All Our Yesterdays (31 page)

Next day Cenzo Rena had a high fever again, and this time he was not red and goggle-eyed but very pale and sweating and panting, and the doctor said it looked to him as if he had pneumonia now as well but he was not sure, and he no longer felt prepared to look after him and they must call doctors from the town into consultation. The doctors came and said that Cenzo Rena must go into hospital at once, and a motor-ambulance arrived and the whole village came out to watch Cenzo Rena being taken off to hospital in the town ; there was the police-sergeant on the balcony of the police station and the young woman with the pear-shaped breasts and the twins, and the wife of the
contadino
Giuseppe washing the stairs at the police station and weeping, and the farrier and the farrier's fat mother sitting on a straw-bottomed chair amongst the mule-clippings, and all the
contadini,
all silent and sad ; and the motor-ambulance moved off to the sound of a long cry, and inside it were Anna weeping with a suitcase on her knees and Cenzo Rena pale and sweaty and muttering.

11

The hospital was not far from the market-place, that same market-place in which Cenzo Rena had bought the bathing-costumes when they had gone to the seaside, and Anna now went down there from time to time in search of lemons for Cenzo Rena, but there hardly ever were any lemons because the roads were being machine-gunned and scarcely anything was being brought to market, the only thing for sale was piles of small green broccoli, which grew only two steps outside the town. The San Costanzo doctor came every two or three days to see Cenzo Rena, he came on a motor-bicycle and on one occasion found himself on the road with machine-gunning going on ; he jumped off his motor-bicycle and threw himself into a ditch, and arrived at the hospital white with fear, he had heard a great noise and felt a great wind and it had seemed to him that the aeroplane was stroking his hair. Cenzo Rena was very disagreeable to the doctor when he saw him, he said it was his fault that they had brought him into this ugly hospital, with dirty nurses and never a lemon to be seen, he had a desire for lemons and there was no possibility of ever finding one, they explained to him about the machine-gunnings but he did not quite understand, he was astonished that the war should still be going on. With a great effort he recalled the war, and his eyes went small and misty as he recalled it. And Mussolini, was he still well out of the way, he asked, and where was the Turk now, still at San Costanzo ringing the bell? They explained to him that the Turk now no longer rang the bell. And wasn't there also a curfew, he asked, he seemed to have heard the curfew mentioned, a new war word? Ah, so the war was still going on. To him it seemed that he had been ill for many, many years.

Cenzo Rena began to get better towards the end of September. There had been the armistice but he had not known about it, he was too ill at that time, lying there with dry, white lips and great black circles under his eyes, and Anna on her feet for many days and many nights, her hands clenched and sweaty as she watched one hour after another pass over that prostrate body. To her it seemed that she had grown very, very old and very, very small, with her brain confused and contracted and containing nothing, ever, except Cenzo Rena's illness, which had been first typhus and then pneumonia and was causing him to die; and by fits and starts she recalled all the things of their life, but with horror, everything was sliding to ruin in that hospital where Cenzo Rena lay dying.

The day after the armistice the Germans had arrived in the town, and had filled the market-place with vehicles, and had taken over the two hotels, and were now sitting about, drinking and smoking, in the cafés ; and Mussolini was no longer out of the way, Mussolini had been set free and carried off by car to some place in the North to start governing again. And when Cenzo Rena began to improve Anna told him about Mussolini, that he was no longer out of the way, and she told him about the Germans being all over the town, but Cenzo Rena was very pleased at feeling himself getting better and said that the Germans being there would certainly be only a matter of a few days and that in a short time the English would be arriving in Italy from somewhere or other. He was very pleased at feeling himself getting better, and again he felt hunger and thirst for the things of the earth, and all of a sudden he liked the hospital and the nurses who were charming in their dirtiness, but he had a longing to go back home and see the little girl and La Maschiona and the dog. He was offended because the San Costanzo doctor had not appeared for some time, why in the world had he stopped coming to see him, did he never stir, then, except for people who were on the point of death? Anna said that perhaps he was afraid of the Germans and Cenzo Rena said that was a fine thing to be, really people mustn't go too far with their fear of the Germans, in any case a doctor ought to be able to move about everywhere. He started to get up and sit in an armchair near the window, and from there he could see the Germans in the marketplace; ah, those were the Germans, he said, well, well.

Anna and Cenzo Rena went back to San Costanzo in a cab, which looked rather like the Marchesa's carriage but was bigger, with a canvas awning and fluttering fringed curtains, and Cenzo Rena kept saying all the way how nice it was to ride in a carriage, the Marchesa was not far wrong in having herself driven up and down in a carriage. The motor-bus had been requisitioned by the Germans, and the road was crowded with German and Italian vehicles with the
Wehrmacht
markings going this way and that, with long olive-branches waving on their roofs and, inside, German soldiers in uniforms of dirty yellow.

At San Costanzo, too, the village square was full of German lorries, camouflaged in green and yellow, their big, heavy wheels sunk into the dust. In front of the draper's shop a sentry was walking up and down, and the shop shutter was lowered and Cenzo Rena saw, behind the door, the draper himself, who made him a little sign with his chin and quickly hid himself. Women and children had vanished from the lanes, the village looked like a village of the dead. All of a sudden, however, the
contadino
Giuseppe's wife popped out, saw Cenzo Rena and laughed, opening wide her empty mouth. She waved her hand and went back into the house. Cenzo Rena and Anna went slowly up through the lanes, and Cenzo Rena was hurt and sad, it was all very well the Germans being there but why didn't anyone come and greet him and congratulate him on his return? They were a lot of cowards, he said, the Germans were there and so they wouldn't put their heads out of doors. But there were just a few too many Germans, he said, what were those stupid English waiting for, that they didn't come and take Italy? He climbed slowly up over the rocks, leaning on Anna's arm because he was still very, very feeble. At the house there was La Maschiona sweeping the stairs, and the little girl screaming because she wanted to go back to La Maschiona's grandmother's cottage, she wanted the sheep and the rabbits.

Cenzo Rena threw himself down on the bed with a long sigh. But suddenly the door opened and the
contadino
Giuseppe appeared, in his tattered black jacket and green hat, and Cenzo Rena started embracing and kissing the
contadino
Giuseppe, and he told him at once that he was a fool not to have managed to get himself taken prisoner by the English in Sicily. Giuseppe had run away from Bari after the armistice, he had thrown away his uniform and had been given some clothes, and he had come back home partly on foot and partly on farm carts, and now he was sitting there with his green hat on, and Cenzo Rena slapped him hard on the knees and on the shoulders, a fine fool he had been, at that moment he might have been a prisoner safe in India, instead of where he was. Then the farrier's mother arrived too, and she was weeping, the Germans were going round all the houses stealing the pigs and the hens, and there was no longer even the police-sergeant to speak up for the
contadini.
The police-sergeant had run away at once, as soon as he saw the Germans arriving, and now he was in hiding at Masuri in the house of some
contadini,
and he was no longer wearing the uniform of a police-sergeant but was in civilian clothes, and the children had been sent away to his parents-in-law, and the Germans had gone into the police station and had broken the sergeant's furniture to pieces, they had fired shots at the pier-glass and dismantled the radio, and the beautiful silk quilt that covered the sergeant's bed had departed on a lorry, as also the mattresses and the dinner-service, and the sergeant knew what had happened to his belongings but he could not do anything, he was in hiding over there at Masuri and in fear of death. But the Turk, asked Cenzo Rena, where was the Turk, he was very nearly forgetting the Turk, his memory had grown feeble. And then the farrier's mother and Giuseppe, both at the same time, told him how one day a German lorry had come to fetch the Turk and the three old women, they had looked for Franz too but Franz had jumped out of the window into the vegetable-garden and had been hidden by some
contadini,
the Turk on the other hand had not had time to escape, and he had helped the old women to get up into the lorry and then had put on his hat and got up too. The old women were weeping and screaming amongst all those soldiers with rifles, the Turk however remained perfectly still and composed, and flicked the collar of his coat with a pair of gloves. And the lorry had driven away and nothing further had been heard of them.

Then Cenzo Rena jumped up from his bed and started abusing Giuseppe and the farrier's mother, and La Maschiona who had come in to listen, and the police-sergeant who was in hiding at Masuri, and the priest of San Costanzo and also himself. He said they ought to have thought of concealing the Turk and the old women, they were Jews and everyone knew what the Germans did to Jews, and there must have been someone in that rotten village who had prompted the Germans to come and take away the Turk and the old women, a rotten village it was, full of spies. And he put on his waterproof and said he was going to the other Jews at Scoturno to warn them and to find somewhere to conceal them, if the Germans had not taken them away yet. But Giuseppe said that the Scoturno Jews had already gone off in a farm cart, half buried amongst bags of apples, and had found a hiding-place in a monastery in the town. And Franz, asked Cenzo Rena, where was Franz? They said it was no longer known exactly where he was, for some days he had stayed in bed in the house of some
contadini,
and he lay with his head under the blankets and scarcely breathed for fear of being discovered, the
contadini
wanted to give him something to eat but he wouldn't eat. Then he had heard people talking German at the door, they were Germans asking for eggs, so he had jumped out of the window into the meadows and had run down towards the river, he had spent one night in the station-master's house along with the little old mushroom man, but then he had run away from there too.

Cenzo Rena walked up and down the room crumpling the waterproof he had on in his hands ; they had taken away the Turk, the Turk who was his best friend. The only hope was that the Turk and the old women were already dead by now, that was the only hope, but perhaps they were still alive and were travelling in one of those sealed trains, those trains one couldn't bear even to think of. That swine of a police-sergeant, he said, that swine of a police-sergeant for not having set the internees free after Fascism collapsed, that damned bloody swine of a police-sergeant. To think that nobody had been capable of warning the Turk about the Germans who were coming to take him away, to think that nobody had been capable of helping him to escape. The farrier's mother had already left but Giuseppe did not dare go away, he stood there deeply humiliated and looked out of the window at the darkness falling, at last he said that there was the curfew and he must go. Cenzo Rena told him to go to hell with his curfew, he took him by the shoulders and pushed him out.

Franz arrived that night at Cenzo Rena's house. He was in tennis-shorts and canvas shoes, and his knees were all scratched and one foot swollen because he had sprained it while running, he had been at Masuri the last few days but he did not feel safe because he had discovered that the police-sergeant was there, so as soon as he had heard of Cenzo Rena's return he had come away. He had come through the pine wood and had lost his way, and then he had crouched down in the empty bed of the stream, and had seen night coming on and heard dogs barking, and had thought the Germans were searching for him with dogs, but then he had realized that it was Anna's and Cenzo Rena's dog barking in front of the house. Franz felt feverish and believed he had the typhus, because he had slept a night at the station-master's house with the little old mushroom man, and the little old mushroom man had the dirtiest feet he had ever seen. Cenzo Rena put the thermometer in Franz's mouth and he had no fever, and he told him to stop being frightened now about the typhus, there were the Germans to be frightened of now and you can't be frightened of too many things all at the same time. But he was very kind to Franz and sent him off to bed with a cup of broth, and Franz drank the broth and trembled and wept and said how lonely he was, Amalia and Mammina and Emanuele had deserted him, they had left him without a penny in that village where the Germans had arrived, no one had given a thought to coming and helping him. He went on sobbing gently all night long, and Cenzo Rena had gone to bed but every now and then he got up to see how he was, and to put cold water compresses on his foot which was hurting him. Cenzo Rena was very pleased at again having someone to hide and to rescue.

Next day, Cenzo Rena and the
contadino
Giuseppe put Franz with his bandaged foot on La Maschlona's donkey and took him up to Scoturno di Sopra to La Maschiona's grandmother, because Giuseppe said the Germans would search the houses in the village again for Franz and it was not wise to keep him there. At La Maschiona's grandmother's there was no danger of anyone coming to dig him out, at La Maschiona's grandmother's he could stay calmly and quietly until the Germans went away.