The Good Left Undone(85)

“I’ll be back in a day or two. That’s too much bread and cheese.”

“There’ll be others who packed nonsense and forgot their cheese. You will see. You’ll need extra. You’ll thank me.”

Antica stood across the bed he had shared with his wife for forty-seven years. “Yes, Angela. I will share the cheese. And the sausage.”

“And the grappa.”

“And even the grappa.”

“There are three pair of socks. Three underpants—”

“Please. I understand, after all these years, how to dress in the morning.”

“I want you to know what I’ve packed.” She snapped the suitcase shut.

His wife left the bedroom. Antica held up the telescope he had made. He had fashioned the optical tube out of birch wood, which was soft enough to bend into a cylinder. The eyepiece and lens were made at the jeweler’s. Mattiuzzi cut the glass and beveled the sides with a file. It had taken several tries to get it just right. Antica attached the lens, along with the focusing knob and the cradle. He mounted the telescope on the tripod he had built. Any night without rain would find him on the roof of his home in Glasgow, looking at the stars overhead.

He cocked his ear and listened for his wife. He removed the extra shirt and a pair of underpants to make room for the telescope. He placed the telescope next to the cheese and his socks and closed the suitcase.

“Arcangelo,” she called out. “They’re here.” Angela’s voice broke. She waited at the bottom of the stairs for her husband. When he reached her, Angela put her arms around him and kissed him repeatedly.

“That’s enough.” He took his wife’s face into his hands. “I’m coming back.”


BURY

Savattini sat next to the window on the crowded train as it sailed through the English countryside. The morning had begun as a lark, but the situation had turned. Savattini had waited in a long line with his fellow Britalians before enough train cars showed up to transport them. He listened to the conversation of the British soldiers to glean information but was disturbed when he realized they knew less about this roundup than he did.

The train passed the horse track, familiar to Savattini, that had been converted into the base of prisoner operations. The train blew by the circus grounds; the elephants and tigers were long gone, and now, underneath the tent of orange stripes, German prisoners of war were housed until they could be shipped out to internment camps. The train buzzed with banter as the British Italians were quietly outraged at being compared to Nazis.

Don’t they understand? Savattini thought to himself. There are only two sides in a war. And just my luck, Italy is on the wrong side. Savattini generally stayed away from the topic of politics, but like any other reasonable working man in Great Britain, he observed the fixed class system and had his opinions. You either served or were being served, not much in between.

Clothing factories had been converted to make military uniforms instead of skirts and blouses. Private homes had become recruitment centers, and public buildings were outfitted to create military hospitals. Where there had once been the production of wool and crystal and porcelain, now stood empty factories stripped of all equipment, waiting to be filled with enemy aliens. It wasn’t only the government that wanted the Italian men and boys shipped out of the country; public opinion supported it. Where there had been children at their school desks, there were now prisoners locked in classrooms until arrangements could be made. Germans. Austrians. Italians. Nazis. Fascisti. Intellectuals. Suspects all, classified as enemy aliens.

Word spread quickly among the Italian Scots in their shops and restaurants about the pending arrests and subsequent deportation, tipped off mostly by their Scottish neighbors and friends. Most were so eager to show the English government how agreeable they could be, they packed ahead of time and waited on the curb to be taken away. There were a few who hid from the police but they would soon be found and join the rest.

The spiderweb of train tracks from points north and south converged outside Manchester. The tracks that ran along the river Irwell had not seen such a steady flow of locomotives pulling cars into the platforms outside Manchester since the mill had been in operation. When the men and boys arrived by train in Bury, they disembarked and found hundreds more men on the platform waiting to be processed.

The Italian prisoners of war had been rounded up from one end of England to the other. Herded into groups, the Britalians did not resist. They listened carefully and followed instructions issued by the guards, whose guns were held at the ready should there be trouble.

The abandoned fields by Warth Mills were an ideal location for a prison camp, according to the men who designed such things. The prisoners would be processed outdoors in cordoned-off stalls, herded single file like cattle for the slaughter. Once their names and personal information were recorded, they were admitted indoors to the mill. Two thousand men would fit in the makeshift barracks, though the number swelled to three thousand that day, and all still managed to squeeze into the abandoned cotton mill. Barbed wire fences surrounded the lot and building. Armed guards stood at the entrance.

As the prisoners filed inside, they found no chairs, benches, or beds, just a massive, filthy factory two acres deep. In the far distance, across the floor, was a group of prisoners who had arrived first and finished the task of sweeping the floor clean for the incoming. Word soon spread that they were professors and teachers from Oxford, men of the Jewish faith with roots in Germany and Austria who might be spies. The Britalians did not believe that these teachers were any more a threat to the English government than they were. But it didn’t matter. They were the side without weapons.