“It’s a fine thing,” he continued, “that you are making time to see my grandson. What will you be doing in Rome? The youth here in this area could use someone like you. Rome would devour you whole.” He chuckled and picked up the knife to cut a piece of the bird. When he looked up at her again, his expression had changed, and she went cold. “There ought to be more Tyroleans in the party. We need people who could recruit them, don’t you think, Miss Casa de Pietra? Young women who show real patriotism. The Grimanis come from the Lombardy region too, you understand? We know the people there very well. True patriots.”
She barely met the Colonel’s eyes. “Indeed.” There was only the grandmother to run to. “Are these glasses Bohemian crystal?”
“Bohemian?” The grandmother’s fork was poised in the air. “Colle val d’Elsa, if you please. I daresay.” Again that tsk from a wet mouth.
Annamarie held on to the stem of her wineglass, the blue crystal sharp against her palm, like ice. She quickly took another drink of her wine even though her head already felt light.
“And where is your friend staying, Marco?” the Colonel asked.
Annamarie cleared her throat. “I’m at a boarding house.”
“Nonsense,” the Colonel said. “You will stay with us. The girls’ rooms are empty. You can have your pick. There is no need for you to be amongst strangers. Marco could introduce you to our people here in Bolzano, couldn’t you, Marco? To Filipa Conti, for example. Do you know Filipa, Annamarie? She leads the Bolzano troop. Nice girl.”
Annamarie thought of the young woman she’d seen at the park. “Yes, I believe we met briefly. Once.”
“Take the day off tomorrow, Marco. You’ll show her around.”
The Colonel’s mouth twitched, his smile missing a genuine warmth, which frightened Annamarie.
Marco glared at her before he responded to his grandfather. “I recently transferred to the university here so that I could work for you. I cannot just leave my lectures to show her around. Besides, she wants to go to Rome—let her go to Rome. Why don’t you tell the Colonel what you want to do in Rome, Annamarie? I think we’d all like to hear about that.”
She gave the frowning grandmother and the interested Colonel an embarrassed smile. This was the other part she had rehearsed over and over. Now she struggled to find the words.
“It seems all very silly, now. But, Marco, it is you who has convinced me that I would be a very good actress. Isn’t that silly?” Her laugh, that laugh she practiced to come across as confident, rang false. She cleared her throat. “But I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since we talked about it, have I?”
“An actress?” the Colonel boomed, and this time he seemed genuinely pleased. “Like in the Scala? In the theatre? Marco, you could take her to Filipa and enrol her with the theatre troupe.”
Waves of relief washed over Annamarie, and she could barely contain her smile. “The fascisti have a theatre troupe?”
“And a free university,” the Colonel said, wiping his mouth. “You’ll take her to Filipa, Marco. Tomorrow.”
Marco’s face read disbelief. “But she doesn’t want to be on the stage,” he said. “She wants to be in the movies, like in Hollywood.”
The Colonel’s eyes widened, and then he leaned back, his hands folded as if in prayer. “Hollywood? That’s noble. I admire Americans for their way of life and, most of all, their innovation. They are creative and understand order.” He unwrapped his hands and leaned in to the table, cutting at the last piece of meat furiously. “And entertainment!”
“An Italian actress? You?” Signora Grimani said shrilly. She folded her napkin and pressed it severely underneath the rim of her plate, as if to be done with the matter. “With that accent of yours, I should think it best you find a silent film to play in.”
The Colonel nodded at his wife sullenly and stuffed the last piece of meat in his mouth. “Yes, yes. That accent.”
As he chewed, he watched Annamarie. Her heart beat furiously, her cheeks hot as embers.
“It’s a shame that it’s the talking films that interest you,” the Colonel said. “However, each of us should grow rich on our ideas and hard work. You know what that is like, right, Annamarie? Coming from the Lombardy.” He paused, his look questioning like a teacher’s during an exam. “You should know the expression about youth and age—”
“He who sleeps in his youth, cries in his old age,” Marco muttered and emptied his wineglass. Before Annamarie could signal her gratitude, he turned to his grandmother. “I think she looks like Myrna Loy, don’t you?”
Chapter 10
Arlund, End of September 1937
K atharina walked at the head of the cattle herd to the rhythm of over fifty clanging cowbells and goat bells. Four herds were coming down from the alps at Graun’s Head: hers, the Ritsches’, the Nogglers’, and then Hans Glockner’s sheep and goats. A bell’s rhythm that did not match the rest of the lumbering beasts meant she had to check whether a cow had stopped, gotten distracted, was munching on grass, or been diverted into the brush. It was Florian’s and her herd that led the procession, the lead heifer wearing a crown of thistle and heather, the custom that signalled they had suffered no losses this season. As the first glimpses of the valley came into view far below, she lifted the heavy pack on her back enough to relieve her shoulders of the weight.
Below her, Bernd and Manuel, together with the other youngsters from the families, were navigating two carts filled with wheels of golden cheese as broad as a man’s shoulders. On the way to the alp, they had left the carts behind here so that, upon their return, the men could unburden
