Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel Read online

  His brother had done a lot of growing up in the last few months. Mimo was less—well, less a brat, and as tough as anyone in the mountains. Pino realized for the first time that he saw his younger brother as his best friend, closer even than Carletto.

  But he wondered how Carletto was, and how Carletto’s mother was, and Mr. Beltramini. He looked down at the catwalk, eyes drooping. He could lie down there, make sure he wouldn’t fall off, and snooze in the nice, warm—

  No, he decided. He could fall off and break his back. He’d go down the ladder, sleep in one of the pews. It wasn’t as warm, but he had his coat and his hat. Just twenty minutes of shut-eye.

  Pino had no idea how long and how far he’d gone into dreamless sleep, just that something made him stir. He opened his eyes groggily, trying to figure out what had woken him. He looked around the chapel and up into the tower and—

  He heard a far-off donging noise. What was it? Where was it coming from?

  Pino got up, yawned, and the donging stopped. Then it started again, like a hammer on metal. Then it stopped. He realized he’d left the book bag, binoculars, and the flashlight on the catwalk. He climbed up the ladder, got the bag, and was reaching to close the shutter when the noise started again. Pino realized it was the bell in the church down in Campodolcino pealing.

  He glanced at his watch to see how long he’d slept. Eleven twenty? The bell usually rang on the hour. Now it was ringing over and over and—?

  Pino snatched up the binoculars, stared down at the window. The blind on the left was closed. A light was flashing in the right window. Pino stared at it, wondering what it meant, and then realized the light was going on for a split second and then longer. It stopped and started again, and Pino realized it was a signal. Morse code?

  He picked up his light and flashed it twice. The light below blinked twice, and then went dark. The bell stopped ringing. Then the light came on again, blinking shorts and longs. When it stopped, he grabbed a pen and some paper from his bag, and waited for the light to start again. When it did, he started writing down the sequence of shorts and longs until the end.

  Pino didn’t know Morse code, or what the watcher in Campodolcino was trying to say, but he knew it couldn’t be good. He flashed his own light twice, stowed it, and clambered down the ladder. He sprinted to the school.

  “Pino!” he heard Mimo yell.

  His brother was skiing down the slope above the school, waving his poles wildly. Pino ignored him, ran into Casa Alpina, and found Father Re and Brother Bormio talking with the refugees in the hallway.

  “Father,” Pino panted. “Something’s wrong.”

  He explained about the bell, the shades, and the lights flashing below. He showed the priest the paper. Father Re looked at it, puzzled. “How do they expect me to know Morse code?”

  “You don’t have to,” Brother Bormio said. “I know it.”

  Father Re handed him the paper, saying, “How?”

  “I learned it in the—,” the cook said, and then he lost all color.

  Mimo dashed into the room, covered in sweat, at the same time Brother Bormio said, “Nazis to Motta.”

  “I saw them from above!” Mimo cried. “Four or five lorries down in Madesimo, and soldiers going door to door. We skied across as fast as we could.”

  Father Re looked to the refugees. “We have to hide them.”

  “They’ll search,” Brother Bormio said.

  One of the refugee mothers got up, shaking. “Should we run, Father?”

  “They’ll track you,” Father Re said.

  For some reason, Pino thought of the oxen that had woken him up that morning.

  “Father,” he said slowly. “I’ve got an idea.”

  An hour later, Pino was in the bell tower, nervous as hell, and looking through Father Re’s binoculars, when a German army Kübelwagen appeared from the woods on the cart track from Madesimo, the jeep-style vehicle’s tires spinning and throwing up mud and snow. A second, larger German lorry lumbered behind it, but Pino ignored it, trying to see through the mud-spattered windshield of the smaller lead vehicle.

  The Kübelwagen slid almost sideways, and Pino got a strong look at the uniform and the face of the officer in the front passenger seat. Even at a distance, Pino recognized him. He’d seen the man up close before.

  Terrified now, Pino clambered down the ladder and sped out a door behind the altar. Ignoring the ox bells clanking behind him, he sprinted through the back door of Casa Alpina, then into the kitchen and the dining hall.

  “Father, it’s Colonel Rauff!” he gasped. “The head of the Gestapo in Milan!”

  “How can you—?”

  “I saw him in my uncle’s leather shop once,” Pino said. “It’s him.”

  Pino fought the urge to flee. Colonel Rauff had ordered the massacre at Meina. If he would order innocent Jews to jump in a lake and see them machine-gunned, would he stop at executing a priest and a group of boys saving Jews?

  Father Re went out onto the porch. Pino hung back in the hallway, not knowing what to do. Was his idea good enough? Or would the Nazis find the Jews and kill everyone at Casa Alpina?

  Rauff’s vehicle slid to a stop in the slush, not far from where Tito had threatened them all earlier in the day. The Gestapo colonel was as Pino remembered him: balding, medium build, jowly, with a sharp nose, flat, thin lips, and flat, dark eyes that gave away nothing. He wore calf-high black boots, a long black double-breasted leather jacket speckled with mud, and a brimmed cap with the death-head totem.

  Rauff’s eyes fixed on the priest, and he almost smiled as he climbed out.

  “Is it always this difficult to reach you, Father Re?” the Gestapo colonel asked.

  “In the spring it can be trying,” the priest said. “You know me, but I—”

  “Standartenführer Walter Rauff,” Rauff said as two lorries came to a stop behind him. “Chief of Gestapo, Milan.”

  “You’ve come a long way, Colonel,” Father Re said.

  “We hear rumors about you, Father, even in Milan.”

  “Rumors about me? From who? About what?”

  “Do you remember a seminarian? Giovanni Barbareschi? Worked for Cardinal Schuster, and, it seems, you?”

  “Barbareschi served here briefly,” Father Re said. “What about him?”

  “We arrested him last week,” Rauff said. “He’s in San Vittore Prison.”

  Pino suppressed a shudder. San Vittore Prison had been a notorious and terrible place in Milan long before the Nazis took it over.

  “On what charges?” Father Re asked.

  “Forgery,” Rauff said. “He makes fake documents. He’s good at it.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Father Re said. “Barbareschi led hikes here and helped in the kitchen.”

  The Gestapo chief seemed amused again. “We have ears everywhere, you know, Father. The Gestapo is like God. We hear all things.”

  Father Re stiffened. “Whatever you may think, Colonel, you are not like God, though you were made in his loving image.”

  Rauff took a step closer, gazed icily into the priest’s eyes, and said, “Make no mistake, Father, I can be your savior, or your condemner.”

  “It still doesn’t make you God,” Father Re said, showing no fear.

  The Gestapo chief held his gaze a long moment, and then turned to one of his officers. “Fan out, search every centimeter of this plateau. I will look here.”

  Soldiers began jumping out of the lorries.

  “What are you looking for, Colonel?” Father Re asked. “Maybe I can help you.”

  “Do you hide Jews, Father?” Rauff asked curtly. “Do you help them get to Switzerland?”

  Pino tasted acid at the back of his throat and felt his knees go wobbly.

  Rauff knows, Pino thought in a panic. We’re all going to die!

  Father Re said, “Colonel, I adhere to the Catholic belief that anyone in harm’s way should be shown love and offered sanctuary. It’s also the way of the
Alps. A climber always helps someone in need. Italian. Swiss. German. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  Rauff seemed bemused again. “Are you helping anyone today, Father?”

  “Just you, Colonel.”

  Pino swallowed hard, trying not to tremble. How do they know? His mind searched for answers. Has Barbareschi talked? No. No, Pino couldn’t see it. But how—?

  “Be of help, then, Father,” the Gestapo chief said. “Show me around your school. I want to see every bit of it.”

  “I’d be glad to,” the priest said, and stood aside.

  Colonel Rauff came up on the porch, kicked his boots free of mud and snow, and drew a Luger pistol.

  “What’s that for?” Father Re said.

  “Swift punishment for the wicked,” Rauff said, and stepped into the hallway.

  Pino hadn’t expected him to come inside, and he was flustered when the Gestapo chief looked at him hard.

  “I know you,” Rauff said. “I never forget a face.”

  Pino stammered, “In my aunt and uncle’s leather store in San Babila?”

  The colonel cocked his head, still studying him. “What’s your name?”

  “Giuseppe Lella,” he said. “My uncle is Albert Albanese. His wife, my aunt Greta, is Austrian. You spoke to her, I believe. I used to work there sometimes.”

  “Yes,” Rauff said. “That’s right. Why are you here?”

  “My father sent me to escape the bombs and to study, like all the boys here.”

  “Ahh,” Rauff said, hesitated, and then moved on.

  Father Re’s face was set hard when he glanced at Pino and fell in behind the Gestapo chief, who stopped at the wide entrance to the empty eating hall.

  Rauff looked around. “A clean place, Father. I like that. Where are the other boys? How many are here these days?”

  “Forty,” Father Re said. “Three are sick in bed with the flu, two are helping in the kitchen, fifteen are out skiing, and the rest are trying to catch oxen that got away from a farmer in Madesimo. If you don’t catch them before the snow melts, they go wild up in the mountains.”

  “Oxen,” Colonel Rauff said, taking it all in: the tables, the benches, the silverware already set out for the evening meal. He pushed open the galley doors to the kitchen, where Brother Bormio was peeling potatoes along with two of the younger boys.

  “Spotless,” Rauff said approvingly, and closed the door.

  “We are an approved school through the Saint Rio district,” Father Re said. “And many of our students come from the finest families in Milan.”

  The Gestapo chief glanced again at Pino and said, “I see that.”

  The colonel looked in the dormitories and in Pino and Mimo’s room. Pino almost had a heart attack when Rauff stepped on the loose floorboard that hid his shortwave radio. But after a tense moment, the colonel moved on. He looked in every storage room and where Brother Bormio slept. Finally he came to a shut and locked door.

  “What’s in here?” he asked.

  “My room,” Father Re said.

  “Open it,” Rauff said.

  Father Re fished in his pocket, came up with a key, and unlocked the door. Pino had never seen the room where Father Re slept. No one had. It was always shut and locked. When Rauff pushed the door open, Pino could see that the space was small and contained a narrow bed, a tiny closet, a lantern, a rough-hewn desk and chair, a Bible, and a crucifix on the wall beside a picture of the Virgin Mary.

  “This is where you live?” Rauff asked. “These are all your things?”

  “What more does a man of God need?” Father Re said.

  The colonel was lost in contemplation for a moment. When he turned, he said, “Living the austere life, the life of purpose, of denial and true nobility, you are an inspiration, Father Re. Many of my officers could learn from you. Most of the Salò army could learn from you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” the priest said.

  “No, it is the Spartan way you follow,” Rauff said earnestly. “I admire that. Such deprivation has always created the greatest warriors. Are you a warrior at heart, Father?”

  “For Christ, Colonel.”

  “I see that,” Rauff said, closing the door. “And yet there are these pesky rumors about you and this school.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Father Re said. “You have looked everywhere. If you wish, you can even examine the storage cellar.”

  The Gestapo chief said nothing for several moments before saying, “I’ll send one of my men in to do that.”

  “I’ll show him where to go in,” the priest said. “He won’t have to dig far.”

  “Dig?”

  “The hatch door still has at least a meter of snow on it.”

  “Show me,” Rauff said.

  They went outside with Pino trailing. Father Re had just rounded the corner when boys’ hoots and cries started from the spruces beyond the chapel. Four SS soldiers were already moving that way.

  “What is this?” Colonel Rauff demanded a split second before an ox broke from the tree line, bawling and lumbering through the snow.

  Mimo and another boy chased the beast with switches, herding it toward and into a fenced-in area across from the school while the four SS soldiers watched.

  Gasping, grinning, Mimo yelled, “The other oxen are all in the woods back by the cliff, Father Re. We have them surrounded, but we can’t get the others to go like that one.”

  Before the priest could reply, Colonel Rauff said, “You must form a V and get the first one going where you want. The others will follow.”

  Father Re looked at the Gestapo chief, who said, “I grew up on a farm.”

  Mimo looked at Father Re uncertainly.

  “I’ll show you,” Rauff said, and Pino thought he was going to faint.

  “That’s not necessary,” the priest said quickly.

  “No, it will be fun,” the colonel said. “I haven’t done this in years.” Rauff looked to his soldiers. “You four come with me.” Then he looked at Mimo. “How many boys are in the woods?”

  “Twenty?”

  “More than enough,” the colonel said, and he set off toward the spruces.

  “Help him, Pino!” Father Re whispered.

  Pino didn’t want to, but he ran after the Germans.

  “Where do you want the boys, Colonel?” Pino asked, hoping he had no quiver in his voice.

  “Where are the oxen now?” Rauff said.

  Mimo said, “Uh, cornered back by the cliff.”

  They were almost to the trees, where unseen oxen moaned and lowed. Pino wanted to turn and run for his life, but he kept going. The situation seemed to energize the Gestapo chief. Rauff’s eyes had gone from dull and dark to wide and sparkling, and he was grinning with excitement. Pino glanced around, trying to figure out where he could go if this all went bad.

  Colonel Rauff entered the wood lot, which was shaped like a crescent that bulged out from the cliff onto the plateau.

  “The oxen are to the right, over there,” Mimo said.

  Rauff holstered his pistol and followed Mimo through the snow, which was nowhere as deep as it was outside the woods. The oxen had been all through the place, packing down the snow and defecating everywhere.

  Mimo and then the Gestapo chief ducked several branches and passed beneath one of the biggest spruces, causing Pino’s stomach to lurch. The SS soldiers followed Rauff, with Pino bringing up the rear. As he stooped under the branches of the biggest tree, his eye was drawn to a loose cluster of needles twirling and falling in the air. He glanced up and couldn’t see any of the Jews hiding high in the trees, their footprints trampled by the oxen.

  Thank God, Pino thought as Rauff kept marching toward the boys of Casa Alpina, who were loosely strung out through the woods. They had cornered the six remaining oxen, which were swaying their heads, sounding off, and looking for a way out other than the cliff behind them.

  “When I say so, have the middle six boys back up and split into two groups of three
,” Rauff said, holding his hands pressed at the palms and fingers flared apart. “We want to make the V like this. Once they get moving, the other boys should run ahead to keep them moving where we want them. Stay in V-formation on both sides. Cows, oxen, they’re like Jews—followers. They’ll go along.”

  Pino ignored what he’d said at the end, but shouted the original instructions to the boys in the middle. The six backed up fast and then flared out to the sides. When the first ox broke, the rest of the herd went into a frenzied stampede. The beasts bolted through the woods, bellowing and breaking branches as they went, the boys flanking them, shouting, and pressing close so they began to string out and run in a line.

  “Yes! Yes!” Colonel Rauff cried, running behind the last ox to leave the cliff area. “This is exactly how you do it!”

  Pino followed the Gestapo chief through the trees, but at a distance. The oxen broke from the grove with the boys to either side, and the Nazis all followed, including Rauff, who didn’t give a backward glance. Only then did Pino pause to look up another of the bigger firs. Twelve meters up, and through the branches, he caught the vague outline of someone clinging to the tree trunk.

  He strolled slowly out of the woods, seeing the oxen were already back in their fenced-off area, eating from the hay bales.

  “Ahh,” Colonel Rauff said, breathing hard and beaming at Father Re when Pino walked up. “That was fun. I used to do this so many times as a boy.”

  “It looked like you enjoyed it,” the priest said.

  The Gestapo chief coughed, laughed, and nodded. Then he looked at the lieutenant and barked something in German. The lieutenant started yelling and blowing a whistle. The soldiers who’d been searching the outbuildings and the handful of homes in Motta came running back to the lorries.

  “I remain suspicious, Father,” Colonel Rauff said, holding out his hand.

  Pino held his breath.

  The priest took his hand and shook it. “You’re welcome anytime, Colonel.”