mythago
Hero
[font="] The day Charlie Spencer's squad made its first trip to the actual town of [/font][font="]Monte Segreto[/font][font="] was the first real day of spring, with clear skies and warm breezes and birds singing in the trees that were still standing. Even Thrash, who was on KP duty until Hell froze over, got to go. Sarge didn't have the heart to keep any of them in camp, not with the sky finally deciding to knock it off with the rain. And word was that General Clark was going to hit the Gothic Line, hard, and maybe there'd be an end to the damn war so they could all go home.[/font]
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[font="] "You're going to be on your best behavior," Sarge said, and they all knew he meant Thrash and Snapp especially. "We're the first Americans they've seen since we knocked the Krauts down the mountain. Doubt they speak much English, but there could be one, so no cracking wise. Stay away from their daughters. Any questions?"[/font]
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[font="] They chorused out a "No, sir!" and stood at attention until Sarge decided nobody was going to give him an excuse to make them stay back and peel potatoes. Dismissed, they ran for the Willys like little kids on an outing. Charlie awkwardly climbed into the back of the jeep McCarver was driving and pulled his bad leg in after him.[/font]
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[font="] The road to Monte Segreto was a slow, twisting trip up the mountain road, swerving around mortar holes, rocks and the occasional goat. The stuffed armadillo that Dillon had affixed to the hood of the jeep bounced and rattled, but stayed put. [1] It was an hour of bumps and switchbacks before they crested a small hill and the town opened up in front of them, a smooth place between the hills with real buildings, and a piazza [2], and colorful flags that waved gently to the GIs in the afternoon breeze.[/font]
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[font="] McCarver and Thrash parked the jeeps along a drainage ditch. The men got out and wandered into the piazza, going nowhere in particular. Curtains fluttered in the second-story windows of the houses. Charlie limped to one of the park benches and sat down with his bad leg splayed out in front of him. The Italian sun shone summer-bright and made him feel as sleepy and content as a housecat. He closed his eyes and had half-dozed off when Parnell shook him awake.[/font]
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[font="] "Company," Parnell said. Charlie sat up as the villagers of Monte Segreto approached, shy and cautious, led by an elderly man with a limp worse than Charlie's. Out of habit he sized them up: a handful of little children and a dozen adults, none of them older than ten or younger than fifty. The rest dead or hiding behind their curtains, he guessed, or off in the Italian Army. He wondered if any of them had died fighting Americans before the mobs got Il Dulce and turned the country Allied.[/font]
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[font="] "Buongiornio," the old man said. "Parla Italiano?" [/font]
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[font="] Houlihan walked over to him and shook hands. The man looked at him as if this were a new and strange custom. "Un po', signore," Houlihan said. "Parle Ingles?"[/font]
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[font="] The man smiled. "Yes," he said. "Not so good, but we learn from the radio. I am the mayor here. Please, welcome to our village. The drive was long?"[/font]
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[font="] "Not so long," Houlihan said, "but steep. Irto."[/font]
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[font="] The children peeked out from behind their grandmothers' skirts. Houlihan dug a Hershey bar out of one of his pockets. It drooped in his hand, melted from the sun and the heat of the drive. A little boy darted out and grabbed it, and the chocolate squished in his fingers. The other children shrieked with glee.[/font]
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[font="] The mayor laughed and said something to the people behind him. They moved purposefully back towards the houses.[/font]
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[font="] "What's going on?" Thrash called.[/font]
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[font="] "He said to get us some food, and they should run hot water for baths," Houlihan said. [/font]
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[font="] The squad cheered. Charlie closed his eyes and let the sun soothe him back to sleep.[/font]
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[font="]#[/font]
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[font="] No more orders came down from Colonel Broadwater. There was some news over the radio about the rest of the Fifth Army's push toward [/font][font="]Rome[/font][font="]. Sarge was reluctant to let his men keep going back to Monte Segreto, even after the first visit with nobody acting up, but there came a point where all the jeeps were in top shape and there were just no more potatoes needing to be peeled. Grudgingly, he allowed that the men could stay up in town, if they wanted, so long as the locals didn't get fed up and Thrash stayed more or less sober.[/font]
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[font="] The villagers were happy to see them. The Americans had chocolate and cigarettes that they gave out freely. In town, they could take hot baths and have home-cooked meals. They stuffed themselves on pasta and cheese, heavenly after months of K-rations and worse. Some of the soldiers got into card games with the men, betting dimes and sharing bottles of the local wine. Charlie liked to sit out in the piazza. He'd let the plump, motherly women urge him to gorge himself on pasta carbonara—somehow they'd gotten the idea Americans loved nothing more than eggs and bacon—and then stretch out on one of the park benches to sleep it off. Even the ache in his leg faded in the light and warmth of Monte Segreto and its people. McCarver remarked that the only thing the town needed was some pretty Italian girls, but they all figured the young women had been sent away long ago, or maybe killed when the Jerries had rolled over this town. None of them asked the villagers. They'd all seen what was left of villages when the Germans retreated and had no inclination to rub salt in these people's wounds.[/font]
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[font="] Charlie woke up from one of his naps more sunburned than usual. The spring was turning into summer quicker than it did back home. The sun had just dipped below the rim of the rough mountains for its long descent into nighttime. From open windows around the piazza came the sounds of laughing and glasses clinking, coins tossed into tables and snatches of conversation, Italian and English chopped together into the companionable talk of men whiling away the time. Charlie got up wandered around the piazza, felling restless. It dawned on him that he hadn't seen much of the rest of the town. His injury had made him disinclined to wander. Rest and food had helped, though, and the ache was mild enough that he thought he could chance a walk around the hills.[/font]
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[font="] He meandered through overgrown, rocky fields and pathways, careful not to get too far downhill where he might have trouble climbing back up if his leg started to hurt. Near a pile of splintered boards that had probably been some kind of animal pen, he caught his good leg in a thorny bush and sprawled flat. Charlie grumbled and pulled himself up. He had tangled in a ragged, overgrown rosebush, wild and untended probably since the war started. Dead brown petals clung to its stems. The scent of roses surrounded him. Charlie breathed in the smell, thinking of his mother's garden back in [/font][font="]Iowa[/font][font="], the peonies and impatiens, and the petunias she could never keep the neighbor's cat from digging up. And her roses.[/font]
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[font="] There was one live blossom remaining on the bush, some of its leaves crushed from Charlie's fall, but otherwise intact. Charlie opened his pocked knife and cut it off just above the break in the stem. He got his legs under him and slowly continued his walk, holding the rose in his fingers where the thorns wouldn't get him. [/font]
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[font="]He stepped over a low stone wall. The ground smoothed out and he found himself behind the houses in another part of the village, looking over a narrow square of land that served as the town's cemetery. [2] The graves were fitted tightly together, crowded into this one flat place in the rocky hills. Charlie walked between them. The flat stones bore names in Italian, prayers, crosses, and dates running back two hundred years, as far as he could tell. Some of them were very recent. He thought of the town of [/font][font="]Sesso Corvino[/font][font="], what it had looked like last February after Kesselring's army had abandoned it to the advancing Allies, the bodies scattered in the streets and watching as the old people who had survived buried their children. He hoped that Thrash wouldn't get drunk enough to ask the people of Monte Segreto where all the pretty ladies were.[/font]
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[font="]Charlie's leg was starting to bother him again. He leaned against a lone tree at the edge of the cemetery. His hand slipped through a gap in the bark. Charlie looked up and saw that the tree was hollow at its top, with old, healed holes making a shape he thought looked a lot like a skull. [3] He stepped up onto one of the tree's buckled roots and peered into the gaping hollow. It was huge and filled with scraps of paper. Charlie thought it might be a magpie's nest, and then realized that the papers were carefully positioned under folds of the tree's inner bark, as though to protect them from the elements. His fingers closed around something that felt like a playing card, and he drew it out into the light. It was a faded rectangle the color of old piano keys. The image of a saint, serene under a halo, was printed on one side. He turned it over to read the smudged writing on the back: Si e' spento serenamente oggi, he read, and realized it was a Mass card. [/font]
[font="]Charlie stuffed it back into the tree hollow. His fingers brushed against something metallic, and he nervously lifted it up into the last orange rays of the sun. It was a woman's gold locket, an oval the size of a robin's egg. Dust from the innards of the tree clogged the delicate chain of the necklace. He pressed the latch on the side of the locket. Inside was a small photograph, probably of a woman, but the image had so faded and warped that he couldn't tell what she might have looked like. Charlie closed the locket gently replaced it with the other offerings, feeling as though he had been rude somehow, like a houseguest barging into a private room uninvited. [/font]
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[font="]Hesitantly, he laid the rose he had picked in the hollow of the tree. Its sweet scent mixed with the earth-smell of the tree's bark. Charlie stepped down and limped back towards the piazza, not looking back and hoping none of the people of Monte Segreto had seen him pawing through the offerings they left for their dead.[/font]
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[font="]He knew the rest of the squad would be in the little open-front store that turned into a café in the evening, but he could have found them by the noise and the bright lamps that ran off a battery salvaged from one of the old jeeps. A radio somewhere in the store was playing the Anderson Sisters. Charlie stepped into the light. Somebody had stacked empty wine bottles into a pyramid on the shop's counter. McCarver, Houlihan and Wisner were playing coteccio with the village men and losing badly, from the relative sizes of the piles of coins in front of them. One of the old men called out to Charlie and handed him a half-empty bottle of white wine. "Gratzie," Charlie told him, and drank a long pull straight from the bottle. The first time he'd tried it he'd choked like a teenager trying his first shot of whiskey. This time the raw, harsh wine burned straight to his stomach and heated him through like a furnace.[/font]
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[font="]"Jesus, Spencer, where you been?" Wisner said. "You smell like perfume or somethin'."[/font]
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[font="]"Smells like a whorehouse," Houlihan said. "You been holding out on us, Charlie?"[/font]
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[font="]"I fell in a damn rosebush," Charlie snapped[/font]
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[font="]"Rosebush? Haven't heard it called that before," somebody called out, and the men howled with laughter.[/font]
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[font="]"Aw, nuts to you guys," Charlie said, and walked out of the café. Normally he gave as good as he got, but he was tired and sore, and still off-kilter from the graveyard. Houlihan called after him; he kept walking until he was on the far side of the piazza, away from the lights and the smoke and the clank of the makeshift generator. He threw himself down on one of the benches and shifted his leg around to the least painful position he could find. The moon was out, three-quarters and bright, casting the shadows of the tattered flags over the piazza. [2]. [/font]
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[font="]"May I sit?" said a soft voice to his left. Charlie jumped. A young woman in a dark blue ankle-length dress and a wide hat stood on the far side of the bench. Charlie pushed himself up and reached up to take off his hat before he remembered he was already holding it.[/font]
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[font="]Then he remembered she had asked him a question. "Sure," he said, and waited for her to sit down, arranging her skirts, before he lowered himself back down. Charlie tried not to stare at her, mindful of the fact that if he hadn't seen her before, it was because the villagers wanted her kept away from the American soldiers. He glanced over at her; her gaze was on her gloved hands, resting in her lap. Strands of hair the color of chocolate spilled from under her hat. She turned to look at Charlie, huge dark eyes set into her perfect oval face, and her smile was as warm as the afternoon sun. [/font]
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[font="]"Uh, hi," he said, wishing he was Thrash, who never had trouble talking to women. "Buonasera. I'm Charlie Spencer. [/font][font="]U.S.[/font][font="], Fifth Army." He stuck out his hand before he could stop himself.[/font]
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[font="]The woman smiled and took his hand very gently. Her own hand was so small and delicate that Charlie was afraid he could break it. "Buonasera," she said. "I am Alessandra. You speak Italian?"[/font]
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[font="]"A little," he said, blushing. [/font]
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[font="]"I have some English," she said. "Do you stay in Monte Segreto?"[/font]
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[font="]"For a little while," Charlie said, "until we have orders to go. We're guarding the town in case the Germans come back, but I think they're pretty far north by now."[/font]
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[font="]"Ah," she said, "that is good to hear," and seemed to fall into though. Charlie was very aware that he smelled like roses and hoped that Alessandra didn't think it was some other woman's perfume. It was silly to worry about what she might think, he knew, her father would lock her back up in the house once he saw her talking to a solider, but—[/font]
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[font="]"Would you walk with me?" she asked, and before he could stammer out an excuse, Charlie found himself standing up and offering her his arm. She said nothing about his slow pace or his limp, seeming content to stroll around the piazza under the bright moon. Charlie steered them away from the café, still pouring yellow light and men's laughter into the piazza. Alessandra's hand rested as light as a butterfly on the crook of his arm. They walked companionably through the warm summer night. [/font]
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[font="]Alessandra stopped abruptly and Charlie bumped into her. He inhaled the smell of her perfume—something with roses, unless he was still smelling the remains of the rosebush on his uniform, but he supposed that it was easier for the women here to press rosewater than to try to get perfume on the black market. She had stopped in front of Dillon's jeep, parked at the edge of town. "What is that?" she asked.[/font]
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[font="]"Ah….an armadillo," Charlie said.[/font]
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[font="]"Armadillo," she repeated, the word taking on extra, rich vowels in her mouth.[/font]
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[font="]"It's, ah, it's like an anteater. Never mind, you probably don't have anteaters here either. See, that's Dillon's jeep, and he's from [/font][font="]Corpus Christi[/font][font="], and—well, I don't know how he brought a stuffed armadillo all the way over here. He said it's kind of a totem."[/font]
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[font="]Alessandra arched one perfect, dark eyebrow. "What is that on its back?"[/font]
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[font="]"Um. I think he wanted it to look more military. So it would match the jeep…"[/font]
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[font="]She looked at him, disbelieving, then burst into laughter. She said something in Italian that Charlie didn't understand at all. "Americans," she said fondly, "you are the most surprising. You bring roses and your friends bring animal trophies. Where is [/font][font="]Corpus Christi[/font][font="]?"[/font]
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[font="]"It's in [/font][font="]Texas[/font][font="]," he said, relieved that Alessandra hadn't been disgusted or run away at the sight of Dillon's weird hood ornament. "Kind of in the south of the country."[/font]
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[font="]She took his arm again lightly and they resumed their walk, back toward the piazza. "Is that where you come from, [/font][font="]Texas[/font][font="]?"[/font]
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[font="]"No, I'm from [/font][font="]Iowa[/font][font="], it's in the [/font][font="]Midwest[/font][font="]. We've got a farm. Corn mostly, some hogs, my mom and dad are—oh, heck," Charlie said suddenly, "your dad will be pretty sore if he sees me walking around with you this late at night. Why don't I walk you home?" There was nothing he wanted to do less, but he was afraid that Alessandra would be in for a lot of trouble if her family found out she was out on a moonlight stroll with one of the Americans. And then he might not get to see her again.[/font]
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[font="]Alessandra gave him the saddest smile he'd ever seen. "My father will not worry about me," she said. "But yes, you are right, I must go very soon. I am only allowed out for a little time, once in a long while. I thank you for calling on me." She lifted her hand from his arm and kissed him lightly on the cheek[/font]
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[font="]Charlie blushed crimson "Which house is yours?" he said. He looked around nervously to see if anybody had spotted them. He turned to Alessandra to repeat his question. She was gone. He started to call for her and then realized it would be foolish to call attention to her absence from her family's home. She must have slipped off quietly, he figured, thinking that it would be simpler to sneak back into her house alone. Charlie limped back to the house whose family had given him a cot to sleep on, hoping that maybe it was Alessandra's, but knowing that the little home had barely enough room for the signore and his wife, let alone a grown daughter and a guest. He decided to be social with villagers, keep them from getting suspicious, and then excuse himself around sunset, when everybody else was just getting serious about their card games. And he would wait in the piazza for Alessandra.[/font]
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[font="] "What's up?" McCarver said. He took a swig of wine and eyed Charlie suspiciously."You look like you're goin' on a date."[/font]
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[font="] "Keep it down," Charlie hissed. "The locals will overhear you."[/font]
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[font="] McCarver stared at Charlie's clean, ironed uniform, freshly shaved, his hair trimmed and neatly combed back. "You sly dog. You have[/font][font="] been holding out on us. You met a girl?"[/font]
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[font="] "Yeah, look, her name's Alessandra, we just met last night, okay? I don't want her dad to find out before she can introduce me."[/font]
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[font="] "Alessandra?" McCarver said, just as there was a lull in the conversation, and everyone in the café heard them. A small, thin man with a graying mustache put down his cards. Charlie tensed, ready for a confrontation with whoever it was that turned out to be Alessandra's father. He said something in Italian that sounded concerned, not angry. Charlie looked at Houlihan.[/font]
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[font="] "Ah…he says he wasn't sure he heard you right," Houlihan translated.[/font]
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[font="] Charlie sighed: might as well get it over with. "Alessandra," he said. "I saw her last night, in the piazza."[/font]
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The thin man blanched. Behind him, a man crossed himself.
"Sir, I'm sorry if I have given offense," Charlie said. "You should know that your daughter did nothing wrong—" [/font]
[font="]The man held up a trembling hand. "Please," he said, his accent heavy. "You must come." He turned to Houlihan. "You, please, also," he said. "My English is not so good. Follow this way." [/font]
[font="]Charlie and Houlihan walked out of the hushed café. He led them across the piazza and down a small side lane to a neat, two-story house with a dead garden ringing the first floor. The stems of old flowers poked up through dirt littered with pebbles. The man waved at the garden and said something that sounded apologetic. "He asks us to excuse the condition of the house," Houlihan said, "his wife has been ill." [/font]
[font="]"Sure," Charlie said uneasily. He followed the man through the front door of the little house. Inside, it was dark, filled with the smell and the faint light of an oil lamp. The front room was crowded with old horsehair furniture. A woman, bundled in heavy blankets, huddled on a wide couch. She said something faintly to her husband and he replied, his voice soothing.[/font]
[font="]"Please pardon me," the man said. "I forget myself. I am Ruggiero. My wife, Maria, she is ill for many years."[/font]
[font="]Ruggiero lifted the battered tin lamp from its holder and held it up to something on the wall. "This," he said, "was my daughter. Alessandra."[/font]
[font="]Charlie limped into the pale light of the lamp. Ruggiero held it in front of the glassed-in portrait of a young woman, painted in bright oils that were the only colorful thing in the room. Charlie recognized oval face, the strong curve of her jaw, the wide, intelligent eyes that had looked into his the night before. [/font]
[font="]"Was," he said. [/font]
[font="] Ruggiero sobbed and blurted something in Italian. Charlie looked at Houlihan, who looked as though he wanted to be pretty much anywhere but here.[/font]
[font="] "He, uh, he says that they hid her, when they were invaded," Houlihan said. Ruggiero talked as though he couldn't get the words out fast enough. "She refused to go into hiding in the mountains with the others. She would not leave her family. When the soldiers came they searched the houses. She killed the one who found her, and they…" Houlihan stopped; whatever Ruggiero was saying, he didn't want to repeat it. [/font]
[font="] "She is here, still," Ruggiero said, "the part of her not with God. In the cemetery with the others." He crossed himself and collapsed onto into a chair. A puff of dust rose up around him.[/font]
[font="] Charlie put out a hand to touch the glass, half-expecting to breathe in the scent of roses. There was nothing but the smell of dust and and old furniture and the cold, smooth glass under his fingers. He covered his face in his trembling hands, knowing the calm, clear eyes of Alessandra's portrait stared back at him from a distance he could never cross again.[/font]
[font="][1] a souvenir of home, if home is southern [/font][font="]Texas[/font][font="][/font]
[font="][2] the piazza of Monte Segreto[/font]
[font="][3] the knotted tree[/font]
[font="][4] lost girl[/font]
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[font="] "You're going to be on your best behavior," Sarge said, and they all knew he meant Thrash and Snapp especially. "We're the first Americans they've seen since we knocked the Krauts down the mountain. Doubt they speak much English, but there could be one, so no cracking wise. Stay away from their daughters. Any questions?"[/font]
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[font="] They chorused out a "No, sir!" and stood at attention until Sarge decided nobody was going to give him an excuse to make them stay back and peel potatoes. Dismissed, they ran for the Willys like little kids on an outing. Charlie awkwardly climbed into the back of the jeep McCarver was driving and pulled his bad leg in after him.[/font]
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[font="] The road to Monte Segreto was a slow, twisting trip up the mountain road, swerving around mortar holes, rocks and the occasional goat. The stuffed armadillo that Dillon had affixed to the hood of the jeep bounced and rattled, but stayed put. [1] It was an hour of bumps and switchbacks before they crested a small hill and the town opened up in front of them, a smooth place between the hills with real buildings, and a piazza [2], and colorful flags that waved gently to the GIs in the afternoon breeze.[/font]
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[font="] McCarver and Thrash parked the jeeps along a drainage ditch. The men got out and wandered into the piazza, going nowhere in particular. Curtains fluttered in the second-story windows of the houses. Charlie limped to one of the park benches and sat down with his bad leg splayed out in front of him. The Italian sun shone summer-bright and made him feel as sleepy and content as a housecat. He closed his eyes and had half-dozed off when Parnell shook him awake.[/font]
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[font="] "Company," Parnell said. Charlie sat up as the villagers of Monte Segreto approached, shy and cautious, led by an elderly man with a limp worse than Charlie's. Out of habit he sized them up: a handful of little children and a dozen adults, none of them older than ten or younger than fifty. The rest dead or hiding behind their curtains, he guessed, or off in the Italian Army. He wondered if any of them had died fighting Americans before the mobs got Il Dulce and turned the country Allied.[/font]
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[font="] "Buongiornio," the old man said. "Parla Italiano?" [/font]
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[font="] Houlihan walked over to him and shook hands. The man looked at him as if this were a new and strange custom. "Un po', signore," Houlihan said. "Parle Ingles?"[/font]
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[font="] The man smiled. "Yes," he said. "Not so good, but we learn from the radio. I am the mayor here. Please, welcome to our village. The drive was long?"[/font]
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[font="] "Not so long," Houlihan said, "but steep. Irto."[/font]
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[font="] The children peeked out from behind their grandmothers' skirts. Houlihan dug a Hershey bar out of one of his pockets. It drooped in his hand, melted from the sun and the heat of the drive. A little boy darted out and grabbed it, and the chocolate squished in his fingers. The other children shrieked with glee.[/font]
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[font="] The mayor laughed and said something to the people behind him. They moved purposefully back towards the houses.[/font]
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[font="] "What's going on?" Thrash called.[/font]
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[font="] "He said to get us some food, and they should run hot water for baths," Houlihan said. [/font]
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[font="] The squad cheered. Charlie closed his eyes and let the sun soothe him back to sleep.[/font]
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[font="] No more orders came down from Colonel Broadwater. There was some news over the radio about the rest of the Fifth Army's push toward [/font][font="]Rome[/font][font="]. Sarge was reluctant to let his men keep going back to Monte Segreto, even after the first visit with nobody acting up, but there came a point where all the jeeps were in top shape and there were just no more potatoes needing to be peeled. Grudgingly, he allowed that the men could stay up in town, if they wanted, so long as the locals didn't get fed up and Thrash stayed more or less sober.[/font]
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[font="] The villagers were happy to see them. The Americans had chocolate and cigarettes that they gave out freely. In town, they could take hot baths and have home-cooked meals. They stuffed themselves on pasta and cheese, heavenly after months of K-rations and worse. Some of the soldiers got into card games with the men, betting dimes and sharing bottles of the local wine. Charlie liked to sit out in the piazza. He'd let the plump, motherly women urge him to gorge himself on pasta carbonara—somehow they'd gotten the idea Americans loved nothing more than eggs and bacon—and then stretch out on one of the park benches to sleep it off. Even the ache in his leg faded in the light and warmth of Monte Segreto and its people. McCarver remarked that the only thing the town needed was some pretty Italian girls, but they all figured the young women had been sent away long ago, or maybe killed when the Jerries had rolled over this town. None of them asked the villagers. They'd all seen what was left of villages when the Germans retreated and had no inclination to rub salt in these people's wounds.[/font]
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[font="] Charlie woke up from one of his naps more sunburned than usual. The spring was turning into summer quicker than it did back home. The sun had just dipped below the rim of the rough mountains for its long descent into nighttime. From open windows around the piazza came the sounds of laughing and glasses clinking, coins tossed into tables and snatches of conversation, Italian and English chopped together into the companionable talk of men whiling away the time. Charlie got up wandered around the piazza, felling restless. It dawned on him that he hadn't seen much of the rest of the town. His injury had made him disinclined to wander. Rest and food had helped, though, and the ache was mild enough that he thought he could chance a walk around the hills.[/font]
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[font="] He meandered through overgrown, rocky fields and pathways, careful not to get too far downhill where he might have trouble climbing back up if his leg started to hurt. Near a pile of splintered boards that had probably been some kind of animal pen, he caught his good leg in a thorny bush and sprawled flat. Charlie grumbled and pulled himself up. He had tangled in a ragged, overgrown rosebush, wild and untended probably since the war started. Dead brown petals clung to its stems. The scent of roses surrounded him. Charlie breathed in the smell, thinking of his mother's garden back in [/font][font="]Iowa[/font][font="], the peonies and impatiens, and the petunias she could never keep the neighbor's cat from digging up. And her roses.[/font]
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[font="] There was one live blossom remaining on the bush, some of its leaves crushed from Charlie's fall, but otherwise intact. Charlie opened his pocked knife and cut it off just above the break in the stem. He got his legs under him and slowly continued his walk, holding the rose in his fingers where the thorns wouldn't get him. [/font]
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[font="]He stepped over a low stone wall. The ground smoothed out and he found himself behind the houses in another part of the village, looking over a narrow square of land that served as the town's cemetery. [2] The graves were fitted tightly together, crowded into this one flat place in the rocky hills. Charlie walked between them. The flat stones bore names in Italian, prayers, crosses, and dates running back two hundred years, as far as he could tell. Some of them were very recent. He thought of the town of [/font][font="]Sesso Corvino[/font][font="], what it had looked like last February after Kesselring's army had abandoned it to the advancing Allies, the bodies scattered in the streets and watching as the old people who had survived buried their children. He hoped that Thrash wouldn't get drunk enough to ask the people of Monte Segreto where all the pretty ladies were.[/font]
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[font="]Charlie's leg was starting to bother him again. He leaned against a lone tree at the edge of the cemetery. His hand slipped through a gap in the bark. Charlie looked up and saw that the tree was hollow at its top, with old, healed holes making a shape he thought looked a lot like a skull. [3] He stepped up onto one of the tree's buckled roots and peered into the gaping hollow. It was huge and filled with scraps of paper. Charlie thought it might be a magpie's nest, and then realized that the papers were carefully positioned under folds of the tree's inner bark, as though to protect them from the elements. His fingers closed around something that felt like a playing card, and he drew it out into the light. It was a faded rectangle the color of old piano keys. The image of a saint, serene under a halo, was printed on one side. He turned it over to read the smudged writing on the back: Si e' spento serenamente oggi, he read, and realized it was a Mass card. [/font]
[font="]Charlie stuffed it back into the tree hollow. His fingers brushed against something metallic, and he nervously lifted it up into the last orange rays of the sun. It was a woman's gold locket, an oval the size of a robin's egg. Dust from the innards of the tree clogged the delicate chain of the necklace. He pressed the latch on the side of the locket. Inside was a small photograph, probably of a woman, but the image had so faded and warped that he couldn't tell what she might have looked like. Charlie closed the locket gently replaced it with the other offerings, feeling as though he had been rude somehow, like a houseguest barging into a private room uninvited. [/font]
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[font="]Hesitantly, he laid the rose he had picked in the hollow of the tree. Its sweet scent mixed with the earth-smell of the tree's bark. Charlie stepped down and limped back towards the piazza, not looking back and hoping none of the people of Monte Segreto had seen him pawing through the offerings they left for their dead.[/font]
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[font="]He knew the rest of the squad would be in the little open-front store that turned into a café in the evening, but he could have found them by the noise and the bright lamps that ran off a battery salvaged from one of the old jeeps. A radio somewhere in the store was playing the Anderson Sisters. Charlie stepped into the light. Somebody had stacked empty wine bottles into a pyramid on the shop's counter. McCarver, Houlihan and Wisner were playing coteccio with the village men and losing badly, from the relative sizes of the piles of coins in front of them. One of the old men called out to Charlie and handed him a half-empty bottle of white wine. "Gratzie," Charlie told him, and drank a long pull straight from the bottle. The first time he'd tried it he'd choked like a teenager trying his first shot of whiskey. This time the raw, harsh wine burned straight to his stomach and heated him through like a furnace.[/font]
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[font="]"Jesus, Spencer, where you been?" Wisner said. "You smell like perfume or somethin'."[/font]
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[font="]"Smells like a whorehouse," Houlihan said. "You been holding out on us, Charlie?"[/font]
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[font="]"I fell in a damn rosebush," Charlie snapped[/font]
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[font="]"Rosebush? Haven't heard it called that before," somebody called out, and the men howled with laughter.[/font]
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[font="]"Aw, nuts to you guys," Charlie said, and walked out of the café. Normally he gave as good as he got, but he was tired and sore, and still off-kilter from the graveyard. Houlihan called after him; he kept walking until he was on the far side of the piazza, away from the lights and the smoke and the clank of the makeshift generator. He threw himself down on one of the benches and shifted his leg around to the least painful position he could find. The moon was out, three-quarters and bright, casting the shadows of the tattered flags over the piazza. [2]. [/font]
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[font="]"May I sit?" said a soft voice to his left. Charlie jumped. A young woman in a dark blue ankle-length dress and a wide hat stood on the far side of the bench. Charlie pushed himself up and reached up to take off his hat before he remembered he was already holding it.[/font]
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[font="]Then he remembered she had asked him a question. "Sure," he said, and waited for her to sit down, arranging her skirts, before he lowered himself back down. Charlie tried not to stare at her, mindful of the fact that if he hadn't seen her before, it was because the villagers wanted her kept away from the American soldiers. He glanced over at her; her gaze was on her gloved hands, resting in her lap. Strands of hair the color of chocolate spilled from under her hat. She turned to look at Charlie, huge dark eyes set into her perfect oval face, and her smile was as warm as the afternoon sun. [/font]
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[font="]"Uh, hi," he said, wishing he was Thrash, who never had trouble talking to women. "Buonasera. I'm Charlie Spencer. [/font][font="]U.S.[/font][font="], Fifth Army." He stuck out his hand before he could stop himself.[/font]
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[font="]The woman smiled and took his hand very gently. Her own hand was so small and delicate that Charlie was afraid he could break it. "Buonasera," she said. "I am Alessandra. You speak Italian?"[/font]
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[font="]"A little," he said, blushing. [/font]
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[font="]"I have some English," she said. "Do you stay in Monte Segreto?"[/font]
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[font="]"For a little while," Charlie said, "until we have orders to go. We're guarding the town in case the Germans come back, but I think they're pretty far north by now."[/font]
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[font="]"Ah," she said, "that is good to hear," and seemed to fall into though. Charlie was very aware that he smelled like roses and hoped that Alessandra didn't think it was some other woman's perfume. It was silly to worry about what she might think, he knew, her father would lock her back up in the house once he saw her talking to a solider, but—[/font]
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[font="]"Would you walk with me?" she asked, and before he could stammer out an excuse, Charlie found himself standing up and offering her his arm. She said nothing about his slow pace or his limp, seeming content to stroll around the piazza under the bright moon. Charlie steered them away from the café, still pouring yellow light and men's laughter into the piazza. Alessandra's hand rested as light as a butterfly on the crook of his arm. They walked companionably through the warm summer night. [/font]
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[font="]Alessandra stopped abruptly and Charlie bumped into her. He inhaled the smell of her perfume—something with roses, unless he was still smelling the remains of the rosebush on his uniform, but he supposed that it was easier for the women here to press rosewater than to try to get perfume on the black market. She had stopped in front of Dillon's jeep, parked at the edge of town. "What is that?" she asked.[/font]
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[font="]"Ah….an armadillo," Charlie said.[/font]
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[font="]"Armadillo," she repeated, the word taking on extra, rich vowels in her mouth.[/font]
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[font="]"It's, ah, it's like an anteater. Never mind, you probably don't have anteaters here either. See, that's Dillon's jeep, and he's from [/font][font="]Corpus Christi[/font][font="], and—well, I don't know how he brought a stuffed armadillo all the way over here. He said it's kind of a totem."[/font]
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[font="]Alessandra arched one perfect, dark eyebrow. "What is that on its back?"[/font]
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[font="]"Um. I think he wanted it to look more military. So it would match the jeep…"[/font]
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[font="]She looked at him, disbelieving, then burst into laughter. She said something in Italian that Charlie didn't understand at all. "Americans," she said fondly, "you are the most surprising. You bring roses and your friends bring animal trophies. Where is [/font][font="]Corpus Christi[/font][font="]?"[/font]
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[font="]"It's in [/font][font="]Texas[/font][font="]," he said, relieved that Alessandra hadn't been disgusted or run away at the sight of Dillon's weird hood ornament. "Kind of in the south of the country."[/font]
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[font="]She took his arm again lightly and they resumed their walk, back toward the piazza. "Is that where you come from, [/font][font="]Texas[/font][font="]?"[/font]
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[font="]"No, I'm from [/font][font="]Iowa[/font][font="], it's in the [/font][font="]Midwest[/font][font="]. We've got a farm. Corn mostly, some hogs, my mom and dad are—oh, heck," Charlie said suddenly, "your dad will be pretty sore if he sees me walking around with you this late at night. Why don't I walk you home?" There was nothing he wanted to do less, but he was afraid that Alessandra would be in for a lot of trouble if her family found out she was out on a moonlight stroll with one of the Americans. And then he might not get to see her again.[/font]
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[font="]Alessandra gave him the saddest smile he'd ever seen. "My father will not worry about me," she said. "But yes, you are right, I must go very soon. I am only allowed out for a little time, once in a long while. I thank you for calling on me." She lifted her hand from his arm and kissed him lightly on the cheek[/font]
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[font="]Charlie blushed crimson "Which house is yours?" he said. He looked around nervously to see if anybody had spotted them. He turned to Alessandra to repeat his question. She was gone. He started to call for her and then realized it would be foolish to call attention to her absence from her family's home. She must have slipped off quietly, he figured, thinking that it would be simpler to sneak back into her house alone. Charlie limped back to the house whose family had given him a cot to sleep on, hoping that maybe it was Alessandra's, but knowing that the little home had barely enough room for the signore and his wife, let alone a grown daughter and a guest. He decided to be social with villagers, keep them from getting suspicious, and then excuse himself around sunset, when everybody else was just getting serious about their card games. And he would wait in the piazza for Alessandra.[/font]
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[font="]#[/font]
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[font="] "What's up?" McCarver said. He took a swig of wine and eyed Charlie suspiciously."You look like you're goin' on a date."[/font]
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[font="] "Keep it down," Charlie hissed. "The locals will overhear you."[/font]
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[font="] McCarver stared at Charlie's clean, ironed uniform, freshly shaved, his hair trimmed and neatly combed back. "You sly dog. You have[/font][font="] been holding out on us. You met a girl?"[/font]
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[font="] "Yeah, look, her name's Alessandra, we just met last night, okay? I don't want her dad to find out before she can introduce me."[/font]
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[font="] "Alessandra?" McCarver said, just as there was a lull in the conversation, and everyone in the café heard them. A small, thin man with a graying mustache put down his cards. Charlie tensed, ready for a confrontation with whoever it was that turned out to be Alessandra's father. He said something in Italian that sounded concerned, not angry. Charlie looked at Houlihan.[/font]
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[font="] "Ah…he says he wasn't sure he heard you right," Houlihan translated.[/font]
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[font="] Charlie sighed: might as well get it over with. "Alessandra," he said. "I saw her last night, in the piazza."[/font]
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The thin man blanched. Behind him, a man crossed himself.
"Sir, I'm sorry if I have given offense," Charlie said. "You should know that your daughter did nothing wrong—" [/font]
[font="]The man held up a trembling hand. "Please," he said, his accent heavy. "You must come." He turned to Houlihan. "You, please, also," he said. "My English is not so good. Follow this way." [/font]
[font="]Charlie and Houlihan walked out of the hushed café. He led them across the piazza and down a small side lane to a neat, two-story house with a dead garden ringing the first floor. The stems of old flowers poked up through dirt littered with pebbles. The man waved at the garden and said something that sounded apologetic. "He asks us to excuse the condition of the house," Houlihan said, "his wife has been ill." [/font]
[font="]"Sure," Charlie said uneasily. He followed the man through the front door of the little house. Inside, it was dark, filled with the smell and the faint light of an oil lamp. The front room was crowded with old horsehair furniture. A woman, bundled in heavy blankets, huddled on a wide couch. She said something faintly to her husband and he replied, his voice soothing.[/font]
[font="]"Please pardon me," the man said. "I forget myself. I am Ruggiero. My wife, Maria, she is ill for many years."[/font]
[font="]Ruggiero lifted the battered tin lamp from its holder and held it up to something on the wall. "This," he said, "was my daughter. Alessandra."[/font]
[font="]Charlie limped into the pale light of the lamp. Ruggiero held it in front of the glassed-in portrait of a young woman, painted in bright oils that were the only colorful thing in the room. Charlie recognized oval face, the strong curve of her jaw, the wide, intelligent eyes that had looked into his the night before. [/font]
[font="]"Was," he said. [/font]
[font="] Ruggiero sobbed and blurted something in Italian. Charlie looked at Houlihan, who looked as though he wanted to be pretty much anywhere but here.[/font]
[font="] "He, uh, he says that they hid her, when they were invaded," Houlihan said. Ruggiero talked as though he couldn't get the words out fast enough. "She refused to go into hiding in the mountains with the others. She would not leave her family. When the soldiers came they searched the houses. She killed the one who found her, and they…" Houlihan stopped; whatever Ruggiero was saying, he didn't want to repeat it. [/font]
[font="] "She is here, still," Ruggiero said, "the part of her not with God. In the cemetery with the others." He crossed himself and collapsed onto into a chair. A puff of dust rose up around him.[/font]
[font="] Charlie put out a hand to touch the glass, half-expecting to breathe in the scent of roses. There was nothing but the smell of dust and and old furniture and the cold, smooth glass under his fingers. He covered his face in his trembling hands, knowing the calm, clear eyes of Alessandra's portrait stared back at him from a distance he could never cross again.[/font]
[font="][1] a souvenir of home, if home is southern [/font][font="]Texas[/font][font="][/font]
[font="][2] the piazza of Monte Segreto[/font]
[font="][3] the knotted tree[/font]
[font="][4] lost girl[/font]
(Hey, if nobody else says it, at least I can, right?)
)
