“Who?” the partisans asked.
“The SS. They put everyone in the square and shot them and burned them.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds. Maybe three hundred.” She collapsed in tears.
Peppi wandered away, stunned, as his shaken men surrounded her, pumping her for more information. Was my sister there? Did you hear any of any Encinos, or Tognarellis, or Cragnottis, were they there?
Peppi, for his part, felt inside himself a deep sickness that would remain for the rest of his life. He waited, apart from the others, sitting at the foot of a tree with his chin resting on the palms of his hands, as she told what had happened: The SS had arrived at St. Anna di Stazzema furious about the killing of two of their own and had posted a sign at St. Anna's church saying that the villagers had to leave; they were suspicious that the village was supporting the partisans. Someoneâno one knew whoâtore that sign down and posted another, saying “Don't leave. Resist the SS passively. This is our town. The partisans will protect you.” In response, 150 men from the 16th Panzer SS Division gathered up 560 people from the surrounding villages, set houses ablaze, shot every living creatureâchickens, animals, dogsâand took the people to the church of St. Anna, and shot them in the piazza. Babies were bayoneted. Young women were raped, tortured, and piled behind the church nude and then set ablaze.
Peppi knew of no partisanâor any Italian, for that matterâin his right mind who would post that sign. The partisans knew the SS rule: For every soldier killed, the Germans would kill sixteen civilians. To post a sign rousing villagers with slogans and empty promises of protection, to flaunt that kind of reckless arrogance in the face of the SS, who were ruthless and increasingly desperate, was not something any partisan would do.
Peppi waited the entire night until the weeping of his men subsided, and only then did he address them.
“No partisan can guarantee the safety of any village. You know this. Maybe the Germans posted the sign themselves.”
“No,” said Rodolfo. “The woman said the town was empty all night. There were no Germans in the village.”
“Then whoever posted that sign is a traitor, and we will find him.”
Rodolfo had volunteered to make the dangerous journey south over the mountains to Viareggio disguised as a priest, to tell the approaching Americans of the atrocity, in the hope that the mighty American army would push north through the mountains faster. Meanwhile, Peppi and the others hatched a plan. By the time Rodolfo returned, a day later, to report that the Americans would not be coming for several days, he and the others had already checked out several of the inhabitants of the surrounding towns, men and women who could possibly be traitors. Niccolò the baker, whose son was missing in the Italian army, Fuchini the barber, who was rumored to be a communist, Marsina, the chairmaker's wife, who was said to favor the German composer Wagner, even Ettora the witch. None had checked out. The only one who was a known Fascist was Ludovico. Plus, he had new rabbits, a lot of them, and also electricity.
The partisans had arrived at Ludovico's house just before dawn and were waiting for the chance to corner and question him and decide for themselves whether the old man would pay for St. Anna with his life.
Peppi stood by the ridge and watched as Ludovico, followed by the Negro soldiers, emerged from his house holding one end of an electric cord. The soldiers stood outside in the rain as the old Italian waded into the shallow creek in front of his house holding his electric cord high, then suddenly plunged the cord into the water. After a few seconds, he stood up in a babble of splashing and struggling holding an eel. He held it up high, and the Negroes laughed.
Peppi stared down silently, rubbing his fingers gently against his face.
“We will not bother with the Americans,” he said. “Maybe they are here to protect Ludovico, maybe not. But it is Ludovico we want to talk to. We'll wait for our chance.”
The four settled back into their hiding places amid the trees and bushes, and the twelve-year-old took his post again.
11
INVISIBLE CASTLE
The boy lay in Ludovico's bed and dreamed, images swirling around him like misty figurines. He dreamed of houses made of peppermint, of dancing wizards with canes; he dreamed of roosters laying chocolate eggs, and elves in wooly caps who sang loud songs and drank sweet honey-colored water; he dreamed of a giant ogre sitting in an apple orchard, his face hovering above the treetops, plucking apples with fingers so big the apples looked like peas, dropping them to the ground, where they landed in the soft earth and sprouted into beautiful flowers as tall as trees, their buds the size of soccer balls. He dreamed of trees with faces, and bats made of chestnuts, but most of all he dreamed of rabbits, hundred and hundreds of rabbits, white ones, pink ones, brown ones, orange ones, bounding through the air, cascading across his face like rainbows, stopping in midair as they leaped past, their tails erect, their ears stiff as poles, one line going this way, the other going that way. He tried to reach up and grab a rabbit as it leaped in an arc above his face, but it flew out of reach, landed on the floor, and hopped into a corner of the room while he watched, fascinated.
“You are very silly,” the boy said, laughing. He tried to get up from the bed to catch the rabbit, but realized then he was awake and too tired to move. He lay back as the door opened and an old man entered the room, spotted the creature with great alarm, and made several futile attempts to grab it before finally snatching it into his arms. The door opened again and Renata walked in, holding a bowl of soup. She regarded a sheepish Ludovico with a grimace.
“You are fooling yourself,” she said airily, “if you don't think half the valley doesn't know about your rabbits.”
“What's one silly rabbit?” Ludovico shrugged. He pushed the floorboards aside, and a putrid, animal smell filled the room. He tossed the rabbit into the hole and pushed the floorboard back into place.
“Is it one rabbit or twenty-one? I'm starving, too.”
“Eat what you want,” the old man muttered. “Two died. Ettora cursed the rest. Twenty-two in all.”
Renata stared at him angrily. “You are a disgrace,” she said.
Ludovico made a motion with his hands as if to say, “What can I do?”
Renata glared. “If it wasn't for Ettora, you'd be dead for holding out. She's telling everyone the rabbits are bewitched and they'll get sick if they eat them.”
“I told you she cursed them!”
“She's saving your life.”
“Ahhh!” Ludovico waved his hands.
“Keep your foolish creatures,” Renata said. “But him,” she said, walking over to the boy, “he needs more than chestnut soup and olive oil.” She touched the boy gently. She was glad he was awake. She had watched him all night. He had lain there for ten hoursâsince he'd arrived with the Negroesâand had barely moved, shivering, muttering softly, not eating. He was white-hot with fever, and she was afraid he would not live through the day. She held the soup over him as he stared at her, the breath wheezing out of him in ripples.
“You will eat chocolate but no food,” she scolded. “You will starve that way.”
The boy did not hear her. He had slipped again to that quiet place where there were no voices or sounds. Renata carefully spooned out a small bit of soup again, holding it high as she spoke to the boy. “When your big American friend comes back and wants to eat your soup, what will you do then?” she asked. “There's only enough for one person.”
The boy turned his face away. The woman hovering over him was confusing him, and the smell of soup made him nauseous. He closed his eyes and waited, and after a few long moments Arturo appeared. Today he was wearing a green bomber pilot's cap and a green Army jacket that came down to his knees. He stood behind Renata, hopping on one foot.
“Why do you take so long to come now?” the boy asked.
Arturo shrugged.
“What does she want?” the boy asked.
“Shh!” Arturo circled around to the side of the boy's bed as Ettora the witch entered the room, feeling her way along the walls. “She is very smart,” he said. “Do not tell her too much.” The two women stood above the boy, talking in hushed tones to each other, while Arturo watched from the far side of the bed.
“What are they saying?” the boy asked.
Arturo leaned close and cupped his hand over the boy's ear. “Do not pay attention,” he whispered. “They want you to eat a slippery fish soup that is bitter and makes your tongue stick to the top of your mouth.”
The two spoke in whispers.
“Where is the chocolate giant?” the boy hissed.
“He went back to his invisible castle,” Arturo said.
“He has a castle?”
“I've seen it,” Arturo declared, stepping back to hop on his foot again.
“What's it like?”
Arturo's eyes sparkled. For the first time, the boy noticed how odd Arturo's coloring was. He was neither black nor white, but a shade of gray, and everything about him was gray as well, even the green uniform cap and jacket he wore. For a moment, the boy thought he was going blind.
Arturo danced back a moment, hopping around in a circle on one foot, then switching to the other foot. He hopped over to the boy's bed to lean in and whisper. “It's huge. It's made of candy, and when you break off a piece to eat, it grows back. And the road to his castle is a strip of chewing gum. His pillow is a fluffy cake.”
The boy smiled. “What else?”
“There are big statues outside made of sugar candy. The hard kind that lasts forever when you lick it. His bed is made of soft sugar dried in sweet milk. The trees outside are chocolate. The twigs are licorice sticks, and the leaves . . . the leaves are green jelly beans!”
“Green jelly beans!”
“All you can eat.”
The boy felt as if warm water were splashing over his insides. He smiled again, weakly this time, then sighed. His chest hurt and he felt sleepy again. “Let's go there together,” he said wistfully.
Arturo held out his hand. “Why should I go with a friend who does not share his chocolate?”
“I saved the last piece I have for you,” the boy said.
Ettora and Renata stared in disbelief as the boy, sweating and feverish, breath rattling in and out of his lungs, stopped his lethargic mumbling, turned on his side, fished a piece of chocolate from beneath the blanket, held it in the air, gulped it down, then closed his eyes.
“Go to sleep now,” Arturo said.
“Wait!” the boy cried, but Arturo disappeared as Ludovico entered the room again.
“He's bewitched,” Ettora said.
Ludovico rolled his eyes, and Ettora turned and felt her way to the kitchen. Ludovico's house was small, and the kitchen, separated from the bedroom by a doorway, was only a few feet away. Ludovico followed Ettora and watched her bang pots and pans, busying herself, preparing something at the stove. He waited for her to mention his rabbits, but she didn't. “Did you give him the powder they left?” he asked.
“Ahh.” Ettora waved her hand. “He won't eat. It is not as good as my medicine, anyway.” She motioned with her head to the table, on which she had placed a little cloth sack full of crushed olive leaves. “I need some salt. It will make the devil go away. You have any?”
Ludovico laughed bitterly. It was a joke. They hadn't seen salt in months. “Who is he?” he asked.
“He's got a lot of devil in him, whoever he is. I'll get it out of him.”
Renata entered the kitchen. “He's beautiful,” she said. “He's a beautiful sign.”
“He's no sign,” Ludovico said. He was tired of signs. He saw the way Renata gazed at the boy. Renata was barren. None of Ettora's pregnancy potions had worked on her. Now she would start believing the boy was a gift from God. “He can't stay,” Ludovico said. “Can't you hear in the distance? That's German shelling. They'll be back in another day. Then maybe we have to explain to them who he is. And,” he nodded at the window, toward Eugenio's house, where the Negroes were quartered, “who they are.”
“Explain to who?”
“To the Germans. Maybe they'll think he is the child of a partisan. Or worse, Peppi's child. He's the one they want.”
“Peppi would not leave a child in the woods. No partisan around here would do that.”
Ludovico looked at his daughter in alarm. “How do you know so much about Peppi and the partisans around here?”
Renata ignored that, trying to let it slide. The less said about the partisans, the better. She knew an awful lot about them, too much to say. She spoke to Ettora. “I thought you said a sign was coming.”
Ettora looked down at some chestnut flour she had poured onto a wooden plate. “Things happen when they happen. He is a sign for sure.”
“And the Americans?”
Ettora shrugged.
Ludovico huffed. “I heard them trying to talk on their radio last night.”
“What did they say?” Renata asked.
“How should I know? There was a lot of scratching on it. They talked on it, but no one talked back. There are no Americans around here for miles, none between here and Vagli; none on Mt. Forato. I bet they're deserters. Sister Caprona at the convent said she scared the Jesus out of them when she rang the bell last night. Maybe they're not Americans. Maybe they're imposters. Maybe they're Gurkhas posing as Americans. They're dark, too, the Gurkhas.”
There was silence. The thought was a frightening one. The Gurkhas were bloodthirsty and terrifying. They fought with the British. They wore turbans and long robes, ate raw chickens, and ran around with knives in their mouths and unsheathed swords, raping men and killing women. They seemed lawless. The rumor was the British let them out of cages during the day to fight, then put them back in at night. Even the Germans were afraid of them.