To Find a Mountain Read Free Page B

fighting and death. You should be careful how you act around them.”
    “What are they like, the officers who are staying at your house?”
    “Two officers, a couple soldiers. The officers seem pleasant enough. One is a big, older man, very nice. The other is thin and wiry. He looks kind of mean. I wouldn’t want to be his enemy.”
    “Do you think they will treat you—”
    “As long as we do what they want, they will tolerate us,” I said. “Nothing less, nothing more.”
    “Be thankful, Benedetta,” she said. “They already took over the Ingrelli house and are turning it into a hospital. The family had to move in with the Carbonis. At least you are still in your own house.”
    “I don’t feel it is our house any longer.”
    I sat down on the bed next to her and helped her put the finishing touch on her braid.
    “My father has left,” she said. “He told us it was time for him to find a mountain.”
    “I heard that many of the men are doing that.”
    “It’s that or die holding a German gun.”
    “The Germans think we are dogs,” I said.
    “Then my father is a dog who bites the hand that feeds him,” she said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean he hates the Germans,” Lauretta said. “His brother was killed by some of Mussolini’s fascisti. Ever since then, he has hated Mussolini and his black shirts, and when Il Duce joined up with Hitler—well, now my father hates Germans.”
    “Don’t say that so loud,” I said. “They told my father that for every German soldier who dies, ten of us will be executed.”
    Lauretta looked at me as if I were ten years younger than her, not two.
    “Well, Benedetta, I don’t think Papa is foolish enough to kill any of these Germans.”
    “I’m not sure that matters.”
    “Just make sure you don’t repeat anything I’ve said—Papa would not be pleased with me, or with you,” she said.
    Lauretta stood up, smoothed her dress, then turned and twisted several times in front of the mirror. She put her arm around me and pulled me over so that we were both reflected in it. I looked small and worried compared to Lauretta.
    “What do you think?” she asked.
    “Unfortunately, I think the Germans will be more than happy to try to take in some of the local color.”

C HAPTER FIVE

    I left Lauretta’s house and walked along the outer edge of Casalvieri, the part of the village that hugged the side of the mountain. I walked past houses where people waved to me, wearing apprehensive expressions that told me they were carrying on because that’s all they knew how to do.
    I looked down to the valley below, normally a peaceful, sleepy view. Now clouds of dust wafted to and fro, and I could hear the sound of machinery, tanks, and jeeps as they went about their business, destroying everything in their path on the way to Mt. Cassino.
    Men had been fighting over this land for thousands of years. These rocks, this dirt, all of it would still be here long after the blood from these men had been covered in dust. Only their bones would survive, and those too would be buried for eternity in the dank tomb of the soil, while the trees and the rocks would feel the warmth of the sun thousands of years from now.
    A breeze blew around me, taking the edge from the sun’s hot rays off my shoulders.
    My foot kicked a small pebble and it rolled in front of me, going down a small hill before trickling off to the side of the path. I circled the village, saw my own house in the distance, then walked farther up the mountain, veering off the path to a small plateau, a shelf with a small grove of trees and flowers.
    An iron gate marked the entrance to the cemetery.
    Thick oak fencing, falling down in some places, encircled the rows of tombstones and crude markers. The first headstones to greet visitors were the oldest. They were uneven—some sat high, others were sunken as the ground continued to shift over the years. These stones marked the village’s ancestors, some going back hundreds