The Secret of Santa Vittoria (55 page)

“One rule, Fabio. One law that must be respected. Never grow old where you once have been great.”

There was a second cheer, and this one was very loud. Bombolini turned around on the steps and came back down into the piazza.

“I had better take a look,” he told Fabio. He began to walk toward the lane that leads to the wall. “Just a peek,” he said. “A last look and then I'll be gone.” He was moving very fast and almost broke into a run. “Remember what I said, Roberto.” He was running by then. “I'll be leaving myself.”

Fabio and Roberto watched him go.

“He'll never leave,” Fabio said. “You'll be gone, but Bombolini will be here.” The two of them began to walk toward the wall. “You're the lucky one, Roberto. You'll be gone, and he'll grow old.”

The next time they saw him he was on top of the wall, and the people were silent. The motorcycle had reached the foot of the mountain and it had come to a stop forty or fifty yards from the entrance to the Roman cellar. There had always been a belief here that the Germans knew, that the last great joke would be the Germans' joke, and that their last act, while we cheered their departure from the wall, would be to destroy the cellar with the wine.

It is the belief now that Captain von Prum stopped at the foot of the mountain to choose whether to turn left and go south toward the advancing armies or to go north toward his Fatherland and the punishment that awaited him there. He turned north and he went toward the dark open mouth of the cave and then passed it and turned onto the goat trail that crosses that part of the valley.

Still no one cheered then, because he still could be seen. Partings to be correct must be perfect. There can be no speck of the departed left in any least part of the eye. All must be gone.

When they crossed the valley they turned up into the higher mountains beyond Santa Vittoria. We could still see them, not the men or the motorcycle itself, but the high white plume of chalk that rose up behind them, a towering flag above the vineyards that marked the movement of the enemy through the grapes on the other mountain as surely as the wake of a ship in the sea. And then even that was gone.

*   *   *

We heard the soldiers coming before we saw them. They were hidden by the low hills that mask the River Road. They took the turn that leads down onto the cart track, where the splinters of Bombolini's cart were still scattered on the sand, and came into our view, a long column of soldiers in battle dress led by two bagpipers wearing kilts. We watched them cross the valley and start up the mountain and when they came into the piazza they paid no attention to our cheers. They were hot and tired and thirsty.

“Royal Sutherland Highlanders,” their leader said. Even Roberto found it hard to understand what he said. The soldiers had crowded around the Fountain of the Pissing Turtle and they looked at it but it was dry. There was no wine and there was no water.

“Have you anything to drink?” the officer asked.

“He wants to know if we have anything to drink,” Roberto told Bombolini. The mayor turned to the people in the piazza.

“Do we have anything to drink?” he shouted to them. The people began to smile at each other and then to laugh. “He wants to know if we have anything to drink,” Bombolini shouted to them.

“Do we have anything to drink?”

There was such an outburst then, of shouts and laughter, that the soldiers became worried about us. They didn't know what to do about us. They had never seen anything like this before. Bombolini turned to Roberto and although they were only a few feet apart he shouted to them.

“Tell them this, Roberto,” the mayor shouted. “Tell them God yes, we have something to drink.”

The Santa Vittoria of this novel is a real place, but none of the characters described or mentioned in the novel are real, and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA
. Copyright © 2013 by Robert Crichton.

All rights reserved.

For information, address Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

eISBN 9781466851085

First eBook edition: July 2013