The Golden Hour (29 page)

I was confident that neither Mario nor I nor anyone else in our family could be identified should censors or the enemy get hold of the letter. Rosa was having a more and more difficult time finding
enough rice, beans, or anything else for her deliveries to the Santinis’ cellar. She took the letter greedily, as something, at least, to enlarge that week’s offering.

The cross on the church altar was shrouded in its purple cloth, and mass ended with a silent procession, as it always did during the penitential season of Lent. The liturgical mood was somber, but when we came down the steps of the church, the air had a whole different feel. The sky was resplendent, the warmth of the sun penetrating our coats and begging us to turn our faces its way. For the first time, I noticed the little swollen buds at the ends of bare branches glinting, each with a tiny bubble of sap. As the bells of the church tolled, our spirits lifted to meet the glorious day. March was too early for a real spring, as so often happens. Surely there would be many more cold days ahead, but that day the blood was pulsing a little faster in our veins. And for now, it was the perfect moment to talk to my parents.

I waited until we were halfway through our meager Sunday meal, just to make sure no one would still be hungry or impatient. Then, when there was a lull in the conversation, I spoke up. “I have written a letter to Giorgio, inviting him to come home for a visit.”

“Giorgio?” Father looked at me. “How would you know where to write to him?”

Mother paled, set down her fork.

I took a deep breath. “I want you to hear me out. Please don’t say anything until I’m finished. Just promise me you’ll listen with an open mind.” I looked from one to the other. I definitely had their attention. Father looked ready to pounce, but Mother looked more as if she were about to faint.

“The first thing is that I don’t know whether Giorgio is safe. But I do have a means of communicating with him, and I am quite sure that if anything had happened, we would know it by now.”

“Well, of course,” Father said, “that’s what I’ve maintained all along. There’s nothing new in that.”

“I know, Papa, but I have been in touch with him directly since he left.”

“You have?” Mother gripped the table and started to rise. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Mama, just sit down, please.” I laid a hand on her shoulder. “He sent a note to me last June, through a friend of his, via Catarina.”

“Catarina? She knew?”

“Mother, just wait. Giorgio was not far away then, working with a band of partisans close enough to home so that I could meet with him from time to time.”

Father shot me an angry look. “
Now
you tell us. Almost nine months later? What have you been thinking? All our months of worry, all our agony.”

“I did that to protect Giorgio. You know yourself—in those days, you were so angry. You would have forced me to reveal his whereabouts, and—who knows—you might even have tipped someone off.”

“Well,
I
wouldn’t have,” Mother murmured.

“No, but I just didn’t feel right making you keep a secret from Papa.” So I filled them in on how, for months, Giorgio had received his supplies.

“Rosa? She’s been helping? Has she seen Giorgio too?” Mother was getting agitated, not sure whether to be relieved or angry. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?”

“She hasn’t seen anyone. She just leaves the supplies and he—or probably someone else—picks them up. She hasn’t told you two for the same reasons I haven’t—to protect Giorgio.”

Mother began to cry. “Where is he now? Can I see him? Why haven’t you told me any of this?”

“I’ve already told you I don’t know where he is. I can only
assume he’s up the river, helping the buffalo soldiers hold the line.” I took hold of her hand. “Please don’t cry, Mama. I don’t know, but I’m sure he’s all right or we would have heard something.”

They both quieted, shifted in their chairs, thinking.

“I have some more to tell you.” My heart was beating in my throat, my mouth suddenly dry. “There were two members of Giorgio’s band, two friends of his from school. One of them was injured.”

They looked at me, interested.

“His arm was too injured to fight, and besides, they were brothers.” I took a deep breath. “They were both Jewish, so Giorgio thought they were too much of a risk to keep on.”

“Well, that’s for damned sure,” Papa muttered.

“Papa, just wait. So I helped them find a place to hide. One of them took off a few months ago. But the other one…I’m helping to feed him, to hide him.”

“Not here, I hope?” Mother was quick to ask.

“No, no. Not here.” I looked at my plate. “Nearby.”

I looked up in time to see my mother glance at my father, a wry smile playing at the side of her mouth, a barely tolerant smile, as if this unpredictable daughter had once again run out of control, had once again mystified and confounded them. He stared back at Mother, his jaw set in a way that I knew signaled a mind made up.

Father said, “You’re crazy, Giovanna. It’s enough that you’ve been working at the clinic, but now this—putting yourself and all of us at risk like that. Whatever would possess you to do such a thing?”

I ignored that last remark altogether and pushed back my chair. “So I don’t know whether we’ll hear from Giorgio anytime soon. But I told him he would be welcome here. I just didn’t want you to be surprised if he shows up.” Without waiting for any further response, I threw my napkin down onto the table, then bounded down the stairs and out the door.

L
ate for supper one night, I met Rosa on her way down the narrow staircase. Without saying a word, she fixed me with an impish look and fished in the pocket of her skirt, slipping me a tightly folded piece of paper. Back in my room after dinner, I unfolded a crumpled, dirty scrap scrawled with Giorgio’s impulsive hand.

C—Will come for birthday dinner. Have Moses there. Your H.

I realized to my horror it was Thursday, and Giorgio’s birthday was only two nights away.

Villa Farfalla was no longer housing any soldiers, so I suppose we could have moved back downstairs at that point, but the damage was so extensive it only made sense to stay where we were until the war was finally over. There was something secure and almost cozy about our cramped quarters. We were like caged birds who begin to feel safe in confinement, almost afraid of venturing out into the world.

Mother was giddy at the prospect of Giorgio’s homecoming, and Father was visibly cheered as well—more, perhaps, by the dramatic change in his wife’s mood than by the prospect of seeing his son. Neither of my parents seemed to be perturbed by the fact that Mario would be one of the guests. Mother decided to have the dinner downstairs to accommodate the five of us around the table, directing Rosa to do the best she could to make the dining room presentable enough for a party.

I was so excited to see my brother that I skipped going to the clinic that Saturday morning. Instead, I shadowed Rosa, pitching in here and there, sweeping cigarette butts, dried orange peels, salami paper peelings, and the other detritus left in the wake of our German and American “guests.” At last I volunteered to scrub the long wooden table myself, tackling what seemed like inches of grease and coagulated remnants of soup, syrup, and beer.

My feelings were not clear, even to me. Of course I couldn’t wait to see my brother, but as I worked on the sticky remnants, I uncovered a few buried layers of my own. There had always been competition between us for our parents’ approval, and Giorgio’s absence had allowed me to feel as if I were finally at the center. Never mind that my parents were obsessed with worry for him. At least I was there for dinner every night, the focus of their conversations, for better or for worse. No longer the younger sister struggling to keep up and to prove myself worthy, I had begun to feel whole in my own right, strong enough inside to act on my own convictions.

I was thinking along these lines, completely absorbed in scrubbing out a recalcitrant blob of what looked like petrified oatmeal, when a car crunched the gravel and pulled to a stop with a squeal of brakes. It sounded German. My stomach clutched—had they returned? Would they find me down here violating “their” territory? I glanced out the window and dropped my brush midscrub. Giorgio
was sitting at the wheel of what had once been a German vehicle, the swastika now crudely painted out.

“Mama!” I screamed as I ran outside. “He’s here!”

I threw myself at my brother, penetrating the cloud of exhaust and dust around the car to pull him out from the front seat. He was as ragged and disheveled as the last time I had seen him, and his skin exuded rank layers of sweat, gunpowder, and cooking smoke. He pulled back from my embrace and grinned. “You look ravishing,” he proclaimed. Then he leaned in closer and growled in my ear, “I can see that love agrees with you.”

“
Shhh!
” I hissed back. “Not a word to them. Not yet.” I narrowed my eyes at him, telegraphing a threat. “Promise me.”

He nodded and winked, and turned to Mother, who took him into her arms, sobbing and clinging as if she would never let go. Father emerged a couple of minutes later and put his arms around both of them. “Welcome home, son. We weren’t sure this day would ever come.”

“It’s not over yet, Papa.” Freeing himself from their embrace, Giorgio combed his long hair back from his forehead with his fingers and frowned. “There’s still a lot of fighting going on up there. Lots to be done.”

“Well, we’ve got all night to hear about it.” He put his arm around Giorgio’s waist. “Come on in,
mio figlio
.”

Trailing Papa, we climbed the stairs and settled in the tiny parlor room, Mama on the small sofa next to Giorgio, and Father and I on two chairs pulled in close. Giorgio took a deep breath and looked around. “This is our living room? Since when?”

“It’s been this way for over a year—since last February.” Papa’s voice was impatient, as if this were something he’d rather not discuss.

“Did they force their way in?”

“No, we just…I don’t know, son. We just had to let them stay
here, that’s all.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “But tell us what’s going on up the river. We had some of the Allied commanders here for a while after the Nazis moved out. They weren’t too excited about the troops they had; I’ll tell you that much.”

“Oh, Papa. That’s just the problem—those white officers. We’ve gotten to know a lot of the buffalo soldiers, worked side by side with them, and damn it, they’re fighting as well as any divisions out there. They’ve fallen like flies in some of the counterattacks, but shit! Any troops would. The Germans are ruthless.”

“I heard there’s a lot of ‘straggling’ being reported.”

“That’s not fair. Sometimes a few get separated from the rest at night, but they’re right back in there the next day, ready to fight. I know these guys.” As Mama began asking about food and other supplies, and where he had slept, I quietly slipped out the parlor door.

The sky slowly darkened to a winey purple, giving us good cover but making it hard to see where we were going. Mario and I picked our way through the vineyard rows, lifting our feet to avoid tripping on the tangle of discarded shoots left by that day’s pruning. Now and then, when the path was wide enough, I slowed my pace, fell back next to him, and took his hand. It was warm, a cave of heat to curl into, his fingers cupping my fist.

“Are you scared?” he asked.

I nodded. “What if it doesn’t go well? What if he doesn’t like you?”

Mario smiled. “If he doesn’t, it won’t really be about me, will it? Besides, he’s your father—how could he be anything but wonderful?”

“He is, but he has a couple of blind spots and certain…shall we say
expectations
when it comes to me.”

“Well, tonight won’t have anything to do with us. I’m just a
friend of Giorgio’s coming to his birthday dinner, right? It’s not as if I’m asking for your hand.”

We walked on in silence. The last twitter of birds died away, replaced by the steady pulsing of crickets rising around us. I couldn’t believe we were out like that, walking together in plain sight. It had been months since we had been anywhere together but in the confinement of the tower.

“Can I ask you something, Mario?”

He leaned into me. “Ask away, my Giovannina.”

“What would your parents think of me? Of our being together?”

“They would love you.”

“But about my not being Jewish.”

He thought for a bit. “I think—God bless them, wherever they are—their first choice would be for me to marry someone Jewish, but they are realistic too. We’re in Italy, after all. My grandmother would probably care a lot, but my parents? They would just be happy that I found someone I love.” He put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer. “I just hope we have a chance to find out. I want you to know them.”

Villa Farfalla loomed ahead in the dusk, and as we approached, I watched Mario carefully. He took it all in, then seemed to run an appraising eye over the gardens, the paths, the exterior. I worried that he might be either overly impressed with our family’s estate or disappointed that it wasn’t what he imagined. But his gaze was level, his comment sympathetic. “What a toll this war has taken. I can only imagine what our summer place looks like—if it’s even still standing,” he said. “It will take years to put this country back together again once this war’s finally over.”

“We have to go around to the side entrance,” I said, pulling him
by the hand. “We’re still in the back of the house in our little Nazi-designated apartment.”

“Bastards.” His grip tightened a little.

“Remember,” I said. “No sign that there’s anything between us.”

“I’ll do my best.” He gave me a quick kiss on the ear, then dropped my hand. “But it won’t be easy.”

My father was expansive, warm, welcoming. He held out his hand to Mario, put his other hand around his shoulder, flashed him an approving grin. Without being in any way condescending, he was solicitous—like a textile salesman eager to make a positive impression.

“I hear you’re putting up with some tough accommodations these days.” He laughed. “Kind of like us.” He swept an arm around the tiny salon. “Sorry we can’t offer you more capacious surroundings, but we’re glad you’re here. Giorgio’s told us so much about you.”

Had he? Papa seemed comfortable enough with him. He asked about Mario’s father, with whom, to my surprise, he had done some banking business five or six years earlier. “Great guy—hell of a good businessman too.” He looked at Giorgio and winked. “Drove a hard bargain; I’ll tell you that much. We nearly didn’t get our loan. But he came through in the end—a man of his word.”

We made our way downstairs into the main dining room. Candles flickered down the center of the table and burned in a couple of stands nearby, softening the atmosphere and obscuring the wreckage in the rest of the main floor. A collection of five mismatched chairs sat at the table like uncomfortable guests. A blue-and-white-checked tablecloth more suitable for a picnic than an elegant dinner lay rumpled and slightly askew, not quite covering the whole surface.