Hero on a Bicycle (13 page)

“Constanza! I’ve only got a minute, but I couldn’t go without saying good-bye! Mamma and Papà are waiting out on the road with the engine running. The car’s loaded with stuff. They didn’t want me to come here, but I made them stop. We’re on our way north at last, to get away from the awful fighting. It’ll be right here very soon, so it’s our last chance. You’re leaving, too, I suppose?”

“Not for the moment.”

“You don’t mean you’re staying here? It’s so dangerous! Everyone’s leaving. The road into Florence is jammed. But listen.” Her face was very flushed. Impulsively she reached out and took both of Constanza’s hands. “I had to see you before we left. I had to tell you . . .”

“Tell me what?”

“It’s . . .” She suddenly burst into tears. “It’s about that day I dropped by to see you. A couple of days ago, remember? I thought there was something funny about the way you and Paolo were behaving, the way you didn’t want me to go down into the cellar. As though you were hiding something.”

“And?”

“Well . . .” Hilaria was clinging to her now. “Well, we heard afterward that the Gestapo had been to search your house.”

“Yes. And they found nothing,
nothing
!”

“I know . . . I know. But I just wanted to tell you that it wasn’t me who tipped them off. I mean, we’ve always been friends, haven’t we? Mamma and Papà didn’t like it, what with your father’s politics and all, but I never let that bother me, never!”

Constanza pushed Hilaria’s hands away.

“
Don’t
speak to me about my father,” she said in a very low voice. “My father has nothing to do with this, or with you.”

Hilaria was becoming shrill with impatience.

“But you don’t
understand,
Constanza! After they’d been to search your house, I felt so awful. I mean, I may have let drop something about my suspicions to Aldo at some point. It was silly of me, I know. It just slipped out as a kind of joke when I was talking to him. He was — you know — leading me on to gossip about you and your family. He seemed sort of curious. But what I’ve come to tell you is that today I heard him talking to Colonel Richter on the phone. Aldo mentioned your mother’s name, so I picked up the extension and I heard the colonel say her name was on some sort of list — a
Gestapo
list — of people who might be helping the Partisans. And that means she could be
shot,
Constanza! The colonel said he was sending soldiers back again to make another search. Really soon — today, probably. So you’ve just got to get away — all of you — right now!”

At that moment, they heard a couple of urgent honks from the waiting car.

Hilaria hurriedly brushed away her tears and shook out her hair. “I’ve simply got to go. I’ll see you again, I expect — when all this is over.” She made an attempt to take Constanza’s hands again but was met with a stony response.

“Good-bye, Hilaria.”

“I’ll send you a postcard with my new address. But I don’t expect it’ll arrive. . . .”

“I said
good-bye.
”

There was another honk on the horn. Hilaria hesitated uncertainly for a moment, then turned and ran off down the drive, unsteady on her high heels, waving over her shoulder but not looking back.

Constanza stood still in the doorway, her eyes tightly closed and her fists clenched. Then she ran inside to find her mother and warn Joe.

“I’
ll be OK, honest,” said Joe. He was scrambling into the workman’s coat and cap he had worn for his previous escape. Rosemary was stuffing a bottle of water and what food they could spare into a shoulder bag.

“When you get to the main road, go in the opposite direction from Florence,” she told him. “Most people will be trying to get to the north of the city to avoid the fighting. Just keep going until you come to one of the paths that leads up into the hills. The Partisans are in control there.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Constanza. “Part of the way, at least.”

Rosemary dropped the bag.

“Constanza — you
can’t
! It’s far too dangerous!”

“We’ll be less likely to be noticed as a couple,” said Constanza. “I can do all the talking if we’re stopped. Then as soon as we’re clear, Joe can go on alone and make for the hills, and I’ll come straight back.”

“No, Constanza. I won’t let you, and that’s final!”

“Your mom’s right,” said Joe. “I can manage fine on my own, and once I’ve contacted the Partisans, they’ll help me.”

But he looked pale and shaky, hardly fit for a long walk in the punishing heat, let alone another possible encounter with German soldiers on the way.

Constanza had a look on her face that her mother knew well, one that since childhood had signaled a steely determination to accomplish exactly what she had made up her mind to do — it nearly always resulted in her getting her own way. She was already taking Maria’s shawl from the peg and pulling it around her shoulders.

“We’ll need some money,” she said, “and —” But she was cut short by the sound of wheels on the gravel outside the front door and a voice shouting orders in German. It seemed that the search party had arrived even earlier than expected. Rosemary ran into the hall. This time there was no polite ring at the doorbell and no Colonel Richter or Lieutenant Gräss to engage in conversation. The door was simply flung open, and a German army sergeant burst in, followed by four army privates with rifles at the ready.

Rosemary confronted them as bravely as she could.

“What do you want?” she asked in German.

The sergeant was a man in his early thirties, well built but already running to fat. He had the weary, short-tempered look of a professional soldier who had not had any leave for a very long time.

“Have you a warrant to come in here?” she asked him, coolly polite. “A very thorough search of this house has already been made, you know.”

“We’re under orders from the Gestapo to make a further search. There’s been another report made to headquarters that you may be hiding Allied servicemen, enemies of the Reich, here, and aiding their escape.”

“There’s nobody here but myself, my children, and my maid, Maria.”

The sergeant didn’t answer but motioned briskly with his rifle for two of his men to start their search upstairs. Then, followed by the other two, he pushed past her and hurried down the passage that led to the kitchen.

We’re finished,
thought Rosemary, with a great pang of desperation.
This is the end of everything.
She felt sick with fear.

Maria emerged from the kitchen, complaining shrilly and attempting to bar their way, but she was soon thrust aside. They pushed open the door — and found Constanza sitting alone at the long wooden table with a plate of grapes and some bread in front of her. She looked up with a fawnlike expression of innocent alarm that would have melted the heart of the most battle-weary soldier. The sergeant muttered something at her as the soldiers began their search of the room, the pantries, and the laundry room. Rosemary caught her breath with relief when she noticed that the door to the yard was ajar. Constanza must have gotten Joe out of the way just in time.

Upstairs, the other soldiers were going through the house from top to bottom. This time they made no attempt to restore the chaos they were leaving behind them. They were extremely thorough. They paid particular attention when they reached the cellar.

Rosemary and Constanza went to the top of the stairs and watched, huddled together, as they ransacked their way through it, shining flashlights into every corner. All the junk that had been carefully put back in front of Joe’s hiding place was pulled away, and the poor old uniformed dummy toppled. There was a cry of triumph when they found the little door to the wine store. The soldiers took aim with their rifles as the sergeant flung it open. There was an awkward pause when they found it empty. One of the men swore under his breath but was barked into silence by the sergeant.

“There’s nobody here, as you see,” said Rosemary in loud, clear German. “Colonel Richter’s party was here before, as you know, and found nothing, because there’s nothing to find. I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. But perhaps you would like to make a further search of the garden and sheds? I want it on record that we have been absolutely cooperative.”

She caught Constanza’s eye with a glance that said “Where is he?” but there was no flicker of response. The two women stood aside as the search party trooped back up the cellar stairs. The sergeant was angry and still suspicious. Without another word to Rosemary, he ordered his men outside and then stamped out after them. They heard him shouting orders as the soldiers fanned out across the dried-up garden, beating bushes and trampling over what used to be Rosemary’s flower beds, working their way toward the sheds and the yard. Rosemary and Constanza waited inside. Rosemary took Constanza’s hand. It trembled in hers as they both stood there, listening, hardly able to move.

They could hear Guido’s frantic barking from the yard. Then there were shots, and Constanza’s brave reserve broke down. She clung to her mother, burying her face in her shoulder.

There was a long, terrible silence, then a lot of shouting. At last the sergeant reappeared at the front door. He ordered his men to bring the truck around. The soldiers climbed in. When they were all on board, the sergeant slung his rifle over his shoulder and turned to the two women. His face was expressionless. “
Heil
Hitler,” he said, then saluted, jumped into the truck beside the driver, and gave orders to move on.

Rosemary was very pale. Slowly, as though her feet were weighted down, she went to the door and looked after them.

“He was in the yard,”
whispered Constanza, then covered her face with her hands.

“You’d better stay here, darling. I’ll go and see what’s happened,” Rosemary said. But as she made her way around to the yard, she could hear Constanza following behind her. She was terrified of what they might find.

“Don’t come — don’t. Stay inside,” she insisted. “It would be much better, really. Please.”

But Constanza took no notice.

The yard was weirdly silent. And there, lying stretched out on the ground as far away from his kennel as his leash would allow, lay Guido’s dead body. He had been shot three times in the head. The flies were already beginning to collect in the jagged hole where his eyes had once been and on the sticky mess of blood and brains that was seeping from it onto the ground beneath. Constanza made a kind of strangled cry. She stood stock-still beside Rosemary for a moment, then she knelt down and very gently touched his blood-soaked fur.

“Guido,” she said in a very low voice. She turned to the kennel. There was a movement inside, and Joe crawled out from the dark interior. He squatted beside her and put his good arm around her shoulders.

“Poor old Guido,” he said. “He knew he was protecting me, and he put up a great fight. He barked and snarled and pulled on his chain until it nearly choked him. So one of those swine put three bullets into him. And not one of them thought of looking inside the kennel.”

Tears had begun to course down Constanza’s cheeks. She was too distraught to wipe them away.

“It was the only place I could think of for you to hide,” she said.

“He saved my life,” said Joe. “You and Guido both.”

W
ith Maria’s help, Constanza and Rosemary wrapped Guido’s body in a sheet and dragged him out of the yard to one of the sheds, where it was cool and quiet.

“We’ll have to bury him quickly,” said Rosemary. “If only Paolo . . .” Then she stopped short. The thought of Paolo’s reaction to Guido’s death, on top of everything else, was almost more than she could bear.

Maria was unexpectedly calm in the face of death. She stopped her customary flood of scolding and complaints, led Rosemary into the kitchen, and sat her down at the table. While she was looking in the cupboard to see if there was any coffee left, Rosemary suddenly slumped sideways on her chair, covering her eyes with her hand.

“I’m sorry, Maria — I seem to be feeling faint. . . . Could you . . . ?”