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In all the intensity of that early summer, one thing stands out in my memory: the day Achille killed the German.
It was a warm evening in May. A normal one, by the standards of the time. I had finished my schoolwork and was scrubbing down the kitchen, getting ahead of my chores for the next day. Achille had gone up to Santa Marta on some business or other. My mother was at her usual station in the back room, and my father was at the kitchen table finishing the supper I’d made him. And both he and I were keeping an eye on the clock that hung on the kitchen wall, because curfew was approaching – and being caught out after curfew was punishable by death. Like so many things.
‘Should I go through and see how Mamma is?’ I asked as the minute hand crept onwards.
Papà shook his head. ‘Better not disturb her.’ I reached down to take his empty plate away and, as I did, he briefly took hold of my arm and squeezed it.
And then it came, the sound we were waiting for so anxiously: the nasal whine of the engine and then my mother’s cry, but this time it wasn’t a cry of joy. It was a cry of horror. The door flew open and Achille came in with my mother close behind. His red kerchief was askew and the front of his shirt was smeared with blood.
‘It’s not mine,’ he said. ‘The blood. It’s not mine. Leave me alone!’ he snapped as Mamma reached out to him. ‘I don’t want a fuss. Just… just let me be, please.’
Papà got to his feet. Mamma pushed past Achille and went to him, burrowing under his arm like a frightened child. ‘You’d better tell me what you did,’ Papà said in a low, steady voice. You didn’t argue with him when he sounded like that.
Achille took a deep breath and the story began to spill out. He had been on his way back from Santa Marta when he’d heard the distinctive sound of a BMW motorcycle engine. He knew that a German dispatch rider was behind him.
‘There wasn’t much I could do at that point. Obviously his bike was more powerful, and we were on a straightish bit of road – he had a clear shot if he wanted one. I hoped that maybe we just happened to be riding in the same direction. But I took a left at the next crossroads, heading north, to see if he’d do the same. He did. Then I took another left turn and he copied me again. That’s when I knew for sure that he was following me.’
‘What do you expect if you wear that rag around your neck?’ my mother cut in.
Achille ignored this. ‘I knew I had to stay up in the hills, on the back roads,’ he went on. ‘I’d have the advantage then, though I’d no idea yet what I’d actually do with it. So I kept twisting and turning, and he kept following – and then I saw the sign for Sant’Appiano, and I knew.’
‘The Rossi houses,’ my father said with an air of realisation.
Achille nodded. ‘Exactly.’ Seeing that Mamma and I were bewildered, he explained. Near the village of Sant’Appiano, on the other side from the monarchists’ encampment, was a sort of ghost town: an abandoned farm that had belonged to a local family that went bankrupt back in the Twenties. The road that led through it was narrow and lined on one side with cramped terraced houses where the farm workers had lived. There was no pavement, and the houses all opened directly onto the street. ‘Enzo and Sandro and I used to mess around up there all the time,’ Achille said. ‘Anyway, there’s a blind corner as you turn into that road, and the first of those little houses sticks out just enough to cause trouble if you don’t know to avoid it. Which I did, of course, buthedidn’t. He couldn’t.’
His face was animated now. Despite his shock, he was starting to enjoy himself. ‘I wanted to make sure he stayed right on my tail, so I didn’t accelerate too much. I even held in the clutch and revved the engine a few times to make it sound like I was having a problem changing gears. He fell for it and followed me, straight into that corner.’
‘Ha!’ Papà barked. ‘Good lad.’
‘He came off badly,’ Achille said. ‘Ended up across the road with his bike on top of him. He was probably going to die anyway, but I made sure of it.’ His hand went to the holster at his waist, to the army-issue Beretta he carried. ‘I made sure of it,’ he repeated.
For a moment we were all silent. We knew those lists of penalties by heart, you see. For each German killed by a partisan, ten people would be hanged. I thought of what I’d seen at Castelmedici.
‘What did you do with the body?’ I said.
The three of them looked at me as if I’d sprung from nowhere. I believe they’d forgotten I was there at all. ‘I managed to roll it off the road and cover it in branches,’ Achille said. ‘With any luck, the wild boar will find it soon enough. I took his helmet and dog tags, too.’
‘And the bike?’ my father asked.
‘Stashed it in one of the houses along with his rifle. I can go back for them once… once it’s safe. Papà, you should see that bike,’ Achille said. ‘It’s really something.’
‘You’re not keeping that thing here,’ Mamma protested. ‘If they find it, they’ll kill us all.’
‘Then I’ll find somewhere else to keep it. There’s an old outbuilding just up the hill—’
‘Enough,’ Papà said. ‘It’s pointless to discuss this now. We have to wait and see whether…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Whether there are consequences. For now, son, you need to clean yourself up. And get that blood out of your clothes.’
Mamma nodded. ‘Stella, heat some water for your brother’s bath. I’ll put that shirt to soak. Give it here.’ She held out her hand, and Achille obediently took off his shirt and gave it to her. She hurried off, holding it out at arm’s length, my father following.
I couldn’t look at Achille. I thought I would cry or shout or hit him if I did. I went over to the sink and started filling a big pan with water to heat on the stove. And then I heard a noise behind me – a soft, whimpering noise. I turned around.
‘Stella,’ Achille said. He was as white as paper. ‘Stellina, I… I…’ His face crumpled and he held his arms out to me, like a child.
Of course I went to him. I went to him and held him, and he cried and trembled and said over and over again that he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant to put anyone in danger. But all I could think was:you stupid boy. You stupid boy, why couldn’t you leave him to die on his own?
*
The days that followed were terrible. Achille went out on his runs just as usual, but he came home tired and scared, not exhilarated. I had never seen him scared in my life, and now he started at every noise and moved as if weighed down by some dreadful burden. The first few times, he even refused to carry his gun. I had to plead with him to start taking it again. I didn’t like the thought of him out there undefended.
