Who is the enemy now? He isn’t sure he knows.
He watches her shadow on the wall, watches her reach out a hand, as if to touch him, then sees her withdraw it. He tries to keep his breathing steady, but on each outbreath he thinks, Please, please, please.
Finally she touches him. Not on his shoulder, where the sheet covers him: she places two cool fingers on his bare neck. Skin on skin.
He stirs; he turns.
On her face, a tremulous smile. ‘I talked to Major Bates. I told him that you – that all of you – must hear news from Italy. I said you should have a companion to read your letters from home. One of the other men to read the Italian. I said – forgive me, but I had to convince him – I said that many of the prisoners probably couldn’t read.’
Cesare sits up, with effort. ‘He knows I read. What did he say?’
‘He said . . . well, he said a lot of things. I think he feels guilty about what has happened.’ She looks down at her hands, then glances back at him. ‘And he has agreed, as long as there are other guards here to make sure there is no trouble.’ She shifts uncomfortably as she says this, but he nods in quick agreement.
‘Sì. There are many guards after . . .’
‘After the riot, yes. Fifty more.’
‘Sixty,’ says a voice from the shadows, and Cesare jumps. He hadn’t realized that Con was standing there. He can’t see her face, but her voice is hard. ‘There are sixty more men on the island.’
‘So,’ Dorotea leans forward, ‘I asked for a man from your hut, Gino, to read some letters to you, and to the other men. He is allowed to come in the evenings. A guard is bringing him now.’
Cesare sits up, just as the door opens and Gino is there, walking behind a stern-faced guard, carrying a pile of letters and grinning. ‘You look terrible,’ he says to Cesare in Italian.
‘English only,’ the guard snaps.
Dorotea flashes Cesare a quick smile and then, before he can thank her, she goes to tend the other prisoners. Her sister follows her, like a shadow.
Gino sits in the chair next to Cesare’s bed, opens one of the letters and says, ‘Mio caro,’ at the same time as the guard says, ‘In English, you Italian pig. I’ve told you.’
Still smiling, Gino turns, and says to the guard, ‘Il mio inglese è molto buono.’
‘What’s he saying?’ The guard glares at Cesare.
‘Stronzo.’ Gino’s smile doesn’t falter as he says arsehole.
‘His English is very not good,’ Cesare says, although he knows Gino speaks English well. ‘He must read this letter for me in Italian.’
‘You can’t read your own language but you can speak English? That doesn’t sound right.’
Cesare shrugs. ‘My village is small. I learn English when I help the priest in the church. No time for reading.’
The look the guard gives him is the same expression he’s seen on the faces of dozens of other guards: it says, You are stupid, you are worthless, you are an animal.
Cesare swallows the rage he feels, then nods at Gino to continue.
‘Mio caro,’ Gino begins again, and then, squinting at the paper as if he is reading the letter, he says, in Italian, ‘There has been trouble in the camp. No one would work for a long time and we were fed bread and water. Then the major told us that we were working on causeways, not barriers, and that these causeways are needed for the islanders in peacetime, so are not part of the war effort.’
‘Stronzate!’ Cesare curses.
‘English from you!’ the guard says.
‘Sorry. The letter is bad news.’
Gino continues in Italian, still studying the letter. ‘Some men have started working on these “causeways”. Those who won’t work are still being given only bread and water. The guards are making them stand all day in the yard in the cold. If we don’t do something, then more of us will be ill.’
Cesare struggles to keep his face smooth. The guard is watching them closely. He finds himself gripping the sheets and forces his hands to relax, his jaw to unclench, and makes himself nod, sadly, as if he has heard some unhappy news from home.
He looks at the window, where a lamp casts a sickly yellowish light on the flakes of snow being whipped through the air. Something cold writhes in his gut. He has never been a violent man but slowly, in this place, he is beginning to understand why some men hoard scraps of steel that they sharpen until the jagged edges gleam. He is beginning to understand why, over time, a man might start to lash out, or might plan something brutal and final.
The sudden comprehension – hot and shameful – frightens him.
He draws a deep breath. ‘We must do something.’
After Gino has moved on to ‘read letters’ to the other men – giving them the same news, Cesare guesses, from the outraged whispers, the shocked faces – Cesare lies back, his thoughts whirling, as if some explosion is readying itself inside his skull. The anger feels like a return of the fever: first he is too warm; then he shivers. His hands are bunched into shaking fists.
To calm himself, he thinks of home. He imagines the green sweep of the mountains, the little houses crammed as closely as teeth, one garden spilling into another. Women swept each other’s doorsteps, looked after each other’s children. Everyone shared bread, meals, stories. And at the beating heart of the little village, with the bell pulsing out its passing hours, was the church. Cesare remembers the comforting hum of the priest’s words, the gleaming censers casting smoke heavenwards, the touch of the holy man’s fingers on his forehead as the Communion bread melted on his tongue.
Nel nome del Padre, del Figlio e dello Spirito Santo.
And he remembers the paintings that stretched over the ceiling, so that
