Street Boys (21 page)

15

VIA DELLA MARINELLA

The small basement room was dark and dank, the foul smell of soiled sheets and musty furniture filling the air. Connors, washed down in sweat and blood, lay on top of a brown mattress, the wound red and swollen, the knife resting on a tiny end table next to him. Maldini and Vincenzo hovered over him, both watching Nunzia cleanse the wound with a mixture of red wine and kerosene. Connors opened his eyes, his vision blurred, and looked up when he felt Maldini’s warm hand on top of his own. “I need to close your wound,” Maldini said to him in hushed tones. “It’s very deep.”

“You mean stitch it?” Connors asked, his throat parched and dry and his voice coarse. His gaze was on Nunzia now, the warmth of her look easing the sting of the mixture she was rubbing on his cut.

“That, only a doctor can do,” Maldini said shaking his head. “But I can stop the bleeding and prevent it from becoming infected.”

Connors kept his eyes on Nunzia. “How?” he asked.

“We drench a cloth in gasoline,” Nunzia said. “We place it over your cut and we light it.”

“You need to trust us on this,” Vincenzo said. “Much as we have trusted you.”

Connors lifted his head off the wet pillow and looked up at Maldini. “How many times have you done something like this?” he asked.

“You will be my first patient,” Maldini said as he lit a cigarette in the already stuffy room.

Vincenzo stood on top of the bed, hunched over, both his arms wrapped around Connors’s chest. Maldini dumped a long strip of cloth, thick at the top and frayed at the bottom, into a coffee tin half-filled with gasoline. He left the cloth to soak, stood and unbuckled his thin leather belt, freed it from its slots and folded it in two. “Put this in your mouth,” he said to Connors, resting the belt against his chin. “This way, when you start to scream, you won’t swallow your tongue.”

Connors let the beads of sweat drip off his eyelids and smiled. “What makes you so sure I’ll scream?” he said.

“You might not,” Maldini said. “But I’m going to scream and I’m only guessing how painful it’s going to be. So it’s better to have one scream than two. Less for the Nazis to hear.”

“Maybe you should have been a doctor after all,” Connors said. “You have such a calm and natural bedside manner.”

Maldini nodded and patted the young soldier’s hand. “I promise I’ll do my best,” he said.

He jammed the belt between Connors’s clenched teeth, wiped the palm of his hands on the sides of his pants and then blessed himself. “I thought you didn’t believe in any of that?” Vincenzo asked.

Maldini shrugged and pointed at Connors. “Maybe God hasn’t given up on him the way he has on me,” he said.

He pulled the wet cloth out of the coffee can, gasoline dripping on the mattress and the front of Connors’s uniform. He took the thick wad and, with one hand, stuffed it into the open wound, letting the strands hang down on the soldier’s chest. He saw Connors flinch from the pain and his eyes tear from the burn of gasoline penetrating the raw cut. He looked up at Nunzia. “Take his hands,” he told her. “Hold them tight and don’t let them go until the flames are out.”

Maldini took a deep breath and then placed the lit end of the cigarette against the loose strands of cloth. He watched as they quickly caught, sending thin lines of smoke and fire heading up toward the wound. He leaned over and gently turned Connors’s face away from the flames. “Look into my daughter’s eyes,” he said in a low voice. “And try to forget you are here.”

Connors bolted when the fire reached the thick wad of cloth, Vincenzo and Maldini struggling to hold him down, his fingers digging into Nunzia’s soft hands. His face was cherry red and his teeth were cutting down into the folded belt, blood flowing off his gums and lower lip. A rich line of red and blue flames shot out from the wound, the drenched cloth quickly turning black, light, crisp shards flowing in the air. The hole around the cut was burned and smoking, the smell of flesh mixing uncomfortably with that of gasoline. Connors spit out the remains of the belt, fluttered his eyes, lowered his head and sank farther down into the mattress.

“I think you killed him,” Vincenzo said as he released his grip on the soldier.

Maldini pulled out the remnants of the burnt cloth and glanced down at the wound, brushing aside the thin lines of smoke. He looked up at Nunzia and nodded. “That’s the best we can do with what we have,” he told her. “It’s not going to bleed anymore. It’ll be very sore, but he’ll be able to move in a few hours.”

“Is it okay to bandage it?” she asked.

“First rub some cream around the edges and pour some of that powdered medicine inside the wound,” Maldini said. “That should help it heal. And stay with him. I’ll go with Vincenzo and check on the others.”

Vincenzo jumped off the bed, his eyes on the now sleeping Connors, the heat and smell of the room enough to overwhelm. He reached down for his rifle and stood next to Nunzia. “If I ever get shot and you find me,” he told her, “I want you to promise me something.”

“What?” Nunzia asked, her eyes glued on Connors.

“You won’t let your father anywhere near me,” Vincenzo said.

He took a final look at Connors and stepped out of the room.

The room was bathed in darkness, but tiny lines of sun tried to inch their way through the wooden shutters. Nunzia sat on the bed, the curve of her body wedged in alongside Connors, close enough to let the sweat from his uniform stain the back of her dress. She wiped his forehead with the fat end of a rolled-up rag. She stared down at him, the strong, handsome face caked with lines of soot and specks of dried blood, the wound in his shoulder torched and swollen, white circles of foam bubbling around the edges.

Nunzia reached across the bed and picked up a round mound of cloth. She unfurled it and tore off a dozen large strips, resting them on her knees. She dipped two fingers of her right hand into a half-empty jar of petroleum jelly and stroked the sides of the open wound with them, moving with a warm and gentle touch. She then ripped off the top of a powder pack and poured its contents into the cut’s hollow center, watching the white dust disappear into the dark pocket. She covered the cut with the large cloth strips, running them around his shoulder, tying the frayed edges into small knots to keep the bandage in its place.

Nunzia rubbed a warm hand against the side of Connors’s cold cheek and held it there for several quiet moments. She then reached down and kissed both his forehead and his lips. She gazed down at him a final time, leaned over and blew out the small candle on the side of the end table. She stood, walked to the far side of the bed and lay down next to him, one arm resting on his shoulder, her hand keeping the wound warm.

In the darkness of the room, Connors opened his eyes and smiled.

16

PALAZZO MARIGLIANO

Nazi soldiers crowded into the three-tiered courtyard, skillfully enclosed by cornices and friezes. The soldiers sprayed the lower and upper windows with machine-gun bullets and smoke bombs, looking to force out any street boys hiding behind its walls. Two of the soldiers entered a darkened hallway on the far left side of the palazzo, walking past the floating smoke, their boots crunching down on shattered glass. One of them looked down and through the haze saw two small shadows in silhouette braced against a pile of stones. He clicked the chamber of his gun and turned it toward the shadows.

Dante and Fabrizio held their breath, their fingers gripping the cold rocks, their bodies wedged in as deep as they could go. They closed their eyes when they heard the soldier stop, only inches from where they stood. Dante gently slid a hand across the stone and to the small of his back, his fingers gripping the barrel of an old target pistol. He turned his head and looked at Fabrizio, shivering with fear, his bare feet sliding on the cold mud. He tapped the small boy on the shoulder and pointed toward the far side of the entryway.

Fabrizio looked up at Dante and shook his head, too afraid to move. Dante pulled the gun from the back of his pants, grabbed Fabrizio by the arm and they both came out into the alley, several feet behind the Nazi. “Run!” he shouted to the little boy.

The Nazi swirled around and fired at the two fleeing boys, his bullets landing on dirt and stone. He gave chase, trying to zero in on his zigzagging targets, both heading for a bolted iron door at the end of the dark passage. Behind them a loud whistle blew, alerting other soldiers in the area. Dante was the first to reach the door, but was unable to turn its massive and rusty handle. He turned, saw the Nazi in the distance and grabbed Fabrizio. “Jump up on my shoulders,” he told the smaller boy. “And reach for the railing above you. That’ll bring you to safety.”

“What will you do?” Fabrizio asked, his lower lip trembling.

“I’ll stay and fight the soldier,” Dante said, jamming the gun back into the flat of his back.

“Put me down,” Fabrizio said. “And let me fight with you.”

Dante stared into the boy’s olive eyes and kissed his cheek. “What kind of an Italian would I be if I let something happen to the best football player in all Naples?” he asked. “You go, Fabrizio, and let me worry about the Nazi.”

He lifted the boy to his shoulders, clutched his ankles and steered him toward the base of the railing, the Nazi’s footsteps now a hundred yards away. “Stretch as far as you can,” Dante said, looking down into the mist, the tips of the boy’s toes digging into the sides of his neck.

Fabrizio’s fingers pawed at the bottom of the railing, missing the bars by inches. He then crouched farther down on Dante’s shoulders and jumped, grabbing onto the black iron rails with both hands. “I have it,” he said, pulling himself up and over the side, his back to a shuttered window.

Dante turned and saw the German soldier standing across from him, the nozzle of the machine gun pointed at his chest.

The boy put his hands at his back, fingers wedged on the handle of the gun. The soldier glanced above him and saw Fabrizio pull up one of the slants on the wooden shutters, struggling to reach the inside handle. The Nazi lifted his gun and aimed it up toward the small boy.

The mastiff came from out of the shadows.

He jumped and caught the soldier at chest level, the force of his weight sending them both to the ground, and throwing the machine gun up against a far wall. The mastiff, his growl loud and full, thick white foam spreading down the sides of his face, clasped his open jaw between the soldier’s shoulder and neck, his sharp teeth easily ripping through the collar of the uniform and shredding exposed skin and muscle. The soldier lifted his arm to push him off, but couldn’t budge the mastiff, who stood on rear paws and shook his powerful grip from side to side, treating the soldier like a large, overstuffed puppet.

Dante ran for the machine gun and tossed it up the railing toward Fabrizio. The boy caught it with both hands, his back pressed against the shutter slants, his eyes glued to the action ten feet below. “Use the end of the gun like a hammer,” Dante said to him. “Once you get inside, run to the front of the building and head for the sewers. They can’t reach you there.”

“Come with me,” Fabrizio said.

“I can’t make the jump,” Dante said. “There’s a fence in the next alley. I’ll get to that and make for the tunnels. Don’t worry about me.”

“What about Benito?” Fabrizio asked.

“Who?” Dante asked.

“The dog,
cretino
,” Fabrizio said, frantically pointing down at the mastiff, still gnawing at the Nazi’s neck, the soldier slower now to react, the loss of blood heavy, flowing off his uniform and onto the grimy side street. “You have to take him with you and keep him safe.”

Dante reached down and gently nudged the mastiff off the dead soldier. “He doesn’t look like he needs help from anybody.”

17

VIA DEI TRIBUNALI

Maldini and Vincenzo stared up at the long row of silent trams, their overhead electrical wires cut and dismantled. The dark base of the transit cars was tinged with rust and stained from lack of use, and the compartments were filled with dust and debris. Half were missing wheels, either blown off or stolen by black marketers.

“We could use these to block off a few of the alleys,” Maldini said. “That would leave the tanks only one way out, and we can block that end with mines.”

“They can’t move without current,” Vincenzo said. “And not even Marconi could get us that.”

“We might be able to push them,” Maldini said. “Jam the gears into neutral and slide them down the tracks toward the alleys.”

“Even if we could do that, how do we get them from the tracks to the alleys?” Vincenzo asked.

Maldini walked around one of the trams, his hand caressing the red-painted side panel. The trams had once been an integral part of the city’s life, an inexpensive and comfortable way to travel, connecting rich neighborhood to poor; working-class homes to shops and factories; relatives to one another. He had sat in their straw seats or held on to their iron poles since he was a child, handing his lira to the ticket taker in the rear or, on occasion, sneaking onto the back of a crowded tram curving its way along the Lungomare district. Couples met and fell in love riding the trams, old women caught up on the day’s news, men debated local politics. They were as much a part of the Naples scenery as the bay, the train station and the open-air markets and made the city seem a much smaller and friendlier place.

Maldini turned away from the tram and looked across at Vincenzo. “We drag them there,” he said. “We have enough boys and we have a jeep. All we need is some rope to toss over the top and pull them down. How hard can that be to find?”

Vincenzo looked away from Maldini and turned toward the long span of trams. “They would make better barricades than the wooden ones we have,” he said. “The tanks just run right through them.”

“These trams may be old, but they were built well and with care,” Maldini said, a hint of pride in his voice. “The tanks can get over them, but it will take extra fuel and a lot of effort. It will also leave their bellies exposed and give the boys time to jam either a mine or a grenade inside the tire rims.”

“Even with a jeep and the ropes, it’ll be hard to move trams from the tracks to the alleys,” Vincenzo said, shaking his head and looking over Maldini’s shoulder, across the wide stretch of Lungomare, at the seven dark entrances that led into the heart of the main square. “That’s at least a half-mile drag.”

“They’ll slide better if we grease the side riding on the street,” Maldini said. “We’ll send some of the boys to scoop up mud and sludge from the edges of the piers and wipe them across the tram. It’ll cut down on the friction.”

“It has to be done in daylight. We need to be able to see what we’re moving and keep an eye out for any tanks coming at us.”

“Which of the boys knows the most about engines?” Maldini asked.

“Gaspare, by far. His father owned an auto-body shop and he’s been playing with cars and motors since he was in diapers. But I don’t know how much help he’ll be. Driving a Fiat One Twenty-four down Via Toledo isn’t the same as shifting gears on a dead tram.”

“Gears are gears,” Maldini said. “If he can figure out the engine of a car, he should be able to find which wires to pull on an old bus.”

“And if he can’t?”

“Then we’ll push them along the tracks,” Maldini said in a firm voice.

“That’s not much of a plan,” Vincenzo said.

“We’re not much of an army,” Maldini said.

Dante and Pepe sat in a corner off one of the alleys, each putting together the parts to a makeshift bomb. Fabrizio and the mastiff stood behind them, their backs resting on a brick wall. The two boys looked up from their work and caught a glimpse of Vincenzo and Maldini walking beside the trams. “What great plan are they thinking up now?” Pepe asked.

“I don’t know,” Dante said. “But it better be a good one. We’re running low on supplies and there are more Nazis than ever out on the streets.”

“Nothing would happen to us,” Fabrizio said, “if we had a patch like the American does.”

“Is that why you have a picture of a bird on your shirt?” Dante asked. “To keep you safe?”

Fabrizio looked down at a crudely colored charcoal drawing of a Thunderbird on the sleeve of his shirt and nodded. “I only wish it was a real one,” he said.

“What difference would a patch make?” Dante asked.

“It’s a magic bird,” Fabrizio said, crouching down to face the boys, his voice hushed. “I heard Vincenzo and Maldini talk about it. The bird on his sleeve is called a Thunderbird. It can make it rain bullets and can kill soldiers with bolts of lightning and blasts of thunder.”

“Maybe it’s why the Americans always win their wars,” Pepe said with a shrug.

“But now we can have it, too,” Fabrizio said. “And none of us need to die.”

“Tell that to the Nazis,” Dante said.

“There aren’t any Thunderbirds in Naples,” Pepe said. “Only pigeons. And they have no magic powers.”

“It’s a nice idea, though,” Dante said. “To have a bird who could bring us guns and bullets. That would be a great way to fight.”

“You’ll see,” Fabrizio said, standing now and petting the mastiff. “It’s true. We just need to wear the patch and then nothing can harm us.”