The Golden Hour (26 page)
At that, a flashlight beam swept the earth at the entrance to the cave. “Panzer.
Wo bist du?
”
We held our breath, but the light found first the dog, then the two of us crouched up against the back wall. The cave was so small that the wide beam lit up the space enough to make out the face behind it. Klaus.
“Giovanna—it is you?”
We stared at each other for a long moment. He said nothing; then he moved the light to Mario’s face. “Who is this man? He is a friend of yours?”
I stared back, wide-eyed. “Yes, Klaus. He is.”
He held the beam on Mario, letting it travel slowly up to his hair, down to his chin, and back and forth along his crouched body. “Why are you hiding? That means he is a partisan or…You know what I think? I think he is Jewish. I think he is a Jew and you are hiding him.”
I stared at him as tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I shook my head.
He nodded. “
Ja
. That is what I think.”
“Please, Klaus…” My lips were trembling. “Please.”
He stared back at me, his eyes holding mine. “Why I should do something for you I do not know.” He shined the beam on Mario’s face again. In the jumping shadows, the distorted light, I saw him shake his head. Then, without a word, he flicked off the flashlight and backed slowly out the way he had come. We heard his fingers snap twice, and Panzer followed. Then heavy bootsteps slipping and sliding down the steep descent. A shout at the bottom. “
Nichts
. Let’s go.”
The moon was rising, cutting a path up from the east, and we could just see it cresting above the fork of a large tree visible from the mouth of the cave. Neither of us said a word. I was suddenly conscious that Mario and I were still holding hands, that we had not released the death grip that had held us together all the way up to the cave and through the ordeal with Klaus. I moved my fingers a little and looked at him. He smiled and lightly wiggled his own.
“I didn’t know you had Nazi friends.”
I waited, listening, before I answered. There was the hoot of a prowling owl and the incessant vibration of the crickets, nothing else. “Do you think they’re really gone?” I whispered.
He nodded. “I thought I heard their car drive off earlier. I don’t think they’ll be back.”
We crawled to the cave’s entrance, looked in every direction, then stood up, stretching our legs and arms and brushing the dirt off our clothes. “I’ll tell you all about Klaus when we get there,” I said. “We’re going to have a lot of time to talk.”
After crossing the main road, this time without incident, we picked our way in the dark through the short span of woods, then hastened across the stubbled fields of harvested wheat. Our shadows zigzagged in the moonlight shining on furrowed rows of fragrant beans, patches of high grass, and tangled, thorny branches
of little roses. Resting in an abandoned shed, we finished Serena’s food before working our way through the remaining countryside to the marchesa’s property. At last, we walked casually, trying to project an image of a relaxed couple moving together. We could hear a dog bark for a long time, perhaps at us, perhaps at the moon, but we kept moving steadily and paid it no undue attention.
The sky was beginning to glow with the first light of dawn when we arrived at the walled border of the marchesa’s estate. I avoided the main gate and moved around to the back, where I knew there was a break in the wall used by farmers and their equipment on the way to market. The fence was easy to scale, and once inside I began to breathe easier. We found the old mill, extracted the key from its hole in the wall, and mounted the staircase in silence to the room where everything had been laid out, just as she had said, waiting for Mario.
Wednesday, August 16, 1944
Giovanna and I found this journal, set like a crown jewel on top of a pile of gray army blankets, when we arrived at the mill this morning. G left for the clinic right away, and I was so exhausted that I swept the book aside, curled up on the floor, and fell asleep. The slant of light over the vineyards told me it was afternoon when I woke up, hungry and disoriented, an hour or so ago. What an extraordinary turn of events. Here I am, sitting in a tower, in a round stone room with one high, tiny window that looks out across the fields. I feel so alone. Mama, Papa, and Cecilio have all evaporated. I don’t know where they are. I try not to think about what’s happened to them, but it’s a creeping mold, eating away at the edges of my spirit. Still, here in my hands is this beautiful book with soft leather binding and gilded red-and-green endpapers—a treasure, a talisman, a reminder of a life
that is lost to me and an investment in the future. I will gladly use it. What else do I have to do?
Thursday, August 17
The marchesa—who left this book for me—stopped by this morning. She is both elegant and warm. I was embarrassed (even wearing Giorgio’s clothes), being so rumpled and dirty. I felt like reassuring her that her “guest” was not just a street ruffian, but there didn’t seem to be time for that kind of conversation. She went over the “rules” of the house—no noise, no lights, no going outside the building at any time. I wonder how long I will have to be here, how long I will last. She asked about my health, and I told her about my arm, how G had cleaned the wound and given me the penicillin shots that turned it all around. Hearing that, she became busy and in a hurry, so I just thanked her for everything, the space, the blankets, the journal. She flashed a warm smile and left me alone again.
Sunday, August 20
Where would I be without Giovanna? She comes by every day, bringing food and welcome company. I barely know her, yet I depend on her for everything I eat and drink. I can’t ever go outside, so she even has to empty my chamber pot when she gets here. (Thank God it has a lid!) It’s an agonizing, animal connection between us that makes me feel both shy and recklessly myself.
I’m getting used to her appearing at the door—those weeks at Guido’s cottage and now these afternoons. She’s always brimming with life: Her hair stands out, dark
and unruly, around her open face. Her eyes are the color of roasted almonds, and so alert. I wait for her smile, which—when it comes—is rich and full, like the best moment of a glorious aria. How did this happen? How did this girl become the axis around which I spin?
Tuesday, August 22
The marchesa and her husband are my second lifeline, after G. The marchese, Leonardo, has come a couple of times to check on me. He’s a bit like a heron—tall and gangly, with an erect and graceful carriage. Whereas his wife is so outgoing and exuberant, his conversation is more measured and restrained. He saw right away that boredom is going to be my worst enemy, so he took the time to find out what interests me, and he’s going to keep me supplied with books from their library. What a gift that is!
I told the marchese about last fall, just after the Germans arrived, before we knew how bad it would get. Italian Fascists broke into Turin’s Jewish community library, piled up most of the books, and set fire to them in a huge blaze in the Piazza Carlina. It was shortly after that that we left the city. We’ve always been book people, and that incident hit Papa hard.
As for what to lend me, I said I’m really curious about farming—particularly viticulture—and I love history. Maybe, if I read enough, I can figure out how Italy got into this mess.
Thursday, August 24
Another heel of day-old bread and a rind of
parmigiano
for dinner. G says that’s all she can find, that she doesn’t
want to take more, to threaten the partisans’ supplies or lead anyone to suspect my presence. I agree with her, but it’s hard. I get so hungry. I saved it until just a few minutes ago, closed my eyes, and pretended it was shaved onto some fresh arugula and drizzled with olive oil.
Giovanna stayed longer this afternoon. I try not to put pressure on her, but I live for her visits. I’m desperate for company, but it’s more than that. I really like her. She’s cheery and frank and full of stories about the clinic and her friend Violetta, who’s fallen in love with one of the patients. We’ve started at the beginning, filling each other in on our lives. She grew up in Lucca, me in Turin—but it’s striking how similar our childhoods were. We’re both the younger of two; her mother plays the piano, mine the violin; and we both have hardworking, doggedly Fascist fathers. It’s made me see some differences too. My parents—especially Father—are more intellectual than hers, I think. Of course, her family is Catholic and, I get the impression, more observant than ours. We had so many Catholic friends in Turin that I feel comfortable with that. They must not have any Jewish friends, though—G doesn’t seem to know much about us.
Friday, September 14
I finally got up the nerve to ask G about that Nazi soldier who found us in the cave. I was shocked, really, to hear how he tried to seduce her like that. But I can see how it happened. I can’t blame her, really—or him either, for that matter! He must be a decent guy, because he let us go that night. Still, that close call makes me shudder.
She started teasing me after that story and said I owed
her one—we call them our
racconti reciproci.
All that talk about the floor of the coat closet reminded me of our maid, Amalia. So I told G about her, how she had seduced Cecilio first behind the garden storehouse. I told her how jealous I was and determined to have my turn, how I hid in her bedroom in the servants’ wing one afternoon until she finished the dishes; then how I asked for what I wanted. Amalia laughed at me, called me her “little goat” and said I was too young. (I was every bit of fifteen! Was it really only five years ago?) But I didn’t give up. We played cards every day for a week or so, laughing and slapping down jacks and aces on the bedspread. When I finally asked again, I guess she thought I was ready.
I still dream about those breasts, like soft watermelons. I’ve never told anyone about it before today. It was only a month or so later that poor Amalia had to be let go—she and the other Catholic servants who were no longer allowed to work for Jews. She cried so hard the day she left us.
As I talked about Amalia, I found myself trying not to look at G’s body that way. She seemed…I don’t know…annoyed at the story. But she’s the one who asked for it.
Thursday, September 28
The marchesa has been supplying G with more food for me from what’s given to the sick and wounded men at the clinic. There are endless pots of beans flavored with nothing, soups as thin as weak tea, and bread that’s days old by the time I get it. All I can hope for is to take the edge off my hunger. This is custom-made torture, because I love food so much. Nonna used to joke that I was the
one in the family who should do the cooking, because I always preferred one cheese maker over another or argued for a particular style of roast when I was twelve years old. I pass the time here imagining feasts: I think up surprising combinations for pasta sauces, new ingredients with which to stuff a bird, weird pairings of fruit and cheese for dessert. It amuses me, but when I tell G my latest inventions, she begs me to stop. She tells me it gnaws a hole in her stomach. I would give anything for the two of us to sit down to a long, leisurely, delicious meal together. Meanwhile, I’m growing thinner. I know it.
Wednesday, October 4
I’m shocked to think how rarely I wash myself—I who was the family hog in the bathroom. G has found me an enamel bowl, and she fills two liter bottles with freshwater every few days. I have to drink from that supply, so I hoard just enough in the bottom of the basin to wet a thin rag and give myself a sponge bath maybe once a week. I start with my face and work my way down to my toes, but by the time I get there, the little puddle is the color of wet cement, and I’m really just dampening the dust into a pasty coating that sticks to my skin. Lately there’s been so much rain that G can leave the bowl outside, hidden in some bushes. Those are my best days. I love how Giovanna smells. She glows with the sweat of all her activity, but I still catch the scent of lavender soap beneath it. I know I’m falling for her. It’s a kind of ache that lives in my lower body—hard to tell from hunger sometimes.
Tuesday, October 10
I’m exhausted. G and I spent two hours today talking about religion, trying to understand Hitler and the whole thing. Without admitting it to each other, I think we are exploring what this might mean for the two of us when the war is over. It started when she arrived this afternoon with my supper. I was so hungry I thought I would pass out before she finally came. I opened the bundle, working the tight knot in the cotton scarf with such eagerness, only to find that it held a heel of bread spread with lard. Lard! Fat of the hog. I know butter is rationed and that’s all there is, but I sat there for the longest time. That was one of the only Jewish laws we observed at home—not eating pork. I felt Nonna’s spirit, knew I should not eat it. I told G my dilemma, and she seemed truly touched. “If I were you, I don’t think I would eat it,” she said gravely. That was so sweet, but I was famished. In the end, I wolfed it down. I would do it again, and I probably will.
But it got us talking about religion. We are so different, not just because we are Christian and Jewish, but because she is so devout, and I am so secular. To me, these ultimate questions she’s posing are about science: evolution, causality, the likelihood of an afterlife. “What is the purpose of your life?” she kept asking. “Why are you here?”
I told her I don’t need a “purpose.” I’m just planning to lead the best, most ethical life I can. I don’t think God gets into the details, that there is some kind of plan for each of us. But she thinks maybe she was drawn to me in some mysterious way, that it was “meant to be” that she help save me, to make a difference in the war.
“You’re a good person,” I told her. “You’re brave and full of energy. You saw a wrong and wanted to make it right. What’s that got to do with religion?”
It went on and on like that. G loves liturgy: the cadence of the mass, the music, the candles, the feeling of opening to something bigger than herself. I don’t feel the need to pray or even meditate. But this has nothing to do with Christianity or Judaism. I told her she reminds me of my nonna, who felt just as she does, going to synagogue every week, throwing herself into the Passover seder, lighting candles during Hanukkah. We ended with a kind of mutual respect, neither of us trying really to convert or change the other. But what does it mean for the future? I don’t know. I do know I could spend every day like this one, just talking with her.
Monday, October 30
It’s getting chilly, and that’s putting me on edge. Fall used to make me feel energetic and productive, but there’s nothing to do here, nothing but read. It’s really getting to me. Giovanna is so lucky. I don’t think she appreciates what it means just to be able to come and go as freely as she does.
Friday, November 10
What a day…I was so frustrated this morning, brooding about being stuck in here, that I took one of my blankets and just tore it to shreds. It felt so good, but when G arrived, she started desperately scooping up the scraps and pieces of wool. “You can’t do this, Mario,” she said. “There aren’t enough of these to go around as it is. Winter’s coming.”
That pissed me off, so I told her she was a pampered little
principessa
and that she could just bring me one of
her own precious blankets from home. “You have no idea what it’s like, staring at these four walls day after day. I feel like a criminal or an escaped convict, when I haven’t done a goddamned thing wrong!” I clenched my jaw and just glowered at her.
She stared at me, looking shocked. Then she said, “Okay, fine. Then get your own food and water. See if I care.” She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and headed for the door.
I felt like a hot branding iron had been shoved into my gut. All that anger turned instantly into grief and fear, and I let out a groan that must have sounded like the bleat of a wounded calf. G dropped her bag and ran back, putting her arms around me. I started crying and blubbering on her shoulder like a
bambino.
I told her I was sorry, that I didn’t mean to take it all out on her, but she was the only person around. “I know. I know,” she soothed, and she started rubbing the back of my head and neck. “Someday this will all be over.”
We stood like that for a long time. Finally I pulled back, cupped her face in my hands, and stared right into her eyes. “You mean so much to me. I want to show you how I really feel.” It felt like a dream. I took her hand and led her over to the corner where the other blankets were piled. I pulled her down to the floor with me and wrapped her in my arms. It was chilly, too cold to even think about undressing, but we held each other and started kissing. Oh, my God, it was as if all the time we’d spent together and our growing friendship started exploding between us in this new way. We were so absorbed in each other that we didn’t hear the footsteps on the second flight of stairs.
The door opened, scraping along the uneven floor.
We pulled quickly apart at the sound and sat up to see Leonardo’s lanky frame stooping to enter the space. He stopped short at the sight of us and laughed out loud. “And here I thought you needed something to relieve the boredom, Mario,” he said, setting down a pile of books.
Saturday, November 25
It’s not that G and I feel guilty about what happened the other day, but it has sobered us, and we’ve put a kind of mutually acknowledged damper on things. It’s getting colder and colder, both outside and inside the tower. We’re so grateful to the marchese and marchesa that we don’t want them to feel awkward about coming and going at will.