To Find a Mountain Page 12

  What happened next shocked me.

  “Boy,” Becher said to Emidio. “Bring me the wine.”

  Emidio reached up and took the bottle from the table. It was big in his hands and he carried it carefully. Just as he got to Becher, he tripped. Whether it was over the foot of the soldier next to Becher, or whether it was the soldier’s chair, I do not know. But I do know that the wine flew from Emidio’s hand and hit Becher squarely in the chest where it proceeded to flow out over his uniform.

  Becher jumped from his chair, reared back and slapped Emidio across the face. My little brother flew backwards and landed on his back.

  “Stupid Italian bastard!” Becher shouted. He strode forward to Emidio who was too stunned to start crying. Becher lifted him and started to slap Emidio, left, right, left, right and back again. Emidio’s head snapped with each blow.

  I dropped the pot and ran, ready to spring myself upon Becher. Coolly, he dropped Emidio who fell in a heap sobbing, and drew his pistol. I stopped two feet from Becher and the muzzle of his pistol was planted squarely against my forehead.

  The door flew open and Zizi Checcone stood, aghast at the scene before her. She quickly crossed the room and scooped Emidio up into her arms. I could see that his nose and mouth were bleeding.

  “We are low on ammunition,” he said, a half-smile on his face. “Otherwise I would take great joy in blowing your brains across this house.”

  Iole started screaming, and Zizi Checcone went to her, a child in each arm.

  “You are very brave when it comes to hurting children,” I said.

  “Benedetta,” Zizi Checcone said.

  Becher laughed.

  “You are very brave also, thinking that Colonel Wolff will protect you, perhaps?” he said.

  I said nothing. His pistol was still pressed against my forehead. He pushed harder.

  “You are a stupid girl. You have no idea with whom you are dealing.”

  “I know.” My voice was steady, my heart racing, blackness threatening to envelop me, but I knew, I could feel the violence within me, the desire to kill.

  “Really,” he said, pulling back the hammer of the gun. “Tell me who.”

  “An animal who cannot taste enough blood.”

  Zizi Checcone, in Italian, told me I was going to get us all killed. When she said that, the blackness receded, and I regained my senses. Becher pulled back his pistol and I knew the blow was coming, but made no move to avoid it. If he succeeded in hurting me, maybe he would leave my brother and sister and Zizi Checcone alone.

  When the pistol hit me, I felt a searing pain shoot up the side of my face and my legs went weak. I fell to the hard floor with a thud and closed my eyes. It did not knock me out, but I lay still. When I heard his boot whisper on the floor, I thought I could hear the kick coming, and then it hit me in the stomach, the wind going from inside and I could not breathe. I kept my eyes closed as I gasped for air, a soft moaning sound came from somewhere deep within me. The kick turned me over, away from Becher and the other soldier. I opened one eye and saw Zizi Checcone, Iole and Emidio. I made eye contact with the old woman to let her know I was hurt, but still alive.

  “The taste of blood has made me hungry,” Becher said, and then I heard the scrape of his chair as he sat back down. The soldiers and Becher talked low, in German, and I stayed on the floor. Zizi Checcone went up the stairs with Iole and Emidio, and then came back down alone.

  She rolled me onto my back and I winced. I felt something trickling down my face and at first I thought it was tears, but Zizi Checcone wiped my face and her hand came away red with blood. She went to the pot over the fireplace and returned with a warm, damp cloth which she used to clean my wound.

  “Can you stand?” she whispered. I nodded.

  She helped me to my feet and the room spun before me, tilted at a crazy angle. The conversation at the table stopped; I knew they were watching. With a thick arm around me, Zizi Checcone pushed me toward the stairs, but we stopped at the sound of Becher’s voice.

  “Benedetta,” he said. “I still don’t have my wine.”

  I turned with a monumental effort and he sat there, his empty glass raised toward me. Zizi Checcone let go of me and I stood by myself as she went to the table and retrieved the wine table, then started toward Becher.

  “Ah. Ah. No. Benedetta will do it,” Becher said to her.

  Zizi Checcone stopped and stood halfway between me and Becher. In Italian, she asked me if I could do it.

  I nodded again.

  With shooting pains in my head and now running up and down my spine, I walked to Zizi Checcone, then to Becher. The bottle shook in my hand and I slopped wine into his glass, nearly pouring it to overflowing, but I stopped just in time.

  I brought the bottle back down and walked to Zizi Checcone. She took the bottle from my hand and helped me to the stairs.

  “See?” Becher said. “Even a stupid girl can learn.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Two days later, with Emidio back to himself and my bruise reduced in size, the edges starting to turn yellow, I went to see Lauretta Fandella. She was working in the kitchen with her mother, cleaning a big black pot when I knocked on the door.

  She opened it and I was shocked by her appearance. Her skin looked pale and dry, like parchment paper, and her hair hung thick and oily, like it hadn’t been washed in the last week or two.

  “Benedetta,” she said, a vacant look on her face. “Come in.”

  I went inside and Lauretta climbed the stairs, then came back down with a sweater.

  “I’m going for a walk, Mama.”

  Her mother looked over her shoulders at us but didn’t respond as we left the house.

  “How are you, Benedetta?” she asked, and I told her about my trip up the mountain. I hadn’t told Iole or Emidio anything about it, of course, and I didn’t discuss it with Zizi Checcone, though I was certain she knew where I had been. I got the feeling she was scared to even whisper any mention of the men in the mountains, after all, we had Germans under the same roof.

  Lauretta was someone in whom I could confide. So, I told her about the walk up the mountain with Dominic, the trip to find the parachute, and I told her about the walk to the spring when I lost my temper.

  She looked at me appraisingly.

  “I’m impressed, Benedetta,” she said. “A little surprised, but still I am impressed. So many Italian women let the men say what they want to them.”

  When I thought about the incident with Dominic, I was embarrassed, but the way Lauretta spoke about it, I almost felt a warm resurgence in my heart, I felt proud of what I had done.

  I told her about the letter under the rock, as well.

  “Dominic Giancarlo. I have heard of him. He is from Roselli, no?” I nodded, feeling fear rush through me. How did she know of him? Did some of her girlfriends know him? Had they been with him? Did he have a reputation for being with lots of girls? I felt myself flush. I had never thought these kinds of things before.

  “Yes, I have heard of him,” Lauretta said.

  “What do you know?”

  “That many, many girls are in love with him, but he is a lazzarone. He likes to be with the men playing cards, drinking wine. Playing around. He dances, he flirts, but his Mama is a strict woman and he does not fool around. At least that is what I hear.”

  Relief flowed through me. I knew she was telling me the truth, as much of it as she knew, and I was grateful for what she had told me.

  “He is that way now, but there will come a time soon when women will be most important to him,” she said. “And when that happens, there will be lots of girls ready for him.”

  I felt another emotion surge through me, this one powerful as well and all-consuming. It was jealousy. I did not like how it made me feel.

  “We will see what kind of man he is,” I said. “When he gets my note and reads it, we will see.”

  “I think that you do not have anything to worry about, Benedetta. He do
es not sound like a skirt-chaser.”

  I felt a surge of relief that I tried to hide. We walked past the village and out along the outskirts of town where there was a small park-like setting with some logs chopped down and arranged into sitting areas. We sat next to one another on a log.

  A bird flew overhead and somewhere a dog was barking. The booming of the big guns reached us from the mountain.

  I turned and looked at Lauretta. Her silence confused me; usually it was tough for me to work a word in edgewise. She looked at the ground, her eyes vacant.

  “Lauretta, what is wrong?”

  She looked at me, shook her head, then wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Nothing, nothing’s wrong.”

  “Lauretta, I know you too well.”

  She whispered something.

  “What?”

  “They found out,” she said softly.

  The guns stopped booming briefly. In the silence, I tried to figure out what she meant.

  “Who?”

  “Becher. Schlemmer.”

  I went cold inside. The guns started booming again and the wind picked up, a chill in the air.

  “What did they find out, Lauretta?”

  She looked at the ground a long time before answering. “My father.”

  “What about him?” I said.

  “They found out about my father. Somehow. They did.”

  “That he…”

  “That he’s a ribellí. I think they caught him and a couple other men trying to blow up a truck. I think they killed him,” she said.

  “Did they say they did?”

  “No, they said they haven’t and…”

  “And what?” I said.

  “And they won’t.”

  Suddenly, I knew. I wanted to stop, I didn’t want to ask more questions and I didn’t want Lauretta to tell me. But she did.

  “They say they won’t kill him if I let them…let them…do things to me,” she said. She started crying.

  “Have they…”

  She nodded.

  “They all have. All of them.”

  A strand of hair fell across her face. I tried to brush it back for her, but she jerked away from me.

  “Don’t touch me. I don’t want anyone to touch me. Ever again.”

  We sat there.

  “I want to die, Benedetta,” she said. “I just want to die.” Her lip trembled then, and she fell into my arms. I hugged her as tightly as I could and never wanted to let go.

  Chapter Thirty

  The pig was getting fat.

  It was amazing what a pig could eat and digest. This pig was getting fat on coffee grounds, bones and anything else unfit for human consumption.

  I threw him some husks of corn to quiet him down, worried that the sound would alert anyone who might be walking by. I closed the chicken coop door and latched it, then moved the odds and ends in front of the door to disguise any signs of recent use; so far it had worked and as far as I knew, this little guy was the only pig still alive in this part of the country.

  Walking back to the house, it seemed that the air was getting colder, and I folded my arms across my chest, hugging my ragged sweater tightly to my chest.

  In the kitchen, I could smell the minestrone that was becoming our nightly meal. Zizi Checcone stood at the hearth and stirred the large pot. I looked inside; it was an even thinner soup than normal. Rations were getting lower every day.

  Zizi Checcone saw the look in my eye and shrugged her shoulders.

  “It is not much, but it will warm the stomach,” she said.

  I gathered up some bowls as she carried the large pot to the big table. Several soldiers were already seated at the table, neither Colonel Wolff nor Becher had yet returned from the front. The soldiers were dirty and dazed, tired from fighting; they dug into the weak soup with relish.

  Iole placed a small loaf of bread between them.

  “Grazie, grazie,” they said to us, in appreciation for a warm meal, probably the first one they’d had in several weeks. The men were rotated to and from the front, spending a day or two here to rest and recover, then back to the fighting they went. It was quiet now in the house, even with the soldiers here. They were so tired, all they could manage to do was just sleep and eat. After the soldiers finished eating, we sat down and took their places, eating the rest of the soup and bread. Anger began to well up inside me when I saw that there was only one small piece of bread left. There would barely be enough for either Iole or Emidio, but not for both. There was no question that Zizi Checcone and I would go without.

  But when Iole and Emidio sat down, Zizi went to the kitchen and returned with three thick slabs of bread and a small square of butter. It had been a long time since we’d seen butter and now it sat there, beautifully golden in color. “Eat, eat, quickly!” she hissed at us, fearful that the soldiers would return for another cup of wine and see more bread.

  Like wolves around a carcass, we ate the bread as quickly as we could, at the same time trying to savor the presence of real butter; a true delicacy in this wasteland of death and hunger.

  “How…?” I started to ask, but the old woman shook her head.

  Iole and Emidio did not ask from where the surprise had come, they kept their heads down and ate their soup in silence. I noticed the dark circles under their eyes, the wooden movements of their hands as they ate, and I wept inside. Their childhoods were being destroyed along with the houses, the crops, and so many lives of the men from the villages. But was nothing worse, nothing harder to replace than the joy of one’s youth? Houses could be rebuilt, crops could be replanted, but once their innocence, their joy was gone, I began to doubt if it could ever be replaced.

  “Hey you two, after we eat and clean up, I have another surprise for you upstairs,” I said.

  Zizi Checcone looked at me questioningly.

  We scrubbed the dishes, although it wasn’t too hard to clean the pot in which a watery soup was made, wiped the table, swept the floor, and prepared the stove for a nice warm fire in the morning.

  Zizi Checcone brought out needle and thread and began to sew some garments while I took Iole and Emidio upstairs. They bounded up behind me, peppering me with questions: “What’s the surprise? What is it? Do you have a game? Come on, Benedetta, tell us! Tell us!”

  I jumped on the bed and they followed, clambering over me. Finally, I set Emidio on my lap, and Iole sat across from us.

  “Now, do you two know that I love you very much?” They rolled their eyes and fidgeted, anxious to get to the surprise. “Do you know that ever since Mama passed away, I’ve tried to do my best to take care of you?” They stopped fidgeting at the sound of Mama’s name, and I felt a warmth come into my cheeks. “I just want you to know that all of this will be over one day, maybe even one day soon, and when that happens, Papa will come back and things will go back to the way they used to be. There will be good food on the table and plenty of time to play.”

  They nodded that they understood, but I could tell they had their doubts, and I couldn’t blame them, I had doubts, too. The Allies seemed stronger than Germany, but the Germans were committed. And even if the Germans were defeated, what would the Allies do with Italy? Our country was in league with Hitler, and Mussolini was a Fascist. Would we be punished for taking up arms against the Allies, even if for most of us it had been against our will?

  I pushed the thoughts from my mind. We would all have to do what it takes to survive. To dwell on what might happen would do nothing more than assure an ulcer if one lived long enough to suffer. I intended to survive, and I intended for my family to just not survive as well, but to come out of all this in one piece, not like some of these soldiers: nothing more than ghosts living in human shells.

  Iole and Emidio were looking at me, and I snapped out of my train of thought.

  “Are you done daydreaming, Benedetta?” Iole asked. “Or are you just trying to make up an excuse for why you don’t have a surprise for us?”

  �
��I have a surprise. Let me get it for you.”

  From inside the top drawer of my dresser, I pulled a small cloth wrapped up into a tight square. I laid it on the bed and Iole and Emidio’s eyes were wide with anticipation.

  “Here it is,” I said, caressing the soft cloth.

  “Open it! Open it!” Emidio said, leaning forward over the bundle like a deer about to drink from a stream.

  “There’s nothing in there, she’s playing a trick on us,” Iole said, her eyes riveted to the small package.

  “Oh, really?” I said, lifting a corner of the cloth, then another and another and another.

  “Then I suppose you won’t be wanting any of this nothing, eh?” I said, lifting the final triangle of cloth.

  They both inhaled sharply.

  There, huddling together on the pristine white cloth backdrop were two incredibly thick, incredibly large squares of American chocolate.

  Iole started to reach for a square first.

  “Eh, eh, eh!” I said. She shot her hand back and they both looked at me again.

  “Before I give them to you, you have to promise me a couple of things.”

  They nodded solemnly.

  “You have to promise that you’ll continue to help me and Zizi Checcone around the house.”

  “I promise,” they said in unison.

  “You have to promise that you’ll never ask me where I got it.”

  “I promise.”

  “You have to remember that you are young and deserve to have fun, so promise me that every day you’ll play bocci or chase each other or swing on the big tree out back.”

  They looked at each other like I had gone crazy. Benedetta ordering them to play? It didn’t seem possible.

  “I promise,” they repeated in unison.

  “And finally, promise that you’ll give me hugs and kisses before you dig in,” I said. They giggled and showered me with hugs and kisses.

  “Enough! Enough! Eat! Enjoy!” I pushed them off and they reached with reverence for their respective squares. As they bit into the sweet candy, I didn’t believe I had ever seen such ecstasy as I saw then in their eyes; they savored the rich chocolate like it was a forbidden desire at last indulged.