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Sorry, I type. Swamped in work, can’t talk. Have a good evening xxx
I don’t wait to see his reply. I shut my phone off, pull the shutters closed and start getting ready for bed.
28
Stella
The months after the liberation of Romituzzo were hard and exhilarating. The Allies had pushed the Germans as far as the Apennines and stopped, intending to wait out the winter before resuming the offensive. And so, as before, Italy was split into two zones: free and occupied. The difference was that we were in the free zone.
There was still plenty to do. There were food packages and supplies to distribute; there were meetings to attend and messages to run as the Resistance movements directed their focus north of Florence, towards the Gothic Line. Don Anselmo had work for me, too, and even more than usual since he was filling in for don Mauro at St Catherine’s in addition to his own parish and political work. Soon I was as busy as I had been during the occupation, and when school resumed in September – with a hastily assembled new curriculum, and without the Fascist claptrap – I was back to my old routine of rising before dawn and coming home at nightfall.
My mother never asked where I had been; she spoke to me only to give me my chores or reprimand me when my work didn’t meet her standards. My father could not even look at me. Only Achille was his old affectionate self, but I saw him so rarely that it scarcely made a difference. Between the garage, his bikes and his own political activity, he was as busy as I was.
Nevertheless, life was exciting in a way it had never been before. I carried a weapon when I went out on my rounds, and not a dainty little gun in my bra but a Beretta at my hip. Agnese had given me some marksmanship training and pronounced my skills more than satisfactory. I wore my white kerchief and atricolorearmband and carried a card declaring me a member of the Romituzzo National Liberation Committee. It scarcely mattered that my parents wouldn’t acknowledge me. I was becoming my own woman, and every night as I fell into bed I resolved that I’d get out of that house as soon as I possibly could.
*
‘The sin of pride,’ don Anselmo said. ‘I’m sure your mother and father are hurt that you betrayed their trust – yes, even for a good cause. But there’s pride there too, a whopping great dose, and I’m afraid we can only pray that they get over it.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. It was one of those dark chilly evenings in early December and we were sitting in the parlour of the parochial house, going through the clothes we had collected for the refugee shelter run by some Dominican sisters near San Damiano.
Don Anselmo folded a little woolly vest into neat quarters. ‘Well, to a degree it’s understandable. You’ve been doing this dangerous work right under their noses, and they knew nothing about any of it. They’re bound to feel as if they failed to protect you – your father, in particular, will feel that very deeply. That’s one form of pride. But this whole business of cutting you out, of treating you aspersona non gratain your own home…’ He shrugged and took another vest from the pile on the table between us. ‘It reminds me of my father’s reaction when I decided to go to seminary. He never spoke to me again, though I tried many times to make it up with him for my mother’s sake. He died without speaking to me.’
‘Really? I thought he would be proud of you for becoming a priest.’
‘Oh, plenty of parents are, of course. My mother was. But I was the eldest son, you see, and in my father’s view I was supposed to become an important businessman like him. Besides, being a priest wasn’t exactly his idea of being a man. Now look at this! What do you think?’
He held a boy’s jersey out to me. It was made of coarse grey-brown wool and had been darned and patched so many times that it was thick and misshapen. It had clearly been passed down from sibling to sibling, perhaps even over generations.
‘One scarcely knows what to do with such a thing,’ don Anselmo went on. ‘Like the widow in the parable, they have given all they have. And yet to give this to some other poor soul…’
‘Maybe it can be picked apart and knitted into something new,’ I said.
‘Yes, perhaps. I shall put it aside and show it to Assunta later on.’ Don Anselmo took a shirt from the pile and began to inspect it. ‘And how is your young man?’
I felt myself turn hot. ‘If you mean Enzo, he isn’t my young man.’
‘Oh? I am sorry. Have you stopped, ah, seeing one another?’
‘No!’ I was embarrassed, terribly embarrassed to be telling this to don Anselmo of all people, but indignation spurred me on. ‘We weren’t ever seeing one another, not really. Not like that. But then he came back from Santa Marta and he simply assumed that we would… that I would…’
‘He was presumptuous,’ don Anselmo said, rather severely.
‘Yes. He expected me to do whatever he asked, and he didn’t want me to keep up my work. And he didn’t want me to wear my kerchief. As far as he’s concerned, he was a real fighter and I was nothing but an errand girl. And he said that if I did insist on wearing it, people would think…’ My jaw was tight, and I realised that I was twisting a woollen sock in my hands as if I were wringing the neck of a goose. I threw it back on the pile. ‘I don’t want to repeat what he said.’
Don Anselmo smiled wryly. ‘I think I can guess. Since you were doing undercover work, and since you are a young woman, and since you happened to survive the occupation and avoided the fate of poor Berta Gallurì – God rest her soul – then he knows that at least some small-minded souls will suspect you of, shall we say, consorting with the enemy? Because I dare say you’ve heard such fatuous rumours yourself, you and the other women in our movement. And so has Enzo, and it bothers him.’
‘I don’t know why people say these things,’ I burst out. ‘I don’t know why they even think them. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘No, it doesn’t. But, Stella… look. When you go home tonight, open your New Testament – I know you have one, for I gave it to you – and look at the passages about Mary Magdalene. You’ll see that she was healed by Jesus, and that she went to the tomb and saw the risen Lord. She saw Him before the men did. But you won’t see a single thing to indicate that she was a harlot – not that it would make a bit of difference if she were, but anyway. It was the Church that called her that particular name.’ He leaned forward and looked at me so earnestly that I almost forgot my indignation. ‘What I’m trying to say, my child, is that those who truly love and understand you will never insult your good character. And you may disregard those who do. I hope you sent Enzo away with a flea in his ear?’
‘Yes.’ I didn’t want to repeat exactly what I had said, either.
‘Well, that’s very pleasing. I expected no less. And I suppose your brother isn’t too happy with him?’
‘I haven’t told Achille,’ I said. ‘I don’t need him to fight my battles.’
‘Quite right,’ don Anselmo said. ‘Still, you’re more restrained than I would be. Shall I ring for Assunta and ask her if she has any of that marvellous chocolate our American friends brought last week?’
