward when the way narrowed. They didn’t speak as they descended. But at the foot of the path, the sound of the river crashed into the silence and Lucia started to run, flinging off her clothes as she hurried to the water. She jumped in and splashed him, calling to him to join her. He thought later that if ever there had been a moment to consummate this wedding arrangement, this might have been it. But he felt no arousal at the sight of her cavorting in the shallows, her small breasts and slim hips glistening with water in the late-summer sunlight.
‘I liked the friar’s words,’ she called to him, over the sound of the water gushing into the pool by the weir. ‘He talked of streams and rivers.’ She laughed. ‘What would he think of this, our wedding dance in the water?’
‘I think he would approve,’ Massimo replied. And then he climbed in and splashed her back, like he had done hundreds of times when they were children in this very spot, and she squealed and dived beneath the surface to avoid him ducking her under the waterfall.
Afterwards they dried themselves off with their clothes and dressed again. They sat in the sunshine to eat. He’d packed a bottle of wine and he poured it into two enamel beakers, and she toasted him: ‘To Massimino, my saviour. Thank you for today.’
‘To signora Lucia Conti,’ he said, holding up his enamel cup to hers, at a loss for anything further to add, thinking how odd it felt for this girl to be his wife.
For the rest of his wedding day Massimo worked hard, patching up Lucia’s ruined house. She had agreed they could use the shell to create the boundaries of an orchard which would be protected in winter. He planned to plant peach and apricot trees, which were not usually hardy up here in the mountains. He kept himself busy all afternoon, clearing the ground of stones, slowly adding animal manure to enrich the poor earth.
He hoped that Lucia was at work inside, preparing a special wedding supper, but when he pushed open the door she wasn’t there, and neither was there anything cooking over the fire. Lupino was missing from his kennel, too. He waited for them to return until well after dark, not bothering to light candles or lamps, sitting by the fire as it slowly went out, staring into the embers and wondering if anybody else had ever spent their wedding night in such a way. Finally, he stood up. It was past midnight and too late to be out, even if she had the wolf to protect her. He began to panic that she might have slipped on a river rock, twisted her ankle, or worse. Maybe Lupino had been attacked by other wolves and the pack had attacked her too. He grabbed a paraffin lamp, water, ropes and, at the last minute, a half-bottle of grappa, and went to search.
Instinct guided him towards the cave where she’d originally sheltered. It was pitch-black as he made his way up the mountain, and the air was chilly. The light from his paraffin lamp swung back and for
th, the trees beside the path ghostly shapes as he felt his way, occasionally stumbling over a rock. Leaves skittered as they dropped on stones and a night animal rustled in the undergrowth. The sound of hooves on the path ahead caused him to stop. If it was a boar, then he had to be careful. His free hand felt for the knife on his belt, but as he held up the lantern, he made out the rump of a deer galloping back into the forest and his breathing returned to normal.
Turning the final bend before the entrance to the cave, he saw she had lit a fire. She was sitting, knees hunched to her chest, her arms clasped around her legs, staring into the flames. She looked up as he murmured her name.
‘You took your time,’ she said. Lupino lay by her side and she patted the ground for Massimo to sit on her free side. ‘Come and keep us company.’
He sat down, although he wanted to shake her. ‘Lucia, I thought you were lying injured somewhere. You can’t keep doing this to me.’
‘I will try not to, Massimo. You’ve been very patient.’ She looked up. ‘Too patient,’ she said, throwing another stick of wood on the fire. ‘It’s time to tell you the rest of my story.’
Massimo had thought she’d revealed the worst to him, and he wasn’t prepared for what was to come.
‘I wanted to kill myself when Florian died,’ Lucia said. ‘My parents were gone, my brother killed in the war. I thought I was completely alone. But I was wrong.’ She touched her stomach and then Massimo understood.
‘You were pregnant,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I couldn’t have Florian, but we had made a child. Part of him remained. I never got a chance to tell him.’ She bit her lip and he waited for her to continue.
‘It was a little boy. I lost him, here, Massimo. Alone, in this place.’
She began to cry with great shuddering sobs. Lupino nuzzled her and whined and at the same time, Massimo moved to take her in his arms. She sank against him and he stroked her hair, not saying anything, waiting until she had stopped weeping.