Wolf on the Mountain (26 page)

The partisans remain silent. None looks at another, none looks at Roberto.

The English captain is struggling to recall his English prayers, but the words
‘valley of the shadow of death’
are all he can manage. The thoughts they encompass are in his head but the words come out as a meaningless jumble of English and Italian. That it is come to this, the son of the family that has risked its lives to protect him killed by a careless Englishman, buried like a pauper with no pomp and ceremony, unattended by any of the young men of the village, his friends.

–

Vincenzo and he go for a long walk on the mountain. ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ he had said, ‘these things happen in war. Do you want to talk about it?’

They walk for hours: in and out of sheltered glades where the small oak trees are already in brilliant green leaf, their coarse grey barks suddenly lifelike, making the evergreen bushes that had provided the only colour in winter look dull and lifeless; over bare moors; in and out of the upper beech forests where last year’s leaves, now dried out after their winter under snow, are being teased up and skittled around by the wind; occasionally to the lower pastures where lambs should be feasting on the bright new grass. Everywhere patches of nature are rejoicing in their own private springs.

‘They don’t deserve it, Roberto. Enrico missing, Luigi dead, both at the hands of the armies fighting to liberate us. And after losing Giuseppe to the fascists.’

Roberto stops. ‘Giuseppe? Who was he?’

‘Didn’t you know? Giuseppe Golvi, the schoolteacher. He was Carlo’s elder brother.’

‘My God, they never told me. And I asked Elvira about the teacher without knowing.’ He slaps his palm to his forehead. ‘The Giobellinis had said what had happened to the schoolteacher was “unfortunate”, I asked her about it, and she told me the story in a way that never suggested he was kin. In fact she described it as the reason why the
doctor
was so anti-fascist.’

‘Ah yes, the doctor. He and the Golvis share the same griefs. Did you never wonder why they were so close? Why they hated the fascists so much? Why they were so suspicious when the Giobellinis offered to help shelter you? Can you imagine what it was like for them to have to co-operate with them?’

‘Were they involved when the schoolmaster was lynched?’

‘In the gang that did it? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But the fascist party covered it up, and Natale was one of its strongest supporters.’

‘Why didn’t Elvira tell me?’

‘Did the Golvis tell you their names before the Giobellinis told you?’

‘No, they didn’t.’

‘There you are. How do you think the anti-fascists managed to keep their organisation going for twenty years without learning to keep their secrets? You’ve never heard the doctor’s name, have you? And you’d never have learned the Golvis’ names but for that fascist bastard. The Gestapo could have tortured you to the edge of death and you’d have been despairing to know a name you could give them and end your pain, but you wouldn’t have known a single one.’

Vincenzo looks over his shoulder down into the valley, looks for movement, pulls Roberto’s arm to start him moving again. ‘The doctor has never once been up to the camp, even before the raid in December. You and I are the only ones up here who know he even exists. Why do you think that only Elvira and her children ever came up here? It’s easier for a woman. People just assumed she was another mother coming up to feed the young men of the village. Every evening she’d go back to the village with our news, every morning she’d come back with food and news from the wireless in her house and give our leader the capo’s instructions, passed on to her by who knows who, when they were alone. Wasn’t it she who took you down to listen to the radio?’

Roberto fell silent. Unexplained things were suddenly understood. He had the aegis of the family of the murdered schoolmaster, mentor to so many children of the village. So many people owed them a debt of sorrow, people who had turned away the first time Elvira had taken him into the village, had done so again the next night when he went in on his own. It was no wonder that his visits behind Luigi as his guide had been unremarked. Curious they may have been at this tall stranger slipping into the village, but their curiosity had been kept behind their teeth.

How much else could be explained by this? The oppressive secrecy in the Golvi house itself, a house stripped of books or anything that would reveal its family’s station in life? Elvira’s reaction when she heard of the capo’s death?

If only he could remember what the doctor had said at their last meeting.

Luigi’s death cannot pass without the locals knowing that there are partisans fighting on their behalf. It is time to foray down into the valley, but further south, where it is wider and there is flatter cover to the sides of the roads, farmers to see them and spread the word amongst the countrymen.

With two rifles between the six of them, easy to show to the peasants, easier to discard if they see a German patrol, they descend into a warm day. On the lower reaches of the mountain the trees are fully out, their rustling leaves a welcoming sound. Green lizards appear on the skull-like rocks to watch them cautiously by. The odd yellow butterfly flutters from new pollen to new amongst the wild flowers of every colour. A solitary cicada rubs his legs, then thinks better of it, but has given a hint of greater warmth to come. At this height the valley smells of spring, an intoxicating scent that is still absent further up. Wild sage is showing grey and pale mauve in the pastures, scents of pine and thyme and the heady musk of yellow broom are carried on the breeze.

Guido has an uncle who lives nearby and goes off to find him while the others crouch behind a dry stone wall. They sit on the uncle’s pile of stones. It is warm in the sun and the olive trees shimmering their silver leaves promise greater heat to come. Around the bases of the trees green grass and scarlet poppies tussle for moisture and the stony earth between is newly hoed. Above the wall tripods of canes show where the beans have been planted in the next field. All is in good order for the summer, but the farms are strangely empty.

Guido returns. ‘No Germans. Not a single vehicle today. The planes have obviously got them worried. He says it’s because of the English radio operator they haven’t yet caught, and they never will, he says, because the locals wouldn’t turn him in for a million lire. Does that make you feel happy, Roberto?’

‘The bombers coming would make me happier. You all know what to do when they come?’

‘Have patience’ says Guido. ‘If they come, we’ll know what to do. If they don’t, they don’t. My uncle’s bringing us some food.’

The farmer and his wife, two elderly stooping figures dressed in black, come across the field laden with baskets. ‘We were saving this for when the Allies came. But it’s more important that you have it if you’re going off to fight the Germans.’ The wife lays out an old grey coarse linen tablecloth on the earth and brings out of her baskets two whole mountain sausages, a handkerchief of dried figs, two glass flasks of red wine and a large grey loaf of chestnut flour bread. The partisans look on amazed. Not for months have they eaten like this. As with the eggs at Vincenzo’s father’s house, the sight of everyday food as a thing to treasure abashes them all.

The farmer takes the loaf, says grace, takes out his clasp-knife and, with the loaf held against his chest, slices off chunks towards him, tossing them between the blade and his thumb into the middle of the tablecloth. He peels the coarse skin from the sausages and slices them the same way. As he tosses the last piece into the pile he points with his knife to the food. ‘Eat. Eat.’

The partisans’ hands waver towards and from the food. They wipe their palms and fingers across their clothes and look at each other, afraid to be the first to touch it, their tongues and lips dry with apprehension.

‘Porca miseria! Have you lost your appetites?’ asks Vincenzo, leans forward and takes a slice of sausage and bread. ‘Uncle will be offended.’

The spell is broken. Guido too leans forward, then the others, and within seconds all are cramming bread into their mouths and taking small bites of the chewy sausage so as to savour its smoky flavour for as long as they can.

The farmer and his wife sit stilly back and watch them, relishing the strength it will bring to the young fighting men. ‘Good. Good. Now have some wine. I’m afraid we only have two beakers.’

Vincenzo, still chewing on a piece of the hard mountain sausage, gestures that the band will share one of them. The farmer fills the copper cup to the brim and the partisans pass it around.

‘When did I last have wine? It’s months ago. I’d forgotten how good it tasted.’

‘Good for the blood,’ the farmer says. ‘You’ll need it if you’re fighting the Germans.’

–

From the south comes the sound of an approaching air-raid. The men spring to their feet and head north towards Sannessuno. Damage has to be done on the approaches to the village, in the area where bombs fall, if it is to be blamed on the bombers. The sound of the bombs falling on one village, then the next, rumbles down the valley like an approaching thunderstorm. By now the Germans in Sannessuno will be in their shelters, the road lined by the poles and wires of their telegraph lines will be deserted.

The planes fly over them and as the bombs fall on the village and they toss their ropes over one wire after another and drag it down. ‘All of a sudden the Germans can no longer talk to their friends in the next village. Poor things.’

Their mission accomplished they set off up into the foothills. As they reach a spur they turn and see a German motorcyclist roar up the white road, dust billowing behind him, to where the lines are down. He stops, dismounts and walks over to inspect the damage. The sound of a shot rings out, the German flinches, pulls his rifle off his shoulders to across his chest and looks up the hillside.

‘Where’s Ugo?’ asks Roberto.

–

‘If you’d had done to you what the Germans did to me you’d want to kill as many as you could. He was there on his own, just waiting to be shot, Ugo. They’d have assumed he was shot from a plane.’

‘But he’d been sent out to check the damage
after
the planes had gone, Ugo. You could have got us all killed, not to mention some hostages in the village. It’s not yet time for that.’

‘Be gentle on him, Roberto’ says Vincenzo.

‘Why? We’re soldiers, not brigands going for revenge. We’ve got to stick to what we can do well, and do it well.’

‘Sixty-forty, Roberto?’ Ugo sneers. ‘Think like that and the Germans will be here for months. The man who spares the wolf kills his sheep himself.’

‘Vincenzo, if Ugo wins this argument I’m not coming on another raid. If you want me to show you how it’s done, we do it my way. And I’m not going out with that hothead again. He’s probably already got the Germans planning another raid up here.’

He holds his hands high with the forefingers raised, slams a palm against his forehead. ‘I could kill him, the woodenhead. If the Germans attack you with mortars tomorrow morning, I won’t be here.’ He storms out of the hut and stamps his way down to his hide.

‘Signora Golvi couldn’t come. She asked me to bring you some food.’

Isabella lays out a linen tablecloth on the ground in the old camp, some boiled potatoes and onions. It is now warm enough at this height for the scent of thyme to be wafting across the grass towards them and the musk of the yellow broom to make Isabella seem perfumed. Flies descend on the food immediately. She wraps her old grey overcoat around her, adjusts her head-scarf, as if still cold, and gestures him to eat, saying she has eaten before coming up the mountain.

The partisans have been away for a day and a night on an expedition to do some damage to the Germans. After his spat with Ugo they hadn’t asked him along or told him where they were going. He didn’t mind. He was sure Ugo’s quest for revenge was now a danger to them all; and the further they went away from the village the less chance there was of reprisals there. Vincenzo had merely told him that Elvira would come up with some food for him while they were away.

‘How is the signora?’ he asks.

‘Very bad. She stays indoors most of the time. She seems so much older, always looking about to burst into tears, and she won’t let little Anna out of her sight.’

‘How does she feel about the English now?’

‘She doesn’t blame you.’ Isabella touches his hand then nervously pulls back. ‘She knows there were soldiers with the gang, so the pilot will have thought they were all soldiers. She blames the Germans for taking the young men out into such danger, and for still being here. If they hadn’t been, there would have been no work-gangs, no planes coming to shoot at them. She’s even more determined now to help the people fighting them.’

‘I wish I could say something to her. Why didn’t she come?’

‘She was going to. She simply couldn’t face seeing someone else’s son when both of hers are dead.’ She sniffles, looks away.

‘Enrico might still be alive. Someone in England might even now be saying the same thing to my mother about me. She mustn’t give up hope.’ He licks his finger and picks up the last flake of potato from the tablecloth.

‘I’ll tell her what you said. Now I must go.’ Isabella bundles the cloth into her basket and sets off down the path to the spring.

–

He lays back on the grass to enjoy the warmth, the quietness. The white clouds crossing the sky are patching the mountain pastures blue and yellow and the sun is showing features on the high grey mountain crags that he hasn’t seen before.

His peak turns to shade and a cloud crosses his mind. Why did she go that way? It’s not the way back to the village. Was she going to drink at the spring?

She had been edgy, even evasive, all the time she’d been with him. He’d thought it was because she was alone with him for the first time, but perhaps it was for some other reason. It was strange that she’d come without Alfonso, strange that the Giobellinis had allowed her unchaperoned up the mountain to meet him when he was alone. Why hadn’t Alfonso come up with her? Where was he? And yet here she was heading off in the opposite direction from the village. Too many things are unusual, wrong.