Fire in the Hills (19 page)

“Aaaaaah!” screamed the soldier as he slipped into the Buso.

A tremendous jerk came on Lupo's shoulder.

The soldier dangled in the Buso, holding on to Lupo for dear life.

Lupo felt himself being dragged into the hole by the great struggling weight on his arm.

Bang!

The soldier went limp, let go, fell.

29

T
URBINE AND LUPO CARRIED Volpe Rossa's body back to the road. The ground was too rocky here to dig a grave without the right tools. Their tears had stopped. But they still didn't speak.

The bodies of the three Nazis were at the bottom of the Buso. When Lupo had looked down it in the morning sun, he had seen other bodies there. Lots of them. Italian bodies and German bodies, stinking as they rotted.

The two of them walked in tandem along the road. Lupo was in front, holding Volpe Rossa by the knees. Turbine held her by the armpits.

Her body was stiff with rigor mortis. It didn't carry like a body, but more like a strangely cut piece of wood. Lupo felt a sense of unreality as they walked. How could this thing, this object, be Volpe Rossa, the one he loved?

They went south. The pistol in Lupo's pocket lumped and thumped. That's what guns did. He hated it. But it still held one bullet. He had used the other one. And that sense of unreality came again. How could Lupo be the person who had killed a man?

The other German guns were back at the Buso. Turbine had emptied the submachine gun into the driver, the one who had shot Volpe Rossa. Then he'd picked up the driver's rifle and shot the Nazi Lupo was struggling with. It turned out to be the last rifle bullet.

A single bullet could change so much.

Why should Lupo be surprised? That's how it always was—how life always went. Single things changed everything. A single person, a single kiss.

They stopped at the first country house. The woman inside fed them soup and bread. She gave them two shovels and led them out back, showing them where to bury Volpe Rossa. Beside two other fresh graves.

They dug without pause, deeper and deeper. It wasn't like they'd talked about putting her so deep no wild animal from the nearby forest would ever be able to dig her up. It wasn't anything rational or planned. They just kept digging.

Turbine finally put down his shovel and jumped into the hole. Lupo lowered Volpe Rossa into his arms. Turbine lay her down and smoothed her clothes, her hair. He worked to straighten her legs, to fold her arms on her chest. But her body was so stiff and hard, it was impossible. Turbine didn't stop, though. He pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled, till Lupo jumped down into the hole and wrapped his arms around Turbine from behind so he couldn't move—like Volpe Rossa had wrapped her arms around Lupo in the back of the German truck. And they cried. They just cried. They just cried.

And everything was real again.

Oh, Lord.

When they left, they walked side by side.

Night came. They slept in the grasses. In the morning they came to a town. They learned that just the day before, Mussolini had been shot in a piazza in Milan. They learned that on that same day the people of Venice had rebelled. They'd captured ten thousand prisoners and lost only three hundred of their own men. Venice was free.

They hitched a ride south, down through little towns that were cleaning up, washing away blood, burying the dead.

When they reached the main highway, Turbine went west. Volpe Rossa's sister lived that way—in Bergamo. She had told him. She had told Turbine about her family, when she'd never told Lupo things like that.

Turbine would go there now and let Volpe Rossa's sister know what had happened. Maybe he'd stay there. Maybe he'd make it his home.

Lupo hugged him good-bye. No, not Lupo. He was Roberto again. The war was over. The beast of the resistance would disperse. He could try to find himself again, if any of him remained. Roberto.

Roberto hitched a ride on a truck full of Americans. They took his pistol away. That was fine with him. He never wanted to hold a gun again, ever.

They told him the Eighth Army had been assigned to liberate Venice that day, but since Venice was already free, they were going in to help restore order.

Order. What could the word mean? Roberto's life had been without order for so long.

The truck rode along the highway that crossed the lagoon. Ibises picked their way with dainty feet. The names of all the seabirds came back to Roberto. The names he'd learned from Randy, the American soldier back in North Africa. Birds came and went, year after year, migrating with hope of better weather, better life. They believed in order. They kept going.

That's what life was—keeping going.

Roberto had been in other trucks like this. So many trucks, boats, trains, wagons in the past three years. He'd bicycled and walked and run such a long distance.

He stood up in the back of the truck. No one yanked him down this time. He looked ahead. That was his city over there. People he loved were waiting for him. He gripped the side of the truck as it rumbled along.

POSTSCRIPT

AT THE END OF THE FIRST WEEK OF MAY 1945, the German government unconditionally surrendered, and the war in Europe ended.

Of the 7,013 Jews who had been deported from Italy to death camps, only 830 of them lived to come back. Of those Jews who remained in Italy, 303 more died of mistreatment or suicide.

Over 200,000
partigiani
were formally enlisted in the resistance army, and many more people who were not formally enlisted fought—like the Roberto/Lupo, Teresa/Volpe Rossa, and Turbine of this story. Additionally, there were countless ordinary citizens who did their part without ever picking up a weapon. At least 40,000 of those formally enlisted died, but there is no way to accurately count the full number of Italians who died in the resistance.

The particular events that happened to Roberto/Lupo in this story are fictional, though most are fictionalized accounts of events that happened to others during this period. I tried to stick to real happenings as often as possible to pay tribute to the staggering self-sacrifice and courage of the
partigiani
.

If you would like to hear tunes of the resistance songs and learn more about the resistance and activities that celebrate the memories of the
partigiani
, please visit the Web site of the Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d'Italia:
http://www.anpi.it
.

To hear the tune “Bella Ciao” and learn the words, go to the Web site:
http://ingeb.org/songs/bellacia.html
. This is undoubtedly the most well known of the resistance songs.

If you would like to learn more about and hear the tune of the resistance song “Fischia il Vento,” please visit the Web site of the Parco Culturale “Il Sentiero di Fischia il Vento” in the region called Liguria:
http://www.liguri.net/portAppennini/pak_fv.htm
. To learn the words to the song “Fischia il Vento,” go to the Web site:
http://ingeb.org/songs/fischiav.html
. You'll find that the version given there begins with the words
“Fischia il vento”
(“The wind whistles”) instead of the
“Soffia il vento,”
given in this story. Popular songs have many different versions. In this story, I chose to give the version best known to my friends in Venice, since Roberto is from Venice.

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DONNA JO NAPOLI'S
NEW BOOK

The Smile

“
ELISABETTA,
where are you going?”

Oh, and I was so close to the door. Ah, well. I descend from tiptoe and walk from the corridor into the kitchen. On the cutting counter in front of her lie a skinned hare, raisins, pine nuts. “The garden is lovely this morning, Mamma.” I lean around her shoulder from behind and kiss her cheek. “But if you want help, of course I'll stay.”

“Ha! My sweet delight, do you think you fool me?” Mamma gives me just the briefest twinkle of her eye and returns her attention to mincing. “I know how you feel about cooking.” She makes three little
tsks
of the tongue.

Many women of the noble class don't cook, but Mamma takes pride in it. Under her quick blade, the bright green pile of parsley and rucola turns to a deep forest green mash. I move to stand beside her. The aroma bathes us. I can almost taste it.

“This is your father's favorite dish; I must be the one to prepare it. Alone. A good wife takes pride in her husband's hums of pleasure at the dining table. You should mend your ways and learn the culinary skills. It will bring you joy.” She smiles contentedly, though she doesn't look up. “False offers of aid—who taught you that?”

I pick up a loose leaf and chew it. The bitterness makes me suck in my breath. “A good wife does so many things. You're always adding to the list. I wager a good wife needs to know how to make false offers, too.”

“Watch that tongue.” But she laughs. She wipes her hands on her apron, then turns to me. Her palms cup my cheeks lovingly. “You're clever, Elisabetta, but you'll be thirteen in just two months. In many ways you seem older than your years—yet in some ways, you're far too young. Think about what needs your attention rather than running off to the woods.”

“I said the garden.”

“You meant the woods.” Mamma tilts her head. “Are you becoming deceptive?”

“If I am, I might as well give it up. I'm clearly no good at it.” I peek under the cloth covering the basket on the table. The rolls are still warm. Old Sandra has been busy. She does her work before dawn, then goes home to care for her ailing husband. “You can't understand anything these days, Mamma. When I woke, I threw the shutters wide and the scent of jasmine snaked into the room.” I snatch a roll and twirl around the table. “It twined up my arms, up my neck. It pulled me almost flying out the window.”

“Oh, my.” Mamma makes a pretend show of alarm. “Beware that sharp nose. We mustn't have flights of fancy turn you into an angel. By all means, use the stairs to descend, like the rest of us mere mortals.” She protrudes her lips in thought. “It's best you put charcoal to paper today and think about the dress we need to have made.”

I swallow the last of the roll and bounce on the balls of my feet in triumph. “I've already thought about it.”

“Do you have to bounce in that undignified fashion?”

“Yes.”

“Sassy girl.” But then she takes a deep breath. “Desist in the presence of others, at least. That's better. Now tell me these thoughts of yours.”

“I can show you. I drew it last night.”

“Well, then.” Mamma appears so surprised, she's at a loss for what to say next.

“We'll look at it later,” I say, taking control before Mamma recovers. “After Papà has eaten and hummed up a storm. In the meantime . . .” I let my eyes plead.

“There are so many things that need to be planned.” Mamma speaks very slowly. Her eyes hold mine. “But I suppose there's time for the woods, too.”

“Hurrah.” I grab a few pine nuts and make for the door.

“But if you want to be the belle of your own ball, Elisabetta, cover those arms with something other than the serpentine odor of jasmine vines. A man of noble birth notices a girl of noble birth. And a girl of noble birth does not allow the sun to color her arms like those of a peasant.”

“Country nobles know the sun isn't picky about who it shines on, Mamma.”

“Who's fishing for a country noble? You'll get betrothed to a city man. From one of Florence's best families, I'll wager. The Rucellai, perhaps, or the Pazzi, or the Acciaiuoli, or the Martelli, or the Ginori, or . . .” She pauses for effect, her index finger poised in the center of her cheek. “. . . the Medici.”

I press my lips together hard. Mamma's counting on this party, on me. I'm an only child; who else can she put her hopes on? But it's still unfair. I speak as gently as I can manage. “Your dreams are too lofty.”

“Don't be silly! This party is exactly what the males of those families need to remind them of you.”

“They never noticed me in the first place, so how can one remind them?”

“Of course they noticed you. You're Papà's beauty.”

“Papà's. Exactly. No one else thinks I'm a beauty, not even you.”

Mamma's face looks stricken. “Don't be difficult, Elisabetta. You've played with their sisters and daughters every time we've visited Florence your whole life.”

“Daughters?” My cheeks go slack. “I don't want to marry an old man.”

“Widowers make attentive husbands.”

I'm pressing my knees together so hard, they ache. “I can't,” I say through clenched teeth. “I can't marry one of them. And you can't make me.”

Mamma's eyes go liquid. “I didn't make the rules. This is the way the world is.”

“I won't. I simply won't.”

She reaches out and her fingertips lightly brush my throat. The look on her face is of such tenderness, I want to cry. “Then you'll have to be at your best, Elisabetta,” she says softly. “Cover those arms well. Don a hat, too.”

I nod, unable to speak.

“Now . . .” She flicks the back of her hand at me. “Off to the woods with you.” And she returns to her meal preparations as though the moment has passed and we can both immediately put it out of our minds. Another good-wife trick.

I remain immobile, weighted by her words—but only momentarily. She's released me for now and, oh, the woods are calling. I race up the stairs, popping pine nuts in my mouth. I pull a light waistcoat from my closet. Then I close the heavy doors.