Hero on a Bicycle (3 page)

Constanza knew very well that if you had enough money, you could buy fancy clothes and shoes on the black market. The Albertinis had plenty of contacts there. But in her family, that kind of behavior would be thought totally immoral. Both her parents felt strongly that they must all share the pain of the shortages and lack of luxuries of any kind that was being endured by the ordinary, hard-pressed Italian population. But sometimes, stuck up here in her room, Constanza wished that she weren’t expected to live up to such high standards. It seemed to be only she who suffered. Her mother managed to look beautiful in everything she wore, however shabby, and Paolo was happy to wear any old clothes as long as he had his beloved bicycle.

At that moment, she was roughly jolted from her thoughts by the sounds of Paolo arriving back from his nocturnal adventure. She suppressed a rising irritation with him for assuming that they were oblivious of what he was up to. So he needed the excitement — she didn’t blame him for that — but if he only knew how tired and on edge he made them — especially Mamma, who was already so worried.

Constanza buried her head in her pillow and tried to empty her mind. All she wanted was a bit of peace, but this, it seemed, was impossible — and ten minutes later, she was still wide awake.

Rosemary was also still lying tensely awake. She had winced when she’d heard Paolo on the shed roof and the pantry window slamming shut.
Poor Paolo!
she thought. How angry and humiliated he would be if he knew that every night she was lying awake and listening for him. Now what? If only he would get on with it and come up to bed so that they could all get some badly needed sleep before dawn. She strained her ears, listening hard. After what seemed like a long time, she heard him scrambling around in the cellar, stumbling over things. What was he doing? She waited to hear his footsteps on the stairs, but none came. Now, suddenly, there was dead silence.

Down in the cellar, Paolo was standing frozen with fright. He expected a blow, or two hands reaching out from the darkness to lock in a stranglehold on his throat. But the figure a few feet away remained quite still. All he could hear was his own breathing. Agonizing minutes passed.

“Hello?”
he whispered hoarsely. No answer.
“Hello?”

Very cautiously, he reached out his hand and gently prodded the front of the buttoned jacket. There was no response. He felt his way slowly up toward the collar to where the face ought to be. There was no face, only a smooth wooden knob.

Paolo let out a great weary sigh of relief. It was the old tailor’s dummy that had stood in the cellar for years, displaying his dead grandfather’s military dress uniform. Once it had been the object of great family pride. He remembered how the rows of gold buttons, the medals, and the gold braid on the collar and cuffs had impressed him. Now he felt nothing but fury toward it for making such a fool of him, and he cursed it long and hard under his breath.

Then, legs leaden with exhaustion, he trudged up the stairs and tried the cellar door. It opened. Maria must have forgotten to lock it: his one piece of good fortune in an ill-fated night, he thought gloomily as he crept up to bed.

Rosemary heard him come up. She turned over, pulled the covers over her head, and tried to sleep. But it was no good. Her limbs, carefully arranged in a sleeping position, failed to relax. Finally she gave up, stretched out again, and lay there, watching the beginning of dawn already showing through the shutters.

M
aria knocked at Paolo’s bedroom door and then bustled in without waiting for a reply. “Wake up, Paolo! It’s late. Mass in half an hour!” Paolo buried his face in his pillow and pulled the blankets over his head. He longed to be left alone to drift back into sleep.

There had been a time, when he was a little boy, that Maria had been one of his favorite people. He had loved it when she came into his room after he had gone to bed, bringing some choice tidbits from the dinner the grown-ups were having downstairs. He always tried to persuade her to sit on his bed and tell him fairy tales. But now her conversation bored him. It was mostly stale local gossip of the most banal kind, often repeated more than once.

She began tugging at his sheet. “Your mother and Constanza have had their breakfast and are already dressed for church. There’s a clean shirt hanging in your closet. Come along, now — up you get!”

Paolo groaned with irritation. Sundays were awful. He hated going to Mass. He wanted more sleep. But Maria was a force impossible to withstand. Grudgingly he staggered into the bathroom and dabbed his face, very briefly, with water. It was cold, as usual. Hot water was a great luxury in wartime and was rationed to a four-inch-deep bath once a week.

His mother and Constanza were waiting in the hall when, ten minutes later, he lurched downstairs. As usual, they were fresh and immaculate in their summer dresses, and each carried a black lace shawl, with which they would cover their heads at Mass, over one arm. Constanza did not bother to address a word to him.

She’s so cool all the time,
thought Paolo.
How does she manage it?

Inwardly, had he known it, Constanza was far from cool. She was tired after Paolo’s nocturnal sortie into Florence had kept her awake, but that was the least of her concerns at that moment. Since Babbo had disappeared, they had all been making a huge effort to act out a charade of normality, stepping carefully around one another. She herself had become increasingly good at pretending not to mind the family’s isolation, sitting up in her room, playing her records. Sunday Mass often reminded her that most of the girls she had known at school were quietly avoiding her these days or else had moved away. No one had ever asked her point-blank where her father was. But they all knew that her mother was English and therefore one of the enemy — even though she had been an exemplary Italian wife and mother and had lived hospitably among them for so many years.

Hilaria Albertini was the only one among her friends who still wanted to see her. Although their families were so opposed politically, it was good to have someone her own age drop in for a chat from time to time and swap fashion magazines. Constanza knew very well that Hilaria’s fluffy blond hair, wide brown eyes, and ready laugh concealed a core of tough self-interest, but she could be very good company and always knew all the latest gossip. Hilaria made Constanza feel the loss of her other friends less deeply. Moreover, Constanza knew it was important to keep up at least a superficially good relationship with the few neighbors left still willing to befriend the family. Constanza was only too aware of the precarious circumstances under which they were living — something that Paolo seemed to blithely disregard.

The Crivellis’ house was a spacious villa with a sweep of gravel driveway, shuttered windows under wide overhanging eaves, and a large terrace that ran the whole length of the house, overlooking the garden. In the days before the war, there had been tennis parties, cocktails on the terrace, and elaborate dinners with course after course that both Constanza and Paolo had seen being prepared in the kitchen by the cook and other servants. There had been veal chops, game shot by their father, rich sauces, profusions of vegetables, and wonderful desserts like the one — they had already forgotten the name of it — with hot, crisp meringue on the outside and ice cream spilling out from within. It made them ache with hunger just to think of it.

Paolo had been too young then to join the grown-ups, and even Constanza had had to content herself with being presented in the drawing room for a brief time before dinner, her hair carefully parted on one side and held in place with those hair clips she hated. They were teenagers now and so old enough to attend, only there were no more parties, the garden was neglected, and hardly anyone came to visit them, except Hilaria and the occasional priest.

The little church where they attended Mass was very near to their house. Set among cypress trees, it had once been a private chapel and part of the Crivelli estate. Now it was used as the local church for people from the village and surrounding farms. The bell was already tolling when they joined the usual sparse group gathered outside. They were mostly local farmers and their families, Maria’s brother and his wife among them, and, of course, the Albertinis, who were out in force: Hilaria, her parents, and her older brother, Aldo, all dressed to the nines, as usual. There were also three German army officers, who were part of the occupying army stationed in Florence. They were Catholics and had been exempted from Sunday-morning parade at their local barracks to attend Mass. They were very smart-looking in their uniforms, with their belts and highly polished revolver holsters. There was the tall, thin one who stood awkwardly on long, storklike legs, and another, older man, already running to fat, who sported a small toothbrush mustache in imitation of his beloved leader, Adolf Hitler. The third and youngest was Lieutenant Helmut Gräss. He spoke good Italian and was exchanging polite conversation with Hilaria and Signora Albertini. He carried himself with a stiff, upright bearing that was at odds with his boyish face. He greeted Constanza and Rosemary eagerly with a heel-clicking salute.

Paolo stood apart with Maria, attempting a blank, detached expression. He was well aware that after Mass was over, worse was to follow: pre-lunch drinks with the Albertinis. Why did his mother go on accepting their invitations? he wondered. He knew she did not like them and hated to see Constanza being so friendly with Hilaria. The German officers were sure to be there, too, not to mention Hilaria’s smarmy brother, Aldo. He lived at home and had somehow been exempted from military service by wrangling a well-paid job helping to supply food to the German occupying forces.
And he is convinced that every woman in sight is in love with him,
thought Paolo. He closed his eyes wearily to avoid the sight of Aldo’s jaunty, parrotlike profile engaged in what he thought was sparkling conversation. It was a relief when the bell stopped tolling and they all filed in to Mass.

The one good thing about cocktail parties at the Albertinis’ was the snacks. Nobody liked to ask where they got them because everyone knew they were available only on the black market, but that did not stop anyone from digging in. Paolo had skillfully managed to maneuver himself into a corner to avoid the general conversation and still be near a large plate of canapés. The guests were assembled on the terrace overlooking an impeccable sloping lawn. White-jacketed servants moved among them, offering cocktails. Signor Albertini, as usual, had placed himself center stage, overlooking his domain. Barrel-chested, he was immaculately dressed and wore a permanent smile, one that sometimes bordered on a grimace and that displayed a magnificent set of gold fillings. All the Albertinis, Paolo reflected, seemed to be equipped with more than the normal number of teeth, all of which were maintained through expensive dentistry. Indeed, the dentist himself was one of the guests, a pale, morose man, the sight of whom made Paolo wince. None of the local tenant farmers or their families were guests at the Albertinis’; they were not considered to be part of the upper-class Florentine circle. Only the big vineyard owners and wholesale vegetable growers — all of whom seemed to be doing very well in wartime — and professional people were invited.

The three German officers who had attended Mass were now joined by some others from their regiment. Most of them were gathered around either Hilaria or Constanza, laughing and chatting in a mixture of German and bad Italian. Hilaria was, as always, extra vivacious in the male company, giggling a lot and shaking back her blond hair as she tried to keep them all amused. Paolo noticed how her eyes kept straying to Helmut, while his kept straying to Constanza.
It is as though everyone here is trying to pretend that the war is a million miles away instead of coming closer all the time,
Paolo thought. He’d heard the reports about how the Allied armies were north of Rome and advancing toward Florence. There were rumors that the South African infantry brigades had already reached Orvieto and that the Indian division, which was fighting alongside the Allies, was attacking the German defense line north of Lake Trasimeno.

Constanza also knew of the Allies’ progress but was careful not to bring it up in her conversation with the officers. In turn, they gave no hint as to the private state of their morale. Everyone knew that all leave had been canceled and that they were now on permanent alert, ready at all times to go into action.

As Lieutenant Gräss extricated himself from a conversation with Hilaria and made his way toward her, Constanza glanced over at her mother. She knew very well how much Rosemary disliked her being on friendly terms with the German officers. But it was necessary not to be seen to avoid them, and, anyway, she liked Helmut Gräss. He spoke Italian well, treated her as one of the grown-ups, and was prepared to have a proper conversation rather than merely engage in the lightly flirtatious social banter that his fellow officers were always rather unsuccessfully attempting.