Free Between Enemies by Andrea Molesini

Villa in less than twenty minutes. ‘We’ll go round behind the church,’ said Renato. He had no wish to wake the sentries dozing against the gateposts in the flickering glare of torches.
    Giulia went off down an alleyway, without so much as a wave. I followed her with my eyes.
    ‘Women scarcely ever match up to one’s hopes,’ murmured the steward.
    Now he’s starting to talk like Grandpa, I thought.
    We crouched down behind the chapel and then, on all fours, skirted the family graveyard wrinkling our noses – for the drainage of the latrine was far from perfect – and finally got behind the camp kitchen, where two men were already at work. We crept past a sergeant sitting on the ground, his legs apart and his back against a wall, a pipe in his mouth; he was snoring. When Renato drew back the bolt I thought the rasping sound would have woken the whole camp. A clip on the shoulder. ‘See you tomorrow, Paolo.’ His familiarity surprised me. I felt flattered.
    I went up the stairs two at a time, without a lamp. It was already first light in the attic.
    Grandpa was sleeping, smelling of beans and sauerkraut. I undressed and slipped under the bedclothes. In no time at all I was asleep.

 
    Eight
    D ON L ORENZO HAD RETURNED . T O THE GIRLS’ PARENTS HE had merely said that they shouldn’t worry, the girls were in safe hands. He had skipped the ritual needed to reconsecrate the church – the bishop had given his dispensation in view of the war conditions – and he had reopened the school. He was fond of children, and he liked teaching.
    He had prepared for the event by visiting from door to door. He, the parish priest, was after all the sole Italian authority left in Refrontolo, and the lessons – he thought chiefly of the catechism – had to start again, as life had to start again. Bertaggia the schoolteacher had taken to his heels even before the advance guard of the army, followed in turn by the pharmacist, the village doctor, and anyone else who had two pennies to rub together. The only remaining people of any education were my grandparents, my aunt, Giulia and – technically enrolled in the class – the Third Paramour, even though Grandpa used to say, ‘If that fellow can read and write, then call me Marcus Aurelius.’ Our cook and her daughter had also had a smattering of education. Loretta, however, showed no sign of it. Teresa, on the contrary, was mad on Mastriani and De Amicis, and I once took her by surprise with a copy of D’Annunzio’s
Il piacere
in her hands. It was the only time I had seen her blush.
    The children turned up in dribs and drabs, half an hourbefore the evening rosary. Two novice nuns from Sernaglia acted as sheepdogs, rushing round the church forecourt and driving the tousled sheep towards the pen. The church doors were flung wide, with the priest towering in the middle. The notoriety of his bad breath threw panic into the little creatures being pushed and shoved up the steps towards the alms box, which Grandpa dubbed ‘God’s nest egg’.
    His breath was not the only acid thing to issue from the priest’s mouth. He once said to an Alpino guilty of having pinched his housekeeper’s bottom, ‘May your bayonet be thrust up your backside and turn into a hedgehog!’ And when confessing a certain woman of his flock, as sure as death he would load her with a barrelful of Ave Marias, not suspecting that fleeing from what came from his mouth was a prize, not a penance.
    With slaps and with scoldings the brisk sisters from Sernaglia, as anxious as anyone to make a getaway, wove the net that captured the last of the shivering lambs.
    Until at last all were gathered in the dim light of the church. The front rows, those of the young recalcitrants, filled up in no time. I watched the scene from the rearmost pew, along with Giulia. The priest was afraid that the novices might not be able to ensure the conduct that befitted the holy place. They didn’t know our village children, and