Read Online Between Enemies by Andrea Molesini - Free Book Online Page B

form of the ruined house I had seen with my aunt, the one belonging to a young Englishman with a poet in his ancestry, and I understood. We reached the ruin in very few minutes, sidling along the black hedges that bordered the abandoned farms. Bare rock walls, leafless trees, the tops of the beeches shattered by lightning. We passed empty sheep-pens, empty cowsheds. The hunger of both victors and vanquished, of the soldiers and the peasants, had made a clean sweep.
    ‘
Ergiebt Euch! Kommot mit!
’
    Stock still, I held my breath. If a blade of grass had bent beneath the weight of a grasshopper, I would have heard it. Pitchy blackness. A hand touched my right ear. A cold hand. I turned, and Giulia put her lips to mine and murmured something I didn’t catch. I felt myself blushing to the roots of my hair, but I was concealed by darkness and was seized by an uprush of joy that came from deep inside me.
    Then, muffled, the voice of Renato: ‘Crawl after me, slowly, single file as far as the rise. They haven’t seen us. They’re smoking.’ Keeping on all fours, I peeped over the hedge. Ten metres away, two cooking-pot helmets were outlined above the intermittent glow of two cigarettes. Renato told me later that they were imitating our soldiers trying to say in German that they wanted to surrender. They hadn’t heard us.
    Brian brushed past me, forcing Giulia to move away. I felt a quick surge of hatred for him, until I saw that his forearm ended in an eight-inch blade. He was about to attack, but Renato held him back: ‘Don’t move, they’re leaving.’
    The two cigarettes disappeared along the mule-track. I turned to Giulia, and felt her hip pressing mine, her shoulder too. We dipped under the fence and entered the house. The door hinges didn’t squeak. Renato went over to a cupboard, took out a paraffin lamp and struck a match, the flare of which lit up the room. The window was blocked up with boards covered with tarred sacking. The steward had prepared everything down to the last detail. That explained why we had seen so little of him at the Villa.
    ‘Look here, Brian, no one will come looking for you here, but don’t light the fire. I’ve given you a couple of blankets.’
    Brian gave a nod. His eyes shone merrily. The room was spotless and on either side of the fireplace long black moustaches stained the white paint of the walls. The top of Renato’s head brushed the beams. The palliasse was broad and thick, and Giulia threw herself on it to test it out, making the stuffing crackle. Brian and Renato lit their pipes as a man. I would have liked to have had one myself. It wasn’t like lighting a cigarette; there was something both sensual and soldierly in the way they handled the smoking bowls. Their gestures were affectionate, at one and the same time both tender and masculine. Renato read my thoughts. ‘You ought to smoke a pipe too,’ he said, giving me a steady look.
    Brian said, ‘It’s so nice to be home.’
    A jute sack also emerged from the cupboard. ‘I’ve left you some rusks and a pot of honey. There’s also a slab of cheese and half a
sopressa
. That should last you a day or two…Then I’ll takeyou to Falzè, where there’s always a lot of bustle, and you ought to be able to get through. The boat will be there for you.’
    Brian answered Renato with a machine-gun burst of English and the pair of them ended with an exchange of jokes too private for us to understand anyway.
    I edged closer to Giulia, but she bounced off the palliasse at once. Then she moved to the door and said to the steward, ‘I’m sleepy, and there’s nothing more to do here.’
    Renato checked her with one look. ‘We’ll come too. Better not to be caught by daylight,’ he said almost under his breath. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, Brian. At dusk.’
    The pilot replied with a broad grin. I left with Giulia. Renato caught up with us almost at once and went swiftly on ahead. Dawn was still a long way off. We reached the