“Your car is ready for you, Signore Male,” Fabrizio called from the doorway of the dining room as Carla cleared away the last of the breakfast dishes. The freshly baked panini with prosciutto and formaggio and black coffee had been a delight and had set him up for the day.
“Grazie mille,” said Harry in his best Italian.
“Prego.” Carla scuttled off through the kitchen door and Harry wiped his mouth on a napkin.
He’d slept well thanks to the grappa and despite his proximity to the scene of his nightmares, or perhaps because of it, he’d been spared a repeat. He felt more relaxed and confident as each day passed and the awful memories of his time with the Girardis were gradually taking on a new perspective, evolving in a positive way as, little by little, flawed recollections and suppositions were superseded by reality. Increasingly, the Girardis were ceasing to be ghostly figments of his tortured imagination, becoming real people again, real victims caught up in a conflict not of their making.
He stepped into the reception area and Fabrizio led him out into the morning sunshine, holding a car key aloft. His heart sank.
“Prego, signore.” Fabrizio beamed, gesturing to the diminutive vehicle parked outside the hotel. It was a white Fiat 500, a Cinquecento as it was known locally. It had red leather upholstery and sported a part-sliding black canvas roof that was already open. Harry cursed himself for not enquiring about or specifying anything bigger, but Fabrizio seemed so pleased with himself he didn’t have the heart to say anything.
“Grazie mille. How much do I owe you?”
Fabrizio shook his head. “Later, later. I put it on your bill. Sì?”
“Do you want to see my driving license?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to sign anything?” He made a writing impression in the air.
“No.” Fabrizio shook his head and handed him the key and a folded Michelin map. Welcome to Italy!
“Do you know a place called Solano, Fabrizio? It was a very small village in 1944.”
Fabrizio thought for a moment, but the answer was the same. “I do not think so, signore. I know of no such place.”
Harry thanked him and slid into the driver’s seat, the backward opening doors facilitating his entry, and examined the few controls, then turned the key and the twin cylinder engine behind him rattled into life like an angry lawnmower. He slipped it into gear and pulled jerkily out into the quiet street.
Within fifteen minutes he’d got the hang of the gears and left Montellano behind, exploring the countryside with the wind in his hair. He was soon beginning to enjoy the little car. It handled like a go-cart and was perfectly suited to the narrow country lanes. He stopped to consult the map and after a few detours found a sign that sent him on a winding route up the hillside towards his destination. The Cinquecento responded like an eager puppy, its engine singing operatically as it propelled the miniature car and its full-sized occupant up the steep, bendy road.
An hour after he’d left the hotel, he came across the village sign: Santa Cristina De Lago. He slowed down, partly from a sudden sense of deference but also from hesitation, a fear that he was intruding. The tarmac gave way to cobbles and the deserted streets narrowed as he steered the Fiat at walking pace towards the village centre. The buildings were old and despite the many bullet holes that peppered the walls of the houses, clearly hadn’t suffered the same destructive fate as those in Montellano, but most of the window shutters were closed and there was no one about. The place was eerily quiet and he struggled to recognise anything until the street finally opened out into a piazza dominated, like many such villages, by a large church.
He stopped the car and took in an image as familiar to him as any, but which he’d seen only twice before, once in March 1944 when his brigade had briefly been resident and again, a few weeks ago in a scratchy, black and white horror film. A number of people were moving about the piazza: old women in headscarves hobbling bow-legged with heavy shopping bags, children playing with hoops and ropes and chasing stray cats, dogs lying comatose on the cobblestones or else standing motionless, bored and lethargic. A small number of open carts loaded with fruit, vegetables or flowers were on display, the vendors’ horses still attached, waiting patiently alongside, chewing hay, their owners haggling and gesticulating with customers. A fountain stood in the centre, topped with a statue of Santa Cristina herself, harp in the crook of one arm, the other holding a tilted urn from which fresh water tumbled into the circular base. The women wore black; there were no old men.
He parked the Fiat behind a van, took the keys out of the ignition and put them in his pocket, having no urge to close the canvas roof or lock any doors. He retrieved his panama from the rear seat and stepped out into the square feeling instantly conspicuous in his linen suit, but no one paid him any attention. The sun beat down into the piazza and he reluctantly placed the hat on his head, as if doing so conveyed a lack of respect.
“Buongiorno.” An old woman passed him without looking up, taking him by surprise.
He turned swiftly, fumbled to remove his hat and mumbled in return, but she was already gone. He felt like he was intruding in a private place, somewhere he didn’t belong and hadn’t been invited, but one whose residents had never forgotten how to be civil.
He crossed the piazza, passing in front of the steps that led up to the entrance to the church, doors open and welcoming, forever at the disposal of those who needed succour and sanctuary. He wandered over to the far side of the piazza and found a brass plaque affixed to the wall. He removed his hat and loosely translated the inscription in his head.
This is the place where 143 sons of Santa Cristina were murdered by the Nazis. May all their souls rest in peace.
14th March 1944
Harry gripped his panama, feeding it through his hands as if it were too hot to hold, recalling the images in the film and imagining the sound of gunfire and then turning to look down at the cobbles, expecting to see a river of blood. They were dark and smooth and shiny, all traces of death long since washed away and consigned to history.
“Americano?” The sound startled him, but he was relieved by the distraction. A young woman in her twenties was watching him, leaning her weight on one leg, supporting a small boy on her hip. The child eyed him coldly, lollipop stick protruding from stained lips.
“No. Inglese. Buongiorno.”
“Buongiorno. Giornalista?”
“Oh, no. I’m not a journalist. I’m just… er…” Her gaze was unwavering and it unnerved him. “I came here once. Many years ago.” He examined her face, wondering if he had seen her before. She would have been six or seven years old. She glanced at the plaque.
“They killed my papà,” she said without emotion, “and my two brothers.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
The woman shrugged. “Is not your fault.”
“I wish we could have stopped it.”
“We wish many things.”
He felt awkward – the need to explain, but it was too difficult. They had fought their way up the hillside, lost many men along the way and believed at last they were making progress. But then the Germans had come back at them and they’d been driven out, back to where they started, more men lost, no ground gained. They’d retreated and left the men of Santa Cristina to their fate although they could not have known and anyway had no choice.
“We wish the men who did this could be found and punished,” she said. “But they are probably enjoying their life somewhere.”
The lump that formed instantly in Harry’s throat threatened to choke him. He already knew the names of two of those responsible: Engel and Kessler. They were free to do as they wished, Engel to strut about the world stage gorging on the trappings of luxury afforded officials of a Soviet puppet regime and Kessler, to murder anyone the likes of he, Engel or his cronies chose as well as anyone else who got in the way or just took his fancy. He knew who they were and others knew who they were and he was filled with shame that neither he nor his erstwhile superiors had the balls or the morality to speak out. His silence made him an accomplice to the crime, but he knew, sadly, there was nothing to be gained by breaking it. It was a burden he would have to bear. He cleared his throat and changed the subject.
“And who is this?”
The young woman softened and ran a hand through her son’s curly hair. “This is Alan.”
“Alan?”
“I give him nome inglese” – an English name – “to remind me that you help us.”
Harry felt humbled beyond measure, her gratitude a further twist of the knife in his conscience. Despite the human cost, evil had finally been vanquished – a community destroyed to save a country. Yet she would never know how unworthy he felt; she even had good cause to despise the British and the Americans and the New Zealanders and the Poles as much as the Germans for the terror they’d unleashed on their village. But redemption and justice? They were at the mercy of only those brave enough to offer it.
“My name is Harry.” He held out a hand. She took it without hesitation and to his surprise, pulled him towards her and kissed his cheek. It was not just a courtesy; it was more than that.
“Adriana.”
Harry felt charmed, flustered and broken all at once, but her expression remained neutral. He took a deep breath to clear his head.
“Adriana? Do you know of a village called Solano?”
She shook her head. “There is no place with that name… Addio.”
Adriana walked off with her son Alan under her arm and Harry watched her go as the church bells chimed eleven.
***
He could only guess which way to go. He spread the map out on the bonnet and ran a finger over it for several minutes searching in vain for the name. The landscape had changed completely and back then, he and his men had stumbled and staggered chaotically down the rugged hillside, not effected an orderly retreat down a winding tarmac road. All he remembered was that it had taken two or three hours dodging snipers and artillery fire before it got dark and they were able to dig in, create some shelter from rocks and stones and hunker down for the night. He tried to rationalise the distance, but it was impossible and if Solano no longer existed, there was no map that would indicate where he wanted to be. After an hour pottering along country lanes between endless vineyards and olive groves, he remained totally disorientated and increasingly despondent, starting to believe the village of Solano was a figment of his imagination.
The Fiat reached the brow of a hill and he stopped. He stood on the seat, poked his head out of the sunroof and scanned the landscape. It all looked so different: green and peaceful and ordered. Nature had repaired the damage wreaked by man. Then, just as he decided to turn the car around, a church steeple caught his eye. It was three or four miles away, but it stood proud on a hillock to the east. He tried to plot a route but there were only two choices, forward or back, and as he didn’t remember passing any turn-offs along the way, he continued on.
Galvanised with hope, he gunned the little Fiat forward, repeatedly looking left to try to catch a glimpse of the steeple. Within a mile, he came across a narrow track on the left and turned in. The car bounced and shook on the dirt road, its tiny wheels pelting the underside with small stones and kicking up a cloud of dust behind. The track swiftly deteriorated and he feared he might have to turn back, lest the Cinquecento shake itself to pieces. Mercifully, after five minutes, he reached the safety of tarmac.
The church was clearly visible now, and within five minutes was just a half-mile distant, the orientation of the steeple just as he remembered. He parked the Fiat at the side of the road in front of a gate, switched off the engine and opened the door, which sounded loud and harsh in the relative silence. He stood in the road, rolled up his shirtsleeves and stared up at the deep blue cloudless sky, soaking up the warmth on his face. The air was devoid of any wind and the buzz of insects and the occasional twitter of a bird competed with the pinging and popping of contracting metal emanating from the back of the Fiat. He retrieved a pair of sunglasses from his jacket, slung it over his shoulder and positioned his panama. He set off on foot.
He found it within two hundred yards. The contours of the ground on either side gave it away despite the camouflage afforded by orderly rows of vines that now carpeted the fields. There was no track and no farmhouse but he picked his spot, stepped off the road into a field and walked up a small incline between two vines, counting the paces. A voice from the past echoed. Keep your eyes open, Wilkins… Yessir! There were no explosions, no gunfire, no droning aircraft, no cries for help, just an exquisite tranquillity that soothed his senses.
He came to a small clearing with an open-sided wooden shed. A pile of metal supports and several reels of plastic-coated wire were stacked under its sloping roof: hardware supplies for a vineyard that stretched out in all directions. But around him on the ground where he now stood were the remains of a building. There was virtually nothing: a few fragments of brick, a few shards of roof tile, a short section of rusty drainpipe and some splintered wood. But he could visualise the door, the window, the staircase, the fireplace, and the room where lives had been lived and lives had been ended.
He sat on a boulder and removed his panama. He ran a hand through his hair and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck with his handkerchief. He tried to think of something to say and if he were religious, a prayer would have come, but that was all just mumbo-jumbo and talking to himself was not something he did easily. What are you doing here, you fool? What did you expect to find? Peace. That’s what I expected.
He ran through the events again, but this time he felt somehow detached – casual observer more than participant. A place damned by violence, death and destruction was now an oasis of peace and beauty. The place of his nightmares had moved on and the example it set just might convince him to do the same.
“Buongiorno.”
“Christ!” He jumped to his feet, startled by the sound. A man wearing a long black cassock and a wide-brimmed hat was watching him, smiling broadly. Harry’s shock was quickly subsumed by embarrassment. “Sorry, Father.”
“I regret, I am not he. Merely a humble servant of our Lord.” The smile remained inscrutable, but he’d clearly enjoyed the irony.
“I was miles away. I mean, I was thinking of something else.”
“I am sorry if I disturbed you. I saw the car and then spotted you up here. I wondered if I could help?”
Harry shrugged and fiddled with his hat. There would be no confession, at least not to a priest, but the Father appeared benign and clearly had a sense of humour so there could be no harm.
“This place is called Solano, is it not?”
“I am not aware of the name.”
Harry looked around him. There were no other buildings nearby. He guessed they had suffered the same fate. Solano had been wiped off the map.
“I’m probably trespassing here.”
“I do not think the farmer would mind. You do not look as if you have come to steal his grapes.”
“No.” Harry couldn’t resist asking, “Do you know the farmer’s name?” The question was put tentatively and he felt the priest’s eyes on him. He feared the pause might signify suspicion, but the priest was only searching for an answer.
“I think this land belongs to Signore Cavallaro. Do you know him?”
“No. Not at all. I just wondered.” He saw the raising of a priestly eyebrow and he took his cue. “I once knew a family called Girardi. They lived here. They had a farmhouse, right here.” He pointed to the ground.
“You were a soldier?”
“Yes. I tried to help them… the Girardis, but…” He shrugged. “It wasn’t possible.”
“I see. We have a grave bearing that name. In the churchyard. Would you like to come and see?”
Harry swallowed. He hadn’t thought where the bodies might be, nor once considered what might have happened after he’d passed out. Someone had found him and carried him to a field hospital; his own troops, he’d assumed, but no one there remembered who’d brought him in and he never found out. Perhaps the same guys dealt with the bodies of Alfredo, Isabella and Catalina? Possible but unlikely. And how the hell did Kessler get out alive? His mind raced. In his mind the world had ended for them all when the last bomb hit and the last bullet was fired, but of course, it went on, for some of them. What happened afterwards?
“I would like that very much. Can I give you a lift?
***
Father Giorgio Benelli had taken over the church of San Dionisio ten years previously following the death of his venerable predecessor, Father Aiello. He said the church had suffered extensive damage during the war but had been fully restored and it now gleamed white in the autumn sunshine. The graveyard, in contrast, had escaped and still bore headstones dating back five hundred years. They strolled amongst the graves on the exquisitely kept grass between beautifully maintained flowerbeds.
“I think we will find them here,” said the priest, directing Harry to a modest headstone of grey granite. He felt the hairs go up on the back of his neck as his eyes fell on the inscription.
GIRARDI
Maria, 6 marzo 1898 a 22 febbraio 1943
Moglie di
Alfredo, 11 agosto 1890 a 14 marzo 1944
Madre e Padre di
Isabella, 18 ottobre 1925 a 14 marzo 1944
“Is there something wrong?” Father Benelli was looking at him curiously. Harry’s face had betrayed his confusion.
“I never knew Maria, but I knew Alfredo and Isabella. She had a child. A newborn baby. There is no mention of her here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, there’s no doubt. I was holding her myself when she passed away.” The words sounded alien to him, as if he were talking about someone else and in a strange way he was.
“We have records inside. Maybe they will show some more light?”
They stepped into the cool entrance to the church where a table bedecked with lighted candles greeted them. Father Benelli made the sign of the cross and led the way up the central aisle.
“The church records are kept in the sacristy,” he said, indicating a door in the corner to the left of the altar where an elderly woman was swabbing the tiled floor with a mop. She was short and stout, with silvery grey hair and wore a floral housecoat over her green woollen sweater and heavy tweed skirt.
“Buongiorno, Rosa. Come stai?”
“Bene, Padre.”
He stopped and turned to Harry. “Rosa has been here forever. Maybe she knows something?”
Harry watched as Benelli launched into a long and apparently involved explanation of the stranger inglese, how they’d met and his connection to the Girardis. Rosa leaned on her mop and listened intently without interrupting, casting a glance or two at Harry but maintaining a severe expression throughout which he could only assume was her natural demeanour.
Rosa began slowly but as she spoke she gradually became more animated and vociferous. Harry couldn’t understand the words she was using but got a hint of the meaning through her increasingly aggressive tone and whatever she was saying, it wasn’t complimentary. She flashed a look of anger at him and gesticulated with her free hand and although Benelli nodded sagely, Harry could tell the priest was uncomfortable and like him, had not been expecting a tirade. Harry wondered if Rosa was ever going to stop and he felt embarrassed, wishing he were somewhere else. Benelli tried to calm her by raising his hands.
“Si calmi, signora.” He asked her something else presumably to clarify, Harry thought, but she launched into her diatribe once more until she finally ran out of steam and waved a hand in dismissal. Harry was grateful for the silence but one word rang in his ears and seemed to echo round the hallowed walls. Prostituta!
Rosa resumed her mopping with a vengeance, transferring what remained of her aggression to the eight-hundred-year-old floor tiles while muttering under her breath. Benelli turned to Harry, looking subdued and apologetic.
“She say the Girardis were a good family…” But? “She say that Maria and Alfredo were good parents… but… maybe…” He stopped to consider his words carefully and Harry decided to help them both out of their misery.
“She called Isabella a prostitute.”
Benelli nodded sadly. “Yes. I don’t know if this is true or just gossip. But she says that the Germans went to the Girardi house a lot, and the Girardis always had food and they never suffered like other families.” Benelli shrugged. It was the least explicit he could be in the circumstances. This was not a subject normally debated in a house of God.
Harry sighed. He didn’t know if it was true and he didn’t care. He thought no less of Alfredo and Isabella. What were they supposed to do? They did what they had to do to survive and what Isabella may or may not have done against the backdrop of war was of no consequence and paled into insignificance compared to the crimes of others. If it were true then baby Catalina was probably a consequence of her actions, but the absence of any mention on the gravestone disturbed him. It pained him to know that even the most innocent of all had been denied the basic show of respect and dignity she deserved. It was as if Catalina had never existed.
“So they all died and that was the end of the Girardis.”
“Oh, no,” said Benelli. “You may not have understood. Rosa said Isabella had a sister, Lucia.”
“What? A sister?”
“Sì. The sister was younger, maybe four or five years.”
“But I never saw anyone else.”
“I can’t explain this.”
Harry was now agitated himself. He needed to know more. “But where is Lucia? There’s no grave. Is she still alive?”
Benelli turned to Rosa. “Rosa, Lucia è ancora viva?”
Rosa muttered something without looking up and Harry looked expectantly at the priest.
“Dov'è lei?”
Asking Rosa where Lucia was set her off again, but the rant was short-lived.
“She says she went missing for a few years, then, after the war, she married a local businessman in Montellano called Luigi Barone. He was much older. Not a good man according to Rosa. But then they moved away from Montellano.”
“Prostituta! Mafioso!” Rosa shouted, waddling off in disgust with her bucket and mop.