“But this one here…” the Colonel pointed to the second page. “This one contradicts that report.”
“Yes, it does. The samples sent to Rome by my geologists have come back stating that the ground tests are clean. There could not be a more ideal spot for Grimani Electrical’s next dam.”
He heard Pietro suck in his breath. “That was not a wise move, Angelo. Does Rome know that you ordered samples to be conducted by German geologists?”
Angelo frowned. “No. And why should they?” He eyed the Colonel. “I want to know what I’m up against if I’m to do the job you got me in here for.”
“That’s treason, Angelo,” the Colonel threatened.
He shrugged. “Then report me.”
His father leaned back, looked at Pietro, and found no accomplice there. “What are you planning to do next?”
“I want to appeal the permit for the dam in the Reschen Valley. The one your consortium managed to get.” He held up a hand when his father began to protest. “I know how vital it is. I’ve read all the reports, and we’ve been discussing this for years.”
“Debating is more accurate.”
“Come here.” He stood up and went to the table where the model of the Reschen Valley was. The Colonel stood a distance away from it. “You see this?”
“You forgot the third lake,” the Colonel muttered.
Angelo allowed himself the satisfaction that his father was sulking. “Come now, Colonel. Even the engineering department in Verona is against your plan. Their damage reports match mine, and I still don’t have a good answer about what we’ll do with the people living here and here.” He pointed to the hamlet of Spinn and the outskirts of the two larger towns. The Italian officials’ barracks, ironically, would be right on the reservoir’s shore.
Pietro stepped forward and swept over the northern area of the model. “With your plans, Nicolo, all of these hamlets and villages would be wiped out. Even the higher ones, like this one.” He indicated the model of Arlund.
Something stuck in Angelo’s chest, and he felt dizzy. The nightmare, the valley floor rising with water, his despair. The panic washed over him, then receded. He went back to his desk. The other two followed him and took their seats again.
He addressed the Colonel. “You can’t move almost two hundred grain farmers to higher ground and hope they can restart on the mountainsides. We’re looking at one hundred percent losses to farmland and ground for livestock. Verona has doubts they’ll be able to skirt the laws on this.”
His father scowled and reached into his breast pocket. When he had his black notebook out, he took the pen from Angelo’s desk and said, “Verona has a problem with my plans, you said. Who would that be?”
“What are you going to do? Have him fired as well? Or reeducated? The man is already a Fascist.”
His father scratched something in the notebook, closed and bound it, and said, “Noted.”
Pietro looked at the Colonel sideways before leaning towards Angelo. “There is a lot at stake here, son. Ordering geological reports from Germany could truly be seen as treason if you put the results into the appeals. What you are proposing—what you said before Nicolo came in—would mean holding up projects that are already in progress. Consider the costs.”
“Oh, I am.” Angelo smiled for the first time in weeks. He swept a palm towards his father. “I’m thinking about the well-being of companies just like his. I’m thinking about the long-term impacts on the economy.”
“Angelo,” the Colonel barked. “Geological reports have been wrong before.”
Angelo pretended to take his warning seriously. “That’s correct. They have been. Now you also understand why I intend to take careful precautions.”
“What exactly are you proposing to do? Pietro, what did he tell you?”
“Father.” Angelo leaned his elbows on his desk and looked him straight in the eyes. “I am proposing that you clean up your mess. Get through the hearings in one piece. Take a break. And then reinvent yourself. You’re not going to convince anyone of your projects right now.”
The Colonel looked as if he had just been punched, but Angelo wasn’t finished with him yet. “In the meantime, I will rehaul this department before it gets out of control. That’s not what I’m proposing to do. It’s what I have proposed. And before you interrupt me, you could try and replace me with someone else who is sloppier, more in your pocket, but…” He pulled out his trump card: the directives, signed, sealed, and approved. “The prime minister himself has already sent me this.”
His father stared at him in disbelief, but Pietro had the start of a smile on his face.
Angelo spelled it out for his father. “Mussolini has granted me full power to do as I see fit with your clean-up, Colonel. Gentlemen, for the time being, we’re finished here.”
Chapter 11
Arlund, April 1924
H ans’s oxcart rolled past Arlund’s wayward cross, slush and snow piled on the sides of the road. The basket at Christ’s feet was still filled with dried musty flowers from last autumn. As Hans steered his ox down the curve towards Graun, Katharina stretched out in the hay in the back, Bernd and Annamarie next to her, and looked up at the sky. Her daughter copied her immediately, her smile checking for approval.
“Look, Annamarie.” She pointed to the clouds above them, changing shapes in a wind they could not hear or feel. “That one looks like an eye. Do you see it?”
Annamarie grinned and put two fingers to her eyes. “Occhio.”
“That’s right: eye. Dov’è il tuo naso?”
Annamarie put a finger to her nose,
