Hero on a Bicycle

by Shirley Hughes

  He hovered in the hall at the top of the cellar stairs. Why was Constanza taking so long down there? What were they talking about? He wondered if he should go down and join them but then thought better of it. Perhaps he should keep a low profile for the moment.

  Constanza finally appeared, carrying two empty plates.

  “You’ve been gone a long time,” said Paolo. “Are they OK? What have they been telling you about themselves?”

  But Constanza, he could see, was in one of her maddeningly uncommunicative moods.

  “Not much,” was all she would say. “One’s Canadian army and the other’s RAF. I really don’t know much more than that.”

  But Paolo was pretty sure that she did and that she was just as full of suppressed excitement as he was.

  “Didn’t they tell you —?” he began, but stopped short. Somebody was moving in the living room.

  Then a voice called, “Hello? Anyone at home?”

  Hilaria! They exchanged horrified looks. She had come in unannounced through the French doors and was wandering nosily around. She strolled into the hall to join them, immaculately dressed as usual in a crisp linen suit.

  “Only me,” she said brightly. “I hope it’s all right, my barging in like this. I had to get out for a bit — it’s so boring at home, so I just thought I’d drop by to see what you’re doing. I wondered if perhaps we could listen to some of your records, Constanza. But if you’re busy . . .”

  “No, not at all,” said Constanza.

  Hilaria glanced sharply at the two plates Constanza was carrying, then at the cellar door. Paolo saw to his horror that it had been left half open. Constanza caught his eye. She reached back with her foot and kicked the door shut, but she was a split second too late. Hilaria laughed.

  “So, since when have you and Paolo taken to eating your lunch in the cellar?” she said.

  “Oh, we’ve just been helping Maria do a bit of cleaning up down there. It’s so full of junk.”

  “Fascinating! I just adore junk. You never know what treasures you’re going to find. Food as well, it seems. You must let me nose around there sometime.”

  “Sure, but not in that white suit, Hilaria,” said Constanza, thinking quickly. “It’s terribly dusty down there. Let’s go up to my room.”

  But Hilaria seemed in no hurry to leave the hall and began wandering around, idly picking things up and putting them down again.

  “It’s chaos at home,” she said. “Too depressing for words! Packing cases everywhere. Mamma and Papà don’t feel safe in Florence any longer, and we’re planning to go to Lake Como, if we can manage to get there. But Aldo doesn’t want to leave. He’s got all sorts of deals going with the German administration here, and he’s worried he’ll miss out on the money they owe him. He’s such a good businessman, you know. I don’t really want to leave either, to be honest. Mamma says there’s only room for one suitcase each in the car, and that means leaving most of my clothes behind. Can you imagine having to choose what to take! It’s too awful.”

  “I can’t believe that you’ll be very popular here when the Allies arrive,” said Paolo.

  “You don’t know anything about it,” said Hilaria coolly, “so don’t pretend that you do.”

  “Oh, come on upstairs,” Constanza put in quickly.

  They were halfway up the first flight when they heard a muffled noise from the cellar. Hilaria paused and looked back.

  “It sounds as if Maria could use some help down there,” she said. But at that moment, Maria herself bustled into the hallway from the kitchen, making it plain that if anyone was down there in the cellar, it wasn’t her.

  Hilaria stayed for nearly two hours. Paolo hardly knew how they got through her highly unwelcome visit. Reluctantly, he had to admire the cool way Constanza dealt with the situation. She had managed somehow to laugh off Hilaria’s curiosity about what had gone bump in the cellar, saying that they must have piled up so much junk that it had toppled over and — oh, dear! — they would probably have to start cleaning up again later. Fortunately, it was Hilaria’s unwillingness to get her white suit dirty that finally made her lose interest.

  After Constanza had managed to maneuver her upstairs and Paolo heard the familiar sound of the gramophone playing “J’attendrai,” he flopped down on the living-room sofa, feeling quite sick with relief.

  Hilaria finally left at about four o’clock. After that there was nothing for any of them to do except wait until dark. It was around nine when Constanza crept down to fetch Joe and David from the cellar and brought them out to join Paolo in the yard. They were wearing caps pulled down over their faces, and each carried a canvas bag slung over his shoulder like any Italian man returning late from work. They had already said a brief, grateful good-bye to Rosemary. Now the two men, Paolo, and Constanza stood there, shy and at a loss for words.

  “We’ll try to let you know somehow where we end up,” said Joe, looking at Constanza.

  “Send you a picture postcard,” added David.

  “Take care,” said Constanza. It seemed wholly inadequate, but it was the best she could manage. She put her arms around each of them in turn and hugged them. She was taken by surprise by the warmth with which Joe returned her embrace. She wondered why the fate of these two young men, whom she had known for less than twenty-four hours, suddenly meant so much to her. Why am I always saying good-bye? she thought sadly, reminded of her father’s long absence.

  Paolo was impatient to be off. Silently, and determined not to let on how nervous he was, he led the two men down the back drive, toward the road. Rosemary was standing alone in the kitchen, unable to bear watching them go.

  Their journey downhill toward the city was uneventful. The houses showed no sign of light. Very few people ventured out after dark now, even before the curfew, and those who had took little notice of them. But as they approached the Porta Romana, Paolo’s heart sank. A German military patrol was parked by the roadside, and four soldiers were stopping people at random. Paolo tried to pass by unnoticed, but one of the men, a corporal, motioned to them at gunpoint to stop.

  “Passes? Show your passes,” he said in broken Italian.

  Joe and David stood well back, heads down, as they fumbled in their jackets. The single carefully shaded light from the soldier’s flashlight threw their shadows out across the street. Paolo stepped forward, offering his own papers and rallying all his linguistic skills to speak to the man in German.

  “They’re from out of town,” he said, jerking his head at his two companions. “They’re from the North, near Brescia. Been working near here in a munitions factory. I’m local. I’m taking them into town to stay the night with a relative. Then they’re going to work their way back home if they can.”

  The corporal relaxed slightly at the sound of his own language.

  “You’re a bit young to be out at night,” he said, eyeing Paolo. “Make sure you’re back inside before the curfew begins.”

  “I’m OK. I know my way around. I’ve got my bicycle, and I’m going straight home after this.”

  The soldier glanced at Joe and David and motioned for them to show their passes, which he scrutinized under his flashlight. Then he told them to walk on.

  They did so in silence and did not relax until they were some way down the Via Romana into the city. Paolo could see the sweat on Joe’s face. They passed the Angelina Convent and crossed the deserted Piazza de’ Pitti, where the great looming shape of the Pitti Palace rose high above them, all its windows dark. As they approached the river, Paolo led the way into a side street to the right. He wanted to avoid crossing the Ponte Vecchio in case they ran into another checkpoint there. Instead, they took a roundabout route that came out onto the Lungarno Torrigiani, the road that bordered the river on the south side, and crossed safely to the north side over the Ponte alle Grazie. Then they plunged into the network of little streets near the Santa Croce.

  Paolo had studied the route. He knew these streets well from his night rides
— knew every doorway and alley they could dodge into if they were spotted. But all they encountered were one or two heavily laden women, intent on getting back to their houses as quickly as possible, and a few half-starved cats. At last they reached the end of a very long, narrow, and deserted street. It was in almost complete darkness, and all the houses were tightly shuttered.

  “It’s number seventeen,” whispered David. “I’ll go first, and then I’ll signal for you both to follow.”

  He walked lightly and rapidly until he came to a door at the far end of the street. He knocked twice. At first, there was no response, only what seemed like an interminable pause. Then suddenly the door was flung open, and in the rectangle of light that spilled out onto the street, Paolo could see soldiers — German soldiers. They grabbed David, pinning his arms behind his back.

  “It’s a trap! Run!” he shouted before they silenced him with a blow.

  There was a lot of shouting then, and confusion. A bullet hit the wall behind Paolo’s head. The plaster shattered and fell to the ground, but he was too stunned to be frightened. He reacted blindly, without hesitation.

  “This way,” he said, pulling Joe along with one hand and clutching his bicycle with the other. Two more shots followed as they made their way off around the corner. He felt Joe stumble and fall against him, but Joe quickly righted himself and kept running. Other doors were being flung open now, and people were coming out into the street: women were screaming; men were gesticulating. The panic that ensued gave them a few seconds’ lead. Paolo pulled Joe into a side alleyway that led through to another street. It was then that he remembered the icecream shop.

  Ice cream was a long-forgotten dream, a memory of happy afternoons before the war: shopping with his mother, followed by delicious treats. His favorite place to go had been the ice-cream shop. The parlor had closed when the war began, but he recognized the door and remembered how the kindly proprietor had once shown him the big refrigerators containing the different flavored ices. He gave the back door a push. It creaked open. Quickly, he shoved his bicycle inside and then, after dragging Joe inside, shut the door behind them. He could hear running footsteps very close at hand — booted feet on cobblestones — and orders shouted in German. Joe and Paolo stood together in the half-dark. Joe was leaning heavily on him, heaving for breath. Paolo gripped his arm and encountered something warm and sticky — blood.

  “They got me in the shoulder with that second shot,” Joe whispered hoarsely.

  Paolo was too scared to answer. Instead, he looked around. It was the ice-cream shop, all right. They seemed to be in the kitchen. It smelled of damp, decay, and urine, but there were the two big fridges looming up out of the dark. Outside, the soldiers were kicking open doors all along the alley. Paolo shoved his bicycle into a corner and pulled Joe behind one of the fridges. There was just room for them, if they pressed up against the wall.

  A second later, the door from the alleyway was flung open and two soldiers burst in. Flashlights shone around the room; packing cases were pulled aside and cupboards searched. Both fridge doors were wrenched open. Paolo held his breath. One man was so near to him that he could have reached out and touched Paolo’s arm.

  Then one of the soldiers spotted the bicycle. There was an exchange, and the door that led into the shop was kicked open. The soldiers rushed through, rifles at the ready.

  “Come on,” whispered Paolo. He grabbed the bike, and he and Joe slipped out silently into the alley. Paolo peered down the street. He could hear excited voices nearby, but in the immediate vicinity, there was nobody around and all was quiet. He motioned for Joe to follow him, but, looking back, he saw that Joe was not in a good way. He was staggering, and blood had soaked through the left arm of his jacket and was dripping down his hand. Paolo ran back to him. Somehow he managed to support the wounded man as far as the bicycle and lift him onto the seat.

  “It’s OK. Hang on to me,” he said.

  Then, with Joe clinging to his waist with his good arm, Paolo shoved off. He cycled hard, standing high on the pedals, and within minutes they were away, up the darkened street.

  The way home was the worst journey Paolo had ever made. He took the back streets out of the city, dreading at every turn that they would run into another German patrol. Joe was tall and broad, and he seemed a deadweight to Paolo, who was finding it almost impossible to support him, even along the flat parts of the road. As they began their ascent up the road toward home, Paolo had to dismount and push his bicycle, with Joe slumped upon it.

  It was hard going. They went on in silence, with Paolo heaving for breath. They were both thinking of David and how they had had to abandon him to his fate at the hands of his German captors. They had run out on him — they both knew that all too clearly, though they also knew that any attempt to save him would have been futile and would probably have resulted in all three of them being captured or shot. Paolo tried to concentrate on reaching home. It was the only thing that mattered now.

  Rosemary and Constanza were sitting huddled together at the kitchen table when, at last, they heard the crunch of bicycle wheels in the yard. The waiting had been a mounting agony for Rosemary. She had steeled herself to keeping watch for Paolo for a couple of hours, but when midnight had passed and he had not returned, her anxiety turned to cold panic.

  She had been outside several times and walked as far as the road, peering into the darkness in the hope of seeing that shaded bicycle light wavering up the hill. But all was silent and empty. When Constanza had crept downstairs to join her, Rosemary was far too grateful for the company to insist that she should go back to bed. It helped to have a hand to hold.

  “Why did I ever let him get into this? It’s my fault entirely. I should never have allowed it,” Rosemary kept repeating.

  “Don’t worry, Mamma. He’ll be back.”

  But as time wore on, even these exchanges had petered out, and they were reduced to silence.

  The moment they heard Paolo in the yard, they both rushed outside. He had flung down his bicycle and was half dragging, half supporting Joe toward the back door. Rosemary’s enormous relief at seeing Paolo home safe overrode her shock at the sight of Joe with his arm soaked in blood. It was Constanza who had to stand still, pressing her hands to her mouth to stop herself from crying out.

  Almost within seconds, Rosemary had moved to take control of the situation with calm efficiency, hoping that nobody would notice how much she was trembling. Somehow, between the three of them, they managed to get Joe into the kitchen, where he fell into a chair, barely conscious, his head slumped onto his chest. Paolo, white-faced with exhaustion, stood leaning against the doorway, talking rapidly but making very little sense. The words poured out incoherently as, between gulps, he tried to describe what had happened.

  “David — they got David,” he kept saying.

  Rosemary put an arm around him, holding him very tightly and trying to calm him.

  “All right, caro — all right. Sit down a moment, and we’ll hear about it later. Constanza, will you put the kettle on and fetch the first-aid box from my bathroom as quickly as you can? And for heaven’s sake, don’t wake Maria! She’ll only get in a terrible state and make matters worse.”

  When Constanza returned with the box, Joe was lying on the sofa in the living room. Rosemary carefully began to cut away the sleeve of his jacket and blood-soaked shirt. Then she gently sponged away some of the blood from around his wound.

  “It’s a bad gash,” she said. “But it doesn’t look as though there’s a bullet hole. It must have grazed your arm but just missed going in, thank heavens.”

  Joe had revived enough to sip some hot tea laced with a little brandy, and Rosemary began to dress his shoulder. As she worked, he and Paolo described their night’s adventure. Paolo was calmer now.

  When the bandage was on, Joe lay back, exhausted. “Looks as though I’ve turned up here again like a bad nickel,” he said with a weak grin, “but don’t worry, I’ll get away again so
mehow. . . .”

  “Is it possible you could be traced back here, do you think?” asked Rosemary anxiously.

  “We weren’t followed — I’m pretty sure of that,” said Paolo. “If we had been, they would have caught up with us long before we got back here.”

  Rosemary pressed her hands to her forehead, struggling to remain calm, or at least not to let her panic show. She had no idea what to do next.

  “I can’t get a doctor for you, Joe. It’s far too risky,” she said. “Nobody outside this household must know what’s happened. We’re very suspect here. But you can’t possibly go on the run in this state.”

  “I won’t let you risk having me here any longer,” said Joe. “The Partisans will be in contact. They’ll get me away somehow. . . .”

  “Not until you’ve rested and gotten over the shock,” said Rosemary. “We’ll hide you in the cellar. Nobody will suspect anything if we lie low and act as normal as possible.”

  Joe tried to rally the energy to insist, but he was too tired.

  “I keep thinking about David — what they’ll do to the poor guy. We ran away and left him. . . .” Joe screwed up his face in agony.

  “From what you say, there wasn’t much else you could do except get taken yourselves or be shot,” said Constanza.

  “Yeah, I know, I know.” Joe reached out his good hand to Paolo. “You were great, kid, just great. They’d have gotten me, too, if it hadn’t been for you. You’re a whole heap braver than most of the army guys I know, and that’s for sure.”