‘Well, that was my fault,’ Stella interrupted. If she closed her eyes she could still see Papà grabbing at the bedhead, his face contorted with pain.
‘He wasn’t pleased with you defying him, of course he wasn’t. But it was me he was angry with, and our father and himself. The shop was quiet that morning. I was serving; Arturo decided to go down and check on some stock. The wife of the original owner of the bar came in. I remember my heart sinking, knowing I would be subjected to all the village gossip whether I wanted to hear or not. She had such a loud voice too; she’d set my eardrums ringing.’
‘You could hear her over the church bells,’ Stella remembered.
‘But now I’d happily listen to her twenty-four hours a day if it would turn back the clock. I nodded and smiled as she was talking, not taking much notice, like I always did. And then she dropped her bombshell. She said she’d seen you and Gino on a red moped hightailing it out of the village. Arturo could not help but overhear, he came thudding up the stairs. The look on his face sent her scurrying out of the door so fast she left half her purchases behind.
‘Your papà started to rant and rave about Gino and Fernanda, calling them every name under the sun. I told him you were a teenager in love and to keep you and Gino apart would only drive you away. He wouldn’t listen, just said he would never have a boy from Violetta’s family under his roof. So I told him something… something I will always regret.’ Domenico’s voice cracked.
Stella sat quietly, hands in her lap, waiting for him to gather himself.
‘I told your papà that our family was no better than Gino’s. He banged his fist on the shop counter, demanding to know what I meant. Immediately I regretted opening my mouth. I tried to pretend it was a throwaway remark but Arturo wasn’t having it. His face was scarlet, the look in his eyes frightened me half to death. I bolted the shop door and tried to calm him down. But there was no going back. I had to tell him the truth.’
Domenico took a swig of water. ‘Would you fetch the small wooden box on top of the chest in your room? There’s a brass key taped behind the back of the bookshelf on the landing.’
Stella climbed the stairs. Her feet felt heavy, her sense of foreboding increasing with every tread. She found both the box and the key easily enough. She forced herself to resist the impulse to peek inside. This was her uncle’s tale to tell. She had to let it unfold.
She paused in the doorway of the living room. Domenico’s eyes were closed. For a moment she thought he’d nodded off but then she noticed his clasped hands and the way his mouth moved silently. He was praying. How bad could this be?
The contents of the box rattled as she set it down. His head jerked up.
‘Would you open it, Stella, please?’
She fumbled with the lock, the hinge opened with a squeak. Old coins, buttons and even a radiator bleeding key. But amongst the bits and bobs lay a folded sheet of lined paper. She looked at Domenico; he gave her the smallest of nods.
Stella smoothed out the paper. It was a list of names written in a spidery hand. She read the first of them: ‘Signor e Signora Pedemonte.’
‘They were the couple who concealed the little Jewish boy.’
Stella already knew what she was looking at but she didn’t want to believe it. She read the next name: ‘Eduardo Pastorino.’
‘A quiet fellow, walked with a stick. He’d been a communist agitator in the Fiat factory in Turin.’
‘These people were killed in therastrellamento…’ Stella looked to Domenico for confirmation.
‘Those and others. And this was our papà’s handwriting.’
‘Are you telling me that my nonno was responsible for what happened here?’
Domenico rubbed his forehead. ‘I found this a few months before Arturo died, tucked inside an old book, and I vowed to myself I would not tell a soul. Oh, how I wished I had kept that promise. When I showed it to Arturo he insisted it was a forgery. But he knew, Stella, he knew. I believe I broke his heart that day.’
‘But he was so angry when Fernanda found me with Gino and marched me home.’
‘He still blamed Fernanda’s family for everything. I think he was trying to make excuses for our papà by convincing himself that Violetta used her feminine wiles to suck him into her scheme. Of course, he was angry with you for sneaking off with Gino but that was just a small part of why he worked himself into a frenzy. I think perhaps he was scared that Fernanda knew your nonno had played a part and that one day she might let that slip.’
Stella couldn’t speak. One sheet of paper and her whole world had changed. The nonno she’d never known wasn’t a tragic victim of the war but a secret fascist who had died in the atrocity he’d unleashed upon the village.
‘But you told me they shot Nonno. You told me Papà watched his father die. You told me about the blood on hiszoccoli.’
Her uncle sighed. He ran his hand through his sparse, white hair. ‘Whenever I thought about that day, there was one thing that always struck me as odd. It was how calm your nonno was. He told me and Arturo to run and hide, he obviously did not want us to see what he knew would unfold that day, but for himself and Mamma he showed no fear. I was proud of him for being so brave. But now I realise it was because he believed he was safe. But something went wrong, a trigger-happy soldier perhaps or a case of mistaken identity.’
‘Why didn’t he cry out and save himself?’
‘I’ve wondered about that for many years. He could have raised his arm in a fascist salute, shouted political slogans, given the name of his contact – that might have saved him. But saved for him for what fate? The villagers would have meted their own form of justice on him and perhaps our family. Everyone realised that when the war was over there would be a day of reckoning.’
Domenico coughed. He shifted awkwardly in his chair. ‘I believe our father turned to face the wall in order to protect us. He sacrificed himself to save our mamma from shame and me and Arturo from being scorned and shunned. It was the only decent thing he ever did.’
‘But what about Fernanda and Gino? For all these years you’ve let their family take the blame.’ If the truth had come out, the schism between their families might have healed; the decades-old feud set aside in time. Perhaps she and Gino… But what was the use in thinking of those wasted years? Maybe with the tables turned, Fernanda would have been determined to keep her son away from the granddaughter of a traitor.
