The Liberation

  For Norman with love

  CHAPTER ONE

  SORRENTO, 1934

  Caterina Lombardi didn’t want Nonno to die. Not here. Alone. Not lying lost and broken somewhere on the moist black earth with beetles for company and wet leaves as a shroud. Her head twisted from side to side, searching for any sign of him. She expected him to leap up out of the mist, a tall erect figure who would laugh away her fears with a shake of his head and demand a glass of Marsala to warm his chilled bones.

  But there was no figure. No laughter.

  The sides of the ravine were steep. Caterina skidded and scrambled, and clung on to stalks and branches that lashed out at her as she descended in a wild rush through the dense undergrowth. Crashing into rocks. Skinning her elbow. Uttering no sound. Her heart pounding. She had to keep up with the search party or Papà would send her home.

  ‘She’s too young. She shouldn’t be here,’ Augusta Cavaleri had declared with disapproval.

  Standing at the top of the ravine, Papà had rested his callused hand on Caterina’s damp head and bent down so that his eyes were on a level with hers. But they were not his usual bright affectionate eyes that knew how to make her laugh with just a well-timed wink. No, these were a stranger’s eyes. They made her nervous. So full of shadows she could barely find him behind them.

  ‘You really want to help with the search, little one?’ he asked softly.

  ‘I am ten today, Papà. I am old enough.’ She glanced warily at the tall grey-haired woman in the long black coat who wanted to send her home. Augusta Cavaleri possessed a livid white scar on her forehead that always frightened Caterina because it looked like a silver snake slithering across it. ‘He is my grandfather. I want to search for him.’

  ‘It is dangerous terrain here,’ Augusta Cavaleri pointed out with annoyance at having her will thwarted by a child.

  The Lombardi and Cavaleri families were firm friends. Papà and Roberto Cavaleri, who was Augusta’s son, worked in their own wood-inlay businesses in Sorrento, but Caterina had learned to tiptoe with care around this matriarch of the Cavaleri clan if she wanted to keep her knuckles intact.

  ‘Look down there.’ Augusta Cavaleri directed a cold finger at the rocks below. ‘She’ll break her neck.’

  ‘I won’t, Papà. I promise.’

  They gazed down into the ravine, a steeply wooded gash in the volcanic rock with a tall-chimneyed mill nestling at the bottom, abandoned and in ruins now. Everywhere was overgrown with bushes and briars, and trees spread their stunted canopies over whatever secrets lay below. It was a sombre world. Shapes were blurred by the ropes of mist that trailed across the floor of the ravine and by the relentless drizzle that had made the descent wet and slippery.

  Somewhere in that dark and tangled underworld lay Caterina’s grandfather.

  She’ll break her neck.

  The words swelled in Caterina’s head. Fear caught in her throat and she pressed a hand over her mouth to keep it in. Her fear was for Nonno.

  Was his neck broken? Somewhere down here? Was that why they huddled in groups, the searchers? Whispering. Falling silent when they noticed her nearby. They didn’t want her to know. The searchers had spread out in a line, calling to each other, shouting Giuseppe Lombardi’s name, and beating the undergrowth with sticks as they marched forward at a steady pace. Light rain pattered down on to their shoulders and caps and speckled the foliage, dripping on to shoes and spiders.

  Caterina ducked under ferns so tall they closed over her head, locking her into a world of greens and greys and silvery webs, a world where the edges had become liquid and unstable. Sounds became slippery. She moved forward quickly, jinking to the right, taking a route of her own, away from the shouts and the boots. Crouching low, she scrambled through the thick undergrowth and the shouts dwindled as she was swallowed by the silence at the far end of the ravine.

  ‘Nonno!’ she cried. ‘Where are you?’

  She listened. No answer. Just the chatter of the rain. But a shape flickered just out of sight. Wreathed in mist. Caterina’s pulse jumped. Her feet stumbled. Was it a person? Or only the wind stirring the leaves?

  A noise. Behind her.

  She spun around but could see nothing through the veil of rain. Was that a whisper? Her grandfathers’ voice?

  ‘Nonno,’ she shouted. ‘Nonno!’

  Nothing.

  A small animal trail opened up under a forest of ferns and she ran along it, bent double, her long hair twining dark wet tendrils around her neck. That was when she saw the splash of white through the green stems. It was at the base of an outcrop of grey rock towering over her and she plunged through the ferns, trampling them down into the mud to get to it.

  Her grandfather always wore a white shirt.

  Her feet wanted to slow. To stop. To turn back. Before her eyes saw what she knew they would see. She forced them on towards the splash of white, but when she reached it her knees buckled and she knelt on the ground, trembling, next to the body that lay stretched out on the sodden floor of the ravine.

  It was Nonno.

  On his back. Crumpled into impossible angles. It was Nonno’s face, but its strength had vanished. It was weak and slack, his nose off-centre and blood streaming in the rain from his nostrils, down his cheek and pooling at his neck, soaking into his white collar. Turning it pink. His black suit was soaked and torn, one eye-socket was shattered and pieces of bone poked through the wet skin.

  Caterina stopped breathing. She picked up his hand in hers. Held it tight. It was heavy and cold. She touched his cheek.

  ‘Nonno,’ she whispered. ‘Nonno, it’s me.’

  No answer. No flicker of an eyelid. There were streaks of blood on his white hair.

  She tore off her raincoat and spread it over his chest. She kissed his cheek. Water was running down her face and she didn’t know how much was rain and how much was tears, but as she bent over him, unaware of her own sobbing, a long strand of her wet hair trailed across his ashen lips and she saw it lift for a fraction of a second. Lift, and then lift again. No mistake. ‘Nonno!’ she screamed.

  ‘Nonno, wait for me. I’ll get Papà. Wait, Nonno, wait, wait . . .’

  She was still screaming ‘Wait’ when she crashed through the ferns, tearing down the veil of mist between her father and herself.

  Voices drifted up from downstairs. Caterina sat on the floor in the darkness of her small brother’s bedroom, huddled against his cot, knees tucked up to her chest. He was five months old and could sleep the sleep of the innocent, so the voices didn’t wake him. They didn’t scare him. Didn’t drive his heart up into his throat the way they did to Caterina.

  They were her parents’ voices. Her mother’s was loud and high-pitched, her father’s a low rumble that was impossible to decipher. The house relaxed around her, creaking its joints, but she was tense, twisting the hem of her new birthday nightdress into a tight roll. Her parents often argued. She knew that. It was nothing to be frightened of.

  But her stomach was in knots.

  There was something different this time. In her mother’s voice. Some shift of tone that she had never heard before and it gripped something in Caterina’s mind, gripped it and wouldn’t let go. Earlier she had sat on the wet earth in the rain with her grandfather, refusing to release his cold hand, even after he was transferred to a stretcher. Only at the hospital did she relinquish her hold on him, and allowed her father to take her home.

  Nonno was alive, he said. Drifting in and out of consciousness. Broken bones, a damaged skull from the fall. Maybe internal injuries, it was too early to tell yet.

  ‘What happened to him, Papà?’

  ‘He says he was walking around the edge of the ravine, you know how Nonno likes to walk, but he lost his footing on som
e loose rock.’ Papà had wrapped his arm around her and she could smell brandy on his breath. ‘He fell. That’s all.’

  ‘Poor Nonno.’

  Her father had rested his cheek against hers, so she could not see his eyes when he murmured, ‘Yes, poor Nonno.’ But in a voice she scarcely recognised. ‘Thank God you found him.’ He’d kissed her hair and she’d wound an arm around his neck. ‘Nonno will get better,’ he’d added, ‘you’ll see. He’s strong. Lombardis are made that way.’

  But now she heard her mother’s voice, clear and distinct as it drifted up the stairs.

  ‘You are weak, Antonio. You and your father. Weak and spineless.’

  Caterina perched on the stairs in the darkness, arms tight around her shins, chin on her knee to stop her teeth chattering. From here she could see into the living room, only a slice of it, a brightly lit triangle, but it was enough. She could see her mother stalking back and forth across the room, in and out of the triangle, drink in hand. She was wearing her red dress. She only wore her red dress when she was angry. Or when she was going away.

  Caterina gripped one of the banister rails hard with both hands, as if by doing so she could stop her world falling apart. There was a brown leather suitcase standing by the front door, her mother’s scarlet umbrella propped against it.

  ‘Don’t go, Lucia.’ Her father’s voice sounded tight. Hoarse. As though he had a string tied around his throat. ‘Stay.’ He paused and though Caterina couldn’t see him she imagined him trying to swallow past the string. ‘Please, stay.’

  Her mother’s laugh was harsh, panicky. ‘And fall off a cliff like your father. No, thank you. There’s a certain person I have no wish to see again.’

  ‘You should have stayed away from him, like I warned you. This would never have happened if you had managed to keep yourself from wagging your fancy tail in his face.’

  ‘Don’t be coarse, Antonio. Though God knows why I expect any better from a southern peasant with wood for brains.’

  ‘I am not a peasant, Lucia.’ Still patient. ‘I am an artisan, a master craftsman.’

  Her mother’s red dress flashed into view, her figure slender, her full breasts on show in a way Caterina didn’t like, though she couldn’t say why. Even angry, her mother was beautiful, with huge blue eyes that could pin you to the floor, and a mane of silky blonde hair that fanned over her pale shoulders. In her hand she still carried the glass of red wine and for two seconds she stood still long enough to drain it before starting her prowling once more. She disappeared from sight.

  ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Antonio.’

  ‘What about the children?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They need you.’

  Her laugh was raw. Not finished properly. ‘All Caterina needs is you and all Luca needs is Caterina. They won’t even notice I’m gone.’

  ‘Of course they will. Don’t be so selfish, Lucia.’ His anger was seeping into his words now. ‘Don’t you love them?’

  Caterina held her breath and pressed her face between the banister rails.

  ‘You love them enough for both of us, Antonio. They don’t need me.’ Another flash of red and then it was gone again. ‘Caterina doesn’t even like me.’

  ‘Dear God, you are her mother. Of course she likes you. That child adores you.’

  Caterina was nodding. Willing her mother to believe her father.

  ‘No, you’re the one she adores,’ her mother insisted. ‘You and your stupid woodwork and your stinking yellow fish glue. She can’t get enough of it.’

  ‘Don’t make us your excuse, Lucia.’ Caterina heard him light a cigarette. ‘Stay with us.’ His voice was clipped, painful. ‘I’ll keep you safe, I promise you.’

  ‘Yes? Like you kept your father safe.’

  ‘I’m begging you, Lucia. Stay for the children’s sake.’

  Her mother strode into the triangle of light without the glass this time and remained there, staring back at her husband. She broke out a wide beguiling smile. ‘What’s the matter, Antonio? Can’t you bring yourself to ask for your own sake?’

  A long pause, so long it seemed to Caterina that he must have fallen asleep.

  ‘I love you, Lucia,’ he said softly. ‘You are my heart and soul. Stay for my sake.’

  ‘I am tired of you, Antonio. Sick and tired of your dull wood and your dull conversation and this dull small-town life of yours. I am leaving right now.’

  ‘No.’ Sharp. Urgent.

  ‘Yes.’

  She turned toward the door and Caterina scooted back up three stairs. Her father suddenly strode into the triangle and placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder. She shrugged it off. Caterina couldn’t see his face.

  ‘At least say goodbye to the children.’

  ‘I think not. What’s the point?’

  He grunted. As though she’d punched him.

  ‘Where will you go?’ he asked.

  ‘To Rome.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Forever.’

  ‘Lucia, I love . . .’

  ‘Roberto is coming with me.’

  The stairwell abruptly became darker, the shadows deeper, though Caterina could not be sure whether they were in her head or not. A pain like a burn was growing behind her ribs.

  Her father’s back was rigid. ‘Roberto? My good friend, Roberto Cavaleri?’

  The smile was mocking. ‘The same. Not such a good friend now, it seems.’

  ‘Lucia, he is married. Have some decency.’

  It was at that moment that Caterina saw her mother give up. It was like a string snapping. One moment she was still part of the Lombardi family, the next she wasn’t. A visitor in their house. Caterina wanted to fly down the stairs and cling to her. But she didn’t, any more than she would cling to a stranger. She backed up to the very top of the stairs.

  But she watched the red dress shimmer in the hallway, saw her mother shrug on an elegant black coat, noticed the way her hand smoothed down a wayward lock of hair before seizing the leather handle and lifting the case.

  Lucia Lombardi didn’t say goodbye. She opened the door and walked out into the night without a word. When the door clicked shut, Caterina’s father reacted as though he’d been shot. His body flinched, his broad shoulders shuddered and he released a howl of pain.

  Quietly Caterina walked down the stairs and went to him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Eleven years later

  NAPLES, JUNE 1945

  Caterina Lombardi had never fired a gun.

  But she didn’t hesitate. She plunged her hand deep into the heavy sack at her feet, snatched her grandfather’s Bodeo revolver from inside it and cocked the hammer, yanking at it hard with both thumbs the way she’d practised. The heat of the sun had warmed it within the sack so that it felt alive against her skin. She pointed the long muzzle straight at the boy’s chest. Except that boy was the wrong word. He had the shell of a boy, it was true. He was dressed in an oversized army shirt with the sleeves ripped out, but his limbs still possessed the girlishness of youth. He was probably no more than twelve, but he had eyes stolen from a man. Pale, hard eyes that had lost track of the child he had once been.

  ‘Come no closer,’ she warned.

  The boy’s eyes grew huge with purplish specks of fear and she could hear the sound of his rapid breathing. The gun was old and heavy, a relic from the Great War, its metal ridges unfamiliar in her hand. She had never pointed it at anyone before but she had good reason to now. A blade flicked back and forth between the boy’s hands.

  ‘That’s not friendly,’ he said and licked his lips.

  ‘It’s not meant to be.’

  Between them stretched three metres of no-man’s-land. It was part of a grey and grubby wasteland of rubble, of shattered lives and jagged stones that had once made up a row of dwellings. That was before the American bombs had rained down on them from the B24 Liberators day and night. Twisted chunks of masonry lay in the s
trong sunlight ready to slice into unwary feet, and Caterina noticed a snake of blood coiling around the boy’s bony ankle.

  He took a step forward.

  She said loud and clear, ‘If you take one more step, I’ll pull the trigger.’

  ‘No, you won’t, puttana.’

  The youth’s voice was high and nervous.

  ‘Don’t,’ she ordered bluntly. ‘Don’t force me.’

  The gun didn’t waver. But as each second ticked by she saw the fear draining from the boy’s pale eyes and pooling in the dirt at his feet, until he uttered an arrogant snort of contempt. Was it genuine? Or just bravado? She couldn’t tell. But she couldn’t take a chance.

  She could smell his hunger, like she could smell the smoke that drifted from the fires among the city’s ruins, where its desperate inhabitants huddled in ragged groups to cook small mammals they had snared in the sewers. The boy’s hunger was not for her, not for her skinny body, she knew that. No, this boy’s hunger was for the cumbersome sack that sat tight against her leg and she knew that he would not let it escape.

  Her lips were dry. He wasn’t alone. The five friends, who had been slinking through the bomb-site with him, shuffled forward now to stand stiff-legged beside him, shoulder to shoulder. Behind them the morning sun threw their shadows at Caterina and the boy’s mouth took on a smile of macho scorn.

  ‘Leave the sack,’ he ordered.

  ‘No, I will not. I have my family to feed.’

  The knife in his hand edged closer.

  ‘I want that sack.’

  ‘It is mine,’ she told him firmly. ‘Not yours.’

  She wanted to warn the boy, to shout at him to flee. Don’t push me.

  He took another step forward.

  ‘Don’t.’ She said the word quietly.

  ‘You got no guts.’

  With a swagger of his narrow hips he came at her, the knife in his hand leading the way. The sun glinted on its razor-sharp edge.

  Merda!

  Caterina pulled the trigger.

  Earlier that morning Caterina had fastened the neck of the sack with string. She’d hoisted it on her shoulder and squeezed on to the Circumvesuviana train that ran from Sorrento to Naples, gripping the sack tightly in her arms.