A Harvest of Secrets(22)

“Yes, I also trust him,” Paolo said, but without as much conviction as he’d intended.

Another pause. “You should go,” she said. “He’ll be coming. And Paolo, something else.”

He waited.

“I heard the Signore on the phone the other day. He speaks German, as well. I don’t know if Father Costantino knows that.”

“You’re sure? All these years no one ever heard him say one word in that tongue!”

She nodded. “He was talking quietly, saying, ‘They deserved it.’ Sie haben es verdient. Later, Cinzia told me that when she went to the village to shop, she learned that the Nazis had made people in Castagniello stand in a line in front of the church and then shot all of them. Children, even. Twenty people.”

“Why?”

“Because someone had disrespected one of their soldiers.”

“You’re sure he said that? That they deserved it? And you think that was what he was talking about?”

“I think so.” She nodded, and he saw the glint of tears on her cheeks. Paolo put a hand on her forearm, so thin he could have wrapped his fingers all the way around it. He wanted to say something to comfort her, but the only words that came out were, “The Americani will chase them away, you’ll see.”

She nodded, swiped at her face, and floated back toward the manor house in the darkness.

Twenty Italians, Paolo was thinking as he walked. Twenty lives taken, and for what? One insulted soldier?! What kind of people were these Nazis? What kind of devils? And the news about the Signore! And Eleonora, part-Jewish all this time! Going along in the starlit darkness, he realized that there were the surfaces—the ordinary workings of the vineyard—which he understood very well, and then, beneath those surfaces, there must be another world, one of secrets and mysteries. Spies, hidden abilities and sympathies, layers of trust and suspicion, deceit, complicated plans, painful histories. A man like him, a simple man, should never have involved himself in that world. He should have contented himself with work, with the vines and horses and fields, straightforward things that were understandable, dependable. But it was too late now. Eleonora had asked him to speak with the priest, and he’d done so, and that conversation had led him into a sticky web of treachery. He’d never escape.

The path that led to the cistern was faintly lit, but Paolo had gone along it so many times he could have managed with closed eyes. Forty-three steps. Chestnuts in their spiky green shells littering the path. Starlight on the cistern’s rounded, stained concrete. He stood beside it for half an hour, waiting, worrying, imagining every terrible possibility, until at last he heard footsteps. A familiar figure emerged from the shadows, dressed in a priest’s black trousers and shirt, but without the white collar. And then Paolo realized that there was someone else there, too. A man, it seemed, very tall. The tall figure hung back in the shadows, and Paolo couldn’t see his face. No greeting was exchanged. Paolo handed over the note, said, “For Antonio.” Father Costantino took it, made a humming sound, and handed him in return a small, surprisingly heavy, paper-wrapped package. He leaned forward, held his mouth close to Paolo’s ear, and said, so quietly that the older man had to squeeze his eyes tight and focus intently in order to hear, “This is for the assignment you were told about. You take this and you attach it by the laces to the exhaust pipe of the car. The laces have been coated, so the heat will set it off before the laces burn through. That takes time. It won’t happen right away. He’ll be far from here when it happens, so no one will be able to trace it to you.”

“Like nothing I’ve ever done.”

“I know, I know,” the priest whispered. “But no one else could do it as well. Your hands are a gift from the Lord.”

Paolo nodded skeptically, waited, smelled tobacco on the priest’s breath. How did one find cigarettes during the war? “And if I’m caught?”

“If you’re caught, Eleonora will send word. Try to hold out as long as you can without giving my name. And don’t mention the one with the beak for a nose.”

“The one who told me to do this.”

“Yes, never mention him.”

“I don’t know his name.”

“You don’t?”

“No, Father.”

“Then I can’t tell you.”

Paolo grunted, waited, felt his heart slamming in its cage of ribs. “Father,” he said, “there are deserters in the barn. Three German soldiers. Young, hungry. I decided to let them stay, but we can’t keep them.”

When Paolo stopped speaking, there was a terrible silence. His guilt, his willingness to risk the lives of all the others, echoed in the black night like the voice of God, condemning him. Say something, please, Father. Help me now, he wanted to say, but the words he’d spoken had shone a bright light on what he’d done. Why hadn’t he simply fed the soldiers and sent them on their way? What difference would it have made? They’d have to leave eventually. The tall figure behind the priest shifted his weight in the darkness, as if he’d heard, and Paolo flinched. “Father?” he squeaked.

“Va bene,” the priest whispered at last. “All right. Listen to me. It was foolish to keep them, but listen. Dress the men in Italian clothes.”

“I already have.”

“Burn their uniforms.”