Free Eva Sleeps by Francesca Melandri, Katherine Gregor

a
dirndl
, so clearly German, “You’re beautiful!” and manage to make her smile in spite of everything. Their eyes were like velvet, and their eyelashes long like little girls’, and even with their uniforms and weapons, they just couldn’t manage to be totally military.
    Not all of them, however, were like that. In a hotel not far from the one where Gerda worked, an entire battalion of the new special branch of the police created by Mario Scelba were quartered: the
Celere
. Their compliments were frightening.
    They looked at the population with the expression of those who’ve come to bring back order to things which had very clearly run amok with the end of Fascism. Those who were certain that every Tyrolean was a terrorist by virtue of the mere fact of speaking German, those who—had they known about the Option (but they didn’t, no Italian knew about it)—would have considered it an excellent idea: Alto Adige is Italian, and anyone who doesn’t like Italy can leave.
    Still, most of them were young men far more interested in good food and lovemaking than in shooting. One day, at a road block, Gerda saw a cameraman documenting the commitment of the Armed Forces to the defense of the nation. Seeing he was being filmed, a soldier stopped controlling the documents, lifted his arm, the same arm which was holding the semi-automatic machine gun, and waved “ciao” with his hand. Gerda found that gesture very revealing.
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    Even though tourists did not show up that season, the large hotels were not left idle. That entire summer, in the kitchens, hundreds of pounds of spaghetti, macaroni and polenta were cooked and stirred every day. The streets filled with the warm smell of fried onions, the slightly sour scent of tomatoes, and even the pungent aroma of raw garlic, which even the bravest of skilled local housewives had never used until then. Gerda’s apprenticeship in international hotel cuisine (
tournedos, coq au vin, pâtes feuilletées
) was postponed. Instead, she learned a lot about the preferences and flavors of the South: a large chunk of the latest generation of young Italian males had arrived in South Tyrol, and they had a healthy appetite.
    However, none of these soldiers, who called the braid twisted around the local girls’ heads a “spare wheel,” none of the officers lodged in the requisitioned hotels with balconies covered with cascading geraniums, none of them knew that, a few weeks earlier, the commander of the 4th Army Corps, General Aldo Beolchini, had communicated to the heads of the army that there was the risk of an unprecedented wave of violence. He had reported to his superiors that trusted informers had warned him that infrastructures, electricity pylons in particular, would be targeted.
    The heads of the military did not follow up on the general’s warning. He was, in fact, immediately transferred far from Alto Adige. Shortly afterwards, the explosions of the
Feuernacht
took place.
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    The comprehensiveness of the attack created panic in Rome. According to the news, the attackers were determined to strike at the unity of the government. No deployment of means against them was considered excessive. They were said to be cold as killers, sneaky as spies, immoral as hardened criminals. And extremely dangerous.
    It was therefore a disappointment when, just over a month later, almost all of them were caught and discovered to be, in fact, ordinary people: small traders, mechanics, blacksmiths, peasants. Except for Sundays and when asleep, the conspirators always wore the blue work apron, the
Bauernschurtz
, symbol of the Tyrolean work ethic. Their hands were callused from wood, soil and engine oil. They had courted their wives at
Kirschta’
dances, married young, and had many children. Many among them, or their fathers, had been persecuted as
Dableiber
during the Option: they hadn’t wanted to leave their land but neither had