Free Persona Non Grata by Timothy Williams Page A

the partisans were traitors.”
    Fra Gianni asked, “Then in your mind, Baronessa, I, too, am a traitor?”
    In offended silence the priest waited for an answer. The wrinkled, kind face looked aggrieved.
    “Drink your tea, Gianni—and tell your friend about the partisans. And how they courageously slaughtered young boys.”
    The tea was bitter and seemed to rasp against the side of Trotti’s tongue. He took more sugar from the silver bowl;granules dropped from the spoon onto the highly polished wood.
    The room was almost bare. The walls had been painted a long time ago; there was a painting of Saint Theresa in a dusty gilt frame. A single vase of cut flowers in the middle of the table.
    Fra Gianni raised his shoulders in reluctant concession. “The partisans were not all saints.” The old priest looked at the woman—they must have been of the same age. But while Baronessa von Neumann looked frail, there was a liveliness about the priest, a warm, human robustness.
    “But Primula Rosa was no murderer.”
    “Then he was a fool.”
    “A fool?”
    “To live among murderers and criminals.” The Baronessa snorted. “And traitors.”
    Trotti asked, “What happened?”
    “Happened?”
    “To the young boys the Baronessa mentioned.”
    Gianni hesitated. “I had to give them the last rites. And then they were blindfolded and shot.”
    The afternoon air was losing its warmth. Trotti put down his cup on the table and stood up; he went to the window that looked out on to the garden and beyond it, at the peaceful panorama of the village.
    “I didn’t want them to be shot—and neither did Primula Rosa.”
    “But they were shot, weren’t they?” A triumphant smile on the old woman’s thin lips. “They refused to come over to us. And if we had let them go, they would’ve gone straight back to the Fascists and told them where we were hiding.”
    Trotti continued looking out of the window. “Tell me about Saltieri.”
    Fra Gianni poured another cup of tea before answering. “A good man—but not wise.”
    The presbytery was beside the church. The roofs of Santa Maria were spread out beneath the window. The leaves of the chestnut trees were showing their first tint of brown. A busmoved silently along the road from Tarzi. Trotti heard the shrieks of children playing somewhere.
    He turned his back on the window and took a packet of sweets from his pocket.
    “What Gianni means is that his friends the partisans hated Saltieri because Saltieri was a Carabiniere who tried to do his duty.”
    “He wasn’t a bad man—but most people hated him.” Fra Gianni nodded. “There was a black market. From the first day of the war in 1940. Everybody knew that—and I don’t think many people really disapproved. Not even you, Baronessa—for in those days, you were no richer than the rest of the villagers.”
    “Black market?”
    “With Genoa and Milan easily accessible, there was money to be made. And the people up here deserved a bit of wealth. It may not be the Mezzogiorno here—but the hills have always been poor. When I first came to Santa Maria in November 1943, I was shocked. Poor and very closely-knit. Just like the south—like Calabria. With the same ancient rivalries between families. And the same tradition of poverty. In a way, the war was a blessing. The war created the market for the people here and it was no secret that some villagers got rich by selling meat on the black market in Genoa. There was a big demand for fresh meat in the towns—and Santa Maria could supply meat. Good, fresh meat. That was Saltieri’s mistake.”
    The woman said, “He did his duty.”
    A mischievous smile. “Something of a Prussian about the Baronessa von Neumann.”
    “Saltieri did his duty.”
    “He should have minded his own business.”
    Trotti asked, “What did he do, Saltieri?”
    “You know what southerners can be like, Piero—one of those southern policemen who are as innocent as some of their colleagues are corrupt.