The Golden Hour (20 page)

I was so exhausted at supper I could barely lift my fork. Rosa came and went without giving me so much as a single glance. I sat up straight, not wanting to call attention to myself.

“Does it seem to you that Rosa’s cooking less food these days?” Father scraped the last of the
fagioli
from a platter onto his plate when she had left the room.

“Easy, easy,” Mother said. “She does the best she can. I’m sure supplies are hard to come by.”

I kept quiet, vowing to cut down on my own portions. Below us a couple of German vehicles pulled to a stop. Hearty shouts rose as some of our housemates greeted the new arrivals. There was rough, bold laughter, then the slamming of doors.

Father seemed to be working himself up to something. He mopped his entire plate with bread, picked up his wineglass, then his water, moved his fork from one side of the plate to the other. “I don’t know much more than this, but apparently there was some action in the river valley today.”

Mother looked up. “What’s that, dear?”

“In Diecimo. Apparently since dawn yesterday, when the evacuation began, the Germans have been taking over the town building by building. They’ve moved into the vacant houses, set themselves up in the restaurants—”

“Well, we know what that feels like.” She rolled her eyes. “At least they don’t have to live in the same house with them.”

Father ignored her and went on. “So last night—it was Saturday night, you know.” He paused. “A lot of them were gathered in the cinema watching some German movie when a partisan bomb went off.”

Mother and I both set down our forks at once.

“It blew the place up, killed a bunch of them too.”

“Germans or partisans?” Mother’s face drained to the color of the tablecloth.

“I don’t know.” He avoided looking at her. “The radio only mentioned Germans, but who knows?”

Tears welled up in Mother’s eyes. She folded her arms across her chest. “Enrico, I’m not sure I can take much more of this. What if Giorgio was part of it?”

“Oh, come on. There are hundreds of those guys all over Tuscany. I doubt that Giorgio would be working quite so close to home. But war is a dangerous business. You know that.”

I stared fixedly at my plate. What if it
was
Giorgio’s band? My stomach twisted into a knot as I imagined the possibilities. An image of Mario’s oozing arm floated into my consciousness, and I was surprised to note that my first thought had been not of my own brother, but relief that I knew exactly where Mario was.
“Don’t worry, Mama.” I kept my voice calm to hide the feelings behind it and reached out and stroked her arm. “I’ll see if there’s any news tomorrow at the clinic.”

“Hell, it’s progress, isn’t it?” Father broke in. “Maybe they’re doing some good after all.”

Was it possible I caught a note of pride in his voice?

I could not sleep that night. My mind was ablaze with images of exploding stone and splinters of wood, of torn upholstery seats and, worse, bodies tossed and thrown in every direction. I dared not imagine that Giorgio had been there, but this was his territory in a way. Diecimo was not far, nestled in the river valley not ten kilometers away.

I imagined the German soldiers, relaxed, their arms about the seats beside them, laughing, enjoying a film. What if Klaus had been among them? In spite of myself, I worried about him as well. I turned over and over, on the one hand thinking anxious thoughts of Giorgio and his band, on the other focusing on the soldiers I had come to know at the School of Santa Maria. Underlying it all was a steady dread about Mario’s arm and the infection that was slowly robbing him of strength and maybe life.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing I knew, daylight rimmed the shutters. My eyelids were swollen and dry, pulled apart, and my head was thick with fear and exhaustion.

I found Violetta outside the clinic supply room, deep in discussion with the marchesa. They were clearly arguing about something, so I parked my bicycle and approached slowly, trying to appear distracted.

“But why wouldn’t you give priority to one of the partisans?”
Violetta was pleading. “You may be English, but he’s going to die today unless we at least try to fight the infection.”

“I’m sorry, dear.” The marchesa put an arm gently on Violetta’s shoulder. “I love and admire your compassion. I really do. This is so hard. But ultimately this is my clinic, my property, and I alone am the one who has to make these difficult decisions. Captain Ashbery has turned the corner. Unless we finish the series, all of our progress will be lost. There is no guarantee that this new soldier will last the day—no matter what we do.”

Violetta turned and stalked away, her mouth tight. She saw me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me away behind the building. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “She’s”—her breathing was so fast she couldn’t get the words out—“going…to kill him.”

“Who? Who, Violetta?” I held her by the shoulders and shook her. “Stop it. Just breathe. Tell me what happened.”

She nodded, then found the rhythm in her breath again. “I was walking in the nearby field yesterday evening. There was a man lying there. Oh, Giovanna. It was awful.” She shook her head, tears brimming again. “He was dressed in rags, old military clothes of various kinds. I guessed he was a partisan, but he was in such bad shape, I couldn’t…” She began to cry again, her hands covering her face. “Oh, God. His hair and whole forehead were burned off; his shoulder was blown away—he was losing blood fast, but I got him to stand up and lean against me. ‘There’s a clinic nearby,’ I told him. ‘If you can walk, just come with me. I’ll find you a bed.’ I guess his legs were okay, because we finally made it back here. He has some kind of accent, but he speaks Italian. He told me he had been part of the bombing in Diecimo last night. I have no idea how he made it this far.”

“But why won’t the marchesa help him?”

“We have only two more vials of the penicillin left. She hasn’t even seen him. She just insists that it is reserved for this English parachutist who’s already so much better. He’s going to make it,
but she says the infection can flare again if we don’t give him another round.”

“The partisan—is he still conscious? Can you take me to him?”

We raced up the stone staircase and down the aisle between the lines of cots to where a stained, wrinkled sheet hung on a wire, separating one bed at the very end. A man with a long, bony frame lay covered with an army blanket. His head was wrapped in bandages to the eyebrows; his shoulder was bleeding so profusely that the bandages were already soaked through. His breathing was barely perceptible.

I knelt by the bed and took the hand of his good arm. He stirred a little, mumbling. I leaned over him and, when I looked closely at his face, saw the cut of his jaw and the freckled, translucent skin, my own breath stopped. It was the Fox. I brought my lips close to his ear. “Fox. It’s Giovanna; it’s Giorgio’s sister, Columba.”

His eyes opened a slit, and he moaned. His lips were parched and cracked. “Do you want some water?” I asked, stroking his cheek gently.

He shook his head slowly. “There were twenty of them in there, maybe more.”

“Germans?”

He nodded once.

“What happened to you?” I whispered in his ear.

“I placed the bomb. It…went off…too soon…caught me on the way out.” His breathing seemed to stop altogether.

“And my brother?” I shook him rudely, insistently. “Giorgio—is he okay?”

I waited while he took another slow breath. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “He was the one manning the plunger—two houses away…. So hard to time those things.” His eyelids closed. “He’s okay….I’m sure. But they had all run away when I came out. I…I got disoriented and just ended up here.”

I rose and saw that Violetta was still standing next to the bed. She spoke in a low voice, staring at the cot. “You know this man?”

“He works with my brother.” I turned to walk away. “Not only that,” I added. “Tell the marchesa he’s English.”

I marched down the aisle between the rows of beds, looking neither right nor left. I slowly descended the stone staircase, wincing at the bottom as the bright morning light assaulted my eyes. The door to the supply room gave as I leaned gently into it. There was no sound as I closed it carefully behind me. I squeaked open the cupboard where the penicillin was kept, and sure enough, there they were: two vials. My heart was loud in my ears, and sweat beaded on my nose and forehead. With trembling hands, I wrapped the medicine carefully in a piece of cloth and took three new syringes from the box, along with cotton pads and a bottle of alcohol. I stuffed them all into my shoulder bag.

Then I walked slowly, nonchalantly to my bicycle and pedaled away.

I
was aware, the closer I drew to the winemaker’s cottage, of being anchored by a pervasive dread. Each revolution of the bicycle’s pedals seemed to take more and more effort. The drag was not, I knew, due to the terrain. I was weighed down first by terror that Mario had not survived even the night, and then by anxiety that if I did find him alive, I would once again be unable to accomplish the simple deed.

As I negotiated the ruts in the road, I began slowly to accept the fear. I knew it was there; I knew there was good reason for it, so a new determination took hold. It came over me like an advancing bank of thunderclouds—fierce resolve, charged by anxiety. If I found Mario alive, I would not fail him this time. I imagined my own confidence in front of Serena’s watchful gaze; I visualized my hand, steady on the syringe; I pictured the life-giving serum entering Mario’s bloodstream and restoring him slowly to health.

Serena took a long time to answer my knock on the door. It was too loud, perhaps, too resolute for it to be me, to be anyone but a German soldier. When she did crack the door and peer out, her face brightened instantly.

“Giovanna! Thank God you are here. Come in, come in.”

“How is Mario?”

“Do you have the medicine?” she asked, ignoring my question.

I nodded, holding up the bag.

She took hold of my arm and guided me back through the tiny kitchen. On the rough wooden table, a fat loaf of new bread, crusty and round, nested on branches of fresh-cut rosemary that would infuse it as it cooled. A pot of soup bubbled on the woodstove, filling the kitchen with its moist steam, its scent of onion and old bones. At the door to the storeroom, she paused. “Prepare yourself. He will not last much longer, I’m afraid.”

The afternoon light was beginning to fade, making it hard to see in the tiny storeroom. Mario lay on the folded army cot, wasted, waxen. His jaw was slack, his hollowed eyes closed, his skin stretched like yellowed parchment over the bones of his cheeks. His breathing was shallow, labored. Out of the corner of my eye, I took in the figure of Cecilio, arms folded, leaning against the corner of the room. I did not acknowledge him but went right to work.

It was just as I had rehearsed in my imagination—I felt calm and confident, and I rode the fear like a boat floating on waves. I turned him on his side, and as before, I swabbed a spot with alcohol, filled the syringe from the vial. But this time, I positioned the needle at an angle with a rock-steady hand and slowly, without a tremor, pushed the plunger all the way in. As I held another cotton swab over the site and gradually removed the needle, I exhaled a silent prayer. It was for the Fox, for the repose of his soul, and for my own absolution.

I sat still for a long time, watching Mario breathe. Who was this man for whom I had possibly just sacrificed a life, maybe two? I couldn’t explain the urgency I had felt, the compulsion to rush to his aid, the magnetism that drew me then and that kept me now at his side, hanging on his every breath as if my own depended on it.

I looked up at Serena. “That’s it. I don’t know what else we can do except wait for a change. He’ll need another shot in a few days.” I took the extra vial and handed it to her. “Here—hide this where it will be safe.”

“How long do you think it will be before we can move on?” The voice came from the corner. Cecilio, arms still folded, his fingers white as they gripped his upper arms, was tapping his foot nervously on the floor.

Serena put her hands on her hips. “You’re not going anywhere for a while,” she said. “Your brother’s a sick man, and your short fuse isn’t going to help him heal any faster.” She looked at me. “Cecilio here is like a fly caught under a jar. He’s got to learn to relax, to settle in with some patience.”

“Patience? You want me to have
patience
? It’s been three years since these Nazi vermin have been crawling all over our country. Three years! Who knows what’s happened to my parents? I haven’t seen anyone I know for months and months. I just want to get the hell out of here.”

“But the Allies are close,” I said. “They’re working their way in this direction. You just need to hold on until they liberate us, until the Germans are forced to leave.”

Cecilio leaned over the cot, his head directly over Mario’s, and stared. There was no visible change in his brother, who lay inert, pale, his chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly with each shallow breath. “Well, I just don’t want to wait here anymore, okay?” I thought he looked as if he might cry. “How do I know that this medicine will do any good? I feel like a sitting duck in your cottage here.” He began pacing, filling the tiny room with his frustration, forcing Serena and me to flatten ourselves against the wall to give him space. “At least the partisans are
doing
something. I’m going to go find them again.”

“You can’t.” I gasped. “Cecilio, please think about it. Don’t do that. They’re in enough trouble without having to hide you as well.
Just stay here. As soon as he’s well enough, I’ll find you both another place to stay. I swear I will.”

He turned to face me. “I don’t want to leave Mario, but I just can’t stay here biding my time another minute. I’ll stay in touch somehow.” He turned back to the cot and paused for a moment, looking down at his brother.
What about your pledge to stay together?
I thought, willing him to honor it, but he lifted his jacket from the end of the cot and left the room. I watched him as he crossed the tiny kitchen, grabbed the fresh loaf of bread off the table, and took off out the door into the gathering dusk.

There was nothing more to do except wait—and hope. I avoided the clinic for the next couple of days. It was fear, of course, that kept me away, and anxiety about Mario. I wanted to stay close to Guido and Serena’s cottage. I showed up bright and early in the mornings to carry out my sweeping penance at the convent. I looked in vain for either Sister Graziella or Sister Elena. Only a few young novitiates seemed to be about. I wondered, as I made my rounds, where in the vast reaches of the old stone complex could the women and maybe even children be hidden? Once, when I had finished sweeping a corner staircase, I was drawn down a long hall by what I thought were female voices. I passed a row of tightly closed wooden doors, their imposing metal keyholes staring at me like so many watchful eyes, but as I stole up and down the length of the corridor, I heard nothing but the squeak of my own shoes on the stone.

Sister Graziella was right: I began to find the sweeping a meditation of sorts. As I focused on the thick, stiff straws and followed their determined motion back and forth, up and around, my mind began to quiet and settle in the present moment. It was the only time during the day when I could set aside all my worries—about the marchesa, Giorgio, and even Mario. I seemed just to breathe and sweep, sweep and breathe until time melted away. Afterward, I felt
refreshed, as I had that afternoon when Sister Graziella and I sat in silence together in the parlor. Each day I felt good about completing the penance, but more than that, I appreciated the respite from my worries. I had found a deep well of peace that I began to associate with Saint Agnes, and it became the highlight of my days.

Nevertheless, these past two days when I closed the big entrance door behind me, I felt the marchesa weighing heavily on my conscience. I had betrayed her—deliberately stolen from her, no doubt at the cost of one or two men’s lives. By Thursday morning guilt plagued me so during my sweeping that when I was finished I went straight to the clinic, not even stopping to check on Mario’s progress.

I parked my bike and stood there for a few minutes, trying to decide what I should do next. I heard agitated voices coming from the tower calling, “Careful now,” and, “Easy does it.” Violetta and another young nurse emerged, followed by two men struggling to balance a stretcher between them. I hung back, but I could see a figure lying on it wrapped head to toe in gray army blankets. I was about to step toward them when the marchesa emerged, bringing up the rear. She looked terrible. Her clothes were disheveled and stained. She ran her fingers through her unkempt hair, pulling it back off her face. I could see she had been crying. “Just lay him down in the shade over there for now,” she said wearily. “I’ll ask my husband to bring the jeep around.”

“Giovanna!” Violetta’s voice was sharp. “There you are.” They all turned their heads to look at me.

I stood there mute, my heart beating so hard I was sure all of them could hear it. I looked at the ground, then took a tentative step forward. “Who’s…” I waved a hand toward the stretcher.

Violetta was frozen, staring at me. I could see her blink back tears and shake her head the tiniest millimeter back and forth. No one else noticed, but I knew her so well, I knew exactly what she meant. She was warning me not to say anything; she knew I had taken the penicillin.

“He’s the son of an old family friend, I’m afraid,” said the marchesa, wiping a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “He parachuted into this area about three weeks ago when his plane was hit by German artillery. He was doing so well at the end of last week, but…” She hesitated. “We ran out of penicillin, and”—she took a deep breath—“the infection got away from us last night. Now I’m going to have to wire his family. He’s their only child.” Her face twisted in a fresh wave of grief, and she turned away, walking off in the direction of their villa.

We watched her go without speaking. The men continued on, carrying the stretcher and laying it down gently under a spreading linden tree. Then they sat down next to the body to rest.

I approached Violetta. “And my brother’s friend?”

“The redhead? Oh, he died that same night.” She looked at me straight on, defiantly, speaking under her breath. “How could you, Giovanna? How could you do that, just take it like that? I can’t believe it.”

“What does the marchesa think?”

“Oh, I just told her it was missing. I never told her that you were there that day. In fact, I told her the redhead said he was a friend of your brother—so she would think you’d want him to get the shot, at least. But why? Why would you do that? You knew how much we needed it.”

I looked around. The marchesa was out of sight; the men were talking quietly under the tree. “Walk with me,” I said. “We need to talk.” I took Violetta’s arm in mine and led her off toward the other side of the tower.