The Golden Hour (19 page)

On the way to the gazebo late Sunday morning, it suddenly occurred to me that with everything going on—the evacuation, Friday’s visit to the convent, and the beginning of my restitution program—I hadn’t left a single thing in the supply drop since I had handed them the supplies a few days ago. Was my food the only food they were getting? It
couldn’t
be, could it?

Before I started helping Giorgio and the partisans, they were scrounging supplies somehow and just barely managing to survive. I felt a nagging irritation with Giorgio, as if he and his needs were beginning to interfere with my
real
work in the war, the work that had to do with the Jews, not the partisan efforts.
But that’s ridiculous,
I told myself.
He’s my brother, and that’s where my loyalties lie.

It was already noon when I arrived at the usual spot. Cecilio and Mario were there, and so were Giorgio and the Fox.

“So, what have you brought us?” Giorgio could barely contain his annoyance. “I’m assuming you saved the rest of this week’s supplies to deliver personally.” He stood there, his hands on his hips. “Come on, hand it over.”

I was empty-handed. “Giorgio, I…I just didn’t have time in the last few days. I’m sorry—I’ve been busy.”

“Busy!” He looked over at the Fox with a sarcastic sneer. “Did you hear that? She’s been too
busy
.” He stood over me, close, so I could smell his breath. “Well, little sister, I don’t really think you know what busy is. We are
hungry,
God damn it, while you are back there living in your cozy villa in the lap of luxury. I’ll bet Rosa’s still waiting on you hand and foot, isn’t she?”

I wanted to tell him what it was like at home, eating in that cramped cage of a tiny room, the three of us, but I held my tongue. “Come over here a minute. I need to talk with you alone.” He followed me to the other side of the clearing.

“I came to take Mario and Cecilio to a safer place.”

He sobered. “Did you really find one?”

“I did. I can’t tell you where right now, but I just didn’t think that with Mario’s arm and all, you needed to have to worry about them. It’ll be safer for all of you this way.”

He nodded. A boom echoed overhead, and we stopped talking. “They’re close, Columba. They’re penetrating the river valley right now, settling in, preparing to make a stand there. We’ve got plans for them, though. You can count on that.” He turned and led me back to the group.

“Okay, Patch and Moses, stay here. You’re going with Columba. The Fox and I are heading back to camp.” He started to leave, then stopped and came back. He shook hands with Cecilio, his other arm on his shoulder. “Hey, thanks for everything, Patch. And Moses.” He hugged Mario. “Be careful, okay? You’re in good hands.” I watched them cross and duck into the woods. “And Columba,” he shouted back, “I’m counting on you to fill that cellar.”

After Giorgio and the Fox disappeared, the three of us stood there awkwardly for a few minutes in silence. “Did you bring your things?” I asked.

“What
things
?” Cecilio growled. “We really don’t have any
things
. We’re not tourists, you know.”

I winced. Cecilio was a guarded fortress with guns pointed my
way. Mario jumped in. “We ended up sharing our few extra pieces of clothing with some of the guys who needed them more than we did,” he said. “We’ll be fine. We’re used to this. Don’t worry.”

“Where are you taking us, anyway?” Cecilio looked at the ground, as if it weren’t a big deal, as if he didn’t really care.

“I’m taking you to a safe place.” I looked at Mario. “You’ll just have to trust me on this one. It’s not what you might expect, but it’s the only option we have right now.”

“Giovanna, we…” He glanced at his brother. “We just can’t thank you enough for this. It’s a big risk for you. I know that.”

“Well, we aren’t there yet,” I said. “Let’s wait until you’re safe before you thank me.” I motioned for them to follow me.

“Let me take that,” said Mario, as he slung the bag I had been carrying over his good shoulder. “It’s the least I can do.”
At least there’s almost nothing in it,
I thought.

We set off into the thick of the forest that surrounded the old gazebo, picking our way through brambles, stepping gingerly over mossy fallen logs, snaking our way in the general direction of the convent, avoiding any path I had ever taken before. I led the way, with Mario right behind me and Cecilio trailing him by several paces. In the distance, the bell tower tolled once. Two o’clock was only one hour away.

The going was difficult, so our pace was slow. Instead of following open roads, we had to cross them quickly and make our way along fences or stone walls between fields, where trees and underbrush could offer us some shelter. Once, a jeep full of German soldiers approached in a cloud of dust. We crouched low, holding our breath until the dust dissipated and we could no longer hear them. We didn’t talk much. The tension between the two brothers stretched like a membrane over the silence, and I was afraid even a word from me would puncture it. At this point, getting there was all that mattered.

Mario’s breath was labored. It was clear he was in pain, and I
consciously slowed my pace even more than the terrain warranted. His rasping and an occasional low groan were the only efforts at human interchange. They had to be hungry too. How could I not have thought to bring some food along?

At one point, I left Mario and Cecilio sitting against a low stone wall. I ventured close to a farmhouse, thinking I might find a vegetable garden to raid. As I inched my way toward the high fenced area that looked promising, a deep, throaty growl startled me from the right. A large brown ridgeback lay chained to a stake. He stood up, pulled his tether tight, and curled back his lip, daring me to take another step his way. I had to go back to the brothers empty-handed.

“How much farther is it?” asked Cecilio when I got back. His brow was furrowed in irritation. “My brother’s not doing so well.”

“Do you see that hill above the patch of forest just ahead of us?” He nodded. “That’s where we’re headed. It shouldn’t take us more than another twenty minutes, assuming we make steady progress.” I looked at Mario, whose face had taken on the satiny sheen of perspiration I had seen before. “Can you make it?”

“I hope so,” he said. “I’m not feeling well at all, Giovanna. But let’s keep going.”

Mario was stumbling now, his gait off balance and uneven. Now and then, he reached out his good arm and steadied himself on my shoulder. We made only twenty or so steps before we had to rest again. Each time we stopped, I tried to be patient and sit peacefully with them, but I knew our progress wasn’t fast enough.

“Look, Cecilio,” I finally said. “We just aren’t moving as quickly as we should be, and we have to be there by two o’clock. Is there something you can do to support your brother or help him along?”

He stared back at me, and I swear I saw a mocking look in his one good eye. “Well, Columba”—his sarcasm was clear—“if we
don’t get to your ‘safe place’ by two o’clock, then I guess that means we won’t be able to stay there, doesn’t it?”

He really didn’t care, did he? Hot tears welled up. “Maybe not, I don’t know. I only know I was told to be there at exactly two. Someone is doing me a special favor, and I want to honor her and be there on time.” I had a lump in my throat, and I was afraid I would start to cry.

I looked at Mario for support, but he was slumped over on the ground, his eyes closed. “If we move fast now, we can still make it. Can’t you please just let him lean on you, or can we support him together?”

Mario stirred. “Just go,” he said. His lips barely moved. “The two of you. I’ll be all right here, and you can come back for me later.”

“Sorry, brother,” said Cecilio. “We made a pact, remember? Whatever happens, we don’t separate. We’re in this together.” He looked at me with a triumphant glint in his eye.

“But we’ve got to move,” I cried. “
Now
. Your lives depend on this.”

Mario took shallow breaths. He didn’t stir. Cecilio stared at me, defiant, mute.

I spun on my heels and pushed my way through the underbrush, headed for the convent, alone.

T
he old wooden door to the wine cave vibrated against my spine as the tower bell tolled once, then again. Two o’clock. I sat leaning hard against the rough, grooved wood, knees drawn up to my chest, my chin resting there. Anger at Cecilio smoldered like flaring coal in my stomach. How dared he defy me after I had put both myself and the nuns at risk to try to save him? He was thinking only of himself and not his brother, who so desperately needed attention and shelter. I hated him, his mocking eye, his curled lip. But Mario. He was so gentle and kind, so vulnerable. In spite of it all, I admired their commitment to stay together as brothers no matter what happened.

A clank, then a scrape like a heavy metal bolt sliding on the inside of the door. The thick slab gave way behind me. I jumped to my feet as the door creaked open on its hinges. A musty smell of damp earth emanated from the blackness. I pushed the door open a little wider and stepped in. The air was thick with traces of old oak, of fermented fruit. I opened my eyes wide to try to penetrate
the darkness, but I saw only the stripe of sunlight that fell across the earthen floor from the open door.

“Sister Graziella?” My voice was low, tentative. “Are you there?”

“Where are the two young men?” The voice coming from the blackness was dry and rasping, not Graziella’s at all, but familiar nonetheless. A towering form materialized in the shaft of light: Sister Elena.

I shrank, my pulse racing, cowering against the door. “Sister Elena—I was to meet Sister Graziella here today.”

“Yes, well, but this is my territory, I’m afraid.”

“Your territory? The wine cellar?”

She ignored the question. “Where are the two men?” she repeated, not smiling.

Could she know? Could this mean that
she
was somehow the one who would help us? And now here I was, without them, disappointing her again. I explained that I had tried to make the two-o’clock deadline but that Mario was too ill to move and Cecilio refused to leave him. I was flushed with heat, and my voice felt thin and tight in the back of my throat. “I’m so worried about Mario, about both of them alone out there, and…Sister Elena, he’s so sick.”

I stared at her face—her jutting chin, the dry, sallow skin, the thin lips drawn down into the ever-present frown. She was a long-necked tortoise, her draped habit a thick, impenetrable shell on her back. But for the first time, as I stared into those closely set, hooded eyes, I saw something else there. They flashed as they always had, but this time I read it not as anger, but as determination and fierce resolve.

She wasted not one minute on sympathy or concern but was all business. “Wait right here, Giovanna. I will fetch Guido the winemaker. You will take him with you to find the men. He and the brother can carry the wounded one back on a blanket.” She turned and disappeared back into the dark cellar.

Guido was shaped like a wine barrel. He wore a soiled kerchief knotted loosely around his thick neck and a stained leather vest that had no hope of coming together across his massive girth. Pantaloons draping much thinner legs were loosely gathered into his rough laced boots. He walked more like a duck than a man, each side of his trunk heaving forward in turn, propelled by an awkward, shuffling gait. He wheezed with every step, expelling clouds reminiscent of the wine cellar’s damp, fetid air.

I felt instantly at home with this bear of a man and knew that I could trust him. There was no holding back on his part, only warmth, interest, and concern.

“These two brothers?” he asked, huffing and puffing behind me as we made our way down the back of the forested hill.

“Yes, that’s why they want to stay together,” I answered.

“One wounded, you say—how bad?”

He shook his head from side to side and made a clucking noise with his tongue as I described Mario’s arm and what I was sure was a serious infection. “Can’t keep ’em at the convent, you know. Women only there.”

I turned to look back at him. “But I thought…I thought maybe Graziella had arranged—”

“Nope.” Heavy footsteps echoed my own. “Not there. Elena, she’s taken in a few women, but no men.”

So it
was
Sister Elena after all. “But then why would she tell me to—”

“The wife and I, we’ll keep ’em for a little while in our place. We got a storeroom that’ll work for now. Done it before.”

We walked on, picking our way through the landscape in silence.

“They friends of yours?” The question was simple, but I wasn’t sure how to answer. I thought of Cecilio’s wary, hostile eye and
shivered. But whenever my thoughts drifted toward Mario, there was a soft, teasing ripple, like a downy feather lifting in a slight breeze. “Yes, they are.” I said it before I really planned to. “That is to say the wounded one more than the other.”

I looked back at Guido and saw him nod to himself.

Mario was lying on his back, unconscious, when we found the two brothers right where I had left them. We burst into the small clearing, and Cecilio, seeing Guido, leaped to his feet. His upper lip was fixed in a sneer that spoke volumes. Guido, on his part, wasted no time.

He unrolled the blanket, lifted one side of Mario’s body, and stuffed half of the blanket underneath. “Pull it out the other side,” he barked to Cecilio, motioning with his hand. “Now you take the two corners at the feet, and I’ll take the head—and don’t give me any guff, sonny, you hear? You’re gonna have to spend a little of your precious energy, but we’ll get your brother into bed, by God.”

Guido’s wife, Serena, was as round as he was. Her dark hair was plaited in a long braid that wrapped around her head like a halo. She moved smoothly, deliberately, and was surprisingly graceful for such a large woman. She had been expecting us; that much was clear, and if she resented this intrusion into their private lives, she made no sign of it. We followed her back to a small storage room behind the kitchen where a stained canvas army cot had been set up. There, with relief, Guido and Cecilio set down their burden.

Mario’s face was ashen, his jaw slack. Serena felt his forehead with the back of her plump hand and slowly shook her head. She stroked the bandaged arm, then laid it gingerly across his stomach. “He’s very sick. You know that.” She looked at me. “I will do what I can, but I…” She shook her head.

Shame at my own ineptitude washed over me in the presence of such solidity and generosity. “There is a new medicine,” I said,
“one that can help fight an infection like this. I…I tried to give him a shot, but I dropped the needle and couldn’t do it. I’ll come back tomorrow. I’ll bring another shot—and fresh bandages too.” The enormity of what this couple was doing was suddenly clear. “I don’t know how I can thank you for this.”

“It won’t be for long. I told you that.”

Guido shot a glance at Cecilio. “You’ve got to lie low here, fella. Stay quiet. And my wife’s going to put you to work; you can bet on that.”

When I got home, I found Rosa chopping garlic and onions for Sunday evening’s dinner. She looked up, her eyes watering. “It’s about time, young lady.” She clucked. “I was beginning to wonder whether our boys would starve to death.” She wiped her eyes with her apron, then settled her hands on her hips, her back stiff and erect, waiting to hear what I would say.

“I’m sorry. I’ve had other things to do, and now Giorgio’s so angry that I’ve been neglecting the Santinis’ cellar.”

“Did you say the Santinis?”

“Signora Santini gave me permission to leave the supplies there and even to help myself to some vegetables from their garden. That’s where I’ve been taking most of the food.”

“But Pia, their kitchen maid, is a good friend of mine.” Rosa pursed her thin lips, furrowed her brow. “I wonder if she knows. She’s never mentioned it. Maybe she could help us.”

I thought of what it would mean to add the accumulations of another family’s supplies to our own. “That would be perfect, if she can be trusted. Could you ask her?” I let myself down heavily on a wooden chair. “I’m just so overwhelmed. I have some duties to perform at the convent every morning, all my work at the clinic, and now”—I looked away from her, out the window—“there’s something else. A whole new thing I just can’t talk about.”

She raised her eyebrows quizzically.

“You’ve got to trust me. This one’s just too big. But what it means is…” I swallowed hard and gripped both sides of the chair seat. “I don’t know how long I can go on supplying Giorgio’s men.” I stood up and took hold of her hands. “Is there any way you and Pia could take that over? You’d be much better at it than I am, and maybe you’d even have fun doing it together. I just can’t be in four places at once.”

She turned back to the butcher block and began peeling and mincing cloves of garlic, one after another, without saying a word. It smelled delicious, and my mind wandered back to the winemaker’s house. How, I wondered, would Serena and Guido do with two extra mouths to feed?

At last she stopped, looking down, knife frozen in the air. “I will talk with Pia. I will take what I have now over there tomorrow.”

“Oh, Rosa, you have no idea how much this would help.” I reached my arms around her sinewy frame from behind and hugged her.

“Just go,” she said. “Just go.”