Page 48 of The Tuscan Child
“Brave groups of men who worked against the occupiers,” she said. “It was no true organisation, just small independent groups acting in the areas where they lived. Some were fascist, some were communist, some were ex-soldiers, some were just good men who wanted to help win the war. They destroyed trucks and blew up rail lines. They did many courageous things, and many paid with their lives.”
“There was a group in this area, then?”
“There was. Until someone betrayed them. The Germans mowed them down. Cosimo was only a young man then. He was one of them. He was fortunate. The German bullet only grazed him. But he had to lie among the bodies, pretending to be dead, as the Germans went among them with bayonets. He was half-mad with grief and covered in blood when he managed to stumble home the next day. The people of San Salvatore were lucky that they were not all executed in reprisal as happened with other towns.”
“Would the people of San Salvatore have known who the partisans were?” I asked. “Wouldn’t the men have kept their identities secret?”
“Of course. But people always knew. They relied on the farmers to hide them when they were being pursued. They relied on others to feed them when they were away from their homes. And they sometimes wore a little star so that people knew they were who they claimed to be. So yes, people knew.”
People knew,I thought. And one of those people had betrayed the local boys to the Germans. Why? Who had prospered from it? Or maybe it was a case of who had been released from German custody by giving this information. I thought of those men sitting around the table and wondered how I could ever find out what they might know.
We reached the farmhouse and stacked the crates, and Paola went for her afternoon snooze. I, too, would have liked a sleep, but I was too tense. So I sat with Angelina as she took care of the baby.
“Would you like to hold her?” she asked suddenly. “Here.”
And the child was in my arms. I felt the tiny, warm body, surprisingly heavy for its size.So perfect,I thought. A perfect little person. Little dark eyes looked up at me, staring at me with interest.
“Hello,” I said. “You don’t know me, do you?”
And I thought I detected the glimmer of a smile.
“She is beautiful,” I said.
“Yes, isn’t she? The most perfect baby ever,” Angelina said. “When she was born early, they said she might not live. But I prayed. I prayed to Saint Anne and to the Blessed Mother, and they heard me. And now look at her. Getting fatter every day thanks to my good milk. When Mario comes home he will be so delighted to see her.”
I looked down at the tiny mite in my arms, her eyes already fluttering back into sleep.I couldn’t have done this alone,I thought. To rear a child one needs a Mario who will come home and be delighted. And a grandma who takes care of mother and baby.
That evening, Paola said she was tired and we would have a simple meal. She whipped up eggs and made a frittata with the few vegetables we had brought home: onions and zucchini and beans. It was surprisingly good.
“An early night, I think,” she said after we had finished our meal with cheese and fruit. “Tomorrow is a big day. First the Mass at eight o’clock, then the procession and then the feast. Will you come?”
“Oh yes. Of course. I’d like to see it.”
“You are not of our faith, I think,” she said.
I didn’t like to say I wasn’t really of any faith. “I was raised in the Church of England,” I said. “It is similar, I think.”
“I hear that in England there is no devotion to religion. You do not honour the saints, is that right? You do not pray to them.”
“That’s true,” I said.
She made a dismissive noise. “Then how can prayers be answered if you do not call upon the saints to help? God is obviously too busy to do everything alone.”
I thought how sweet and simple this was. But then I remembered the little medal on a ribbon that had been in my father’s box. Someone had given that to him, probably Sofia. I wondered which saint was represented on it. It seemed so unlikely for my cold and typically English father to have worn a medal on a ribbon.He must have loved her very much,I thought. I remembered the paintings done before the war, so bright and full of life. And it came to me as a shock that his life essentially ended when that letter was returned to him unopened. I wondered how many further attempts he made to trace her until he gave up and married my solid and dependable mother.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HUGO
December 1944
The weather turned freezing wet and miserable. Hugo huddled in his shelter for several days while rain and sleet splashed around him. Sofia came at night, her hair plastered to her forehead and her clothing sodden.
“Don’t come when it’s raining like this. I can survive, I assure you, and you’ll catch pneumonia if you get so cold and wet,” he begged.
“I am strong, Ugo. I am used to a hard life. Don’t worry about me,” she said.
“But how will you explain your wet clothes? Your grandmother will be suspicious.”
