A Thread of Grace

Renzo shouts, “Verdammte Scheisse, nein! Go back to sleep!” Lowering his voice again, he tells Mirella, “Pick up the cans!”

It’s a plea, not an order. She turns her back and makes a cradle of her apron to gather the tins. Wincing, she listens to the agonized grunt he makes as he does whatever he must to his kneecap. When the cans are stacked, she tries again. “Renzo, your mother just wants to make things better,” she whispers, coming close. “If everyone brings one brick, we can build a new world!”

“Or a new prison.” He glances upward. “Has Schramm ever told you why he became a Nazi?”

She brushes hay from her apron and shakes her head.

“Ask him sometime. The answer’s instructive. God save us from idealists!” Renzo cries softly. “They dream of a world without injustice, and what crime won’t they commit to get it?” Rubbing at his knee with both hands, he mutters, “I swear to God, Mirella, I’d settle for a world with good ma

She feels the familiar prickle: her foolish breasts let down milk whenever anything arouses pity or protectiveness. She reaches toward him, but Renzo rises suddenly and takes three lopsided steps toward the mule’s stall. Clucking and murmuring, he coaxes the dissenting animal back into its traces. “It’s dark,” Mirella says. “Stay the night.” He yanks a leather strap, snugs up a coupling. “When did you learn to harness a mule?” she asks, to fill the silence.

“When the milk van was stolen at gunpoint. Or should I say, when it was requisitioned to serve the people? Evidently, children who need milk do not qualify as the people.” He rounds the cart and stands in front of her, moonlight on his face. Her hand moves toward the large bruise yellowing on the side of his forehead. He jerks his head away. “If the partisans don’t like being called Communist bandits, I suggest they stop pistol-whipping people they rob.”

There’s liquor on his breath. “Renzo, why do you drink so much?”

“My legs hurt. Cold weather and high altitude make them worse. Grappa,” he says precisely, “is easier to obtain than aspirin.”

Mirella crosses her arms over her dampened blouse and settles onto a hay bale. “It’s warm in Sant’Andrea.”

He stares, then laughs, then slumps beside her: forearms on his thighs, hands loose between his treacherous knees. “Not a single morning passes without my thanking God that you married Iacopo.”

“Liar.”

He smiles a little. “You were the only one I could never fool.” She puts her arms around him, resting her chin against his back. “Rosina’s beautiful,” he says.

“She’s already trying to walk! She talks, too! No words yet— it’s still nonsense, but she knows what questions and answers sound like.”

“You must be relieved.”

“Yes, except… This time the surprises don’t seem so miraculous.”

He draws a little pouch of tobacco from a pocket, rolls a cigarette in a square of newsprint. “December thirtieth, 1935,” he says, as though answering a question. “And they gave me the Silver Medal for it.”

“I’m sorry?”

The match trembles slightly in Renzo’s fingers. “You asked why I drink. I’m telling you.” He shakes the flame out and releases a jet of smoke. “The Dolo raid. That was my squadron.”

“Dolo? But… my father said that was British propaganda. He said the British wanted the League of Nations to put sanctions on Italy so they could take our colonies.” She looks into the middle distance, trying to take it in. “The British weren’t lying?”

“No, and neither were we. That’s the hell of it,” Renzo says, his face in shadow. “The Abyssinians were a pack of brutal, thieving warlords who used the Ethiopians as beasts of burden. Haile Selassie’s signature on the Geneva Convention was an obscenity, Mirella. He had prisoners of war crucified! I knew those two pilots— Mi

“But why? Didn’t you see the Red Cross?”

“Mirella,” he says wearily, “the Red Cross was painted on the roof of every brothel and bar in Addis. At Quoram, our planes were hit by AA from gun emplacements marked by the Red Cross. At Harar, the ammunition dumps were in warehouses with hospital signs.”

Hands over her mouth, she looses a shuddering breath. “But Dolo— that really was a hospital? Forty patients,” she whispers. “That doctor.”

“Forty-two patients.” The tip of the cigarette brightens, and he lifts his head to exhale. “The doctor’s name was Lundstrom.”

“The Swedes said a nurse tried to wave you away. Is that true? You dropped the bombs anyway?” There’s no denial. She searches for something to say. “Renzo, it was war. If you hadn’t dropped those bombs, somebody else would have.”

“Yeah, sure. But maybe— just maybe— they wouldn’t have done such a damn fine job of it.”

For a time, he sits silently, remembering: hilltops and hollows veiled in mist, like a woman in bed: asleep, peaceful, erotic. The targeting trance, the long tense descent. The release, the red and orange chaos blossoming below.

“You tell yourself it doesn’t matter, until nothing else does.” Without looking Mirella in the face, he pinches off the end of the cigarette, works his way onto his feet, flexes experimentally at the knees. “As good as they get, up here.” He reaches up to grasp the boards of the mule cart’s frame. Hesitates, then hauls himself up in one quick motion. When the pain’s grip loosens, he says, “Osvaldo Tomitz has a friend in the Vatican. He got a list of the Yom Kippur deportees.”

The change of subject takes her by surprise. “But— no! Your sister?”

“Ester. Her husband. The kids. Nobody will tell Tomitz where they were sent. He’s not… optimistic. I can’t find either of my other sisters. Susa’s family was with Catholic friends, but the house is gone. There’s been a lot of bombing in Turin.”

“But Debora lives in Florence! Surely they won’t bomb there!”

“Monte Cassino is a ruin. Who knows where Allied command will draw the line?”

“Renzo, did you find my father and sister?”

“Belan— I’m sorry.” He passes a hand over his eyes. “I meant to tell you right away, but then Mamma— Your father sends his love. Etta says he’s driving everyone crazy, and the neighbors hiding them should be canonized when this is over. But, yes— they’re fine.”

“Susa

He clears his throat, then digs into his pocket, and hands Mirella a paper packet, heavy for its size. “Like salt,” he remarks when he can speak again, “my female relatives once seemed an inexhaustible commodity. Trade some of this for eggs and produce.”

She doesn’t ask him how he got the salt. She doesn’t want to know the risks he takes. Suddenly, the constant ache of longing for her family is as gut-twisting as hunger. “Renzo, I need to see Angelo! His teacher wrote— he thinks we sent him to the orphanage because we didn’t love him after Rosina was born. Suora Corniglia explained, and I’ve written, but— I have to see him! And I have to see Iacopo, even if it’s just for a day— an hour!”

She expects an argument: It’s too dangerous, too difficult, too impractical. The checkpoints, the bombing, the arrests. She must be patient, sensible, mature. She knows all that, but she’s desperate for Angelo to be solid flesh in her arms. She yearns to hear Iacopo make an aria of her name. Renzo, she is prepared to plead, Renzo, if you ever loved me—

“I’ll work something out.” He leans over to unwind the reins, then shoves the cart brake loose. “Take care of my mother,” he asks in return. “Tell her about Ester when the time is right.”

He looks over his shoulder to judge the turn he’ll need to maneuver out of the barn. “Mule!” he says sharply, slapping the reins. Ears twisting, the animal complains but squares in the harness and pulls.

Above, forgotten in his hayloft, the late Dr. Lundstrom’s unlikely heir listens to the rumble and squeak of iron-clad wheels and squeaking wooden joints. Listens to Mirella’s footsteps as she returns to the hunchback’s house. Listens until there is nothing to hear but the skittering of barn mice, and wind in the pines nearby.