A Winter's Night

  Elisa burst into tears. In her son’s eyes and in the blood that had rushed to his face, she saw irrevocable determination. She saw that her husband had tears in his eyes as well.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do to make you reconsider?” asked Nello.

  “Nothing, father. I don’t want to cause you pain but, I swear, I’d have no respect for myself if I didn’t go.”

  “You’ve never killed a man. You don’t know what that means. It means you’ll have to shoot, stab, take the life of other boys much like yourself. Or lose your own. You won’t be yourself anymore, you’ll turn into someone else, someone that would frighten you, or horrify you, if you met up with him today.”

  Elisa spoke up herself: “Listen to what your father’s saying, for the love of God. You’ll regret it if you don’t!”

  “I’m sorry, mamma. There’s nothing that can stop me. But believe me, I won’t be looking for death. It’s life I’m looking for, for everyone, for you too. And I’ll be back, I promise you.”

  A long silence followed, because Rossano was feeling emotional, even if he didn’t want to show it.

  “When are you leaving?” asked Nello.

  “As soon as I can. Tomorrow or the next day. I don’t want to risk changing my mind. I’m not made of iron, either.”

  Nello shook his head at hearing those words. They were bigger than the boy was.

  They had dinner without speaking. As soon as he had finished, Rossano left the house and went to the corner Bar del Dopolavoro, where just about everyone went to meet up; they just called it the Dopo. He didn’t feel like hanging around the house with his parents to watch his mother cry. He ordered a beer and sat down, pretending to read the sports newspaper that another client had left open on the table. After a while he realized that someone was standing in front of him and he looked up: Fabrizio.

  “Have something to drink?” Rossano asked.

  Fabrizio sat down. “Sure, a lemon soda, thanks.”

  “That’s another difference between us,” said Rossano with a half smile. “You like the sweet stuff, I like it bitter.” He motioned to Gianni who was at the counter.

  “That’s right. I like red, and you like black. But we can still be friends, can’t we?”

  “These are tough times,” replied Rossano, serious now. “And each one of us has to make a choice. I’ve made mine. I’ve leaving tomorrow, or the next day, at the latest.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to sign up for the National Republican Guard.”

  “You’re kidding. You’re enlisting with the Nazis?”

  “They’re not Nazis. My conscience tells me I’m doing the right thing. I’m even ready to put my life on the line. I’ve thought hard about this.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t even say good luck.”

  “Right, you can’t. So I guess it’ll have to be goodbye,” said Rossano with shiny eyes.

  “See you around?” said Fabrizio.

  Rossano nodded. “See you around,” he replied.

  He left two days later with a rucksack on his shoulders headed to Cremona. By bus and then by train. At the clearing office, they gave him a uniform and assigned him to his regiment.

  Three months later Fabrizio found out that Bruno Montesi, the blacksmith, had narrowly missed being captured by the Germans and had come back to town but he had decided to go into hiding, so he wouldn’t be called to arms by the fascists. One evening Bruno showed up in his courtyard, skinny and scruffy-bearded, almost unrecognizable. They embraced.

  “Can you believe my friend Rossano signed up with the Republican Guard?” Fabrizio told him.

  “I do believe it. I’m not surprised.”

  “I think he did it in good faith.”

  “At his age that’s likely. But the day he kills someone he’ll be in the wrong, and worthy of suffering the same fate. I’ve joined the Resistenza. I’m studying to become a political commissar.”

  “Isn’t that one of those guys who preach the communist ideology to combatants?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that. For me it means, above all, siding against those who goaded my father into killing himself, by beating and humiliating him every way they could. It means choosing to fight for the poorest and the weakest against the strongest and richest.”

  “I understand. Good luck then, Bruno.”

  “I don’t think there’s luck to be had for anyone in this situation. But if you want another reason that I know I’m right, it’s that after the armistice of September the eighth, the Nazis deported tens of thousands of Italian soldiers to their concentration camps, including friends of mine from my regiment. Our soldiers aren’t white or red or black, or rich or poor; they’re the sons of the Italian people, of all their fathers and all their mothers. Whoever collaborates with their jailers is an enemy of the nation. So we are the patriots, and they are the traitors. Goodbye, Fabrizio. Say hello to your father for me, when you see him.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Bologna, for now, and then up to the mountains. There’s a man up there who’s organized a partisan brigade. They’re fighting like lions. He’s from Sant’Agata, and he’s about thirty years old. They call him Lupo: the Wolf.”

  “Is that his battle name?”

  “No. Apparently his friends in elementary school used to call him that, because when he got into a fight, he’d bite like a wolf . . . He’s a maverick but apparently he’s one hell of a fighter.”

  “And he’s a communist like you are?”

  “Nah, not him. He’s a Catholic, devoted to Saint Anthony. Sounds like he’s a little mixed up—maybe I can set him straight.”

  “Watch out, Bruno, wolves bite.”

  Montesi smiled at this and went off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Fabrizio left his home and his family three months after Rossano did. In the mountains there had been a bitter battle between a German regiment, supported by the fascists of the Black Brigades, and the partisan formation known as Stella Rossa, Red Star. The Germans had been put to rout and they’d left over five hundred men dead on the field. A battle in which partisan commander Musolesi, known as the Wolf, had exploited his familiarity with the terrain like a consummate strategist. The news had spread lightning fast throughout the entire area, raising incredible enthusiasm. After the founding of the Partisan Republic of Montefiorino, up there in the mountains, this was the movement’s first great military success. The men were primed to fight and to give their contribution to the deliverance of the nation.

  Fabrizio had been nursing the idea of joining the partisans for some time, but this cinched it for him. He’d never spoken to the Blacksmith about enlisting, for fear he’d try to dissuade him. He set off one morning before dawn, at four o’clock, one of the first young men in town to leave. His mother, in tears, had prepared his rucksack with everything he’d need, arguing with him the whole time to get him to change his mind. His father, who realized it was impossible to try to stop him, gave him a new pair of boots.

  “I wanted to take you up with the truck, at least as far as Sasso, but I don’t have any fuel and there’s none to be found anywhere. Iofa’s coming with his cart, there he is. But he can only take you to Sasso himself, then he has to turn around and come back.”

  Before he let him go, Savino embraced his son, weeping in silence.

  Fabrizio tried to control his own emotions. “Papà, don’t worry. I’ll be back. I can take care of myself.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about. It’s all the rest. You have no idea what combat is like. You don’t know what raw violence means, killing so as not to be killed in the middle of the fray, or striking out in cold blood, having your hands, your arms, your face covered with blood, blood of other men like you. But I understand you and, if I could, so help me God, I’d leave with you,
but my place is here. I have to protect your mother, defend our house.”

  “I know, papà. You were a courageous fighter and you would be today. It would be wonderful to have you at my side. But it wouldn’t be right. I’ll try to stay in touch. I’ll find a way to get news through to you.” He climbed onto the cart and Iofa called out to the horse.

  Savino stood watching until Fabrizio turned for his last goodbye, waving his hand before he disappeared.

  When they arrived at Sasso, Fabrizio thanked Iofa for the ride and started walking. He kept up a steady pace all day, stopping just to eat a bite or gulp down some water from his father’s canteen, a relic from the first world war. The roads were in disrepair, patched up with crushed stone, and his boots, the shoddy product of a badly damaged economy, started wearing out after the first few kilometers.

  Towards evening, when he’d already started his ascent through the Apennines, he met another boy who, like him, was headed for the mountains. He had a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.

  “My name’s Fabrizio,” he said. “You going up too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know the way?”

  “A guy who knows the way explained it to me.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “If you want.”

  They walked together for nearly an hour without speaking, then Fabrizio broke the silence:

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sergio.”

  “Have you ever fought before?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think we’ll make it?”

  “When you pick up a rifle, the first thing you learn is how not to get killed.”

  “It’s getting pretty dark, what should we do?”

  “There’s supposed to be a hut for drying chestnuts a little further up. We can sleep there.”

  When they got to the shelter they’d chosen for the night, they realized that others had had the same idea: three young guys like themselves, Albino, Claudio and Filippo, the first two from Savignano, the third from Sasso, all between twenty and twenty-three. All with the intention of volunteering to fight with the partisan forces. They rested for a few hours, stretched out on the dry leaves scattered on the floor, covering up with the blankets each one of them had brought along.

  In the middle of the night, they were awakened by pelting drops of rain, the rustling of the chestnut boughs and a dry crash of thunder. The rain beating down on the slate roof gave them the sensation of being safe and dry and comforted them. That should have been, for most of them, a vigil before taking up arms, but youth and fatigue got the better of them and before long they were all sleeping like babies in their cradles. Until the first light of dawn.

  They started walking again up a steep and very stony trail and Fabrizio’s boots, already in bad shape from the day before, started falling apart. Towards evening they reached the first roadblock that controlled access to the territory of the Wolf and his brigade.

  The situation immediately appeared turbulent. Stretched out under the low roof of a sheep pen was a wounded man screaming, and they could hear shouting from the forest and the crackle of dry leaves being trampled. A man was standing by the trough, wearing a holster, a pistol and a cartridge belt; it could only be him: the Wolf. Had they got there too soon? Were they too close?

  “Who the fuck are they?” shouted Wolf, pointing at the five boys. Fabrizio took a step forward:

  “We’re volunteers. We want to fight at your side.”

  The Wolf raised his eyes to the sky: “They want to fight, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. They want to fight and they don’t even have fucking guns with them, they don’t know a fucking thing, their shoes are falling apart and they want to fight. And I’m supposed to feed all these people, arm them and outfit them.”

  They heard more noises and a patrol burst out of the woods, using their gun barrels to shove forward a group of Black Brigade Republican Army soldiers. They were all wearing uniforms and they were all very young, little more than adolescents. Wolf turned to look at them, and then turned back towards the new arrivals.

  “You wanna fight, eh? All right, get over here, let’s see if you’ve got the balls.” The young volunteers stepped forward while the youths in their black uniforms were lined up against the wall with their hands tied behind their backs. “Give ’em daggers. All five of them.”

  Fabrizio, Filippo, Sergio and the others silently accepted the knives.

  “Come forward, now,” ordered Wolf. “Now, move it.”

  The five of them found themselves face to face with five boys their own age who were fighting on the side of the enemy. Both sides knew what was coming next.

  “These are war criminals,” said Wolf, “and they will be executed, immediately. I don’t want to waste bullets and I don’t want any shots to be heard. Use the knife you have in your hands. Now.”

  The five boys were a little more than a meter away from their black-shirted peers.

  “Well?” shouted Wolf. “What are you waiting for?”

  Fabrizio was the first to step forward with his dagger in hand until he was practically touching one of the prisoners: he could smell terror, or perhaps hate, pouring off the boy, a quiver of madness which crossed the space separating them and set off an irrepressible tremor in Fabrizio. The boy in black looked deep into his eyes with an enigmatic expression: he was trying, maybe, to control himself, not to show fear, not to fall to his knees, not to weep. Fabrizio saw Rossano in him. The same age, the same eyes. With every passing instant he looked more and more like him. The knife was just a few centimeters from the boy’s throat.

  “Come on,” he said, “get it over with. I can’t stand this. I don’t want to make a fool of myself. Push it in, damn you.” He was sweating profusely. Fabrizio heard a loud thud and he turned: Filippo had fainted, Sergio was struggling to stop retching. Fabrizio dropped the knife.

  “I knew it,” said Wolf. “You’re a bunch of fucking wimps. Sugano! Su-gano!!”

  A man of about thirty ran up with a tommy gun slung over his neck and a pistol in its holster.

  “You take care of this. Take them to the hole.”

  Sugano called over a couple of his men who pushed the prisoners into the forest. Ten minutes later they heard a burst of submachinegun fire and a couple of pistol shots.

  “There you go,” said Wolf and then, pointing to Fabrizio and Sergio, said: “You two, go to the hole and see if their shoes are any good, you’re not going to get anywhere with the ones you have on.”

  The two boys looked at each other in consternation.

  “What the hell!” shouted Wolf. “What is it that you’re not hearing? Move it, I said, or I’ll kick your sorry asses all the way home.”

  They set off and, a few minutes later, reached the “hole”: a hollow in the ground where the five black-shirted boys were laying in a pool of blood. Fabrizio saw that one of them, maybe the same one he was supposed to stab, was wearing a pair of ankle boots with treaded rubber soles that looked to be about his size. He forced himself to bend down and started unlacing them. As soon as he had pulled off the first one the boy, who was still alive, reacted: “Kill me, you coward! Kill me!”

  Sugano handed him a pistol: “You might as well start now. You’ll have to get used to this and anyway, you’re doing him a favor at this point.”

  Fabrizio took the gun and shot it. The boy’s eyes went dead. He pulled off the other boot. These shoes are cursed, he thought, as he walked back towards the camp.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Sugano, “but there’s no alternative. When the wolves are out, the sheep had better stay safe at home in their pens.”

  In the meantime, Bruno Montesi, who had been named political commissar for the Red Star Brigade commanded by the Wolf, was trying to find his way there. Before leaving, he had managed to make an appointment to mee
t one of the leaders of the Resistenza at an osteria in Casalecchio near Via Porrettana. The man’s code name was Martino and he was the commander of an assault battalion of white partisans stationed near Palagano, on the Modenese side of the mountains. Montesi recognized his drooping Tartar-style mustache and the burn scar on his left hand.

  “You’re Martino, aren’t you?” he asked.

  The man nodded and replied, “And you’re Montesi.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sit down and eat: stewed beans and potatoes. They’re good here and the bread is fresh.”

  Montesi helped himself and poured out a glass of white wine.

  “So you want to meet up with the Wolf.”

  “If I can, that’s my intention.”

  “Then you’ll need a battle name.”

  “The Blacksmith. That’s what people call me.”

  “Suit yourself. Anyway, good luck because you’ll need it.”

  “I have a letter of introduction from the National Liberation Committee.”

  “You know what the guy will do with your letter of introduction?”

  “Don’t tell me, I can imagine. But I have to see him nonetheless. I’ll convince Wolf that he should join the NLC.”

  “Listen well, buddy: the Wolf can’t stand political commissars. He says all they do is talk. What’s more, he has narrowly escaped two attempts on his life and he doesn’t trust anyone anymore. One of his own tried to stab him and it’s a miracle he didn’t succeed—it’s only because his men adore him and stand guard over him all night. Then, the very guy who stayed the would-be murderer’s hand, Olindo Sammarchi, a guy who grew up with Wolf, his fast friend from the absolute start, who had won Wolf’s complete trust by personally saving his life, well, this is the very guy that betrays him by going over to the Nazis and organizing more attacks against him. Can you believe it? When he was found out, Wolf had him put to death on the spot. So who can the Wolf trust anymore? If he can’t even trust his best friend how do you think he’s going to treat an absolute stranger?”