Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel Read online

  General Leyers seemed genuinely moved by their plight, and he pushed himself and Pino harder to see to their needs. Leyers commandeered blankets from a mill in Genoa, and wool socks and jackets from factories in Milan and Turin. He emptied markets in all three cities, adding to the misery of the Italians.

  By the middle of December, Leyers was determined to have more cattle seized, butchered, and delivered to his troops on Christmas Day, along with cases and cases of wine stolen from wineries all over Tuscany.

  Early on the morning of Friday, December 22, 1944, Leyers ordered Pino once again to drive to the Monza train station. The general left the Fiat with his valise and told Pino to wait. It was broad daylight. Pino couldn’t follow Leyers for fear of being spotted. When the general returned, the valise looked heavier.

  “The Swiss border crossing above Lugano,” Leyers said.

  Pino drove, believing the valise now carried one if not two bars of gold, maybe more. When they reached the border, the general told Pino to wait. It was snowing hard when Leyers crossed into Switzerland and vanished into the storm. Eight bone-numbing hours later, Leyers returned and ordered Pino to drive back to Milan.

  “You sure he took gold to Switzerland?” Uncle Albert said.

  “What else would he have done in the train yard?” Pino asked. “Bury the bodies? After six weeks?”

  “You’re right. I’m . . .”

  “What’s the matter?” Pino asked.

  “The Nazi radio hunters, they are getting good at their jobs, too good. They triangulate in on our broadcasts much faster. Baka has almost been caught twice in the past month. And you know the penalty.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Aunt Greta stopped cleaning dishes in the sink, turned to look at her husband, who was studying his nephew. “Albert,” she said, “I think it’s unfair of you to even ask. The boy’s done enough. Let someone else try.”

  “We’ve got no one else,” his uncle said.

  “You haven’t even discussed this with Michele.”

  “I was going to have Pino do it.”

  “Do what?” Pino said, frustrated.

  His uncle hesitated before saying, “The apartment below your parents’?”

  “The Nazi VIP place?”

  “Yes. Now, you’re going to think this is a strange idea.”

  Aunt Greta said, “I thought it was nuts the first time you suggested it, Albert, and now, the more I think about it, it’s downright insane.”

  “I think I’ll let Pino decide that.”

  Pino yawned, then said, “I’m going home to sleep in two minutes whether you tell me what you want me to do or not.”

  “There’s a Nazi shortwave in the apartment below your father’s place,” Uncle Albert said. “A cable runs out the window and up to a radio antenna mounted on the outer wall of your parents’ terrace.”

  Pino remembered but remained confused, still not sure where this was going.

  “So,” his uncle continued, “I think to myself that if the German radio hunters are looking for illegal radios broadcasting from illegal antennas, we might fool them by connecting our illegal radio to the Nazis’ legal antenna. You see? We splice into their cable, attach our radio, and send out our signal over a known German antenna. When the radio hunters converge, they’ll say, ‘It’s one of us.’ And walk away.”

  “If they know no one is on the Nazi radio, couldn’t they come up to the terrace?”

  “We’ll wait until they are done broadcasting, and then piggyback our signal right when they sign off.”

  “What would happen if the radio was found in our apartment?” Pino asked.

  “Not good.”

  “Does Papa know what you’re thinking?”

  “First I want you to tell Michele what you’re really doing in German uniform.”

  Even though his parents had ordered him to join the Organization Todt, Pino had seen how his father reacted to his swastika armband, how he looked away, his lips curled with shame.

  Though the chance to tell his father the truth cheered him, Pino said, “I thought the fewer people who knew, the better.”

  “I did say that. But if Michele knows the kind of risks you are taking for the resistance, he will accept my plan.”

  Pino thought about it all. “Let’s say Papa agrees. How are you going to get the radio up there? Past the lobby guards, I mean.”

  Uncle Albert smiled. “That’s where you come in, my boy.”

  That evening in the family apartment, Pino’s father stared at him.

  “You’re really a spy?”

  Pino nodded. “We couldn’t tell you, but now we have to.”

  Michele shook his head, and then motioned Pino over and hugged him awkwardly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Pino swallowed his emotions and said, “I know.”

  Michele released his embrace and looked up at Pino with shining eyes. “You’re a brave man. Braver than I could ever be, and capable in ways I never would have guessed. I’m proud of you, Pino. I wanted you to know that, no matter what may happen to us before this war’s over.”

  It meant the world to Pino, and he choked, “Papa—”

  His father put his hand on Pino’s cheek when he couldn’t go on. “If you can get the radio past the sentries, I’ll keep it here. I want to do my part.”

  “Thank you, Papa,” Pino said finally. “I’ll wait until after you’ve gone to see Mama and Cicci for Christmas. That way you can deny knowing anything about it.”

  Michele’s face fell. “Your mother will be upset.”

  “I can’t come, Papa. General Leyers needs me.”

  “Can I tell Mimo about you if he gets in touch?”

  “No.”

  “But he thinks—”

  “I know what he thinks, and I’ll just have to live with that until a better time,” Pino said. “When did you last hear from him?”

  “Three months ago? He said he was going south to Piedmont for training. I tried to stop him, but there was no getting in your brother’s bullheaded way. He climbed out your window onto the ledge and got out. Six stories up. Who would do such a thing?”

  Pino flashed on his younger self using a similar escape route and tried not to smile as he said, “Domenico Lella. The one and only. I miss him.”

  Michele wiped his eyes. “God only knows what that boy’s gotten himself into.”

  Late the next evening, after another long day in General Leyers’s car, Pino was sitting in Dolly’s kitchen eating Anna’s excellent risotto and staring off into space.

  Anna gave him a light kick in the shin.

  Pino startled. “What?”

  “You are someplace else tonight.”

  He sighed, and then whispered, “Are you sure they’re asleep?”

  “I’m sure they’re in Dolly’s room.”

  Pino still whispered. “I didn’t want to get you involved, but the more I think about it, you could be a big help with something important that could also be dangerous to the both of us.”

  Anna gazed at him with excitement at first, but then her expression sobered, and then showed fear. “If I say no, will you do this thing alone?”

  “Yes.”

  After several moments she said, “What do I need to do?”

  “Don’t you want to know what I want you to do before you decide?”

  “I trust you, Pino,” Anna said. “Just tell me what to do.”

  Even amid war, destruction, and despair, Christmas Eve is a day when hope and kindness flourish. Pino saw it early in the day as General Leyers played Weihnachtsmann, Father Christmas, down on the Gothic Line, overseeing the distribution of stolen bread, beef, wine, and cheese. He saw it again that evening when he and Anna stood at the back of the Duomo behind thousands of other Milanese crammed into the three vast apses of the cathedral for a vigil Mass. The Nazis had refused to lift curfew for the traditional midnight celebration.

  Cardinal Schuster celebrated the Mass. Thoug
h Anna could barely see the cleric, Pino was tall enough to see Schuster clearly as he gave his homily, which was at once a discussion of the hardship of Jesus’s birth and a rallying cry to his flock.

  “‘Let not your hearts be troubled,’” the cardinal of Milan said. “Those six words of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, are more powerful than any bullet, cannon, or bomb. The people who hold these six words true are unafraid, and they are strong. ‘Let not your hearts be troubled.’ People who hold these words true will surely defeat tyrants and their armies of fear. It has been this way for nineteen hundred and forty-four years. And I promise you it will be this way for all time to come.”

  When the choir rose to sing, many in the crowd around Pino looked uplifted by Cardinal Schuster’s defiant sermon. As they opened their mouths to sing along with the choir, Pino saw battered, war-weary faces taking hope, rejoicing even at a time of sparse joy in the lives of far too many.

  “Did you give thanks in there?” Anna said as they left the cathedral after Mass. She shifted a shopping bag she was carrying from one hand to the other.

  “I did,” Pino said. “I thanked God for making you a present to me.”

  “Listen to you. That’s so nice.”

  “It’s also true. You make me unafraid, Anna.”

  “And here I’m as afraid as I’ve ever been.”

  “Don’t be,” Pino said, putting his arm around her shoulder. “Do what I sometimes do when I get scared: imagine you’re someone else, someone who’s far braver and smarter.”

  As they walked past the dark, damaged hulk of La Scala, heading toward the leather shop, Anna said, “I think I can do that. Act like someone else, I mean.”

  “I know you can,” Pino said, and he walked all the way to Uncle Albert’s feeling invincible with Anna at his side.

  They knocked at the rear door off the alley. Uncle Albert opened the door to the factory sewing room, and they went in, the smell of tanned leather everywhere. When the door was locked, his uncle flipped on the light.

  “Who is this?” Uncle Albert asked.

  “My friend,” Pino said. “Anna-Marta. She’s going to help me.”

  “I thought I said it would be done better alone.”

  “Since it’s my head on the block, I’ll do it my way.”

  “Which is how?”

  “I’m not saying.”

  Uncle Albert did not look happy about it, but he also showed Pino some respect. “How can I help? What do you need?”

  “Three bottles of wine. One opened and recorked, please.”

  “I’ll get them,” his uncle replied, and went up to the apartment.

  Pino began changing from his street clothes back into his uniform. Anna set down the shopping bag and walked through the workshop, taking in the cutting tables, the sewing stations, and shelves of fine leather goods in various stages of completion.

  “I love this,” she said.

  “What?”

  “This world you live in. The smells. The beautiful craftsmanship. It’s like a dream to me.”

  “I guess I’ve never seen it that way before, but, yes, it’s nice.”

  Uncle Albert came back downstairs with Aunt Greta and Baka. The radio operator was carrying that tan suitcase with the straps and false bottom Pino had seen back in April.

  His uncle watched Anna, who was still admiring the leather goods.

  Pino said, “Anna loves what you do.”

  He softened. “Yes? You like these?”

  “It’s all so perfectly crafted,” Anna said. “How do you even learn to do this?”

  “You’re taught,” Aunt Greta said, eyeing her suspiciously. “You learn from a master. Who are you? How do you know Pino?”

  “We work with each other, sort of,” Pino said. “You can trust her. I do.”

  Aunt Greta wasn’t convinced, but she said nothing. Baka handed Pino the suitcase. Up close, the radio operator looked haggard and drawn, a man who’d been on the run for too long.

  “Take care of her,” Baka said, nodding at the radio. “She’s got a voice that carries everywhere, but she’s a delicate thing.”

  Pino took the case, remarked on how light it was, and said, “How did you get it into San Babila without being searched?”

  “Tunnels,” Uncle Albert said, looking at his watch. “You need to hurry now, Pino. No need to try this after curfew.”

  Pino said, “Anna, can you bring the shopping bag and the two unopened bottles?”

  She put down a tooled leather bag she’d been admiring, grabbed what he needed, and went with him to the back of the shop. Pino opened the suitcase. They put the wine and the contents of the shopping bag inside, covering the false bottom that hid the radio components and the generator.

  “Okay,” Pino said after they’d strapped the case shut. “We’re off.”

  “Not without a hug from me,” Aunt Greta said, and embraced him. “Merry Christmas, Pino. Go with God.” She looked at Anna. “You as well, young lady.”

  “Merry Christmas, signora,” Anna said, and smiled.

  Uncle Albert held out the leather bag she’d been admiring, and said, “Merry Christmas to the brave and beautiful Anna-Marta.”

  Anna’s jaw dropped, but she took it as a little girl might a treasured doll. “I’ve never had so wonderful a present in my whole life. I’ll never let it go. Thank you! Thank you!”

  “Our pleasure,” Aunt Greta said.

  “Be safe,” Uncle Albert said. “The two of you. And merry Christmas.”

  When the door shut, the gravity of what lay before them weighed heavily on Pino. Being caught with an American-made shortwave transmitter would be like signing a death warrant. Standing there in the alley, Pino pulled the cork and took a long draw off the bottle of excellent Chianti Uncle Albert had opened, and then handed it to Anna.

  Anna took a few swigs, and another longer one. She grinned madly at him, kissed him, and said, “Sometimes you just have to have faith.”

  “Father Re always says that,” Pino said, smiling. “Especially if it’s the right thing to do, no matter the consequences.”

  They exited the alley. He carried the suitcase. Anna put the wine in the open mouth of her new purse. They held hands and threw a few weaves into their steps, and giggled as if they were the only two people in the world. From down the street at the Nazi checkpoint, they heard raucous laughter.

  “Sounds like they’ve been drinking,” Anna said.

  “Even better,” Pino said, and led the way to his parents’ apartment building.

  The closer they got, the tighter Anna gripped Pino’s hand.

  “Relax,” he said softly. “We’re drunk, not a care in the world.”

  Anna took a long swig of wine, and said, “A couple minutes from now, it will either be the end of things or the beginning.”

  “You can still back out.”

  “No, Pino, I’m with you.”

  Climbing the stairs to the front door of the apartment building and pushing it open, Pino had a moment of panic and doubt, wondered if it was a mistake to bring Anna, to risk her life needlessly like this. But the second he pushed the door open, she burst into laughter, hanging on him and singing snatches of a Christmas carol.

  Be someone else, Pino thought, and joined her as they stumbled into the lobby.

  Two armed Waffen-SS sentries Pino did not recognize stood at the base of the elevator and stairway, looking at them intently.

  “What is this?” one of them asked in Italian, while the other covered them with a machine pistol. “Who are you?”

  “I live here, sixth floor,” Pino said with a slur, holding out his papers. “Michele Lella’s son, Giuseppe, loyal soldier of the Organization Todt.”

  The German soldier took the papers, studied them.

  Anna hung on Pino’s arm with an amused look until the other soldier said, “Who are you?”

  “Anna,” she said, and hiccupped. “Anna-Marta.”

  “Papers.”

  She
blinked, went for the purse, but then rolled her head drunkenly. “Oh no, this is a new purse, my Christmas present, and I left the papers in my other one at Dolly’s. You know Dolly?”

  “No. What is your business here?”

  “Business?” Anna snorted. “I’m the maid.”

  “The maid for the Lellas has already left today.”

  “No,” she said, waving a hand at them. “General Leyers’s maid.”

  That got their attention, especially when Pino said, “And I am the general’s personal driver. He gave us Christmas Eve off, and . . .” Pino tilted his head to his right shoulder, exposing his neck, and took a step toward them, smiling sheepishly. In a low, conspiratorial voice, he said, “My parents are away. We’ve got the night off. The apartment is empty. Anna and I thought we’d go up, and, you know, celebrate?”

  The eyebrow of the first sentry rose appreciatively. The other one leered at Anna, who responded with a saucy smile.

  “Okay?” Pino said.

  “Ja, ja,” he said, laughing as he gave Pino his papers. “Go on up. It’s Christmas.”

  Pino took the papers, stuffed them sloppily in his pocket, and said, “I owe you.”

  “We both do,” Anna said shyly, and hiccupped again.

  Pino thought they were home free when he went to pick up the leather suitcase. But when he did the bottles inside made a distinct clinking noise.

  “What’s in the suitcase?” the other sentry said.

  Pino looked at Anna, who blushed and laughed. “His Christmas present.”

  “Show me,” he said.

  “No,” Anna complained. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

  “Open it,” the second sentry insisted.

  Pino looked at Anna, who blushed again and shrugged.

  Pino sighed, knelt, and undid the straps.

  Lifting the lid revealed two more bottles of Chianti; a red satin bustier with matching panties, garters, and thigh-high red stockings; a black-and-white French maid’s outfit with garter belt, panties, and sheer black silk stockings; and a black lace bra and panties.

  “Surprise,” Anna said softly. “Merry Christmas.”