VITANTONIO’S CAVE REFUGE in Matera was dug vertically out of the rock and was more than likely an old cistern. A tiny opening led to both the space he used as a kitchen and to the stairs that dropped steeply down into the lower cave, which was in permanent darkness. At the top of the wall there was a tiny window always kept closed, which led directly to the cliff face. It was his emergency exit, only to be used in a life-or-death situation. Jumping through it would mean dropping on to the rocks and climbing down into the gravina along a vertiginous trail that was passable only for deer or very, very desperate fugitives.
When it was dark, Vitantonio would go outside to stretch his legs and smoke on the roof of the neighbouring cave house. From that vantage point, one year earlier, on a muggy night lit by a full moon, he had noticed a shadow zigzagging through the rocks. A man was wandering lost through the labyrinth of the Sasso Caveoso, trying to get as far away as possible from the Italian authorities, who unbeknownst to him were close behind. From the cave roofs, Vitantonio had watched the stranger moving from one side to the other, illogically, unaware that a group of carabinieri were climbing up from the ravine and were about to come face to face with him.
The sudden appearance of the national police had caught Vitantonio by surprise; the carabinieri in Matera were afraid of the gravina and usually left the locals to watch over the two sets of steps that led to the city from the ravine. When Vitantonio grasped that the fugitive was in danger, he leapt from the roofs and dropped down right behind him. He didn’t give him time to react: with one hand he rammed a gun into his temple and with the other he covered his mouth; another quick motion dragged him back into a dark corner. He could feel the man sweating and sensed that he was weighing his chances of taking on his assailant. Vitantonio pressed the gun barrel harder against his temple to discourage him and make him understand he had to keep still. Then they heard the patrolmen’s steps drawing closer. They saw them pass by half a metre away and he felt the fugitive’s heart beating like mad. The two men remained motionless for a little while, until the patrol had rounded a corner, and then he lowered the pistol and they relaxed. The fugitive turned and saw Vitantonio’s face for the first time, and watched as his rescuer’s eyes grew wide when he took in his military uniform.
‘Well, this is a surprise. American?’
‘British.’
They let some time pass and then Vitantonio led him up the same steps the police had just taken. They went into the cave, dark as a stormy night. When they were down below Vitantonio invited him to sit.
‘You’ll get used to the dark soon.’
Hearing a deep grunt from inside the cave, the Englishman leapt up, knocking Vitantonio to the floor.
‘Relax, it’s the pig,’ he told him as they got back up.
‘A pig? Here in the cave?’
‘Usually there are donkeys and goats too, but now all we have left is the pig.’
They heard another grunt, even closer, and the Englishman shouted, ‘It’s sniffing me! Get it off me, for the love of God! It’s going to bite my leg!’
‘Relax, that’s not the pig. It’s Tatònn, welcoming us.’
‘Tatònn?’
‘Yes, Grandpa ’Nzìgnalèt. This is his cave.’
They hid in the cave for a couple of hours and then Vitantonio took the Englishman out for some air and brought him up to speed on the situation in that part of the country. It had been a sweltering day and when they sat down on the neighbours’ roof, the cave rock was still burning.
‘Luckily there’s a bit of a breeze now. These hot rocks could fry our balls.’
The Englishman laughed for the first time.
‘Can you hide me until they give up looking for me?’ he asked.
‘We’re safe in the cave. In a few days I’ll take you out of here and to my other hiding place in Murgia, on the other side of the ravine. It’s a shepherd’s hut. There you’ll have more freedom to move about during the day. I’m a fugitive, too.’
‘Can I trust the old … what did you call him before?’
‘Here grandfathers are called tatònns. ’Nzìgnalèt is his nickname. You don’t need to worry: after the defeat at Caporetto, in the Great War, the Germans killed his three sons. I’ve never met anyone who hates them so much. All he had left was Donata, his daughter.’
‘Where am I exactly?’ asked the Englishman, now that he was a bit calmer.
‘In the Sassi of Matera. Cave neighbourhoods where the same families have lived for thousands of years. Right now, we’re sitting on the roof of a house, which is also a street and a square. And sometimes a cemetery, because before, the dead used to be buried in tombs carved out of the rock that forms the roofs of the homes. The whole thing is a dangerous labyrinth and the carabinieri don’t like to get too close. What happened today is very rare. You must be a big fish.’
‘I’m a lieutenant in the RAF, a cartography expert. A week ago we were on a reconnaissance mission over Taranto. I know the port because I took part in a bombing raid there two years ago; back then, we really gave them a good pounding, but last week we had problems and had to bail out. The others landed in the sea. I didn’t have any choice but to climb up the mountain to hide.’
‘If you’re keeping an eye on the port of Taranto, that must mean that you’re planning an invasion. That’s good: we just have to wait and kill time until it happens.’
More than a year had passed since that first hopeful conversation with his new cave mate and the prediction hadn’t come to pass yet: the English had been fighting all year in North Africa and, finally, that summer they had attacked Sicily, but there was still no news of a landing on the Italian mainland.
Vitantonio didn’t want to get mired in negative thoughts; all he could think of was the moment he would join the action. Those three years of war had claimed half of his schoolmates and some of his closest friends from boarding school. Most of the Convertini men had also died; their names would be carved on the next war memorial in Bellorotondo. He knew now that they weren’t his own blood, but he had grown up with them and still considered them his family. In September 1942, Uncle Luca had disappeared into the waters of the Atlantic along with most of the other fifteen hundred Italian POWs aboard the Laconia, a British ship torpedoed by a German U-boat. Inexplicably, an Allied aircraft had bombed the German submarine when it had surfaced to try to save the shipwrecked men, sending the lifeboats to the bottom of the sea, along with women, children, British soldiers on leave and Italian prisoners. Uncle Luca Convertini was one of them.
In a short period of time three of his cousins had died as well, on the Dalmatian coast, in Greece and North Africa, and two more had disappeared in Russia. Meanwhile, Giovanna, who had long been taking excessive risks in southern France under the very noses of French collaborators and the Gestapo, was preparing to return to fight fascism within Italy. With every passing minute Vitantonio reaffirmed that he could no longer watch from a distance: desire for the freedom that Roosevelt and his new friends in Matera talked about compelled him to commit himself to the struggle.