They had deserted who knows where, then headed toward Solara simply because someone had told them that the Badogliani were in the area. They had walked many kilometres, off the roads, moving only at night and so taking twice as long to get anywhere, but the S.S. had stayed on their heels, and it was a miracle that they had managed to reach us, begging food at the occasional farmhouse, communicating as best they could (although they all spoke a smattering of German, only one knew Italian), and always on the verge of running into people who might be spies.
The day before, realizing that the S.S. was about to catch up with them, they had gone up to San Martino, thinking that from there they could fight off a battalion for a few days, and, after all, they might as well die bravely. Also, someone had told them that a certain Talino lived up there, and he knew someone who might be able to help them. At this point, they were a desperate bunch. They reached San Martino after dark and found Talino, who, however, told them that a Fascist family lived there and that, in a village that small, secrets didn’t last long. The only thing he could think of was to have them seek refuge in the rectory. The priest took them in, not for political reasons, or even out of the goodness of his heart, but because he saw that letting them wander about would be worse than hiding them. But he couldn’t keep them long. He didn’t have enough food for eight men, and he was scared witless, because if the Germans came they would waste no time in searching every house, including the rectory.
“Boys, try to understand,” the priest said. “You’ve all read Kesselring’s manifesto – they’ve put it up everywhere. If they find those men in any of our houses, they’ll burn the town, and, even worse, if one of them shoots at the Germans they’ll kill us all.”
Unfortunately, we had indeed seen Field Marshal Kesselring’s manifesto, and even without it we knew that the S.S. were not exactly subtle, and that they had already burned several towns.
“And so?” Gragnola asked.
“So, seeing that this fog has by the grace of God descended upon us, and seeing that the Germans don’t know the area, someone from Solara has to come up and get those blessed Cossacks, lead them back down, and take them to the Badogliani.”
“And why someone from Solara?”
“In primis, because, to be frank, if I speak about this with anyone in San Martino, word will begin to get around, and in these times the fewer words getting around the better. In secundis, because the Germans have closed the road and no one can get out by that route. Hence the only thing left is to go through the gorge.”
Hearing mention of the gorge, the men all said, “What, do we look crazy? In fog like this? How come that Talino fellow can’t do it?,” and things of that kind. But the damn priest, after reminding them that Talino was eighty and couldn’t come down from San Martino even on the sunniest of days, added – and I say it was in revenge for the frights we boys from the Oratorio had given him – “The only people who know how to get through the gorge, even in fog, are your boys. Seeing as they learned that deviltry in order to make trouble, let them for once use their talents for the good. Bring the Cossacks down with the help of one of your boys.”
“Christ,” Gragnola said, “even if that’s true, what would we do once we got them down – keep them in Solara so that on Monday morning they could be found among us instead of among you, and the Germans could burn our town instead?”
In the group were Stivulu and Gigio, two men who had connections to the Resistance. “Calm down,” said Stivulu, the sharper of the two. “The Badogliani are, as we speak, in Orbegno, and neither the S.S. nor the Black Brigades have ever laid a hand on them there, because they stick to the high ground and control the entire valley with those English machine guns, which are astounding. From here to Orbegno, even in this fog, for somebody like Gigio, who knows the road, if he could use Bercelli’s truck, which has got headlights made specially for fog, that’s a two-hour trip. Let’s go ahead and say three, because it’s already getting dark. It’s five now, Gigio gets there by eight, he warns them, they come down a little way and wait by the Vignoletta crossroads. Then the truck’s back here by ten, let’s go ahead and say eleven, and it hides in that cluster of trees at the foot of the gorge, near the little chapel of the Madonna. One of us, after eleven, goes up the gorge, gets the Cossacks from the rectory, brings them down, loads them into the truck, and before morning those fellows are with the Badogliani.”
“And we’re going through all this rigmarole, risking our necks, for eight Mamelukes or Kalmyks or Mongols or whatever, who were with the S.S. up until yesterday?” asked a man with red hair, whose name, I think, was Migliavacca.
“Hey, buddy, these guys have changed their minds,” Gragnola said, “and that’s already a fine thing, but they’re also eight strong men who know how to shoot, so they’re useful. The rest is horseshit.”
“They’re useful for the Badogliani,” Migliavacca snapped.
“Badogliani or Garibaldini, they’re all fighting for freedom, and, as everybody’s always saying, the accounts will be settled later, not sooner. We’ve got to save the Cossacks.”
“You’re right, too. And, after all, they’re Soviet citizens, so they belong to the great fatherland of socialism,” said a man named Martinengo, who had not quite kept up with all the turning of coats. But these were months when people were doing all sorts of things. Take Gino, who had been in the Black Brigades, and one of the more fanatical members, and then ran off to join the partisans and returned to Solara wearing a red neckerchief. But he was impulsive, and came back when he should have stayed away, to meet a girl, and the Black Brigades caught him and executed him in Asti at dawn one day.
“In short, it can be done,” Gragnola said.
“There’s just one problem,” Migliavacca said. “Even the priest said that only the kids know how to climb the gorge, and I wouldn’t involve a kid in such a delicate situation. Questions of judgment aside, a kid’s likely to go around blabbing about it.”
“No,” Stivulu said. “For example, take Yambo here – none of you even noticed him, but he’s heard everything. Yambo knows the gorge like the back of his hand, and he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and, what’s more, he’s not the type to talk. I’d stake my life on it, and, besides, everyone in his family is on our side, so we’re not running any risks.”
I broke out in a cold sweat and started to say that it was late and I was expected at home.
Gragnola pulled me aside and rattled off a slew of fine words. That it was for freedom; that it was to save eight poor wretches; that even boys my age could be heroes; that, after all, I’d climbed the gorge many times and this time wouldn’t be any different from the others, except there would be eight Cossacks coming down behind me and I would have to be careful not to lose them; that, in any case, the Germans were way over there, waiting at the end of the road like dumb-asses with no idea where the gorge was; that he would come with me even though he was sick, because you cannot turn your back when duty calls; that we would go not at eleven but, rather, at midnight, when everyone in my house was already asleep and I could slip out unnoticed, and the next day they would see me back in my bed as if nothing had happened. And so on, hypnotizing me.
the art is inside
