Last Voyage of the Valentina(64)

“You don’t have to be, because I’m here to protect you.” He traced his fingers down her cheek where the tears had left shiny wet trails. “Alba will grow up not knowing the horrors of war. But we will tell her about how brave men lost their lives so that she appreciates her good fortune.” Then he spoke in a quiet, sad voice, about Freddie, memories he had only ever shared with Jack. “My brother died, Valentina. He was a fighter pilot. No one imagined he’d go down. Not Freddie. He was indomitable, larger than life. Yet so many were lost in Malta, in the end he was just another number. I never got to say goodbye. Death is a lonely business, Valentina. One always dies alone. I’d like to believe in Heaven. I’d like to believe he’s with God now. The truth is, his body’s at the bottom of the sea and I have no way of honoring him.”

Valentina reached out her hand and touched his. “I understand, my darling Tommy. My father and Ernesto, one of my brothers, died too. So many lost and yet there is no comfort in numbers, is there? Mamma built a shrine for my father and now she has built one for Ernesto. The candles flicker day and night; like their spirits they never go out. They live on in our memory. It is all we can do. You honor your brother by remembering him, Tommy. You must tell me about him. You must tell me all that you remember because it is by remembering that we give them life.” Her face had taken on a maturity and wisdom he hadn’t seen in her before. To his surprise her words comforted him; Jack’s had never been able to.

Finally Thomas grew hungry and Valentina was anxious to get home for Alba. They sat in the cart once again and the horse, who had been asleep in the shade of a gnarled eucalyptus tree, reluctantly set off up the dusty track.

Valentina warned Thomas that her brothers had returned from the war. Ludovico and Paolo, the two who had been imprisoned by the British, would be friendly enough now that the war was over and they had been well treated in captivity. Falco, however, would not. He had been a partisan, she explained, and was dark, mercurial, and troubled.

“He is a complicated man,” she said. “He always has been, ever since childhood. Mamma says that because he came out first he expected to be loved more than the rest of us and was consequently disappointed and jealous. He has a wife, Beata, and a little boy of five called Toto. You would have thought that the love of a woman and an adoring child would soften his heart, but it has not. He is as cold and suspicious as ever.”

Thomas felt anxious about meeting Falco. He was the head of the family now their father was no longer alive. Yet, he reasoned, how difficult could he be? They had fought on the same side. If anyone was going to begrudge him it was the other two, who had sided with the Germans.

As they approached the house the scent of figs engulfed him again and he was reminded of his first visit the year before. Like a bat, Immacolata bustled out, blinking in the light, wringing her hands. She was clearly agitated. “Where have you been? I’ve done nothing but worry.”

“Mamma!” Valentina scolded. “We only took Alba to the lookout point.”

“Falco has been anxious. Filling my head with all sorts of rubbish.”

“I apologize, signora,” said Thomas, helping Valentina down from the cart. “We wanted to spend the afternoon alone.”

At that moment Falco stepped out and stood beside his mother. He was a rough-looking man, coarse due to years of fighting, with deep-set eyes of the darkest brown and thick, weathered skin. He was undoubtedly handsome with his long, curly hair and brooding brow. Thomas noticed at once that he was tall and broad in the shoulders; he also walked with a limp, an injury probably left over from his violent past as a partisan. He doubted he’d come off very well in a fight. He attempted a smile but the man, who looked older than his thirty years, simply scowled at him.

“You have to be careful,” he growled and his voice was deep and grainy, like sand. “The war might be over but the hills are full of bandits. People are still starving. You don’t appreciate how lucky we are in Incantellaria. Beyond is a dark and dangerous world.”

Thomas immediately felt irritated that Falco was implying he was naïve. “We were quite safe, I assure you,” he replied coldly.

Falco laughed at him. “You don’t know these hills. I know them better than I know the lines on my own hands. I know my way around every rock and bush with my eyes shut. You’d be surprised at the demons that lurk there. Sometimes they do not appear like demons at all.”

Valentina placed her hand on Thomas’s arm and said, “Don’t listen to him. There were no demons where we were. The only demons that haunt these parts are the ones in Falco’s head.” Thomas leaned over the cart and pulled out the Moses basket. Valentina walked straight past her mother and brother and into the house.