Chapter 35 Chapter Thirty-Four

Louis stood up in the crib and made a scene that rattled the bars of the fence.Siena was an oven in the summer, and the boy was unbearable in the heat, irascible, untouchable, like the pimples that covered his body from head to toe.A diaper and a thin white shirt had been placed on top of the wardrobe.Natalie knew that he might cry and howl when he got dressed for the ride, so it was better to save that for last.Just as she was fastening the straps of her suitcase, sweating from the exertion, Ellen came in to greet her. "The car will be here in half an hour, my dear." "I know. I'll be fine."

He wore an old blue beret and shabby old gray trousers, and he looked exactly like an Italian coach passenger.Natalie hadn't decided if she should remind him not to travel in fancy dress like she usually did.This is good, he seems very reasonable, ready to go.He looked up at the moldy ceiling, and the cherubs painted on it were about to peel off piece by piece. "This place is really run-down. I never noticed it." He pointed to the open window and the church in the distance as he turned to go out, adding, "You're not going to have a bedroom anytime soon. , to see a beauty like this, can't you?"

In Natalie's mind, leaving this time didn't seem like a real farewell.How many times she had bid farewell to this Tuscan villa, which God had no mercy on, intending never to come again; The yellow stucco garden walls, this red-tiled tower, which was once Byron's sleeping quarters!How rashly she had first set foot here in 1939, intending to stay only two or three months, in order to get Leslie back.Slote caught it in his hand; unexpectedly, it was a piece of quicksand that was sinking deeper and deeper!The images of her first night in this room flashed in her mind--the musty smell of the satin-draped four-poster bed, the rats gnawing loudly in the walls, the thunder, the storm, the lightning. , reflecting Siena in an eerie way, seen from an open window, like a picture of El."View of Toledo" by Greco.

Last-minute hesitation welled up in my mind.Are they right?They were just about to settle down and prepare to eke out a living under house arrest-like conditions.Except that Werner.Baker, no one came to trouble them.The baby had milk--goat's milk, he did well--and the grown-ups had enough to eat.Montedibaki's bankers knew that Ellen had property in New York, and they would not be short of money to spend.These are all true.But since her last meeting with Baker, she had acted on instinct, and now she couldn't stop.Since then, Ellen has been very perfunctory and considerate to Baker, sending him the outline of the radio speech, accepting his revisions as a way to curry favor, and finally coaxing the official permission to temporarily avoid Siena's speech. It was very hot, and I went to the seaside to stay for a week or two, and stayed at the Sachedot's house on the coast of Follonica.

The belts of both suitcases were fastened.A trunk full of Louis's stuff.The other contained her bare necessities.Rabinowitz's order was stern: "Don't bring luggage that you can't carry by yourself, you have to walk twenty miles with your children."Natalie had been walking six miles every day since getting the secret letter from him.Her feet blistered and then calloused, and she felt strong.She was really taken aback when Castelnuovo handed her a rolling paper and a magnifying glass. "It's like in the movies, isn't it?" he said.Now is the time to destroy the paper.She took it out of her handbag and spread it out in the palm of her hand.

Dear Natalie I'm glad you're coming to tell Uncle to travel light and don't carry luggage you can't carry yourself You'll have to walk twenty miles with the baby I'm thinking about the baby and you're going to be fine Love the tiny print that's barely legible to the naked eye, It thrilled her even now.Haven't heard from Byron for months.All the few letters she had in hand had been read into scraps of paper by her.Everything about Byron in her memory is the same, with so many things repeated, just like old family movies.She and Byron lived apart for the past two years, and she didn't even know whether he was alive or dead.In his last letters forwarded by the Red Cross, written many months ago from Albany, a small town in southwestern Australia, she felt that life in combat was changing him; She is fascinated by the happy and carefree young master.The news of the connection between Castelnuovo and Rabinovitz, and the secret letter on the cigarette paper, made her uneasy, although common sense told her that the Palestinian man had nothing but a Jew in his words. Nothing but good intentions.

She couldn't bear to throw this piece of paper away, but she rolled it into a ball and flushed it down the tub spout.She dressed the child; at last she looked around the extravagant room that looked like a big candy box, and she gazed a long time at the big bed.In the past few years, she has tasted the taste of sleeping alone on it, only sultry dreams and absurd reveries. "Come on, Louis," she said. "Let's go home." Did not say goodbye to the servants.Ellen left several closets chock full of clothes, and took not a single book from his library, and the folders piled high on his desk were all about Martin.Luther's draft.Natalie gave the maid and the gardener tasks to complete before they returned in two weeks.But the servants are intelligent men, especially the Italian servants.The cook, the maid, and the two gardeners all stood at the gate, and they said good-bye happily, but their eyes were serious, and their actions were bewildered.The cook gave the child a lollipop, and she cried as soon as the car started.

Sachedot's car was driven by the irascible son, who was staying in Siena and was studying Catholic teachings for the sake of his Christian girlfriend--so suspicious was his family. .Anti-Semitic laws forbade conversion, but Fascist edicts were often ignored in Siena.The young man in a thin open shirt, with thick and unkempt hair, with his mouth turned down and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, silently escorted them to the almost deserted barracks square and let them out of the car , and drove away. Siena had never been a lively place; now it seemed uninhabited.The several stalls of buyers and sellers in the wide square were empty and unattended.Later, if a truckload of vegetables or fresh goods came in from the sea, there might be some business, but not much; everything had to be rationed, even garlic and onions.The long shadow of the tall tower of the city council was cast on the scalding ground of the square, and a few chatterers followed the shadow as if they were turning mechanically, like a few small figures on a large sundial.Natalie and Ellen sat outside the only coffee shop open, drinking the astringent substitute orange soda.Recalling the raucous crowds at the Jockey Festival, which packed the circular square with the palaces of the Renaissance, the colorful parades in the various districts of the city, the frenzied horse racing, all stopped, all gone forever back!This small town forgotten by history spent several years of its life.It was strange that Ellen would deliberately settle down in this place; what was even more absurd and unbelievable was that she also accompanied him in exile here.

The car came back and the lads complained that the bus was almost leaving.They did not go to the station to wait for the train, in order to avoid the police.The proof that allowed them to stay in Follonica was an unusual document, obtained from Rome; the less visible it was, the better.Once at the station, the bus driver impatiently waved them to get on the bus, and they walked away under the nose of a bored yawning policeman. The bus chugs out of the tall city wall, bouncing on a narrow dirt road and heading west.Sachedot, although dressed plainly, sat in the car without losing the air of a well-to-do owner. The old couple had a dazed, desolate and sad expression, and like many old couples, they The expression on his face was almost the same.Louis fell asleep in Natalie's arms.The windows of the car were open, and there was a sweet smell of the fields, mingled with the strangely pleasant smoke-like smell of burning wood from the gas generator of the charcoal car.Miriam chatted happily with her mother, and her father stared at the speeding scenery to himself.Every turn of the road, there are magnificent scenes: villages on the hills, farms on the green hillsides, and vineyards along the hills.The bus rattled down a steep hill past Voltera and stopped at Massa Marittima.It was a town on a hill as quiet as Siena, its old gray stone houses gleaming in the midday sun.

On the small square here, the red, green and green posters shouting victory are in sharp contrast with the old weather-beaten roofs of the church and the city hall. Feeling.Italy is too tired, too smart, too charming to play the role of a gun-toting bully.Playing such a role is completely swollen face to pretend to be fat, and it is a waste of people and money.Unfortunately, the Germans emulated the bloodthirsty crossword puzzle with all Teutonic seriousness, with a slashing and killing spree; These were the thoughts in her weary mind as she trudged toward the station; her other trunk was carried by Ellen, who was carrying his own.

A small narrow-gauge train rattled into the station, and the ticket inspectors only cared about punching holes in the tickets without looking at the faces of the passengers.No one at the station or on the train checked their papers.Throughout Massa Marittima, they saw only one policeman, dozing off on his bicycle.Louis woke up again, looking with interest at the farmers on the hillside outside the car, the sheep and animals grazing, the opening of the ugly mine shaft on the side of the hill, the piles of brown slag garbage, the tall conveyor belt, the rough wood. Brackets and towers.The train went around a mountain bend, and under the rocks, the sparkling Mediterranean Sea could be seen from a distance.Natalie held her breath.On the looming horizon she could see dots of rolling islands through which they fled to Lisbon. The Sachedot family's summer cottage in Follonica is a stuccoed wooden box, painted blue, right on the beach.Across the road, there is a park on the opposite side, with towering old trees, thick shade, clumps of brown leaves, and big leaves, making this place extraordinarily quiet and comfortable.The doors and windows of the house were boarded up, and it was pitch black inside.It was stuffy and hot, filled with a damp and rotten smell.Castelnuovo and his wife removed the shutters from the storm and opened the windows to let in the sea breeze.Natalie put Louis to sleep in the crib where Miriam used to sleep, and Sachedot took Natalie and Ellen to the small local police station. The sleepy sheriff saw He stamped and inscribed the permission papers from Rome with a certain respect, and stood up to shake hands with them.He said he had a brother who made good money in a flower shop in Newark.Italy is not really at odds with the United States.All German.Just what can you do with these bloody Germans? A week passed.There was no letter from Rabinowitz.Nata indulged in the pleasures of the beach, using it as a tranquilizer for the anxiety that was tormenting her.Louis spent all day playing on the beach with Miriam and soaking in the sea. His complexion gradually darkened, and his rashes and his short temper faded away.One Sabbath night, as they were about to sit down at the lighted table, the doorbell rang, and in came a dirty man with a green beard that hadn't been shaved in three days.His name was Frankenthal, and he said he was from Avran.From Rabinowitz.He behaved rudely, spoke vulgarly, and looked languid.Sachedot invited him to have dinner with him.Only then did he take off his worn-out hat, and his appearance became refined and a little shy.Pointing to the candles on the dining table, he said, "Shabbat? I haven't seen a candle since my grandmother died." He worked on the docks of Piombino, the port of iron ore north of Follonica, he told them over dinner.His father also worked on the docks in his early years.His grandfather was a Hebrew scholar, and their family has changed greatly.He knew nothing except that he was a Jew.He waited until the two children had gone to bed before discussing business.Bad news.The two Turkish cargo ships that had been illegally transporting refugees from Corsica to Lisbon had lost their British navigation permits and could not pass through Gibraltar.That route is over. They still had to go to Corsica via Elba as they had planned.Rabinowitz is making arrangements to try to get him from Corsica to Marseille, where most aid agencies operate.From Marseille to Palestine or Lisbon, there are several routes.These are the messages brought by Rabinowitz.But Frankenthal told them there was a more direct route to Marseilles.About every week there are ships from Piombino, carrying iron ore from Elba or Massa Marittima to Marseilles, and on to the Ruhr.The British Navy never bothered with ore ships.He knew a captain who would take them straight to Marseilles for five hundred dollars each. They also sat at the dining table, drinking chrysanthemum tea instead of coffee in the dwindling candlelight.Jastrow said coldly, "I boarded the ship from New York and arrived in Paris. It cost five hundred dollars and it was still first class." "Professor, those were halcyon times. You go the other way, God knows how long you'll have to wait in Elba or Corsica. On the ore ship, you sleep in your bed, straight sail, three days, and the children Safety." After he was gone, Jastrow was the first to speak, in a sarcasm and a joke. "If we're on the ore barge, this man's going to get a lot of our money." "Can you trust him?" Natalie asked Castelnuovo. "Well, I know he's from Rabinowitz." "How did you contact Afran?" "Telegram and say something of no importance. Or a messenger like him. What do you ask?" "I'm thinking I might as well go back to Siena." Thachedot put his arms around his terrified wife and said to his son-in-law: "Natalie is right. You said we will go to Lisbon without going through France." "Yes, papa, but things have changed now," said Castelnuovo, with an air of extraordinary restraint, "so we have to discuss it a little bit." Natalie turned to Jastrow: "When I went up to Lisbon to meet Byron, the Vichy police dragged me off the train to check my papers. Luckily my papers were in order. They asked if I was Jew, my spine is cold," she said again to Castelnuovo. "Who can we Jews who travel illegally turn to in France now? What if they lock us up? I might be separated from Louis!" "Afran will try to get us transit visas," Castelnuovo said. "Certificates are always available." "Fake documents, you mean," Sachedot said. "A passable document." Jastrow said: "Let's stop being half-hearted. We're all on our way. I'll admit, I've never liked the idea of ​​jumping from one island to another. Since we're going to Marseilles, we're still on the road." Why don't we just take the ore barge, I see. A nice trip for a fortune, that's my idea." Castelnuovo couldn't contain himself, and waved his hands hastily. "But you see, I have known all about these ore ships. They are docked in the most guarded part of Marseilles, surrounded by high fences, patrolled by French troops, and German supervisors sent by the Armistice Commission. The captain doesn't worry about you. All he wants is your money. If he gets into any danger—huh!—his own head is the most important thing. Rabinowitz's will take care of us all the way by the island. acquaintance." "I'm thinking of my wife going back with me," Sachedot said to Jastrow, very solemnly. "Of course, we have to talk it over. But our son is still there, you know that." The old woman put her handkerchief to her nose and sobbed. Jastrow said at once, "Naturally, that's your home. We're safer if we keep going." The old couple went upstairs.Jastrow and Castelnuovo debated for some more time over the ore ship.Castelnuovo declared that he would never entrust the life of his family to a paid Italian.The price will jump up again on the way; the guy may take your money and not send you to the location; he may sell the whole gang.People who are involved in the resistance movement are more reliable than guys who only know how to ask for money. Finally, Jastrow said: "Yum, is our organizing principle democratic or authoritative? If it's authoritative, then you decide." Castelnuovo laughed dryly, shook his hand, and expressed his disapproval of the decision being made by an individual. "Well, I vote for the ore ship now." anna."Add my vote," Castelnuovo said. "You're a stupid mule," said her husband, but his voice was strangely loving.He turned to Natalie again. "How are you?" "Ore ship." Castelnuovo pursed his lips, tapped the table lightly, and stood up. "Then it's decided." One gray and shady afternoon, Natalie was returning home after walking eight miles when she saw a car parked by the house in the distance.Private cars are rare in Follonica.She quickened her pace, and a thought flashed through her mind, almost like a prayer: "I hope it's all right." She moved closer and recognized a Mercedes.Inside the house, Jastrow and Werner.Baker sat at the table drinking tea and a plate of cake.Spread out on the bare table were several yellow typescripts of Jastrow's broadcast speeches. Werner.Baker stood up, all smiles, and bowed to her. "Very happy. I haven't seen you for a long time!" She managed to answer him with some polite words.He glanced at the SS uniform on his body, and smiled softly as if guilty. "Oh, by the way. Please don't mind my frightening masquerade attire. I'm making a tour of the western ports, Mrs. Henry, and our country is paying 100 per cent of Italy's supply for an inexplicable shortage of fuel oil. We do I know it's leaked to the black market. The Italians are more likely to tell the truth when they see the uniform. My SS title is purely honorary, but they don't know it. Very well, the air by the sea is You really do wonders. Where's the boy? How's he doing? I'd love to see him." Natalie tried her best to speak in a normal voice, "Shall I go and get him? How long can you stay here?" "Unfortunately, I can't stay long. I'm going to Piombino on business. Follonica is not far from the main road, so I just thought of dropping in to greet you." "Then I'll go and hug him." On the second floor, the Castelnuovo couple sat pale and frightened in their bedroom with the door wide open.The doctor waved to her and asked her softly, "Is that the person?" "yes." "I heard him say Piombino." "He's on an inspection tour." In another room, Miriam Guy teased Louis with a teddy bear made of cloth.Natalie picked the child up from the crib, and the little girl looked up at her, like a preoccupied adult woman. "Where are you taking him?" "Downstairs, come right back." "But there's a German downstairs." Natalie stretched out a finger, pressed it to her lips, and hugged Louis, who was yawning wide open.She heard Baker raise his voice on the stairs and stopped. "Dr. Jastrow, all four of these radio scripts are fine as they are. Isn't they, every one of them is good. You can't move a word of it. Why don't you record it right away? ? At least the first two?" Jastrow's voice was calm and quiet: "Werner, there used to be a publisher who persuaded the poet AE Housman to print some articles that he was about to throw away. Housman pushed him back with these two sentences: "I'm not saying these articles are bad.I mean they are not good enough for my writing. '" "That's a good point, but with us time is a major factor. If you don't polish these speeches to your liking before the war is over, isn't it all going for nothing?" Jastrow's laugh seemed to express knowing joy. "Sounds right, Werner." "I'm definitely not kidding you! I'm protecting you from the pain. You told me all you needed was a week or two by the sea. Just in case it's out of my hands, Jester Dr. Luo, then you will really regret it." There was a silence. Natalie hurried downstairs and into the dining room.Baker stood up, smiling broadly at the child. "Man, he's grown up a lot!" He stuffed his glasses into his breast pocket and stretched out his arms. "Give me a hug, will you? You have no idea how much I miss my Klaus, my youngest son!" Putting her son into the hands of the man in uniform made Natalie sick, but Dr. Baker took the baby with delicacy and gentleness.Louis smiled at him cheerfully.Dr. Baker's eyes were moist, and his speech was deliberately low. "Okay, hello! Hello, little joy! We're friends, aren't we? We're not political, huh?—Yeah! Want my glasses, don't you?" He squeezed the frames from Louis. Take it in your small hand. "We all hope you never need glasses. Look, your mother is worried, go back to her. Tell her I never threw a child on the floor." Natalie hugged the baby tightly, relaxed, and sat down.Baker sat down again, put on his glasses, and had a stern look on his face again. "That's it. I can return from my trip in five days, and I suggest that you two come with me to Rome. Dr. Jastrow, you must prepare the broadcast script for recording. I have arranged the hotel. For this I can be very firm about this." Jastrow shrugged his shoulders, spread his arms, and pretended to be helpless and pitiful, jokingly said: "Five days! Well, I can try to do something. But I can't do anything about the next two manuscripts." Yes, Werner. They are just a mess of notes. The first one, or the first two, my dear fellow, I can try to get them out of the way, but if you must have all four, then I can only lie down like an old horse that can't pull a cart." Baker patted the old man's knee. "Fix the first two when I get back. Then it's up to you." "I have to go to Rome too, is it really necessary?" Natalie asked. "yes." "And then shall we go back to Siena?" "Go back if you want," Baker said absently, standing up while looking at his watch.Ellen sent him out. The Castelnuovos came downstairs, Miriam following her mother's skirt on tiptoe.She poked her head out and asked Natalie in a high whisper like an actor on a stage: "Are the Germans gone?" "Go away, not here anymore." "Did he make Louis suffer?" "No, no, Louis is fine." Natalie hugged the boy tightly, as if he had fallen and picked him up.How about you two go out on the porch and play? " "Can we have a piece of cake?" "Can." The four adults immediately had a secret meeting in the dining room.This is a critical moment, and Jastrow must move immediately.They take these to be self-explanatory.It was decided that Castelnuovo must consult Frankenthal.But not on the phone.The afternoon bus leaves in half an hour.The doctor put on his hat and set off.A night of terror followed.His wife didn't close her eyes all night, and she didn't let go of her heart until he came back early the next morning.Frankenthal's suggestion was that they had better set off for the island, since an ore ship had just sailed away last week.The next ferry to Elba is the day after tomorrow. "That's going to Corsica," said Natalie, with uncontrollable joy covering the beating of her heart. "To Elba," said the doctor. "We'll wait until we get there. The Corsica thing hasn't happened yet." "Fine," said Jastrow. "Napoleon was able to escape from Elba back then, and we must be able to do so." The morning they fled was raining heavily and the wind howling.The stormy waves hit the seawall along the Piombino seashore, and the waves were higher than the seawall.In twos and threes, passengers began to board the bumpy little ferry by the pier.Three customs guards sat comfortably in a shed in the distance, not getting a drop of rain, smoking their pipes and sipping wine.Frankenthal has prepared a proper tour certificate and bought a boat ticket; because there is a prison on Elba Island, tourists must be approved.But no one came to check the supporting documents.These absconded people boarded the ferry among other passengers with umbrellas; the iron chains rattled, the diesel engine coughed and spewed acrid smoke, and the ferry staggered away from the mooring. Frankenthal waved them goodbye, yelled goodbye as if nothing had happened, and they went away! Looking back towards the mainland, it was shrouded in torrential rain and smoke from the Piombino blast furnaces.Natalie recalled that the previous night, the flames from the blast furnace outside the train window had made Louis cry in fright, prompting an inspector to check the passengers' papers.Miriam, speaking in her Tuscan accent as clear as silver bells, babbled Italian baby talk to distract Louis, and also the inspector, who walked away laughing. Yes, without giving them any trouble.In spite of the nightmarish terrors that filled her heart, the danger that had occurred on the road from Italy was the only one of its kind. After a dizzying slow voyage on rough seas, the island of Elba finally loomed in the misty rain, with clouds covering the fog and rolling green hills.The place where they disembarked was a horseshoe-shaped port with a strong sea breeze. The area near the sea was full of old houses, and an ancient fortress looked down on it, watching it covetously.Following Frankenthal's instructions, Anna put on a white kerchief, Natalie put on a blue kerchief, and Ellen smoked a pipe.An old man with a body like a dead tree drove a mule cart to a stop in front of them, beckoned them to get on the cart, and then covered the cart with a piece of dirty canvas as a rain curtain.Then came a long, long uphill journey, with mule carts bumping and sliding all the way.Looking out through the thin mica sheets inlaid on the window panes, the vineyards and farmlands on the mountains are indistinct clusters of dark green in the rain and fog.The air inside the canvas was musty and musty, and the smell of mule was overwhelming.The old man driving the car didn't say a word.Louis was asleep the whole way.The carriage finally stopped.The driver turned over the rain cloth, and Natalie stepped off the car with her stiff legs, just stepping on a puddle of water.They came to a stone-paved square in a mountain village on a slope.There was no one around; not even a dog.It was dusk and the rain had stopped, and the stone façade of the old cathedral, dripping with rain, was a deep purple.The silence here is downright frightening. "Where have we been?" Natalie asked the driver in Italian.Her ordinary speaking voice sounded like yelling. The driver spoke for the first time: "Marciana."