A Harvest of Secrets(36)

The old man nodded, and, for a little while after that conversation, she’d felt like a warrior, a partigiana. For that short time, swept up in the emotions of what had been, after the day of her mother’s death, the second most painful day of her life, and caught up in fury at the Germans for the misery they’d caused Enrico, and Paolo, and her, she’d felt as though she were cleansing the fine gold dust from her skin. Her mother had admired the workers. Enrico practically lived with them. She could almost picture her spirit leaving the manor house and migrating toward the barn to be with them, to be fighting for good instead of placating evil. To be risking some of the richness she lived with every day. To be joining with Carlo now—who must be afraid every hour of the day and night.

But the gray rainy light of morning cut through that fantasy and presented her with a cold reality: she was going to take the German deserters to San Vigliano and somehow sneak them into the convent there. And, no doubt, at some point soon, she was going to have to face Tobias again. The devil who’d murdered one of their horses and urinated on their vegetables, who looked at her as if she were a whore, and touched her as if she were his property.

She could feel the fear in her stomach, a cold serpent slithering, and all she wanted to do was slip back into her prewar luxury, sleep in fine sheets, be served a sumptuous meal while sitting on the patio, sip from a glass of her family’s luscious wine.

She forced herself out of bed, dressed in her plainest clothes, braced herself for a conversation with her father. I want to make a one-day retreat with the nuns, Father, she’d tell him. I want to pray for Massimo’s soul, and for Mother’s. I can take them their wine in the process. It’s been ages since I’ve driven the wagon. I miss it. And they haven’t had a wine delivery from us in a long while.

But her father wasn’t at breakfast. Eleonora said she hadn’t seen him at all that morning. Stomach clenching and releasing, Vittoria had a few sips of coffee, a bite of bread, and went to find him. The bedroom was empty, the door to his study closed. She tapped on it once, twice, then heard a weak, “Sì?”

She opened the door to see her father sitting in an upholstered armchair holding a pistol in his lap.

“Father! What?!”

He looked up at her as if through a fog of dementia.

“What in the name of God are you doing?” She hurried over and pried the pistol from his fingers. His breath smelled of grappa. “What are you doing?!”

“Massimo,” he said. Then: “The Nazis. The horse.”

“Yes, and you were going to take your own life! It’s a terrible sin!”

Her father shrugged his rounded shoulders. A helpless boy.

“What about me? What about Enrico? Do you know what that would do to us?”

Another shrug.

A hard truth reached her then, something she’d sensed for years, but only in flashes: her father lived alone inside a mirrored room. Her mother, herself, Enrico, the workers and servants—everyone else came and went like ghosts slipping quietly along the walls. Only his life was real. Massimo had been another mirror, a reflection. It wasn’t Massimo’s death that truly mattered, or her mother’s. It wasn’t the risks his children faced, or the feelings they wrestled with. What mattered was keeping the mirrors perfectly in place, the world labeled and in order, his reputation and comfort intact.

“Pieces of me are being taken away one by one,” her father muttered, as if to confirm the theory. “Next it will be the wine. And then I shall be nothing.”

“Nonsense. You have me, Enrico, your good name. The war will end one day. The radio says the Americani are in Naples already.”

“The Americani,” he said dully. “The Americani will despise me when they come.”

“Nonsense, Father. I’m keeping this gun, and don’t you even think of getting another one and doing what you were about to do! Go downstairs and eat. I’m taking wine to the nuns and spending the night there. I’ll pray for Massimo’s soul.”

“It’s raining,” her father said, as if he’d just noticed, turning his eyes out the window and then back. “Let Old Paolo.”

“Paolo can’t go inside the walls, and Marcellina’s boy is sick from what he saw last night, so she can’t go, either. The nuns need wine for their Masses. It’s been months since we’ve given them any. I’ll pray for you, too, but never, ever, do this again!”

Her father turned his head to the side as if he’d been slapped. Vittoria realized after a moment that he was staring at the framed photo of her mother that he kept on his work desk. Another mirror. She thought, at first, that it might be love she was seeing on her father’s face and in his eyes. But the look there was closer to anger, or resentment, or a bitter envy.

“I’m going, Father. I’ll have Eleonora make you fresh coffee. Go downstairs now.”

“Yes,” he said distractedly. “Sì. Va bene.”

She watched him for another few seconds, then left the room. The pistol was smaller than the pistols the Nazis carried on their hips, some kind of expensive antique weapon, perhaps from her grandfather’s collection, but powerful looking all the same. A curved wooden handle, a short barrel. After several tries, she managed to tuck it awkwardly up into the tight-wristed sleeve of her dress. She took an umbrella from the foyer, keeping her eyes away from the room where the Nazi had questioned her, and crossed in the rain to the barn. Just inside the wide entrance she found Ottavio already hitched to the wagon, Paolo waiting for her there with a worker’s waterproof jacket and a straw hat. He seemed disappointed when he saw her, as if he’d been hoping she wouldn’t come. “The rain is good,” he said, his face still swollen but the words a bit clearer than they’d been the night before. “A blessing. Easier to hide them, and not so many people on the road.”