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“Andrea’s father is a fisherman,” Nola said. “Luigi Buda is a fisherman on one our boats. It left out the same night that…that I left on the Stefania.”
Canidy picked up on that. It was the same night he had Canidy and Rossi shuttled out to wait for the submarine.
And for the ninety-foot cargo ship to go up in flames.
“After the explosion in the port,” he went on, “two SS soldiers came to her house, and she heard them asking her mother where her father was. Then they asked about her brothers. Andrea became frightened and slipped out of the house, and went to the Rossi house a block away. Rossi’s sister taught Andrea to pray the rosary in church school. She wasn’t there, but a box of his clothes was.”
That’s why I recognized the clothes, Canidy said, glancing at the girl.
They are Professor Rossi’s.
Nola looked at Andrea and spoke again in Sicilian.
She shook her head and replied tersely.
“She speaks only Sicilian?” Canidy said.
“Yes,” Nola replied. “She is in university and plans to learn English. I just asked if she had seen her mother since. She said no. She is afraid to go home, to dress in her own clothes. She’s been at the Rossi house—dressed in the professor’s clothes to better hide herself—all this time. She said the first days after the blast, there were SS all over, then not so much. When I knocked on the Rossi door, she recognized me…. And here we are.”
He said something to her in a fatherly tone.
She smiled softly and nodded.
“I said she should make herself comfortable, that this is home, too.”
At that moment, she pulled off the woolen hat. Rich chestnut brown hair fell to her shoulders. She shook her head and air-fluffed the thick locks. Then she pulled off the jacket.
Now Canidy could see without question that she was indeed female. And beautiful. Maybe twenty years old, with dark, inviting almond eyes, and, defying Rossi’s oversize shirt, magnificent breasts.
This sure as hell ain’t Rossi’s sister.
Then he felt badly.
If by some coincidence that was her father’s boat that that Schnellboot took out, she may be the only surviving member of her family.
Or, if not that patrol boat, then another.
“So the brothers could’ve been lost with the father,” Canidy said solemnly.
Nola looked at him. It took Nola a moment to comprehend what he was saying.
“Oh, no,” Nola said. “The two brothers worked in the warehouses.”
Nola said something in Sicilian to the girl. Canidy recognized it as a question, and saw that, when she nodded and spoke her answer, her face brightened.
“She said they’re alive. They were the ones who told her to stay at Rossi’s sisters and keep using Rossi’s clothes.”
“Does she know where they are?”
Nola spoke to her. Canidy could tell from the tone that it was a question.
She answered.
“Near the warehouses,” Nola said.
Why do I have to pull the information out of Frank?
Is it conditioning from omertà?
