A Harvest of Secrets(41)

Carlo thanked her and went on, with mangy, hungry dogs slinking around his legs as he chewed the stale loaf, and a trio of American soldiers—policemen, they seemed to be—walking past, eyeing everyone around them. He had to ask four people on Piazza Bellini before speaking to a couple who said they knew the Recupero family, the one with a soldier son named Pierluigi. Although they’d been heading in the opposite direction, they turned around and walked two blocks with him until they came to an archway that led into a courtyard. The woman pointed, said, “Third floor,” and, before leaving him there, added that she hoped God would send a blessing to him and his family, that Saint Lucy would soon grant him sight in the eye that was covered, that she would perform a miracle for a young man like him. “You were handsome once, I can see it,” she said, and then realized what the remark sounded like and winced and turned away.

Two undernourished palm trees stood in the courtyard, leaning toward each other as if in whispered conversation. The heavy purple-black stones of the pavement—the size and shape of half a coffin—had been polished smooth by hundreds of years of foot traffic and seemed to have been recently swept. Carlo climbed to the third floor, knocked, was directed to another door, knocked again. It was opened by a man who looked so much like his late friend Pierluigi that, for a few seconds, Carlo couldn’t speak. A woman appeared behind the man, leaning against the back of his shoulder, and she started to weep even before the one-eyed stranger at her door had spoken a single word.

They invited him in. The apartment, like the courtyard, was undamaged, with framed drawings of saints and the Blessed Virgin on the walls, and a vase with three yellow flowers sitting in the middle of a square kitchen table. The couple bade him sit, the husband poured three small glasses of Amaro—from a bottle they’d probably been saving for the return of their son. “Tell us,” he said grimly.

Carlo went on at length: how he and Pierluigi had met in training and become fast friends, how they’d sat next to each other all the way south in the troop truck and on the train, how they’d been ferried across the straits and then ridden a train from Messina to Siracusa, and then another troop truck, west, to the hills above Licata. The heat, the days of digging, the Germans lined up behind them, giving orders. And then the appearance of the Allied flotilla near the end of that hot July day, the setting sun, the first explosions.

He left out the terror they’d both felt, and bent the truth slightly, saying that, when the order was given, Pierluigi had been the first one over the top of the foxhole. That he’d been extraordinarily brave, always. That he was a good friend and spoke often about his love for his parents. And, finally, that there was a family in southern Sicily, just west of Licata, the Buonmarino family, Bruno and Miracola, who’d given Pierluigi a Christian burial, and that, if Pierluigi’s parents went to visit them after the war was finished, the family would show them the location of the grave. By this point, Pierluigi’s mother had collapsed against her husband’s side, and he had an arm around her back, both of them crying openly.

“Can we feed you?” the husband offered at last, and though the hunger seemed to be roaring in Carlo’s belly, he shook his head, no.

Behind Pierluigi’s father, he saw a telephone on a small side table. “Are the telephones working now? Here?”

“Qualche volta,” the woman said, between sobs. Sometimes.

“Could I try to call my home? I have money. I can pay.”

The couple nodded in tandem, refused payment, and Carlo found himself standing at the table, staring down at the heavy black phone, and remembering the way Gennaro Asolutto used to make him memorize the manor house number. “Six-four-six, three-one. Say it, Carlino.”

“Six-four-six, three-one.”

“Say it again.”

“Six-four-six, three-one.”

“And the region code?”

“Two-two.”

“Good, if ever something happens to me on these deliveries, you are to go to the nearest church and ask them to call that number and tell the Signore where we are, and what has happened. Do you understand?”

“Sì, Gennaro.”

“In the cities we go to, anything might happen. In life, anything might. If you are going to travel this far with me, this is the number you need to never forget. Two-two, then six-four-six, three-one.”

“Sì, sì, capito.”

He dialed it now, pressing the receiver against the ear on the undamaged side of his face, and looking out the window at an alleyway. On the fourth ring, someone answered. He couldn’t make out the voice at first, and then realized who it must be.

“Eleonora, Eleonora! This is Carlo. I was wounded, I—”

“Pronto,” he heard. “Pronto?” Hello?

“Eleonora, it’s Carlo. I’m alive. In Napoli. Can you hear me?”

“Pronto?”

It sounded like a swarm of bees was filling the air between them. He heard Eleonora say the word once more, but it was very faint now, broken into separate syllables. Pron-to. Another few seconds and the line went dead.

He set the phone gently back into its black cradle and stood there, wondering at his foolishness. What had he been intending to do, ask Eleonora to call Vittoria to the phone? Did he really think Umberto would want one of his serfs calling the manor house to report on his status? To greet and send love to his daughter?