Authors: Timothy Williams
“Your mother is dead, Piero. It would have done no good for her to know. It was better that she should die thinking her son was killed by the enemy.”
Trotti stopped. “Who murdered my brother?”
The priest stopped, too. He shaded his eyes with his hand. “It wasn’t the Fascists who killed him.”
“Answer my question, Gianni.”
“The partisans killed him.”
“The partisans? What makes you say that?” A perplexed laugh. “Italo was a partisan.”
“He was a witness.”
“Witness to what?”
“You don’t remember Saltieri?”
“A Carabiniere.”
Fra Gianni nodded.
“He collaborated with the Fascists.”
The priest shook his head. “Saltieri was not a collaborator—nor had he ever been. Just a policeman—a humble policeman from Ancona province—who tried to do his job at a difficult time.” He shrugged and started walking again. “They murdered him and they made him appear as a Fascist—so killing two birds with one stone.”
“Them?”
“An unwanted intruder—and, by accusing him of collaboration with the enemy, they passed themselves off as partisans.”
Trotti’s legs felt heavy and he was sweating; his shirt stuck to his back. “Who are you talking about?”
“Piero—I knew the partisans—and there were many of them that I loved like my own brother. Loyal men and honorable—even in a dirty war. A dirty, civil war. But they were not all innocent choirboys. We had a job to do and that job was to chase the enemy from Italy. The men that lived in these hills—there were Italians. But there were also Poles and South Africans and the English and the Americans. Not to mention the deserters from the Italian army; and even some Germans. Good Germans, Piero. They were wild men and they needed disciplining.”
“Who murdered Italo?”
“Do you remember Primula Rosa?”
“Tell me about Italo, for heaven’s sake.”
Fra Gianni held up his hand. “You remember Primula Rosa?”
Trotti shrugged. “I saw him at the end of the war.”
“A good and honorable soldier who looked after his men.” The priest was now walking more slowly so that Trotti could keep pace with him. “I think we all loved Primula Rosa.”
“Who murdered Italo, Fra Gianni?”
“You saw Primula Rosa?”
“Once—at a victory parade, at the end of the war.” Trotti
ran a hand along his damp forehead. “I can recall thinking that he was only a few years older than me. He had lost an arm.”
Fra Gianni smiled.
“Primula Rosa murdered my brother Italo?”
“No.” Fra Gianni clicked his tongue. “Of course not.”
“Then who killed Italo?”
“Come, Piero, another few hundred meters and we are at the spot.” Turning forward, the priest marched briskly up the incline.
Trotti sighed, pulled back his shoulders and followed.
It was several years since Trotti had been back.
He felt hot. He was sticky with sweat and out of breath. But then, when he came to the small graveside, Trotti knelt down and lowered his head. He tried to remember an almost forgotten prayer as he stared at the engraved headstone.
ITALO TROTTI
,
1921—1945
Then Piero Trotti closed his eyes and prayed, asking for eternal peace and divine love for his dead brother.
“W
HY CAN
’
T YOU
tell me the truth?”
He laughed. “You think that I’m not telling you the truth?”
“You talk like a Jesuit, Fra Gianni.”
“Is that an insult?”
“What do you want me to do?”
The Fiat 500 went into a slight skid on the unsurfaced road. “Careful.” Trotti could feel the back of the car sliding forward. “You are a priest—not a Formula One driver.”
The older man gently touched the medallion of Saint Christopher on the dashboard. “Perhaps I should never have been a priest—and perhaps you should never have become a policeman.”
“I don’t think I would have been a good priest, if that’s what you mean.”
Fra Gianni was hunched over the steering wheel but he turned to look at Trotti. “You have the dedication, Piero. You have a kind of moral single-mindedness.”
“And that’s why you asked me to come here?”
“Your mother is dead, Piero. She cannot be hurt.”
“There was no need to tell me about Italo. Dead—Italo is dead.”
The rubble surface was bright in the sunlight. “Too many people have died.”
Trotti frowned.
“You knew la Nini—she sometimes used to help your mother with the animals after the war.”
“La Nini?”
“Her real name was Giulia Spallanera.”
Trotti nodded. “Well?”
“Two weeks ago she was murdered.”
They went through a small copse and the pine trees partially cut out the sunlight. The shadows of the trees danced hurriedly across the windscreen and the air was filled with particles of white dust rising from the road.
“A bit eccentric, a bit old-fashioned. La Nini spent her time living in the past—during the war, she used to carry messages from one partisan group to another. She knew the hills like her own apron. She must have been thirty years old at the time—but in those days she could run faster than most men. Old stock, Piero—hard-working and loyal.”
“And?”
“They found her at the back of her house.” He raised his right hand and gestured towards the valley. “Since her husband died some twenty years ago, she’d been living by herself. A bit strange in the head—but harmless.”
“How did she die?”
“She fell into the stream and cracked her skull. That’s what the Carabinieri think.” He shrugged.
“You don’t believe that?”
“La Nini was murdered.”
There was an awkward silence.
“In cold blood, Piero.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
Fra Gianni glanced at Trotti. “The sixth person to have died in strange circumstances.”
“Six people?”
“Six people in the last twenty-five years. And all of them were directly or indirectly connected with the partisans.”
“If one day I get run over in the street in Milan, is that because my brother was a partisan?”
“You don’t understand, Piero.”
“Fra Gianni, the war ended forty years ago. That’s a long time. And it’s more than long enough for anybody to carry out their plans of revenge.”
“Here in the hills, memories can be very long.”
Trotti placed his hand on the priest’s arm.
“I am afraid, Piero.”
“Afraid?”
“Not for myself—but for other people in the village.”
“Afraid of what, Fra Gianni?”
“Revenge.”
“Revenge for something which happened in 1944 or 1945?” Trotti tapped his temple. “I think you’ve been overworking your head.”
“Six people, Piero.”
Trotti laughed, but without conviction. “Suppose you are right—suppose six people have been murdered. What for? People don’t get murdered just like that. They get murdered because they know something or because they are dangerous. What on earth can an old cleric … a young and athletic cleric know that would put his life in danger?”
“I never said that my life was in danger.”
“Then what are you worrying about?”
“You’re forgetting about the others.”
“You’re reading Agatha Christie when you should be reading your missal.”
“The others, Piero.”
“There are no others, Fra Gianni. Not after forty years.”
“But the money is still there.”
“Money?”
“That’s why they killed your brother. He had witnessed Saltieri’s death—and he knew about the money.”
“Italo had no money. He was poor. We were all poor.”
“The gold bullion that the partisans stole from the Germans.” Fra Gianni shrugged. “Why else did they murder the Carabiniere? Why did they murder your brother? The gold bullion, Piero—somebody must have it.”
The sky was a cloudless blue as they came to a bend. The
village opened up before them, like a photograph in a geography textbook.
“Why else have they been killing off these old people—people with an old secret?”
F
RA
G
IANNI WAITED
until the housekeeper had closed the door before speaking. He sat forward. “It was probably a good thing you left Santa Maria, Piero … They used to say, ‘Five days in the hands of the partisans, two days in the hands of the Fascists.’ ”
“A joke.”
“A joke that wasn’t too far from the truth. There was a lot of fighting in the last months of the war and Santa Maria changed hands frequently. We would chase the Fascists and a few days later they would come back supported by the Germans and take over the town again. Then we would have to run away up into the hills and hide until the Germans had gone off. Gone off with their heavy artillery and their tanks.” Fra Gianni laughed as he began to pour tea into the three cups. “Your mother sent you to the city because she thought you’d be safer there than staying in Santa Maria. Or in the hills.”
“The city got bombed.”
“But by the allies—and they weren’t trying to kill. Up here it was the Fascists—Mussolini’s Fascists and they were worse than the Germans.”
The Baronessa held up her hand—a fragile hand, of an almost translucent white. “You mustn’t be so harsh on the Germans, Gianni. There were good Germans, too.”
The priest looked at the woman and nodded. “At least when the Germans took a partisan, they shot him quickly.”
“And sometimes they released him.”
“You are not completely objective, Baronessa.”
“I married a German, I lived in Germany. I think I know better than you what the Germans are really like.”
Fra Gianni spoke hesitantly. “I can forgive the Germans. But the Italian Fascists were different. I can find no forgiveness in my heart. How can I forgive them for what they did to their fellow Italians? They tortured their compatriots.” He stretched forward, handing a cup of tea to Trotti. “Cruel men for cruel times. Your mother did the right thing, Piero. She did not want to lose another son.”
Trotti looked out of the window of the presbytery.
The Baronessa said calmly, “That’s why your partisans tortured Saltieri.”
Trotti turned. “Why?”
“The partisans were no gentler than the Fascists. They had the same methods, the same ruthlessness. And the same mindless spilling of blood. They were no better. Don’t listen to this foolish old priest. The partisans were traitors.”
Fra Gianni looked at her. “You must not say that, Baronessa.”
“Communists.”
“We weren’t all communists.”
“And common law criminals.”
“There are times when the Baronessa von Neumann prefers to ignore the truth.”
“Traitors.”
“The partisans were patriots, fighting to free Italy.”
“We had started the war alongside our German allies—and the partisans were traitors.”
Fra Gianni asked, “Then in your mind, Baronessa, I, too, am a traitor?”
In offended silence the priest waited for an answer. The wrinkled, kind face looked aggrieved.
“Drink your tea, Gianni—and tell your friend about the partisans. And how they courageously slaughtered young boys.”
The tea was bitter and seemed to rasp against the side of Trotti’s tongue. He took more sugar from the silver bowl;
granules dropped from the spoon onto the highly polished wood.
The room was almost bare. The walls had been painted a long time ago; there was a painting of Saint Theresa in a dusty gilt frame. A single vase of cut flowers in the middle of the table.
Fra Gianni raised his shoulders in reluctant concession. “The partisans were not all saints.” The old priest looked at the woman—they must have been of the same age. But while Baronessa von Neumann looked frail, there was a liveliness about the priest, a warm, human robustness.
“But Primula Rosa was no murderer.”
“Then he was a fool.”
“A fool?”
“To live among murderers and criminals.” The Baronessa snorted. “And traitors.”
Trotti asked, “What happened?”
“Happened?”
“To the young boys the Baronessa mentioned.”
Gianni hesitated. “I had to give them the last rites. And then they were blindfolded and shot.”
The afternoon air was losing its warmth. Trotti put down his cup on the table and stood up; he went to the window that looked out on to the garden and beyond it, at the peaceful panorama of the village.
“I didn’t want them to be shot—and neither did Primula Rosa.”
“But they were shot, weren’t they?” A triumphant smile on the old woman’s thin lips. “They refused to come over to us. And if we had let them go, they would’ve gone straight back to the Fascists and told them where we were hiding.”
Trotti continued looking out of the window. “Tell me about Saltieri.”
Fra Gianni poured another cup of tea before answering. “A good man—but not wise.”
The presbytery was beside the church. The roofs of Santa Maria were spread out beneath the window. The leaves of the chestnut trees were showing their first tint of brown. A bus
moved silently along the road from Tarzi. Trotti heard the shrieks of children playing somewhere.
He turned his back on the window and took a packet of sweets from his pocket.
“What Gianni means is that his friends the partisans hated Saltieri because Saltieri was a Carabiniere who tried to do his duty.”
“He wasn’t a bad man—but most people hated him.” Fra Gianni nodded. “There was a black market. From the first day of the war in 1940. Everybody knew that—and I don’t think many people really disapproved. Not even you, Baronessa—for in those days, you were no richer than the rest of the villagers.”
“Black market?”
“With Genoa and Milan easily accessible, there was money to be made. And the people up here deserved a bit of wealth. It may not be the Mezzogiorno here—but the hills have always been poor. When I first came to Santa Maria in November 1943, I was shocked. Poor and very closely-knit. Just like the south—like Calabria. With the same ancient rivalries between families. And the same tradition of poverty. In a way, the war was a blessing. The war created the market for the people here and it was no secret that some villagers got rich by selling meat on the black market in Genoa. There was a big demand for fresh meat in the towns—and Santa Maria could supply meat. Good, fresh meat. That was Saltieri’s mistake.”