VITANTONIO WAS RIGHT: they didn’t run into anyone. As usual, the Sassi peasants had woken up while it was still dark so as to reach the fields by dawn; the carabinieri were still asleep. The sky was clear, but the sun rising beyond the Murgia plateau heralded a muggy day, unless a breeze were to come in off the sea. That year, the summer had seemed to stretch on and on. They made their way down to the ravine along the right side, the more difficult trail, and just when they were almost down to the main path, Vitantonio had a strange feeling and he stopped short. He wasn’t willing to wait to find out what it was; something simply wasn’t right. He moved like lightning, grabbed Giovanna by the waist and pulled her back roughly, covering her mouth with his hand. A second later they heard voices.
‘Germans – don’t move,’ he whispered in her ear.
Peering around the rock, they saw a German patrol follow the road parallel to the ravine and stop when it reached the path. They held their breath, overwhelmed by panic: the Gravina di Matera had hardly any vegetation and there was nowhere to hide except for the rocks. The Germans had halted to discuss something; then they resumed their patrol northward along the path and disappeared behind some brambles. Crouched down, Giovanna was leaning on Vitantonio, and he was now breathing heavily near her ear. They remained still for a while and she finally turned her face towards him. Their lips were almost touching. When she opened them, it was to confess: ‘I’m glad you’re not my brother.’
He looked into her green eyes, which had hypnotized him even as a child, and trembled slightly. He softly touched her lips, as if tasting her. Then everything happened very fast. He moved his right arm, which was still around her waist, slid it decisively down to her hips, turned her to face him and kissed her with all the passion that had been pent up inside him, without him even noticing, since the day when he was ill and she had appeared in the doorway in that flowery dress, with cherries for earrings.
They continued down to the bottom of the ravine, holding hands, and followed the course of the water towards the south; every so often they looked at each other and laughed, as if they had only just met. They were walking among stinging nettles and brambles. Downriver, the vegetation was more diverse: thyme, rosemary and wild roses tumbled down the slope to the water’s edge and mixed with bindweed, mallows and lavender; mastic and jujube trees grew there as well as the more occasional tamarisk. The brambles were plump with blackberries and Vitantonio picked a handful. He put them in his mouth, one by one; they were ripe and very sweet. For more than an hour, they walked along the riverbed, towards Montescaglioso, and when they reached a pool they stretched out on the wild grasses, in the shadow of the rushes and reeds.
They lay there for hours, nestled in the fresh, lush grass that was nourished by the dampness of the natural grey-rock pools. It felt like a different world, far from the war and the miseries of men. The song of the cicadas mixed with the buzzing of bees and wasps, and there were locusts, ladybirds and an army of vivid dragonflies. Brightly coloured butterflies flew in zigzags, as if curious about everything, until finally landing delicately on the thistles, clover and thyme. Two swallowtail butterflies with black-and-white markings circled some fennel bushes and then flew off over Giovanna’s naked body. Vitantonio drank in her image as if he needed to memorize it. His left arm rested on the ground and supported his face. With his right hand he very slowly caressed her dark hair and breasts.
‘Ggiuànnin,’ he sighed.
‘Ggiuànnin? I haven’t been called that since that summer when Zia got mad at Nonna because she wouldn’t let you get confirmed.’
They looked at each other again, curious, and touched each other’s eyes, lips and neck, as if wanting to discover their feel, taste and scent, and store them away for when they were apart again. They made love for a second time, with unbridled, almost violent, passion.
Afterwards, when their breathing settled, he asked her, ‘Did you storm off because Mamma hadn’t told us the truth?’
She sat up to look him in the eye, leaning her cheek on one hand.
‘How could I be angry? Do you understand what she risked to save you?’
‘Then why did you leave?’
‘To keep the secret. I knew that if I stayed I wouldn’t be able to hide it from you. I left to protect Zia’s spell against the Palmisano curse.’
He kissed her full on the lips again and said, ‘We should go. That patrol we ran into this morning isn’t a good sign. The Germans have been jittery for the last couple of days.’
‘What was it you lot were talking about earlier, when I came to the cave? You’ve got weapons hidden away?’
‘The Allies are heading to Matera and we’re getting ready to help them out. We’ve been getting organized to fight and help liberate Italy for a while now.’
‘I thought you didn’t care about the war, that you only believed in yourself and the family,’ she said, with a hint of pride in her expression.
‘Just because I don’t agree with your friends in the Party or subscribe to any of the groups that fight against Mussolini, it doesn’t mean I don’t hate the fascists and the Germans as much or even more than you all do. They have both brought us misery and robbed us of our dignity.’
‘Be careful. I can’t lose you, not now,’ she said, a dark shadow in her eyes.
‘With Il Duce gone, Italy’s liberation will be a matter of three or four weeks.’
‘Wars are always only supposed to last a short time and in the end they go on and on, getting more and more bloody and merciless. I saw real hell in Catalonia when the Italian planes bombed the Republicans fleeing to the border; I thought I would never see anything worse, but then I saw the horror of the French camps. Then the Germans arrived and I learned of the SS’s depravity, their cruelty that’s like a habit to them, just another weapon. Who knows what’s next …’
They got dressed and he took her hand and helped her up. They walked along the gully, retracing the steps they’d taken that morning, with the undergrowth as high as their waists. Vitantonio grabbed a handful of brome grass and threw it at Giovanna’s back. Two strands got stuck in her blouse.
‘See, you have two suitors,’ he said with a laugh.
She played along, but soon grew serious. She grabbed him by the arm and stopped him.
‘What are we going to do now? What do I say to Salvatore?’ she asked, looking into his eyes.
‘I don’t know, this is all very new,’ he answered. The question had caught him by surprise. ‘We were brought up together; can we just, all of a sudden, stop being brother and sister?’
Giovanna looked at the ground and took two steps back. She turned to face him again and answered with the determination she always had in the most difficult moments.
‘Let’s give it some time. You’re preparing to go off to war, and Salvatore is waiting for me to join him in the mountains with a group of communists that have just got out of prison. There’s still a long struggle ahead of us – neither the king nor Badoglio is going to do anything to free Italy. In fact, in Bari I got a clear idea of what they consider freedom: they just want to replace one fascist leader with another. When this is all over things will be less confused.’
They approached a rocky pile that emerged from the ravine and led to the path to the Lucignano forest. Giovanna plucked the petals off a bunch of poppies, the last of the season, and left a trail of red along the ground.
‘Like a trail of love,’ said Vitantonio in jest.
‘Like a trail of blood,’ replied Giovanna, deadly serious.
Could he be in love with Giovanna? They weren’t related, but they had been raised as twins since the day they were born. Wasn’t that as good as being blood siblings? Was their attraction natural? It didn’t make sense. But the taste of Giovanna lingered happily on his lips.
He walked her to the other side of the Bosco di Lucignano and then he doubled back part of the way to find the Comune forest, following the animal tracks, which led him to a clearing carved out by boars; they had scratched desperately at the earth there in search of some damp dirt to wallow in. Later he went down to the gully so he could return to Matera by following the riverbed, along the same path he’d walked with Giovanna that morning. He passed a woman gathering capers and snails, but he didn’t stop – something told him he had to get back to the town quickly.
As he approached the first few Sassi homes, he saw two old men sitting on a rock smoking herbs. The old men of Matera liked to smoke jimson weed to open their throats: it helped them climb the steep stairs to the city. He knew the two men because they were friends of his tatònn, but he also greeted them without stopping. He quickened his step. At the Cappuccino Vecchio church he headed straight for the rocks, planning to enter the town from the back, along the Potenza road. When he got close to the Via dei Cappuccini he found a line of trucks and tanks parked in front of the fascist Milizia headquarters. The Germans had recently begun holding Italian civilians and soldiers there as hostages. He turned back and hid among the bushes of the wasteland that rose in terraces above the official building, knowing it was foolish: he could be seen from there. But he was anxious to get back to the cave and find out what was going on.
Just as he moved out into the open he heard a huge explosion that threw him to the ground. A column of fire rose up to the heavens: the Palazzo della Milizia had been blown sky-high. He couldn’t see what was going on but, taking advantage of the dust cloud, he set off running and a few minutes later entered the Sassi labyrinth.