What Love Is (6 page)

Wedding Day

29 November

So much for Mum’s grand plan – I can’t hold the EPA because you need to be twenty or older. So Mum has to do the legal stuff but I have to do everything else. Nonna will move into the rest home the day after tomorrow. So Mum and I are driving back to Auckland today, and we’ll come back down to move Nonna and after that Mum will go back to work and I’ll be left to sort out the mess. Typical!

25 September

“You’re pregnant,” Amelia said to me this morning.

I stared at her, my stomach churning and feeling my breakfast rising in my throat. As if her words caused it, I immediately vomited. “See!” she declared as she tossed her head back knowingly. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, feeling awful and trying to keep my hair out of the congealing mess on the ground. Aroldo helped me to my feet, and I noticed that Amelia had gone to talk to Patricio who looked over at me, a frown on his face.

I can’t be pregnant, I just can’t, I’ve only lain with one man and that man was a monster. He couldn’t have given me a baby, it’s just impossible. I want to kill myself. I can’t live with the shame of it. I knew that no man would want me for a wife after what happened that day, but now I will be banished for bearing a bastard child.

Aroldo tried to stand up for me, saying that I had no choice in the matter and it wasn’t my fault, but I can see the way the men look at me, like a whore. Aroldo was horrified when I told him that I wanted to get rid of the baby. He says he believes in the words of the Bible and that it would be murder. He is a Catholic, he showed me the rosary that he keeps in his pocket.

It’s all right for him, he’s not the one who has to live with the humiliation and shame. If he’s Catholic he should understand why I can’t have this baby – I’ll not be able to enter the church without a husband.

Oh God, why did You let this happen? Haven’t I been a good girl all my life? I know Renato and I sometimes kissed behind the church, but surely that’s no reason to strike me down like this? Oh, what shall I do now?

27 September

Patricio says that I can stay, but I must continue to do the courier runs. He says that a pregnant woman will be able to travel without hindrance and get past the checkpoints easily. Amelia wanted to take me to someone she knows in the village, to get rid of the baby, but Patricio says no. So does Aroldo; he says it’s too dangerous, that women die from such things, especially so far from hospital and when the country is in such turmoil.

But Patricio says I must marry, that I cannot have a bastard child. It is against the church and against God to have a child out of wedlock. Aroldo then said that he would marry me. I could see that Patricio was surprised, but I’m not. Patricio asked if there was anyone else, but no one amongst the men came forward. I could understand that – I’d been soiled by the Germans and would be an embarrassment to any man.

“I will ask the priest if he will marry you,” Patricio said in the end. “We may not be able to get you the marriage licence but you will at least be married in the eyes of God, and that is the most important thing. I will go tomorrow and return with the priest’s answer.”

As the gathering broke apart, I stood there watching them, angry that my fate had been decided by these people – people that I had only known for a short time, who had decided that I should be married to a foreigner.

Aroldo touched my shoulder and I pulled away from him.

“Don’t be sad, Lina. We’re just making the best of a bad situation. I’ll take care of you, I’ll protect you and the baby.”

“The baby is a bastard! I hate it and I hate you!”

I stomped away, but my bravado was for nothing. I had gone a mere ten paces before I folded over and vomited.

30 November

I know how that felt! Even now I gag at the thought of certain foods. Forget morning sickness, it was all day sickness. Poor Lina. How terrible to be pregnant after being raped, I can’t think of anything worse. I run my hands over my belly, feel the bumps and knobs of hands or feet underneath my skin and try to imagine how she felt. I felt bad enough, being a teen and pregnant, and here was Lina, about the same age as me and knowing that the baby growing inside her came from someone she hated, someone who had forced himself on her and almost killed her.

I’d had none of that, in fact it was probably me that got Bevan into bed in the first place. Not that he hesitated at all – quite the opposite. He was as keen as me, but I had done the leading and he had done the following. How can I compare myself with Lina, when I live in a peaceful country, have a man who loves me and a safe and secure roof over my head, a bed to sleep in, food to eat. Her country was at war, her family killed, her brother unreachable, her only comfort was a soldier from another country. There is no way I can imagine how she felt.

30 September

There is no more talk of a wedding or of the baby or of attacking the Germans today. Patricio has received news that the Stella Rossa band of partisans has been wiped out after an attack by the Germans on their base at Monte Sole. Patricio is very angry and no one dares to go near him.

He’s angry not just because of the attack, but because the brigade was caught by surprise and didn’t appear to have had patrols out which would have warned them of the attack. It was raining there, as it has been raining here, and Patricio says that the patrols must have taken shelter and not been at their posts. No one knows what has happened to Lupo, their leader. He may have got away, but there has been no word of him.

What is even worse is that the Germans have not only attacked the area where the partisans had taken shelter, but also the surrounding villages. They have killed everyone in them and burnt the villages to the ground. The words of Field Marshal Kesselring are now certainly coming back to haunt us. This is the very thing he was warning us about. Now women and children have died as a result of the attacks that we are making on the Germans. It’s not fair. This is our country after all, and we are not allowed to defend it, to strike against the invaders that take away our government and even the very food from our mouths. I’m not sure what Patricio is going to do. No one dares approach him for he is in a dark mood, his face in a frown and he has an angry word for anyone who asks him even the simplest of questions.

The only thing he says is that the Stella Rossa is finished. I hope that we aren’t too.

10 October

Today was my wedding day. I cried for most of the ceremony. The priest said that it wasn’t a proper marriage as it would not be recognized by the government, but Patricio said that he didn’t recognize the government of Mussolini anyway, so it didn’t matter. What does matter is that we were married before God, in a house of God, by a man of God. And that was that.

We almost got caught while we were in the village. A patrol came up the road just as we were leaving the church, and there was nowhere to run to without raising suspicion.

“You just got married?” the Blackshirt asked.

“I’m pregnant,” I said.

The men laughed, not in a nice way, and playfully punched Aroldo on the arm.

“You couldn’t wait, eh?”

Aroldo knew not to open his mouth as his accented Italian would give him away instantly. Patricio was still in the church, paying the priest, so Amelia stepped forward. She had a bottle in her hand and from somewhere produced earthenware cups.

“Join us in a toast,” she said, lining up the cups on the wall that surrounded the well in the centre of the piazza.

The man gathered around as she poured the amaretto into the cups. I couldn’t think where she would have got the liquor from, unless the men had some that they kept hidden.

“Salute!” Amelia declared as she raised the glass and drank down in one swallow. I tried it with mine but it just came back up again. The Blackshirts backed away as I doubled over.

“We will leave you to attend to your daughter and new son-in-law,” the officer said as they quickly put the cups on the wall and left in a hurry.

Amelia laughed when they had gone. “They thought I was your mother!”

Patricio and the other men came out of the church then, rifles in their hands. They had obviously been standing just inside the door, waiting to see if the Blackshirts would realize that Aroldo was not Italian and discover the partisans in the church, for then there would have been a battle in the piazza.

“The bottle is empty,” Amelia said, holding it up. “They took it all.”

“But it saved our lives,” Patricio said. “Come on, I know where we can get another and we shall take it back with us.”

Now I lie at the back of the cave beside Aroldo, who is asleep. He has not touched me at all, just held my hand as we left the church and that has been the extent of it. But he remains close to me, as he has done since I arrived here. I twirl the thin metal band that is around my finger. How strange it feels. It is not even gold or silver, yet it represents the bond between me and my new husband. I’m not sure if it I like it.

1 December

Nonna wears that metal band, I suddenly remembered. I had noticed it on her finger when I was child, a contrast to the engagement ring next to it on her ring finger. I asked her about it once, why she wore something so dull and cheap next to the sparkling ring.

She smiled as she twirled it on her finger. “Oh, this is very precious, my child. One day you will know how precious it is.”

Now I know – does that mean that Nonna knows about the diary? Maybe not. It’s hard for me to think that my beloved Nonna could be the child that Lina carried.

It’s strange, but I don’t think of Lina as my great-grandmother, but as a girl like me: young, pregnant, alone and afraid. It’s like reading a book in which my great-grandmother is the main character.

I’m back at Nonna’s unit now. Mum will stay the night and leave in the morning. Nonna moved into the rest home today. It was strange to her see her in that room, she looked so small and lost. I felt bad when we left her, but the caregivers assured us that they would look after her. I guess they know their job, but I wanted to bring her back here with us.

Mum is at the dining room table in the alcove off the kitchen; I can see her from here. She’s got Nonna’s bank statements in front of her and all the forms that she got from the rest home. She’s not good with paperwork. She’s going to gather as much as she can and take it back to Auckland with her and get Bevan’s dad to look over it. He’s an accountant or something, so he should be able to tell us what the deal is. It looks too complicated for me, and for Mum too.

Bevan really hated it when I left again; he said that one night together was not enough. I thought after being apart for so long might have changed his mind about having sex, but no, he’s sticking to his guns, or maybe I should say his gun is sticking in his pants! Mind you it was nice to cuddle up to him again and feel his arms around me. He said I had gotten bigger, not me, really, but the baby in my tummy. I guess for me the growth happens a little bit each day, whereas he hadn’t seen me for two weeks, so in his eyes I must have grown a lot in that time. He keeps putting his hand on my tummy and feeling the baby, trying to guess what all the knobbly bits are, but I’m so used to it now that it’s not new to me.

When it came time to leave, he held me tight – well, as tight as he could with a bump in the way – and whispered in my ear about how much he missed me and how he wished he could come down to help me, but he has to stay at home.

I promised him I’d have everything sorted by Christmas and then we can spend the holiday together, alone in his house because his family is going away but he can’t. Maybe then I can lure him to bed, prove to him that I am still attractive even though I’m fat.

The Only Real Home

21 October

It is raining and so windy that the wind gusts reach the back of the cave. I shiver as I lie on my bed of straw, and Aroldo tries to keep me warm. In spite of the rain and the swollen rivers, the Eighth Army has crossed the Rubicon and taken Cesena. Yet Patricio says that many of the Anglo-American divisions have been taken from Italy to fight the war in France and it is up to us now to hold the Germans at bay and make them run back to their homeland. But the Germans have built fortifications in the mountains which we cannot attack on our own. Patricio also says he is low on ammunition, and men – many have slunk back to their homes because of this cold weather and the lack of food. So now Patricio sits at the entrance to the cave and smokes and broods and counts ammunition. I think I will soon be doing another errand to fetch more rounds from wherever they can be found.

I look around this cave, our brutal home, and notice that we are half the number we used to be. All that is left are those who, like me, have no home to go to, whose families have been murdered or transported to Germany. Or like Aroldo, a stranger in our land so far away from his own and now with an Italian wife that he doesn’t really want.

Meanwhile planes fly overhead and we hear the distant sounds of mortars and bombs and wonder who is being killed today. We have suffered so much already, and there seems to be no end in sight. For the first time I worry about what will become of me when this child is born. This is no place to give birth, this rough cave in which we shelter, but it is too dangerous to go anywhere else. Besides, Patricio won’t let me go – he says I know too much.

30 October

The Germans are everywhere, murdering our people and leaving them lying in the mud. They even murder them in churches and in cemeteries, places of God, it is not right. The rain comes down every day, and there is no escape from the cold wind. I cannot believe that the weather is like this, the autumn is usually such a calm, dry time when we gather in the harvest and put the food away for the winter. This year I think God has forsaken us, left us alone with the German devils and spawned a devil in me.

10 November

I have a little bump – there can be no doubt now that I am pregnant, but my clothes still fit because I am so thin. We are starving here, and sometimes it is too dangerous to down to the villages for food. Indeed there is little food to be had anywhere at all, and it doesn’t seem fair to take it from the people in the village, though they give it up willingly enough. I go down often, my dress pulled tight so that the Blackshirts can see the bump and hopefully won’t shoot me, although it is not guaranteed because they are murdering babies and children now.

“I have to get us away from here,” Aroldo said last night. “It is not safe for you or the baby. We can travel to Switzerland – we’ll be safe there.”

“I’m not leaving my country and my people. And I don’t care about this bastard in my tummy. I’ll be happy to die if this baby dies too.”

“Hush, you mustn’t speak like that.”

Aroldo put his hand on my tummy but I pushed it away. I don’t like to think of the baby in there, growing inside me. At least I am no longer as sick as I once was and can keep down the food that they feed me – when we have it.

13 November

Aroldo has said that General Alexander has made an announcement on the radio that we must lay down our arms to preserve our ammunition, and wait for further instructions. I don’t understand what it is that the Anglo-Americans expect us to do. One moment they are telling us to fight and the next to lay down our arms. Patricio rages against our so-called friends, saying we cannot return to fighting in the shadows and that they are abandoning us because they want to take the credit for themselves – to say that it was them and not us that overthrew the Germans.

Is that why we are not getting as many air drops as we used to? We are running out of everything, not just ammunition, but food, clothes and boots. And the rain continues to come down; I’ve not seen rain like this in my whole lifetime. It is like we are cursed.

And the Anglo-Americans continue to bomb our cities. I know that they are trying to hit the Germans, to break their defences, but it is our beautiful cities that are being destroyed.

Patricio is starting to regard me as a burden, but I have nowhere to go and I belong to my husband who must remain with them, therefore so do I. There is hardly enough food for me, never mind for the baby growing inside me. Aroldo gives me what he can but he needs to keep up his strength too.

How I wish this war was over, but I think we have to get through winter first and it is not going to be easy.

15 November

We have had to move. We were betrayed and our hiding place compromised. We are further up the mountain now, accessible only by a narrow track that leads along a cliff face. It is a shepherd’s hut and we squeeze into it with half the men outside in the cold and damp, keeping a lookout. There is no fire and I can hardly see to write. I must put this book away before Patricio sees it.

25 November

A month until Christmas and we have a new place to stay. It seems that we will spend the winter here, as long as we are not betrayed again. Patricio took some men and dealt to those that gave us away. I refused to listen to their stories. However he came back with five fewer men, and there is little talk amongst them.

Our new home is in a cleft between cliffs; no one would think of coming here because it is a dead end hidden by trees. The men cut down a few trees and used trunks as supports for the roof. They nailed sheets of corrugated iron to the roof, then covered them with branches so that from the air, the hideout would look just like the rest of the forest.

“We will stay here for the winter,” Patricio said.

They started a fire in the corner, near one of the cliff walls, ensuring that it drew well and did not make any smoke. We moved in our few supplies, bedding and clothes, and stored our meagre food stores at the back of the structure where the gap narrowed, forming a natural end wall.

I was given the driest, warmest corner, and Aroldo, ever faithful, came with me. But there is work for him to do, Aroldo says, so he will be gone in the morning.

I’m not sure why that makes me sad.

3 December

I’m not getting a lot done here. I keep on having to go to the rest home to sort stuff out for Nonna, and then I get tired and all I want to do is read Lina’s diary.

Mum phoned me this evening and was as mad as hell.

“Your boyfriend’s dad reckons we might have to sell the unit!” she cried down the phone.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, it seems that Mum is over the asset threshold, which means we have to pay for her to be in the rest home.”

“What asset threshold?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “It’s all too complicated for me. Something about her unit being worth so much, together with the little bit she has invested. It’s just too much!”

She slammed down the phone. I don’t know why she’s taking it out on me. I put the phone back in the cradle. Nonna had one of those old-fashioned phones with a hand piece on a curly piece of wire that was twisted back on itself. I fiddled with the coils as I looked around the unit.

I had grown up here, lived here from the time I was six until I was eleven, and it was practically the only real home I had ever known. When Mum came back from Australia and picked me up, we moved from place to place, I transferred from school to school until I was so disorientated I would forget which school I went to. I’d loved living with Nonna and hated Mum for taking me away from her. I suppose that’s why I rebelled, sneaking off from school, if I remembered where school was in the first place, hanging around the shopping malls and empty parks and losing my way, until I discovered boys and lost my virginity well before I met Bevan. I’d be the first to admit that I used sex as a tool to get what I wanted, and it usually worked, until now.

It’s easy to look back now and see what an idiot I was. Now I’m paying the price – life down the toilet and my choices as limited as Lina’s.

And now we have to sell the only real home I have ever known.

4 December

Aroldo is back, dirty and haggard. He has been with Patricio all this time. They have been helping a British Special Forces officer who parachuted into the country. This officer has been looking for a German general; he would not give his name. They have been following leads, chasing this man across the countryside. Aroldo was there as a translator, but when it became obvious that they weren’t going to find the general, the paratrooper arranged to be taken back through the Allied lines and asked Aroldo to go with him.

“I said that I wouldn’t leave you,” Aroldo said as he put his arms around me. I found the act comforting after his long absence, and relaxed against his warm body, my own being chilled in spite of being close to the fire. “You are my wife and I have to look after you.”

I don’t know where it came from, but I had a desire to kiss him. Before I knew it, he had leant down and kissed me on the lips, his tongue finding mine, and I surrendered to the passion in his kiss. But the spell was broken when we were seen by the men and they all started jeering. We broke apart, embarrassed, but later that night we lay together, fully clothed for we had no blanket and it was cold, and for once I welcomed the pressure of his body against mine. He slept with his hand against the curve of my belly.

4 December

I realize that I have caught up with Lina, she and I on the same day of the same month but many years ago. She’s just entering winter, which sounds really cold, even if it is Italy, and we’re warming up to summer. I’d forgotten how hot Hamilton can get in summer.

I’ve made a proper start at clearing things out now. Mum says it’s looking like we might have to sell the unit for sure, although Bevan’s dad says we should try to apply for a subsidy first and if that doesn’t work, apply for something called a residential care loan subsidy. Either way, it seems that we’ll either have to sell the unit or rent it out, so I’d best get doing what I’m supposed to do, although Lina’s diary beckons to me constantly.

I’m going to see a local midwife today to get checked out while I am here. The midwife in Auckland will transfer the file down, and then they’ll have to transfer it back up when I return to Auckland. Looking at the work I still have to do around here, I may not make Christmas in Auckland.