Mary Russel - A Thread of Grace

Kneeling awkwardly, Albert Blum opens first one bag, then the other. He removes the Giovanetti passports, a photo of Paula with the children. Both toothbrushes and the can of tooth powder. His razor, the remaining squares of newspaper. His tefillin. All these he wraps in his prayer shawl, making a vagrant’s gunnysack. The small, silver-bound prayer book he hands to Claudette. “Your mother gave me this siddur on our first anniversary. Keep it in your pocket.” He takes out the last of their food— two rolls, a little cheese. Closes the valises, locking them carefully, the better to make them fly. “ Prego, ” he says to Santino, and gestures down the mountain.

Giggling like a schoolkid, Santino flings one suitcase after the other into the sky. They tumble through the air, bounce against the rock face, and sail off into an abyss while the three of them cackle like chickens, witlessly amused. Someone far below yells angrily, but not even Albert can make himself feel ashamed, and Claudette is convulsed by the barrage of echoing Yiddish curses aimed at them like mortar shells.

Squinting into the sun, they sit to share their tiny meal, breaking into helpless laughter whenever one of them remembers the way the suitcase flew, or how the angry man shouted. When they’ve finished licking crumbs from their hands, they move with new energy, no longer away from capture but toward freedom. Lightweight and more nimble than either man, Claudette takes the lead. Hooking her fingertips into small crevices and pushing upward with her legs, she begins to understand why mountain climbing is a sport, and she scales the wall like a lizard, her nose so close to the hot stone she can smell the rock dust—

The sneeze is completely unexpected. Its spasm loosens her grip. Time slows.

The mountain seems to fall away, lazily tipping eastward while she herself remains suspended in air. I’m going to die, she thinks with a strange detached clarity. I should scream, she decides.

Her shriek shocks time back to its accustomed pace, and before its echo can return, Santino’s hand shoots up to support her trousered hip. In a single balletic move, he reaches for a hold and lifts himself, forming a wall behind her with his body.

“ Coraggio, ” he whispers, his mouth so close it brushes the fine down of her cheek. He can feel her heart pound through her back, but keeps his own breath steady. “Courage,” he says again. She looks at him out of the corner of an ocean-green eye. When she whispers, “ Grazie, ” her breath is like a kiss.

Four meters below, Albert calls anxiously, “Claudette, what happened? Are you all right?”

“I sneezed and lost my balance,” she calls back. “Santino caught me.” She still can feel the shape of his square palm, the outline of his short, blunt fingers on her hip. Santino draws back, but before she moves on, their eyes meet once more.

An hour later, the trail levels, widens, hairpins sharply. An abrupt decline reveals a blue infinity of uncountable peaks diminishing eastward toward the darkening horizon. For an endless moment, the three stand silently, between two summits. Santino breaks the spell, stretching into a long, deliberate stride downward. He holds out a hand, steadying Signor Blum as the older man joins him. Then, like a storybook courtier, Santino offers his arm to Claudia.

She is dirty and tired, her hair stringy and her face drawn. Santino’s heart catches when she takes his hand and descends as daintily as a fairy-tale princess stepping from a carriage. “ Benvenuti al’Italia! ” he says grandly when both Blums have crossed the border, and he cries a little himself as they weep and cheer, and embrace one another. “Welcome,” he whispers, “to my home.”

COLLE AURELIO

ITALY

“ Boia faus! ” Rinaldo Miroglio swears, watching three tattered figures stumble toward him in the dying light.

“What are we going to do with them, Tenente?” asks the corporal at his side.

Not quite twenty-two, Rinaldo Miroglio has been the acting commandant at the Colle Aurelio border post for all of eleven hours. “What about Val di Ponente?”

“The hotels are full, sir. Might be room in Roccabarbena.”

“That’s too far for them to walk.”

Last night, with a solemnity made tinny by the radio, Marshal Badoglio announced the surrender. “Recognizing the impossibility of continuing an unequal struggle against overwhelmingly superior forces, His Majesty Vittorio Emanuele III has requested an armistice to avoid further calamities to the nation.” Hostilities between Italian and Allied forces were to cease, but Badoglio ended his broadcast on an ominous note. The armed forces have been ordered to resist attacks from “any other quarter.” That can only mean Germany.

Communications to the border station were cut during the night. Early this morning, leaving his lieutenant in charge, the post’s captain left for Cuneo to consult with their superiors directly. And while Tenente Rinaldo Miroglio doesn’t expect to fight the Wehrmacht, he is dealing with an invasion.

Or, rather, an exodus, and a miracle surely! The Maritimes can be impassable as early as August, but the snows have parted for the Hebrews. All day Miroglio has witnessed emotional reunions. People weep with relief, boast of unexpected prowess in mountaineering, laugh giddily as they tell of terrifying encounters with pursuing Germans, who turned out to be squirrels or chamois.

Rinaldo himself has spent hours coordinating arrangements with local hotels. The innkeepers have been magnificent, refusing to discuss payment with people who have nothing but the clothes they stand in. Waiters assuage hunger with the delicacies and fine meals ordinarily reserved for Fascist officials. Bellhops usher footsore fugitives to thermal pools where they could soak in Roman baths before sleeping— safe at last! — between clean sheets. But hotels have only so many rooms!

Sighing, the lieutenant marches out to greet those he hopes will be the last of the poor wretches. An older man whose arms hang from his shoulders like a scarecrow’s shirtsleeves. A pretty girl, all legs and big green eyes. A stocky young infantryman. “Blum, Albert,” the gentleman says, fumbling in the pocket of his suitcoat. “We have documents — abbiamo papiere. ”

“Miroglio, Rinaldo,” the lieutenant introduces himself. “Would you prefer Italian or German? Formalities are unnecessary, Herr Blum, but I’m afraid bunks in our barracks are all we can offer. The hotels are full.”

“No room at the inn!” the corporal says.

“A recurring theme in Hebrew-Roman history,” Rinaldo adds.

The old man manages a smile. “ Grazie, Tenente. Bunks will be fine— wonderful!”

“I assure you, we’ll find better accommodations tomorrow. Tonight, you may take showers in that shed, and Pansa here will bring you something to eat as soon as you’re ready.”

The stubby soldier watches his Hebrew charges shuffle toward hot water and rest, hardly able to lift their feet. “And you are?” Rinaldo asks.

“Cicala, Santino. Pinerolo Division, First Corps, Fourth Army. We were disbanded, sir. They said it was every man for himself.”

“ Sì, sì, sì. The armistice. I understand.”

“Have you heard anything, Tenente?”

“The American Fifth has landed at Salerno. Montgomery’s Eighth is also in the south. Our commander expects airborne landings at Rome and Milan anytime now. Maybe amphibious assaults near Genoa, as well. It’ll be over by October,” Rinaldo predicts. “You’re Calabrese?” he asks, recognizing Cicala’s accent.

“Yes, sir. And if it’s all the same to you, sir, I’m going home.”

“I gambled and lost,” Miroglio admits. “I was going to study law, but when my university deferment ended, I joined the border police to avoid the draft. Now I’m stuck.”