A Merry Dance Around the World With Eric Newby (18 page)

On the right of the fireplace was the sink at which the girls were working; close to it there was a cast-iron stove with a silver-painted stovepipe rising from it which vanished into the wall just under the ceiling, and behind me, where I sat facing the fireplace there was a tall, dark cupboard and a chest on short legs with a removable table-top, a piece of furniture known as a
madia
, in which the flour which was used to make the
pasta
was kept, a piece of furniture which every house I had been to in the
pianura
and the mountains possessed. And on a box under the window there was a dilapidated radio set with wires sprouting from it, which must have been the one that had not given the information about people who helped prisoners of war being shot.

After what seemed an eternity the conversation rumbled noisily to a close, rather like a train of goods wagons coming to rest in a marshalling yard. It was the signora who was responsible for these effects, with her deafening interjections. Pound for pound she was the noisiest woman I had ever met. It was she who had uttered the bloodcurdling call to the boy Armando, to bring him in from whatever he was doing, to attend the family council.

Now her husband was filling Signor Zanoni’s glass from a fresh bottle, at the same time looking at me as he poured it, with the air of someone who was about to acquire a slave. Watching him performing this difficult feat, I felt that something had been concluded.

‘Luigi is of the opinion that if you want to stay here it is all right,’ Signor Zanoni said at last. ‘And so is Signora Agata, as long as things stay as quiet as they are. There’s a lot of work to be done in the fields and they will be glad to have you, but they can’t pay you anything. They’ll give you your food and a bed. When you’re working outside you will have to keep away from the path to the house, always. You’re sure to be seen by someone wherever you’re working, but if anyone asks who you are they’ll say that you’re someone from Genoa, a fisherman who’s been bombed, and isn’t quite right in the head. If anyone does speak to you act as if you’re stupid and pretend that you’re deaf and dumb. You’ll have to keep your sack of stuff up in the woods above the house in the daytime, in case you have to run for it. Dig a hole and cover it up so that when it rains it won’t get wet. If you have to escape at night there’s a way out over the roof of the
stalla
from the second floor. They’ll show it to you. If you need me at any time, one of them will bring me a message. And I’ll arrange with the Baruffas so that when your friends come for you they’ll send them to me. Now they’ll show you where your room is and they’ll give you some clothes to work in. The ones you have won’t last more than a day or two in the fields and they don’t look right.’

The room to which Agata’s daughter, Rita, the thinner of the two girls, escorted me was high up under the eaves of the building and we climbed up to it by a series of steep and flimsy staircases. In it there was a window at floor level which faced north and by kneeling down it was possible to look out along the track which led to the farm. I found this out while I was helping her to make the bed up. It was a very dilapidated bed but the bedding was very clean. And I was glad when she provided me with a
vaso da notte
, which may seem an unimportant detail, but released me from the necessity of descending all those stairs in the middle of the night and having to face that revolting dog in the yard.

When I got back to the kitchen Armando, the black-haired boy, and Dolores, the big girl, had disappeared and Signor Zanoni was about to leave. I had changed into the working clothes which Agata had given me and they looked a hundred years old. Signor Zanoni’s working suit was composed of shreds and patches; but, at least, it covered his nakedness completely. Luigi’s was made up of dozens and dozens of holes connected by pieces of black velveteen that was so tough that I wondered how the holes had appeared in it in the first place. It looked like a nineteenth-century poacher’s suit in which the occupant had been caught in the cross fire from several gamekeepers’ shot-guns. Nevertheless, I was delighted with it. Wearing it I felt that I was part of the scenery.

I accompanied Signor Zanoni to the door and as soon as we got to it the dog began baying for blood.

‘That’s a brute of a dog,’ Signor Zanoni said (
Un cane proprio brutto
, was how he actually described it). ‘Keep out of its way, it’s starving. I’d shoot it if it was mine, or else I’d feed it. Everything’s kept very short here; but I’ve told them that if they want you to work they must give you enough to eat. They’re not mean, but they’re all used to doing without much. And I’ve told them that it’s no good them speaking
dialetto
to you because you won’t understand.

‘Don’t forget us,’ he said. ‘We won’t forget you.’

I shook his hand and watched this small, kindly, resourceful man as he walked along the path that led down to the Colle del Santo.

‘Come with me,’ a voice said. It was Luigi. It was the first time he had spoken to me, apart from wishing me
buon giorno
. I followed him round to the back of the house where the fields swept uphill to the edge of the woods in all their stoniness. Many of them could scarcely be called stones. They were rocks and boulders which had come rolling down off the mountain. It was like looking out on a parable.

‘I want those fields cleared of stones,’ he said, quite casually. ‘All of them. I should start with that one up there. The others will help you with the big ones, when they’ve finished what they’re doing, in a week or two. There’s a cart over there,’ he indicated a vehicle with solid wooden wheels and sides made from the plaited stems of osiers. It looked like a primitive chariot.

‘What shall I do with them,’ I said, ‘when I’ve put them in the cart, the stones?’

‘You can do what you like with them,’ he said, ‘as long as they don’t stop on my land.’

Then he looked at me, and seeing that I was genuinely puzzled, he gave me the same kind of foxy grin that Sergeant-Major Clegg used to when he announced to us that there would be no weekend leave.

‘You can throw them over the cliff,’ he said. ‘You can start now.’

And he went back into the house.

One Sunday, when I was out on the mountainside, I had a strange encounter. The sun was hot and soon I took off my shirt and then my boots and socks. The air was filled with the humming of bees and the buzzing of insects and from somewhere further up the mountain there came the clanking of sheep bells, carried on a gentle breeze that was blowing from that direction. Then a single bell began to toll in the valley, and other more distant bells echoed it, but they soon ceased and I looked across to the distant peaks which previously had been so clearly delineated but were now beginning to shimmer and become indistinct in the haze that was enveloping them. And quite soon I fell asleep.

I woke to find a German soldier standing over me. At first, with the sun behind him he was as indistinct as the peaks had become, but then he swam into focus. He was an officer and he was wearing summer battledress and a soft cap with a long narrow peak. He had a pistol but it was still in its holster on his belt and he seemed to have forgotten that he was armed because he made no effort to draw it. Across one shoulder and hanging down over one hip in a very unmilitary way he wore a large old-fashioned civilian haversack, as if he was a member of a weekend rambling club, rather than a soldier, and in one hand he held a large, professional-looking butterfly net. He was a tall, thin, pale young man of about twenty-five with mild eyes and he appeared as surprised to see me as I was to see him, but much less alarmed than I was, virtually immobilized, lying on my back without my boots and socks on.

‘Bon giorno,”
he said, courteously. His accent sounded rather like mine must, I thought.
‘Che bella giornata.’

At least up to now he seemed to have assumed that I was an Italian, but as soon as I opened my mouth he would know I wasn’t. Perhaps I ought to try and push him over the cliff, after all he was standing with his back to it; but I knew that I wouldn’t. It seemed awful even to think of murdering someone who had simply wished me good day and remarked on what a beautiful one it was, let alone actually doing it. If ever there was going to be an appropriate time to go on stage in the part of the mute from Genoa which I had often rehearsed but never played, this was it. I didn’t answer.

‘Da dove viene, lei?’
he asked.

I just continued to look at him. I suppose I should have been making strangled noises and pointing down my throat to emphasize my muteness, but just as I couldn’t bring myself to assail him, I couldn’t do this either. It seemed too ridiculous. But he was not to be put off. He removed his haversack, put down his butterfly net, sat down opposite me in the hollow and said:

‘Lei, non è Italiano.’

It was not a question. It was a statement of fact which did not require an answer. I decided to abandon my absurd act.

‘Si, sono Italiano.’

He looked at me, studying me carefully, my face, my clothes and my boots which, after my accent, were my biggest giveaway, although they were very battered now.

‘I think that you are English,’ he said, finally, in English. ‘English, or from one of your colonies. You cannot be an English deserter; you are on the wrong side of the battle front. You do not look like a parachutist or a saboteur. You must be a prisoner of war. That is so, is it not?’

I said nothing.

‘Do not be afraid,’ he went on. ‘I will not tell anyone that I have met you, I have no intention of spoiling such a splendid day either for you or for myself. They are too rare. I have only this one day of free time and it was extremely difficult to organize the transport to get here. I am anxious to collect specimens, but specimens with wings. I give you my word that no one will ever hear from me that I have seen you or your companions if you have any.’

In the face of such courtesy it was useless to dissemble and it would have been downright uncouth to do so.

‘Yes, I am English,’ I said, but it was a sacrifice to admit it. I felt as if I was pledging my freedom.

He offered me his hand. He was close enough to do so without moving. It felt strangely soft when I grasped it in my own calloused and roughened one and it looked unnaturally clean when he withdrew it.

‘Oberleutnant
Frick. Education Officer. And may I have the pleasure of your name, also?’

‘Eric Newby,’ I said. ‘I’m a lieutenent in the infantry, or rather I was until I was put in the bag.’ I could see no point in telling him that I had been in SBS, not that he was likely to have heard of it. In fact I was expressly forbidden, as all prisoners were, to give anything but my name, rank and number to the enemy.

‘Excuse me? In the bag?’

‘Until I was captured. It’s an expression.’

He laughed slightly pedantically, but it was quite a pleasant sound. I expected him to ask me when and where I had been captured and was prepared to say Sicily, 1943, rather than 1942, which would have led to all sorts of complications; but he was more interested in the expression I had used.

‘Excellent. In the bag, you say. I shall remember that. I have little opportunity now to learn coloquial English. With me it would be more appropriate to say “in the net”, or, “in the bottle”, but, at least no one has put you in a poison bottle, which is what I have to do with my captives.’

Although I don’t think he intended it to be, I found this rather creepy, but then I was not a butterfly hunter. His English was very good, if perhaps a little stilted. I only wished that I sould speak Italian a quarter as well.

He must have noticed the look of slight distaste on my face because the next thing he said was, ‘Don’t worry, the poison is only crushed laurel leaves, a very old way, nothing modern from I.G. Farben.’

Now he began delving in his haversack and brought out two bottles wrapped in brown paper which, at first, I thought must contain the laurel which he used to knock out his butterflies when he caught them; but, in fact, they contained beer, and he offered me one of them.

‘It is really excellent beer,’ he said. ‘Or, at least, I find it so. To my taste Italian beer is not at all good. This is from Munich. Not easy to get now unfortunately. Permit me to open it for you.’

It was cool and delicious. I asked him where he had come from.

‘From Salsomaggiore, in the foothills,’ he said. ‘It is a spa and like all spas it is very melancholy, or at least I find them so, although we Germans are supposed to like melancholy places. It is the feeling that no one who has ever visited them has been quite well, and never will again, that I find disagreeable. Now it is a headquarters. My job there is to give lectures on Italian culture, particularly the culture of the Renaissance, to groups of officers and any of the men who are interested. It is scarcely arduous because so few of them are.’

‘I must confess,’ he went on, ‘that there are some aspects of my countrymen’s character that I cannot pretend to understand. I do not speak disloyally to make you feel more friendly to me because, no doubt, you, also, do not always understand your own people, but surely only Germany would employ a professor of entomology from Göttingen with only one lung, whose only interest is
lepidoptera
, to give lectures on Renaissance painting and architecture to soldiers who are engaged in destroying these things as hard as they are able. Do you not think it strange?’