Hero on a Bicycle (10 page)

“From what you say, there wasn’t much else you could do except get taken yourselves or be shot,” said Constanza.

“Yeah, I know, I know.” Joe reached out his good hand to Paolo. “You were great, kid, just great. They’d have gotten me, too, if it hadn’t been for you. You’re a whole heap braver than most of the army guys I know, and that’s for sure.”

Suddenly, Paolo covered his face with his hands and began to weep. Rosemary held him tightly.

“Right now, what we all need is some sleep,” she said.

T
hey were awoken late the following morning by the ominous sound of gunfire coming from the hills north of Florence. It sounded as though the fighting was getting ever nearer to the city. Maria was in a particularly unmanageable state of panic mixed with stubborn bad temper, and she slammed around the kitchen, muttering dire warnings. Joe was still asleep in the cellar, but she refused to go down there or have anything to do with the
americano,
as she called him, insisting that he would get them all shot.

It was Constanza who went down to wake him and give him breakfast. He was almost too exhausted to eat and just wanted to drift in and out of sleep.

“Poor Joe — it’s so dark and stuffy down there,” Constanza said to her mother when she came back upstairs, “and it smells of damp.”

“It’ll begin to smell of Joe, too, before long,” said Paolo, chewing a roll, his spirits and appetite now fully restored.

“It’s too risky for him to come out, not even into the yard,” said Rosemary. “There are German troops on the move everywhere.”

“I can try to find the Partisans,” said Paolo. “I’ve got my bicycle.”

But Rosemary was adamantly against any such suggestion. “I absolutely forbid you to leave the house, Paolo, and that’s final. You could put us all in danger, maybe even get us arrested. We’ll just have to hang on until they contact us. They’ll get in touch somehow.”

But, as it turned out, it was not the Partisans but the police who broke the silence that hung over the house that day. Around noon the telephone rang. Rosemary answered.

“Signora Crivelli? This is Captain Spinetti of the
carabinieri.
Is it possible to have a private word with you? I must be brief.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Both your children are at home?”

“Yes — we’ve been told to keep indoors. We have enough food to last for a day or two.”

“Good. I thought I might warn you — in absolute confidence, you understand. . . .” He lowered his voice. “You know, of course, that the Gestapo is very active here, based in my office.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Colonel Richter came in early this morning. The German military authorities have informed us that there was an incident in the city last night. An escaped prisoner of war was captured, but another got away.”

“Really? We hadn’t heard. . . .”

“The one who escaped was not alone. He had an accomplice — a boy on a bicycle.”

There was a long pause.

“Signora Crivelli? Are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

The captain’s voice dropped still further.

“Of course you realize that it’s highly irregular for me to telephone you like this. The city is under military law and — as you know — it’s a capital offense for Italian civilians to aid the enemy in any way.”

“I know.”

“As we are old friends, I thought I might mention that you may have an official visit from the Gestapo later today. Someone has mentioned your name to them as being possibly suspect. So if you need to prepare in any way . . .”

“I understand, Captain. Please don’t say any more. And thank you. I’m so very grateful.”

When she hung up, Rosemary had to hold on to the edge of the table to steady herself. Her legs hardly seemed able to support her.

“Franco — oh, Franco — what am I going to do now?” she said aloud. But she knew she was talking to an empty room.

Her first coherent thought was that she must rouse Joe and warn him of this imminent danger, however frail he might be feeling. But before that, she had to make some sort of plan.

She summoned Paolo and Constanza, and the three of them huddled around the kitchen table, talking in urgent whispers, although there was nobody to overhear them.

“They could be here at any time,” said Rosemary, “and they’ll be sure to search the cellar. We’ll have to hide Joe somewhere else right away — get him out of the house altogether if possible.”

“Could we hide him in the garden or in the barn?” suggested Constanza.

“No — they’ll be sure to search there, too. They’re nothing if not thorough.”

“I could get him to the hillside on the back of my bicycle,” said Paolo. “He could lie low out there until the coast’s clear.”

Rosemary shook her head vehemently.

“I don’t think that’s possible, Paolo. Joe’s in a very poor state, and he’s lost a lot of blood. How would you manage if he collapsed completely?”

“There must be somewhere we can hide him,” Paolo said suddenly. “Wait a minute — I know! What about the little wine store under the grating right next to the cellar? The one I . . . I mean, the one nobody would think of unless they actually knew it was there.”

Rosemary’s mind was racing.

“It might do,” she said. “We’ve got to be quick, though. Do you think we can disguise the door that leads from the cellar? And the trapdoor from outside?”

“You bet,” said Paolo.

“Right. Maria’s better left out of this, so, Paolo, can you begin covering up the outside? There’s that pile of old wine crates in the yard. You can put them on top of the trapdoor and scatter some grass cuttings around. Constanza, you’d better come down to the cellar with me. We’ve got to break it to Joe and get the place completely cleared up — we can’t leave a sign of anyone having been in there. We must hurry!”

Joe was dazed when they woke him, but he grasped the situation very quickly and tried as best he could with his good arm to help Rosemary roll up all the bedding and hide it under a pile of old curtains. Constanza was pulling away all the piles of junk around the little door that led to the wine store.

“Check the air holes in this door,” Rosemary told her, “and put a bottle of water and a couple of blankets in there. Oh, and my flashlight.”

They worked frantically, ears strained for the sound of approaching cars. Above, they could hear Paolo at work piling up loose grass cuttings over the trapdoor and dragging the wine crates from the yard.

“It’s terribly uncomfortable, I’m afraid,” said Constanza.

“Don’t worry — I’ll be OK,” Joe said as he stooped to get inside. He folded his long legs against the upturned box that they had put in there for him to sit on.

“Are you sure you’ve got enough air?” asked Constanza anxiously as she closed the door on him.

“Sure. And it’s real kind of you to do this for me. . . .” came the muffled voice from inside.

The next task was to reassemble the assorted junk, old trunks and suitcases, cartons of broken electrical equipment and discarded magazines, so that nobody could guess that the door was there. Finally, Constanza placed the tailor’s dummy dressed in her grandfather’s old uniform in front of the door to create what she hoped was a diversion, while Rosemary swept the dusty floor clear of footprints. Then they both ran upstairs to wash, change, and comb their hair.

R
osemary, Constanza, and Paolo were sitting in the living room, attempting to appear relaxed, when they heard the sound of vehicles drawing up outside. There was an authoritative knock at the front door. Rosemary put aside her sewing and went to answer it. Three men in civilian dress — Gestapo — one of whom was Colonel Richter, stood on the doorstep. Parked on the drive behind his car was an army truck containing two German soldiers and an officer, who jumped out and saluted. The officer was Lieutenant Gräss.

“
Buona sera,
Signora Crivelli —” he began politely, but the colonel cut him off abruptly.

“Signora Crivelli? I am Colonel Richter, attached to the civilian police here in Florence.”

“I know. Captain Spinetti has spoken of you.”

“Possibly he has. As you know, the city and surrounding area are now under martial law. You may have heard that there was an incident with two prisoners of war last night. One of them was apprehended, but the other got away.”

“I hadn’t heard. We — my son and daughter and our one servant, Maria — have been confined to the house. We haven’t been out, not even to buy food.”

“You are British, I think?”

“Yes, by birth. But I have been an Italian citizen for many years now. My passport and all my papers are in order, if you would care to see them.”

He ignored this and went on: “We have orders to search your property.”

“Certainly. Won’t you come in?” Rosemary stood back to allow them to enter. Lieutenant Gräss signaled to the soldiers, who followed him inside. Colonel Richter gave orders for the house and gardens to be searched, and then followed Rosemary into the living room, where Paolo and Constanza were waiting. Rosemary invited the colonel to sit down, an offer that was curtly refused. Constanza, Rosemary, and Paolo then sat in strained silence, listening to the sounds of the search progressing overhead; heavy boots crossed the floor, closets were flung open, and furniture was pulled around.

Meanwhile, Richter stalked restlessly up and down. Soon they heard the sound of Maria scolding the soldiers shrilly at the top of her voice. She was abruptly and threateningly ordered back to the kitchen. She retreated, muttering, and slammed the door. At last, after a long agony of waiting, both search parties reassembled in the hall, along with Rosemary, Paolo, and Constanza. Lieutenant Gräss reported that nothing unusual had been found in the house or on the grounds.

“Do you have a cellar?” Richter asked Rosemary.

Only Paolo and Constanza noticed the slight tightening of her throat as she indicated the door.

“Down those stairs. We use it for storing junk. There’s no electric light down there, I’m afraid. Constanza, run and get an oil lamp, will you?”

Richter signaled to Gräss with an abrupt jerk of his head. The lieutenant led the way down into the cellar, and two soldiers clomped down after him, shining their flashlights. Constanza followed them and set the lamp down on an upturned packing case. She leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs. The uniformed dummy threw up a looming shadow against the tottering pile of junk that masked Joe’s hiding place.

Please, please don’t look behind it,
Constanza prayed silently, but outwardly, with a great effort of will, she maintained a slightly bored indifference.

The two soldiers, under Lieutenant Gräss’s direction, were very thorough. Working their way steadily across the room, they investigated boxes, piles of old clothing, and discarded household appliances, shifting them around to make sure that nobody was hiding behind or under them. Gräss, meanwhile, was shining a flashlight into corners and carefully examining the floor.

Thank heavens we swept away all the footprints,
thought Constanza. Then she saw the lieutenant stop short and kneel down. He picked something up and held it under the lamp to examine it more closely. She was near enough to see that it was part of an old cigarette pack. The printing on it was clearly legible:
LUCKY STRIKE
. An American brand.

It must have fallen out of Joe’s pocket,
thought Constanza with a lurch of fear in her stomach.
Oh, how could we have missed it when we were cleaning up?

Gräss was looking at the floor again, very carefully indeed. He straightened up and examined the paper once more. Then his eyes met Constanza’s very briefly. She looked back at him with a direct, level gaze, praying that the flush she could feel rising from her neck to her face was not visible in the lamplight. He paused before crushing the scrap of paper into a tiny ball and dropping it behind one of the boxes. He never once glanced at her again, but she noticed that he was hurrying his men on. They had time only for a perfunctory search around the entrance to Joe’s hiding place before he ordered them to return upstairs. Constanza followed, carrying the lamp, her face now carefully arranged in an expression as noncommittal as Gräss’s own. Nobody could have guessed, as the party reassembled in the hall, how fast her heart was beating.