Free Wolf on the Mountain by Anthony Paul Page A

he said. “Do you think I haven’t noticed how your children are always indoors these last few weeks? The way everyone in your family always looks round twice when they reach your door? You’re hiding something. And the authorities reckon there were two English officers hiding in that camp of deserters they raided last month. So one of them got away. One and one makes two. I reckon the other one’s in your house.” “Of course he’s not” I said. “Can I look around?” he said, as if I couldn’t possibly have any objection. “You of all people?” I said. “I could mention my concerns to the mayor,” he said, “but I won’t. I fought alongside the English in the Great War. I liked them.” Porca miseria, the hypocrisy of the man. So then he says “I could help him. We’ve got a good hiding place he could use. And you must be short of food to feed him. I’ve got good connections. It would be less of a problem for me.” The effrontery of the man, and patronising me like that. I could have killed him. But what do we do?’
    ‘He could be just guessing. Are you sure he knows?’
    ‘If he didn’t know for certain, the sound of those women wailing in the kitchen would have confirmed it. But does it matter if he knows or not? He’s only got to go to the mayor, or a German corporal supervising his slaves in the street outside. They’d be here in five minutes, less, and with the streets full of people clearing the snow you’ve no chance of getting away.’
    The captain had already thought of that. Throughout the signore’s account he had been trying to think of an escape route, but the snowdrifts and the working parties blocked every path. ‘At least he spoke to you first’ he said. ‘He could have given us away behind our backs. Perhaps he is prepared to help.’
    ‘He’s invited you to eat with them tonight. But why should he help you? He’s got too much to lose if he’s found out. He’ll be regarded by his fascist friends as a traitor. No knocking on his door by the authorities. He’ll just be taken out and beaten to death by the militia. It’s far too dangerous for him to help you.’
    ‘Exactly. Once I’ve eaten his food he’s compromised. He goes down with you, and he knows it.’
    ‘We can play for time.’
    ‘There’s no point. Tell him I’ll go. If I don’t he’s bound to inform on you. Anyway there’s a simple reason why he’s offering to help. He knows the Allies will be here in the spring. He wants to be able to show he was on the winning side.’
    ‘Don’t give him a chit.’
    –
    The captain slips from house to house along the wall, looking for any movement that will show that he is being seen. It is snowing again, the flakes scurrying crazily below the streetlight like a flock of moths. He knocks on the neighbour’s door. Will the police, the Germans, be waiting for him?
    The door opens. A man extends his hand to greet and pull him into the darkened hall, a cold stone room vaulted like a church crypt. The door is quickly closed on the freezing night and prying eyes.
    The man is stocky, with a bristling thin moustache, his head covered with a felt trilby. ‘My dear Capitano Inglese, I am Natale Giobellini and I am honoured to meet you.’ His left hand covers their handshake. ‘Come up, come up, my wife is so looking forward to meeting you.’ Limping from a stiff knee and hip, he leads him up the stone steps from the hall which also serves as the family storeroom. The stores, the sacks and barrels and pots and bundles of firewood, charcoal even, are more plentiful than in the house next door.
    He takes him into the kitchen. ‘My wife Caterina.’ The woman, a squat matron with a black head-scarf, turns and wipes her hands on her broad white apron as if to offer them but thinks better of it. She puckers a contrived smile and returns to her pots on the range. He feels not entirely welcome in the house. Perhaps she was against the invitation: why take the risk, aren’t