To Find a Mountain (13 page)

C
HAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Y
ou Italians know nothing about drinking,” he said, his words more than slurred. Wolff produced a bottle of schnapps and held it before me. His eyes were red and bleary, either from a lack of sleep or an abundance of alcohol. Or maybe both.

“Ah, now here, here is the nectar of the gods,” he said. “Made in Germany! The Land of War Machines and the world’s best schnapps!” He laughed.

Zizi had taken my brother and sister into a different room and now Wolff stood at the big table in the kitchen. He poured a dose of the schnapps into a large coffee cup, and then gestured with a lifting of his chin to the coffeepot on the hearth. I brought it to the table.

“Do you want me to heat it up?”

He shook his head and I poured the cold coffee into his cup, which was already half full with the clear liquor. The coffee thinned slightly, and pale clouds rose and swirled inside the light brown coffee as the two liquids mixed.

“If you think it is too early to drink, young Catholic girl,” he said, “remember that I have been awake, fighting the forces of Allied evil, for the last forty-eight hours. I intend to drink much of this”—he brought his hand down on top of the bottle, the wedding band on his finger clinking against the glass—“and when I have finished consuming this gift from Heaven, I intend to sleep for at least a day, maybe two. So you see, young Benedetta of the Mountains, although it is, what, eight o’clock in the morning? This is really a nightcap at this point.”

“I understand, Colonel Wolff.”

“Please, Hermann. And please, help yourself. I have been drinking alone far too long. They say that is the sign of an alcoholic.”

“I intend to drink with you . . . Hermann,” I said hesitantly.

“Good, good.”

I put the coffeepot back on the stove and began to heat it, then got a cup for myself from the cupboard. “However, while it is the end of your day, it is merely the beginning of mine.”

“You and I, Benedetta. We are like night and day, no?” he said, convulsing into laughter at his joke.

The coffee would not be heated up enough, but I poured myself a cup and was about to sit down when he spoke.

“Let’s walk, Benedetta. It looks like a beautiful morning.”

Zizi Checcone appeared in the doorway.

“You’re going out, Benedetta? I need help with cleaning potatoes and making bread for today’s meals.” Her concern was poorly concealed. I knew that the bread was already made and that a bucket full of peeled potatoes sat just around the corner of the fireplace.

“Ah, woman,” Wolff said, “there is hardly enough food for us and you need help preparing it? I don’t believe it. She will be all right with me, Signora,” he assured her.

Zizi Checcone looked like she was about to say something more but then stopped. What was there she could do?

“Come, Benedetta. We walk and talk.”

I followed him out into the bright morning light with my cup of lukewarm coffee. The sun had risen now and its warmth on my skin felt reassuring.

“Is there someplace we can sit and watch the day break in all its glory, capturing the beauty of this land for which so many men are dying?”

Whether it was a rhetorical question or not, I decided to answer. “If we walk this way, we will come to a small clearing where there are some crude benches overlooking the valley.”

“That sounds perfect, Benedetta. Is it far? I am not up for a long walk.” Already he was walking unsteadily, and as if on cue, he stumbled.

“Just a few minutes through those trees there,” I said, pointing to a small knot of forest.

“Lead the way, Private Carlesimo.”

We walked in silence, Wolff’s breathing becoming labored as we trudged through the forest. When the path opened up onto the clearing, the view was truly gorgeous, with thick mist overhanging the valley, the tops of the trees poking through the clouds like plants bursting from the topsoil.

A lone, thick bench remained perched on the ledge overlooking the valley. We sat down together and Wolff refilled his cup, this time just straight schnapps.

“To a beautiful day,” he said, raising his cup. I clinked it with mine.

“Saluté.”

He gulped his schnapps; I sipped my coffee.

“How’s your father?” he said, and looked straight out into the valley, his face impassive.

My heart stopped. “What kind of horrible question is that?” I said, trying to strike the right chord of indignation.

Wolff looked at me out of the corner of his eye, then shrugged. “My apologies.”

I thought I detected a smile behind the drunken eyes.

“It’s just that there was some talk about the scene of the explosion; one of my men went to see if the vehicle was salvageable, which it wasn’t,” Wolff said. “He said some of the clothes found on the various body parts didn’t seem to fit. I rejected it all as hearsay. Who knows what happens when a person gets blown apart, how it affects his clothing? No, your father definitely died in that explosion.” He tossed off the rest of the schnapps in his cup and refilled it again.

“And we are three children with no parents,” I said.

He patted my shoulder. “Ah, Benedetta, I’ve watched you. You are strong. Beautiful. Intelligent. You will raise your brother and sister. Find a good man to marry you. Your father’s name will live on.”

“The war is not over,” I pointed out.

“But it soon will be.”

I looked at him questioningly, but he didn’t elaborate.

“I would be proud to call you my daughter,” he said.

I felt my face flush.

He refilled his cup with more schnapps.

“But of course, that is pointless to consider, since you are not my daughter,” he said. “And now that I have no wife, I will most likely never have a son or a daughter at all.”

“You can marry again.”

“And rebuild? A fresh start?” He laughed bitterly. “I have a feeling that when this war is over, everything will be destroyed. I see a future of rubble.”

“Make what you can with the rubble,” I said. “Is that not what life is?”

He laughed heartily. “You sound about as optimistic as Nietzsche. Did you know that he was a soldier?”

“Who is—?”

“He was a philosopher. A German. Our greatest German philosopher.”

I shrugged.

“He is to Germany what Machiavelli is to Italy,” Wolff said.

“Papa has one of his books. Machiavelli’s, that is.
The Prince
, I think.”

“Yes, yes. A great book. Ironic, isn’t it, that your philosopher is famous for schemes to acquire power and conquer, while mine essentially despised the power of the state?”

“Under these conditions, I would have to say yes, it is ironic,” I said. I wondered why Wolff wanted to talk about philosophers.

“And did you know that Machiavelli was a soldier?” he said.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Nietzsche was a soldier, too. He was in the army for a year. Nietzsche in artillery. Can you imagine that? Imagine during battle, praying to God, and having Nietzsche turn to you and say, ‘God is dead. Now pick up that rifle and shoot someone!’ ”

He laughed again, and shook his head at the image.

“He wrote that ‘madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages, it is the rule.’ Ah,” Wolff said, “my applause, Friedrich. So prophetic.”

“War is madness,” I said, but he didn’t seem to notice me, lost in his own thoughts and drunkenness.

“Nietzsche also wrote that ‘under peaceful conditions, a warlike man sets upon himself.’ That’s simple, but I often wonder if the opposite is true: that under warlike conditions, a peaceful man sets upon himself. Do you agree?”

“I think some men are destined to set upon themselves, no matter what the conditions,” I said.

“Do you think I am one of those men?”

“No,” I answered without hesitation. “Do you think you are?”

“Never before, but now . . .”

He spread his hands out before him, seeking an explanation. His hands shook.

“Now . . .” He drank the rest of his cup and then picked up the bottle and drank deeply from it, not bothering to pour some into the cup.

How long we sat there, I do not know. Wolff drank the rest of the schnapps, throwing the bottle from the edge of the cliff down into the valley. He sat back down and we looked at the view before us in silence.

He turned to me finally, about to say something, but instead slid off the bench, his knees hitting the dirt as his shoulders slumped. Tears streamed down his face; he collapsed against my legs and placed his head on my knee. Instinctively, I put my hand on top of his head and patted him, shocked at how old his face looked on my knee.

He fell asleep and stayed in the same position for an hour while I thought about dead philosophers and their thoughts on war. I was scared, too, wondering what I would do if German soldiers burst onto the scene and saw their leader kneeling before a young girl, as if in supplication, she petting his head like a stray dog.

Finally, Wolff awoke with a start.

His eyes struggled to adjust, and then he spoke. “How long?”

“About an hour and a half, maybe two.”

He looked embarrassed as he stood and dusted off his uniform, then started off in the direction of the house. He wobbled slightly and I resisted the urge to help him.

We went the entire way back to the house in silence.

C
HAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A
week had passed since my trip to the mountain, and I had received no further word from my father. I prayed every night that he was doing well and that God was looking out for him.

When Wolff returned to the front, we had not discussed the scene on the bench overlooking the valley. Other than showing an incredible amount of pain and fatigue the next day from too much drinking, he didn’t act as if anything noteworthy had happened between us. And I was more than happy to play along with it. If he was embarrassed, he did not let me see it, and I came to believe that in his mind it was simply a matter that had happened and was now over.

I wondered, though, if his return to the front had anything to do with what he had talked about. Was it to get into battle and fight, an attempt to reclaim his spirit for the war? Or was it perhaps to avoid another scene of drunkenness, sorrow, and anti-German sentiment? It was probably a lot harder to get falling-down drunk at the front. And a person’s life must be in a whole lot of agony if running away to war is the better option.

My routine continued. Up early, build a fire in the fireplace, or if no wood was ready, chop enough to keep the stove going for the better part of the day. If bread needed to be baked and if flour was available, another fire would need to be built in the outdoor oven. Depending upon the amount of vegetables that were gathered, the process of scraping them together along with spices would be started, the end results always amounting to a very thin and very weak menestra.

Then laundry would need to be taken to the big pot outside, or to the springs. Cleaned, hung out to dry, then folded. If there was not any laundry, then the house would be cleaned—floors mopped, walls scrubbed, dust wiped away.

And then it would be time to start thinking of dinner. The search for a piece of meat to make a weak stew would begin. If we were lucky enough to find one, or a German soldier could produce a rabbit or squirrel, it would be thrown in with a few potatoes and any remaining onions from lunch.

Despite our efforts, everyone was getting too thin. The most dramatic change was in Zizi Checcone; she looked like a different woman, and the change was not altogether bad. I knew she wasn’t eating much, and that she gave as much as she could to Iole and Emidio. I told her not to, that we needed her to keep strong, but she would pinch the dwindling roll of fat around her middle and say, “I’ve still got some reserves left. Who ever heard of a fat woman starving to death?”

On this morning, Zizi Checcone and I were in the kitchen, slicing bread and setting out plates and cups on the table, when Iole bounded in from outside, a thick, folded piece of paper in her hand.

“I’ve got a secret! I’ve got a secret!” she said, then laughed and danced around the big table. She waved the paper around and smiled, looking at me. Zizi Checcone and I ignored her and continued setting things out for dinner. Iole, however, refused to be ignored.

“So, Benedetta, who is Dominic Giancarlo?”

I whirled on her. “
Brutta bestia
!
” I cried and chased her around the table, but she was fast—her long legs flashed and the paper was clasped tightly in her hand.

I stopped at one end of the table, and she at the other.

“Give me that, Iole. Right now.”

“Dominic Giancarlo! Dominic Giancarlo!” Iole sang in her high voice, a big smile on her face.

I chased her around the table some more; I was laughing, but getting angrier at each circle around the table.

“Benedetta!” Zizi Checcone said sharply. “What is this all about?”

“Benedetta’s got a boy!” Iole cackled and then she made a break for the stairs, but I chased her at an angle and caught her, then wrestled her to the ground and tore the paper from her hand.

“He’s not my boy!” I stood, my face flushed.

Iole rolled and stood, then raced behind Zizi Checcone. “Judging by that letter, that’s not what he thinks!”

I looked at the paper in my hand. My name was written clearly on the top fold.

“Do you always read letters addressed to someone else?” I walked toward her, hand held ready to slap her.
La mazatta.

“Iole! Where are your manners? Your mother and father did a better job raising you than that!” The sharpness in Zizi Checcone’s voice wiped the smile off Iole’s face. She looked at the ground and I could see tears start to well up in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Benedetta,” my little sister said. The look on her face threw cold water on my anger.

“It’s okay,” I said, tousling her hair. “But I’ll remember this when you’re older.” I smiled at her. She smiled back and wiped a tear from her eye.

“Where did you find it?” I asked.

“It was underneath a rock along the low stone wall by the barn.”

I nodded.

Zizi Checcone spoke. “Iole, help me with the potatoes. Benedetta, go read your letter.” She threw a hand towel
over Iole’s shoulder and they both turned to the big pot over the fire as I ran upstairs to the bedroom, clutching the letter against my chest. I closed the door and lay on the bed, Emidio’s teddy bear reading the letter over my shoulder.

I unfolded the letter and imagined Dominic’s big hands folding the paper neatly, perhaps tucking it in his shirt pocket before getting it to me.

The letter was written in a large, simple scrawl.

Dear Benedetta,

I don’t know why I said what I did. It was not right. It was stupid. I did not mean it. Sometimes I don’t think about what I’m saying.

It is hard to live up here, and not see people all day. The only time I see anyone is at night, and then we sleep.

I think about you. All the time. Maybe you do not like me very much, but I like you. I hope you’ll give me another chance. If you want to answer, leave a note under this same rock.

Dominic

P.S. Except that it is much prettier, your hand is no different than mine.

I put the letter down on the bed next to me, questions flooding my mind. How did he get the letter under the rock? Was someone acting as a messenger for the men in the mountain? Had someone from the village been to the mountain? Or, I shuddered to think, had he brought the note down himself? A two-hour walk one way, sneak up to the very house where the German soldiers were resting, all to leave a note for me? It just wasn’t possible. Someone else from the village brought the note; it was the only realistic possibility.

I folded the letter and placed it in the small pocket at the front of my dress. This required a response. An immediate response.

I went to the small desk in the corner of the room and found a piece of paper. A half-chewed, stubby pencil showed itself from the back corner of the desk’s drawer. A bird landed on the windowsill and cocked an eye at me. I looked back, wondering if it was going to tell me something, but then it flapped its wings and disappeared.

I put the pencil to the paper, but hesitated. I read over his letter again. He had been cautious. I did not want to say too much, but still needed to get the message across.

With my forehead resting in my left hand, I scratched out a message quickly. I wanted this to be from the heart. I read it over, used the eraser to change a word here and there, but for the most part it conveyed what I felt.

I folded the paper, then put it next to Dominic’s letter in the front pocket of my dress.

“Iole,” I called, going down the stairs. She appeared in an instant, welcoming the chance to avoid doing any more work in the kitchen. “Come with me.”

We walked outside, behind the house, to the dilapidated barn. A low rock wall separated the barn from the empty field next to it. It was made of dark stone and had been here a long time. It had maybe formed part of a foundation for a building that had long since disappeared. The rocks were in neat rows, all of different shapes and sizes.

“Show me where you found the note,” I said.

“Why?”

“Just show me.”

“Are you answering him?”

“Iole, asking questions will just get you into trouble.”

She was quiet for a moment, and we walked farther up the wall toward the forest beyond. “I’m certain it’s right here.”

Iole walked directly up to a section of the wall, hesitated, then moved a little bit past it. “Or was it here?” she said with a sly smile.

Quick as a cat, I had her ear between my thumb and forefinger. “Try to remember.” Although the pressure was slight, she started squirming in anticipation. “Try a little harder,” I said, squeezing a bit harder.

“There! There!” she said, pointing to a section of the wall that was no more than three feet from where we were standing. I followed her finger and saw the one rock that was jutting out, fresh moss exposed to the sunlight.

“That rock there?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Benedetta. Don’t worry; he’ll find it.”

I shot a sharp look at her and she moved a couple of steps away from me, toward the house.

“Go back to the house, and tell no one of this spot, or you’ll be in so much pain, you’ll wish the Germans were interrogating you!”

She ran back toward the house and I picked up the rock, placed my note in the empty space, then put the rock back on top of it. I left the rock tilted slightly out of line with the rest of the wall. Enough for Dominic to notice, but not so much that anyone else would without looking closely.

I stood and looked at the distance from the rock wall to the edge of the pine forest. Although I still believed that someone else brought the note for Dominic, that he wouldn’t be foolish enough to risk coming down the mountain by himself just to give me a note, I did notice that the forest’s edge was less than thirty yards from the stone wall. If Dominic had come, he could’ve walked down the path, skirted the village under cover of the woods, made it to the stone wall, then gone back the way he came.

I hoped, for his sake, that wasn’t the case. I didn’t want anyone risking his life to give me a love letter. In fact, I was almost angry with him for taking such a risk, for putting me ahead of himself. I did not want to be responsible for anyone’s death; there had been far too much of it already.

But when I walked back to the house, some strange things happened. My legs suddenly felt lighter. There was a bounce in my step. And on my face was a big, happy smile.