Wolf on the Mountain (21 page)

‘So everyone started killing their animals. It was better to eat them than have them stolen. At least we’d have full bellies to go with our empty pockets. You remember those mutton feasts we had in November? The shepherds were all turning back from their drive to winter their stock on the plains of Foggia because the Germans were confiscating their flocks when they tried to cross the lines. They were happy to give their sheep to the partisans. Didn’t we have full bellies then?

‘And the pigs. Normally each family slaughters one just before Christmas, so we can feast on the heart, the lungs, the liver and the kidneys. And the trotters, so good in a bean stew, they make it so rich. You think you’re a king when you’re eating that. It’s a great occasion when you kill the pig, Roberto. All the family joins in. Babbo slits its throat in the street outside the house, holds it over a pail to catch the blood for sausages, and when the blood slows down everyone lends a hand carrying it up to the kitchen. The women bathe it in boiling water to loosen the hairs to pull them out, and then it’s hung up on a beam. Babbo opens its belly with a knife and takes out the organs. The hams and bacon joints are cut off so the women can soak them in brine before they are smoked, and all the tasty bits are put to one side. Then the cheeks and all the other scraps are chopped up and stuffed into the intestines for sausages. So many tasty things to eat.

‘This year we did it early. Do you remember the hams hanging up in the partisan camp, and the roasted chickens the women brought up? All before the Germans could get them!

‘But then the Germans came and stole as much as they could find. Even the stocks in the secret holes in the walls are going down now. Not to mention the secret stocks destroyed by the bombs. The Allies had better come soon if we’re not to starve.

‘Sometimes I sit here with my half-empty belly, sick of beans and potatoes, and just dream of those days, wondering if I’ll ever taste pork or lamb again, whether I’ll ever again have the taste and smell of dripping on my lips.’

The snow-line has retreated back above the camp, the upturned besoms that swept the snow from the air have become trees again, and the partisans are back to twenty strong. The captain and Vincenzo have come down to the spur above the village to wait for Elvira and Luigi.

‘Look at it, Roberto, still in winter halfway through April. By now there should be leaves on those poplars, blossom on the fruit trees. There should be the first growth of crops in those bare fields. Instead the farmers are still turning the soil. And look, not a single one using a plough. The richer farmers with their larger fields have ploughs, but there are no oxen left to pull them this year, so they’re using mattocks like the rest of us.

‘When the trees throw their first leaves, the first shoots of corn come up through the soil a brilliant green and the blossom shows on the fruit trees, it brings such hope to the peasants. They’re already running short of food from last year’s harvest, even in the best of times, and seeing the promise of a new summer’s food uplifts them.

‘The shepherds too. They see the snow retreating quickly up the mountains, wait for the grey grass to turn green again, and set back up to the higher pastures with their flocks. Shepherds hate being in the valleys for the winter. They’re like a prison to them. They can’t wait to get up to the high ground again, its fresher air, its space. And the lambs gambolling around are the promise of meat to sell this year.

‘And being so late this year of all years. We all wonder if there’s enough seed corn left, enough beans to plant, after a winter of starvation. And there are hardly any animals left. How can you breed lambs without ewes and rams, calves without cows and bulls, piglets if all the sows are gone?’

‘You’ve still got your cow, Vincenzo.’

‘What good’s a cow without a bull? It runs out of milk in the end, and then the meat’s too tough to eat or sell. No calves, no meat, no money.’

‘Maybe other people are hiding their animals the same way.’

‘Hide a bull in your house, Roberto? He’d wreck it the first day. But you’re right. There may be some sheep being hidden the same way. No-one’s as cunning as an Abruzzo peasant. But how to build the stock up again quickly? After a winter indoors, on lousy feed, what ram is going to feel frisky enough to cover a hundred ewes, even if we could find that many?

‘Just think. If we’d hidden a bull, we’d be the richest people in the Abruzzo when the Germans went. All those people paying us for his services!’

–

Elvira and Luigi arrive. ‘The air is bad,’ she says. ‘All these bombing raids, the food almost gone, and not a bud on the trees. I haven’t even seen a primrose yet. The farmers are despairing that spring is so late. It puts off the day there’ll be more food. And it puts off the day the Allies come over the mountains to set us free. A normal spring and the passes to the south would be free of snow by now. Instead the generals bide their time and send their bombers. Will it never end?

‘The doctor has sent me up with a message for you both. He wants to meet you at your father’s house, Vincenzo, tomorrow evening. He didn’t say why, but I’m sure you can guess.

‘Isn’t it sad, Roberto, that it’s now too dangerous for you to come to our house? This reward for you has got everybody talking. Half the village raises an imaginary glass to their lips to drink your health every time the bombers come over, saying you’re speeding the day of their freedom. Half hope the Germans will catch you so that the bombers will go for another village. And that’s amongst the anti-fascists. The fascists dream of being the ones who spot you and getting the reward. It’s so big that anyone could be tempted. And with those Giobellinis next door…

‘They keep asking after you, rather they send that daughter round to ask. It makes it seem more innocent, they think.’

‘Is she still seeing that German officer?’

‘I don’t know, but what does it matter? I told her you’d set off for the lines again and we hadn’t seen you since. I don’t know if she believed me. Anyway, Vincenzo’s house is safer. It’s on the edge of the village and it’s on the side of the hill the bombers never touch. The doctor thinks his neighbours will be more reliable. Oh that it’s come to this.’

They sit and spread a meagre picnic of boiled potatoes smeared with tomato paste. Elvira looks deceptively plump in her heavy overcoat, but her features are drawn. She does not eat. It is more important that the young men eat. They are the ones who are going to have to be strong.

Luigi is about to join the elite. He is seventeen in two weeks’ time, military service age. The age at which the mayor’s men will come and take him to serve the fatherland, not with a rifle as a soldier, but with a spade as a slave. He will come up to the camp the night before and join the partisans, in time to help them kick the Germans out of the valley. ‘Oh that Enrico was sent to Russia, oh that he isn’t here to do the same. But Luigi will do the fighting of two brothers. And you’ll keep an eye on him?’

‘If I’m still here’ the captain says. ‘As soon as the beech forest is free of snow, the passes should be clear enough for me to have another go at crossing the lines.’

‘You’ll fail without a guide, and the way things are no-one is going to leave his property behind to take you over the mountains. Don’t take risks. You’re safe with the partisans.’

–

our cat has gone

babbo said we should stop giving it food because we didnt have enough for ourselves

hes been rubbing up against our legs for days mewing horribly

babbo said hed have to find his own food in the fields mice and things like the other cats

tonight he didnt come back

uncle roberto will miss him next time he comes

hes very strange because he likes cats

and the cat liked him

he used to sleep on his blanket when uncle was here

The doctor arrives in a cassock and biretta. With his shuffling gait, wheezing cough and spectacles the garb becomes him. He takes it off, hands it and a small covered basket to Vincenzo’s mother, whispers some words in her ear.

‘All is conspiracy now, eh, Roberto? And I am a conspirator with the priest. We need each other now. He needs me to help him tend the injured from all these bombing raids. I need him for protection. I may have, as it were, a price on my head, like you, but all the worthy people of the village need a surgeon experienced in treating the wounds of war. The local doctors are useless even for a migraine, but won’t admit it: show them a shrapnel wound and they’ll faint. So everyone closes their eyes to who I am when I’m dressed as a priest, and so I live most of the time with Don Bartolomeo. It has its advantages: I eat as well as anyone in the village, including the mayor.’

‘Doesn’t anyone tell the Germans? Not even the mayor?’

‘Everyone has a reason for keeping me doing what I’m doing. Ah, the strange alliances of necessity. The church and the communists are co-operating, fascists are consorting with liberals, all just to stay alive.

‘Everyone knows it’s only a matter of time before the Germans go. They’re short of food and ammunition. These bombing raids are destroying their supply lines. Their morale is bad. There are signs up on the roads barring daytime traffic movements. All the efforts of the work-gangs are devoted to digging trenches for their soldiers against air attacks. They’re not building any more defences against land attacks. They know they’ll have to retreat as soon as the last snow melts. So do their fascist supporters. It’s all just a matter of surviving until Roberto’s troops come. And we get this late spring. As if it wasn’t bad enough having the worst winter that anyone in these parts can remember. Who knows if the food will last? So we co-operate with each other.

‘To think that I’m working with the very people who protected the thugs who killed the schoolmaster.’

‘Their time will come’ says Vincenzo.

‘Maybe it will. Maybe not. Not if it starts the new regime off in blood. We’re fighting to change all that. But enough of the war, the time has come for your mother to unveil my surprise present.’

‘Eggs!’ Maria holds up five eggs. ‘Where did you get them?’

‘Don Bartolomeo is providing sanctuary in his crypt to a number of village chickens. His tithe is the eggs, although they’re not producing many. Not enough corn to feed them, he tells the villagers, hoping they’ll give him some, but there’s none to give. As the old saying goes, do what the priest says, not what he does. Priests never change. Always get the best. So much for their vow of poverty. To think that their paternoster was composed as an example to the hypocrites!’

‘How shall we eat them?’

Eggs. Such a forgotten luxury that no-one even dreams of having them any more. A few months ago there would have been shouts of fried, or boiled, or whisked into the soup. Now each is undecided.

‘We’ll have them fried’ Maria says. ‘If we have them on their own we’ll remember them better.’ She takes down from a hook on the wall an old black skillet unused for months, sprinkles oil and tips one egg at a time into the seething pan. All except the doctor crowd round the pan to catch the aroma of the eggs, argue over who should have each one. Vincenzo wolfs his down, his father savours his slowly, painstakingly sucking his tongue of all egg before tickling carefully off the yolk that has trickled down his chin. Finished, they sit in silence, as if a word would make them forget a single sensation in the eating of their egg. Vincenzo belches, to savour it again he says. The others laugh and belch.

–

After their thin bean stew the doctor speaks. ‘To business. These bombing raids are certainly working in destroying the Germans’ power to fight, even the will of their common soldiers. But they’re also losing the Allies the goodwill of some of the people. “Are the Germans that bad?” some of them are saying. “Yes, they steal our food, enslave our young men. But they’re not killing our people, destroying our homes.” Don’t worry, Roberto, I know what you’re going to say’ he says as the captain leans forward to interrupt. ‘Of course
we
know that the Germans wouldn’t be about to leave if they weren’t being bombed. Most of the villagers know it too. But they’re poor. All their lives they’ve been hungry, sick because of their insanitary living conditions and unable to pay doctors to make them well again. They’re living in homes their families have lived in for centuries, handing down clothes, even the tools they use in their fields, from generation to generation. For no other reason than that they can’t afford to buy new ones. And now your rich countries are coming along to destroy it all because of the Germans, people from another rich country. They can’t believe that anyone would want to destroy such things. “They must be rich these Americans,” they say, “if they think that someone’s home is so worthless.”

‘It’s strange, but when the Germans were blowing up peoples’ homes for aiding the escaped prisoners they almost thought that it was worthwhile, that they’d made a proper sacrifice.’ He pauses but the captain does not react. ‘And that is my point. If there were local people seen to be doing something to speed up the Germans’ departure, they’d all feel some pride in them. It would make their losses seem more worthwhile.’

‘You mean bring the partisans into action, doctor?’

‘Exactly, Roberto.’

‘But what about reprisals in the village? The Germans say they’ll kill ten hostages for every German shot.’

‘People will think it worth it, if it hurries the day of liberation, and they’ll feel that the people of the village are doing something. They’re starving themselves to make sure the young men are fed and fit. They’ll put up with the bombing better if they think they’re doing something about the Germans themselves. They’ll feel proud again. Besides, knowing you the way we do, the way you value human life, we’re sure you’ll find a way of preventing reprisals.’

‘You mean you want me to lead the partisans? I can’t. I’m still trying to get through the lines. Apart from anything else I’d be able to let the Allies know how weak the Germans are.’

‘Don’t go Roberto. You can do more good here. No, the committee don’t want you to lead. It has to be a local. Vincenzo has been chosen, but he needs your help, your expertise.’