Hero on a Bicycle (12 page)

The nearest village was much farther away than he had calculated. En route, he was overtaken by a couple of army trucks full of German soldiers with rifles at the ready. They roared past in a cloud of dust and nearly tipped him into the ditch. At last he reached the outskirts of a village and turned down one of the narrow streets that led to the church and the main piazza. In spite of it being siesta time and stiflingly hot, there were a great many people around. They stood, silent and watchful, on their doorsteps or in huddled groups, murmuring anxiously. They looked at him warily as he cycled past, but he kept his eyes on the street. Then, thank heavens, he found a wall fountain. He dismounted and took a long, long drink, then doused his head under the running water. It was wonderfully, deliciously cool. He sat there for a few minutes, letting his aching legs relax. But he hardly had time to recover before there was a great commotion of shouting and scuffling higher up the street. A truckload of German soldiers had arrived, and they were beginning to break up the groups of people. They were shouting orders and herding people into the main piazza at gunpoint. Paolo looked around desperately, but he could see no means of escape, so was forced to mingle with the crowd, pushing his bicycle and hoping he wouldn’t be noticed.

“What’s happening?” he asked an old man who was jostling against him.

“The Partisans are coming out of hiding from the hills around here. Now that the
inglesi
and the
americani
are so near, they want to fight out in the open. These Germans know they’ll be pulling out of Florence soon, and they’re determined to kill as many Partisans as they can before they go. They hate them — especially the Reds. They hanged two of them the other day at Tuori. Now they’ve got our man.”

“Il Volpe?”

“Yes — him. They know he comes from around here, and they think we’ve been protecting him.”

“What are they going to do to him?”

The old man merely spat on the ground and looked grimly ahead.

The little piazza was bordered on three sides by old houses, a police station, and a few shops, all now closely shuttered. At one end was a fountain, enclosed by a low semicircular wall, and at the other was an ancient archway, too narrow to accommodate modern vehicles. The church occupied the whole remaining side. Its facade was faced with striped green marble. There was a bell tower, and two curved flights of steps led up to the main doors. Below the steps was a crumbling wall covered with notices: orders to civilians from the occupying German army, and among them one or two fading images of Mussolini, the jutting-jawed dictator who had once been all-powerful but was now a failing puppet treated with contempt by the Nazis. The German soldiers were herding everyone into one half of the square, being careful to keep an empty space in front of the wall. There was an atmosphere of sullen resentment, but anyone who showed signs of disobedience was soon prodded into submission with the end of a rifle.

Paolo was pushed to the front of the crowd but somehow managed to hold on to his bicycle. He was weak with exhaustion and hunger now. The sweating strangers around him offered no reassurance. The crowd stood there, pressed together, waiting. At last, a squad of soldiers appeared leading Il Volpe. A couple of women cried out when they saw him, but most people remained silent. They all knew that they had been assembled to witness a public execution.

“H
ow could he have been such an idiot?” said Rosemary. “Going off like that with things as they are. Does he want to get himself killed?”

Constanza had just come in from searching the garden. Her dark eyes filled with fear when she heard that Paolo’s bicycle was missing.

“He must have got some crazy idea into his head again about being a hero,” she said. “Did he leave any kind of message?”

“Nothing. I was going to phone the neighbors and ask if they’ve seen him — but I don’t dare to draw too much attention to us. Not that we’ve many neighbors left. The Bonofantis and the Galleranis have already packed up. They’ve gone to take shelter in the Pensione Annalina before the fighting gets too near to the city. Those brave people who run it are offering shelter to anyone who needs it.”

“Shouldn’t we go, too, Mamma?”

“We can’t . . . not with Joe still here and Paolo missing. We have to stay until Paolo turns up, at least. I couldn’t let him arrive home to find the place empty.” She pressed both her hands tightly to her eyes. When she looked up at Constanza, it was with a carefully arranged expression of reassurance. “Don’t worry, darling. We’ll manage somehow. We’ll just have to lie low here until Paolo gets back and it’s safe for Joe to leave — tonight perhaps — and then we’ll decide whether to join the others.”

“Have Maria’s brother and his family gone?”

“From the farm? No, they’ll stay, probably. Try to protect their property. The farm’s all they have. But I don’t care what happens to the house as long as you and Paolo are safe.”

At that moment, there was a terrific explosion not far away that shook the ceiling. They could also hear sounds of turmoil coming from the kitchen. They hurried in to find Maria collapsed at the table in a storm of weeping, her head buried in her hands. Her brother Mario was sitting beside her, too distraught himself to offer any comfort.

“Whatever is it, Mario?” said Rosemary. “What’s the matter? Is it Paolo? Has something happened to him?”

“No — no. It’s my son Renato — my youngest. He’s been arrested! The Gestapo have taken him.”

“Arrested? But why?”

“They came early this morning and searched our house. They said we were suspected of helping Allied prisoners to escape. They turned everything upside down — wrecked our furniture and broke my wife’s china. She got angry and tried to stop them. One of them pushed her, and she fell and hurt her arm. When Renato saw how they were treating her, he tried to interfere, and he hit one of them. So they arrested him. They may have taken him into Florence to the Gestapo headquarters. God knows what they’ll do to him there. I begged them not to take him. He’s only just sixteen, not of military age yet. Just a boy . . .”

Rosemary was trying hard to think of something comforting to say.

“Don’t worry too much yet,” she managed in the end. “I’ll see if we can make some inquiries as to where he’s being held. It may be possible to make some plea on account of his age.”

But Constanza, looking at her mother’s white, shattered face, knew that exactly the same thought was going through both their minds, a question too terrifying to be asked aloud: what if this was what had happened to Paolo? It was a strong possibility.

They finally managed to calm Maria down, and her brother Mario hurried off to try to comfort his own family.

“He may have just gone off on one of his long bike rides,” Constanza said to her mother when there was still no sign of him an hour later. “I bet he’ll be back by lunchtime.”

A midmorning heat had settled over the house when one of Mario’s daughters came running up to the back door, very excited. “Papà sent me,” she said. “I’m to tell you that Renato’s been released! They only kept him for a couple of hours, and then they kicked him out.”

“He’s unharmed?” cried Maria.

“Yes, yes! He had to walk all the way back from Florence. He’s sleeping now.”

Tears of joy and relief ran down Maria’s cheeks. “Oh, thank God, thank God! Renato is safe!”

Rosemary was on her feet at once to put her arms around her.

“Oh, Maria — I’m so glad,” she managed to say. Inwardly, she was thinking,
Oh, Paolo, where are you? Why don’t you come home?

T
he heat in the square was overwhelming. From where he was standing, Paolo could see the German soldiers push Il Volpe forward with their rifles. They shoved him up against the wall below the church doors, between the two flights of steps, and he stood there, sweating, sullen, and clearly exhausted, but still upright. This was to be his place of execution.

The crowd was silent as the firing squad arrived, six more soldiers with an officer in charge. They formed a line with their backs to the crowd. It was customary, Paolo knew, to bandage the eyes of the condemned man before he was shot, but no one stepped forward to cover Il Volpe’s eyes. He was clearly to be denied this mercy.

The whole square was deathly still now. The officer gave orders for the firing squad to raise their rifles. Paolo’s stomach clenched, and he thought he was going to be sick. He turned his face away and screwed up his eyes, waiting for the volley of fire.

It came, but not from the direction he had expected. He opened his eyes to see four men, armed with submachine guns, burst out of the crypt very near to where Il Volpe was standing, firing as they ran. The red scarves over the lower half of their faces made their identity as Partisans unmistakable.

The execution squad was taken completely by surprise. One of them sprawled down, shot in the stomach, his blood spilling out onto the cobblestones. The German officer was yelling orders at his men to regroup and return fire. One of the Partisans was hit in the leg but was dragged to safety by some men from the village.

And in that brief moment of confusion, Il Volpe saw his chance. He dodged behind his fellow Partisans and dived into the milling crowd. Paolo, who had been pushed forward in the panic, was now so close to him that they were face-to-face. For a split second, they looked each other in the eye. Then, on a sudden impulse, Paolo thrust his bicycle toward Il Volpe, who grabbed it, mounted, and pedaled off, dodging the gunfire as he careered toward the far side of the piazza. The crowd, clearly on his side, parted to allow his comrades to back after him, covering his escape.

People ducked as bullets ricocheted off walls. Women screamed. But Il Volpe had already disappeared, through the old gateway and down the narrow street where no vehicle could pursue him, like a fox gone to earth.

For those few vital minutes, the Partisans had kept the soldiers at bay. Then they, too, disappeared after their leader. They had the advantage of knowing far better than their pursuers the warren of little streets that led away from the village. A German truck with a machine gun entered the piazza, but its progress was blocked by people fleeing in all directions. Paolo ran with them, not knowing what else to do.

People were cramming into the side streets, running into their houses, pushing their children inside, and slamming doors, trying to make themselves scarce while they had the chance. Paolo struggled back to the side street by which he had entered the village. He was so exhausted that he could no longer think straight. Hunger and thirst were taking their toll on his strength. Worst of all, he no longer had his precious bicycle.

All he wanted now was to get away from this horrible place, these people, and the inevitable brutal reprisals. As he left the village to begin the long trudge home, the noise of battle sounded frighteningly close.

T
hey had only just begun to eat lunch when there was a knock at the front door. Constanza ran to answer it. Hilaria was standing on the doorstep. She was in a disheveled state but still wearing her very high heels.