Andreja
Andreja, Chapter One
September 8, 1943
Central Trieste
I grabbed my hunting rifle from our equipment cabinet. I popped out the clip and filled it with six fresh cartridges, then snapped the clip down through the breech and closed the bolt: ready to fire.
Italy may have suffered a national disaster that day, but scusami, mine was worse: I'd just learned that my husband Renzo had been killed in action in the Libyan desert. Five months ago. And the letter from the mayor said I should be proud. Proud? Proud that the love of my life has died in a stupid war? Proud that he died under the stupid orders of a stupid egomaniac who dragged us unprepared into a war nobody but the most stupid among us ever wanted?
I carried my rifle to the kitchen. I plopped myself into a chair, placing the butt of the rifle between my heels and resting my chin on the end of the barrel. A feathery squeeze on the trigger would end my suffering.
If it hadn't been for my son Miha, I would have done it.
My only child, just turned twenty, drafted at the same time as Renzo, last I'd heard he was somewhere in Yugoslavia, fighting alongside our now former allies the Germans. Probably no more than fifty miles away.
I spread out the morning's newspaper to cover the table and began the meditative ritual of breaking down and cleaning my rifle. I opened the breech, palmed the cartridge as it flew out. I popped out the clip, inserted the cartridge, and set that assembly aside.
As I worked, cleaning every part one at a time even if it didn't look like it needed it, the BBC's Radio Londra repeated the announcement: An American general named Eisenhower said "Italy has surrendered." I understood enough English to know that we would no longer be fighting alongside Germany. I also understood enough about Italian politics to know why no Italian authority would lend their name to announcing such a fate. Mussolini, the scapegoat, had been arrested. His replacement, a so-called hero of World War I, wouldn't say it. The King wouldn't say it.
Those two were probably driving away from Rome under cover of darkness having bribed the local Germans and hoping to make it to British lines in the south before daybreak.
I stopped. If the army and our government were indeed collapsing, would anyone get word to Miha? I couldn't rely on them. And I couldn't sit home and wait. No, I would set off, tonight, for the front, where I would find my boy and tell him this news. He needed to know.
I finished my rifle, inserted the clip and leaned the rifle against the frame of my front door. I began packing my rucksack for the journey ahead.
Considering it was still summer, I opted to travel light: One change of clothes, a wool layer for the cooler nights to come, a raincoat with a hood, gloves. My skinning knife. Three tins of sardines. Matches. A compass and binoculars. A first aid kit. Extra under-garments and socks. A towel and a small bar of soap. Toothbrush and toothpaste. A box of ammunition. Boots.
I didn't think it would take me more than a week or two to find Miha. If he was still alive.
Tonight, a few hours of walking would bring me into the hills above Muggia where I knew of a rural church that might offer me shelter.
What worried me was being away from our architecture atelier. Renzo had built the business with a classmate, with mostly just cheering from me, I was busy with Miha. After they were drafted, my primary work was teaching the Avanguardisti, teenage Mussolini Fascists-in-training, how to shoot straight. I preferred the atmosphere of the atelier – it was an airy, well-lit space near Piazza Cavana, in a former warehouse facing the port – and I made a point to drop by almost every day. I enjoyed the staff: Bright, creative, constantly questioning the way things were, imagining what could be.
It had been much more fun dropping by when Renzo was there, as I often had after walking Miha to school. I think it helped for me to be visible after Renzo was taken by the army, a reminder that there was a whole family depending on this group to keep things going.
Here at home, I had a stay-at-home neighbor downstairs who would keep an eye on things.
It never occurred to me that I might never make it back.
I sat down at the kitchen table and wrote two notes. First, to Renzo's number two at the atelier, telling her she was now in charge. Second, to my banker, instructing him to exercise his power of attorney to take care of the house, which wouldn't be difficult, pay my bills, which weren't many, and collect payments from the firm. No details, other than "I'm going to find Miha." Envelopes, stamps, addresses, done.
I worried about my little sister. Cvetka was about to turn thirty. Unmarried, she'd made a life for herself in Gorizia where she worked as a librarian at the seminary. She loved old books and was by far the most Catholic among us. I wrote her a quick note. My brother Zago was also in the Italian army, but working a desk job in Milano. He'd be fine.
As for my parents? The only thing my mother and I had shared for the past decade was our banker. He would tell her. As for my father, I couldn't think about him. But I knew he was well connected and always well informed, he'd find out one way or another.
Four hours and ten miles later, I found the door of that rural church locked. It was a clear warm night, so I set up camp in the cemetery. The church adorned a hill with a 270-degree view to the north with the entire Bay of Trieste below me. I put on my raincoat anticipating a morning chill and, leaning against the back of a headstone, I looked down on close to a million people sleeping, in Muggia just below, all around the Bay of Trieste, atop the Carso plateau looming 1,500 feet above it, and around to the northwest to Monfalcone and the white sand beach towns of Grado.
Renzo had brought me here the October Miha turned six, on a tour of the countryside. During a fabulous lunch – earthy truffles on a Croatian version of maltagliati -- we heard about this tiny church, and came up here in the afternoon. The three of us promptly curled up together in tall dry grass to sleep off our meal. We woke just in time to catch a sunset setting fire to the first snows gracing the distant Alps.
Resting in that cemetery, with the faintest hints of dawn on the eastern horizon, I couldn't keep Renzo in my thoughts, so I looked up and counted stars until sleep blocked everything out.
I woke to the hot sun stabbing at my eyes and immediately checked my rifle. As a hunter, it should be unremarkable for me to be walking around the countryside with a rifle slung over my shoulder. Finding shade by the westerly wall of the church, I considered the madness of my undertaking. Best to change my appearance. So I promptly took out my knife and cut off most of my hair. I stashed the pile of blonde curls in a thicket near the church, imagining they might insulate a rabbit's winter den or get woven into a bird's nest next spring.
I would become Andrej, Miha's older brother.
"My name is Andrej," I said out loud, using the lower third of my register, "and I'm looking for my brother Miha." I didn't sound convincing. I tried it again. It would take some practice.
After a breakfast of sardines – still no sign of life at the church – I set off in the direction of Fiume.
Around midday I spotted a trio of Italian soldiers before they saw me. With my binoculars, I determined that they had no weapons, so I approached and asked if they knew Miha. They greeted me with indifference, said they knew of his unit but not him, and suggested I try an area of hills this side of Fiume.
"You must be pleased the war is over," I said in my deepest voice.
"The war's not finished," one of them said, "just the Italian army. I just hope we can get home before the Germans nab us."
That surprised me. Germans near here? "Where are the Germans?"
"They rolled tanks into every Italian city north of Naples this morning," another said.
"Trieste too?" I asked. I felt the third one looking at me. Maybe he knew I wasn't a man?
"Almost certainly," he replied.
"How will you avoid them?"
"We're going to my grandparents' house in Muggia," the third one said, still looking at me suspiciously.
"After a rest and a little home cooking, maybe join the Partisans," the first one said.