The Golden Hour (10 page)

When I look back on this moment, I am still astounded at my own hubris. There I was, on course for a rendezvous with a Nazi soldier. He was older than I was by ten years, and that’s a lot at that age. Not only that, he was married and a father. Worst of all, he was the
enemy
. But my fears stemmed more from my own inadequacies than from anything related to war. It occurred to me that Klaus might have expectations far beyond my own limited experience with boys.

All sound died away. I sat there as unmoving as a small rodent in the shadow of a hawk. The papers weren’t finished, because I’d been too distracted to work. I folded my hands and froze in place. Minutes went by; then footsteps approached along the wooden loggia. I stared straight ahead.

“Giovanna?” I looked up, and Klaus was leaning in through the open window. He looked young and eager and, well, kind. “Everyone is gone now.”

I nodded slowly. Then he smiled broadly at me, and my fears dried up like beads of water on a hot skillet.

“Are you ready for a picnic?”

I got up, leaving the pile of unfinished papers on the table, and headed for the door. He offered me his arm in an exaggerated gentlemanly fashion and walked me back to the school’s kitchen. The table was spread with an army blanket in lieu of a tablecloth, and two places were set with the school’s cracked, mismatched plates. There were forks and knives by the plates, and two of the children’s milk glasses standing empty. On the table were scattered a loaf of bread, a length of sausage, a hunk of cheese, a small jar of olives, and—placed in the middle of it all—a wicker-basketed bottle of Chianti. He grinned and looked at me like a proud child. “Shall we dine, signorina?” He pulled out one of the chairs and made a sweeping gesture, as if I were a princess.

“You must have just done this—so fast!” I sat down carefully, pulling my chair up to the table.

“I’ve had two days to plan, and it’s been much easier than mining a bridge.” He winked at me. “Now,
buon appetito
.” He poured me a half glass of wine and began to slice the salami and cheese.

It was delicious, and I was suddenly ravenously hungry. No one was about, and being alone with him was so new and so freeing. We both ate greedily, and, lulled by the wine, we let ourselves relax.

I wanted to know more about Mathilde and the baby, but instead I asked him about how he decided to be an engineer. He told me his father had been an engineer, and his grandfather before that. He had a sister, who was also married, and whose three small children were keeping his parents busy in Germany.

“They love to have the grandchildren, so they don’t miss me so much,” he said, and the other grandchild—his own son—dangled there in the air like a ripe peach. But I didn’t pluck it.

I was afraid he might move on to my own siblings, so I quickly said, “Tell me how the work around Lucca is going.” Now, this was odd, even insane, asking the enemy for details of his defense work,
but the intimate setting made it almost feel that we were on the same side.

He told me more about the Todt unit (named for a Nazi soldier) that he and his fellow officers commanded, how they had taken over the railroad, and how important the bridges were to moving about the Serchio River valley. Apparently our whole area was a key part of the line of defense for the retreat of the German troops. Areas of our valley made up part of the Gothic Line of defense that stretched all the way across Italy from Pisa in the west to the eastern Adriatic coast. “So, for us to retreat, it will be important to destroy the bridges behind us as we go, you see?”

We had almost finished the bottle of wine. I was feeling tipsy and quite comfortable now. “You know what I think?”

“What do you think, my beauty?” There was something so attractive about him, so vulnerable and sweet when he was in a mood like this. He leaned toward me over the corner of the table and rested his chin on his fist. “I’m listening.”

“I think…” I started to giggle. “I think if you want to defeat the Italians, you should mine their wine cellars, not their bridges.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” He frowned in a mock serious way. “Mine their wine cellars! That is a brilliant strategy. I will pass it on to my superior officers.” He leaned over and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “And now for dessert.” He carried the dishes to the sink, rinsed them quickly, and cleared the table, putting the scraps into a small canvas army sack. “Bottoms up!” He poured the very last of the wine into my glass and added the bottle to the sack. I was waiting for him to bring out the dessert, but instead he whisked the blanket off the table and took me by the hand. “Come with me.” Where were we going?

He led me into the front part of the kitchen, into a cloakroom, open on one end, where in winter the children’s jackets and coats were hung. A few large duffel bags were scattered there, and he laid the blanket ceremoniously over them. “Now Bacchus will feed you grapes on a silver platter.”

I was light-headed and I could think of only one thing: kissing this man. We were all alone and warmed by the wine, our stomachs full of good food. He pulled me down onto the duffel bags, draping me across his lap. His hands began stroking me from my neck out across my body. Shivers traveled up my spine, and that molten metal began oozing again in my stomach and into my groin. I shut my eyes and felt his lips close over mine.

My head swirled. I had never felt quite like this before: greedy, impatient, like I couldn’t get enough of his mouth, his tongue. There was now a tight knot of tension that burned in my stomach, then between my legs, that made me press my hips up, up, and pull him hard against me. I felt one of his hands reach up and begin to unbutton my blouse. He was actually doing that—unbuttoning my blouse! I drew in my breath and held it, waiting to see what it would feel like to have him touching my bare breast, when I felt the shock of his other hand going up my skirt between my legs.
Both at once.
What was happening? I pulled away a little, pushing him back at the chest. “Klaus, I’m not sure I should be doing this. I—”

He covered my mouth with tiny kisses to silence me. “It feels good, doesn’t it, my beauty?”

“It does; of course it does.” He opened the hand under my skirt and began to stroke the inside of my thigh. It felt soft and warm, and oh…that funny knot was tighter and tighter. I was so torn between the hot waves of desire shooting through me and the uneasiness I felt at the speed of it all. I was just closing my eyes again when he propped himself up on his elbow, drew the hand out from under my skirt, and began to unbuckle his belt. “I will show you now what feels best of all.” What did that mean? Was he planning to take his pants off?

No, no, the thought of that was too much. I pushed my skirt down again and rolled over with my back to him. “Klaus, I’m just not ready for this. I’ve never—”

He stopped me by reaching over me from behind and putting
his hand over my mouth. “Now, now, fraulein, now, now.” He gently rocked against my hips from behind. “I’m not going to hurt you; I promise.”

By now the heat had left me altogether, and I was myself again, thinking of only one thing: leaving. I pulled away—hard—and sat up. Suddenly I was aware of a rustling noise behind us. I got to my hands and knees and looked up. The long black folds of a nun’s habit were blocking the open doorway to the kitchen.

I clutched at my open blouse in horror and stood up. “Sister Graziella!” Without another glance at Klaus, I pushed past her, down the hall, and out the door of the school.

“W
hat’s the matter with you?” With one look, Violetta knew there was trouble. “Is there a plane down near here? Has something happened to Giorgio?” Violetta pulled me quickly into her room.

I sat down on one of her twin beds and leaned forward, arms folded over my stomach. “No, no, nothing like that.” I shook my head. “I just had a picnic with one of the Nazi soldiers at the school, and…and Sister Graziella…” I leaned over my lap and began to cry.

“You what? I thought you were having dinner with your parents.”

“No, my parents think I had dinner here. We wanted to have some time together.”

“We? What do you mean,
we
? Giovanna, what’s going on?”

“It’s been sort of going on for a while. I just haven’t wanted to tell you about it. It’s so crazy. Until now it’s just been a kiss here or there, but tonight…”

“Oh, my God, Giovanna. What have you done?”

“No, no—I ran out when Graziella saw us. Nothing really happened, but I just…Violetta, he could have…” I took her hand and squeezed it tight. “I almost…what if I had let him make love to me? Can you imagine? The first time with a
Nazi soldier
?”

She looked at me with a face that registered not only horror but a kind of awe. “You really might have? Is he married? How did you get this far?”

So I recounted the whole thing from the beginning, how we had met. As I heard myself talking, I realized how crazy it must sound to her, how it made no sense at all. “I’m sorry I haven’t told you until now. But you have to believe me. He can be a thoughtful, kind, attractive man.”

“Listen to yourself! He’s a German occupier. They are the ones who
kill
us, who
wound
us, Giovanna. I see it every day at the clinic.”

“I know. But not Klaus. He’s so gentle, almost gallant.”

“Gallant! Why, because he removed his gun at dinner?”

“No, you should have seen the table he set up for our picnic. It was so sweet! We drank a whole bottle of wine together, and we got so tipsy I told him that the best way to defeat the Italians was to mine our wine cellars. Don’t you love it?” At the memory of my clever remark, I started to giggle.

Violetta did not laugh. “Giovanna, what are you talking about? You are giving them ideas like that? What’s happened to you? Listen to me: He’s a lonely married man. He wants some romance, sure, and then it will lead to
sex,
Giovanna. This is going on all over town, and I can’t bear to see you used like a common serving girl. Just think about yourself, your reputation, your future. And Sister Graziella
saw
you?”

“Oh, that part was horrible; I know. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Later, after we turned out the lights, I went over it all again. The dinner scene was now suffused with a kind of hazy romance: the
table, the wine, the look of longing in Klaus’s blue eyes, the silky feel of his hand stroking the inside of my thigh. But then I remembered my clutch of fear as he unbuckled his belt. And Graziella’s face…

I didn’t get home until midafternoon on Saturday, and the minute I reached the top of the stairs, I could feel tension in the air. Father had been sitting in the parlor reading, because at the sound of my footsteps, he came to the door, holding his place in the book with a finger. “Giovanna? Is that you?” His face was fixed in a deep frown, and he didn’t look me in the eye. “Come in here.”

I set down my bag and lowered myself onto the edge of the small sofa. A sudden wave of heat passed through my body, followed by a clammy dampness that settled on my neck and shoulders. I folded my hands in my lap. “What is it, Father? Is something wrong?”

He took his time, inserting a bookmark between the pages, and then placing the book quietly on the table. He left his hand on its cover for moment or two, not moving. Then he took a seat, leaned forward, and stared at me expressionlessly. “You look the same.”

“What is it, Papa?”

“Sister Graziella left here about half an hour ago.”

I felt a hot stab in my diaphragm. “What did she want?”

He got up and began walking around the tiny room, his eyes darting back and forth, his hands gesturing wildly. “Giovanna, I just can’t believe what I heard. I don’t really know how to say this. I thought you were going to Violetta’s house last night.”

“I did. I just came from there.”

“Well, you didn’t go there directly from school, did you?”

I thought about this a moment. I had, actually, gone directly from the school to Violetta’s. “Yes, I did.”

“But not in time for dinner.”

I stared at him. “Why, what did she say?”

He resumed pacing the floor. “She said, Giovanna, that she returned to the school about six thirty last night in search of some book that she needed. She said that she noticed a light on in the
kitchen. She said that she went in to turn it off, and she heard noises in the coat closet….” He stopped and paused, his back to me. Then he faced me again with a look of utter bewilderment. “Giovanna, I just could not believe my ears.”

I was dumbstruck. The thought that Sister Graziella would come here like that and tell my father. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t move. My face burned, and I felt sick, dizzy. The silence was unbearable.

“Father, it’s not what you think.”

“She says she saw you with her own eyes.”

“I know, I know. But it’s not…I left, Papa. He never…” This was so painful. How could I be talking to my own father about these things? “It was just…kissing.”

I put my head in my hands, hiding my eyes.

“Oh, Giovanna, please! I wasn’t born yesterday. He’s an adult, probably married.”

“No, no! You have to believe me, Papa. I admit I was with him. We had a picnic. But nothing happened, Papa. Nothing bad. You can ask Violetta. I promise. He’s a…a gentleman.”

Father turned toward me, his eyes wild and sarcastic. “Oh, well, he may be a gentleman, but you’re certainly no lady. My own daughter, writhing on the closet floor with a Nazi soldier. Now, there’s a picture worth remembering.”

“We weren’t writhing, Papa. He’s a good man. You said yourself we should be nice—” The hand shot up out of nowhere, and my cheek stung with the heat of a thousand needles.

“Giovanna!” his voice thundered. “You will never—ever—set foot in that school again or speak so much as a word to that Nazi animal. You will go to confession right now, then come home and think about what you have done. Do you hear me?”

I stood there, stroking my cheek, as tears blurred the image of my father’s red, enraged face. I opened my mouth to scream back at him, to defend myself, but he was too mad, too strong.

“Oh, Papa. You just don’t understand. It’s not what you think; I swear!” I turned away, broke into loud sobs, and clattered down the stairs and out the door. I wanted Father to hear the loud sobs, but once I was outside in the garden, I held them back, my eyes and nose erupting like bubbling springs. Tight pain knotted in my chest so that I could hardly breathe. I found a bench and sat down, leaning over my knees, hands over my eyes, letting the tears spill into my fingers and soak the front of my skirt. Waves of self-pity followed one upon another: first righteous outrage that my father had misunderstood me, that he didn’t trust me, didn’t believe I had refused Klaus’s advances and preserved my innocence; then humiliation,
agony
at the thought of Sister Graziella watching us; and finally, there was Klaus and my confusion about him. I was indignant and determined to keep seeing him despite everything stacked against us. I was so attracted to him, and I really did respect his gentleness and restraint. Why should he—
Nazi animal—
be punished for something he didn’t do? But then—and here I cried the hardest, because the truth was so obvious—my father and Sister Graziella were right. Klaus was both an enemy soldier and a married man. Treachery had infused every aspect of this affair, and I needed to clear away the bilious green fog that had settled over me and clung like volcanic ash.

I picked up the front of my skirt and wiped my hands and face on the inside of it, then smoothed my hair as best I could. With one last swipe of my hands on my clothes, I got up and set off in the direction of the church and Don Federico.

Thinking about it as I walked, I looked forward this time to making a full confession. The reality of what I had done, after all, was so much more innocent than all the villainous accusations. In fact, I planned to weigh in heavily in telling of my own rebuff of Klaus’s advances and cast both my father and Sister Graziella as unjust in their leaps to a conclusion and their condemnation of me. Did I even hope that Don Federico would prove to be less than discreet? Maybe he could help dig me out of this hole.

But Don Federico, a hazy, stooped figure on the other side of the grate, did not quite see it my way. “Your first sin, Giovanna, which you neglected to mention, was lying to your parents and to your friend Violetta.”

“Oh, right, Father. That slipped my mind.”

“And then your intentions were clearly to meet this man, this enemy soldier, in private, alone?”

“Yes.”

“So you deliberately led him into temptation, inviting him to stray from his marriage vows?”

“No, Father.
He
is the one who invited
me
.”

“We are talking about you today, Giovanna. You engaged with him in sinful behavior, leading you both dangerously close to disaster. It is you, my child, who are responsible for your own acts in the eyes of God.”

“Well, but I was only—”

He interrupted me, droning on with no interest in hearing my defense. “The good Lord chose to intervene and save you from even greater sin. For this you must be eternally grateful to Him. But you are gravely at fault and must do major penance nonetheless.”

I was a bubbling well of spiritual zeal in those days—open, starry-eyed, and eager to receive its wisdom. But confession always seemed to end the same way: I wanted to come out sparkling like clear glass, ready for a new start, and instead I emerged feeling guilty, duplicitous, and fundamentally unclean. Why, in Don Federico’s version, was I—not Klaus—responsible for getting into this situation in the first place? Then, when it came to pulling back and drawing the boundaries, which I clearly did,
God
got all the credit?

I stayed in the sanctuary for a long time and dutifully prayed all the Hail Marys and rosaries I had been assigned. But on the way home, I felt no closer to God or to my father. I knew reconciliation would be difficult and was entirely up to me. It would happen on my own timetable, not my father’s. I found Mother in the garden,
taking notes on a pad of paper. Working on the landscape was her form of denial in this war. If she could focus on beauty, on somehow maintaining an illusion of peace and prosperity, maybe it would all simply disappear. The proper care and feeding of roses, the need for pruning rosemary bushes and lavender…if she could lose herself utterly in it all, she could momentarily forget her worries about Tuscany’s future, about Giorgio, and now, I presumed, about me. Did she know? Had Father talked with her? I wasn’t at all sure. In spite of living crammed together in such small spaces, they seemed to move as two separate spheres these days, barely touching, repelled from each other gently, not coming together even if they had wanted to—as two like ends of magnets.

I knew, however, the minute I saw her face that, in this case, an exception had been made. Mother heard my approach and straightened her back and shoulders, sliding the pad and pencil into the pocket of her loose, shirt-style jacket. Her hair, as always, was perfectly coiffed, her blouse pressed, her slim figure neatly attired in creased trousers—the most casual thing she ever allowed herself to wear. She looked me up and down like a schoolteacher.

“Mother, I really need to talk with you. I need to explain what happened. Can we go somewhere where we can be alone?” I felt a fluttering under my rib cage, like a trapped bird. Why was this so hard? She was my own mother, after all.

There was a formal section of the gardens at the front and to the west side of the villa: a series of enclosures lined with low, clipped hedges separated by gravel paths. We set off in that direction and began walking slowly down the central path until we came to a tall urn at the far end planted with bright coral-colored geraniums. There we turned and headed for a small grouping of wrought-iron chairs that looked over a low balustrade out to the valley below.