The Golden Hour (12 page)

Serafo reached down and offered me his bony hand. What choice did I have?

“Easy does it, now. Up with you, young lady.” He moved all the way to the end of the bench, and I wedged myself in between the two of them, my stomach clenched like a tight fist. I was already so late to meet Giorgio, and now surely I was going to miss him altogether. Worse, going to the convent was no longer a choice I had to make.

The cart bumped and rattled along the dirt road. I inhaled dust and the acrid smell of Esta’s underarms while she fired questions at me: How was Catarina; what was it like living with Germans in the house; hadn’t she heard I was working at the school; had we any word from Giorgio? I answered her inquiries as vaguely and casually as I could until at last we reached the long driveway lined with arborvitae that curved up to the convent of Saint Agnes.

I tried to look relaxed as I waved good-bye, but I was dizzy with fear. I hadn’t had time to plan this moment, and now the reality of what I was about to do was all too present. I knocked timidly on the huge carved wooden door and stood shifting from one foot to the other, hoping no one would hear. After three or four minutes, the latch clicked and the door swung slowly open. A nun I had never seen before stood before me. Like Sister Graziella, she had an open, kind face, but she was thin and even shorter than I was. “Yes? May I help you?”

“Good day, Sister. I’m…I’m here to see Sister Graziella.”

“Is she expecting you?”

“No, but…” I hesitated. “I have been working with her at the School of Santa Maria.”

“You must be Giovanna then!” Her smile brightened. “Graziella speaks of you so often. Come in, dear, won’t you?”

She took my arm and led me to a small group of stiff-backed chairs in the corner of the entry hall. I watched her face to see just how recently she might have heard anything about me, but her
welcoming posture didn’t waver. “I’ll just go and tell Graziella you’re here.”

I sat there for five minutes, then ten. It was eerily quiet. With the large front door closed again, there was no open access to the outdoors, so even the birdsong was silenced. Occasionally quick steps echoed down a corridor off to the left that was barricaded by an iron gate, but no one appeared. At last, I heard the measured, intentional gait I knew so well. Sister Graziella quietly opened the iron barrier, closing it as softly as she could behind her. I stood up and instinctively bowed my head, staring at the floor. My scalp tingled at the top where I felt she must be looking at me.

“I am so glad you came,” she said carefully. “Let’s find a place where we can have a private talk, shall we?” I followed her down the hall to a small parlor. She invited me in, shutting the door to ensure our privacy. We sat knee to knee in two comfortable stuffed armchairs in a corner of the room. A window was open, letting a breeze gently ripple the filmy white curtain that let in the light. Unexpectedly, tears welled up and began spilling down my cheeks. I sobbed out loud and leaned over, not wanting to look at her.

“Sister Graziella, I don’t know what to say.” I hiccupped. “I’m just so sorry that you had to…to see me like that.”

“The problem is not my having had to see,” she said. “The problem is what you did.”

“Oh, I know, I know. It was so wrong—wrong in every way. But I want you to know that I…I…Nothing really happened, Sister. I would have ended it even if you had not been there.”

She looked at me long and hard. “Lieutenant Eisenmann is really a very kind and sensitive human being, isn’t he?” she said. “Do you love him, dear?”

“No,” I answered quickly, and looked away. “I am so attracted to him, and I really care for him, but, Sister Graziella, I don’t know if you can…”

“Take your time, dear. Trust me. I’m not as ethereal as you
think I might be. I spent a few years living before I made my commitment here.” She waited patiently while I took that in.

“No. I’ve been a little bit in love with Klaus, and it’s become something I think about all the time. But I don’t really
know
him. I can’t say that I care deeply about him—not in any life-changing way.”

“He is married, isn’t he?” she said. I nodded, and tears welled up again. “And, I would imagine, he is lonely too.”

I nodded again and added, “He even has a baby son.” My face contorted, and I leaned over and put my head in my hands. “I had no right to stay that night, to be alone with him, but I…”

“You’re young, dear, and so naturally ready for this kind of thing.” She looked dreamily out the window. “There is nothing wrong with physical intimacy and the expression of love. God has surely designed us to communicate in this profound way, but it must be accompanied by deep commitment and in the context of marriage.”

“I knew it was too much too soon. I think that’s why I stopped him.” I looked at her, wondering whether I could truly trust her as much as I was feeling I could. “And the war, that makes everything more complicated.”

“Yes, the war. The war indeed.” She smiled. “Giovanna, I want to say something, to be clear about something.”

“What is that?”

“I admire your openness, your guilelessness. I find it a valuable asset to be able to look beyond obvious categories and barriers and extend your feelings. You sought out the individual soul in Klaus and tried to relate to that, not to his persona as a German soldier.”

“Yes, yes—exactly!”

“But sometimes,” she went on, shaking her head, “sometimes we must balance one value against the other and weigh them carefully. I am sure there are many, many nice people who are members of Hitler’s army. But in time of war, we must—we
must
—commit
ourselves to overcoming a greater collective evil. Sometimes I wish the Church were clearer on that score.” She looked away.

“So the fact that he is a German soldier should take precedence over the goodness of his soul?”

“I think you should think twice about entrusting any German soldier with your very innocence, your precious innermost self—even if he is as fair and thoughtful a person as the lieutenant clearly is.”

I was so relieved and so grateful, I came closer and hugged her tightly, resting my head on her shoulder.

“I want to emphasize, Giovanna, that although I understand, I am truly disappointed in you, and I will expect you to make amends for this incident in some way. I want to think about what that will be, and I think you should too. You have been to confession?”

“Yes, Papa made me go right away to Don Federico.”

“And you did what was required?”

“Yes, Sister, I did.”

“I wonder if it wouldn’t be best for you to look for another way to spend your days, to leave the school.”

“I have been thinking about that.”

“I’m not sure that’s a punishment at all, is it?” There was a twinkle in her eye.

I nodded, and the sudden thought of Sister Elena made me flush hotly. “Does Sister Elena”—I looked at the floor—“hate me even more?”

“I haven’t told Elena a thing. Let’s just say that what happened will remain a little secret between you and me.”

I threw my arms around her. “How can I thank you?”

“What you learn from this will be my reward. And don’t forget—I will still expect some sort of compensation. Now, is there anything you would like me to tell Lieutenant Eisenmann?”

I had been planning to go back to the school, to talk with Klaus
myself. But now it seemed clear that I wasn’t welcome there. My never showing up again would surely cause him to worry and to blame himself for my having left.

“Maybe I could write him a letter and you could deliver it tomorrow.”

She nodded and led me to a small desk in the parlor, where there was a stack of stationery engraved with,
Convent of Saint Agnes,
and an etching of the old stone building perched on top of a hill. Sister Graziella excused herself. “You may seal the envelope, dear, and leave it with the doorkeeper. I’ll take it to him tomorrow.” She crossed herself and left the room.

It took me quite a while to compose the note, and I made so many false starts that I ruined five sheets of the stationery before I finally wrote:

I gathered up all the scraps of the earlier notes and folded them into my pocket. I stood up and turned to leave with the final note in my hand. To this day I am stunned at what I did next. Perhaps it was the schoolgirl rebellion that seemed to ignite in me in this sanctified place. Perhaps it was the rush of youthful hormones that pulled me back to the possibilities on that closet floor. Certainly it was an irrational and impetuous act. I rushed back to the small desk, took another piece of paper and an envelope out of the drawer. Before I could waver, I scrawled:

I sealed that note as well, stuffed the other one in my pocket, and handed the new one to the trim little sister at the door, saying, “Please give this to Sister Graziella.” Then I ran like the wind down the convent’s long drive and headed toward home.

V
ioletta’s clinic was hidden away on the grounds of a vast estate owned by Marchese and Marchesa Falconieri. Like our own, only much larger, this complex was a collection of twenty or so small working farms scattered over three thousand acres. The features of the
fattoria
, or central farm, were clustered around the main sixteenth-century villa and included formal gardens, the granary, the cellars, the oil presses, and the dairy.

The marchesa herself was a bundle of energy—of English and American origin—who had moved to Italy at eight years old with her mother after her father died. She grew up surrounded by the best families of Florence with names like Rucelli, Strozzi, Frescobaldi, and Niccolini, living in a community of British émigrés, but she went to Italian schools, spoke Italian like a native, and was at home with Italian history and literature. Eventually she married the wealthy Italian marchese Leonardo Falconieri, and was a popular, trusted member of the extended Lucca community. I knew her only slightly, my parents having introduced her to me on
several occasions, but she was reputed to be not only generous and intelligent, but a woman of considerable courage.

Since their purchase of the property (now renamed Villa Falconieri) in the mid-twenties, and thanks to financial help from Mussolini and the Fascist party, they had significantly expanded the business and improved the lives of their peasant farmers.

So far Villa Falconieri had been spared occupation by German soldiers, but like so many of us in German-controlled northern Italy, the family walked a thin line between doing whatever it could to aid those fighting Hitler and avoiding detection, which would mean certain punishment or even death.

The word among her friends—and my mother was one—was that the marchesa had begun by offering food, shelter, and often first aid to a succession of escaped prisoners of war. Her English was a natural magnet for those lost souls, and her reputation as a warm, understanding, exceedingly generous provider became known in close circles. She used her own network of farmhouses to keep these fugitives hidden for a brief time, then sent them on their way. Soon, however, as word spread throughout the Serchio River valley, demand forced her to create a fully operating secret clinic, undiscovered by the Germans.

There was an ancient stone structure on the property that had originally been built as a chapel. Mass was still celebrated there on feast days for the farmers and their families who lived on the estate, the ancient bell in its tower tolling slowly to draw the residents throughout the vineyards and fields to gather on those now increasingly rare occasions. Connected to the sanctuary at the rear was a two-story stone annex that, over the decades, had variously served as a kindergarten, a rest house for pilgrims to Rome, a schoolhouse for local children, and now as a makeshift hospital for victims of war.

At first, the marchesa had made do with help from the farmers’ wives who lived about her own estate, but the demand and the
pressure on them had become too great. She found a couple of trained nurses, whom she paid, and then recruited young women from the village like Violetta to work regular shifts once the nurses had trained them.

I arrived at the clinic on Monday morning and, as instructed, I camouflaged my bicycle in the thick underbrush before entering the building. Coming in from the bright summer day and climbing the dark, rough staircase, dank with mildew and hemmed in by moss-covered stone walls, to the second floor, I found it hard to see. But as my eyes adjusted, I could make out two rows of cots, one along each wall of the large open space. A central aisle divided the room in two halves. I nearly gagged from the smell—a powerful mixture of disinfectant layered over the stench of burned or rotting flesh, unwashed bodies, and full bedpans. Ammonia fumes assaulted the back of my throat, and my eyes began to water.

I could see the outlines of bodies on half the cots, and four or five women were busily moving throughout the space. On my immediate left, a curtain of army blankets had been strung from a frame of pipes, and a deep moan rose from behind the folds of rough gray fabric. On my right, a rope hung from the ceiling, cradling a man’s ankle and holding up his leg encased in a plaster cast. All I could see was a tangle of greasy black hair on the pillow, his face turned away. The rest of his body lay covered by a rumpled, stained cotton sheet.

Two other men, propped up against their pillows, chattered amiably from adjoining cots, the smoke from their cigarettes curling lazily above them and merging into a single cloud.

As I stood there, taking all of this in, a slim, erect figure walked briskly in my direction. She was casually dressed, a loose kimono-style smock over her tailored shirt and slacks, her light brown curly hair tousled in an attractive bob.

“Giovanna! You’re here! I was delighted when Violetta said we might expect you this morning.” The marchesa flashed me a warm smile and took hold of both my upper arms in a gentle squeeze. “How is your mother, dear? It’s been so long since I’ve seen her.”

“Oh, she’s fine, thank you.” I tried to focus on her face, but my gaze kept wandering off to take in all that was happening around me. “She asked me to give you her best.”

“Oh, thank you. You are more than welcome here.” Up close, I could see her pale eyes were blue, tending to lavender, like flax blossoms. Her skin was pinkish in tone, almost translucent, and she had a sprinkling of freckles over her nose. “I believe you’ll find Violetta at the last bed on this end. She can show you around and give you a sense of what we’re about.”

I walked slowly in the direction where she had pointed. I passed one of the nurses, holding a man’s head as he vomited into a pail beside his bed. On another cot, the sheet was pulled all the way up and over the head of the body lying there. Could he be dead?

Violetta saw me and gave an excited wave. “Giovanna! You made it. Come here—I want you to meet Frederick.” She grabbed me and whispered in my ear, “He’s my favorite at the moment.”

A blond, strikingly handsome man lay there under a sheet, his curly hair resting on a rolled army blanket. He looked up at me and smiled. “
Buon giorno.
” He pronounced it
bahn jornow,
with an English lilt. “We’ve been having some Italian lessons,” she said, “and Frederick is doing really well. This is my friend Giovanna.” And she placed me to his left side, moving back with practiced confidence to his right. As I watched, she drew the sheet down, revealing a leg wrapped with strips of linen cloth that were soaked through with blood, much of it still brilliant red. Violetta kept up a steady, cheerful banter with Frederick, who winced with pain while she began slowly unwinding the bandages. With each turn, I could see more and more of the mangled flesh that hung in strips around an exposed bone gleaming white in the dim light. Suddenly
the back of my neck felt as if it were floating. I swallowed rapidly over and over as an irresistible pressure pushed up in my throat. I retched and doubled over as the floor came up to meet me.

When I opened my eyes again, Violetta was leaning over me, fanning my face with her handkerchief. “Giovanna—Giovanna—are you all right?” My field of vision came slowly back into focus; then the utter humiliation of my position descended on me. How could I—healthy, robust, and young—have fainted in the midst of all these soldiers suffering from horrific diseases and injuries? I sat up, my head throbbing where it had hit the stone floor, and looked around. A couple of women were looking at me curiously, but for the most part, they had stuck to their duties and ignored me. Now I had let Violetta down as well. Her friend had turned out to be a weak sissy who couldn’t even look at an injured leg without keeling over. I was furious at myself. I brushed my skirt off with both hands, smoothed my hair, and sought to convey a sense of both seriousness and commitment.

“I can’t imagine how that happened. Silly me, I skipped breakfast this morning,” I lied, “and the hunger must have overtaken me….” I noticed, to my relief, that the marchesa was nowhere in sight.

“It’s all right, Giovanna. It happens. Don’t give it a second thought,” said Violetta, thrusting a pan of warm water into my hands. “Now, hold this while I rinse out these bandages.” The red blood swirled into the basin as she squeezed the strips of linen.
No worse than my own menstrual blood when I wash out my underwear,
I thought determinedly.
This is only blood, just natural.
These people are healing, getting better, and it is part of the process.
I managed a weak smile at Frederick there on the pillow.

“Where are you from in England?” I asked, and had to repeat it slowly, wondering if I could manage to put together a few sentences in my schoolroom English.

The morning dragged on endlessly. I shadowed Violetta,
fetching instruments or water or new bandages as she went from bed to bed, constantly cheerful, warm, and caring. I admired her with every inch of my being. I didn’t faint again, but several times I had to look away as she emptied a bedpan or wiped up vomit from a freshly made bed. Try as I might, I just couldn’t
feel
the kind of desire to heal and help these people that Violetta clearly had. I was shy around them, impatient with their pain and complaints, and disgusted with their bodily fluids and open wounds.

At last it was time for us to take a break. We sat outside in the warm sunlight, eating our lunch together, sprawled on the long grass. “I just don’t know if I can do this,” I said. “I’m just not you—not anything like you. I’m not sure I’m cut out for this kind of work. But—” I stopped. “Violetta, can I trust you? Really trust you?”

“Of course. What are you talking about? Of course you can.”

I knew that widening the circle of confidantes was dangerous, but there was no way I could do this job right and keep my pledge of support to Giorgio. “I’m not really here because I want to work in the clinic,” I said. “In fact, when I think about you spending day after day with these sick and dying soldiers, I just don’t know how you do it.”

“I really do love it,” she said, looking me straight in the eyes. “I just know this is my calling.”

“And it clearly is,” I answered quickly. “But I don’t think it’s mine.”

“So find something else.” She was getting irritated now, as if I had somehow belittled the clinic and her role in it. “I won’t be hurt if you don’t come.”

“Here’s the problem, Violetta. I need the job as a cover.”

“A cover?”

I bent over and worked a patch of long grass, stroking it, braiding it, trying to decide whether I should tell her anything at all. Then the story began spilling out: the note from Giorgio, the meetings at the gazebo, the Fox, the supplies I had taken to the
Santinis’ cellar. “I just feel that right now the war effort itself—stopping the Germans and driving them out of here—is the most important thing. And, of course, my brother. I want to stay in touch with him however that’s possible, and make sure he’s safe.” My shoulders ached from the tension of it all. I worried that the very telling of it was some sort of a betrayal of Giorgio. But what choice did I have?

Violetta looked away and sat thoughtfully for a long time. “You know, it’s odd,” she said. “When I think about traveling around the countryside, searching for supplies right under the nose of the Germans, having meetings with partisan soldiers—that takes a kind of courage that I’m sure I don’t have. I feel secure here, hidden away inside the clinic, where I don’t think we’re so likely to be attacked. I guess we’re all made differently. I think what you’re doing is brave and loving and really important. So let’s figure out how we can arrange a cover for you. You go now, and I’ll ask around, see what we can do.”