The Secret of Santa Vittoria (16 page)

At the gate into the city, still guarded by an Italian and a German, Fabio felt they would arrest him, but he didn't really care about that.

“You're not going to learn much at the academy,” the Italian guard told him. “It's closed.”

He only shrugged and they passed him through.

“Make Goddamn sure you check in with the prefect of police in the morning,” the guard told him, and Fabio gave no sign of even having heard. Every foot of the city seemed to be filled with trucks and armored vehicles, pressed up alongside the walls of the houses for protection, some of them with men in them, sleeping under camouflage nets. A few of them said things to Fabio in German, but he didn't really hear them. He went to the
pensione
where he had shared a room with two other students, and he found that Germans were in it.

“What the hell do you think you're doing here?” the woman who ran the house shouted at him. “Don't you know about the curfew? Don't you know what's going on. You better get off the streets and out of here and stay out.”

“What happened to my books?”

“They burned them. They used them to heat food. Page by page.”

“Couldn't you stop them?”

She laughed at him. “Then they would have used my furniture. I told them to do it. You read too many books anyway.”

He didn't know where he was going. He decided to try to reach the house of Galbiati, an instructor he had been fond of and who had been fond of him. He went down the Corso directly into the Piazza Frossimbone. Soldiers sitting in the darkness of doorways said things to him, but he walked on at his own pace. It is hard to frighten anyone who has no more use for life. At one side of the piazza a large sign had been put up and it was lit by a light that was shielded from the sky. A group of German officers and noncoms were gathered about the sign discussing what it said and taking notes and Fabio walked across to it.

The sign was a large, carefully drawn map of the Montefalcone region and on it, broken down into ten areas and twenty subareas, were the names of all the towns and villages that would be occupied within the next several days. The information included the names of the occupying units, the day they would take the town and the hour in which they would arrive. Fabio, even in the condition he was in, could appreciate the thoroughness of the work.

San Pietro would be occupied tomorrow morning. Garafano Maggiori tomorrow afternoon, San Rocco del Lago the next evening. Santa Vittoria and Scarafaggio were listed as being in Area R, Subareas 5 and 6. The Germans would come on Wednesday, at 1700 hours.

Three days. Not quite three days. At five o'clock in the afternoon. The bad time. How often things seemed to happen at the bad time, the seventeenth hour, Fabio thought.

“It's enough time for them,” Fabio told himself. He wasn't sure if he said the words aloud. “They can ring their cork bell when they come.”

He went through the little dark park in the center of the piazza and as he did he heard a girl struggling with a man.

“Don't do that to me,” she said. “You promised. You gave your word to my mother.”

“You little bitch,” the man said—in good Italian, although he was German—and Fabio heard him hit her and then he heard her fall back through the underbrush and strike the ground and by the sounds he knew the German had run.

“You had better stop that crying,” Fabio told her. He didn't know where she was, but the crying stopped and when he went to find her she had already gone. Girls who went with German soldiers deserved what they got, he thought, although as he said it he knew the soldiers sometimes went to the girls' houses and made it impossible for the families to refuse. All they could do was hope the German proved to be decent.

“Oh, God,” he said aloud. Angela. They would do it to Angela. He knew at once, the same way he had known when he had seen Bombolini on top of the water tower, that he would have to go to Santa Vittoria and be the one to warn them. Now that he cared he found his heart was beginning to beat hard. He was excited, but his mind was clear and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He got the rest of the way across the piazza without being seen and up into a dark narrow lane, and from this lane off into a series of lanes that kept him away from the Corso and the piazza but moving deeper into the city where the workingmen lived. He found the house he was looking for, and when his knock was not answered he tapped on the window, and when that went unanswered he was about to go away, when the shutter was opened by a young woman who did not seem to be wearing any clothes. Fabio looked down.

“Oh,” he said. “I wanted Gambo. I was expecting Gambo.”

“He isn't here, he's in the hospital. A rock fell on him in the quarry.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” Fabio cleared his throat. “Is his bike here? He said I could use it whenever I needed it.” She said nothing, but tried to make him out in the darkness. “I need it.”

“Stand over here. Let me see you.” She made him come near to the window and she held his head up. “Wait here,” she said, and in a moment he could hear the chain coming down from the door. “Now come in.”

When he went in he could see the bicycle chained to an iron ring in the stone staircase, and when he looked further into the room he could see the girl and was surprised to find that she was wearing only a shirt, one of Gambo's shirts. He was startled by her legs, because he had never actually seen a woman's legs before, and even more startled when he found he could see almost all of her breasts, because the shirt was not buttoned all of the way to the top. He turned back to the bike.

“A nice bicycle,” he said. “Gambo always took good care of his bicycles.”

The woman laughed and asked him who he was.

“Fabio. Just call me Fabio.”

“Just Fabio? I can't loan a bike to someone called ‘just Fabio,' eh?”

“Bombolini. Fabio Bombolini,” he said. “From the Resistance.”

She motioned him to come away from the door and into the room, and he looked at her quickly, because he had never seen anything like her, but when she sat down on the bed and turned back toward him he looked away again. The shirt was almost completely open.

“How long have you known Gambo?”

“Oh, for years and years and years,” Fabio said. “How long has he been in the hospital?” She leaned back on the bed, and Fabio could feel his heart pumping.

“Oh, for weeks and weeks and weeks,” she said, and he blushed. They talked about Gambo for a while, and Fabio found that the woman barely knew him.

“Why don't you ever look at me?” she said.

“I'm looking at you.”

“No you're not. What am I doing now?” She was swinging a small key chain around and around. Her breasts were bare. “Why do you look away?”

“I'm not looking away. I'm looking at you. It's just that I was interested in the bike. I came for the bike.”

“The bike is more interesting than me?”

“It's a beautiful bike,” Fabio said. The nature of the silence, the coldness behind it, informed Fabio that he would have to say more. “You seem beautiful, too,” he said.

“Then look at me for God's sake.”

He took his eyes away from the bike and looked at her, as calmly he could, determined to examine her in all objectivity, as if she were in anatomy class or was a new shirt. But he felt that the pounding of his heart must be making a sound in the room, and then he found that his right leg was shaking so that anyone could see it.

“The key to the bike. See?” She held up the key chain. “If you want it you can come and get it.”

He had heard about things such as this. There would be a game to get the key. Sex games, his father had called them. He realized he would have to play, but he didn't know how to begin and he didn't know the rules. She ended this by bringing his hand to her neck so that he could feel the chain.

“It's thin, you see, but very strong,” she said.

The game went swiftly enough after that, although it was a one-sided game. She was expert at it.

“Why are you trembling?” she said, and he told her it was cold, although he was sweating, and she pulled back the sheet and pulled it over them, which made it somewhat better.

“What's this?” It was his holy medal.

“St. Anthony of Padua.”

“Take it off,” she told him. “I can't make love with a saint in between us. Your first time, eh?”

“Oh, no,” Fabio said; but she laughed, nicely, at him.

“You'll have a good teacher,” she said. “That's very important. You're awfully old to be beginning.”

I will think only of Angela while I do this, Fabio promised himself. No, no, no. I will think only of the bicycle. I will remember that I am doing this as a duty in order to get the bicycle.

He was conscious of the woman but he did not allow himself to enjoy the consciousness. In a way, he was performing a patriotic act in the line of duty.

“Well,” she said at last. “Fabio, you're a good student.”

He wished she hadn't said it, because it implied somehow that he had invested himself beyond the point of duty.

“Someday you'll make some woman a good lover.” He turned red, of course, and yet he found that he wasn't displeased. “And I'll tell you this, Fabio—Fabio
what?
”

“Della Romagna.”

“I will tell you this, Fabio della Romagna: You may not be the best I've ever had, but you're the prettiest.”

Despite himself, he found that he was smiling and could only hope that she hadn't seen him smiling.

“And one of the strangest. I think you are in love with bikes.”

“Yes. I love bikes,” Fabio said, and he got up from the bed at once. He had forgotten the chain and the key, and when he turned back to her with such a sadness she laughed aloud and said, “Oh, God,” and reached up and worked the chain over her head while he looked away. She has no shame at all, he thought.

“When you bring it back we'll have lesson number two,” she said.

When he got the bicycle out into the steep narrow street he was filled with elation. The bicycle rattled on the cobbles, and so he picked it up and put it on his back, and he barely noticed its weight. Near the bottom of the lane he realized he would have to go back and went all of the way back. When he tapped on the window she opened it. She was naked again, but this time he looked directly at her.

“My Saint Anthony medal, please. My mother would never forgive me.”

When she came back with it Fabio was able to smile at her.

“You're not so bad at all,” he said. She started to close the shutter, but he held it with his hand.

“One other thing,” he said. “I suppose I should know your name. After all.”

“Gabriele.”

“Gabriele. What a beautiful name. It is very fitting,” he said, and he trotted back down the narrow dark street. Fabio, he told himself, you are becoming a goat.

When he reached Santa Vittoria some of the older men were still in the Piazza of the People, seated around the fountain, waiting to hear the cork clapper strike twelve. They could not feed enough on the sound.

“Fabio. Oh, Fabio,” Bombolini said when he saw him. “I knew you would come back to me.” The mayor embraced him. “You're sweating like a pig, Fabio.”

“I pedaled all of the way up the mountain. I have bad news.”

“What could be bad news?” Bombolini said. “I want you to hear the good news first. Paolo, go and ring the bell for Fabio. I want him to hear it.”

“No. No.” Fabio stopped them. “The Germans are coming.”

Once again Fabio experienced the blankness of the faces that he had seen the other time.

“I have seen the orders. Elements of the German army will arrive in Santa Vittoria at five o'clock in the afternoon on this coming Wednesday.”

It meant nothing to them, even Bombolini. He threw his bicycle down onto the stones of the piazza.

“All right. I've told you. I have done my duty. I risked my life. I have stolen a man's bike. I have done all that I can.” For a moment he had the wild idea of riding back to the arms of Gabriele,
his
lover; but he was too tired. Bombolini came after him.

“We know it's important, Fabio. We appreciate your coming and telling us. It's just that we have expected it all along and there's nothing much to be done about it.”

“You could put your women away some place.”

“If they touch the women they'll pay for it and they know it.”

“You could get that Abruzzi out of town before he gets us all shot.”

“No, he's going to stay. He'll be dressed like one of us. No one will be able to tell.”

“Do you think all these people can keep a secret like that?”

“We can be a very loud people,” Bombolini said, “but when it is to our advantage to keep a secret we can keep one. Keeping a secret is a form of lying you understand.”

They were almost all the way across the piazza by then, and at the edge of the Corso Cavour, where it drops down from the Piazza of the People into Old Town, Bombolini took hold of Fabio's arm.

“Don't go away again, Fabio,” he said. “We need you here.”

“Oh, I don't know. I'm thinking of going into the mountains.” He hadn't thought of it before. “The Resistance, you know.”

I shall go to the hills, Fabio told himself, and I shall stay in those hills even until I am the last one left, but I shall be unbowed.

“When the Germans come, the policy here is going to be one of accommodation, do you understand?” Bombolini said. Fabio made a face, but Bombolini didn't see it and didn't hear the sound of disapproval, because men generally seem to hear and see the things they wish to hear and see.

“When they push, we will give. We'll be like quicksand.”

And I intend to be a rock, Fabio said, but to himself.