The Wedding Officer

18

JAMES WAS by now accustomed to excitable officers ringing with wild reports of counterinvasions and other security threats, so when a captain from Sant’Anastasia phoned to say that there had been sightings of a German tank in the area around Boscotrecase, he remembered Jackson’s warnings and said, “Don’t worry, that rumor’s been looked into, and there’s nothing in it.”

“Well, I don’t know how hard you looked,” the captain’s disembodied voice said, “but the man who reported it to me saw combat in Africa. He’s not given to exaggeration, and what’s more he’s familiar with German tanks. Says he saw the outline of a panzer quite clearly, driving along above Cappella Nuova.”

James checked a map. Cappella Nuova was on the slopes of Vesuvius, only a few miles from the Allied airfield at Terzigno. If there really was a division of panzers holed up in the area, they could do a lot of damage if they decided to attack.

He phoned Major Heathcote and explained the situation. “I think we’d better phone the airfield and put them on an alert, sir,” he said. “And perhaps a few of our own tanks should go and take a look.”

“Tanks? Where on earth do you suppose I’m going to get tanks from?” the major snapped. “Every piece of armor we’ve got is up at Cassino. You’ll have to do a recce yourself, and if there’s really anything in it, call in air support.”

“Er—isn’t that more a job for the infantry, sir? Or at least someone with antitank weapons?”

“Take a few carabinieri. And if anyone has to get blown up, try to make sure it’s you rather than them.”

Carlo and Enrico perked up visibly at the thought of an excursion. The following morning they turned up with half a dozen of their friends, once more dressed in their best Capone-movie outfits—bow ties, spats, boaters and waistcoats. Once again the issuing of tommy guns caused them all to start posing gleefully, and there were even some flash photographs being taken until James called them all to order.

“No heroics,” he told them. “If we do see anything, we’re calling in the air force. Absolutely no one is to fire his weapon unless I give the order, and if at all possible we’ll observe from a distance without being seen ourselves.”

It was the first time James had been out to Vesuvius. It was not apparent, from the other side of the bay, just how vast the volcano was—not a single mountain at all, but a whole series of foothills and escarpments that suddenly resolved themselves into the gargantuan twin peaks of Monte Somma and Monte Conna, the volcano proper. The smoke that perpetually hung over its tip, which in Naples had seemed so delicate and ethereal, now loomed menacingly over their heads. It looked, James thought, like the smoldering of an old fire that refused to go out.

Driving in convoy—James had brought the motorbike, rather than travel in the jeeps with the gun-toting Italians—he saw a battered sign that indicated they were passing the ruins of Pompeii. He made a mental note to come back and explore them sometime.

As they began to wind their way up the mountain, great tongues of cooled lava scarred the landscape, some of them shiny as if they were made of molten black glass. Yet despite this there were more than a dozen villages and towns scattered across the lower slopes—a triumph, James supposed, of optimism over forward planning. Surely Pompeii was all the reminder one needed of the folly of building here?

All morning they crisscrossed the slopes, occasionally stopping to question the villagers. In San Sebastiano he was shown where the lava from the 1923 eruption had broken into two streams and flowed right around the town—a miracle, according to the man who showed this to him, worked by a wooden statue of Saint Sebastian, which the white-hot lava had been unable to burn. The same statue, slightly scorched, now stood in the church just a few hundred yards from the lava’s edge, where it had not been fixed to the wall in case the saint was ever needed at short notice in the future. James asked if any tanks had been seen in the vicinity, and the man shrugged. “They are hiding in the volcano itself,” he said fatalistically. “Everyone knows that. One day they will come out again and retake Naples.” It sounded to James more like a reworking of some old folk myth than anything based on actual observation.

On the far side of the mountain, though, sightings became more reliable. A shepherd had seen a tank traveling at speed down a country lane just two days earlier. Several other people claimed to have seen a panzer in the fields above Boscotrecase. “Near Fiscino,” seemed to be the general consensus, and as the afternoon drew to a close that little village seemed a logical place to head toward.

They were still riding in convoy, so that James’s view was mostly blocked by the forward jeep. It was only when it suddenly veered off the road and screeched to a halt that he realized something was wrong. He looked up, to his left. Yes, there was a panzer, the swastika on its side quite visible. After so long chasing it, he was almost relieved—it had started to take on the insubstantiality of a mythical beast, and at least he now knew the threat was real. It was in a field about fifty yards above him, bumping slightly as it churned toward them. Already the carabinieri were piling out of the back of the jeep, clutching their tommy guns.

“Remember the plan,” he shouted. “We’ll fall back and call for air support.” No one paid him the slightest attention as they hurried toward the tank, the guns at their hips spraying shots in all directions. Sparks flew from the panzer’s body as bullets pinged off metal. James felt a sudden sharp pain in his left shoulder. “Bugger,” he said, with feeling. A ricochet had just winged him. He felt the wound gingerly. Luckily it seemed to be nothing serious. He raised his voice. “No! Fall back!”

This time, the carabinieri were only too happy to oblige. Having realized their bullets were useless against the tank’s armored sides, they put as much enthusiasm into a pell-mell retreat back to the apparent safety of the jeep as they had into their previous attack. James became acutely aware that he was the only person still standing exposed in the tank’s path.

The tank bumped over a slight rise in the ground and skewed onto the road, demolishing part of a wall in the process. The gun appeared to turn in his direction—or was it just the effect of the uneven ground, jolting the barrel? Conscious that the carabinieri were all watching him, James took out his pistol. “Stop!” he shouted. He realized that, even if they could hear him above the noise of the engine, this was unlikely to mean very much to a panzer crew. “Halte!” he added for good measure, raising his free hand in the air, palm forward.

The tank did not halt. It was weaving erratically as it lurched toward him, presumably as some kind of antitank-missile evasion procedure. If he continued to stand where he was, it was simply going to run him over.

At the last moment the tank came to a standstill. The barrel of its enormous gun dropped, pointing directly at him. He felt an irrational surge of anger. He was going to die a virgin, a long way from home, and all because the bloody Italians hadn’t stuck to the bloody plan.

The hatch opened and a face appeared. James could see that although it was streaked with oil it was a rather pleasing face, all big eyes, delicate cheekbones and dark eyebrows. At the moment, however, it was scowling fiercely.

“What in the name of all the saints are you doing, standing in the middle of the road like that?” the face yelled in Italian. “I could have killed you, you stupid fool.”

“I ordered you to stop,” he pointed out.

“Why should I stop? You could easily have got out of my way.”

The woman put her hands on the top of the tank and pulled herself out of the hatch, revealing a length of slender brown leg. There was a collective intake of breath from the carabinieri. As she slid down over the tank’s side to the ground, some of the quicker ones leapt forward to offer her a hand. Slightly bemused, James said, “Is this your tank?”

“Well, obviously not originally,” she retorted. The carabinieri, their previous terror now apparently forgotten, laughed. The one who had helped her down seemed to be reluctant to let go of her hand, until she turned to him with a dazzling smile and a gracious, “Grazie mille.”

“So it’s stolen,” James persisted.

She pulled her hair, which was long, glossy and very black, out of her collar, where she had tucked it out of the way. “So what?”

“I’m afraid you can’t keep it.”

The young woman looked from the tank to James and raised an eyebrow. “You want me to find some Germans and give it back?” she said incredulously. The carabinieri chuckled delightedly.

“You need to give it to us.”

“But then you would have stolen it.” The carabinieri nodded as one man, and looked at James to see how he would respond.

“We’re sort of allowed to,” he pointed out. “As the winning side.”

She considered this. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll sell it to you. Make me an offer.”

“The penalty for being caught in possession of military weapons is ten years’ imprisonment.”

“It is?” She looked astonished. “Oh. But I don’t have any military weapons.”

“Madam,” James said, “you were driving a tank.”

She made a dismissive gesture. “So?”

James looked pointedly at the four-inch gun barrel above his head.

“Oh, that,” she said, appearing to notice it for the first time. “There happens to be a gun attached to it, certainly, but that’s nothing to do with me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a tractor. Look.” She pointed to the rear of the tank where, James now saw, some kind of primitive hoeing device had been fastened.

“May I ask whether you have a permit to run a vehicle?”

The woman seemed to be about to answer this question when she suddenly noticed his shoulder. “You’re wounded.”

“May I just ask—”

“You’re bleeding.”

He looked. It was true. In the adrenaline of the moment, he hadn’t noticed that his shoulder was becoming soaked with blood. “I’m all right,” he said. But the young woman had turned away and was berating the carabinieri for standing there doing nothing while their captain was bleeding to death. Did they have bandages? No? Then he must be carried to her house, fortunately just around the next corner, where her sister the maga would dress it at once. Look, the captain was swaying, he must be faint. He should sit down and get his head between his knees while a stretcher was fetched.

Suddenly James found himself being ministered to by half a dozen carabinieri, working far more efficiently under the young woman’s instructions than they had ever done for him, although he would have felt safer if they had put their tommy guns down before forcing him to the ground and pushing his head between his knees. From one of the jeeps a stretcher was produced. He was lifted onto it as delicately as if he were a baby, and then carried with infinite care over the rough ground.

He was placed on a kitchen table while another young woman, with similar features to the first and almost as pretty, was fetched to look at the wound. Before James quite knew what was happening both girls were peeling off his shirt and examining his shoulder, the younger one making exclamations of concern. His wound was washed, and the younger woman pressed all around it with firm, cool fingers. She spoke to her sister in rapid dialect, and the older girl leant over him and offered him her hand. “Squeeze this,” she instructed. As he squeezed he felt the hard band of her wedding ring.

“I think it may be sprained as well,” the younger one said. She left the room. James was left on his back, staring up at the mass of fragrant black hair that tumbled over the tank driver’s forehead. He realized he was still squeezing her hand. “Sorry,” he said, withdrawing it.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Captain Gould. James Gould.”

“Chames Ghoul?”

“James Gould.”

“Jems Goot?”

“Near enough.” Despite himself, he suddenly felt rather cheerful. He had thought he was about to be blasted to smithereens by a tank gun, and now here he was being ministered to by two of the prettiest girls he had ever met. It was the sort of thing that could only have happened in Italy.

The younger sister returned with two small jars. “Stay still,” she told him. Reaching carefully into the first one, she took out a bee. The insect appeared to be tame, or perhaps it was just used to her: It walked over her fingers as unconcerned as a ladybug. “This will only hurt a little,” she said. She held the bee to his shoulder, and James felt a sudden sharp pain as it stung him.

“What in God’s name—” he began, trying to get up.

“It will help the cut heal.” From the second jar she spooned a small amount of what looked like honey, which she dabbed on the edges of the wound. “This too.”

It was nonsense, of course, but he supposed they were only trying to help. And her fingers were really very deft, massaging away the pain…. He lay back and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, his shirt was being cut up to make bandages. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re very kind.”

“It’s not kindness,” the older sister said matter-of-factly. “We don’t want to go to prison, that’s all.”

“And I thought you were doing it out of the goodness of your hearts,” he said drily.

“Marisa thinks that one of us should flirt with you, just in case. She thinks it should be me,” she added, “because you like me better.”

How on earth did she know that? “I hope you told her you’re not that kind of girl,” he muttered.

She turned to look down at him. Her eyes, he noticed, were deep green in color, and they regarded him with a sudden flash of what looked remarkably like contempt. “No,” she said. “I told her that I would rather die than flirt with a British officer.”

The younger girl began to wind the bandage around his upper arm.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” James said, confused by the sudden bitterness in her voice.

But for once, he wasn’t completely sure that he was.

By the time the wound was dressed, and a sling rigged up, the pain in his shoulder had turned into a fuzzy warmth. Perhaps the bee sting had helped after all, James thought; he must ask his medical friend if there was anything in it.

A plate of small, round, white objects was placed in front of him, together with a fork. “Eat,” he was commanded. He pushed the fork into one of the objects. It was as soft as a poached egg and, when he punctured it, oozed what appeared to be ivory-colored cream. He tried some. Richness flooded his mouth. The taste was fresh, almost like chewing grass, but filling and slightly sweet.

“Gosh,” he said. “What is this?”

“Burrata. We make it ourselves.”

It was not a word he knew. He said firmly, “I’m afraid I’ll need some more details about this tank. How did you come by it in the first place?”

“Marisa put a spell on it.”

James’s heart sank. He could imagine Major Heathcote’s reaction if he put that in his report.

He listened as Marisa and Livia explained the story of the widow Esmeralda and the spell that was put on the tank in retribution for her death. It took a while, and was somewhat confused, owing to the girls’ habit of talking over each other. He stroked his chin. It was a more complex situation than he had first assumed, because the tank had been taken directly from the Germans, and was thus technically not stolen, but captured…. “Let me think about this,” he said. “Butin the meantime I’ll have to impound the tank. And you’ll have to come with us, I’m afraid,” he added to Livia.

“Where to?”

“The military compound in Naples.”

“There may be a problem with that.”

“Oh? Why?”

“That tank runs on my father’s grappa. While you’re sitting here chatting, your men outside are drinking all the fuel.”

James went to stop the carabinieri, who as Livia had said were making hefty inroads into the bottles of pungent, colorless alcohol the girls had been using to run the tank. It was only then that he realized that the house, although no different in appearance from any of the other houses in the village, doubled as a bar and restaurant. “And I’m afraid you’ll have to close this place,” he told the two sisters. “All places of entertainment are off-limits until further notice.”

“By whose stupid order?” Livia demanded.

“Mine, actually.”

“But we live here.”

“Well, you’ll have to close the kitchen and dining room.”

“But it’s our kitchen. And our dining room.”

James scratched his head. Rules which had seemed straightforward when drawn up in Naples seemed rather more complicated here. “You’ll just have to turn your customers away,” he suggested.

“We don’t have any customers. Apart from your carabinieri.”

This was clearly going to be one of those circular conversations at which Italians excelled. “In that case you can stay open,” he said, “until you have some customers, at which point you will have to close. Is that fair?”

The girls reluctantly agreed that this was acceptable, so long as they were recompensed for the grappa. There was a brief negotiation, which somehow resulted in James’s agreeing to pay them an extortionate amount, and Livia went off to get some things.

Upstairs she took Marisa and her father aside. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll be fine. But since they’re taking me to Naples, I think I should stay there.”

“Why?” Nino asked, aghast.

“While I’m here, Alberto will never leave us alone. If I go, perhaps things will be better. There’s enough food for the two of you, if the neighbors help out.”

“But how will you survive?”

“I’ll go to Enzo’s family and get work in the factory. His mother won’t let me starve.” Fighting back tears, she said, “Really, it’s for the best. I don’t want Alberto to win anymore than you do, but what choice do we have? You know as well as I do that no one here can stand up to him.”

Marisa hugged her. “All right. Go, if you think you have to. But come back to us as soon as you can.”

Nino said, “I don’t like to think of you getting a lift from soldiers.”

“I’ll be careful. Besides, if this officer was going to try anything it would have been before, when he could have threatened us with prison about the tank.”

“Livia’s right,” Marisa said. “He’s not like the officer who took our food.”

“A soldier is still a soldier,” Nino said. “Leave here with him if you must, but don’t give him any encouragement.”

“Of course I won’t. The only difficulty will be forcing myself to be polite to him.”

There was almost a fight among the policemen for the honor of helping Livia up into the back of the jeep, but as it turned out, none of the carabinieri knew how to drive the tank. Livia tried to teach one of them, but he kept crashing it into the side of the road. James suspected that he was simply overcome by the experience of being confined in a very small space with Livia. When they finally left for the military compound it was in a convoy, with Livia driving the tank, James standing to attention in the command hatch, and the other vehicles bringing up the rear.

As they drove down the foothills of Vesuvius, James was conscious of an unfamiliar sensation. He was enjoying himself. He was alive; he was commanding a German tank; the scenery was beautiful, the sea air was warm and salty on his face and the scent of ilex trees was filling his nostrils. And the girl who crouched down in the driving seat, her thick black hair billowing behind her—there was definitely something about her that was contributing to this feeling of well-being. Quite apart from anything else, it was such a pleasant novelty to meet an Italian girl who wasn’t trying to get one into bed.

“So you see,” James explained to Major Heathcote on the telephone, “this woman and her fellow partisans took part in a local resistance operation. The partisans captured this tank, but there was no fuel to drive it. Then, after the Germans had left, they hit on the idea of refueling it with grappa, and that’s when the tank was spotted, as they tried to deliver it to the Allies.”

None of this was strictly a lie, but neither was it strictly true. It was, he told himself, simply a matter of making sure that busy people such as the CO didn’t spend more time than they needed to on things that really weren’t all that important.

“These partisans,” the CO said thoughtfully. “What are they known as?”

“Er—the Pertini band, I believe, sir.”

“Not communists, are they?”

James thought of those negotiations over the grappa. “No, sir. From what I’ve seen of them, they are most definitely democratic capitalists.”

“Good. Tell ’em we’re very grateful for their gallant efforts, et cetera, and send them on their way.”

By the time James found someone prepared to take receipt of an operational German panzer it was late. Livia was still surrounded by a mass of attentive Italians, but she was yawning, and she had little choice but to accept James’s offer of a lift.

With one of his arms in a sling, and the back of the bike weighed down by Livia’s bag, they made unsteady progress on the Matchless as they set off from the compound. “Sorry about that,” he called over his shoulder as he hit a pothole.

She didn’t answer. After a couple of other attempts at small talk met a similar reaction, he gave up and concentrated on driving. After a while he felt her head rest against his back. The contact was rather agreeable, and for a moment he wondered if she was showing some interest in him after all. Then he realized that she had simply fallen asleep, curled up against his back as lightly as a cat.

Naples was quiet, illuminated by a huge moon, and as he steered his way carefully through the cobbled streets James felt a pang of affection for the place; so unpredictable, so maddening, yet capable of springing surprises like putting a sleeping girl on your motorbike in the middle of the night, and in the middle of a war to boot.

In fact, Naples was not completely quiet that night. Behind the blackout curtains at Zi’Teresa’s, the closed-down restaurant was the venue for a meeting of the disaffected.

Angelo, who had called the meeting, was there, as was the beautiful glass-eyed whore Elena Marlona. Amongst the other women in the room were several others James would have recognized: Algisa Fiore, Violetta Cartenza, the born-again virgin Silvana Settimo, Serena Tivoloni…. The room was filled with the flower of Neapolitan womanhood, and the flower of Neapolitan womanhood was not happy.

“How can we work if the brothels are shut?” Algisa Fiore demanded. “It’s ridiculous. We have to operate from home, or slip out onto the streets when no one’s looking.”

“It’s worse for us,” a middle-aged man who ran one of the city’s oldest pizzerias pointed out. “At least you carry the tools of your trade around with you. Me, I can’t do anything without my oven.”

“For myself,” Elena said, looking around haughtily with her one good eye, “the closure of the brothels makes little difference. I was the best whore in Naples before the war, and I’ll be the best whore in Naples after the war is over. But this ban on marrying is a pain. The market’s getting clogged up with too many amateurs.”

“It’s all down to this Englishman, Gould,” someone said. “Surely we can do something?”

“We could have him killed,” a villainous-looking pimp suggested. “I’ll do it myself, for a small consideration.”

“A waste of time,” Angelo said. “They’ll just replace him with someone else. And I know the British: If their man is murdered, they’ll clamp down even harder.”

“Then he must be seduced.”

“I tried that,” Algisa Fiore said gloomily. “Niente.”

“Or bribed.”

“He didn’t even open the envelope,” Martina Fontanelle said.

“Perhaps he likes little girls, like Jackson. Or boys. There’s always something that will corrupt a man.”

“Not this one,” Angelo said. “He even pays for his own dinner. But come to think ofit…”

“What?”

“There is something that he likes. Food.” Angelo looked thoughtful. “Though I think he may not even have realized it himself.”

“Hardly surprising, if his cook is Ciro Malloni.” Those who knew Malloni chuckled.

“Malloni is there for a reason,” Angelo said. “He works for Vito Genovese. But I hear the Genovese family aren’t too happy about these restrictions either…. Leave it with me. I’ll think of something.”