A Thread of Grace

by Mary Doria Russel

  If the San Mauro joins this corps of liberation, he promises, they’ll become part of a genuine brigade: three companies, each divided into platoon-sized units officered by a lieutenant in command of three squads: thirteen men each with a sergeant and corporal. Company commanders, subcommanders, logistics and intelligence officers will support the fighters.

  Tullio Goletta scratches with a furry hand at the lice in his hair. “I had enough of officers when I was in the army.”

  “I have heard of Attilio Goletta’s son,” Landau says, looking at Tullio. “People say you and your babbo are two loaves from same dough. Both fearless, both strong. But Babbo’s jokes are better.” The boys all laugh. “In the Corps of Liberation,” Landau resumes, “officers do not order any personal slavery. Italy don’t shine Germany’s boots, and men of the corps don’t shine officer shoes. We tell them, You officers: you clean your own dishes! Wash your own stinky shirts!” When the laughter dies down again, Landau adds soberly, “And you fighters: respect the peasants! They are mother and father, grandparents and sisters of the armed anti-Fascist partisan movement. You do not steal from them! You leave the women pure!”

  There are cheers this time, but Tullio points to their flea-market armory. “What we need are weapons, ammunition. Warm clothes, and shoes! What are you offering— besides officers?”

  “Lugers. Mausers. Schmeissers. Uniforms. Greatcoats. Boots— good ones. All,” Landau says, “from bodies of enemy.” Tullio snorts, but the Pole knows his audience. These kids are young enough, and bored enough, to believe that they can do anything. Quickly, he outlines a plan.

  The effect is galvanic. Arms wave, eyes glow, voices rise in volume, echoing against the glistening stone walls. “I think it could work,” la nonna says judiciously. “I’m willing to do my part, and so is Nello’s zia Adele.”

  Nello looks doubtful. “I’m not so sure. Borgo San Mauro could end up like Boves. The Germans burned a priest and an important businessman to death. Twenty-five people were shot. The whole town was leveled.”

  “We’ve got to do something,” Duno says. “We can’t just sit up here forever!”

  That, Landau suspects, is exactly what Nello would like to do. Attesimo, Italians call the policy. Wait and see. “Comrades,” he says, “this is war, with casualties, with reprisals. Our enemy knows only force. He listens only if we use his language.”

  “Pierino, what do you think?” Duno asks.

  All eyes turn to the only combat veteran among them: a one-armed reminder of the risks that soldiers run. The postman stands. He makes a humming sound, shrugs, grimaces: apologetic, annoyed, resigned. “M-m-m— Mmmm-mo—” His Adam’s apple spasms, his lips convulse. He jerks his head to break the jam. “Mmmoses!” finally bursts through. Then, as sometimes happens when he is alone, or unself-conscious, the next word slips out with a breath. “Aaaaron,” he says, pointing at Jakub Landau.

  At first the boys don’t understand. “He speaks for you?” Duno asks. When Pierino nods, Duno turns to his comrades and says, “That’s enough for me.”

  Forgotten in all the talk, the fires have burned down. Duno Brössler reaches for a chunk of chestnut wood. “We fight? The Germans kill.” He holds the wood above one of the hearths. “We don’t fight? The Germans kill.” The firewood drops. Sparks explode into the damp air. “I say: we fight!”

  One by one, boys stand. One by one, they toss fuel onto the embers, until the fires blaze. Somewhere in the cave, a sweet-voiced tenor begins to sing, “Nessun dorma.” One by one, the boys of San Mauro join in. “My secret lies locked up within me. No one shall ever know my name…”

  Closing his eyes, Landau listens silently. He is moved by the melody and the lyrics. Moved by the gallantry of old women and skinny kids who propose to take on the Republican army, the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS. Moved almost to tears by the final stirring declaration of a victory that must come from beyond the grave.

  The Germans have Tiger tanks, he thinks, but these boys have Turandot, and courage, and history on their side.

  A week later, the equinox is past, and the days noticeably longer. Even so, when Lidia returns to the hunchback’s house this time, it’s an hour after sundown. She is surrounded by violet mountains floating like islands in a sea of clouds illuminated by a gibbous moon, but she is blind to their beauty.

  Lidia Leoni knows now why men love war. To plan together, to be audacious. To fear, and risk, and win! To triumph over contemptuous conquerors! What could be more thrilling?

  The wind shifts. Mirella has a fire burning, and the fragrance brings Lidia to her senses. Shod in awful peasant clogs, her feet are freezing, and she hobbles inside at last. The baby must be sleeping. Mirella sits alone in the firelight.

  “Cara mia, wait until you hear what we just did!” Lidia says, unwinding her muffler. “Four ambushes, no casualties! Hardly any of the Germans were hurt either— Nello didn’t want to give them an excuse for reprisals. We got twenty-four uniforms, all good wool, enough for all the boys. Pistols, rifles, even a machine gun! Ammunition.” Stamping her feet, Lidia makes sure she’s knocked the caked March mud off her clogs. “I swear, I feel like a girl again! What’s wrong?”

  Mirella, mute and frightened, looks past her to a figure sitting in shadow by the door.

  “Signora Savoca. Home at last!” a suave male voice says. “Or perhaps I should call you Gramma? All good partisans should have nome di battaglia, signora, in addition to those on their false papers. I understand your battle name is la nonna.”

  Reluctantly, Lidia Leoni turns to face him.

  “I’m afraid it really doesn’t do to walk into a house and blurt out your troop strength, signora. People ordinarily have to be tortured to give up the kind of information you just tossed into my lap.”

  Standing as straight as she can, Lidia unbuttons her coat and hangs it on a peg next to the hunchback’s crutch. “Renzo, I—”

  “Prego, Mamma! Call me Stefano, one last time.” He reaches into his breast pocket for a set of identity papers and tosses them into the fire casually. Mirella flinches. Lidia stares. The pasteboard curls and blackens. “They’re compromised,” he says. “As far as I can tell, everyone in this valley knows Stefano Savoca’s mother is supplying partisans with the food he brings up the mountain.”

  “I–I’m sorry,” Lidia stammers. “I didn’t…”

  “You didn’t what, Mamma? You didn’t think? You didn’t look? You didn’t listen? You didn’t investigate fresh wheel ruts leading directly to your barn? You didn’t notice the trampled ground around your own doorway?”

  Lidia feels behind her for the chair and sits, a little harder than she intended.

  “Renzo, please!” Mirella whispers, stepping between them. “She’s your mother! Don’t do this—”

  “Don’t do what?” Renzo asks with chilling mildness. “Don’t speak harshly to her?”

  A knot in the wood pops. The fire flares. Mirella backs away.

  “If you are going to play this game, Mamma,” he continues softly, “it’s important to learn the rules. The rules are: partisans are shot. People who aid partisans are shot. People whose houses are used by partisans are shot. People who live near those houses, and didn’t turn the partisans in, are shot. The relatives of those who have been executed are immediately under suspicion. They are arrested, and ungently questioned. If they don’t know anything, they make something up, so the beatings will stop. Anyone they mention under torture will be arrested—”

  “And shot! Thank you, caro. You have made your point.” Tears well and spill, but Lidia’s eyes remain level. “Tell me,” she asks with flinty curiosity, “what exactly are the rules for those whose sons ask them to shelter Nazi deserters?”

  The door slams behind him. Mirella opens it in time to see him stride unevenly across the yard. Hurrying, she follows him into the ramshackle barn that serves as Schramm’s private sanatorium.

  “Go back inside,” Renzo orders, voice low.

  She tugs a car
digan more tightly around her but stands her ground.

  “Mirella, I am not a quartermaster for the San Mauro Brigade!” Gripping the rear of a wooden mule cart, he lowers himself onto his knees and drags a case of tinned army rations from within a false bottom. “The food I steal is for you!”

  He lurches to his feet, but something happens. He cries out in pain, loses his grip on the flimsy crate. Cans and curses roll in every direction. The mule snorts and shies, but Mirella is not intimidated by male anger anymore. Boys, she thinks. Renzo, Angelo, Iacopo. They’re all just boys. “They’re hungry, Renzo, so we share what we have. Everyone around here is taking them food—”

  “All the more reason why you should eat what I bring you!” White-faced and furious, Renzo hops toward a bale of stale hay and lowers himself onto it with an involuntary whine.

  Schramm’s uncertain voice comes from above. “Renzo, do you need a doctor?”

  Renzo shouts, “Verdammte Scheisse, nein! Go back to sleep!” Lowering his voice again, he tells Mirella, “Pick up the cans!”

  It’s a plea, not an order. She turns her back and makes a cradle of her apron to gather the tins. Wincing, she listens to the agonized grunt he makes as he does whatever he must to his kneecap. When the cans are stacked, she tries again. “Renzo, your mother just wants to make things better,” she whispers, coming close. “If everyone brings one brick, we can build a new world!”

  “Or a new prison.” He glances upward. “Has Schramm ever told you why he became a Nazi?”

  She brushes hay from her apron and shakes her head.

  “Ask him sometime. The answer’s instructive. God save us from idealists!” Renzo cries softly. “They dream of a world without injustice, and what crime won’t they commit to get it?” Rubbing at his knee with both hands, he mutters, “I swear to God, Mirella, I’d settle for a world with good manners.”

  She feels the familiar prickle: her foolish breasts let down milk whenever anything arouses pity or protectiveness. She reaches toward him, but Renzo rises suddenly and takes three lopsided steps toward the mule’s stall. Clucking and murmuring, he coaxes the dissenting animal back into its traces. “It’s dark,” Mirella says. “Stay the night.” He yanks a leather strap, snugs up a coupling. “When did you learn to harness a mule?” she asks, to fill the silence.

  “When the milk van was stolen at gunpoint. Or should I say, when it was requisitioned to serve the people? Evidently, children who need milk do not qualify as the people.” He rounds the cart and stands in front of her, moonlight on his face. Her hand moves toward the large bruise yellowing on the side of his forehead. He jerks his head away. “If the partisans don’t like being called Communist bandits, I suggest they stop pistol-whipping people they rob.”

  There’s liquor on his breath. “Renzo, why do you drink so much?”

  “My legs hurt. Cold weather and high altitude make them worse. Grappa,” he says precisely, “is easier to obtain than aspirin.”

  Mirella crosses her arms over her dampened blouse and settles onto a hay bale. “It’s warm in Sant’Andrea.”

  He stares, then laughs, then slumps beside her: forearms on his thighs, hands loose between his treacherous knees. “Not a single morning passes without my thanking God that you married Iacopo.”

  “Liar.”

  He smiles a little. “You were the only one I could never fool.” She puts her arms around him, resting her chin against his back. “Rosina’s beautiful,” he says.

  “She’s already trying to walk! She talks, too! No words yet— it’s still nonsense, but she knows what questions and answers sound like.”

  “You must be relieved.”

  “Yes, except… This time the surprises don’t seem so miraculous.”

  He draws a little pouch of tobacco from a pocket, rolls a cigarette in a square of newsprint. “December thirtieth, 1935,” he says, as though answering a question. “And they gave me the Silver Medal for it.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  The match trembles slightly in Renzo’s fingers. “You asked why I drink. I’m telling you.” He shakes the flame out and releases a jet of smoke. “The Dolo raid. That was my squadron.”

  “Dolo? But… my father said that was British propaganda. He said the British wanted the League of Nations to put sanctions on Italy so they could take our colonies.” She looks into the middle distance, trying to take it in. “The British weren’t lying?”

  “No, and neither were we. That’s the hell of it,” Renzo says, his face in shadow. “The Abyssinians were a pack of brutal, thieving warlords who used the Ethiopians as beasts of burden. Haile Selassie’s signature on the Geneva Convention was an obscenity, Mirella. He had prisoners of war crucified! I knew those two pilots— Minniti and Zannoni were friends of mine. They were castrated alive and crucified. So we hit Dolo.”

  “But why? Didn’t you see the Red Cross?”

  “Mirella,” he says wearily, “the Red Cross was painted on the roof of every brothel and bar in Addis. At Quoram, our planes were hit by AA from gun emplacements marked by the Red Cross. At Harar, the ammunition dumps were in warehouses with hospital signs.”

  Hands over her mouth, she looses a shuddering breath. “But Dolo— that really was a hospital? Forty patients,” she whispers. “That doctor.”

  “Forty-two patients.” The tip of the cigarette brightens, and he lifts his head to exhale. “The doctor’s name was Lundstrom.”

  “The Swedes said a nurse tried to wave you away. Is that true? You dropped the bombs anyway?” There’s no denial. She searches for something to say. “Renzo, it was war. If you hadn’t dropped those bombs, somebody else would have.”

  “Yeah, sure. But maybe— just maybe— they wouldn’t have done such a damn fine job of it.”

  For a time, he sits silently, remembering: hilltops and hollows veiled in mist, like a woman in bed: asleep, peaceful, erotic. The targeting trance, the long tense descent. The release, the red and orange chaos blossoming below.

  “You tell yourself it doesn’t matter, until nothing else does.” Without looking Mirella in the face, he pinches off the end of the cigarette, works his way onto his feet, flexes experimentally at the knees. “As good as they get, up here.” He reaches up to grasp the boards of the mule cart’s frame. Hesitates, then hauls himself up in one quick motion. When the pain’s grip loosens, he says, “Osvaldo Tomitz has a friend in the Vatican. He got a list of the Yom Kippur deportees.”

  The change of subject takes her by surprise. “But— no! Your sister?”

  “Ester. Her husband. The kids. Nobody will tell Tomitz where they were sent. He’s not… optimistic. I can’t find either of my other sisters. Susa’s family was with Catholic friends, but the house is gone. There’s been a lot of bombing in Turin.”

  “But Debora lives in Florence! Surely they won’t bomb there!”

  “Monte Cassino is a ruin. Who knows where Allied command will draw the line?”

  “Renzo, did you find my father and sister?”

  “Belan— I’m sorry.” He passes a hand over his eyes. “I meant to tell you right away, but then Mamma— Your father sends his love. Etta says he’s driving everyone crazy, and the neighbors hiding them should be canonized when this is over. But, yes— they’re fine.”

  “Susanna probably is, too. And Debora. They’re smart, Renzo. They have Catholic family and friends.”

  He clears his throat, then digs into his pocket, and hands Mirella a paper packet, heavy for its size. “Like salt,” he remarks when he can speak again, “my female relatives once seemed an inexhaustible commodity. Trade some of this for eggs and produce.”

  She doesn’t ask him how he got the salt. She doesn’t want to know the risks he takes. Suddenly, the constant ache of longing for her family is as gut-twisting as hunger. “Renzo, I need to see Angelo! His teacher wrote— he thinks we sent him to the orphanage because we didn’t love him after Rosina was born. Suora Corniglia explained, and I’ve written, but— I have to see hi
m! And I have to see Iacopo, even if it’s just for a day— an hour!”

  She expects an argument: It’s too dangerous, too difficult, too impractical. The checkpoints, the bombing, the arrests. She must be patient, sensible, mature. She knows all that, but she’s desperate for Angelo to be solid flesh in her arms. She yearns to hear Iacopo make an aria of her name. Renzo, she is prepared to plead, Renzo, if you ever loved me—

  “I’ll work something out.” He leans over to unwind the reins, then shoves the cart brake loose. “Take care of my mother,” he asks in return. “Tell her about Ester when the time is right.”

  He looks over his shoulder to judge the turn he’ll need to maneuver out of the barn. “Mule!” he says sharply, slapping the reins. Ears twisting, the animal complains but squares in the harness and pulls.

  Above, forgotten in his hayloft, the late Dr. Lundstrom’s unlikely heir listens to the rumble and squeak of iron-clad wheels and squeaking wooden joints. Listens to Mirella’s footsteps as she returns to the hunchback’s house. Listens until there is nothing to hear but the skittering of barn mice, and wind in the pines nearby.

  I knew you understood, Schramm thinks in the darkness. The most appalling things can become… just part of the job, and afterward… Christ, there are days when you’re ashamed to be sane. Ah, Renzo, God help us both. Scheisse, we’re a pair.

  DIVISIONAL HEADQUARTERS,

  12TH WAFFEN-SS WALTHER REINHARDT

  PALAZZO USODIMARE, PORTO SANT’ANDREA

  Minutes before midnight, Helmut Reinecke lays the last report on Erhardt von Thadden’s desk. “Essentially the same as the first three, Gruppenführer.”

  In the past nine hours, four company commanders in widely spaced towns were approached by groups of old women declaring themselves loyal to il Duce, and offering to lead the Germans to partisan hideouts. The Reds were stealing food, the women said. They were interfering with girls. Enough is enough! It’s time for i Tedeschi to impose some order!