A Dark Song of Blood Read Free Page A

and back to Rome, and another that rejoined the return route inland at Aprilia, skirting the Alban Hills to the south. Their departure, however, was delayed by reports of new fighting around Cervara.
    The sun was almost up when they left the southeastern city limits, and rolling along the horizon by the time they crossed the crowded suburb of Quadraro. Past them went the one-storied little stucco houses, ochre- and mustard-colored, beside postage-stamp courtyards enclosed by fences and paved with cement tiles. Frost-covered cacti sat in pots at the gates of more pretentious tenements, three and four stories in height, belted by unimaginative masonry balconies. Bora was reading from his notes to the general. “The birth rate in this place is huge – over twenty-three hundred a year.”
    Disparagingly, Westphal glanced away from the window. “Mark my words, one of these days we’ll come here and fish out all the men and haul them off. All communists and socialists, ungrateful riff-raff brought here from the slums of the countryside. Now, this is the place where you’ll count yourself lucky if you don’t get yourself blown to bits!”
    Bora had noticed the car lacked the customary sandbags on the floor; a mine would explode the chassis and kill themwithout hope of escape. But then his car was sandbagged on the day a grenade had been thrown at it, and it had made no difference, really. He simply took note of street names, to be able if need be to find his way around the quarter on foot. Despite his staff position, he wore the ordinance pistol at his belt. His assignments had made him realistic about war exigencies, he had told Westphal, and Westphal had answered that he didn’t mind.
    Five miles out of Rome, when they passed Mussolini’s movie citadel, the general drew back more amiably on the seat. “I don’t need to be briefed about this – most of your colleagues’ lovers are from Cinecittà.” Bora looked up from the topographic spread on his knees. “Maelzer doesn’t like it, but there’s little he can do about it. There used to be a tramway every twenty minutes each way – now it’s all up in the air.”
    Not far from the road Pius IX’s old railway could be now seen penciling a straight parallel line among farmhouses and fields. Past Osteria del Curato, the highway to Frascati and that to Anagni diverged. The staff car bore left at the crossroads and had nearly reached the landmark called Halfway Tower (Westphal was giving Bora his plans for the day) when two British fighters burst into view from the south-east, fast and low and coming their way.
    At Westphal’s order the panic-stricken driver, who had swerved off the road, regained it and continued to travel. The first flyover was deafening, followed by the whine of engines as they pulled up to bank round and return.
    â€œThey’ll strafe,” Bora warned.
    Westphal was stone-faced, but would not order to stop. Over them the fighters swept one after the other, cannons ablaze. A loud dry whipping of shells cracked the air – asphalt flew up around the car and pieces of it hit windshield and side windows, stray metal gouged the doors; the noise was for a moment beyond the edge of hearing, and painful. Against a bare sky the fighters had turned ahead, and were scuttling back withthe slick ease of deadly fish. Bora knew a third passage could not possibly miss them. In front of him, in naive self-defense, the driver braked and covered his head. Westphal braced for the explosion; Bora had been holding a pen in his hand, and now absurdly capped it and put it away in his pocket. High grating of engines drowned their thoughts.
    Then, before the Germans’ eyes, the airplanes widely parted and nosed up, their dull bellies giving way to the sheen of cockpits as they veered to rejoin each other to the east. Fire boomed in quick succession from an anti-aircraft post somewhere,