Pino went down the hall to the bathroom near his bedroom. He stripped off his smoky clothes, then showered to get the smell off his body and out of his hair. He put on his best clothes and a little splash of his father’s aftershave on his cheeks. It had been four days since he’d seen Anna, and he wanted to impress.
In the dining room, he left a note for Baka describing the document burns; said his good-byes to his father, aunt, and cousin; and left.
Dusk was falling, but heat still radiated from the buildings and the macadam, as penetrating as any sauna. It felt good as he walked. The heat and humidity loosened his joints after days of driving and standing and watching. Climbing into the Fiat, Pino reached to start it when someone moved in the backseat and put the cold muzzle of a pistol to the back of his head.
“Don’t move,” said a man. “Hands on the wheel. Gun?”
“No,” Pino said, hearing the waver in his voice. “What do you want?”
“What do you think?”
Pino recognized the voice now, and he was suddenly terrified his brains were about to be blown out.
“Don’t, Mimo,” he said. “Mama and Papa—”
Pino felt the steel of the muzzle come off his head.
“Pino, I’m so goddamned sorry about the things I said to you,” Mimo began. “I know what you’ve been doing now, the spying, and I’m . . . I’m in awe of your courage. Your dedication to the cause.”
Emotion swelled in Pino’s throat, but then he got angry. “Then why’d you put a gun to my head?”
“I didn’t know if you were armed. I thought you might try to kill me.”
“I’d never shoot my baby brother.”
Mimo lurched over the seat and threw his arms around Pino. “Do you forgive me?”
“Of course,” Pino said, letting go of the anger. “You couldn’t have known, and I wasn’t allowed to tell you because Uncle Albert said it would be safer that way.”
Mimo nodded, wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and said, “I was sent by partisan commanders who told me what you’ve been doing. I’m to give you your orders.”
“Orders? I take my orders from General Leyers.”
“Not anymore,” Mimo said, handing him a piece of paper. “You are to arrest Leyers the night of the twenty-fifth and bring him to that address.”
Arrest General Leyers? At first the idea unnerved Pino, but then he imagined himself aiming a pistol at Leyers’s head, and rather liked the idea.
He would arrest the general, and when he did, he’d reveal himself as a spy. He’d drub that fact into the Nazi’s face. I’ve been right here under your nose the entire time. I’ve seen everything you’ve done, slave master.
“I’ll do it,” Pino said at last. “It will be an honor.”
“Then I’ll see you when the war’s over,” Mimo said.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the fight.”
“How? What will you do?”
“Tank sabotage tonight. And we’re waiting for the Nazis to start retreating from Milan. Then we’re going to ambush them, teach them to never even think about coming back to Italy.”
“And the Fascists?”
“Them, too. We need a clean slate if we’re going to start over.”
Pino shook his head. Mimo was barely sixteen and yet a battle-hardened veteran.
“Don’t get killed before it’s over,” Pino said.
“You, either,” Mimo said, slipping from the car and into the shadows.
Pino twisted around in his seat, trying to spot his brother leaving, but he saw nothing. It was as if Mimo were a ghost.
That made Pino smile, and he started General Leyers’s car, feeling good about things for the first time in days, at least since he’d last seen Anna.
Pino’s heart soared as he parked in front of Dolly’s apartment around eight that evening. Giving the old crone in the lobby a wave, he climbed the stairs to the third floor and knocked eagerly on Dolly’s door.
Anna answered, smiling. She pecked him on the cheek, whispered, “Dolly’s upset. The general hasn’t been here in almost four days.”
“He’s coming back tonight,” Pino said. “I’m sure of it.”
“Please tell her that,” Anna said, and shooed him down the hall.
Dolly Stottlemeyer was on the couch in the living area, dressed in one of Leyers’s white tunics and little else. She had whiskey neat in a tumbler with ice, and she looked like it wasn’t her first or second, or even fifth of the day.
Seeing Pino, Dolly set her jaw for a woman scorned and said, “Where is my Hansie?”
“The general’s at Wehrmacht headquarters,” Pino said.
“We were supposed to be in Innsbruck by now,” Dolly said, slurring.
“The pass opens tomorrow,” Pino said. “And he told me just the other day that’s where he was moving you.”
Tears welled up in Dolly’s eyes. “He did?”
“I heard him.”
“Thank you,” Dolly said, and her hand trembled as she raised her glass. “I didn’t know what was to become of me.” She sipped the whiskey, smiled, and got up. “You two go on now. I need to make myself pretty.”
Dolly lurched by them and held on to the wall before disappearing down the hall.
When they heard her bedroom door slam shut they went to the kitchen. Pino spun Anna around, picked her up, and kissed her. Anna threw her legs up around him and kissed him back with equal ardor. When at last their lips separated, she said, “I have food for you. The sausage and broccoli dish you like, and bread and butter.”
Pino realized he was starved, put her down reluctantly, and said quietly, “God, I’ve missed you. You can’t know how good it is to be here with you right now.”
Anna beamed at him. “I didn’t know it could be like this.”
“I didn’t, either,” Pino said, and kissed her again and again.
They ate hot sausages and broccoli sautéed in garlic and olive oil, along with bread and butter, and drank more of the general’s wine before slipping off to Anna’s room after hearing the knock at the front door and Dolly’s cry of not to worry, that she would get it. In the heat, in her small room in the dark, Anna’s scent was everywhere around him, and he was instantly drunk on it. He peered for her shape in the pitch black, heard her bed springs creak, and went to her. When he lay by her side and reached out to find her body, Anna was already naked and wanting him.
There was a knock, and then another at the maid’s door.
Pino startled awake the morning of April 24, 1945, and looked around in confusion as Anna roused on his chest and called, “Yes?”
Dolly said, “It’s seven forty. The general needs his driver in twenty minutes, and we are to pack, Anna. The Brenner is clear.”
“We leave today?” Anna said.
“As soon as possible,” Dolly replied.
They lay there waiting for Dolly’s heels to clip down the hall to the kitchen.
Pino kissed Anna tenderly and said, “That was the most amazing night of my life.”
“Mine, too,” she said, staring into his eyes as if they held dreams. “I’ll never ever forget how magical it was.”
“Never. Ever.”
They kissed again, their lips barely touching. She inhaled when he exhaled, and exhaled when he inhaled, and Pino felt once again how like a single creature they were when they were like this, together.