Читать книгу Victory Road - Mark Bowlin - Страница 9

November 8, 1943

1000 Hours

Naples, Italy

The orders were received. The division was to head to assembly areas the next morning to await transport on the long road north. Every mile of that road had been fiercely contested by the German Army, and the Americans and British were relearning a hard lesson about how good the Germans were at defense. Without fail, the Germans blew the bridges over steep mountain ravines and numerous rivers and streams, complicating an advance through a narrow valley that had seen the march of countless armies over the course of countless centuries. While the 36th had been bivouacked near Naples for several weeks of recovery and rehabilitation, the rest of the American VI Corps had continued to push north towards the grand prize of Rome. Those divisions were now exhausted, and the 36th would replace one of them on the line opposite the Germans.

It would be Perkin’s last day with Gianina until he could get an opportunity to return to Naples. That would be weeks, certainly—maybe months. Maybe never. He could not tell her he was leaving for the front, but she knew it. She saw it in his face the moment she met Perkin at the museum café that morning. He looked tired and dispirited and lost, which he was. For the first time in the young captain’s life, he was not excited about change. He was not restless to leave. He no longer wished to test himself in battle. Perkin wanted to stay with Gianina, and she with him.

That was not an option. They both knew it, and neither wasted time lamenting their separation or asking questions of “what if.” Perkin would leave and perhaps not come back, and that was simply a fact that both the soldier and the widow of a soldier accepted. They would make the most of the day and pray for Perkin’s safe return to Naples.

“Wait here. I need to get a key from my office and then I have something special to show you.” Gianina walked away from Perkin, wiping away a silent tear as she did so.

She was back in a few moments and took Perkin’s hand, leading him to the back of the museum and then down a flight of stairs. They walked down a dimly lit corridor. “We’re taking some art out of hiding—you should be pleased, it’s a vote of confidence in the Allies. It’s not all ours. Some of what we have now belongs to museums in Rome or Florence and has been hidden down here for months; we are just the caretakers.”

She unlocked a big heavy door and led Perkin into a large room with concrete walls that had nearly a dozen works of art laid out carefully on tables. Some were wrapped and others had been opened since their return from the caves and vaults of Italy. Gianina looked at a long row of light switches and turned on a light over a table at the far side of the room. Two unframed works lay on the table, both wrapped in a heavy cloth but no longer bound. Moving to the larger of the two paintings, Gianina said, “You met me while you and Jim were looking for Caravaggios. We didn’t have any then, but we have some now. This is the one that I wanted you to see.”

She unfolded the cloth, allowing Perkin to see the painting. It was of a young man standing next to a slightly older woman—based on his clothes and his jaunty feathered hat, Perkin marked the man as a candy-ass or a dandy. The man’s right hand, maybe he was just a boy, was held palm-out by the woman while she gazed intently at his face with a slightly mocking look visible in her lips and eyes. The man’s other hand rested arrogantly on his hip near the pommel of his sword.

“It’s incredible,” Perkin said with an excited smile. “What’s it called?”

“It’s one of two works by Caravaggio named The Fortune Teller. This is the first one that he did sometime around 1594 or ’95. I love Caravaggio, don’t you?” She leaned over and kissed his ear, and then asked, “Tell me, what do you see in the painting?”

Perkin carefully studied the canvas before him. “Well, I ain’t an expert on art, but it strikes me as a little odd. If she’s supposed to be tellin’ his fortune, she ought to be lookin’ at his palm. But she ain’t. Looks more like she’s readin’ his face, and maybe she’s happy about what she sees. Why’s that, d’ya suppose?”

“She’s watching his face to see if he notices she’s stealing his ring while she tells him how rich and powerful he is to become.”

Perkin looked down at the boy’s palm and noticed that the fortune teller was carefully sliding a ring off the finger of the dandy. He laughed, “I’ll be damned. I hadn’t noticed that. I wish I had the time to bring Sam here—he mostly likes paintings of horses, but he’d think this one’s a hoot.”

“Maybe next time.” Gianina put her arms around Perkin’s neck and stretched up to kiss him. After a long, lingering kiss, he moved to wrap her up in his arms. She slipped her arms around Perkin’s waist, and placed her head on his shoulder and relaxed as he held her tight. Nothing was said, and Gianina held back tears as she wished for the embrace to last forever. Two colleagues walking in the corridor past the closed door were having an animated discussion, and the intrusion into their silence broke the spell of the short moment. She stepped back.

“I have a surprise for you.” She looked up at Perkin. Her eyes had dried up and Perkin recognized that her teasing look had returned.

“Another one? This is my lucky day.”

“Well, that remains to be seen. I’m going to tell your fortune. Give me your hand.”

With a grin, Perkin gave her his hand. Gianina looked carefully at his calloused hand, her fingers tracing the lines on his palm. She frowned at one line, shook her head and traced the line again with her finger and then drew her breath in sharply. Gianina shook her head at Perkin with mock sorrow, but her eyes were alight, “Oh darling, it is very short. The lines on your hand tell me one bad story and the calluses tell me of yet more sorrow. You won’t like it at all. Perhaps the worst news you could get!”

“What? What is it?”

“Are you sure you want to hear it? It is terrible.”

“Bad news can’t wait. Let’s have it.”

“This short line here says that you…that you will be celibate for a very long time. Starting tomorrow.”

“Oh. I liked his fortune better.” Perkin nodded at the boy in the painting. “What else did you see in my lines?”

With a shy grin, Gianina said, “Well these things are never certain, but it looks like the curse of celibacy will lift only when you have returned to Napoli.”

Perkin wiped his brow in mock relief. “Whew! Thank goodness. What’s the bad news from the calluses?”

Gianina began laughing hard and she nudged Perkin playfully in the ribs, “The calluses tell me you had better be gentle, or you’ll hurt yourself!”

They both laughed at Perkin’s foretold misfortune, then Gianina asked for his hand again. “Look at me like the boy did,” she commanded as she stroked his palm.

“I’ve no ring to steal, or I’d have already given it to you already.” Perkin smiled as the oppression of the impending departure continued to lift.

“No. I’m giving something to you. Look down.” So gentle that Perkin could barely feel it, she had placed a rectangular silver locket in his palm.

“What is it?” he asked as he opened the antique locket.

“It’s Saint Michael the Archangel. He’ll protect you. He’s the patron saint of soldiers.”

Perkin walked closer to the light and looked at the locket. It was the same general shape as his dog tags but much larger. Instead of a picture inside, there was a painting on a thin ceramic surface which had been cut and filed to fit tightly inside the locket. The painting was small, unbelievably small, yet richly detailed and showed a winged Saint Michael subduing a winged Lucifer—Saint Michael’s foot on the back of the prostrate Lucifer’s head, one hand holding a sword poised to plunge into his adversary, his other hand holding the chains that shackled Satan. It was incredible imagery with remarkable detail, given its size.

“Oh, Gia…it’s fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like it. Where did you find this?”

“The locket is an old family one, but I did the painting…well, it is a copy of one by Guido Reni called The Archangel Michael, although I took some liberties with it.” Gianina smiled and then laughed. “Look at the face under this magnifying glass.”

Perkin looked closely at the angel and saw what could be nothing other than Private Edwin Kulis’s tiny bespectacled face resting atop Saint Michael’s muscular torso. Although Perkin could not be sure, the painting so small, but he thought that Kulis was smiling back at him.

Delighted, Perkin cried, “Is that Kulis?”

“Isn’t it divine? I was laughing so hard as I painted the glasses that I had to do it four times. But you told me that he saved your life at Paestum and protected you at Paola, so who better than Eddie as Saint Michael to watch over you?”

“Who better indeed? I—” Perkin began to thank her, but Gianina interrupted.

“Do you know why Saint Michael and not Saint George or Saint Martin? They are also patron saints of soldiers.”

“I have no idea. Why?”

“Your friend, Father Riley, told you that this war is the war to oppose evil, and Saint Michael will lead God’s army to defeat evil. He will be a good protector for you,” she said simply.

Patrick Riley was an Irish priest who Perkin had met in the Italian village of Pisciotta. In addition to being a Jesuit priest, Riley was also providing information to his older brother in British military intelligence—an act which had come to the attention of the Germans. When Perkin passed through the village of Pisciotta, he stopped a German patrol that had been sent to arrest the priest. As Perkin evacuated the priest to a more secure village, one closer to the American lines, Father Riley had told Perkin that the war was definable in terms of good and evil, and it was Riley’s contention that Perkin and his soldiers had been brought to Italy to oppose the incarnation of evil by the Nazis—a notion that Perkin largely rejected, but one which resonated with Gianina. The nature of the war was more complex in Perkin’s light than simple black and white notions of good and evil, but he was touched by Gianina’s gift.

“I had something made for you as well.” Knowing her reaction, Perkin could not keep a grin off of his face although he tried. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small jewelry box and handed it to the delighted Gianina.

“What’s this?” Gianina opened the box. “A cow!? A cow? You give me a cow necklace as a present?”

“It’s a longhorn, baby—the universal symbol of Texas. What’s wrong, you don’t like it?”

“I think…,” Gianina sputtered laughingly, “I think that the prediction of your celibacy was off by a day.” She put the necklace on and struck a pose for Perkin as she stuck out her tongue. “How does my cow look?”

“Anemic. I reckon Bevo needs some color. Here’s the one I meant to give you. The cow was for my daytime girlfriend.” From his other pocket, Perkin produced a second box and opened it. Lying inside was another gold necklace, this time with a small square emerald in place of the longhorn.

“Oh Perkin, it is beautiful. Grazie.” Gianina put the emerald necklace on without taking off the longhorn. As she modeled them both for Perkin, she exclaimed, “I love it! And I’m not giving back the cow, either. You’ll have to give your other girlfriend a pig necklace! Which one do you like better?”

With a grin, Perkin replied, “Depends on where we stand with the prophecy I guess.” He gave her another kiss and a hug.

They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and as Gianina answered it, Perkin unwrapped the second painting. He was still staring at it as Gianina walked back to him.

“That was my director. I told him we were looking at The Fortune Teller and that I was taking the rest of the day off. We’re lucky he likes you; he said…oh, Perkin. I didn’t want you to see this one.”

Perkin had a strained look on his face. “It’s OK, sweetheart. This is about Abraham and Isaac?” It was more of a statement than a question. The three foot by four foot canvas showed Abraham as an old bald man with a long beard and a full robe. Abraham was shoving his terrified son facedown onto a rock while looking back towards an angel who was restraining Abraham’s hand from cutting Isaac’s throat. As he tried to stop Abraham from sacrificing his son, the angel pointed to a ram which seemed to be watching with interest. Despite knowing the story, Perkin felt it wasn’t clear from the painting whether Abraham would take the angel’s suggestion and sacrifice the ram instead.

Gianina turned Perkin’s face from the painting and looked worriedly in his eyes. “You are all right? Yes?” She kissed him on the cheek, stepped back, and explained, “Caravaggio did two depictions of the sacrifice of Isaac. This is the second painting—maybe painted five years after his first—but the action takes place first in this one. In the other painting, which is in America, it’s maybe, I don’t know, ten seconds later than this. Abraham has just realized he does not have to kill his son. It’s more vivid, I think, but less terrifying. I’m sorry that you saw this.”

“It’s OK. The knife…It’s OK.” Perkin’s voice trailed off and he shrugged. Two months before, Perkin had killed a rogue Italian soldier with his trench knife. It was a horrible moment for the then lieutenant—one that he relived frequently in his dreams. More than any other act that he had seen or done in the war, it was his worst memory.

As Gianina wrapped up the Caravaggios, she almost stamped her foot with anger at herself. She had known instinctively that the second painting would disturb Perkin, and she had determined that she would not let him see it. He was getting so much better, she thought—less angry, less moody, and the happy-go-lucky nature that she had suspected existed when she met him was once again the dominant aspect of his personality. His cousin, Sam, had told her that she was a gift to Perkin, “better than fried trout for breakfast,” and she was inwardly furious that she might have imperiled what looked to be their last day together.

Perkin seemed to have that sense as well, and he stepped away from the darker side of his nature and smiled gently at her. “Don’t worry. It was just a little shock. I’m fine. It’s a fantastic work of art about a fantastic story, and maybe someday we can see the other version together in America.”

As they walked holding hands down the dark corridor and up the stairs, he said, “Caravaggio should have met Kierkegaard.” She shook her head, unfamiliar with the name. “He was a Danish philosopher who wrote a book in the last century called Fear and Trembling—I read it my last year in Austin. Kierkegaard used the story of Abraham and Isaac to talk about a lot of things surrounding morality and religion, which were interesting, but the thing that I enjoyed about it was his discussion of faith. He said that Abraham took a leap of faith when he set out to obey God’s command to sacrifice his son because he knew that such an order was unreasonable, absurd…I don’t know, unlikely to come from God. Yet that is the essence of faith: the belief in something that you know intellectually to be unreasonable, absurd, or unlikely, yet you also know in your heart is as certain, as real, as the fact of your hand in mine.” As they walked outside into the daylight and towards a bus stop, he stopped and faced Gianina. “Love is like that, I think. Maybe it takes a leap of faith to believe that when the war ends, you and I will be together. It’s absurd to think that, yet I do.”

1235 Hours

Naples, Italy

Many regard the Neapolitan pizza as the best in the world. Sam certainly thought so, but he had never had anything else. He, Jim Lockridge, and company commander Bill Spaulding had waited for Perkin and Gianina to join them for lunch, after which they all would return to the base together and oversee the final preparations for moving out. With his stomach rumbling, Sam decided he couldn’t wait indefinitely, so he gave his cousin five minutes past the appointed time and then ordered pizzas for the table.

Sam seldom ventured far from the company. He despised Naples. The near total destruction of the city and the poverty and misery of the people quickly became oppressive. While anything could be found for a price—anything—Sam felt guilty for spending money on food in the city when so many people around him had neither. The plight of the children of Naples was deeply disturbing to Sam, and he had written home to his wife Maggie that he would buy all the change he could from his soldiers before venturing out so he would have coins to give the kids. There was never enough to go around. With few exceptions, Gianina being one, Sam had little regard for the people of Naples. He understood that times were hard, but he saw little effort to rise above the tough times. Instead, he saw theft and vice on a previously unimaginable scale. Jeeps had to be guarded—taking the rotor was not good enough—supply depots had issued shoot-to-kill directives—and the pimping of female family members was rampant. Despite the best efforts of the Allies, jeeps continued to be taken, stolen American and British supplies were brazenly sold on the black market at inflated prices, and boys gleefully sold their mothers or sisters for cigarettes. Sam knew that most of the crime and vice, particularly the vice, was with the collusion of unscrupulous Allied soldiers, but that endeared him to Naples even less. The whole city was corrupt and corrupting.

“So where are we headed, Jim?” Captain Bill Spaulding, the Able Company commander, knew that there were few options, but speculating on future movements was an obsession for the soldiers.

“North,” Jim said teasingly.

“I swear, Jim. I count two professors as close friends, and you both don’t know shit sometimes.” Both Jim Lockridge and his fellow graduate student at the University of Texas, Perkin, had recently been informed that their written defense of their respective doctoral dissertations, sent from an American encampment in North Africa, had been successful.

“That’s not true, Bill. I know a lot. It’s Perkin that don’t know shit.”

“Well, he knows enough to have the prettiest girl in Naples,” Sam defended his cousin and stood up to kiss Gianina as she and Perkin arrived.

“Thank you, Sam. You men are terrible to each other. You should not say such things, Jim.” Gianina kissed each of the men in turn in the European style and took a chair at the table which the grinning intelligence officer held for her. She sat down a large bag that she had brought from her apartment.

“Gia, there was no offense intended for you—only for Perk. My lord, I like that necklace!”

The Italian girl fingered her emerald necklace and held the stone out for the men to admire. “Perkin gave it to me. Isn’t it lovely?”

“That one’s nice as well, but I meant the longhorn. It makes me nostalgic.” Jim and Perkin had been classmates at the University of Texas.

Sam snorted, “Makes me queasy.” Seeing that Gianina didn’t understand, Sam said words he would never have uttered to anyone else. “I’m just kidding. It’s…beautiful. Here, let me pour you a glass of wine.”

The lunch progressed with small talk dominating the conversation. Inevitably, the subject drifted to the weather. It had been getting considerably cooler at night, although the daytime was pleasant enough to be outside. The rains were coming though, Gianina warned, and it would get cold in the daytime very soon. It was while they were on the subject of the weather that Gianina reached into her bag and pulled out several heavy, dark brown pullover sweaters and handed one to each of the men, including Perkin.

Bill Spaulding protested for the group. “Gia, thank you, but these must have cost a fortune. We can’t take these.”

She shook her head and wagged her finger at her friends. “You can’t turn down a gift from a Neapolitan. Besides, my landlady and her daughters made them all just for you—I couldn’t knit to save my life. She is so grateful to Perkin that she wanted to do something nice for him and his friends. Did he tell you what he did?” The men shook their heads, and while Perkin looked embarrassedly off into the distance, she said, “He paid my rent for a year, and bought a large ham and all sorts of fresh food from the black market for Mrs. Casetti and her girls. We have been busy canning it all for the winter. It may not sound like much, but simple things like rent paid in advance and a few kilos of tomatoes and flour are enough to keep her daughters out of prostitution. We have so little, and you Americans are so generous that she asked me what she could do for Perkin. I said a jumper would be nice. So she made one for each of you. Please accept them. It will get very cold in the mountains this winter, and I don’t think that you, you…,” she grinned, “cowboys understand what true cold is.”

“I don’t know what a jumper is, but I sure appreciate the sweater. I hate the cold—I can’t remember the last time it froze on the ranch.” Sam was delighted with his present. It was hard to find clothes big enough to fit his frame.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” The speaker was Sergeant Jack Younger. The sergeant was Sam’s platoon sergeant and a very capable soldier, and he had several Able Company soldiers in tow. As he was in the presence of his company commander, he knocked out a sharp salute that was casually returned by the officers sitting at the table.

“What’s up, Sergeant?”

“Sir, me and the boys wanted to know if we could borrow Miss Gianina for a minute. There’s supposedly a supply of Mussolini stamps left at the post office yonder that you have to ask for, but we can’t seem to find anyone who speaks English. Every time we mention Mussolini, the fella behind the counter starts turnin’ red. It’ll only take a couple minutes. Please, ma’am?”

“I didn’t know you were a pederast, Sergeant,” Sam said.

“I ain’t, sir!” cried Sergeant Younger. He too started to turn red in the face.

“Sergeant, I think he meant philatelist,” intervened Jim Lockridge quickly.

“I’ll be happy to help.” Gianina stood up and motioned for the officers to sit. She kissed Perkin on the cheek and whispered in his ear, “You stay here and explain to Bear what the difference is. I can’t wait to see his face. Finish your lunch and maybe we can go back to my apartment again. Think about that while I’m gone.”

The officers sat at the table and watched Gianina and the four soldiers walk the hundred yards to the post office. Knowing that she was being watched, she put a flirtatious swing in her step and turned partly around once to blow a kiss to Perkin.

“My God, Perk,” sighed Spaulding. “You don’t deserve a girl like that.”

The other officers agreed wholeheartedly, and Perkin basked in their jealousy. There was a lengthy discussion of Gianina’s beauty and intellect, during which Perkin showed his friends the medallion of Saint Michael she had made for him. After expressing their amazement at its detail, the conversation switched to the distinction between buggery and stamp collecting, and they were still laughing at Sam’s mistake when an earsplitting crack followed by a deep rumbling sound emanated from inside the post office. All of the soldiers except Perkin hit the ground and covered their heads. To the combat veterans, it was like being under attack at Salerno again. Perkin slowly came to his feet and stared, disbelieving, at the façade of the stone building. Its large portico had collapsed, and smoke and dust were pouring out of the shattered windows. Screams could be heard from inside the building, and then the walls and the roof began to crumble as though they were tipped dominoes. The screaming abruptly stopped.

“Oh my God…Gia!” Perkin shouted, and he began to run towards the collapsing building as he’d never run before.