Between Enemies Read Free Page A

become mine, a pain of my own. There was no believing inwhat the generals Cadorna, Capello or the Official Gazettes said, but in pain, yes there was. It was like a massive boulder on my breast. The voices of the barbarians rang in my ears, those abrupt orders, the squeal of brakes, the thud of packs dumped down on stone. Images of stamping men and mules, and doors smashed in. My lips were parched, my tongue a piece of bark. I was a fly in an upside-down tumbler, twisting and turning on the mattress, dashing myself against the glass.

 
    Two
    R ENATO LIT HIS PIPE WITH A PIECE OF BURNING STRAW and his face vanished into the smoke, from which there first emerged his long, sharp nose, then his pale eyes. He had arrived to act as steward at the Villa in mid-October, with references from a Tuscan marquis, an old friend of Grandma’s. Although maintaining a proper distance, the very heart of authority, my aunt didn’t manage to conceal her liking for this lame giant with his one metre ninety and over a hundred kilos.
    ‘What are they doing with those big tubs?’
    ‘Looking for copper. They think we’re simpletons like the farmhands, who bury the stuff near their houses. Your grandfather told them about some valuables and now they’re hunting for the bits and bobs. They’re methodical, but not very astute.’ His voice was of a sombre baritone, yet each syllable came out clear and clean. He was very observant, and uncommonly intelligent, so it was not easy to think of him as a servant. And then his vocabulary was too precise and extensive. Grandpa and Aunt Maria said he was a true Tuscan, but there was something else about him I couldn’t put my finger on, and that perplexed me: he was too clear-minded, too sure of himself.
    ‘Did they threaten you?’
    ‘I gave them a couple of things of small importance, the mandolin and the big copper cauldron from the cowshed, which I’dhidden under the straw to make them think they were more valuable than they are. They stuck a barrel right between my eyes. I put on a show of reluctance at first, but didn’t overdo it. You don’t get yourself killed to save your employer’s possessions.’
    ‘They don’t look so ferocious today.’
    Renato disappeared behind the smoke again. I liked the shape of his pipe, with a four-inch-long almost vertical mouthpiece and a blackened brier bowl. ‘The ones who left here this morning had a nasty look to them,’ he said. ‘And tomorrow we’ll know whether, as rivers go, the Piave turns out a better barrier than the Tagliamento was.’
    ‘Grandpa says the war is already lost.’
    He looked me straight in the eye. I looked at the ground. ‘Italy is feminine,’ he said, raising his voice a little, ‘whereas Germany is masculine. Where women are concerned,’ he added, almost in a whisper, ‘you can never tell. We have lost one army, but if the rest of our forces rally…The front is far shorter now, and we could prove a tough nut to crack.’
    I turned towards the gate, where there was a sudden hubbub. I made out the silhouette of Giulia, who was hugging some dangling object to herself, something the two sentries were trying to wrest from her hands. ‘I’ll go and see…’
    ‘You will do nothing of the sort. Donna Giulia is quite able to fend for herself.’
    His tone conveyed an order, not a piece of advice.
    ‘Better to leave the women to it. And that one doesn’t speak much, but when she does, it’s fireworks.’ He chewed on his pipe-stem. ‘Poor sentries,’ he added, fanning the smoke away with his big, horny right hand. His eyes were smiling. I realized that he guessed what I felt for Giulia, and I blushed again. ‘You see? She’s already got out of it.’
    I went to meet Giulia. She had the sun behind her and it took me a while to make out what it was she was holding. A gasmask, one of those with a snout. ‘Hello,’ I said, suppressing my excitement.
    Giulia held up the gasmask to hide a rather crafty grin. The snout