“And to Mussolini’s villa at Gargnano?”
“Twice,” Pino said. “It’s a strange place, Father. I don’t like going there.”
“I don’t want to know. But tell me more about your Anna.”
“She’s funny, and pretty, and smart. She’s six years older than me and a widow, but I love her, Father. She doesn’t know it yet, but I plan to marry her after the war.”
The old priest smiled. “Then refind your faith in mankind in your love of Anna, and build your strength through your love of God. These are dark times, Pino, but I really do sense clouds wanting to lift and the sun wanting to rise on Italy again.”
“Even General Leyers says the war is all but over.”
“Let’s pray your general is right about that,” Father Re said. “You’re staying for dinner? You can spend the night, talk with the wounded men, and I have two downed American pilots coming tonight who could use a guide to Val di Lei. Are you up to it?”
Americans! Pino thought. That would be exciting. A climb to Val di Lei might be good for his body, and helping two Americans escape might be good for his soul. But then he thought of General Leyers, and what he might do if he found out Pino had been driving all over northern Italy with a dead body in the backseat of his staff car.
“Actually, Father,” Pino said, “I should go back. The general might need me.”
“Or Anna might.”
Pino smiled at the mention of her name. “Or Anna.”
“Which is as it should be.” Father Re chuckled. “Pino Lella. A young man in love.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Be safe, my son. Don’t break her heart.”
“No, Father. Never.”
Pino left Casa Alpina feeling as if he’d been cleansed somehow. The late afternoon air was fresh and biting cold. The crag of the Groppera stood out like a bell tower against a cobalt sky, and the alpine plateau at Motta seemed once more to Pino like one of God’s grandest cathedrals.
Hurrying from the motor pool shortly after dark, Pino felt like he’d lived three lifetimes in a single day. When he entered the lobby of his apartment building, he found Anna standing there, joking with the sentries.
“There you are!” she said, looking like she’d already had her first glass of wine.
One of the sentries said something, the other laughed, and Anna said, “He wants to know if you know how lucky you are.”
Pino grinned at the SS soldier. “Tell him I do. Tell him when I’m with you, I feel like the luckiest guy on earth.”
“You’re sweet,” she said, and then translated.
One of the sentries raised an eyebrow skeptically. But the other nodded, perhaps recalling the woman who made him feel like the luckiest guy on earth.
They never asked for Pino’s papers, and he and Anna were soon riding in the birdcage elevator. When they passed the fifth floor, Pino grabbed her and they kissed passionately. They broke when the elevator reached their floor.
“So you did miss me?” Anna asked.
“Ridiculously,” he said, and took her hand as they exited.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as he worked the key into the lock.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just . . . I just need to forget this war again with you.”
Anna put her hand gently on his cheek. “That sounds like a wonderful fantasy.”
They went in, shut the door, and did not leave for nearly thirty hours.
Pino pulled up in front of Dolly’s ten minutes early the following Monday morning. He sat there for a few moments, savoring his memories of the hours spent alone with Anna, when time had seemed to stand still, when there was no war, only pleasure, and the giddy happiness of blooming love as triumphant and joyous as Prince Calaf’s aria.
The rear door of the Fiat opened. General Leyers climbed in, valise first, wearing his long gray wool business coat.
“Monza,” Leyers said. “The train station.”
Light snow began to fall when Pino put the Fiat in gear, feeling angry that Leyers was going after his stolen gold again, bringing more of it into Switzerland.
Pino could already see his day unfolding in front of him. He would spend it parked at the border above Lugano, freezing the hours away while the general did secret business. When Leyers returned from the train yard, however, he told Pino to drive not to the Swiss border but instead to the central train station in Milan.
They got there around noon. Leyers would not let Pino carry his valise, and he shifted the heavy load from hand to hand as they walked to that rattletrap train of faded-red cattle cars, sitting in the bitter cold of Platform 21.
Pino had prayed he’d never see the train again, but there it was, and he walked toward it with dread, pleading with God not to let him see tiny fingers waving through the slats in the boxcars. But he could see naked fingers from thirty meters away, dozens of them, and of all ages, beckoning for mercy while voices inside shouted for aid. Through the slats in the boxcar, Pino could see that most of the people were no better dressed than the people he’d seen in the same cars the September before.
“We’re freezing!” a voice shouted. “Please!”
“My daughter!” another called. “She’s sick with fever. Please.”
If General Leyers heard their pleas, he ignored them, and went straight for Colonel Rauff, who stood there waiting for the train to pull out along with ten members of the Waffen-SS. Pino pulled his hat down over his eyes and hung back. The two SS soldiers closest to Rauff had German shepherd attack dogs on short leashes. Leyers looked unimpressed by them and said something calmly to Rauff.
After a moment, the Gestapo colonel ordered the guards to move away. Pino stood in the shadow of an iron post and watched the general and Rauff have an intense argument, which went on until Leyers gestured at his valise.
Rauff stared at the general quizzically, then at the valise, and back to Leyers before he said something. Leyers nodded. The Gestapo colonel barked an order at the SS guards. Two of them went to the rear cattle car, unlocked it, and slid back the doors. Eighty people, men, women, and children, were crammed into a space meant for twenty cows. They were terrified and shivering.
“Vorarbeiter,” General Leyers said.
Pino made no eye contact with Rauff as he crossed to Leyers. “Oui, mon général.”
“I heard someone say, ‘My daughter is sick.’”
“Oui, mon général,” Pino said. “I heard that, too.”
“Ask the mother to show the sick girl to me.”
Pino was confused, but he turned to the people in the open cattle car and translated.
A few moments later, a woman pushed through the crowd, helping a pale, sweating little girl about nine years old.
“Tell her that I am going to save her daughter,” General Leyers said.
Pino balked a moment before translating.
The woman began to sob. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Tell her I will get the girl medical help and make sure she never comes to Platform Twenty-One again,” the general said. “But the girl must come alone.”