The Tuscan Girl: Completely gripping WW2 historical fiction Read online

  ‘This has been so cool. I’m glad we ended up being the only ones in the hut.’

  ‘Mm,’ she murmured, ‘it would have been a bit of a squeeze with more of us.’

  There was silence. She was warm and cosy in her sleeping bag, about to drift off to sleep when he spoke again.

  ‘I really wanted you and me to be alone,’ he continued.

  She was suddenly wide awake. Embarrassed at this turn of events, she blurted out, ‘You’re not coming on to me, are you, Alfi? That would be just too weird.’

  He’d opened the door to the hut and stormed off again. She’d waited for a while, listening to his footsteps tramping about on the wet leaves. She thought if she were a smoker this would be the obvious stressful moment to light up, but she hated the smell of nicotine, so she’d eaten two of Anna’s chocolate brownies instead that she’d brought for breakfast the next morning and thought about what she’d say to Alfi once he came back.

  After about a quarter of an hour the door was pushed open.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ he said as soon as he came through the door. ‘Especially don’t tell me I’m like a brother to you and you don’t fancy me, because I don’t want to hear you say anything corny and I kind of know anyway.’

  She’d opened her mouth to protest.

  ‘Don’t, Alba!’ he said. ‘Forget I ever said anything.’ He sat down on his bench to pull off his boots.

  ‘You can put the jackets over you to keep warm tonight,’ she said. ‘They’re dry now.’

  ‘It’s okay. I haven’t really forgotten a change of clothes,’ he said, pulling them out of his rucksack.

  She threw her walking boot at him when he’d owned up to that and he threw back a wet sock, and then they both burst out laughing and the friendly atmosphere between them was back to normal.

  All these years later, Alba had almost forgotten about his overture. Funny how seeing him again had brought back those memories.

  Her phone bleeped a message. It was from Alfiero, telling her he’d come across the information she needed and he would drive up to see her in a couple of days.

  The books and papers Alfiero had brought were spread over the scrubbed pine kitchen table in the Stalla. Wearing faded jeans and a black t-shirt, he looked more like the Alfi she remembered from schooldays.

  ‘Look at this photo,’ he said, pointing to a page in one of the books. ‘Familiar?’ He brought up a photo on his mobile phone that she’d sent late last night, to compare.

  Swivelling a book round, he showed her an illustration of a dining room in an old house, the table laid for what must have been a special occasion. ‘Look at the silverware,’ he said. ‘Recognise it?’

  Alba read the description below the old photo.

  Dinner preparations for Il Duce at the Boccarini estate, 1942

  The grainy photo in the book showed a long table laid with fine linen and dishes. The goblets at each place were of highly polished silver, unlike the dented, tarnished silverware that she and Davide had found. But they were of identical design.

  ‘It seems that Mussolini was frequently invited to stay at the Boccarini estate. During the war, it became an unofficial headquarters where fascists and militia of the area met,’ Alfiero said, pointing to the lines of a long description beneath the photograph. ‘The place was bought from the Boccarini family by a Federico Petrelli, who spent shedloads of money refurbishing the house and garden. The Boccarini family had fallen on hard times, and Petrelli enjoyed showing off his new wealth, holding lavish parties before the war. But he turfed out workers who had been employed on the estate for years. He was not a popular man, by all accounts. He died during the war.’

  ‘This is amazing, Alfi. Thank you so much. And for bringing it all this way.’

  ‘I have some work to do in the area anyway. It’s no problem,’ he said, ‘but I must rush now. I’m late.’ He bent to kiss her on each cheek, the Italian way, and she caught the scent of his aftershave. ‘I’ll catch you some time,’ he said, his hand resting on her shoulder.

  After he’d gone, Alba continued to read through the documents that described a variety of events in the area from the war years. When she came across a couple of pages about the partisans active in the area, she gasped. Her attention was caught by a sepia photo of a group of youngsters, dressed in an assortment of ragged clothes: work overalls, patched trousers, some wearing caps or felt hats, one muffled by a scarf. Somebody had labelled their names on the photographs in crude handwriting. They were all young; one had tousled curls and the look of an angel, his arm slung around an equally young boy sitting next to him on the ground. Some had gun belts across their chests, and they were all armed in one way or another, with axes, knives or guns. In the middle of the group, leaning on crutches, stood a young man, his appearance very familiar to her. She worked out his name from the caption below: Basilio Gelina. She felt a shiver run down her spine as she read some paragraphs beneath the photo that mentioned the house called Seccaroni. The ruins where she and Davide had unearthed the silverware. It was history coming alive.

  In November 1943, a group of young, self-styled partisans acquired a few weapons and grenades from the abandoned concentration camp at Renicci, near Anghiari, as well as from infantry stores in the city. At the beginning of December, they transferred to the desolate location of Seccaroni on the Mountain of the Moon.

  The group numbered about thirty, but the members constantly changed. They were joined by Slavs, escaped prisoners and deserters. Occasionally, a German deserter would ask to be included. Many of the Slavs left the group because of the men’s inexperience and the location, inhospitable in winter, far from possible sources of food.

  She bit her lip as she traced her finger down the rest of the description detailing incursions and capturing of weapons; how the group was supplied occasionally with bread by a local miller and helped by an older man, a former guerrilla in the Spanish Civil War, with the composition and distribution of propaganda.

  Almost at the end of the description, a few more lines describing individuals in the group caught her eye and her heart began to race.

  Each partisan was given a nickname upon joining the group. Basilio Gelina was known as Zoppo by his family on account of his limp, but as Quinto by the partisans, being the fifth member to enrol. On the night of 14 March 1944, the group burst into the farmhouse of Boccarini. After ordering supper to be served, they left, taking with them food, clothing, linen, a horse and money.

  On 18 March, the group disbanded, several of the members bitter about continued infighting. Quinto and a couple of others left the area to join another partisan group, but were never seen again.

  * * *

  She was on her own in the Stalla; her father and stepmother were in Arezzo for the day. But she needed somebody to tell her to stop being ridiculous, because she was experiencing an eerie feeling about the shadow near the ruins. ‘You are being ridiculous, Alba Starnucci,’ she said aloud to herself. Her words echoed in the empty kitchen and she stepped outside for a while to warm up in the sunshine. Pacing about the terrace, she reasoned with herself. Even if she were to tell somebody, she knew her hunch would be met with disbelief and, most likely, laughter. After a while, she went back into the kitchen. She sorted Alfi’s papers into a pile and closed the book. Lodovica had a piece of that Boccarini set, too, Alba was convinced of that. How did it all add up? After pulling on her walking boots and fetching her knapsack and sketch pad, she stepped again into the sunny day. A walk would clear her head and straighten her mind.

  Seven

  Tuscany, Early 1944

  Kapitän Florian Hofstetter plunged into the river, the sky above him a bruise. Raindrops fell on his face as he turned to float on his back, the water like a blessing. He needed to wash from his mind the brutal images of war. Last week, he’d stopped a group of drunken soldiers from his platoon as they tossed a baby girl from one to the other, like a beach ball. The shrieks of the women had alerted him where he sat in th
e shade of a pine, reading his pocket guide to butterflies and moths. ‘Verdammt noch mal…’ he swore as he jumped up and tore into the band of pink-faced youths. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ He took the baby from an acne-scarred soldier before she was thrown again.

  ‘You should know better, Korporal. Get this group in order and report to me later. And do up the buttons on your jacket.’

  Florian handed the baby back to her terrified mother.

  ‘Why bother?’ one of the soldiers muttered. ‘It’s only Italian spawn, after all. One less of the enemy for the future.’ He spat on the ground.

  Florian would deal with them later, once they were sober, but he doubted his own senior officer, Major Schmalz, would have the same attitude. These men would probably get away with little punishment to speak of.

  The following day, he had visited the family to see how the baby was. He was given a hand-carved wooden crucifix by the grateful grandfather, who sat on a chair in the fire recess. The grain resembled the outline of Jesus on the cross. Florian nodded his thanks to the old man, shook his hand and accepted it as a peace offering. He planned to keep it in his breast pocket for the rest of the war.

  At home in Bavaria, he’d regularly attended Sunday Mass with his family to keep Mutti quiet. A picture of her ample figure in her embroidered dirndl dress and waistcoat came into his mind, Vater in his best breeches and embroidered socks. He wondered how they were doing. Bavaria was staunchly Catholic. This much he had in common with these Italians, but religion hadn’t prevented them from switching sides and joining the Allies. They were now at war with each other.

  The sun came out, the sky now a clear blue, and he wanted to stay down by the river, but he had to return to headquarters in Badia Tedalda. Floating on his back, he watched white foam plunging from the waterfall, dancing as it fell on the grey-green river, ripples panning out, lapping against bleached stones. Two black-and-jade dragonflies chased each other over the water, skimming the surface. Later, he would jot these sightings in his notebook bound with black leather, a present from Vater before he left for Italy. He would add Calopteryx virgo, Beautiful Demoiselle, and maybe try to sketch the lacy wings later from memory. The heaviness of the water as it plummeted drowned out sounds of battle, but his head was polluted with the sickening sights of war: images of women and children bleeding on the cobbles of a piazza in a mountain village, shot simply because a distant relative was a partisan; killed as a warning to innocent, simple peasants trying to survive in their war-torn country. It sickened him. It sickened him too that he did not have the guts to stand up and object. If he did so, his own parents and young brother back in Bavaria would be punished. His university friend, Walter, a conscientious objector, had paid the price when he learned his parents had been shot because of his refusal to fight. Walter had committed suicide not long afterwards. Florian tussled with the question of what should come first: his principles or the lives of three loved ones? It was easier to keep quiet.

  At the edge of the pool, flat, round leaves of gunnera fluttered in the breeze and splashes of bright yellow marsh marigolds shone like brushstrokes in an Impressionist painting. In the meadow behind the priest’s house, which had been requisitioned by the army for officers’ accommodation, he’d spied the rich blue of a single gentian growing in the bank, like those in his own village back home. There were many other new plants he’d discovered on his brief forays into the meadows, and he’d had to consult his battered field guide to identify them.

  Climbing out of the water and treading warily over the sharp stones, he sat to lean against a smooth boulder, an ideal support for his back, sore from sleeping on canvas camp beds and carrying heavy guns. The rain stopped and he closed his eyes, the sounds of the river hypnotic.

  Just as he started to drift off, he heard the chatter of women. Two middle-aged females and a girl of about eighteen picked their way down the path, carrying bundles and a basket of clothes. The girl wore a green headscarf, a long plait of coal-black hair hanging down her back. The women stopped at the edge of the water where a couple of flat stones lay out of the shallows, and unloaded the clothes. As the girl bent to beat the clothes, her plait kept falling over her shoulder. ‘Uffa!’ he heard her exclaim in frustration as she tore the scarf from her head and used it to tie back her heavy plait.

  Florian remained perfectly still. They hadn’t noticed him against his rock and willow branches obscured him. The women continued with their work, pounding what he realised was laundry for German soldiers. At one point, the girl held up a large shirt, dipped it in a pot of ash, used as soap, and then, laughing, she spat on the garment. The older women spoke harshly, and she shrugged her shoulders, continuing to beat and rinse the shirt. The girl had spirit, Florian thought. If a German soldier had seen her defiling his uniform, she’d be severely punished – shot even. Civilians had been killed for less.

  He watched the girl. As she knelt to wash another item in the river, he saw how beautiful she was: her arms golden-brown and smooth, her face oval and her eyes an intense shade of green. In another time, another place… Damn the war, he thought. Watching this group of women doing the laundry was such a normal scene, and for a while he could imagine there was no fighting; that he was on holiday in this region that he had toured and fallen in love with before the war.

  The art and history of Florence had captivated him, and he would have stayed longer if he hadn’t been called back to enlist for his country. He flicked to the back of his notebook and looked at his sketches of the River Arno seen from the Ponte Vecchio, the face of Botticelli’s portrayal of Venus, the view of the city from Piazzale Michelangelo. He sighed, cursing inwardly at the latest tasks he had been ordered to carry out: cataloguing artwork removed from churches and estates in this corner of Tuscany. It went against Florian’s better instincts; he considered it a kind of rape. The paintings, altar panels, statues and sundry other minor masterpieces piling up in the temporary storeroom – one of the many requisitioned caverns in Badia hewn from the mountainside by peasants for penning their animals – should stay where they belonged, in his opinion. What right did the Third Reich have to plunder these jewels from ancient churches and palazzi? They were termed spoils of war, he knew that, but his heart was not in it, and he had been thinking for a while of how to play some small part to undermine the pillage.

  He closed his notebook gently and snatched another few minutes, watching the women at the river’s edge until they piled the wet laundry into their baskets and climbed back up the bank. One of the older women carried her load on her head and started to sing, the other two joining in with the chorus, and he felt as though he was watching a scene from an opera play out before him.

  It was three o’clock when they left. If he was to report back for duty in time, he would have to hurry. As he passed the spot where they’d worked, he spotted something at the edge of the water. Half concealed by a fern was the green scarf the girl had worn on her head. He picked it up, folded it carefully and put it in his pocket, hoping he might see her again to return it.

  The other officers mostly spent their free time in the little bar in the corner of the piazza, ordering wines and liqueurs, enjoying the company of Maddalena, who flirted with them in exchange for cigars for her father or chocolate for her brothers and sisters. Florian preferred to spend some of his time studying his Italian grammar book. He had reached beyond the level of getting by and was eager to increase his fluency. When the weather was fine, he walked in the meadows near the village. It wasn’t wise to stray too far. The range of peaks they called the Mountain of the Moon tantalised him in the distance, but he knew it would be folly to venture up there alone. On an earlier walk, he’d found a cluster of rocks studded with fossils: ammonites and shells from when this area had been under the sea. Near the river, he’d found a fish fossil, Lampanyctus, a lantern fish, and one day when he had more time, he planned to hew it out with his chisel to add to his other specimens. Once he returned home, he would buy a c
abinet where he could exhibit his Tuscan discoveries.

  About one week later, three hours of free time stretched before him. The weather for the last couple of days had hovered between brilliant sunshine and grey, metallic skies. The weather in the Tuscan Apennines was unpredictable, but he was used to that from his own home near the mountains and lakes. At the last minute, glancing at the mackerel clouds threatening a storm, he’d slung a woollen scarf around his neck and shoved a pair of mittens knitted by Mutti into his deep pockets, before hiking to a spot that he’d been told was rich with fossils. For a while he watched through his binoculars as a honey buzzard soared above him. As he stood still at the edge of a copse, a black squirrel darted out and scampered up a holm oak. He could hear the tinkling of bells from the meadow he was aiming for and as he rounded the dirt road, he came across a flock of a dozen scrawny sheep. They were guarded by a dirty white Maremmano shepherd dog and a girl. The dog started to bark, approaching him, tail in the air, and the girl called out to him to come to her, ‘Vieni qua.’ The animal growled and Florian stood still. These dogs were reputed to be ferocious and he didn’t fancy being bitten. The girl walked over warily to grab hold of the dog by the scruff of his neck, pulling him back and shouting something he couldn’t understand. His knowledge of Italian didn’t extend to dialect.

  She was dressed in men’s clothing: a darned pair of corduroy trousers held up by string, laced-up boots that were too big for her, a threadbare shirt and a scrap of rag tied in her hair. She looked so unlike the carefree girl he’d seen the other day at the river, but it was her unusual emerald eyes that gave her away.

  ‘Buonasera, signorina,’ he said.

  She gave the slightest nod of her head but stayed where she was, holding onto the dog. He hoped she would continue to keep hold of the growling animal. Having come all the way here, he didn’t feel like leaving without his fossil and his hand went into his pocket to pull out his chisel. The girl screamed, maybe expecting him to produce a weapon, and she let go of the dog; the creature hurled himself towards Florian, baring his teeth in a vicious snarl.