They got back to their room at the Abruzzi by four o’clock. Carla had fussed, concerned about the sticking plaster on Harry’s face and he had to reassure her it was a very minor injury. Fabrizio said the police had called him to say their guest “Harper” was actually an imposter called “Male” and they were watching him carefully, but he should not be concerned. Fabrizio said he’d expressed shock and horror at the deception and promised to call them immediately the man and his girlfriend had checked out.
“I am your girlfriend now?” said Lucia with a grin, slumping on the sofa, stretching her arms and yawning.
“Does that offend you?” he asked, sitting down next to her. It had a nice ring to it and he suddenly felt like he was back at school enjoying the same rush and quiver of desire he’d had the first time he’d spotted a girl he fancied.
“No. It does not offend me.” She touched the sticking plaster on his face. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Maybe we change it for a clean one.”
“After I’ve had a shower. I’ve been rolling around in a church aisle with a madman. I can’t take a lady out to dinner without smartening up.”
“No you can’t,” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek.
Their eyes met and he placed a hand behind her neck, caressing it slowly. She made no attempt to remove it or tell him to stop, but slowly closed her eyes and twisted her head in a circular motion as if enjoying the sensation. He pulled her slowly towards him and kissed her gently on the lips. She tasted faintly of coffee and perfume. She half-opened her eyes, kept her mouth open and close to his and he could feel her breath.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
She smiled a big smile revealing her strong white teeth.
“The inglese talks like an italiano.”
“But the inglese means it.”
She put her hand behind his neck and pressed her mouth against his, working her lips around his, lapping gently with her tongue, then swung her leg over his lap to straddle him, her skirt riding up her thighs. He laid his hands on her legs, slid them under her skirt and along her thighs until he reached her taut slender buttocks, and then leaned forward, lifting her as he got to his feet. She wrapped her legs around his waist and clung onto his neck, snuggling her face into his shoulder as he carried her across the room and laid her down on the bed.
They held each other and kissed and caressed each other and undressed each other slowly, exploring their bodies inch by inch, examining and kissing every imperfection before slipping under the single white sheet to consummate their union. They eventually lay still, clasped together as inseparable halves of a whole, he on his back, she draped across his chest and legs with her head tucked under his chin.
“You seduced me, Harrimale,” she said sleepily, squeezing him again as if she could get any closer. He kissed the top of her forehead.
“It wasn’t difficult. You didn’t put up much of a fight.”
She tipped her head back and gave him a look of mock anger. “Are you saying I encourage you?”
“I’m saying I was in love with you the moment I saw you. It was only a matter of time before you fell for my charms.”
She sniggered with delight and squeezed him again. “Let’s have a shower.”
She threw the sheet back and jumped out of bed and he followed her into the bathroom. They hugged and kissed each other again under the torrent of hot, steamy water and she carefully peeled away the sticking plaster from his cheek. The flesh was red and raw but the wound clean and she kissed it gently. They soaped each other to excess, laughing and giggling like teenagers and then, when the skin on their fingers eventually began to wrinkle, turned off the flow and wrapped each other in large fluffy white towels.
They lay on their sides on the bed, she with her back to him, his arm around her middle, pressing himself against her like two spoons.
“Is someone going to shoot at us tomorrow?” she said quietly, sounding suddenly fatigued.
“I hope not.”
“But if they do, you will look after me, yes?”
He kissed the back of her head. “We’ll look after each other.”
“Where shall we go, Harrimale?” She’d got back into the habit of using his full name and seemed unable to break it. He rather liked the sound.
“Don’t know, but wherever we go, we go together.” She gripped his arm tighter. “Hungry?”
“No.”
“Well, I am.”
***
They sat in the Ristorante Chimera at the same table as before, sipping glasses of cold Prosecco brought by their gregarious host Angelo.
“I give you on the house!” he’d boomed and was clearly smitten when Lucia had kissed him on both cheeks. She looked especially exotic in a black lace top and red trousers and they’d both complimented Carla for an excellent job in the procurement of Lucia’s wardrobe. There would be a sizeable bill to pay and he’d have to cash in some traveller’s cheques tomorrow but it didn’t matter. She was worth it.
“Do you think the police will be able to keep Kessler locked up?” she asked. The German was no risk to her, of that Harry was certain, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility Kessler still had a score to settle with him, even though Lucia had told him the truth.
“Difficult to say. He’s shown himself to be remarkably resilient. It depends on whether he’s still on a mission.” He stretched a hand across the table and rested it on hers. “Lucia. I’m head over heels in love with you.” She grinned sheepishly and put her other hand on his. “And I promise I’ll take you somewhere no one can find us, not Kessler, nor Luigi, nor anyone else. That’s, of course, assuming you want to come?”
“Yes, I want to come, Harrimale.” She leaned across the table and he met her in the middle with a soft kiss.
“Prego, signore e signora!” Angelo caught them by surprise. He was holding two plates of lasagne. “I have something special for the love-birds,” he announced, setting the plates down and beaming inanely at them before backing away, winking at Harry.
“I’ll miss this place,” he said, “but I want us to get away from Montellano as soon as possible.” He was being truthful, but he knew he couldn’t leave before the last piece of the jigsaw slotted into place and he wasn’t sure how she was going to react. “But before I take you to some exotic place on the other side of the world, there’s something I need to do first.” She looked up at him, waiting for him to finish, but he hesitated. His own mission wasn’t over yet and he couldn’t stop now even though on recent experience, he knew it wouldn’t be simple. “Lucia, you said something to Kessler that shocked and stunned both of us. You may have been making it up to distract him, but I need to know whether it was true or not.”
“You mean Catalina.” He nodded. She had probably been expecting it and was suddenly subdued again, her mind in possession of the facts but somehow unwilling or unable to relate them. “What I said was true. The baby did not die.”
“Tell me.”
***
What remains of the fire crackles and spits, its fuel almost gone, the only sound in an otherwise eerie silence that’s descended on what’s left of her home. The good soldier’s eyes are closed and he looks like he has died, but she can see he’s still breathing. The baby is wriggling in her arms, bloody and dusty and cold. She has to wrap her in something to keep her warm. The soldier’s knife lies in his open hand. She lays Catalina on the bed between the legs of her dead mother and takes the knife and cuts a one-metre square piece from the filthy bed cover. She shakes the dust and grit to the floor but the underside is clean so she puts it over Catalina and picks her up, wrapping the heavy soft blanket around her, leaving only her face visible.
Catalina opens her eyes and purrs but then her face creases up and she starts to cry. The baby’s cold and hungry. There’s nothing to eat and the house is wrecked, incapable of providing shelter. She steps carefully over the rubble. She has no shoes and everywhere there are broken tiles, sharp fragments of brick and wood splinters that prick her feet and make her squeal, but she holds the baby close and the crying increases in intensity.
She picks her way towards the front of the house, now open to the elements, and out through a hole in the wall where the front door used to be. The sun is up and she can feel the warmth on her face and through her dressing gown but the ground is hard and cold and there are still patches of thin ice where puddles have formed. There’s a massive hole in the front yard ten metres across and three metres deep and she can see a succession of similar craters stretching down to the road and beyond. She’s wondering how she’s going to get past them when she hears voices on the road. She’s afraid it’s the bad soldiers again so she slips around the side of the house to the back and hobbles across the field, clutching the baby to her chest, afraid they’ll see her and give chase.
She stops after a hundred metres to catch her breath and crouches down, turning to look back at where her home used to be. The soldiers are approaching the house which is still smouldering. They wear a brown uniform like the good soldier and two of them have red crosses on their arms. They disappear inside and haven’t seen her so she runs on.
***
Angelo cleared their plates and Harry poured some more red wine.
“Must have been Marco Wilkins. He made it back after all.”
“You expect him?”
“I sent him on ahead to get medical help, for Isabella. Sounds like he managed to rustle up a couple of spare medics. Pity they weren’t in time to save her.”
“They might have been killed too.”
“Yes, there is that.”
“And they were able to help you instead.”
“I don’t remember any of it. I must have been unconscious when they found me and I never saw them again. I never saw any of my platoon again,” he said with sadness. He took a sip of his wine, holding it in his mouth for ten seconds to allow it to warm up and, when he swallowed, it filled his head with a rich velvety taste and a delicious aroma that heightened his senses. He wondered at the barefoot, bedraggled fourteen-year-old clutching a newborn baby and tried to equate the image with the goddess sitting opposite who’d just shared his bed. Angels both. But there had to be more. “So then what happened?”
“I reached a road and there were more of your soldiers there and I walked in the same direction as them but most of them ignored me. Then one of them, I think he was an officer, stopped me and said I could not walk without shoes and he offered to carry me, but I refused. He was very concerned about my feet, but he could do nothing and after a while I could not feel them anyway. He said there were many other soldiers ahead of us but they would be coming back to Montellano to attack the Germans again. He said it was no place for children and we had to find a family to take me in.”
“Makes sense. Did you?”
“Not at first. We came across more and more soldiers, many of them wounded and some of them on crutches, then an old man came past us with a donkey and cart and two children sitting on the back and the officer called out and stopped him. The man looked like my papà and the officer told him he should take me somewhere safe. He was not happy but after a big argument he agreed. The officer gave me a drink of water and I tried to wipe some on the lips of the baby, but it made her cry again. He lifted me into the back of the cart and waved at me as we moved off, but I could not wave back as I was holding the baby.”
Harry tried to visualise the scene. While he was being loaded onto a stretcher back at the farmhouse, Lucia and Catalina were being transported to who knows where. Whoever helped her had been right. There was no way he could take children back with him and it was reasonable to assume the old Italian would look after one of his own.
“Where did he take you?”
“He turned off the road after maybe two kilometres and we went along a long rough track for maybe a half hour or so. Then he stopped the cart and told me to get off.”
“What?”
“He said this was as far as he could go. He lived close by but they had no food and we could not come in. He pointed to a pathway and said there was a family called Rossetti about one kilometre away and they would take me in. And then he drove off.”
“He just left you there? In your bare feet?”
She nodded.
***
Manuela Rossetti wiped the sweat from her brow and dried her hands on a cloth she kept tucked into the ties of her apron. She put the pail of milk down on the scullery table and scooped some into a tin mug, satisfied it was still warm enough and she wouldn’t need to heat it over the fire. The goats were lactating well and it was blessing they couldn’t do without, not while Lorenzo and Gino were still away. She hadn’t seen them for three weeks and she didn’t even know if they were still alive, but there was nothing she could do about it so there was no point worrying. Anyway, her hands were full and it was as well she didn’t also have two hungry men stomping around causing trouble.
She took the milk into the front room where the log fire burned fiercely in the grate. Viviana was still where she had left her, still rocking gently in the chair by the fireplace, still staring into space and, despite the warmth of the flames, she sat hunched and huddled beneath a black woollen shawl. Her daughter’s eyes were dark and sunken, her skin tinged with yellow and her black hair hung in random strands like frayed rope.
“Viviana,” she said but her daughter didn’t even acknowledge her presence. She held the cup under her nose. “Viviana! You must eat something. This is fresh milk. It will make you feel better.” Manuela sighed and placed the cup on a grate by the fire. It would stay warm for hours.
She didn’t know how to make Viviana snap out of her depression. Things would be better when Gino came back. Things were always better with Gino around and of course her husband Lorenzo too, but Gino was the funny one and he loved her daughter and when they’d got married he’d promised he’d give her lots of children and they’d have a house of their own with land where they’d grow vines and olives and tomatoes. Viviana was pregnant almost immediately and Gino was thrilled and he built a cot from the wood of the eucalyptus tree and they all anxiously awaited the baby’s arrival.
But God, on this occasion, had moved in one of his mysterious ways and the baby was stillborn. Gino buried his son Roberto in the back garden and tried his best to comfort his wife who was inconsolable for a month. It was God’s will, but they would try again and soon they’d have a family of their own. By the summer of 1943, the men who were not already in uniform were being rounded up to defend the motherland from the invading forces. Both Lorenzo and Gino had decided Mussolini was a lunatic who had led them to disaster and that the best way of defending their country was to fight the Nazis.
They joined a partisan group and spent much of their time living wild in the countryside, attacking the Germans, disrupting their supply lines, sabotaging their vehicles and killing as many of the bastardi as they could. They would arrive home unexpectedly, stay for just one night and then kiss their wives and disappear again, sometimes for a month at a time. Viviana was soon pregnant again and although Gino tried to return as often as possible to make sure his wife and unborn child were doing well, they had been gone for almost two months now and the women began to fear the worst.
Manuela delivered her daughter’s baby girl on 10 March 1944 but she could tell immediately there was a problem. The child had come early and was very small. Baby Giuliana died two days later in her mother’s arms. Viviana cried and cried and refused to get out of bed, distraught at her loss. Manuela wrapped Giuliana in a cloth and buried her next to Roberto, fashioning a cross from the eucalyptus tree as best she could. Viviana blamed herself. She had failed again. She was a useless wife and her husband would never forgive her for losing both their babies. She would never be able to have children and Gino would leave her and she would not blame him if he did. She dreaded Gino coming back, expecting to see her and their new baby and she just wanted to die. She refused to eat anything. She would starve herself to death.
Manuela too was apprehensive about the men’s return, even though she missed them terribly and still feared they had been hurt, or worse. If Gino is the man I think he is, he will comfort his wife and make love to her again and they will have a child one day. After four days, she finally persuaded Viviana to get out of bed. She got the tin bath down off the scullery wall and put it in front of the fire and boiled five kettles of water. She bathed her twenty-two-year-old daughter as she had done when she was a child, rubbing her skin gently with a sponge, while Viviana sat mute, staring into the water.
She dried her and dressed her and sat her in the rocking chair and implored her to eat some bread and milk, but she refused and her daughter had remained there ever since.
***
It’s getting dark and cold and her feet are painful and bleeding. The baby weighs only two or three kilos but it feels like she is getting heavier and her arms are aching. She’s hungry and thirsty and Catalina has had nothing in the twelve hours she’s been born, so she must be hungry and thirsty too. She doesn’t know where the Rossetti house is. The man who looked like Papà must have been lying. She can hear explosions in the far distance but they don’t worry her any more. She has other concerns.
She hears a familiar noise nearby. Goats whinnying and chickens clucking, alert to the noise of her approach. The animals are in a five-metre square pen surrounded by a wire fence and there’s a wooden shed at one end and a gate at the other secured by a rope looped over a post. She hoists the baby onto one shoulder and unfastens the loop and the chickens cluck and run to her, demanding grain. She makes her way across the pen towards the shed with the chickens following, running around her feet. The shed door is open and the smell inside is pungent and rank and two tethered goats inside bid her welcome with a plaintive cry. She lays the baby down on some straw and lies next to her and reaches for her own feet, which are cold as ice and sting at her touch. The baby whimpers. She must feed her.
She knows about goats. There’s a milking pail and tin cup hanging on a hook and she crawls over and unhooks it and puts the pail under one of the nannies and lies on her front and squeezes two teats and streams of warm milk hit the pail and when she has enough she scoops it out with the cup and she drinks it and it’s warm and rich and flavoursome. She takes the cup and pail over to where Catalina lies and picks her up and sits with her back to the shed wall holding the baby in one arm but she doesn’t know how to feed her from the cup. She tries dipping a finger and putting it on the baby’s lips and the baby responds and sucks the finger but her nails are dirty and the quantity is too small. Then she remembers.
She unfastens her dressing gown and unbuttons her filthy nightdress and clasps the baby to her skin. Her breast is small and not fully formed but the baby finds the nipple and clamps her lips around it and it tickles and she feels a strange sensation but there is no milk and the baby starts to cry. She reaches for the cup and pours a little down her chest and the milky rivulet reaches the nipple and the baby snuffles and drinks and after a while opens her eyes and she stares into the eyes of the baby and the baby stares into the eyes of the mother and she begins to weep.
***
Manuela Rossetti crossed the yard behind the house, carrying a wooden bucket full of grain under her arm. She squinted in the morning sun and her breath left a faint cloud in the crisp clear air. She looked to the west, where the sound of man-made thunder had been going on for hours but, thank God, it had never come close enough to worry her and she prayed it would stay there. She reached the pen where the chickens were clucking expectantly and let herself in, tossing handfuls of grain around in a wide arc until her bucket was empty. She stepped into the goat shed to check the animals.
A young girl was curled up in a ball on the floor, a sack of manure for a pillow, her legs covered in straw. She was clutching a bundle of blankets to her chest.
“Oh my goodness gracious,” she said. She knelt down beside the sleeping form and placed a hand on the girl’s forehead. The waif woke with a start, terror in her eyes. She can be no more than twelve or thirteen. “Don’t be afraid, my angel.” The blankets moved and a baby cried. She drew back the blanket to reveal the tiny form inside. “Madre Maria!” The young girl pulled back in alarm. She offered her hand and the girl looked frightened and suspicious at first but then, after a moment, took it and tried to get to her feet. Manuela reached for the bundle to help her but she cried out.
“No!”
Despite her own misgivings, Manuela Rossetti affected her best smile. The girl looked haunted by something or someone and she was filthy, wearing only her nightclothes. She moved the straw from around the girl’s feet and saw the blackened blood and blisters.
“Let me help you. Let me carry your baby and we can all go inside and have some food by the fire and I will clean your feet.” She reached out for the bundle and reluctantly the girl let her take it. The baby snuffled and yawned, waving a tiny fist in front of her face. “Come with me.”
She helped the girl up but she winced in pain and gripped Manuela’s hand as she led her hobbling out of the shed, through the pen, and up towards the house. Manuela’s mind was absorbed with one question. The girl was surely too young to have a baby. Where on earth did she get it?
“What’s your name, sweetie?”
“Lucia Girardi,” said the girl through gritted teeth, limping badly. Manuela had heard the name Girardi before, but she couldn’t remember where. “The baby is Catalina.”
“Catalina? That’s an unusual name, but very beautiful. Whose baby is it?”
“She’s mine!” Manuela’s heart sank. Lucia had stolen the baby from somewhere and now she would have a problem working out how to get it back to its mother.
“No, sweetie. You are too young to have a baby,” she said gently. “Where’s her mama?”
“Her mama is dead. Her mama is my sister Isabella.”
“Oh, heavens. Come on in.”
Manuela felt a measure of relief, assuming the girl was being truthful, but she felt desperately sorry for her. She led her into the scullery and then into the front room. It was warm from the heat of the fire and Viviana was still in her rocking chair, staring at the flames. She sat Lucia down in an armchair by the fire.
Manuela Rossetti held the baby in her arms, swaying her from side to side and talking to her and in the warmth of the room and the faint crackle of burning logs, she felt a sudden lightness of head – a spiritual sensation, a surge of divine purity that penetrated her consciousness and filled her mind with the presence of God. She turned her eyes to the wall above the fireplace where three pictures hung. In the centre, the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross; to the left, Madonna and child; and to the right, the angel Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mary she would have a child by the power of the Holy Spirit: L’Annunciazione. She looked at the baby, murmuring in her arms, and then at the young Lucia Girardi sitting by the fire, quiet and numb, filthy, hungry and bleeding, yet virtuous, virginal and profoundly beautiful. An angel sent by God.
“Holy Father. Holy Mother Mary. Nel nome del padre figlio e spirit santo,” she whispered to herself, her voice quivering and her sight blurring with the tears that rolled down her face. Manuela Rossetti knew with the utmost certainty what she had been instructed to do. She made the sign of the cross in the air and curtseyed in front of the picture of her Lord Jesus and passed the baby into the arms of the virtually comatose figure of her daughter.
Viviana took the bundle, looked into her mother’s eyes and then down in wonder at the miracle in her arms and her own eyes filled with the tears of Christ.
“Giuliana? La mia bambina? Oh, Mama. This is my baby Giuliana?”
“Yes, my daughter. The angel Lucia has brought her back to you.”
“An angel has come?” she said wistfully. “Praise be to God.”
Viviana fumbled with her blouse and pressed the baby’s mouth to her breast and Viviana’s baby drank her mother’s milk at last.
***
“Signora Rossetti got the tin bath out and bathed me in front of the fire. She bandaged my feet and dressed me in some of Viviana’s clothes and fed me chicken and corn and potatoes and put me to bed. After a day or two I was well enough to help her with the chores around the house and farm. Viviana was besotted with Catalina and would not be parted from her. I didn’t know at the time why she was so attentive and I was grateful that I didn’t have to do it myself because I didn’t know what to do. I was happy to have her look after the baby, but when I tried to touch her Viviana pushed me away and said Giuliana didn’t need anyone other than her mother.
“I tried to explain her name was Catalina and what had happened but she was not interested and she never used the name. I had to accept that the grown-ups were in charge of looking after the children and it was for the best. Signora Rossetti treated me like one of her own and told me about her husband, Lorenzo, and Viviana’s husband, Gino, and that they’d be home soon and we’d all be one happy family.
“I tried to tell them about Isabella and Papà and my own mama but they didn’t want to listen. It was as if I had no life before I came to them and after a while, I began to realise my old life was over and I should just fit in with the Rossettis. What else could I do? I had nowhere else to go.”
“But they were kind to you?”
“Yes, in their own way, although Viviana was not so happy about me being there and never spoke to me other than to order me to do something; do some job for her and the baby. I did not mind, but I would like to have been her sister.”
“So she was not like Isabella?”
“No. But then maybe Isabella would have been a different person after she had a baby.”
Angelo brought them coffee and the grappa bottle with two shot glasses. Lucia declined but Harry knocked back a shot of the fiery liquid and winced as it burned his throat.
“How long did you stay with the Rossettis?
“Not long. Two or three months maybe. I heard Viviana and Signora Rossetti talking about me; Viviana saying I had to go and her mother telling her that there was nowhere for me to go and she should be more grateful to me for bringing her a baby. She said God gave her the baby and it had nothing to do with me.”
“She was in denial.”
“Yes, denial. That is it.”
“But you did leave?”
She nodded. “After the bombing of Montellano was over, Lorenzo and Gino returned and everyone was ecstatic – the women because their men were safe and Gino because he had a baby daughter. Signora Rossetti told them she had found me wandering outside and that I had lost all my family and what could she do but take me in, and that I had been a great help to her and Viviana. The men were kind to me but they paid me little attention because everyone’s mind was on the new baby girl.”
“But you didn’t say anything? About Catalina?”
“No. How could I? It was impossible and I thought maybe it doesn’t matter. I am the only one who knows the truth. Viviana genuinely believed the child was hers and Signora Rossetti would never say otherwise.”
“And Gino never suspected?”
“No, not at all. Why would he? He and Viviana were the happiest couple alive and I was very pleased for them.”
“But something went wrong.”
“Viviana became more and more hostile towards me. She did not want me there.”
Harry could see the situation that was developing. “Because, deep down, she knew. Every time she saw you, you were a reminder that the baby was not really hers and she was terrified that one day Gino would find out and her whole world would come crashing down.”
“Yes. Signora Rossetti tried to talk to her but Viviana was adamant I had to go. She believed that one day I would tell Gino and she could not let that happen and nothing Signora Rossetti said to her would persuade her otherwise.”
“So what did happen?”
“Lorenzo had a cousin who lived on the other side of the mountain north