The Incident at Montebello (6 page)

“I know all the tricks,” Balbi said. “If you think you can slip something by me, think again.”

“I have no tricks, Prefetto Balbi. I've given up the fight.”

Balbi lowered the pages and dragged on his cigarette. “You're amusing, Sardolini, but I'm no fool.” He tapped a thick file on his desk. “I had no idea you were such a celebrity. In fact, one might say you're a hero.”

Sardolini shrugged. “I did what I had to. But then I got caught.”

Balbi exhaled. “My question precisely. Given your expertise, I was surprised you made such a careless mistake.”

“And what was that?”

“You were safe in France. Why did you come back over the border to Italy?”

“Homesick,” he said with a shrug.

Balbi's eyebrows jerked. “For your family? Some of them are still in Siena, I see.”

“No, for the food. The French can't make bread worth a damn.”

A smile nudged Balbi's lips. “You're clever, Sardolini, I'll give you that. But I'm keeping my eye on you and so are my people. All one hundred of them. Remember that.”

“I intend to.”

“We're not alone. We have help. From the OVRA.”

Sardolini tried to mask his surprise, but his eyebrows twitched. “Just for me? I assure you that's unnecessary. I told you. I've given up the fight.”

“I wish there was just one of you,” Prefetto Balbi muttered, “Now go. I'll expect you back later today.”

As Sardolini hurried down the steps, he sighed with relief. He had told the police chief the truth. He had lost his will, his nerve, and had given up the fight. No longer could he follow the basic tenets of the partisans—
Theories are pointless. Discussion is pointless. It's time to act.
But still, he puzzled over the police chief's words. The OVRA? Why would Il Duce send his elite squad of Blackshirts to this god-forsaken place?

Outside in the piazza, women crowded around vivid blue and red carts exhibiting local fruit and vegetables. He searched the crowd for the slim woman with lustrous hair, but couldn't find her. Come to think of it, even the funeral posters of her little girl, plastered over every lamppost and wall, had disappeared. It was odd.

As he walked through the square, dozens of conversations whirled around him, friends and neighbors chatting in groups about their health, the weather, what they had eaten for supper the night before, and what they were going to eat that day. The women with their black dresses and shawls reminded him of crows. And the men? So many had left for America, only a handful of young men remained. The rest were the weakest, poorest, and oldest of the lot, their tweed caps hiding thinning hair, and their pants, creased and worn from so many washings, puckering around the waist and behind.

When he passed, all conversation stopped and he felt dozens of eyes on him. His shoulders twitched and the back of his neck tingled. Perhaps he did have a hundred jailers as the police chief said, or perhaps they were simply curious. Or maybe they were thrusting their hands deep into their pockets and locking their thumbs and pinkies into devil's horns to protect themselves against the stranger. He had heard the
paesani
were as superstitious now as their ancestors had been hundreds of years ago, but he hadn't believed it. Now he wondered if it was true. Perhaps they still draped strings of garlic around their necks to ward off the evil eye, lit candles and chanted prayers to dead relatives and saints asking for protection.

When Sardolini spotted a man carrying a shirt billowing in the breeze, he quickened his steps. On a hunch, he followed the man past the town well and laundry and paused when he stepped through the doorway of a building markedly out of place in this dusty town. The bathhouse was erected in grand Roman style—a temple of cleanliness, with its chipped marble façade and centuries of graffiti. Well, that was perfect, just what he needed.

Inside the drafty, tiled vestibule, a huge photograph of Mussolini loomed over his head. Not far from Il Duce, a printed sign heralded work, family, and fatherland—the cornerstones of the Fascist way of life. He paid a woman cashier who handed him a ticket and a towel and passed through a doorway into a smaller room where he and a few bathers hung up their jackets and pulled off their shirts and pants. The men cast sidelong glances at him, but he reminded himself that any stranger in a small town was a curiosity. He followed their quivering buttocks into the bathing area decorated with marble pillars and faded frescos of Roman gods and goddesses. Over the lintel, the ancient admonition “
mens sana in corpore sano”
was still visible in mosaic lettering. Sardolini translated it with his rusty Latin—A healthy mind in a healthy body—as true today as it ever was.

The large pool had been cemented over and replaced with a dozen metal tubs, filled and refilled from a boiler maintained by a cheerful man who spent as much time talking as adjusting temperature gauges and fixing leaking pipes. Strolling around the bathhouse as if he were the mayor, he dispensed nods, pats on the back, and a few words to nearly everyone.

The smell of pumice soap mixed pleasantly with the steam. Naked men passed in and out of the mist. He heard their whispers and felt their curious stares. After a few minutes of growing discomfort, he realized what was going on. Some day, he'd laugh remembering how in this remote part of Italy, his circumcised
genitali
were a novelty.

After some nudges and discussion among themselves, one of the men spoke up. “Did it hurt a lot,
signore
?”

“I'm sure it did, but I was too young to remember it.”

“And how do the women like it?” another man asked.

“I've never had any complaints,” Sardolini replied. The men's laughter echoed off the tiled walls.

“Can't he take a bath in peace?” the maintenance engineer demanded with good-natured cheerfulness. When the men resumed their scrubbing, Lelo Ferrucci introduced himself and told Sardolini, “You've got the right idea. A good soak gets rid of whatever ails you. Don't worry. You won't have to wait long.” He gestured towards the tub, which the priest was vacating. With one stout leg raised on a stool, the priest was vigorously rubbing his gleaming pink skin with a towel. Lelo's grin was contagious. He winked, leaned closer to Sardolini, and whispered, “He's a regular. I'll finish scrubbing out the tub in a minute. You should see the job I have with the ones who aren't fans of soap and water.”

Just then shouts of “it's cold” and “what the hell?” sent Lelo hurrying to the boiler room.

After the priest stuck one leg through each trouser opening and buttoned his pants, he introduced himself to Sardolini. “I hear you're an architect,” he said.

“An unemployed one.” Sardolini extended his hand. The priest's one good eye was fixed intently on Sardolini's face, but the other wandered. His round, clean-shaven face gleamed with good health and good eating.

“It's a pleasure to meet a man of education,” Padre Colletti said, giving Sardolini's hand a firm squeeze.

“For me, as well.”

“I was wondering why I didn't see you at mass.” The priest's eyes drifted downward. “You're Jewish, then?”

“Yes,
padre
.”

“Do you read Hebrew?”

“A little,
padre
. It's been years,” Sardolini was saying when a man with a humped back shuffled into the room.

As the priest followed Sardolini's gaze, his smile faded. “That's the gravedigger, Faustino. Don't expect a lot of conversation from him. He keeps to himself. Then again, so would I if I had a daughter like Filippina.”

Startled, Sardolini stared at the priest, who continued in an earnest whisper. “It's not easy being a man of God among the heathens. They make their own rules. Fornication, theft, murder. I wouldn't put it past any of them.”

“Surely you exaggerate,
padre.
”

“Do I? Walk by the Cantù's factory on Saturday evening. You'll see the men lined up. For one hundred
lire
, Filippina gives them ten minutes of her time. A fair price, so they say, even though their children go hungry. That's how it is around here. And I'm supposed to close a blind eye. But how can I do God's work when the devil thwarts me at every turn?” The priest's nose reddened and he pulled out his handkerchief.

The astonished Sardolini had trouble looking the priest in the eye, so he glanced at the tiled floor. “I suppose you must content yourself with small victories.”

After a few vigorous blows, the priest nodded. Sardolini edged the conversation towards the dead girl. “Still, they have a hard life down here in the South. They die young.”

The priest sighed. “Just like Sofia Buonomano.” He was about to say more when a sponge struck him on the shoulder. Whirling around, he seized the dripping missile and took off after a pair of young men laughing on the other side of the room. “Come back here, you scoundrels,” the priest shouted at the handsome
ragazzo
with curly hair and his tall, skinny friend.

Sardolini bit his cheek to stop laughing. The unpopular priest was no match for the boys who ran off, leaving the priest to fume. As he pulled on his socks, he muttered, “Clowns. Idiots. Not one serious thought in their heads. All they think about are the girls.”

“Of course. They're young,” Sardolini said, but the priest kept talking.

“Rodi's bad enough, but Manfredo's worse. A real Casanova. Do you see what I'm up against? Every year I put in for a transfer and every year my superiors turn me down. This is my cross in life.”

When Padre Colletti left, Lelo scrubbed the tub and filled it. With a sigh, Sardolini lowered himself into the steaming water and ran pumice soap up and down his legs. What luxury—his first hot bath since his arrest.

Later that morning, Sardolini returned to the Widow Cantù's yard, picked up an axe and slammed the metal blade into a tree branch felled by a storm. Unused to hard labor, his shoulders and arms complained, but the work was satisfying and gave him tangible proof that he was making progress. He tossed the wood into a haphazard pile by the barn. Later, he'd stack it.

When he paused to wipe his forehead, he glanced over the wall at the neighbor's yard, quiet and filled with shadows. A boy was hauling buckets of water from the well, his head lowered and his arms straining under the weight. As he neared the house, he caught sight of Sardolini and stared long and hard before wedging his foot into the gap between the door and the jamb. After nudging it open, he stepped inside. Moments later, a woman's voice drove him outside again, this time with a basket. Scuffing the dust, he unlatched the chicken coop, kicking the hens aside. The boy reminded Sardolini of himself at that age, stirred by a great restlessness and impatience, and eager to see the wider world.

After another hour of chopping wood, he hauled a bucket of water from the well and drank deeply. Wiping his chin with the back of his hand, he lifted his head, catching the boy staring at him from the other side of the wall.

“You're the prisoner,” the boy said. “My teacher warned us about you.”

“Is that so?” Sardolini said. “Then you must be very brave to talk to me.”

Charlie was surprised and pleased to hear this. He drew back his shoulders and tipped his chin upwards. His dark eyes had gold flecks in them. His black hair flopped down over his forehead and just cleared his eyebrows. “I'm not afraid of anything. Even snakes. My papà's going to take me hunting when we go to America.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Soon. My papà promised.”

“So you're brave and lucky,” Sardolini said. He also dreamed of joining his brother Sam in Boston when he was free. “But tell me why your teacher thinks I'm dangerous.”

The boy shrugged. “Professor Zuffi says you killed people who are loyal to Il Duce. Dozens of them—boys and girls and old women.”

“I'll tell you the truth, but will you listen?”

The boy nodded.

“Well then, young man, I swear to you I've never killed anyone or anything except a few flies. And what about you? Are you a cold-blooded killer?”

“No,
signore
, but I wish I was sometimes.”

“And who would you kill?”

“The French. My papà says you can't trust them because they cheated us after the war.”

“And which Frenchmen would you kill? All of them?”

“No,
signore
. Just the politicians.”

“I see,” Sardolini said, suppressing a smile. “So, we do agree on something. It's the politicians I dislike more than anyone else.”

The boy's face cleared, but a moment later, it clouded over again as he pulled a pebble from the wall and threw it. It landed with a thump in the grass, not far from Sardolini's feet. Just then, a woman called to Charlie. Turning, he ran towards the woman silhouetted in the back door. Sardolini glimpsed her pale skin and shimmering hair, but that was enough to make his heart chug faster.