The Road Beyond Ruin

by Gemma Liviero

  “Where did you get the photo of Monique?”

  “From Rosalind’s house. I stole it.”

  “That photo is not from Rosalind’s. She would know. That is a photo you have taken from elsewhere. And why did you give the photo to Georg?”

  There is silence between them, gray eyes versus black. Stefano believes they are equally matched in cunning and physical strength. Though only one must win. Stefano can feel the small singular blade inside the bandage on his hand. It has taken him some time, but he has managed to hook the edge of it out with his fingernail, and now he has it between his fingers. It is a sharp-edged blade that he rubs between his fingers to better his grip. He can feel the thick slippery fluid on the tips of his fingers where he has cut himself lifting the razor. It will make it more difficult. He attempts to cut the rope one thread at a time. He must keep Erich talking.

  “I gave it to him when he ran to the river hut. I thought it might make him happy. He kept mentioning her.”

  “And why did you have it? Where did you get it?”

  “I met Monique in Italy.”

  1944–1945

  Stefano and Fedor went to the mountains in the North to join forces with the partisans—some who had defected early from the Russian army when they were on the side of the Axis and other Italian members of the resistance. Fedor had plans to eventually seek out his brother-in-law, who was a general in the Russian army.

  Stefano had asked among the resistance where Nina and Nicolo were taken, but no one held much hope that they were taken anywhere. They had nowhere to put babies in prison. It was unlikely they had lived. In Trieste, where she was probably taken, many were being killed on arrival.

  The resistance was fierce. They freed people from a prison when they made a diversionary bomb. They helped some on the Germans’ wanted list escape through Switzerland and others to the Allies in the South, sending them with valuable information about the movements of the armies. They blew up army vehicles, they stole arms, they burned down an automobile factory, and they fired on an SS station in Asolo. They covered the North extensively.

  The Germans were raging, and as a show of force, they burned down farms in retaliation and executed people who had nothing to do with the resistance. The SS were ruthless, which drove the partisans to work harder. Stefano had become deft at killing. He had choked and garroted to death soldiers manning checkpoints and others on duty. He had become ruthless without noticing. He was hardened to the sight of death. He did not expect to live out the war that was close to over. He would fill his last days with retribution.

  It was during the stealing of firearms that he was shot in the back of the leg and another member was killed. Fedor had killed the SS member who shot Stefano and had carried his friend across his back. Fedor had many contacts, and Stefano was taken first to a house of one of the resistance members in Castelfranco, where he stayed under the floorboards for several hours, then was transported by car elsewhere to a location in Verona until they could find a safer location for his recuperation.

  “There is a new member working with our group now,” said Fedor as he helped Stefano through the doorway. “I am told she knows you. She says she can help. She has helped other partisan groups also. She knows where you can stay, where no one will look.”

  Teresa greeted them, making the sign of the cross. “My brother,” she said. Stefano heard these words, and they ate at him, stirred up emotions he did not want to feel, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

  “We have to move him,” she said, “to somewhere safer. I know where he can be treated, where no one will look.”

  Stefano’s sister tried to speak with her brother, but Stefano turned his head, closed his eyes, not from the pain, the nausea, or the amount of blood he had lost, but because he was not ready to forgive her. She knew this. She whispered that she was grateful they had found each other. She had believed he was dead. She went to the church sometime after he had left there, and a priest told her the story of Nina and their mother, and of Stefano’s survival. She prayed every day that he was safe, that Nina would be found. Because of her mistake, she made a decision then that she would work for the same cause. She wished every day it had been her and not Nina or Julietta.

  As Teresa was leaving, he had glanced up and seen the tears in her eyes, the sincerity and pain. She was led away. No one had fully understood their complicated relationship, and no one dared ask. Stefano had a reputation for an explosive temper. Then strangers, mostly women, helped him climb into a trolley to wheel him along dark lanes, and Fedor and one of the women helped him up several flights of stairs. They left him on a couch in a room of a nice apartment with high ceilings and arched windows that went to the floor overlooking a marketplace filled with light. In the distance were olive trees stitched onto hills in seams. Fedor said he had to go get the doctor. That he would be back.

  There was a smell of women’s floral-scented perfume, and there were photos of strangers, including a man in a Nazi uniform. Stefano tried to stand, but the pain in his leg made it impossible. She entered then, wearing only a nightgown. She had wavy brown hair, and eyes a dark blue, her skin pale, and a very small mole near her lip, on a face that was otherwise unblemished or adorned with makeup. She had been woken in the middle of the night, but she did not seem concerned about the disturbance.

  She put her hand on his arm.

  “I am Noelle,” she said, in a husky voice that he wasn’t expecting. Noelle was Monique’s code name in the resistance. “They tell me your name is Cosimo.”

  Stefano had heard her name before; she was the one who passed on information, who had connections and money. He caught sight of another photo, a wedding, of Monique standing next to the man in a Nazi uniform, and her face staring out, not quite smiling but pensive, already planning, he thought at the time.

  “That is you?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a soft knock at the door before he had time to question her further.

  Fedor and another woman walked in.

  “This is Maria,” said Monique. “She has not quite finished her medical degree, but she is still a good doctor, I promise you.”

  Maria gave him a tablet to take with some clear liquor, which numbed some of the pain after several minutes. They helped him up again and carried him to a cot behind a curtained area. They turned him on his side. The doctor unwrapped the blood-soaked strips of sheets around his leg and examined the wound. The bullet had entered the back of his left leg below the knee and lodged in the muscle, narrowly missing the bone. The examination and the removal of the bullet were more painful than the injury itself, but Stefano had endured worse. He would endure this also.

  “I’m sorry we have no anesthetic to dull the pain further,” said Maria, pausing briefly. “But we must do everything to stop an infection.”

  Monique reached for his unreceptive hand and squeezed it, while the operation was completed. Once Maria had sealed the wound, she bandaged the leg firmly with fresh wraps from the knee to the shin and instructed him not to walk on it for several days. Fedor said he would be back before the week was over. They were raiding some German storage huts in Milan for medical supplies and clothes. After that, he would come and get him, and they would go north to the Alps and then into Austria to meet up with others, then farther north to join his brother-in-law. He needed him well, said Fedor, to fight the Germans all the way to Berlin. When Fedor and Maria were gone, Stefano lay on his side to face the apartment through the open curtains.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Monique.

  “A little.”

  She gave him some cheese and water. She said there was meat also, but he said not yet. He was still feeling ill.

  She sat on a chair beside him. He wished she would go away. She spoke about the resistance, about Germany being crushed from all sides. He had heard that some Germans were disloyal, but he had never met one. She told him about her father. She had been through much also.

  “You
are very quiet, but I hear you speak German very well.”

  He ignored her, concentrating on the patterns on the tiles.

  “I have also heard that your heart is full of hate, and it is why you have not been caught. They say that those who think they have lost everything make the best fighters.”

  He looked behind her at the photo. She knew where his eyes had strayed.

  “Just because you see me in the photo doesn’t mean I am one of them.”

  “You are the one who is helping finance our operations?”

  “Yes,” she said directly, and her chin rose slightly. He liked that she was truthful, up-front. He liked that about her, but he still had not thawed. She was German, married to a Nazi. Perhaps they had put too much trust in her. And seeing his sister again had reopened old wounds.

  “Do you know about a woman with a baby caught in Verona?”

  She closed her eyes briefly and nodded.

  “I know of the people you speak of. I’m sorry. Is that why you hate?”

  “That and for so much more.” He guessed that Teresa had told her things.

  “It is hard, yes? To go on. My parents were taken in Austria when I was younger for doing what I am doing now. I didn’t understand it till now, the magnitude of their sacrifice, the way they stood for justice for the sake of the people. My father is rotting somewhere . . . I do not even know if he is alive. My mother is dead. I could have hated, too. Perhaps I was too young to hate. But whatever happens, you have to find ways to go on.”

  “Like sleep with a Nazi and lie?”

  She pressed her lips together, though she did not lower her gaze. There was some regret with what he said but only a small amount. If she were truly loyal to the resistance, she would have to deal with the distrust as well.

  “I don’t sleep with him.”

  There was a cry from another room. A baby. He thought of Nina, and his heart lurched slightly.

  “I have to go and leave you to your hate,” she said. He liked that she made fun of him, that she didn’t offer sympathy.

  He could hear her in the back room, nursing and cooing, and he listened. It was peaceful. There were no sounds of bombs here. It was quiet in the streets in the early morning blackness. The crying faded before she returned.

  “There is something you should know. That it was likely my husband who interrogated your sister, but I cannot tell you for certain. One thing he doesn’t say is names. He just said to tell me that all from the area who had been caught had been tortured and executed, that I should reveal their methods in casual conversation to others here. He thought that by spreading such information, it would deter others in the town. But German methods only fuel them. Perhaps he wants that, too. To draw them out.”

  “Why do you risk it? Your child,” he asked. The question sounded brash.

  She crossed her arms protectively, perhaps offended by the question, but she surprised him with her answer. “What would you have me do? Wait idly for the war to end and pray we’re not killed, or do something worthy while I wait? There is little choice. I want a future for my daughter where she will never know fear, where she is not told what to think, in a country that is no longer governed by criminals. This risk you mention is for her.” She paused and looked at his leg briefly. “You should try to sleep. I will get more painkillers from somewhere.”

  “I don’t need them,” he said, but his throat was dry, his voice barely audible. He wanted to feel the pain. It was justified, he thought at the time. He was living, when his mother and possibly his sister and baby nephew weren’t.

  Monique had pulled the curtain across, and he was alone, except he could hear her busying in the apartment briefly before he heard the flick of a switch and the room went dark. Tears fell then while he lay in the dark. He had not allowed himself any time since the fire to think, but now he was ill and there was time. He didn’t like it.

  When he woke next, it was the afternoon. The pain was still there, but it was bearable. He sat up, the bandages thick around his leg. He attempted to stand on his bad leg to see if it would take his weight. It did, though he felt a burning sensation as he applied pressure.

  A washcloth and a towel had been left nearby, along with a bowl of water, and some soap that smelled like lemon. He put his nose against the soap and thought of the lemon trees in his first home in Amalfi. He washed, sitting on the side of the narrow bed, and with some difficulty put on a clean shirt and trousers that had been left there. He wondered how long he would have to stay. If Fedor had turned up then, he would have hobbled away. He was eager to get back out to their war, to not have time to think.

  There was a click of the front door being opened and shut, and then the curtains were pulled back. She had a baby on her hip. She had been out and carried a shopping bag.

  In the afternoon light streaming through the front windows near the kitchen, he could see her more clearly. Monique’s eyes were much brighter during the day, a myriad of blues, and she was not as tall as he first thought, now that he was upright. Her forearms and calves were muscled. She did not strike Stefano as someone who had ever been idle.

  He looked at the door behind her.

  “It is all right. My husband is far away at a camp.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He is Erich Steiner. He is the man who interrogates at Trieste.”

  He felt cold at the mention of the name: the person who had been linked with the deaths of his mother and friends.

  “I have heard of him,” he said, attempting to stay in control. “He is on our list. The list of people we hope to assassinate.”

  She stared at him briefly before responding coldly.

  “That is good,” she said of the man she was married to.

  He made a sound as if he didn’t believe her.

  “You think I am lying,” she said directly, with eyes that were hard to look away from. He didn’t answer.

  “When I met him, I did not think that he was so bad. He was loyal, but I don’t think he was aware of his capabilities. He is a monster I believe now. He feels very little.”

  “How did you become so lucky?”

  She smiled then, unforced.

  “I chose this path. Who knows, maybe this path was to lead to you. Maybe the path was to have my beautiful little girl.”

  It was direct what she had said, and he was taken aback by her mention of him as part of her destiny. He was beginning to like her. She was not like anyone he had ever met. She was thick skinned, undeterred, and self-assured.

  The baby in pink grabbed at the edge of her mother’s navy-blue cardigan to chew on it.

  “I must warm her some milk if you will excuse me. And then I will fix you something to eat, and then we will talk.”

  She returned a little later, the baby put to sleep in another room. She had taken off her cardigan and wore a plain cream blouse and gray skirt, but the cut and fabric looked expensive, he thought. She had put her hair up in the meantime to commence work. She looked the part of a well-connected Nazi wife.

  She made him a sandwich with salami and cheese. The bread was dry, but it was the best meal he’d had in days. She also made him coffee with sugar.

  He was sitting at the table by this stage, his leg stretched out at the side. She told him he was staying there till the end of the week. No German wives visited her, she said, since very few came with their husbands. And no civilians who did not know of her other activities would dare to call on her unannounced. She told him that the war was looking very grim for Germany. That the Italian Socialists knew it, too, that they had become more desperate, reckless. And those for the South had to be more vigilant. She had heard of unrest. She said that if Germany failed, like she hoped, she might be in danger and have to get out of Italy. The resistance would do what they could, but the pack mentality of people ready to fight anyone with German links might override common sense. He felt for her then. She had suddenly become more believable. She had put herself in much danger. She was perhaps brav
er than he was, even with his exploits of sabotage: she worked for the resistance, then had to face her Nazi husband. And the fact her husband was an interrogator would mean she was always on her guard.

  “I believe it was most probably my husband who interrogated your sister and many of your friends in the resistance. For that I cannot compensate, I’m afraid. But be assured that every wrong he has done I have attempted to match. I have plied him for information, and he has given it freely more recently. I use the money he earns from the Socialist Party to support his enemy. He thinks that it is me that spies for him, keeping an eye out. He is an intelligent man, but I have learned that he cannot read a woman as well as he thinks. It is probably his downfall. It may even be his undoing,” she said, lost somewhere in the future.

  “Where will you go after here then? Where is it safe for a German spy?”

  “Germany will be the safest place. I am Austrian German. I would not risk staying here. My blood alone is enough to condemn me for some. It will matter not what I have done. There are those that look the other way when I walk down the street, only seeing the façade. Because I have a fake name in the resistance, because I am a secret, many will not know me. They will only see what they want to . . . will only hear my German accent. And my friends may be somewhere else when it comes to it. In any case even if they do plead for me, I think I am safest there back home with my cousin to raise my child.”

  He was at once concerned for her, at the danger, at the fact she might have to travel to Germany alone.

  There was a knock at the door, and she seemed unafraid. She pulled the curtain across, and he heard her call out through the door and a voice respond. She returned a few seconds later.

  “It is your sister.”

  “I do not want to see her.”

  “You know I went to her this morning. I wanted to learn more about you. She had already told me about the night of the fire, but she told me everything then. How bravely you fought as a soldier, and how you then fought for this cause against the regime. You should know that after the fire she left her aunt and uncle and moved into her own apartment, but she still kept in contact with them because her uncle is a member of the Black Brigades. She joined the resistance herself. She fed information to the resistance also. She has not forgiven herself for the losses of her family. She had no idea that her casual words would lead to such trouble. How her aunt and uncle pressured her for information. And she had no idea that they would then repeat it to the Nazis.”