The Light in the Ruins (30 page)

Antonio and Beatrice stood on the terrace and gazed over the soldiers at the village of Monte Volta across the valley. Francesca and their grandchildren were upstairs, trying to stay out of the way, but Massimo had been hypnotized all month by the four big cannons and was angry that his mother had not allowed him to watch the soldiers prepare to tow them away.

For a moment Beatrice stared at the twin towers of the granary. There was a rumor that the Germans were going to blow them up, but she didn’t believe that. It would be a waste, and for what? The Germans were scurrying north like frightened lizards. The Allies would have no need of the granary as a spotting or reconnaissance
tower. She felt her husband’s fingers on her arm and looked at him. He gestured ever so slightly with his chin. She followed his eyes and saw Cristina and Friedrich walking hand in hand past the fields where as recently as last year there had been seemingly endless rows of grape arbors. No more. This year it was nothing but tall grass and weeds, the wild plants tangling the wooden stanchions where every other year there had been the robust Sangiovese vines.

“I say good riddance to him, too,” Antonio said quietly.

“She’ll miss him,” Beatrice said.

He shook his head sadly. “Tell me,” he sighed after a moment. “What have I done?”

She knew what he was referring to, because he had asked the question often that summer. It was a deep, visceral current of self-loathing. He had let this one soldier into his daughter’s life. Then he had allied himself with the men his second son worked with in Florence. And suddenly he had found himself giving a personal tour of the Etruscan tombs to the Gestapo chief in Rome. Kappler, the man’s name was. Herbert Kappler. He had come to Monte Volta with an entourage that filled three staff cars. He’d spent the night in the guest room overlooking the swimming pool. Dined with the marchese’s family on the small plenty that remained at the Villa Chimera, while SS troopers stood guard outside the villa—and lined the roads switchbacking up to the estate—against partisans.

And somehow they had to feed those very same partisans when they came and demanded food, too.

Then Rome had fallen and the villa had been commandeered by the Nazis. Like his wife, Antonio had presumed there would be peace well before the fighting ever came to Tuscany. They were mistaken. Beatrice wondered where Kappler was now.

And so even though Antonio had been asking this same rhetorical question all month
—What have I done
?—once more she answered him. “Cristina fell in love with Friedrich before you did anything,” she said. “He’s not the reason the barbarians took over our home. He’s not the reason the whole house smells like a stable.”

“I wish it smelled that good.”

“Fine. It smells like a toilet. But it’s not Friedrich’s fault—and neither is it yours.”

Antonio sat down on the small balustrade, moving a little gingerly. “No? We make compromises. We look the other way. Then, when it’s over, we can’t look at ourselves in the mirror.”

Once more she was struck by how fast he was aging. Today he looked especially tired and frail. Was it the latest degradation, sleeping on the nursery floor? Or was it the … betrayal? As recently as April he had hosted a weekend ball for the Germans and Italians who worked at the Uffizi with Vittore, and it had been a glorious spring escape for them all—except, ironically, for Vittore, who at the last moment had dug in his heels and expressed his disapproval by refusing to come. There had not been much food, but Antonio had brought in musicians from Arezzo. The weather had been perfect and the dancing had lasted well into the night. He and Decher and Lorenzetti had polished off the remaining bottles of last year’s Brunello between two and three in morning.

But then Monte Cassino had surrendered and suddenly Rome was gone, too. And then Captain Oskar Muller had come to Monte Volta and taken over the estate.

“The war was going to come here no matter what you did,” she added. “You couldn’t stop it.”

“They made us prisoners in our own home.”

She nodded. “But soon we will have our home back. And in a few days Massimo and Alessia will be playing once again by the pool. We’ll clean it, you’ll see. And next year we will replant and we will start again. The important thing is that Marco and Vittore have survived the fighting. Cristina and Francesca are safe. And our grandchildren have been spared.”

“We don’t know that Marco has survived the fighting,” he said, aware that he was speaking the unspeakable for one reason only: he was afraid that Beatrice had jinxed their son. They had not heard from him since the middle of May.

“No,” she admitted. But eight weeks ago he had been repairing
roads between Spoleto and Orvieto. Well north of Rome. Almost halfway between the capital and their estate. She was confident that the Germans weren’t going to bother to bring their labor north. Instead they would press other Italians into their work gangs as they needed them. “But I have faith,” she added. “He’ll be home by the end of the summer.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. They could no longer see Cristina and Friedrich. “Thank you,” he said.

She shrugged. “This war has taken a lot. But it hasn’t taken the things that really matter. Our family is fine. And soon we will all be together again.”

They lay in the grass like spoons, his body draped around hers. Occasionally Cristina opened her eyes and gazed up at the clouds, but mostly she kept them shut and felt Friedrich’s breath on her neck. In the far distance, she heard the mechanical cacophony of the army preparing to retreat.

“You would like Dresden,” he said softly, his elbow upon her hip and his hand on her stomach. “When I was first getting to know your brother, I told him we called it Florence on the Elbe. He scoffed. He really did. We were in the piazza just outside the museum. But Dresden is old and beautiful and one big gallery, just like your Florence.”

She wound her fingers through his and shivered when his pinkie grazed her navel.

“You are always so ticklish there,” he said.

She nodded. She was fighting back tears and was afraid she would cry if she spoke. High overhead, behind the overcast sky, flew the planes, Allied aircraft that roared through the air with impunity now. Closer to earth were the birds. She followed the grass with her eyes until she saw wildflowers.

“Someday you will see the city. And my father will see why I have fallen in love with you,” he went on.

It may have been the implicit domesticity in his remark, the
image of this aging Dresden curator, a widower, appreciating his son’s choice of a … a bride. But suddenly her body was racked with sobs and she allowed the tears to run freely down her cheeks and into the ground. He felt her body trembling against him and held her tighter; he started to tell her that this would all be fine in the end, they would be together after the war, but she shook her head and pushed him away. Then she grabbed her dress from the grass and stood.

“It’s all coming apart,” she told him, her voice weak and choked. “I’ll never see Dresden. You’ll never come back. You know that.”

He rolled over and reached for his shirt. “Cristina,” he said, as he started to force his arms through the sleeves, “I don’t know that and neither do you. I love you. I—”

“None of that matters to Hitler or Mussolini or your Colonel Decher,” she said, cutting him off. “None of it!”

“If I could make you a promise, I would.”

It seemed to her that he wanted to say something more. But he didn’t, and after a moment he shook his head ruefully and buttoned his shirt. She watched him adjust the buckles that held his prosthetic foot against the stump of his leg, his long fingers lost for a moment in the even longer grass.

From the stable they heard the sound of the horses: loud, unhappy whinnies from both Arabella and Oriana. “Come,” she said to him, wiping her eyes. “Get dressed. Something is upsetting Arabella. Besides …”

“Yes?”

“You should say good-bye to her, too.”

They were still a hundred meters distant when they came over the top of the ridge and saw the German lieutenant named Bayer and a pair of privates trying to lead the two horses away from the barn. Oriana was merely straining her long face against the lead line, trying to pull free of the young soldier. But Arabella was rearing up on her hind legs, her eyes wild and her nostrils flaring.
Both horses were neighing and snorting angrily. Finally the soldier trying to commandeer Arabella dropped the leather cord and, his hands before his face and head, darted a dozen feet away.

And so Cristina sprinted down the hill as fast as she could toward her animals, uncaring that she was leaving Friedrich behind to catch up.

“She’s a demon,” the soldier said to no one in particular, and cursed the horse despite Cristina’s presence. A little blood was trickling from a cut on the side of his face.

“She’s not,” Cristina said, scolding him, and she started calmly stroking Arabella’s nose. She recognized the private, but she didn’t know his name. The horse was still eyeing the fellow warily, and she pawed at the ground before her, but with Cristina present, she was settling down quickly.

“Captain Muller has ordered us to take the horses,” Bayer said to her. “We need them to help with transport.”

“No! That’s ridiculous!” she told the lieutenant. “You can’t!” Although she had tried to avoid the soldiers that month, it was impossible not to cross paths with the artillery unit’s officers, since they were staying in the villa. Bayer was sleeping in Marco’s bedroom. She had found him gruff but not unreasonable. She guessed he was in his early thirties, though his hair was already turning white. He had a family, but she knew this only because he had once remarked that they spent most of their time living in an air raid shelter or their basement in Cologne.

“We can and we will,” he said. “Since Private Schreiner here can’t manage her, you will. Bring her to the front of the villa right now.”

“I’m not one of your soldiers,” she reminded him. “You can’t—”

“Now!” he yelled, cutting her off. “Now!”

Arabella tried to pull away from Bayer’s angry barking, but Cristina held the leather firmly with her right hand while caressing the horse with her left. Over Bayer’s shoulder she saw Friedrich approaching. She whispered into the horse’s ear that she was safe,
nothing would happen to her, she wasn’t ever leaving these hills. Meanwhile, Friedrich tried to reason with Bayer.

“You don’t need these two horses,” he said to the other lieutenant. “Over the last few years our armies have taken just about everything else from this family. Why don’t you leave them these last two animals?”

“Who are you?” Bayer asked him.

“Friedrich Strekker.” He extended his hand, but Bayer ignored the gesture.

“Oh, I’ve heard about you,” he said instead, rolling his eyes and then leering at Cristina and Friedrich. “You’re the museum fellow. You cart paintings back and forth,” he added dismissively.

But Friedrich ignored the slight. “Give up on the horses. They can’t be of real use to you. They’re not even draft horses.”

Bayer shook his head. “Captain Muller has ordered me to retrieve them. Move away.”

“There’s no point,” Friedrich said. “I’ve seen your transport. You have plenty of trucks—”

“I don’t have time for this!” Bayer shouted, pointing off to his left. “There are British tanks right now on the road to Petroio!” Then he motioned for the trooper holding Oriana to start up the hill, and the soldier and the older animal began moving away. But Cristina leapt after them, trying to wrestle away the lead line. Schreiner, the other private, quickly grabbed her and yanked her off the ground, swinging her away from Oriana and holding her firmly. She screamed for him to let her go, to leave her alone—to leave her horses alone. But he wrapped his arms around her waist and his grip was unyielding, and what happened next she saw through a mist, her fury and her tears conspiring to blur her vision. Angrily Friedrich had taken hold of one of Schreiner’s shoulders and was turning him around when Arabella once again reared up on her hind legs. Schreiner released Cristina and tried to spin away from the animal, but he and Friedrich together spilled onto the ground. One of Arabella’s front hooves fell hard on Schreiner’s
arm, and despite the animal’s angry neighing, they all heard the sound of his bone cracking beneath her foot. It snapped like a dry olive tree branch. Again Arabella stood up on her hind legs, and Friedrich tried desperately to tug the cursing soldier out of the way. Before the animal could lash out once more, however, Bayer had drawn his sidearm and fired. The shot hit Arabella in the muzzle, shattering her teeth and sending a great spray of blood across Cristina’s chest and neck and only enraging the horse further. Her feet landed on Schreiner’s abdomen, knocking the wind from him, but this time the soldier’s pitiable grunt was lost completely to the sound of Cristina’s wails and Bayer’s second shot, this one penetrating squarely Arabella’s forehead. The animal’s legs buckled at once. She looked around for the briefest of seconds at Cristina and Oriana and the uniformed men, her eyes wide and scared and confused, and then rolled dead onto the grass beside Schreiner and Friedrich.