War in My Town (11 page)

“The commander requires women to cook for the officers. All food in and around the village will be seized. The women will also wash the soldiers’ clothing.” He continued to scan the crowd of women. “Those of you who are chosen will go with the soldiers. They will show you where you will be working.”

Then the commander took on a distinctively more severe tone. “You will not be allowed to leave here, and no person shall be allowed to enter the village. We have placed landmines on all southerly routes to and from Eglio.” At this, everyone looked at one another in disbelief. Now we would be totally isolated.

“Cooks, here!” shouted the short soldier. He waved his rifle toward the railing of the piazza closest to the bar.

“Those he selects will be in charge of preparing meals daily for the officers. You will gather in that area,” translated the Italian.

The soldier began selecting the cooks with the tip of his bayonet. Pina and Aurelia were amongst the first to be chosen and they hurriedly moved to the chosen spot.

“Washers, here!” The commander pointed to several of the older women, including Mamma.

Mery and I held our mother’s arms. “Don’t worry. You can let go,” Mamma said, as she wiped her cheeks with her hands, her eyes red from crying. “Do as they say. It’s our only hope.” She took our hands in hers and kissed them and then took Nonna’s hand firmly. “I’m just over here.” She walked away, taking my grandmother with her. I could feel the panic in my stomach rising.

“Cook’s helpers, here!” said the little one, snarling out another order. With this, he waved his rifle at us, along with some of the other younger girls and directed us beside the cooks. Several of my friends were in the group.

“You will help in the kitchen,” said the interpreter.

Mery started moving toward the area where he pointed his rifle. I felt as though I was rooted to the spot. “No,” I whispered almost imperceptibly. “No.”

“Bruna,” Mery hissed under her breath. “Move. Now!”

“No, I won’t. They’re going to kill us.”

“Didn’t you hear Mamma? Do as they say.” Mery grasped my arm roughly, forcing me over. I could see my sisters, silently trying to signal us toward them. That was when the little soldier who had previously smacked me on the head with his rifle strode over.

“You again? There!”
Tap, tap, tap
went the rifle barrel on my head. “There!” he bellowed in broken Italian. I shut my eyes and winced at the sharp pain of the cold metal making contact with my skull. I heard my mother cry out from the distance. Others around me gasped.

The commander, amused, walked over to observe the scene. He nodded to the interpreter to attend and he was there in a flash. The commander smiled slightly as he gave instructions in German. The interpreter turned to me and said calmly, “He does not want you to be afraid. He only wants you to peel potatoes.”

The commander nodded for me to go. Mery took hold of my arm. “Just do what I do,” whispered Mery. “Follow me, Bruna.”

Chapter 19

We were directed, again at gunpoint, to one of the larger houses in the village, the one belonging to the Ferrari family. The house was attached to Ferrari’s bar and ideal for the soldiers since it had a large enough space for all the officers to dine together. In addition, it had an excellent vantage point into the center of the village. Pina, Aurelia, and I were led to the kitchen.

As our group was ushered to the little courtyard in the back, I caught sight of some of the supplies lying randomly on the tables. The soldiers were shouting orders at some of the village men, directing them with crates and containers of food. Baskets full of meats, greens, and potatoes were lined up on the scrubbed tables. Lard and oil were stored in containers brought by the soldiers. We had seen nothing like this bounty in our village for quite some time.

On the huge stove and in the sinks were the bar’s pots, used to fix simple meals for the once busy village bar and
osteria
. They had sat idle for a long time because of the food shortage. I thought that if they were alive they would have forgotten their purpose.

When we entered the courtyard, we saw an overflowing sack of potatoes propped up between two half barrels in the center of the yard. There were a few chairs and some knives thrown on the table in the middle.

“
Pattat, pattat
,” stuttered one of the soldiers, motioning toward the sacks with his rifle.

“Of course,” I whispered. “He means
patata
— potatoes. They want us to peel the potatoes.”

Eva was the first to cautiously walk to a chair and pull it up to the table. She picked up one of the knives and looked guardedly at the officers. Then she selected a potato from the sack and began to peel it.

Armida was the next to take a knife and begin peeling. Mery soon surrendered to their commands. I was the only one left. I stood in the courtyard doorway. I hated to think that we were forced to help feed these loathsome creatures. But I knew the choice was to cooperate or die. They would hurt me if I refused. The girls looked at me as they peeled.

“Come,” murmured Mery through clenched teeth. “Come here,
now
.”

I looked at the guards. One of them lit a cigarette and sat down. He took a long drag from his cigarette, blew out the smoke, and then loudly pulled back the safety lock on his rifle. The sound startled me and made me jump. The soldier guffawed loudly over my reaction. I took my place at the cutting table.

Late that afternoon, everyone went home — everyone who had a home to go to. Those whose houses were taken over by the German officers had to stay with others in the village. As for the men, there was no use hiding anymore. All were found. Those who were strong enough were made to work on building bunkers for the soldiers. They had to dig deep fortified holes in the Bora valley behind the village, the best place to avoid an enemy attack from Barga.

That night, Cesar made it home, too. I was so grateful that he was unharmed, though he was still bloody from the beating earlier in the day. When he entered our little kitchen at Poggetti, I hugged him for a long time.

He told us that the soldiers had taken him and other villagers to begin digging up the beautiful green Bora meadow
,
which opened to the valley behind Eglio. These ugly holes would become the foundation for the Nazi’s bunkers to be used for their protection.

Our family gathered around the kitchen table, but there was only chestnut polenta, a few potatoes, and some boiled dandelion greens for dinner. It was a paltry spread compared to the feast we had prepared for the Nazis that afternoon.

“They took the wireless radio from the bar, too,” Pina said in a low voice. She looked tired. “Someone said they took it up near the Palazzo.” The
Palazzo
wasn’t really a palace. The people just called it that because it was the biggest house in Eglio. The soldiers had taken it as their headquarters because it was in the middle of the village overlooking the valley, surrounded by other houses. Strategically, it was a good location to avoid shelling I would later find out.

“Now we have no way of knowing what’s happening in the world around us,” said Cesar.

“Just be thankful that we are all here, safe and alive.” Mamma’s voice had an unusual edge. “There are others who have suffered a worse fate.” With that statement, everyone around the table hushed and bowed their heads, continuing to choke down the meager dinner in silence.

Cesar was the first to finish. It didn’t take a man very long to finish this meal, especially after digging giant holes all day.

Chapter 20

So it went for days. Fear, dread, and the daily drudgery of having to cater to our captors drove our existence. We were constantly uneasy and afraid of infuriating the soldiers. We were free to move about the village, but we had to adhere to our dusk curfew and couldn’t leave Eglio’s boundaries at all. This had terrible consequences for those in our community who were sick and needed more medical care than the villagers could provide.

“Edo told me that his father is very ill,” Cesar said from his place at the table. “He’s weaker than ever and in a lot of pain.”

“Poor, Enrico,” sighed Mamma. “Your nonno is much worse, too. I should visit them again very soon to see if I can do anything for them.”

“Do you think that the German soldiers will let you go to their house?” Mery asked.

“I
must
go. We have to look after our sick.”

“I’ll go with you, Mamma,” I offered.

“I will, too,” echoed Mery.

It would have been so easy if the Nazis weren’t here. We would just take our sick people through the back roads to the hospital in Castelnuovo as we had always done. My mind drifted to simpler times, before the war, when fear was not our constant companion.

I looked from my empty plate to the window. It was dusk already and the setting sun reflected a soft lavender hue in the eastern sky. I wondered why the clear sky had signs of lightning off in the distance. Then there was a flash across the valley, toward Barga. Seconds later I heard the explosion and I knew it wasn’t a thunderstorm.

There was a great thudding crash and the ground trembled underfoot. The table shook and dishes rattled in the cupboard and thin streams of dust fell from the rafters overhead. Everyone around the table froze. I looked frantically from my mother to my brother and my sisters. Time seemed suspended. The entire household scrambled to the door.

Screams could be heard from the lower end of the village. Women and children were crying. Men’s voices were shouting, “Where did it hit?”

“Run everyone, run into the village and take cover,” came a neighbor’s shout from above. I could hear shouts in German, too, coming from the direction of the blast below us.

“What’s happening?” I cried.

“It’s coming from Barga, so it must be the Allies bombing us,” Cesar coughed through the dust. “They know the Germans are here.”

“Cesar! Take care of your little sister!” my mother cried out behind me. I felt someone take hold of my arm and pull me toward the walkway by the side of the house.

“We need to move, Bruna. Run!” cried Cesar. “Our house faces Barga.”

Cesar, Mery, and I ran up the walk from our house and into the village, followed by Aurelia and Pina who held Mamma between them. We ran instinctively into the piazza. Everyone else had the same idea. All our neighbors had also run to the center of the village.

“That sounded like it hit the vineyards right under your house,” Alfezio said, as he hobbled over, out of breath. “I was at Evelina’s, way up above. But the blast shook everything there just the same.”

I saw the Germans leaving the houses and running toward the meadow.

“Follow them,” cried Vincenzo. “Run where the soldiers are running. They’re taking cover.”

“Do you think there are more blasts coming?” Cesar asked, out of breath.

“Do you want to wait around to find out?” answered Dante as he grabbed Aurelia’s hand and ran with her. People were beginning to move from the center of the village to the Bora valley behind it.

As people rushed toward the valley, we heard another boom. In the time it took me to realize that another bomb was on its way, it was already upon us. The sound was a shrill hum commanding quiet awe as it flew overhead. I saw the mortar shell make contact right near us. The ground shook again, sending waves of tremors underfoot.

The impact produced a deafening blast, hurling debris and chunks of brick wall everywhere. Centuries-old stone houses, lovingly constructed by our ancestors, became mounds of rubble. Pieces of glass and rocks became projectiles, raining onto the deserted piazza, followed by a billowing white cloud of choking dust. The structures that had sheltered us now pierced our skin and bones.

The cries and screams of children eclipsed the clunking sounds of rubble falling from the sky and onto the cobblestones. People threw themselves in doorways, under awnings and porticos to protect themselves from the mortar chunks.

As more blasts came, Cesar flung himself on top of me to keep me from being hit by flying debris. My ears rang from the explosions. I could barely hear the people around me coughing and sobbing. Cesar stirred and coughed. A cloud of dust had engulfed us.

“Cesar!” I gasped. “Cesar, are you hurt?”

“No,” he sputtered and coughed again. “You?” He sat up slowly and checked my arms and legs for injuries.

“I think I’m all right.” I shook my head to try to clear the ringing in my ears. “But what about Mamma? Where is she?”

“I’m here,” Mamma called. She was sitting against the side of a house with Mery and Pina. All were covered in dust. Alfezio was beside them, awkwardly positioned due to his missing leg. He was wiping his face with a handkerchief that looked as though it once might have been white.

“Is anyone hurt?” Mamma looked to those around her. There were a few scratches and cuts, but nothing serious. “Cesar,” she croaked. “You must check on Nonna and Nonno.”

“All right,” he agreed. “Bruna, you stay with Mamma.” He got up and turned around, but stood rooted to the spot as he faced the center of town. The devastation was horrific.