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“We had nice house, nice furn’ture. Just like you and my Herrma
“We have no Cossacks in Austria, Mama Brössler—”
“Den dey come again anodder time, but we got not’in’ for steal. Not even fork! Not even spoon! So dey kill my oncle. Jus’ spite. Spite absolutely! ’Cause we got not’in for steal.”
“It’s not like that here,” Frieda would soothe.
“Den dey come again. By dat time, my fader, my bruders, my first husban’, dey got nice li’l business, moving furn’ture. Wit’ horse, wit’ cart. Nice li’l business. Dey come again. Take everyt’ing. My mudder had li’l box of jewel’ry. Li’l box,” Rivka would say, palms a few centimeters apart. “Dey take dat. Take furn’ture— we sleepin’ on da floor. Take horse, take cart! How we ’sposed to live?”
“That was the Communists, Mama Brössler. The Communists will never take power in Austria.”
“Dey’ll come again,” Rivka would say. “A Jew got somet’ing, goyim go
“Mama Brössler, Vie
“You an optimist,” Rivka would tell her sadly, “jus’ like my husban’. We start over. We be all right. But dey arrest him. For not’in! For not’in, absolutely! Dey take my husban’ ’n my bruders to Siberia. De optimists— dey all died in a vork camp.”
Herrma
“I do!”
“Buon giorno? Arrivederci? How far is that going to—”
“I know a lot of Italian. I learned from the carabinieri, and from the farmer. Papa, we don’t have to give up. We can go back to the mountains.”
“I don’t wa
“Mutti, make them stop!” Liesl pleads.
The Brösslers have been fortunate. The Calabrian soldier found them a farmer who was willing to give them food and shelter. The mule and two cows warm the barn at night. Not even the girls complain about the smell anymore. A week, maybe two, and the Germans would leave the valley, that’s what everyone expected.
This afternoon, the farmer brought them a newspaper from Borgo San Mauro. Maps and numbers and arrows told the story: the Allies were bottled up at Salerno, far to the south. In the center of the front page was an article headlined UN PROCLAMA DEL COMANDO GERMANICO. Duno made a great show of reading it, probably guessing at most of the words. The same phrase appeared after a variety of offenses: sará fucilato secondo la legge marziale.
Then the farmer showed Herrma
The farmer murmured something soothing as he laid a callused hand on Steffi’s fine fair hair, looking across the valley, talking at length about Attilio. “He’s talking about the Huns,” Duno said confidently. “Attilio means Atilla.”
When Herrma
“I Tedeschi,” the farmer said, drawing SS runes in the dirt, over and over. “Genova. Sant’Andrea. Savona. Roccabarbena. Cuneo. Milano. Torino.” The farmer looked at Herrma
Herrma
“If he wanted to denounce us, he would have already!” Duno yells.
“What if one of his grandchildren says something? What if he’s got a neighbor with a grudge? Duno, if that farmer’s shot because of us, it would be as though we pulled the trigger ourselves!”
“So we should put the gun to our own heads?”
“If we go now, nobody will be shot.”
“You have a touching faith in the Nazis, Papa!”
Frieda looks up in time to see the flat of Herrma
Chickens scratch and chuckle. Cows comment, their voices breaking comically: basso profundo into soprano. The rhythmic thunk of the farmer’s ax does not falter. Firewood piled to the rafters, and still a need to lay in more. Clouds have settled like a woolen blanket over the valley. Mountain peaks gleam with snow.
“We’re leaving tomorrow morning,” Herrma
“Fine,” Duno says at last, his voice lower than Frieda has ever heard it. “Go with the women and children, Papa. I’ll take my chances in the mountains.”
“Duno! Don’t you dare walk away from me! Duno!”
Frieda does not realize that she is crying until Herrma
He smiles at Frieda, but she ca
Tears hot on his stinging cheek, Duno clambers higher, determined to leave all evidence of human existence behind. He’ll find a cave. He’ll hunt and fish. He hates everyone he can think of, but most of all he hates his father. “Fuck you, Papa! Eat shit!” he yells, cursing aloud for the first time in his life. “Fight! Why won’t you fight?”
Hands clawing, toes digging, he drives distance between himself and humiliation. We should have fought, right from the start, he thinks. Friends— people you really believed were your friends—stopped looking at you. Eyes skimmed past the star on your armband. They were embarrassed for you— by you.
Stop seeing real Jews, and it’s easy for people to believe lies. Jews are lazy. Jews are ugly. Jews are evil. Day after day. Year after year. Jews are capable only of crime. Jews are only clever enough to cheat good Aryans. The mere presence of fat, hairy, bowlegged Jews fouled public swimming pools. Their hideous, misshapen faces were depraved and disgusting. The only right Jews had was to disappear from the face of the earth!
Legs aching, lungs bursting, he stops to catch his breath, and hears a faint roar that sounds like a river. Mouth gaping, he looks up. A small, hard avalanche peppers his face with stinging dust and pebbles. “Ow! Shit!” he cries, spitting and coughing as the dirt dances past. “Bastards! Shit-eating bastards!” he sobs. “Goddamned, shit-eating, goddamned Nazi bastards!”