“After the failed operation, the streets will be littered with soldiers, so it is better to have this small delay,” Toni said.
Jews were also being successfully smuggled through another local church that had joined their movement. The refugees were set up with false documents, if time permitted, then taken south. With talk now of all Jews being rounded up and taken to camps in unknown destinations, the work of Il Furioso was even more important. Mussolini, once reluctant to dispense with Jews the same way as Germany, had eventually agreed. But with a puppet government and Germany then pulling the strings, he had little to say on any matter of Italian governance.
Il Furioso planned to blow up train routes to Austria and Poland where they had learned most of the prisoners were being transferred. They would do whatever was required.
Stefano had just lain down on the floor to rest a few hours when there was a knock on the door. He crept toward the window while others sat up to reach for their rifles.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Stefano whispered, and Conti replied that he wasn’t. Only Fedor wasn’t with the group. He had left to say goodbye to his parents who had refused to leave for the South.
Stefano peered out the window. He recognized the visitor as a boy from Teresa’s neighborhood and opened the door. The boy told him that Teresa wanted to meet with him urgently. Perhaps she’d had a change of heart and decided she wanted to go also. He hoped so.
“Be careful,” said Toni.
Stefano felt that his aunt and uncle would not be aware of the meeting. Despite her beliefs, Stefano knew that Teresa would always be loyal to their mother, even if they fought.
The message said to meet near a bridge, and he headed there straightaway. It was a part of Verona that he rarely visited, and he guessed she had chosen the location because it was far away from both their homes. Whatever it was she was about to tell him was highly secret, and the closer he got, the more he disliked the idea of meeting at all. She was there waiting in the darkness at the edge of the bridge, her face hidden in the night.
Stefano hugged his sister, her body cold and trembling.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Why are we meeting here?”
“It is not safe for you or me.”
He was suddenly alarmed. “What has happened?”
“They came around to ask us questions.”
“Brigades?”
“No, an SS officer . . . someone that Enzo knew,” she said. “Someone he thought would advance him somehow if he gave him news. Are Mamma and Nina safe?”
There was a break in her then-timid voice when she asked the question. She was breathing heavily as if she were carrying too great a weight. He could sense that she was very nervous, something that his unbreakable sister rarely showed.
“Yes, of course.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Tell me, Teresa, what is going on?”
“They know that you and Toni are deserters, and they believe you have already gone south. But they also know that Conti is a focal point for the resistance.”
A car turned toward them, its headlights flashing across Teresa’s face before it passed them by. In those brief seconds Stefano saw tears streaming down her cheeks.
He gripped her by the arms, the fear of treachery circling.
“What have you done?”
“They are coming for him. I called you away because I knew you would be there. I have seen what they do to deserters.”
“What do you mean? Who?”
“We had to give them something. The Nazis are coming for Conti tonight.”
“No!” said Stefano, every muscle in his body tensing. “Tell me you didn’t!”
“It was either you or him. But you must leave tonight. You must go straight to the church also and follow Mamma and Nina to the South!”
“They are still in Verona!”
“But I said goodbye to them several days ago. You told me they were leaving the following day.”
“Teresa!” he yelled. “They are not yet at the church. Mamma and Nina are staying at Conti’s.”
He had time enough to sense her horror before he turned and ran, sure-footed, his legs taking flight, jumping over rails and fences, across yards and down narrow streets. He had to beat his enemy there. He was thinking of his mother, curled up asleep, dreaming of the Mediterranean, hopeful, and the others, Nina up perhaps to feed the baby, the others dozing, waiting for his safe return.
As he grew closer he could hear screaming, and from his position several houses away from Conti’s, he saw Nina being dragged from the house by a member of the Brigades, while another carried her baby. There was no sign of the others. Stefano slipped unseen down the side of a neighbor’s house and crossed the fence to Conti’s. He stood behind the corner of the house to peer around toward the street for a closer view. There were two official vehicles parked in front of the house. There were half a dozen Black Brigade members and several SS, all with guns ready. They had been prepared for a battle.
Stefano leaned back against the sidewall. He regretted not taking a gun, having only a short knife, which he kept on him always. Car doors slammed and engines started, and in desperation, and with no time to think, he turned the corner toward the vehicles, with the hope that his appearance would divert attention, halt their departure, and give Nina enough time to run away. But his mother’s short and sudden scream and the sounds of unrecognizable voices from inside the house put a stop to this suicidal plan. He was torn in half, helpless, as he watched the first vehicle drive away with Nina and Nicolo, followed by the second.
As he moved cautiously closer to the front door, he was met with the smell of gasoline. Someone shouted something terse, which was followed by a burst of fire from inside the house and the smashing of the front-window glass. Two brigades hurried from the house and headed on foot in the same direction as the vehicles. In their rush to leave, they had not seen Stefano approaching the entrance.
Stefano could see through the window that fire had engulfed the front living room. He wondered then if some of the group had already been taken before Nina, but they could also all still be inside, perhaps wounded and unable to flee. The crackle of the fire turned to roaring as flames caught rapidly, and it became obvious that gasoline had been spread throughout the entire house.
Stefano rushed back to the side of the house where the bedrooms were and called out to his mother. Over the sound of the loud crackling fire and splitting timber, he faintly heard her cries. He smashed at the window glass with his fist and climbed through the jagged opening, pieces of glass piercing him as he entered. The heat and smoke were too much, and he was forced back again to the window, flames threatening to smother him. His eyes and throat were burning, and he could barely see. He climbed back out and fell to the earth coughing, his chest very painful. People from the other houses had arrived with buckets of water. Someone bent down to check on him and yelled that he was badly injured and needed a doctor.
It was only when he looked down that he saw the fire had burned through his shirt to the skin on his chest, and his forearm and the back of his hand were a sticky, blistering mess. He clawed at his chest from the smoke trapped in his airway, and the feeling of suffocation collapsed him to the ground. He began to shake violently.
Fedor appeared and wrapped him in a sheet, and, with the help of a stranger, Stefano was carried elsewhere in the dark. It no longer mattered where. At that point he had lost all thoughts of a future.