25
I haven”t heard from Jakob for days, and I”m afraid I won”t see him again. Fate has taken us from one war to another like a cruel joke.
I’ve spent many days alone, not daring to leave the house, so I’ve had plenty of time to look back and recount my memories. I realize that these six years of marriage, despite being the result of a hasty decision, have been happy. I didn”t mind the shortages and homesickness: I would suffer them a hundred times over if I could have Jakob back in return.
Once we moved to Ljubljana, everything seemed to get better. We got this attic in the Koren”s house, an older couple, and I started to learn the language. Jakob worked as a carpenter”s assistant, and I sewed for the neighbors. Ljubljana is always gray and foggy and I miss the warmth of the sun. Jakob said we would return to Spain as soon as the political situation calmed down.
Our idyll lasted six years, although it wasn’t all happiness. Miroslava was wrong with her prediction, and we haven’t been blessed with any children. There’s no child named Martin running around the carpentry shop. It’s been hard for me to accept, but today, seeing how the world is sinking around me, I’m almost glad of it. Even so, her prediction keeps my hope alive: if it’s true, it means that Jakob will come back from wherever he is.
Miroslava was the smartest of us all: she died a week before the war broke out. In Bled, they say she did it on purpose.
I remember exactly the day our bubble burst. It was Palm Sunday, 1941. We were at Mass when it began to thunder. But it wasn’t thunder, and having heard the same sound so many times in Spain, Jakob and I knew exactly what it was.
We couldn”t believe that the war had followed us here, too.
At first, the days passed in deceptive calmness, and Jakob was able to stay with me thanks to his wounded leg. There were changes, of course. Military parades followed one after another through the streets, and tanks and rifles became a regular sight. Some deluded individuals removed place-name boards from crossroads, thinking it would confuse the invaders. We were forbidden to travel outside Ljubljana. They changed the hour to bring it in line with Mussolini”s territory, and schools began to teach only in Italian.
Everything got gradually worse, but it was bearable. I kept sewing. Jakob did what he could.
But a year later, the Italians built a wire fence around Ljubljana. Since then, it hasn’t been possible to cross it without a lasciapassare[9], and it’s not easy to find one.
Then, the mass arrests began.
People disappear and are never heard from again.
Different place, same story.
We became more and more afraid.
Day and night, Jakob tried to find a way to escape across the barbed wire. Too many people know us here, and our false surnames are of little use when so many know our true history.
The radio only told lies: that was until it, too, was banned. In the market, you can get potatoes and cabbage, if you’re lucky, and get there early. And that’s if the vendors even show up. You need a permit for everything, even to be able to ride a bicycle—if you still have one.
As the months passed, Jakob became less discreet and more desperate. He talked to neighbors and acquaintances, trying to find someone capable of getting us out of here. Occupied Ljubljana was looking more and more like a gigantic concentration camp every day. He was meeting partisans on the sly. He didn”t tell me everything he did, claiming that in this day and age, it”s safer not to know.
Someone ratted him out. It was no use having changed our last name when we arrived in the country.
It happened one Saturday. Even though it was January, it was a beautiful morning. We went into the garden behind the house to have breakfast with the Korens and sipped our tea by the apple trees. We get along well with them. When the anti-aircraft sirens sounded, they took a deck of cards to the bunker so the hours of anguish passed more quickly while we played.
After a while, three soldiers knocked on the door. I went to open it. They pointed their guns at me, and I was scared. I shouted, and Jakob came to see what was going on.
They said something in their language without worrying if we understood them. They reeled off Jakob’s name from a typed document. They knew his last name, the real one.
“That”s me,” he replied, looking more relaxed than he probably felt.
I looked at the soldiers, terrified, praying this wasn”t what I thought it was. One of the soldiers grabbed Jakob by the arm, and panic paralyzed me. Jakob tried to shake him off, implying that he would follow them willingly. The soldier hit him square in the stomach with the butt of his gun, and Jakob doubled over in pain as they dragged him into the street, oblivious to his limp.
“What”s going on?” I asked in desperation.
“A snitch told them that I served in Spain on the frontline. They want me to go with them for questioning.”
“Go where?”
“I don”t know, to the barracks. It won’t take long,” Jakob answered, his face pinched and drawn. Then he hugged me and pretended to kiss me as he whispered in my ear. “Whatever you do, don”t let them know where you came from, let alone about your time at the field hospital. Don”t talk, don”t trust anyone, not even the Korens. If necessary, pretend you’re deaf, mute, or whatever you have to do to stay alive. I”ll be back soon to get you, and we”ll leave this country forever.”
The soldier barked an order, and Jakob broke away from me, his eyes blurred with tears.
“I love you,” was the last thing he said before he was taken away, limping.
The interview in the barracks stretched for hours, days, and weeks.
It’s now February, and he still isn’t back.
No one can tell me where he is, although I suspect he’s been taken to a prison camp. And, as everybody knows, ‘cripples’ like him rarely return from such places.
I’m here alone, trapped in a foreign country, with no family, no husband, and no one to trust. My parents died in the last bombing of Valencia. My sister doesn”t answer my letters. My mother-in-law doesn”t want to hear from me. The Korens are nice, but Jakob warned me about them. Work is scarce, and soon, I’ll run out of food if I don”t freeze first.
In view of the situation, I made a plan this morning.
I ironed my best dress. I wanted to look decent when I died. My idea was simple. Make myself pretty and try to jump the barbed wire in broad daylight. A suicidal plan, but at least it would allow me to insult the guards before the bullets hit me. And, in the best-case scenario, I could catch them off guard and get through to the other side.
But then something totally unexpected happened.
I was walking down the street, ready to look death in the face, when I passed the Italian, the one who had gotten us the false documents in 1937. I didn”t greet him because pretending we didn”t know each other had been part of our agreement. However, that day, he followed me to an empty street. He approached me from behind and tapped me on the shoulder with one finger. I wondered if he intended to rape me and if so, there was little I could have done: he’s an Italian government employee. I, the wife of a traitor.
“Signora Br?ljan,” he said in a whisper.
I turned around and looked at him blankly. There he was, his golden, round glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking a little less skinny than the last time I’d seen him. He was dressed in an impeccable uniform, wearing those ridiculous short bloomers typical of the Italian military. It was obvious that his life was happily spent in an office and that General Robotti”s canteen was much better stocked than the pantries of the common people.
He shook my hand. When he let go, I found a folded piece of paper in my palm.
It was a letter, and I wondered if it was from Jakob.
“Just one thing,” he murmured, “I didn”t give you this.”
There was no one around us. I knew it was dangerous, but I had to ask.
“Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?” I implored.
The Italian looked around, double-checking that we were alone. Finally, he looked at me and sized me up for a few long seconds. His features relaxed for a moment, but soon, he resumed his neutral, circumspect demeanor.
“Gornji trg, 5,” was all he said.
An address.
“I beg your pardon?”
“My address is Gornji trg, 5. Come to see me tomorrow at five o”clock in the afternoon. Don”t be late. Bring your sewing supplies.”
Then he stalked away.
Enzo Rossi.
I never thought I would see him again since our brief encounter in Gorizia many years earlier.
Who would have thought that an invading soldier would unknowingly save my life just on the morning I had decided to throw myself into the enemy guns?