All Our Yesterdays (33 page)

When the waiter had gone away, Cenzo Rena started looking for Giuseppe and Franz in the cellar and all over the house, but not a trace was to be found of Giuseppe or Franz. Cenzo Rena went out into the pine wood to look for them, he had spent such a long time that day looking for the dog and now he had to look for those two idiots Giuseppe and Franz. He found them in the depths of the pine wood, Franz was still grasping the little bottle of antiseptic. They had heard the sound of shooting and they thought the German had killed Anna and Cenzo Rena and the child. Cenzo Rena brought them back to the house, he said the dog was the only one who was dead. And he said the German was just an unfortunate waiter from Freiburg and had told them a dreary story about a soup-tureen. From Freiburg, said Franz. He himself had been to school at Freiburg and the waiter might have met him goodness knows how many times in the street, perhaps by now he had already reported him and in a short time they would come and seize him and carry him off. It was all the fault of that cursed dog. Cenzo Rena told him that if he said ‘cursèd dog' again he would hit him, the dog was dead, it was cowardly to curse the dead.

That evening Franz did not eat the potatoes he had peeled, he sat with his head in his hands and from time to time gave a start and jumped up from his chair as though he had caught fire, it was from Freiburg that the waiter came, from Freiburg where he himself had sold waterproofs for so many years. Cenzo Rena tried to explain to him that the waiter was quite young, probably he was still a baby in arms when Franz was selling waterproofs. Babies in arms didn't wear waterproofs. But Franz said would he please be quiet, didn't he understand how frightened he was, didn't he understand what it was to be a Jew in a village full of Germans, and how the earth seemed to be burning under one's feet ? Cenzo Rena replied that he understood only too well, never for a single minute did he forget the three old women and the Turk on the lorry as the Germans were taking them away. He hadn't seen but it was as though he had seen, always before his eyes he had the sight of the three old women amongst the Germans and the guns, and the Turk flicking his coat with his gloves. In any case, why hadn't Franz stayed up at Scoturno di Sopra with La Maschiona's grandmother, it was impossible for him now to go back to La Maschiona's grandmother, there were German sentries on the road to Scoturno di Sopra, and besides, La Maschiona's grandmother had made it clear that she did not want that difficult little gentleman in her house any more, he was never content either with where he had to sleep or with what he had to eat.

Next day Cenzo Rena hired the famous cab that had brought him home from the hospital after he had recovered from the typhus, and into it he put Franz all wrapped up in blankets and shawls as if he were very ill, and he took him down to the monastery in the town where other Jews were hidden. On the way Cenzo Rena was in a good humour and sang “How nice to ride in a carriage” and Franz was in a good humour too because it seemed to him that there was a great deal of car and lorry traffic, and he thought that perhaps the Germans were at last going away. A little before they reached the town an aeroplane came gliding down almost on to the road, Cenzo Rena and Franz and the driver threw themselves out of the cab and lay down in a ditch. They heard in the distance a sound like the tic-tac of a typewriter but brief and loud, and saw a little plume of smoke rise up behind them on the road. They got into the cab again and the driver said that they must give him a little more money, considering the risk he had run, from time to time he ran these risks with his cab because food was expensive and he had a quantity of children. Franz groaned at the thought of how close to them those Englishmen had been for a minute, so close that they could have picked him up and carried him away to safety, and now there they were again so high up and so far away in the sky.

14

Franz stayed about a month in the monastery, and then he came back. The Germans had come into the monastery at night and had started a careful search of every room, Franz, dressed up as a monk, was shut up in a kind of cupboard, and as it chanced the Germans had not looked inside it. They had seized two Jews as they were running up into the granary, two others had escaped by jumping down from the garden wall. Franz had spent the night in his cupboard, with a big plaster Madonna looking at him. All at once he had started praying to the Madonna, he was a Jew but he had prayed to the Madonna, he asked her to make it happen that the Germans did not search there. Then all at once he had wanted to laugh at the thought that he, Franz, was all dressed up as a monk and was praying to the Madonna. He had wanted so much to laugh that he had had to cover his mouth with both hands in order not to be heard. And then, little by little, his fear had almost left him. And little by little he had started thinking that after all he didn't really mind so very much about going on living ; if he went on living, well and good, but if not, never mind. If not, never mind, he had thought, he had thought this very strongly and had felt very strong and calm, and had remembered the Turk amongst the guns on the lorry. Only a great desire had come upon him to see Cenzo Rena once more, if he had to die. Cenzo Rena had never taken him seriously and had always treated him rather badly. Nevertheless Franz thought that Cenzo Rena was the best person he had ever met. In the morning the monks had come to open the door, he had taken off his monk's habit and had put on his own clothes again, and meanwhile the monks had explained to him that it had been this Madonna in the cupboard that had protected him from the Germans. Why did they keep her in the cupboard, asked Franz? The monks showed him that she had both feet broken and that was why they kept her there.

Franz had come away from the monastery and had started walking towards San Costanzo. And the town was full of Germans but he had hardly any fear. He had walked for a long way along the frost-hardened road, no snow at all had fallen that winter so far and the morning was cold and clear, with a wind that bit your face. After walking for an hour he had come across the man with the corkscrew leg pushing his little cart full of pots and pans and brooms. The man with the corkscrew leg had stopped his cart and helped him to get into it, and Franz all at once had been seized with fear again and had started begging the man with the corkscrew leg not to report him to the Germans, he had taken the diamond ring off his finger and given it to him. And then he had jumped out of the cart and run to Cenzo Rena's house across the fields.

Cenzo Rena sat listening to this whole story and very slowly shook his head, and finally he asked Franz whether he had not gone a little mad, because he had started doing some very strange things. And he said that Franz was like Pierino's puppet, the puppet which it was no use throwing over precipices or out of trains or into the sea because it always reappeared. Franz told him that he had come back not in order to be safe but to stay with him and the little girl and Anna, in their house. Because they were the dearest friends he had ever had, and only with them was he happy. Cenzo Rena told him to stay as long as he liked, once upon a time he used to have silly ideas about people living in the house with him, but no one thought about such silly ideas now. The police-sergeant was now living in the house too, he had dropped down upon them from Masuri one day when he had taken fright. And the waiter from Freiburg came in every day. But Franz said he was no longer afraid either of the waiter from Freiburg or of the police-sergeant. Then Cenzo Rena called to La Maschiona to bring the tub for Franz to wash in. And La Maschiona brought the tub and looked very sulky indeed because she would now have to make Franz's bed again as well as the others.

The man with the corkscrew leg came next day, hobbling quickly up over the rocks, he asked to speak to Cenzo Rena alone and showed him a kind of little white bag which he had sewed into the inside of his shirt, in it was the diamond ring that Franz had given him. He asked whether he could really keep the ring for himself, whether this man Franz had really made him a present of it, this man Franz had seemed to him a bit funny in the head. Certainly his great fear of the Germans had made him a bit funny in the head. He had never dreamed of reporting him to the Germans, he also was frightened to death of the Germans and kept well away from them, and besides, why should he have reported him, a poor chap who did no one any harm ? And in any case who in the village did dream of reporting him, they all knew that he was at Cenzo Rena's together with the police-sergeant and Giuseppe but they kept quiet, possibly there had been someone who had reported the Turk and the old women, possibly it had been that good-for-nothing son of the chemist's, but now the chemist's son was away in the North. He touched the little bag under his shirt and asked if it was a ring of much value, after the war he would like to sell it to the jeweller in the town and use the money to have weights put on his bad leg, he had been told that perhaps with weights it might become straighten The only thing he was afraid of was that these weights might hurt him. He asked Cenzo Rena whether he would do him the kindness of going with him to the jeweller after the war, if he went by himself the jeweller might think he had stolen the ring. Cenzo Rena promised to go with him to the jeweller after the war. The man with the corkscrew leg went away happy, and he went jumping down over the rocks bending right down to the ground on one side, with his trousers rumpling up at every step over his twisted leg.

When the waiter from Freiburg came, the police-sergeant and Franz and Giuseppe ran down the little staircase and hid in the cellar, and Cenzo Rena heaved a long sigh and went to entertain the waiter. In the cellar the police-sergeant and Franz and Giuseppe played cards on the sacks of potatoes, the police-sergeant did not know that Giuseppe's tommy-gun was hidden under the sacks. Franz ate apples, rubbing them hard on his coat to polish them, La Maschiona was very mean over these apples and it was only when he was hiding in the cellar that he was able to eat any. There was nothing much to eat now, it was only of potatoes that you could eat your fill, and Franz was always a little hungry, because potatoes fill you up but do not give enough nourishment. Franz was very fond of the little red apples that La Maschiona kept in the cellar, and ate them hurriedly while La Maschiona was not there to see. They would hear the footsteps of the waiter going away, and Cenzo Rena would open the cellar door and stand for a moment at the top of the little staircase with a lighted lamp. He would be fuming with rage because he did not enjoy talking to the waiter, it was always the same waiters' stories. The
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Giuseppe asked him when he was going to send him packing, this dirty blackguard of a German, Cenzo Rena asked how he could possibly send him packing, he was a German and for the moment he was the master and not a waiter. Giuseppe said that some day he would like to do a German in, any dirty blackguard of a German, yes, even this waiter here. He had heard that in the North people were fighting against the Germans, people were going up into the mountains and shooting, It was only in their own dismal country, where people had no spirit, that nobody had gone up into the mountains. His own tommy-gun was rusting under the potatoes. All day long Giuseppe was thinking of what he could do against the Germans, he wondered whether he could not go out at night and scatter nails on the road to puncture the tyres of their vehicles, or hide in a hedge and shoot with his tommy-gun at every car that passed. Every night he thought of going out but in the end he always stayed in the house, playing cards with the police-sergeant and Franz. He had misgivings at the idea of doing something all on his own like that, in the North there were so many of them, properly organized like an army, so that then you might not even be frightened. He had lost some of his esteem for Cenzo Rena, because Cenzo Rena did not think about organizing anything, but sat in the kitchen and received the waiter, and talked German and sometimes smoked the waiter's cigarettes. Sometimes Giuseppe smoked the waiter's cigarettes too, when the waiter had gone away and there was an almost complete packet left on the table. But he had such a longing to smoke and it did not seem to him that there was any harm in it, because the German was not there to see him smoking, whereas Cenzo Rena accepted cigarettes from the waiter's own hand.

And one day Giuseppe asked Cenzo Rena why they too shouldn't start resistance against the Germans, like the people in the North. He asked why Cenzo Rena did not call together the farrier and the draper and all the
contadini,
and they would arrange, all of them together, to hide behind hedges and shoot at the Germans at night, or at least to scatter nails along the road. And Cenzo Rena said that indeed it would be quite right to do that. But he himself did not feel any inclination either to shoot or to scatter nails, he had thought about it sometimes but had realized that he would be very much afraid, afraid throughout the whole of his body, and he felt his hands all limp and unwilling to scatter nails or shoot. He asked Giuseppe's pardon, perhaps he had disappointed him, perhaps now Giuseppe would no longer have any esteem for him. At present, when he happened to hear cries and lamentations from the
contadini
in the lanes, Cenzo Rena would go out and look, and it would be Germans searching the houses for young men to put on lorries and send off to work in Germany, and Cenzo Rena would start talking German and sometimes he had succeeded in getting the Germans away from the houses and telling them some kind of tall story to get them to leave people alone. It wasn't much, Cenzo Rena said to Giuseppe, it wasn't much but it was all he was able to do. If he had been given a pistol or a tommy-gun to fire he would not have shot straight, he would have shot all crooked into a tree, and in the meantime he would have started thinking things which it was not right to think. Giuseppe asked him what he would have started thinking. And Cenzo Rena said he would have started thinking that the Germans were all waiters, poor unfortunates with some sort of a job at the back of them, poor unfortunates whom it was not really worth while killing. And this was a thought that in war-time had no sense, it was an idiotic thought but he himself might happen to have an idiotic thought of that kind. Perhaps the
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Giuseppe was a man of war; if so, let the
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Giuseppe go with his tommy-gun into the hills. The
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Giuseppe bit his nails and looked at Cenzo Rena discontentedly, how could he go with his tommy-gun all by himself into the hills ? But at least scatter some nails, he said, at least scatter lots of nails along the road, so that a few tyres might burst from time to time. Yes, perhaps scatter nails, said Cenzo Rena, why not ? But where were all the nails to scatter, he asked, he himself had only one nail in his pocket and he pulled it out, it was a nail that was all rusty and crooked and he kept it in his pocket to bring him luck.