To Find a Mountain (19 page)

C
HAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I
n the evening, a cool rain began to fall. It was one of those early spring rains that reminded everyone summer was still a way off, and that the remaining chill of winter would take its own sweet time in exiting.

My father’s thick wool jacket kept me warm; a wide-brimmed hat made sure the rain didn’t get down the back of my neck. I had taken to walking in the evenings, after the meals were cooked, the dishes cleaned, the laundry drying by the fireplace. The pretense of going for a walk had just been a ruse to check the rock wall for notes from Dominic, but I had begun to look forward to getting out of the house, breathing in fresh air, and looking at the stars. The work was always too much, and left me exhausted, but I found that I slept better after a walk.

The grass was wet, so I stepped carefully, not wanting the water to drench through to my socks too quickly. Out of the house, I turned right, walked past the barn toward the woods, and stopped at the same spot along the rock wall where the words of love had been placed for me, to fill my heart and my life with this new, strange thing.

Dominic had not answered my last letter. I worried that it had been too sharp, too cutting, but then again, I felt that he deserved it. If he didn’t feel the confidence to write to me in his own words—well, that was no excuse. Cracked slabs of concrete do not make a proper foundation, nor do false words. He needed to learn that, or nothing of any kind of permanence could be built between the two of us. Nothing that could stand the test of time and endure life’s harsher elements.

The stone was loose; a faded yellow splash of color struggled to peek around its oppressor. I looked over my shoulder. No one was near. I lifted the rock and opened the paper quickly, then held it tightly against my chest to make sure the rain didn’t obliterate the message before I could read it. It was a short, terse message.

Benedetta,

Meet me in the Varano barn tonight. The words will be my own.

Love,

Dominic

I quickly read it again, as if I didn’t understand all the complexities of the message. As if the two short sentences were simply too much to comprehend.

But really, I was just stalling.

It was an effort to sort out my emotions, which were primarily dominated by fear. The fear and a fair amount of excitement hit me at once. Fear of the Germans. Fear of my father. Fear of the unknown. And on a certain level, fear of Dominic. Of seeing him again.

I was scared that Dominic might tell me he didn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore, that I was too much for him, had too much of a temper. Of course, he probably would have just said that in the letter.

But I was excited, too. Other than our time together in the mountains, we had fallen in love through our letters, and I knew things might be different in person, as things are sometimes easier to say in writing compared to face-to-face.

He was taking a risk trying to see me in person. More of a risk in fact than walking up and down the mountain. If he were caught here, the penalty would be severe and immediate. And if we were discovered together, the penalty for him would be much greater than for me. He would be sent immediately to the front, and from the sounds of the fighting, he would not last long. On the other hand, I wasn’t certain what would happen to me. Certainly a stern reprimand from Zizi Checcone and a tired look of disappointment from Colonel Wolff. Of course, my punishment could turn out to be much more severe.

The Varano barn: a sagging, dilapidated structure pushed all the way back to the forest’s edge at the base of the mountain. It was the perfect place for Dominic; he could come down the mountain at night, slip from the forest into the back of the barn unnoticed. And at the first sign of trouble, he could be back in the safety of the woods in seconds. It was a good choice.

Was it a good choice for me to go to see him, though? To be with him in secret? This was much more than just hiding love letters beneath a rock. This was a big step.

I had never been in love before, had never agreed to meet secretly with any boy, much less a boy of whom I knew my father did not approve.

My feet remained rooted to the ground. My knees bent, as if to step forward, but my feet were not yet ready to cooperate. A hundred possibilities of what would happen went through my mind, all of them bad. What can I say? That’s the way my mind worked. Imagine the worst.

With monumental effort, I turned myself around, and faced the direction in which the Varano barn lay. I glanced to the left—that was the way home. I made my decision, and walked confidently in the direction of the Varano barn.

I walked quickly, checking frequently to make sure I wasn’t being followed. My imagination ran wild; everywhere there were Germans, or, nearly as bad, old women from the village who would see and tell my father that his daughter was secretly meeting a boy of whom he did not approve. I’m not sure whom I would rather have been caught by.

Within minutes, the barn came into sight. It was even more run-down than I remembered; it had been some time since I’d seen it. Its rafters were sagging, the door sat crookedly on its hinges, and the window frames were stripped of any paint. The barn was mostly stone, and it seemed to be cracking everywhere.

I walked briskly past it, down a steep grade, then cut across a shallow field to the edge of the woods. From behind a tree, I watched for any movement in or around the barn. I saw nothing. Something rustled in the undergrowth behind me, but it faded away slowly. Probably a squirrel.

Scanning the area around the barn and the houses farther away, I saw no movement, no sign that anyone had followed me. But it was getting close to dark now, and I had no way of knowing for sure. This was a gamble, in every sense. Although I felt melodramatic in thinking it, there was no getting around the fact that what I was doing now would most likely change my life forever.

Mustering up as much courage as possible, I made my way slowly along the tree line, keeping the barn on the periphery of my vision, while I kept my eyes scanning the surrounding homes and fields. Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the back of the barn. I looked at the crumbling back wall, covered with vines and smelling of decaying timber.

There was no sign of Dominic.

Wishing not to use the enormous front doors, I moved along the side until I found a half door, probably used for livestock. I ducked underneath and was inside. The musty smell of old hay washed over me, not entirely unpleasant. In fact, with the cold rain coming down harder every minute outside, the barn was cozy in a way.

“Dominic?” I whispered softly, scanning the darkness. Slowly I began to make my way around, feeling with each foot before setting it down. I stepped on something soft and squishy; chills went down my spine. A soft squeaking sound called from a corner. Field mice, most likely.

Suddenly, a hand clamped across my mouth.

C
HAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

S
hhh.”

I felt a hand turn me around and then from out of the darkness I saw the faint glow of Dominic Giancarlo’s beautiful blue eyes.

“You made enough noise,” he murmured, laughing softly and moving his hand from my mouth to the side of my neck. “Good thing you aren’t a spy; we would all be doomed.”

“Very funny. Nice place to pick. So romantic.”

He still hadn’t taken his hands off me.

“What, do you want me to meet you in the town square?” he said. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a war going on.”

“Why don’t you—?”

He kissed me then, hard. His lips didn’t move on mine, but he pressed hard. I threw my arms around his broad shoulders, and his arms circled my waist like big snakes. We broke apart, smiled at each other, then kissed again.

“The letters . . .” he started to say, but I pressed a finger to his lips.

“I know,” I said. Then I kissed him again.

He put his hands on my shoulders and gently p
ushed me back.

“No, I have to tell you something.”

I rolled my eyes, then folded my arms across my chest.

“This better be good.”

“I used parts of the letters from Luigi Iacobelli’s book.”

“I know.”

“But only because the letters said what I was feeling, and said it better than I could have.”

“What, are you going to have this book with you for the rest of your life? When you are feeling an emotion, look up the right chapter and then tell me about it?”

“No, I’m telling you that’s why I did it,” he said. “And I know it was the easy thing to do. From now on, they will be my own words.”

“You are honest, Dominic; that’s one of the reasons I love you. Your honesty is more beautiful than any words you could copy out of a book. You know that?”

He hugged me tightly.

“And you are more beautiful than anything in the world,” he said.

We kissed again and he lifted me, carried me across the barn to a mound of old hay bales. He set me down and lay next to me, one arm under me, the other caressing my body.

His hair felt soft beneath my hands, his lips gentle and firm. I felt a warmth in my loins I had never felt before, and my body surged with emotions. His breath became ragged and he broke away from me to catch his breath.

Thoughts of my father came into my head, thoughts of Zizi Checcone, and the German soldiers close by. But I pushed them from my mind.
Just awhile longe
r
,
I thought.
Just awhile longer and then I will go back to that existence soon enough.

“I have dreamed of this moment since you left,” he said, turning to smile at me. I was looking up into the darkness of the barn’s rafters.

“I’ve thought about it, too. I just thought it wouldn’t happen until after the Germans left. I guess I didn’t realize how foolish you are.”

“Love does that,” he said.

I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the warmth, the heat of my body; I could still feel his hands on me; his eagerness and desire consumed me, made me feel alive. Until then, I had always felt like a girl, but now, with the smell of hay beneath me, and the scent of Dominic on my cheeks, I felt, for the first time in my life, like a woman.

I leaned over to whisper that into his ear and it was then that I felt the chill of cold steel against my throat.

My eyes opened and I saw Schlemmer kneeling above me. A knife was in his hand, pressed against my neck, and in his other hand was a pistol, pointed squarely at Dominic, who still had his eyes closed.

Schlemmer spoke in broken Italian.

“Ah, you play the saint with me, the whore with him.”

Dominic’s eyes snapped open and he started to rise, but Schlemmer’s pistol forced him back down.

I was going to die in this barn. I had allowed myself a dream, a brief one, and now it was going to be cut apart by an evil German. I thought of my father, first losing his wife, and now his eldest daughter. It was too much.

“Turn over, hands behind your head,” Schlemmer said to Dominic, ges
turing with the pistol. Dominic complied.

Schlemmer’s voice was thick with disgust and loathing. “Coward,” he said. “Hide in the mountain from the fighting, but come down to be with your whore, hiding in a barn. There is no such thing as an Italian man. There are Italian women and Italian cowards.”

His breath reeked, a sour smell that renewed its strength with each breath he took.

“You disgust me,” Schlemmer said. “We should kill all of you, forget about the Americans. At least they fight.”

Schlemmer turned to me and, with his pistol still on Dominic, slowly trailed the tip of his knife down my neck to my chest. His blade went between my breasts and I inhaled sharply. Dominic turned his head slightly and Schlemmer trained his pistol at his eye, grinning luridly at him. “Yes,” he said. “Do something, Italian hero.”

When Dominic looked away, Schlemmer turned back to me. The point of his knife hooked on my dress and he lifted quickly, slicing the material. He reinserted his knife and slowly pulled down, tearing my dress and undergarments open and exposing my breasts. I instinctively brought my hands up to cover them, but he jerked the knife quickly, saying, “Ah-ah-ah,” and I stopped my hands in midair, then dropped them back to my side.

As his eyes devoured my body, he started to talk.

“So there I am, sitting on a chair outside the hospital, unable to sleep from the medicines the doctors are giving me for my shrapnel wounds, when what do I see but a beautiful young Italian girl sneaking toward a barn.”

The knife moved down over my stomach, the material being cut in half.

“I decide to follow. I can’t sleep anyway, right? So I see her go into this barn. I wait. I look for a door where I can slip in quietly and watch the action and oh, what action I see!” He laughed in the darkness and I could smell his foul breath, visualize his stained teeth.

“I see you two rolling around and I think to myself, if anyone’s going to fuck this girl, it’s going to be me,” Schlemmer said.

His knifepoint reached my pubic hair and he stopped, then pulled slightly so my dress would reveal more. His breathing was increasing and his hand was starting to shake. The knife went down farther. My body shook and I started to cry.

He raised the knife back up to my chest and pulled my dress wider, so that my breasts were completely exposed.

“Ah, so beautiful, so beautiful.”

He bent down and placed his mouth around my nipple and as he did so, Dominic lashed out with his hand and struck the gun toward the rafters. The gun exploded and then Dominic was launching himself over me atop Schlemmer and the two of them rolled away, struggling madly for control of both weapons. I scrabbled away on my back and could think of nothing to do but watch in horror as they grunted and thrashed in the hay.

After what seemed an impossibly long time, Dominic drove his knee with immense force into Schlemmer’s side and sent him flying several feet from him. Something black and gleaming spun away from them into the dark along the wall as Schlemmer flew, and when the gun landed, both of them looked wildly after it.

Schlemmer looked away from the lost prize too late. Dominic was already on his feet and swinging from the hip, a sweeping blow packed with power that connected flush on Schlemmer’s jaw with the sound of a two-by-four cracking a pig’s skull. But Schlemmer was jabbing with his knife. Just as the punch landed, the blade sank into Dominic’s side. Schlemmer went down from the blow and Dominic jumped back; his left hand went to his right side and came away bloody.

Schlemmer, stunned, regained his footing, but Dominic lunged forward, head-butting the German and driving them both back into the hay again.

Dominic held on to Schlemmer’s wrist and tried to break his grip on the knife. They twisted and writhed, battling for control of it, until Dominic cracked Schlemmer’s hand against a wood post and the knife sailed over both of their heads. They broke, rolled in opposite directions, and then crashed at each other, but Dominic was faster and landed a sharp uppercut that snapped Schlemmer’s head back.

Suddenly, the fog cleared in my head and I made a beeline for the gun, scrambling across the floor like a crab.

I was about five feet from the wall where it had landed when Dominic punched Schlemmer in the stomach and he fell back, landing between the gun and me.

The German jumped to his feet and rushed Dominic, ramming him in the stomach, and they crashed again to the ground with Schlemmer on top. He brought his fists back and crashed them with ferocious power into Dominic’s face. I started crawling toward the wall again and actually spied the gun, but Schlemmer saw me, jumped off Dominic, and lunged after me, getting hold of my ankle. He pulled me toward him as he rose to his knees.

He was laughing, a look of insanity on his face.

He heaved me to one side, diving for the gun. Suddenly, a shadow passed over me and Dominic landed on top of the German. A flash of steel, and then Dominic sank the knife deep into Schlemmer’s throat.

The German had his hand around the gun, but Dominic clamped down on it with his own hand, and pulled the knife in one long, cutting motion across Schlemmer’s neck. Dominic repositioned himself and pinned Schlemmer’s head to the ground. A fountain of blood gurgled from the German’s neck as he bled to death. Soon, the flow of blood went down to a trickle, then it seemed to stop altogether.

All movement stopped, and the barn was silent.

After several minutes, Dominic rolled off Schlemmer, stood, and turned the German over. I stood, shaking, and stepped forward.

Schlemmer’s lifeless eyes stared at the barn’s ceiling, a long gash making a second obscene smile along his neck. His head was nearly cut off, hanging on by a thin strip of tissue.

Dominic turned and retched, wincing and clutching his side as he did so.

He was still bleeding.

I made him sit down, then took off his shirt. The wound was nasty, but not deep. Apparently it had gone in, then caromed off, cutting much flesh, but not reaching deeply enough to hit any vital organs.

I forced Dominic’s hand open and took the knife from him, then cut one of his sleeves off. I tied it around him, pressing the widest part of the material into his wound.

“You have to go back up the mountain. You have no choice.”

He nodded, keeping his eyes averted.

I looked down and saw my exposed breasts. I took the loose ends of my dress and tried to hook them together, then tied them in a small knot. It would have to do. It was fully dark outside and I could get home unnoticed. I would have to destroy the dress so Zizi Checcone couldn’t see it.

Both of our eyes fell on Schlemmer.

“We have to hide him,” Dominic said.

I looked around the barn. It was empty save for the rotten hay bales and some old planks of wood. A broken plow, too heavy to move, was in a corner.

“The hay bales. We have to hide him underneath,” I said.

We moved them with great effort, then dragged Schlemmer—I had his boot heels; Dominic grasped him underneath the arms. We did not take his gun, as discovery by the Germans would mean instant execution.

We pushed a bale off the top of the stack and it landed on Schlemmer. Then we a
rranged the other bales around him and quickly covered over the blood spots with loose hay.

“They will miss him,” Dominic said.

“Maybe they’ll think he ran away. The colonel said he was a disturbed boy.”

“I think he was right.”

“We just have to pray that no one finds him,” I said. “The Americans are advancing, maybe . . .”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe . . .” Dominic spat out angrily. “You will be in danger.”

“If I get home unnoticed, no one will think I killed him. A little girl killing a big, tough German soldier? Never!”

We both looked outside.

“We both must go. Now,” I said.

Dominic looked at me, his eyes filling with tears.

We kissed and left the barn together, our hands clasped.