Present-day 1945
Stefano wakes slowly to noises downstairs: the soft scraping of bristles on oak, pots clanging, and doors clicking shut. The twittering of birds raises the prospect of morning.
He feels groggy, his sleep deeper than most, perhaps due to the whiskey, the travel, the ache in his leg. His back is sticky with sweat, and outside the sun has already spent several hours mopping up from the night before. The boy sits at the edge of the bed, his legs too short to touch the floor.
Stefano’s shoulders sag. What to do with a child?
“Are you hungry?” he asks the boy.
He nods.
“Is your voice gone again?”
The boy nods again, afraid to make sound in a room filled with light.
Stefano stands, stretches, then moves to the window. A sparkle of silver on the water in the distance and the smells here, tangy and cleaner than the places he has come from. A distant whistle of something mechanical, a factory, a truck, but barely audible, and the sound of a tree being felled somewhere behind him. And closer, the high-pitched, uneven squeals of a water pump lever.
He does not need to call the boy, who is already on his heels before he has reached the top stair. Downstairs the noises have ceased, and there is no sign of the German. His pack and the whiskey bottle sit on the table, where the rifle is now leaning. Stefano peers through the kitchen window with its view of the neighboring house, then opens the rifle to check that it is still unloaded.
The picture that was hanging in strips on the wall is missing. The plates and teapot are clean and put away, and there is a pleasant aroma of coffee, and the scent of something floral through the open window, which takes him briefly to another time, to a small apartment, to the smell of perfume on skin.
He walks to the room at the rear of the house just outside the back door and pisses in the bowl that is stained and browned, though some effort has been made to clean it this morning. He sends the boy in after him, then walks toward the front door to survey the track and the area around it.
Erich’s house is square in shape, off-white in color, with a red roof and brown-painted window trims that are peeling in places. Both houses are pretty, but perhaps more from the location. The house on the adjacent property is bigger, long and narrow, with a high-pitched roof. There is a pen for animals off to the far side of it that he did not see before. The noises from the geese make the house seem more amiable.
When he turns to walk back inside, Erich appears suddenly, startling him.
“Good morning!” says Erich. The clothes he was wearing the night before exhibit no crumpled signs of sleep.
Stefano can see the boy behind Erich, unsure what to do, a barrier now between them.
“His name is Michal,” says Stefano, and Erich turns to greet the child.
“Nice to meet you, Michal.” Erich puts out his hand. The boy’s arms remain by his sides.
Erich turns back to Stefano, unfazed by the lack of response. The German is probably used to it.
“I have made some coffee, but first, come! I would like to show you something.”
Stefano tells Michal to wait and follows Erich to the rear of the house. Michal obeys this time, his child’s sense making him uncertain of Erich.
Stefano is curious but cautious. The pyre of burned items has partly been cleared, and Erich stops behind the shed at the base of the incline. More woodland behind both houses gently rises upward to a narrow hilltop and down the other side to the main road.
The two men face a large pile of branches and rugs spread across the ground, used as a disguise to hide the small car sitting in the middle of the debris. The lid of its engine is wide open, like a hungry bird, and several tools lie on the ground at the rear of the car.
“This is yours?”
“Yes. I’ve kept it hidden. Petrol and cars are very much in demand. It is good, yes? I just have to source some petrol, and then it will take me wherever I wish to go. But don’t get any ideas about taking it. The Russians will tear it from under you.”
Stefano peers inside the passenger-side window as Erich climbs into the driver’s seat. The car looks new, the leather seats unmarked.
“Does it work?”
Erich rests his hands on the wheel, sliding them gently over the molded wood. He turns the key, and the car growls to life. While he continues to pump the accelerator, he examines the gauges on the dashboard. Stefano takes a step back. From the satisfaction across his face, it is more than a piece of machinery to Erich. The car represents something he can lovingly control.
Erich turns off the engine.
“Do you drive?” he asks Stefano, stepping from the vehicle.
Stefano is remembering a time with Beppe in North Africa, where he had been taught to drive: a borrowed car, red earth spraying in the rearview mirror.
“Not much.”
He helps Erich cover the car with its disguise of rugs and debris, and they return to the house. Once inside, Stefano notices the broken china and pictures that Erich has swept into a corner of the storeroom.
“How long since you were here?”
“A week, just over. I’ve been traveling to search for work.”
“And did you find it?”
“Yes,” says Erich.
The house hasn’t been lived in for a long time. That much appears clear to Stefano, along with the speculation that the German is most likely lying about everything.
CHAPTER 7
ERICH
Erich has been in control for most of his life, except in two instances, but those events he can bury beneath others. He has watched life as if he has sat above it, carefully and meticulously planning his next move. He looks across at Stefano, a man so different from him. Quiet, thoughtful, Stefano carries many scars, but perhaps no more than Erich. Surviving is all about the mind, his mother used to say. If you have power of that, you will carry on.
“I drove before and during the war,” says Erich. “My father had a nice car.”
“What did your father do?” It is the first time the Italian has sounded genuinely interested. It is perhaps the fact that his father had money that piques his attention. Anyone with money in Germany used to suggest importance.
“He was a businessman. He sold machinery, parts. He helped supply factories. He had an excuse not to fight.”
It is a small piece of a very large truth.
“He sounds important.”
“No,” says Erich, his answer assuring there are no more questions. “What part of Italy do you come from?”
Stefano pauses. Erich can see that he is measuring his answer. Dark eyes, dark face and skin, he is as mysterious as Erich chooses to be vague. Though there are other clues to people that Erich can search for in the reticence: the eye movements, the hand gestures, the talking without the use of words.
“The South originally, Campania. But then when the war started, we moved to stay with cousins in the North. My father was dead. My uncle made us go.”
Erich sees there are parts missing in the story, parts that don’t concern him. The Italian’s response sounds truthful. But Erich also knows that it is far easier to tell the truth, but just not give all the truth.
“Then you made the right move,” says Erich.
“Did I?” He turns to look directly at Erich now.
“You fought alongside Germany, did you not?”
Stefano is silent from across the kitchen table, the boy now by his side.
“We had a good army,” says Erich. “In the end it was simply numbers that killed us.” And machinery also, though he doesn’t like to think that someone else’s machinery caused the end to Germany’s power.
“Not good enough,” says Stefano.
Erich smiles at first to cover the sting of these words, yet the stranger’s sharp edges and wit have aroused more interest.
“In my experience, Italians have had very little allegiance to anyone. They don’t know who they support.”
Erich is testing Stefano, to see how far he can push him. He can easily bring the conversation back to an even level.