The man’s lines seem to deepen suddenly as his face relaxes. He is tired, weary. He is fighting for every inch of his life, daily, protecting his granddaughter, too. It is unlikely they have any other Jewish family left where they are going.
“Go!” Stefano says to them, handing them the lamp as well. “Take this. Don’t come back here. Go home to France. Take back what was yours.”
The man whose face was hostile crumbles slightly, his lips quivering, his eyes watering, and the years of sadness and hopelessness are exposed. It has been a while since the beggars have seen any kindness.
“Thank you,” says the girl, taking her grandfather’s hand to pull him away, afraid that Stefano will change his mind. “Come, Grand-père!”
They turn and head farther into the wood. He hopes they make it home safely.
Back in the small hut, it is dark. He can hear Georg’s heavy breathing. The German has fallen asleep. He haunts the woods, Stefano thinks, and it is Monique that he comes here for, that he hopes to find.
Stefano walks back along the dark path to Rosalind’s house, where the light from a candle flickers softly from within. He knocks on the door, and she answers quickly, as if she has been waiting by it impatiently.
“They’ve gone downriver. I could not find them in the thick undergrowth. But I don’t think they will be back. They know they have taken what they can and will try their luck elsewhere. Georg is in the hut if you are not already aware. He appeared rested.”
“Thank you,” she says from the half-open space.
“I’m sorry, but the lantern does not fare as well. It is resting in pieces beneath some trees.”
She nods, though he cannot tell from the light behind her, and from her silence, whether his buoyancy is appreciated given the circumstances.
“I hope you get some rest now, too,” he says as he turns to leave. She reaches her hand to touch his forearm, then withdraws it quickly.
He waits to see if she will say something, but he cannot see her expression or the point of her brief touch.
“Thank you,” she says again after several seconds, then gently closes the door.
He waits, wondering, perplexed, if perhaps she wanted him to stay longer, then returns to the darkness that holds no fear. For years it has been his ally.
1943
Toni came back from another commission with a broken arm, while Stefano returned only bruised and scratched but with a hardness and skepticism that weren’t there before.
The pair organized a gathering with Fedor—who still refused to sign up to fight—Conti, Alberto, and several other friends. But what started out as an excuse to drink and joke quickly turned into an opportunity to voice concerns about the government and the war. And soon the group was meeting several nights a week.
Teresa had said that Stefano frightened her a little, that he didn’t smile much, and that he had developed an attitude. How could he tell her what it was really like? It was hard being compared with how he was before, and though he loved his family dearly and wanted to tell them everything about his time on the battlefields, and what he witnessed, he knew his mother wouldn’t cope. Instead he often sought out the group who understood, even Nina. She had grown desensitized to stories of war, exposed to information shared by her husband and his friends. Stefano was aware of how strong she had become, and vocal in support of their ideas, while patiently caring for Nicolo, their busy toddler, who had been named after his grandfather.
The direction of their conversations went deeper at each meeting, and discussions began to fall on ways to avoid a war they felt was unnecessary. It was good to talk about things freely in Nina and Toni’s apartment, to not have to worry who was listening in, to share ideas, and to express their hatred of the Axis. Also, to take the opportunity to reminisce about Beppe, whom everyone had known, and whose death had brought this group closer together.
Such discussions could have led to their execution, so to protect themselves the group name of “Il Furioso” was created, as well as false names for whenever they sent messages to one another. Like Stefano, Toni feared that it was only a matter of time before he was called up again. And he was right to worry. Later in the war, injuries were no longer an excuse.
Stefano liked to hold his baby nephew, with more opportunities now that Toni’s arm was in a cast, while Nina was busy serving up plates of food.
“Maybe you two should get married in a church,” said Stefano, half joking. “That would make Mamma happy.”
“My church is in here,” said Toni, rolling out his good arm and gesturing around the house. “And particularly in there,” he said, pointing to the bedroom.
“Stop it!” said Nina. “Some respect, if you please.”
“I agree,” said Stefano jovially. “That is my sister, remember!”
“We might still do that for Mamma’s sake, Toni,” said Nina. “We still believe in God. The priests are anti-Nazi, like we are.”
“Most, perhaps,” said Toni, who could not deny his respect for many of the priests who had put themselves in danger by speaking out against Hitler. And they were a good source of news. They had switched radio channels to stop listening to the lackluster propaganda from Mussolini and his followers, and they were turning to more facts from the Vatican radio. It was where they had learned that the Allies had landed in Sicily and Rome had been bombed.
The meeting one night turned very serious. Conti’s cafés had become important sources of information, where he canvassed unwitting patrons for news, and others who offered it voluntarily. And Fedor had found a way of communicating with his sister in Russia, who passed on messages to her husband in the Russian army.
When they had eaten and talked about the country and food shortages, and the closing of businesses, more important discussions began again.
“I have heard that there is much unrest,” said Fedor. “My sources tell me that the Germans are struggling against the weaponry Russia now has access to. The Germans cannot hold their positions for much longer. And now with businesses closing, and being walled in, our country could soon be reduced to rubble. Unless we do something now, we will be destroyed or become prisoners alongside Germany. We must be on the side of who I believe to be the victors—the Allies.”
Fedor did not say who his sources were. Stefano believed, that with a brother-in-law in the Russian army, he somehow had access to more information than most on the situation in the East. Germany’s turning against its Russian ally had fueled Fedor’s hatred for their leader, especially with his sister and his mother’s family still living there. He was probably the most passionate and vocal.
“I agree,” said Stefano. “People meeting in the piazzas are talking more openly. They are becoming less afraid. Mussolini has lost too much support. We have become too heavily dependent on Germany. It may only be a matter of time before we are only speaking their language.” He was the only one of the group who had learned to speak German.
But they soon learned they weren’t the only ones to be disillusioned. Conti, who had a contact in the ministry, had heard a rumor that certain members of the government were seeking support from the king to oust Mussolini after the heavy losses incurred in North Africa and Russia and the successful Allied invasion of Sicily. Conti had also listened to many in his café complain about the ruination of their country and the fear of an ultimate takeover by Germany.
And in response to these rumors and grievances, Il Furioso sent anonymously printed messages to villages and towns to fuel the people’s fear and to encourage others to take a stance against the current government. Conti was also able to get his hands on a dozen stolen weapons to fight any Mussolini loyalists should civil conflict arise. What they were doing was dangerous, but the air, heavy with dissatisfaction, seemed to lessen any risk.
Whether or not these messages and rumors contributed to Mussolini’s ousting, later that month Stefano and the rest of his small group were jubilant when Il Duce was arrested by his own fascist party, witho
ut the need for civil war, and a prime minister, Badoglio, was put in place, supported by the king of Italy. Many Italians were relieved and elated by news of a new government, and they celebrated in marketplaces filled with people no longer afraid to speak freely.
But confidence was short-lived after Mussolini was rescued and flown to Germany and the news of Italy’s armistice with the Allies reached Hitler. In the days following, confusion about allegiances reigned as Italian battle units on foreign soil disintegrated and many troops were captured by Nazi Germany. Murmurings about an invasion by the German army spread through Il Furioso’s underground contacts. Those who had openly been jubilant became subdued when it seemed that Italy’s internal war wasn’t over. Italy was not yet free. And no one felt this more than Stefano. Serafina and Enzo, and even his sister Teresa, still supported Germany, and Stefano believed they had assisted with Mussolini’s rescue.
In the days following, a hostile German army took control of northern Italy, and the king, Badoglio, and his supporters ran for cover to southern Italy, which in days would be completely in Allied hands. SS piled onto the streets, as did members of Mussolini’s new Italian Social Republic, based in Salò. These brutal forces began their quest for blood and revenge on those who had betrayed Mussolini and Nazi Germany. Traitors were hunted down, pulled from their beds, lined up in the marketplaces, and shot in front of crowds who pretended they were now on Germany’s side once again to shield themselves. Boys as young as fifteen who were deemed traitors, women and men, even the elderly, and some with only minor connections to those who had fled from arrest, were murdered.
But the Nazis didn’t stop there. Jews were arrested—from Rome to the cities of the North—and deported to concentration camps in Poland. Villages that had celebrated Mussolini’s capture were torched. And the fear of execution and the desperation for survival turned some to betray their neighbors.
Stefano watched on as an old woman was about to be shot for not revealing the whereabouts of her son, the last of the executions in his town that day, and he closed his eyes and turned away before the rifle was fired. The sound of the firing rang repeatedly in his head, and the pain of these senseless deaths crushed his heart as he returned home imagining his own mother lined up in the piazza. The shadow of something dark and terrifying loomed above him and the peace he craved.
His mother saw the anguish in his face as he entered, and she reached for him, like she had many times before. He held her close and assured her there was light ahead, mistrustful of his own words. He feared where it would end and fought hard against the foreboding that the people he loved would, at some point, bear the consequences of his decisions.
Present-day 1945
Stefano is up early and makes some coffee, reads another of Monique’s letters, then returns it quickly to the shoebox. Erich could appear at any moment. As he has shown previously, he is stealthy.
The visitor steps outside to inspect the surrounds. There is a strong pine scent from the trees outside, and he listens carefully for human sounds. Rosalind’s house is silent; there is no smoke from the chimney. There are several wooden boards nailed across part of Georg’s attic windows, like a prison, he thinks. Did he break the glass, or was it to stop him from jumping out?
Michal appears beside him. He looks up at Stefano curiously, his hazel eyes filled with the images of trees, and the boy finds Stefano’s hand, holds on to it, fingers curling into his.
“You should be outside, running between the trees. I believe that’s what boys like to do. Do you like running?”
Michal shrugs.
“Do you like making things?” asks Stefano, remembering something.
The boy is curious and follows Stefano back inside the house. On the floor, shoved under some old rags and washcloths, is a cluster of yellowing newspapers, with circles of watery damage in places. Stefano drops several of them onto the table and checks the date. On the front page is a photograph of Hitler addressing a crowd in Berlin. Stefano takes one broadsheet and begins to fold.
“This is what I used to do to pass the time when I was waiting for the enemy.”
He folds the paper in half and bends it swiftly until it resembles something Michal recognizes. The boy is absorbed, watching Stefano miraculously create an airplane and fly it across the room.
Michal runs to pick it up, but when he tries the same motion, it nose-dives to the floor. Stefano bends down near him and lifts his arm to show him how to make it fly, makes another airplane also, then takes Michal outside to fly them both across the dirt. Michal takes over the play, unaware of anything else around him.
Rosalind appears with some buckets. She does not look across but heads straight for the river.
“Michal, stay here!” he says. But the boy does not hear him; he is chasing one of the planes to the edge of the trees. Stefano decides to follow her through the woods and focuses on the white of her neck beneath hair pulled tightly up into a bun.
At the river he watches her climb down the embankment to fill them with water.
“Can I help you with those?”
She turns around, but she doesn’t look surprised. Her face is red and flushed, and there are worry lines around her eyes.
“You must be my guardian angel!” she says.
“Perhaps.” And she searches his eyes briefly to see if there is some truth. “Did Georg come back?”
“Yes, early this morning. He came in and went straight to bed. He is still there now.”
Stefano nods and watches her. She doesn’t drop her eyes this time.
She dips the second bucket in, and he bends forward over the edge, reaching out to take it from her.
She is silent. Lips together.
“Are you all right?”
“Those thieves took the good goose and left the lame one. It is clear she is in pain. That is what you get for charity.”
Rosalind leads the way back to the house.
“You seemed upset last night and a little frightened of Georg when he saw us at the table.”
“I’m not frightened,” she says directly.
“I think you should be. He isn’t stable, Rosalind. He needs help. Proper care.”
“And where do you propose he get this proper care? If I take him to the hospital, he will be put in a Russian prison hospital I expect, and I will never see him again.”
“He talks a lot of Monique.”
“Most of the time, Georg doesn’t make a lot of sense, as I said.”
“And what, if you will forgive the question, was his relationship with Monique?”
She stops and turns to look at him uneasily. “You are suggesting something?”
“No, of course not!” he says. “I was just curious why he talks of her.”
She continues walking.
“We were all very close,” she says to the air in front, and it is difficult for Stefano to gauge whether she is telling the truth. “He loved her like a sister, like a friend, as I have already told you.”
“Does he remember much about his childhood, about the war?”
“Sometimes. He might suddenly ask a question, like where are his shoes. And sometimes he might bring up something from the past. A memory that he describes that goes away just as quickly.”
He rushes forward to open the pen gate for her.
“What was she like?” He does not need to say her name.
“I think I am too tired to answer any more questions,” she says, reaching for the other bucket he puts forward. “I’ve hardly had any sleep. Perhaps you are enamored with her yourself. You would not be the first.”
“I have offended you. Please forgive me. Do you believe she will come back one day?”
“I think Monique will do whatever it is she wants. Like she has always done.”
She brusquely walks past him to cross the pen.
“I will be over shortly to finish the work,” says Stefano.
“You don’t have to do that,” she calls over her shoulder. “It wou
ldn’t have surprised me if you’d left this morning. I thought you would be running halfway to Italy by now after witnessing my husband’s strange ways.”
She turns, and she is smiling all of a sudden, almost laughing.
“What is so funny?” he asks.
“All of us. Crazy, lost people here beside the river. And now you, like everyone, are curious about Monique. You are just like all men really. I thought you were different. That is what amuses me.”
She is smiling and confident, but there is madness there, he thinks, from time alone, from the horrors of war. He is thinking of the girl from the portrait. She is right at least. He is enamored but more curious about her life here, about their lives before the war, about the relationships that were here beforehand.
“Then you don’t know me at all,” he says.
She lingers slightly, looks at his feet, and then at a point on his shoulder, before finally resting her eyes on his again.
“You should have left, not been seduced by Erich’s talk of trains.” She turns away, leaving him wondering if there is something more she isn’t telling him, that she is too frightened to tell, or whether it is merely her continued bitterness toward her neighbor, or if, perhaps, she herself wants Stefano gone.
As he walks back to Erich’s house, he passes the window to see Monique’s portrait on the wall. He wants to study it again. He wants to know her. He wants time to finish another letter in his pocket. She is sending messages from far away, and sometimes it feels as if she were talking only to him.
He is alarmed to find Michal inside Erich’s house, sobbing into the cushions on the couch.
“Michal, what is the matter?”
He lifts the boy to sit up, but the boy covers his face with his arm.
“Are you injured?”
Stefano gently pulls the arm away to see his swollen eyes.
“Maminka,” he says, and he reaches for his basket.
Stefano sits down next to him and pulls him close, so that Michal’s head rests against his chest. The child’s hair has traces of smoke and earth, and Stefano breathes it in and says a prayer now, a change of heart, for the mother who is perhaps still lying in a field.
The Road Beyond Ruin Page 18