To Find a Mountain Read online

  He looked at me and we both realized with awkwardness that this could be a little tricky. I loved the idea of him putting his arms around me and lifting me up high, but somehow I didn’t think Papa would approve. Especially considering that my dress was too small and if he lifted me too high, well, I didn’t want him to see anything he shouldn’t.

  We looked around for some sort of crude cup, maybe a thick piece of bark I could shape into a drinking glass but nothing presented itself.

  “Scoop some for me,” I said.

  He looked at me strangely and then stretched once again. I heard his hand leave the water above, a gentle splashing sound.

  Dominic brought his hand down and I guided it to my mouth. I held it close and drank deeply. He was right; it was delicious water, pure and cold.

  I straightened up and he was looking at me.

  “You drank from my hand,” he said. I saw something in his eyes I did not like.

  Anger rose up inside me.

  I grabbed his hand and opened it, for him to see. Then I held out my hand opened, next to his.

  “Look. How is your hand different from mine?” I asked. He looked down. His hand was much bigger than mine, but we both had calluses, deep lines; signs of hard work.

  When he looked back up, his eyes were lowered, his face flushed.

  “I saw the look in your eyes,” I said, the anger coming in waves. “Who do you think you are passing judgment on me? At a time like this, you worry what kind of girl I am?”

  I turned on my heel and made my way back to the cabin. He didn’t walk with me, but stayed behind, watching.

  The next morning, I asked Papa to find someone else to take me down the mountain.

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Casalveri at dawn. Sleepy stone walls reflected the soft orange glow of the early morning sun. I made my way through the narrow streets, feeling like I had been gone for years instead of days; everything seemed smaller and distant, like an old photograph found in a new book.

  I passed homes with no signs of life, no men leaving to work the fields, no children up to help with chores. There were no chores because there were no animals left. No crops to tend. There was no music, either. Casalveri itself was now a casualty of the war.

  At my house, Zizi Checcone was busy in the kitchen, peeling vegetables and boiling water. I’d never met anyone who boiled as much water as Zizi Checcone.

  “Benedetta,” she cried softly, hugging me to her ample bosom. She put a finger to her lips and gestured with her chin toward the next room, then pulled me into the small pantry, and leaned close with her lips against my ear.

  “Wolff got back last night. He asked about you, but I said you weren’t feeling well and were upstairs.”

  I nodded my head to let her know I understood.

  We walked back to the kitchen and I started to help her with the vegetables.

  “No,” she said. “Go upstairs and wake up your brother and sister. They’ll be happy to see you.”

  “Have they behaved?”

  “Like angels. Now that you’re back, I’m sure they’ll start to act like little devils. They get more of your attention that way.”

  I laughed and ran up the stairs. I cracked the door, saw the lump of each of their bodies in their beds. Iole was on her side, her mouth open, drool on the pillow. Emidio, as usual, was completely on top of his blanket, his head at the foot of the bed, his feet on his pillow. In his arms he clutched a worn teddy bear.

  I felt a surge of pride, the kind that Papa must feel. I was their big sister, but had assumed the role of mother and now I was feeling the emotions that a mother must feel.

  I climbed onto Emidio’s bed and he stirred slightly. I reached down to his bare foot and tickled the sole of his foot, which he immediately retracted under the covers. He flopped his head on the other side of the pillow and this time I grabbed his big toe, then slowly applied pressure. His eyes scrunched at the discomfort; he tried to pull his leg back but this time I was prepared and had a good grip.

  “Ah!” he yelled, his eyes snapping open. I let go of his big toe and he looked at me, his eyes bleary, confused at first and then he laid his head back on the pillow. I could see him focus, see the anger pool together, then rise up in a wave.

  “Bestia!” he yelled, lunged off the bed and tackled me. We crashed onto his bed and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Iole start to sit up in bed, but then I was thrown down with surprising force onto Emidio’s bed. He started to get a good grip on my hair, but then I easily flipped him over my shoulders and pounced on him, pinning him down with ease. I flicked his ears, something he could never tolerate.

  “I hate that!” he said.

  “Really?”

  Flick. Flick.

  “Stop it!”

  “Is that an order?”

  Flick. Flick.

  “Benedetta!”

  Iole came bounding off her bed and jumped into my arms, her hug taking my breath away. I smelled her face and hair; the mustiness of the pillow and her morning breath mingled into the sweetest, most innocent smell in the world.

  “I’m not done with her!” yelled Emidio, and he jumped over Iole, knocking her with his knees, and barreled into me with his square little head.

  “Hey, you got me!” Iole snarled, and leapt on top of him. I followed, and pretty soon we were all giggling and laughing, squirming, and then we fell off the bed onto the floor.

  “When did you get back?” Iole asked after we quieted down.

  “This morning.”

  “Where were you? Drinking wine somewhere with the ribellí, I bet,” Emidio said, a little smile on his face, inviting the attack which he soon got.

  “Get off of me!” he yelled.

  “Your mouth is awfully fresh for a little boy,” I said.

  “You haven’t heard the worst of it,” Iole said with a sideways glance at her younger brother.

  Emidio looked at her plaintively and she raised an eyebrow in response.

  “He can’t be any worse than you were,” I said rolling my eyes.

  “I was not fresh!” Iole said.

  “Ayee yah! You were awful!” I said. When she looked hurt, I tackled her and started tickling her tummy.

  After I stopped, she looked at me.

  “You sure are in a good mood. Did something nice happen to you while you were gone?”

  I wanted to tell them. Wanted them to know that I had been led to believe Papa was dead and then found out he wasn’t. I wanted them to realize how lucky they were; that they still have the greatest father in the world and that after we all got through this war alive and in one piece, the three of us would need to protect him, take care of him for as long as we could.

  Instead I told them to get dressed, that playtime was over, and it was time to get some work done.

  “That’s all you care about: work, work, work,” Emidio complained as he pulled on his shirt and pants.

  “Yeah, and you’re lucky that’s all I care about. Otherwise you’d be hungry with no clothes to wear, no warm bed to sleep in,” I said. “I know other children who would trade places with you in a minute.”

  He looked embarrassed.

  “And don’t you ever forget it,” I added unnecessarily.

  As I watched him get dressed, a shadow fell over my shoulder and I turned, startled, to see Colonel Wolff in the doorway.

  In the short time since I’d last seen him, he’d deteriorated rapidly. He looked like a man who was losing more than just a war.

  “Benedetta,” he said. His uniform was rumpled, his face was dirty and he slouched. A far cry from the man who had sat ramrod straight in his chair that first morning the Germans arrived.

  “Come with me.”

  He turned and started down the stairs, not waiting to see if I would follow.

  “See if Zizi Checcone needs help,” I said to Iole and Emidio.

  And then I followed Wolff.

  Chapter Twenty-five
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br />   “You Italians know nothing about drinking,” he said, his words more than slurred. Wolff produced a bottle of schnapps and held it before me. His eyes were red and bleary, either from a lack of sleep or an abundance of alcohol. Or maybe both.

  “Ah, now here, here is the nectar of the Gods,” he said. “Made in Germany! The Land of War Machines, little dictators and the world’s best schnapps!” he laughed.

  He stood at the big table in the kitchen and poured a dose of the schnapps into a large coffee cup, and then gestured with a lifting of his chin to the coffee pot on the hearth. I brought it to the table.

  “Do you want me to heat it up?”

  He shook his head and I poured the cold coffee into his cup which was already half full with the clear liquor. The coffee thinned slightly, and pale clouds rose and swirled inside the light brown coffee as the two liquids mixed.

  “If you think it is too early to drink, young Catholic girl,” he said. “Remember that I have been awake, fighting the forces of Allied evil for the last forty-eight hours. I intend to drink much of this,” he brought his hand down on top of the bottle, the wedding band on his finger clinked against the glass. “And when I have finished consuming this gift from Heaven, I intend to sleep for at least a day, maybe two. So you see, young Benedetta of the Mountains, although it is, what, ten o’clock in the morning? This is really a nightcap at this point.”

  “I understand, Colonel Wolff—”

  “Please, Hermann. And please, help yourself, I have been drinking alone far too long. They say that is the sign of an alcoholic.”

  “I intend to drink with you…Hermann,” I said hesitantly.

  “Good, good.”

  I put the coffee pot back on the stove and began to heat it, then got a cup for myself from the cupboard.

  “However, while it is the end of your day, it is merely the beginning of mine,” I said.

  “You and I, Benedetta. We are like night and day, no?” he said, convulsing into laughter at his joke.

  The coffee would not be heated up enough, but I needed an excuse to get up from the table. I poured myself a cup and was about to sit down when he spoke.

  “Let’s walk, Benedetta. It looks like a beautiful morning.”

  Zizi Checcone appeared in the doorway.

  “You’re going out, Benedetta? I need help with cleaning potatoes and making bread for today’s meals.” She had a look of concern that was not concealed enough. I knew that the bread was already made and that a bucket full of peeled potatoes sat just around the corner of the fireplace.

  “Ah, woman. There is hardly enough food for us and you need help preparing it? I don’t believe it. She will be all right with me, Signora,” he said.

  Zizi Checcone looked like she was about to say something more but then stopped. What was there she could do?

  “Come, Benedetta. We walk and talk.”

  I followed him out into the bright morning light. The sun was rising now and its warmth on my skin felt reassuring, the lukewarm coffee cup in my hand was cradled gently so as not to spill.

  “Is there someplace we can sit and watch the day break in all its glory, capturing the beauty of this land for which so many men are dying?”

  If it was a rhetorical question or not, I decided to answer.

  “If we walk this way, we will come to a small clearing where there are some crude benches overlooking the valley,” I said.

  “That sounds perfect, Benedetta. Is it far? I am not up for a long walk.” Already he was walking unsteadily, and as if on cue, he stumbled.

  “Just a few minutes through those trees there,” I said, pointing to small knot of forest.

  “Lead the way, Private Carlessimo,” he said.

  We walked in silence, Wolff’s breathing became labored as we trudged through the forest. When it opened up onto the clearing, the view was truly gorgeous, with thick mist overlooking the valley, the tops of the trees poking through the clouds like plants bursting from the topsoil.

  A lone, thick bench remained perched on the ledge overlooking the valley. We sat down together and Wolff refilled his cup, this time just straight schnapps.

  “To a beautiful day,” he said raising his cup. I clinked it with mine.

  “Saluté.”

  He gulped his schnapps, I sipped my coffee.

  “How’s your father?” he said, and looked straight out into the valley, his face impassive.

  My heart stopped.

  “What kind of horrible question is that?” I said, trying to strike the right chord of indignation.

  Wolff looked at me out of the corner of his eye, then shrugged his shoulders.

  “My apologies.” I thought I detected a smile behind the drunken eyes.

  “It’s just that there was some talk about the scene of the explosion; one of my men went to see if the jeep was salvageable, which it wasn’t,” Wolff said. “He said it seemed some of the clothes found on the various body parts didn’t seem to fit. I rejected it all as hearsay. Who knows what happens when a person gets blown apart, how it affects his clothing? No, your father definitely died in that explosion.” He tossed off the rest of the schnapps in his cup and refilled it again.

  “And we are three children with no parents,” I said.

  He patted my shoulder. “Ah, Benedetta, I’ve watched you. You are strong. Beautiful. Intelligent. You will raise your brother and sister. Find a good man to marry you. Your father’s name will live on.”

  “The war is not over,” I pointed out.

  “But it soon will be.”

  I looked at him questioningly but he didn’t elaborate.

  “I would be proud to call you my daughter,” he said.

  I felt my face flush.

  He refilled his cup with more schnapps.

  “But of course, that is pointless to consider since you are not my daughter,” he said. “And now that I have no wife, I will most likely never have a son or a daughter at all.”

  “You can marry again.”

  “And rebuild? A fresh start?” He laughed bitterly. “I have a feeling that when this war is over, everything will be destroyed. I see a future of rubble.”

  “Make what you can with the rubble, is that not what life is?” I said.

  He laughed heartily.

  “You sound about as optimistic as Nietzsche. Did you know that he was a soldier?”

  “Who is—?”

  “He was a philosopher. A German. Our greatest German philosopher.”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “He is to Germany what Machiavelli is to Italy,” Wolff said.

  “Papa has one of his books. Machiavelli’s, that is. The Prince, I think.”

  “Yes, yes. A great book. Ironic isn’t it that your philosopher is famous for schemes to acquire power and conquer, while mine essentially despised the power of the state?”

  “Under these conditions, I would have to say yes, it is ironic,” I said. I wondered why Wolff wanted to talk about philosophers.

  “And did you know that Machiavelli was a soldier?” he said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Nietzsche was a soldier, too,” Wolff said. “He was in the Army for a year. Nietzsche in Artillery. Can you imagine that? Imagine during battle, praying to God, and having Nietzsche turn to you and say ‘God is dead. Now pick up that rifle and shoot someone!’”

  He laughed again, and shook his head at the image.

  “He wrote that ‘Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations and ages, it is the rule.’ Ah, my applause, Friedrich,” Wolff said. “So prophetic.”

  “War is madness,” I said, but he didn’t seem to notice me, lost in his own thoughts and drunkenness.

  “Nietzsche also wrote that ‘Under peaceful conditions, a warlike man sets upon himself.’ That’s simple, but I often wonder if the opposite is true: that under warlike conditions, a peaceful man sets upon himself. Do you agree?”

  “I think some men are destined to set upo
n themselves, no matter what the conditions,” I said.

  “Do you think I am one of those men?”

  “No,” I answered without hesitation. “Do you think you are?”

  “Never before, but now…”

  He spread his hands out before him, seeking an explanation. His hands shook.

  “Now…” he said, his hands visibly trembling. He drank the rest of his cup and then picked up the bottle and drank deeply from it, not bothering with the hassle of pouring some into a cup.

  How long we sat there, I do not know. Wolff drank the rest of the schnapps, throwing the bottle from the edge of the cliff down into the valley. He sat back down and we looked at the view before us in silence.

  He turned to me then, about to say something, but instead slid off the bench, his knees hitting the dirt as his shoulders slumped. Tears streamed down his face, he slumped against my legs and placed his head on my knee. Instinctively, I put my hand on top of his head and patted him, shocked at how old his face looked on my knee.

  He fell asleep and stayed in the same position for an hour while I thought about dead philosophers and their thoughts on war. I was scared, too, wondering what I would do if German soldiers burst onto the scene and saw their leader kneeling before a young girl, as if in supplication, she petting his head like a stray dog.

  Finally, Wolff awoke with a start.

  His eyes struggled to adjust, and then he spoke. “How long?”

  “About an hour and a half, maybe two.”

  He looked embarrassed as he stood and dusted off his uniform, then started off in the direction of the house. He wobbled slightly and I resisted the urge to help him.

  We went the entire way back to the house in silence.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  A week had passed since my trip to the mountain, and I had received no further word from my father. I prayed every night that he was doing well and that God was looking out for him.

  Wolff returned to the front; we did not discuss the scene on the bench overlooking the valley. Other than showing an incredible amount of pain and fatigue the next day from too much drinking he didn’t act as if anything noteworthy had happened between us. And I was more than happy to play along with it. If he was embarrassed, he did not let me see it, and I came to believe that in his mind it was simply a matter that had happened and was now over.