To Find a Mountain

Chapter Seven

My father walked through the door, and although the Germans had been with us less than four days, he suddenly looked ten years older. His shoulders, always slightly rounded, were now downright slumped. The bags under his eyes had turned dark, and the smile was gone from his face, along with the bounce in his step. My heart caught in my throat, but before I could ask what was wrong, he answered.

“Benedetta,” he said. “I am going to the front.”

“No…” I began, but he held up his hand.

“It is too late, Benny. I, we, have no choice.”

“Why don’t you find a mountain, Papa?” I whispered. “Like the other men. They are there, they can help you. You won’t survive at the front!”

“The Germans have said if I were to disappear…well, it just would not be good.”

“But why you? I thought they needed you to work with the people in Casalveri…”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“They say they need me at the front, to coordinate the drivers of the ambulances.”

“I need you! We need you…”

His eyes suddenly blazed with anger, but I was not scared, I knew it wasn’t directed at me.

“And I need you, but these…” he lowered his voice to a whisper. “These machines don’t think. They follow orders, and expect us to do the same.”

The sound of boots scraping on the gravel outside the house made us pause briefly, but they, along with the voices of the two German soldiers, soon trailed off as they continued walking.

“Signora Checcone is going to come and stay with you,” my father said. “With all of the cooking and cleaning for the Germans, you’re going to need help. Plus, you need to take care of Iole and Emidio. Wolff has given me his word that you won’t be harmed.”

“Don’t worry about me, Papa,” I said, fighting back the urge to throw my arms around him and cry on his shirt.

“I will be back every few days or so, bringing the wounded back to the hospital at the Ingrelli’s.”

I listened to him, and I wanted to ask if Wolff had said anything about the incident with Schlemmer. I considered it as my father talked to me, and I looked into his eyes. They were dark brown like mine, and they looked so rich, so wounded, so full of love and pain that my heart sagged as he talked. I wouldn’t bring up what Schlemmer had done, although, technically, he hadn’t done anything. Papa had enough to worry about, staying alive being at the top of the list.

“Iole and Emidio don’t need to know where I’m going.”

“What have you told them?”

“That I am going to neighboring villages to help the Germans.”

But what if you don’t come back? I thought, but again could not ask. He needed me to be strong. He was trying to be strong for all of us, he had been doing that since Mama died, now it was time for someone else to help him.

Right now, he needed someone to be strong for him, to let him know that he should worry about himself.

“Just remember, Papa,” I said. “If the Germans put a gun in your hand, point the part where the bullet comes out away from you.”

He smiled then, and laughed. I knew it was partly from relief, and partly from trying to make me feel calm and relaxed. It worked. But when I got up to start packing clothes for him my knees were wobbly. Papa grabbed me and hugged me hard. The stale sweat in his collar seemed like the sweetest smell in the world to me at that moment. God couldn’t take him away from me. He just couldn’t.

Losing one of my parents was enough, too much in fact.

I intended to keep this one.