Saintly Intervention

By Kevin Beardsley

In 1944, Nonno Benogetti, a sixteen-year-old shepherd, was falsely accused of conniving with the Germans against the Partisans and was about to be executed by the local Partisans in the valley below the farmhouse where he lived, when he is saved by a New Zealand soldier who was on patrol in the area. He lived with his mother in a large farmhouse with two other families in the Apennines above the town of Gubbio in Italy. He and his mother are convinced that his miraculous escape from death was because the patron saint of the area, Sant’Ubaldo, had intervened on his behalf.

In 2013, Nonno, now retired, still lives in the farmhouse with his married daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. The grandson who works in the bar and cafe near the church of Sant’Ubaldo above Gubbio is selling drugs, supplied to him by a member of one of the families that used to live on the farm back in 1944. A New Zealand young farmer on a farming scholarship with the same name as the soldier who saved him from the Partisans all those years ago is living with Nonno for a few weeks. Nonno is intrigued when a father and daughter with the same name as a German soldier deserter, who he and his mother once hid from the Germans, comes to stay in one of the family units in the large farmhouse. He becomes alarmed when he learns that the man who is supplying his grandson with drugs has the same name as one of the families who once lived in the farmhouse with him in 1944.

Another grandson of Nonno is a detective in Rome who is engaged in a case involving the murder of a prominent judge. There appears to be no definite leads, until the body of a prosecuting attorney is found in the Tiber River. Both he and the judge had been involved in a drug and gangster case involving a well-known criminal family in which a prominent member of the family was found guilty. At first it is thought the murders might have been committed by some of the gang that remain at large, until it is obvious when several attempt on the detective’s life were made that the culprits were more likely be members of the family run by someone called the General.

After following several leads, Nonno’s grandson detective follows a lead that brings him to Gubbio. He is unaware that while he seeks his quarry, others seek him and are not far behind him.

Nonno is convinced that when the chase is taking place in the valley where he was saved by Sant’Ubaldo that his grandson detective will also be saved by the patron saint of the area. He hears pistol shots followed by the sound of a high-powdered rifle coming from among the trees below in the valley and wonders if the saint has deserted him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Jan 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781493192939

Kevin Beardsley

The author has been writing for over thirty years and has self-published a number of books for children and adults. His last self-published book in America was Saintly Intervention. He is, at present, writing a number of New Zealand historical novels. He is a retired school principal.

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Copyright © 2015 by Kevin Beardsley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/12/2015

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Contents

A Saintly Intervention 1944

MARCH 2013

Apennines

Elke

Eno Bartolucci

The Judge

Pietro Benogetti

Four Fingers Missing

The Feast

Sant’Ubaldo

A SAINTLY INTERVENTION

1944

The band stopped playing abruptly. The couples glided on for a step or two and then stopped dancing. They drifted apart and looked towards the dance band on the upraised platform.

The pianist had risen and was holding his hands above his head. The fiddler’s bow had dropped to the floor, and he held his violin by his side as if reluctant to let it go. The drummer had half risen from his seat, holding his sticks at shoulder level, his mouth half open and his eyes staring above the heads of the dancers towards the door of the room.

Nonno Benogetti turned to follow his gaze. Steel-helmeted German soldiers had entered the dance floor, their guns held at the ready and pointed towards the young people. He heard the withdrawn breaths of those nearest him and felt an atmosphere of tension among them. He dropped his arm from the back of his partner and stiffened.

He heard the sound of jackboots in the foyer as an officer came into the room. The officer held a pistol in his hand, which he waved about as he advanced. Nonno’s heart sank when he recognised the two runes on the officer’s collar, which were of the feared Waffen SS. He hadn’t taken any notice of his mother’s warning this morning before he sneaked off to come to the afternoon dance for young people. He’d been coming here in the afternoons to learn to dance in the hope of seeing and dancing with Norina. He dared not miss a dance. Capitano Contaldo was his rival for Norina’s hand and he couldn’t give him a chance to muscle in.

Things had changed since the partisan’s raids on the town and the surrounding countryside had increased. Now the Germans had brought in the Waffen SS to deal with the situation in Gubbio. He knew they could be ruthless in dealing with the locals, whether they were partisans or not.

Nonno cursed his bad luck. For weeks now, he’d taken every opportunity he had to be close to Norina Benedetti. He had first seen her in the back pew with her mother on Sundays. He’d tried to catch her eye without success. Every time he looked at Norina, her mother glared at him as if he was the devil incarnate. Then on later Sundays, during Mass when the congregation lowered their eyes while praying, they had stolen shy glances and she had smiled shyly when he caught her eye.

Ever since then, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. While attending the sheep and goats on the farm, he thought of nothing else except his feelings towards her. Telling her name repeatedly excited him more than he had experienced anything before. In his imagination, he saw visions of her in the fields, on the slopes of the hills, coming through the orchard, or picking the flowers his mother grew near the farm.

When he heard that she attended the dancing class in Gubbio, he had joined, and this afternoon was the first time he had danced with her. Holding her slight body in his arms was like heaven to him. Now these blasted Germans had come to spoil everything.

The dancers pressed close together against the wall. In broken Italian, the officer shouted an order. The boys had to go to the other side of the room and the girls were to stay where they were. The soldiers began to separate the couples and herd the boys to the other side of the room. Nonno held Norina’s hand, holding his ground. A soldier brought his rifle down on his hand to separate the two and then hit Nonno in the stomach with the butt. Nonno, doubled up in pain, was pushed against the far wall. There he tried to stand upright to show Norina he was not hurt, but she was nowhere to be seen. The girls had left the hall.

The hall started to fill as citizens of Gubbio were brought in by soldiers. They were older men, some very old, others middle-aged. They stood around, their eyes downcast, not wishing to meet the gaze of the Germans. Nonno’s thoughts were with Norina. It didn’t occur to him to think about how serious a situation he was in. The SS seemed to know everything about what was going on. Perhaps they knew that there were partisans in the hall. Perhaps they knew that he was a member as well. He had served as a lookout for the partisans, warning them when the German soldiers were approaching. From his location above the town, when he was out in the fields, he had a great view of anyone who was coming up from the town below.

The officer was moving along the line of citizens standing against the wall, looking intently at each one as if to determine if they were a member of the partisans. The men dared not meet his eyes and sighed deeply when they were not touched on the shoulder by the officer. Those who were touched were made to stand against the opposite wall. Nonno held his head high and didn’t flinch when it was his turn. The officer looked him up and down and then passed on.

The forty or so men chosen were marched out of the hall by the Germans and the doors were closed behind them. Those left in the hall dared not stir or speak. They stood where they were, expecting the door to open at any moment and the Germans to reappear and shoot at them where they stood.

Nonno was the first to move. He went across the floor and entered the door of the men’s toilet. He entered the first cubicle and stood on the toilet seat; he opened the window above and squirmed through it. He tried to twist his body to land on the paving stones on his feet but lost his balance and fell on his back. He lay there for a moment and then edged his way along the walls of the houses in the narrow lane. No one had followed him from the dance hall toilet window. Somehow the look of the smooth stone walls felt as if he was a part of them and would merge with them if anyone came. He inched his way along the lane until he came to a crossroads. He hesitated before he crossed over and pressed against the walls again as if to merge with them.

He struggled to control his panic. There was no one about. Shutters covered the narrow windows of the houses. The doors were shut and probably bolted. He had never felt so alone and exposed as he did in these narrow claustrophobic lanes.

How he wished he was in the open spaces of the farm where he lived above Gubbio town. Could he get there without being captured?

Marching jackboots in the lane nearby were coming nearer, followed by the sound of a sharp command in German and the slamming of a door. For a moment, Nonno lost control and started to run blindly in the middle of the lane back the way he had come. Then he thought he heard movement ahead. In desperation, he stopped and looked about him for some hiding place in the stonewalled buildings on either side of the lane. By chance, he had stopped in front of a bricked-up narrow doorway which could conceal him from anyone coming down the lane. He flattened himself in the narrow opening against the bricks, hoping the slight projection of the facade would give him the shelter he needed.

He hardly dared to breathe and tried to control his racing heart as he strained to hear any sound coming from down the lane. How long he would have to stay there before it was safe to move he dared not conjecture. The bricks of the porta della morta pressed hard against his back. He had heard his father talk of these narrow doorways, which had been bricked up in the Middle Ages, as being the doors of death. They had been used then to carry the coffins of the dead during the plague. The thought that he might be the next to die in such a place occurred to him. Fear surged through him at the thought, and he swallowed and struggled to control his breathing.

A slight misty rain drifted down and along the lane. It dripped from his hair and down his forehead. He tasted its coolness on his lips and found it soothing. The cobblestones of the lane glistened in the dull light of the late afternoon. Moisture had gathered in the gutter in the middle of the lane and trickled past slowly. The faint plop of raindrops falling from gutters with a splat on the cobbles near him and the trickle of water in a drain pipe opposite were the only sounds. The absence of other sounds reassured him and he began to take in his surroundings. The plants in a window box across the lane looked flattened and lifeless in the rain. He started to notice other small things like the pattern of rust spots on the drain pipe and the hole in the pipe where the rust had come through; the large heavy-looking doorknob on the door of the house opposite; the closed shutters over the windows as far as he could see along the lane.

A sharp volley of rifle fire startled him. It came from nearby. Then there was silence again. Nonno strained to hear any sound of movement above the sound of the soft rain falling on the cobbled lane. He pressed himself against the bricks again.

Nonno lived with his mother in a farmhouse in the hills above the town and had not been familiar with the layout of Gubbio until he had begun coming on afternoons for the dancing lessons. Now at least he had some idea just where he was. He reckoned the rifle fire must have come from the piazza in front of San Francesco Church. His mind was clear now. He must avoid that place and make his way up towards Piazza della Signoria. His mind was racing. There was no further firing. If there was no attack from the partisans, the volley must have been fired by the Germans, and the thought of what that must mean appalled him.

Panic threatened to overtake him when he left his meagre hiding place. He hesitated, not knowing which way to run. He took hold of himself. He knew where he was. If he remained calm, he could find his way by keeping to the narrow lanes, avoiding the main road, Via Dei Consoli, and working his way behind Piazza della Signoria. Behind the Duomo was the steep track to Sant’Ubaldo and safety.

He could see the tall structure of the campanile of Palazzo Dei Consoli with its crenellated outline. He had to keep to the left of that to find the track up the hill.

Nonno reached the track that lead to the Basilica of Sant’Ubaldo, the town’s patron saint. He knew that he would be safe there for the saint would look after him as he had once done for Gubbio in the Middle Ages, when he saved the town from attack from Barbarossa. He stopped at the Basilica, entered it, and lit a candle in thanks for his deliverance.

The mist still lay heavily in the deep valley below the farmhouse. Gennaro Benogetti watched her son as he drank his coffee at the table. He was late in taking the animals out of the barn and to the fields. They were moving restlessly below, waiting for Nonno to open the door and drive them out. Nonno was quieter than usual this morning and was not his usual talkative self. She placed her hand on his shoulder.

‘The cat got your tongue this morning?’ she asked.

He shook his shoulder as if to dislodge her grip, not replying. She squeezed his shoulder and he looked up at her.

‘No smile,’ she said. ‘Why so serious?’

‘It’s nothing, Mother.’

‘I think it is, Nonno. I have already lost your father in this war and I don’t want to lose you too. Can’t you stay away from the town? It’s here in the hills we belong, not the town. Promise me you will not go there again.’

Nonno was troubled. He would like to please his mother, but his passion for Norina could not be denied.

‘I must find out what has happened to her,’ he replied.

Gennaro dropped her hand from his shoulder and took a step back. ‘Who is this woman that you would risk your life for? What can she mean to you?’

He sensed his mother’s disapproval in the tone of her voice.

‘She’s just someone I met at the dancing lessons and I think I love her.’

‘Love? What do you know of love at sixteen, Nonno? Infatuated more likely. You are just a boy. Leave it alone and she will soon be forgotten.’

‘I won’t. I love her and I think about her all the time. I must see her again.’

There it was out. He’d dared to stand up to his mother. The look on her face—her half-closed eyes, her lips, her tightly closed mouth, and the red blotches on her cheeks—left him in no doubt about her reaction. She clipped him above his ear and banged the table with her closed fist.

‘You young fool. Don’t be like your father. He thought going off to war to fight against the British in the desert was to be a great adventure. Look what happened to him—buried in the desert when if he had stayed here where he belonged he would still be with us.’

‘I’m not going to fight in the war, Mother, but I must find out what happened to Norina.’

‘And get yourself killed like the forty the Germans shot in Gubbio? And you keep away from the partisans. It’s their fault that those men were killed.’

‘No, Mother. I’ll not go down to Gubbio just now. I promise you that. I’ll go to Mass at the Basilica. She is often there on Sundays.’

His mother didn’t comment. She still looked displeased as she took his coffee mug and the plate he had been eating from to the sink to wash. She couldn’t deny him from going to Mass, but she would go with him to ensure that he didn’t afterwards go down to Gubbio.

‘Now, Nonno, hurry and take the sheep and goats out to pasture. The sun is long up and the others have already gone out to the fields.’

The farmhouse where the Benogettis lived was on the upper slopes of the Apennines above a steep valley, some distance from the Basilica. It was a large house which was shared by three families—the Benogettis, the Vittorios, and the Bartoluccis.

Each family had their own kitchen and living room and was independent of each other. They shared the farm duties, which consisted of caring for olives, a small vineyard, orchard, vegetable garden, and stock consisting of two cows, a flock of sheep, and goats.

Nonno, like his father before him, was the shepherd. Nonno pulled on his cap, and taking his long shepherd’s crock, he left the kitchen, climbing down the outside stairs to the barns beneath the house. The restive sheep rushed out when he opened the door, and it took some time before he gathered them in a flock and stopped them from dashing ahead. He moved out in front of them to stop them from wandering to the thickly wooded hills beyond the fields.

The morning was fine and the sun hot in the open field where the herbs grew which the sheep liked to graze. Once they had settled down and didn’t wander far away, Nonno sat in the shade of a tree and rolled a cigarette. He lit it and watched the smoke from his cigarette rise in the still air before vanishing. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure up an image of Norina as he remembered her when they were forced apart by the soldiers. The image was faint and try as he might he couldn’t remember the colour of her hair or what she was wearing that day. But it made him feel good just to say her name aloud in the fields. He said it quietly at first and then shouted ‘Norina,’ as loud as he could. The sheep raised their heads to look at him and then went on with their grazing.

By late afternoon, the sheep had gone as far as the edge of the woods. Nonno was relieved to be in the open spaces again after his experience in the narrow lanes of Gubbio. In the early afternoon when the sheep had sought the shade of the edge of the woods, Nonno unwrapped the piece of pizza that his mother had given him for his lunch.

He’d taken only a bite when he heard gunfire coming from deep in the woods above