Chapter 17 #2
Toward the end of March, Zaneta dug leeks from the ground one night near the edge of the plain.
These had been her diet for a couple of weeks, and she was glad warmer weather would soon arrive.
Each thought she had like this brought guilt bubbling up like a spring.
How could she gripe about leeks when her family might not have even that?
What an ungrateful, selfish person she was.
She chewed the tough green stalks to fool her mouth into thinking it had plenty to eat.
One small black horse, a young filly that had become comfortable with her, grazed nearby, blowing through her nose now and then.
Zaneta rested on her heels to ease her back, and the filly raised her head and snorted.
“Take it easy. I’m not hurting you,” she said, her voice soft and slow.
“I wasn’t worried,” came a voice in reply.
A male voice. The horse bolted through the brush, and Zaneta felt the tremor of hooves pounding the ground as her companions joined the escape.
She sat frozen in place, the leeks turning her stomach sour.
She didn’t know which direction the voice had come from, or how she’d missed the man’s approach.
Careless, stupid girl, she silently chastised.
“Stand up,” the voice commanded in Italian.
“Turn around where I can see your hands.” He was to Zaneta’s left, just past where the plain started to slope down toward the coast. She’d strayed too far.
She obeyed, slowly rising to her knees and pulling her shawl close around her before standing all the way.
Her eyes, accustomed to the darkness, found him immediately, and she registered all the pertinent facts.
A soldier. German, though his Italian was passable.
About as old as her brother Avi. He leveled a gun at her, its metal glinting in the moonlight.
When he saw the figure she made standing before him, he laughed and lowered the pistol a few centimeters. The laughter made Zaneta’s knees wobble. She couldn’t run and had nothing to defend herself, and he knew it.
“Not to worry, Fr?ulein. We’re allies, after all, sharing the spoils, isn’t that right? Il Duce and the Führer play for the same team. What are you doing up here in the middle of the night?” he asked.
Zaneta shrugged and held up a handful of leeks. She held them out to him, an offering, an impossible bribe. She imagined the truck leaving from her house, her family clutching each other inside.
“You’re giving me onions?” He laughed again and swiped his brow with the inside of an elbow. “Where do you live?”
She opened her mouth but shrugged again, stared at her shoes.
The fresh-dug earth beneath her feet gave off a rich, damp odor.
He stepped nearer and glanced around, wary.
It occurred to her to wonder what he was doing out here in the middle of the night.
All this time and no one. There was nothing a soldier would want up here on the empty plain.
“You out here alone?” he asked. Zaneta wanted to lie, but a lie like that would be quickly discovered. She swallowed hard and bit her lip to keep from crying. She lifted her chin to portray confidence, bravery she didn’t feel.
“Take me to your house,” he demanded. “I’m looking for a place to—rest.”
Zaneta’s mind whirled. Should she lead him to a different ruin?
Another tower somewhere? Nothing would look lived in; he wouldn’t believe her.
If she led him to her hiding place, her sanctuary wouldn’t be safe anymore, but at this point, did it matter?
He holstered his pistol and gestured at her to get going.
She complied, still gripping the hard-won leeks in her hand.
She decided to go to her ruin. Zaneta grasped at desperate possibilities.
If he killed her, at least she’d be in a place where the spirits of her ancient Nuragic ancestors revered women and the water.
Maybe their ghosts would rise up and save her.
When they arrived, she simply pointed, but the soldier appeared confused.
“What, here? Fr?ulein, you expect me to believe you live in a stone circle with no roof?” Zaneta stooped and swept the piles of grass aside to reveal the staircase entrance.
“Aha,” he said appreciatively. “Aren’t you the clever one? ”
Her feet knew each stone step, and she navigated them perfectly, even in the dark, while the soldier had to steady himself with his hands against the walls as he descended.
He held a small squeezer flashlight in one hand.
Zaneta’s heart sank further with each step, and she tried to focus on being strong for the rest of the family.
She was their hope, Mamma had said, although hope was in short supply lately.
When they reached the floor of the small atrium, the soldier shone the beam of his flashlight over the mossy stone walls, lingering once on Zaneta’s face while she squinted against the light. He seemed satisfied.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Zaneta,” she answered, her first word.
“So you do speak.” He nodded. “How long have you been hiding here? I assume that’s what you’re doing—hiding. This isn’t a proper house.”
She shrugged again. “Awhile.”
“What do you eat? Besides onions, I mean.” The soldier again wiped his brow with his arm. He wore no cap, and his sand-yellow hair was short and stood up in cowlicks. The uniform seemed a size too large, she noticed now, hanging on his frame.
“What I can find.” Zaneta gestured up the stairs.
“You’d be surprised.” She held her hands out in front of her as a show of cooperation and knelt slowly behind a large stone in the center of the floor.
She thought it might once have been an altar.
Behind it, she’d stashed what she’d managed to collect—a few beets and potatoes, leeks, and blood oranges.
She didn’t reveal the last of the dried fish and figs her mother had packed.
The soldier crossed the small room in two broad steps, and Zaneta shrank against the wall. He ignored her and knelt beside the food, tearing into the oranges and potatoes until there was nothing left but scattered peels. “What else have you got? This is all?”
She spread her hands. “Of course, of course. You’re hiding.
” He sat blocking the exit, his back braced by the bottom step and one leg straight out in front of him.
He motioned for her to sit, too, so she did, directly opposite, as far across the room as she could be, and he regarded her, a wolf observing a lamb.
“We’ll get more later,” he said, and Zaneta’s stomach clenched. We? He meant to stay.