NINE

Lucia

Late September 1943

Lucia and Matteo left the apartment, canvas shopping bag in hand, to track down food for the weekend. She planned to seek flour through the black market, and already her stomach boiled with nerves. It was unwise to take the risk, to endanger her little son in this way. But when she glanced at him trudging at her side, so thin the wind blew through him, she gritted her teeth.

Some rules had to be broken.

“Piccolo,” she ventured, squeezing his hand, “shall we stop by Niccolo’s house after errands and invite him to play?”

Matteo’s face brightened at the thought of his little friend. “Can he bring his cars? I want to play cars. And zoo.”

She nodded and concealed the sorrow spurred by his hopeful smile. If only she could give him a normal childhood, filled with playmates and joy instead of uncertainty, hunger, and fear.

They rounded the corner, heading toward Signora Bruno’s house, and Lucia glanced again at Matteo, taking in the rise and fall of his little legs. But then he planted both feet. Before she could question him, he patted her arm and raised his other hand to point.

She followed his finger to Noemi’s house. Lucia took one look and gasped. Without thinking, she scooped Matteo up and hugged him to her chest, holding him the way she had when he was a toddler. She pressed his head to her shoulder.

The front door was flung wide. Beyond the pink bougainvillea a black truck was parked, still idling, its tailgate open. Shouting drifted from the apartment into the street. Lucia adjusted Matteo’s weight in her arms. Should she send him home and try to intervene? Something crashed in the house, and sickness rose in her throat. Would the Nazis arrest such an old woman? Perhaps she could convince them that Noemi was senile. Her German was perfect. She’d use it, and her family connections, to stop this. She set Matteo down, bending to stare into his troubled eyes. “I want you to run home—here’s the key. Wait for me inside. If I’m not back soon, you can ask Signor Bianchi for help.”

“What are you going to do, Mamma?” He blinked, his lower lip trembling, and she cupped his cheek.

“I’m going to help Nonna Bruno. Now go—run home.”

Matteo turned and scurried up the cobblestones as instructed, his knees rising over his leather shoes until he vanished around the corner. Lucia glanced up and down the narrow street. It was empty, quiet, everyone’s shutters drawn tight. She inhaled the truck’s exhaust and raised her chin, setting off. The shouting amplified as she neared Noemi’s front door.

She was nearly there when two Germans in uniform trudged out, the soldier with the broken leg slung between them. The soldier was screaming, “We made her keep us. She didn’t want to—” when the Nazi at his head cuffed him so hard he lost consciousness, his skull flopping on his neck. They dragged him past Lucia, his limp legs bumping on the cobbles, and threw him in the truck.

Fear spun in her chest, but she overcame it enough to speak. “Excuse me,” she said in clear German.

Two of the Nazis ignored her, striding back into the house as if she hadn’t spoken. But the one who seemed to be in charge, a young man with dark hair and a pale complexion, paused. “You speak German?”

“My mother descends from Bavaria.” She spoke quickly, her gaze darting to two blond Nazis coming through the door again, the remaining pair of Italian soldiers limping before them at gunpoint. “The woman who lives here is my friend. Can you tell me what’s happening?”

The Nazi smirked. “She may be your friend, but she’s also a traitor. Go home.”

Everything in Lucia tightened. “What are you going to do to her?”

He rolled his eyes. “Go home.”

As he said it, Noemi came hobbling from the house on her own, an apron still knotted around her waist. She squinted in the bright light. The bougainvillea fluttered over her silvery hair, and she glanced around, her expression more confused than frightened. “Lucia? Cara mia, please don’t worry. I will talk to them . . .” The dark-haired Nazi took her by the elbow, jerking hard, and Noemi stumbled.

“No,” Lucia barked. She grabbed Noemi’s wrist, and the two blond Nazis, still moving the Italians toward the truck, turned.

“My father’s a Fascist official. We’re loyal—he’ll vouch for Signora Bruno. She’s old—”

All pretense of courtesy dropped from the head Nazi’s face. “Get out of here, woman!” He pointed up the street, shouting, “If you interfere further, I’ll arrest you, too.” His black eyes brightened.

Lucia stepped closer, fury and fear driving her forward. “You will not take this woman. Shame on you—”

A scuffle at the truck halted her words. One of the Italians broke loose, while his captor’s eyes were on Lucia. He ran up the street with his hand on his waist. All three Nazis raised their weapons. Two bullets hit his back, and he lurched forward, his spine blooming red. He was still falling when the remaining prisoner burst up, grabbing for a raised gun and knocking it from the Nazi’s grip. The weapon clattered to the ground, and the prisoner snatched it.

Before Lucia understood what was happening, more gunfire cracked the street wide open. She clutched Noemi and scrambled sideways, pulling the old woman against the building and shrinking under the sweep of bougainvillea. The final Italian soldier’s head jerked, and he fell to the pavement, his blood and brains spreading under a haze of gun smoke. The three Germans straightened from defensive postures, unhurt.

“Gottverdammt!” The dark-haired Nazi spun in the littered street, irate, and the others holstered their guns. He barked commands at his soldiers, his shouts echoing around the silent buildings. The blond Germans hurried away to collect the first body.

Lucia wrapped her arm around Noemi’s aproned waist, hoisting her up while the head Nazi strode toward them.

“Go inside and lock the door,” she whispered, voice shaking. Noemi found her stare and nodded, dazed, still clutching Lucia’s hand.

“Cara mia, I’m so sorry—” The old woman’s voice caught in a sob as the young Nazi snapped to a halt before them. He looked from Noemi to Lucia, the anger in his eyes hardening. Then he raised his gun. Before Lucia had time to push Noemi through her front door, he pulled the trigger.

The old woman crumpled on her threshold, a hole in her head, and the world shattered like glass in an explosion. Lucia heard herself screaming. Blood spurted from Noemi’s feathery scalp as she rolled off the stoop, her soft body settling on the cobblestones, her bright eyes open, forever startled.

Lucia fell on Noemi, shrieking, her own wail ripping through her mind like an air-raid siren. Was Noemi dead? She couldn’t be dead. No. How could she go on without Noemi? A figure stopped behind her, she wheeled in her crouch, and fear poured over her like cold water. A name bounded into her galloping thoughts: Matteo. She couldn’t let them shoot her.

The Nazi smirked, gun raised, his black eyes nailed to her.

“I have a son,” she stammered.

“Do you?”

She stared up the black barrel of the gun, unable to breathe. “He has nobody else to take care of him. Please—”

The Nazi leaned forward, pressing the cold muzzle of the gun to her forehead, and she pinned her eyes shut. She felt the circle of metal push on her skull, heard the sweep of her breath, and held an image of Matteo’s face in her mind.

A whisper broke into her panic. “Bang.”

The metal fell away from her forehead, and she opened her eyes, heart in her throat, dizzy with fear. The Nazi laughed.

“Go tell your father, the Fascist official, that Italians had better start following the rules.” His eyes sharpened, as if he was memorizing her face. “We’re in charge now.”

He turned on his heel, striding back toward the truck. “Throw all the bodies in the back,” he shouted at his soldiers, and they heaved the final Italian soldier up and over the tailgate.

When they came for Noemi, Lucia couldn’t move. She knelt over her old friend’s body, clutching her arthritic hands, imagining the bullet that had nearly exploded in her own skull. Matteo would have been left alone. An orphan. The blond Nazis reached down, one at Noemi’s feet and the other hooking her armpits, and hoisted her up. The limp hands wrenched away from Lucia’s grip. She staggered to her feet, sobbing.

The Nazis acted as if she were no longer there in the street. They threw Noemi over the tailgate and without ceremony climbed into the cab of the truck.

The engine rumbled, and the wheels began to turn. They rolled through two pools of blood as the truck gained momentum, bouncing up the cobbles and vanishing around a corner.

Lucia stood alone under the bougainvillea, weeping, her heart torn open.