Cast the First Stone: A stunning wartime story Read online

  ‘People have looked at this same scene for a thousand years,’ remarked Eleanora. She sighed contentedly, stretching a little in the sun.

  ‘And will continue to do so for the next thousand,’ said Raul, joining them.

  Liana felt irrepressibly happy. For once, thought Raul, she looks as young as her nineteen years. Laughing, she stood up. ‘I’ll leave you two to your romantic imaginings while I make us some coffee,’ she said.

  The acorn coffee was almost ready when Liana heard Raul’s call. Her feet flew across the uneven cobbles towards the gateway where her friend was sitting.

  Eleanora was dying. Liana knew it immediately. The knowledge scarred itself across her brain, and she faltered in her headlong rush. Then she hurried forward, trying to smile cheerfully, and put her arms around her lifelong friend, willing some of her own strength to flow into that frail body. But already it seemed as if Eleanora was physically removed. Her normally pale face was suffused with a surrealistic pink glow from the morning sun, and her eyes were fixed on something only she could see. Something far away, out of Liana’s reach. It was as if her soul was walking away from her body; and she’s not even looking at me, thought Liana despairingly.

  ‘Eleanora, look at me.’ She shook her, desperately trying to drag her back, away from that distant place, back into the world they had always shared.

  ‘I don’t think she can hear you.’ Raul, accustomed to the sudden, brutal death of battle, watched transfixed. The atmosphere of peace surrounding Eleanora was so strong it was almost tangible. He was both awed and frightened. What was it she could see that they couldn’t?

  ‘Eleanora, listen to me. Look at me. Don’t leave me.’ The sound of Liana’s voice eddied down the mountainside. There was something so awful in the sound, an intense misery, that the hairs on the back of Raul’s neck prickled.

  Flinging herself in the dust, Liana held her friend’s face between her hands. Look at me, look at me, she willed. Every fibre of her being concentrated on Eleanora. If only she would look, then she would not die.

  For a wonderful moment she thought she had succeeded; Eleanora’s eyes suddenly cleared and focused on Liana. But a sense of chilling bleakness penetrated Liana as she gazed into those eyes. There was no mistaking the shadowy haze of death; it was clearly mirrored. Eleanora smiled gently, the same loving smile Liana had always known, but it was weak and fluttery now, like a butterfly about to fly off to a sweeter flower. A dry, paper-thin hand reached up and clasped Liana’s warm, living one. ‘I’m sorry Liana, but I have no choice.’

  ‘You have, you have.’ It was an angry cry. Liana wasn’t ready to let go; she refused to accept the inevitable.

  Raul remembered Liana’s boast that she would not let Eleanora die. By God, she’s going to fight until the very last moment, he thought. He stood a few yards back, leaning helplessly against the wall, unwilling to be drawn into the circle of grief surrounding the two girls.

  ‘I have no choice,’ repeated Eleanora faintly but with undeniable conviction. Her hand tightened on Liana’s. ‘Light a candle and pray for me, a candle before the Madonna. There is no-one to hear my confession, no-one here to absolve my sins. Ask Our Lady to forgive me. Promise me, please.’

  ‘I promise,’ Liana heard herself saying gently, her voice in stark contrast to the seething outrage she felt. Absolve her sins! Eleanora had no sins. She had never sinned. So why was God punishing her by killing her with this hateful disease? Why did it always have to end the same way?

  Eleanora smiled. ‘Thank you.’ Reaching up she brushed feebly at the tears coursing down Liana’s cheeks. ‘Don’t cry, darling. I shall always be with you for as long as you live. Nothing can separate the indivisible.’

  Eleanora turned her gaze back towards the sea. A small sound, like the rustle of dry leaves before the wind, drifted from her lips. Her eyelids drooped and flickered, then finally closed, and Liana knew she was beaten. Death, that formless shadow always dogging her footsteps, had won again. She began to weep.

  Raul turned abruptly away and walked down the mountain-side. He was unexpectedly moved by emotions he wanted no part of. He had chosen the castello as a place of escape; this is not my tragedy, he reminded himself. He paused to light a cigarette and noticed with disquiet that his hands trembled.

  He walked and kept on walking, but Liana’s weeping followed him. The piteous sound leaped up at him from every scrubby bush, every rock, every stone. The whole world was drowning in her melancholy keening.

  He shivered suddenly. An image of years filled with the sound of weeping flashed through his mind. He drew fiercely on his cigarette. Why should he remember the happenings of a few months of his life, the death of one girl, the grief of another? It was nothing to do with him. In a short while he would leave this place, and all would be forgotten.

  *

  It took three harrowing days before Liana finally admitted defeat.

  An epidemic of smallpox and typhoid was decimating Naples and already spreading to villages in surrounding areas. People were dying in the streets. They lay where they had fallen, studiously avoided by the passers-by who hurried on eyes averted, clutching rags to their noses. A pall of death hung over the city; every street, every square was a glimpse of the portals of hell.

  Raul wanted to leave immediately, but Liana was adamant. ‘Not until I’ve made the arrangements. I have the money. Eleanora must have a proper funeral.’

  Unwilling to leave her alone in the stricken city, Raul stayed on. But for him the final straw came when they chanced upon a group of women dancing to drive the sickness away. He choked in anger. ‘Medieval peasants,’ he spat. ‘Offering up pagan rituals. Can’t you see, Liana, you’ll not get the coffin or the funeral you want here. You’ll have to make your own arrangements.’

  ‘It’s not too much to ask.’

  But Liana knew it was too much. Why should anyone show any interest in a dead girl called Eleanora? She was just another body. The preoccupation of the inhabitants of Naples, those still well enough, was how to avoid death, not get involved with it.

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Raul dragged her back up to the castello. Liana didn’t object. There was no point in fighting the inevitable. She stood for a long time looking down at the dead Eleanora. Why did you leave me? What did I do wrong that you wanted to leave? Oh yes, my dearest love, you didn’t deceive me. I know you welcomed death like a familiar friend, more familiar than me. Was there nothing more you required from this earth? Not even me? Do you know that in going you have taken a part of me with you? I will always mourn the void you left for as long as I am bound to this earth. How could you do this to me? How could you?

  Liana closed her eyes. She wanted to feel something other than anger and emptiness, but couldn’t. Even willing all the good memories to come back failed; there was nothing inside her but a slow, burning anger at the futility of everything. Opening her eyes she looked down at Eleanora once more. In death, her fragile beauty had assumed the brittle delicacy of a porcelain doll’s. A faint smile curved her lips. Liana wanted to wipe it away. It seemed a profane mockery. How could she smile in the face of death?

  ‘She looks at peace,’ said Raul coming to join her. He thought she had been alone with Eleanora long enough. Everything had a limit, even grieving. In spite of his resolve not to get involved, he wanted to reach out and comfort Liana, to make her understand that Eleanora had embraced death with dignity and relief, that she wouldn’t have wanted Liana to mourn or to feel angry and resentful. But the comforting words on his lips died away when faced with the cold stoniness of Liana’s eyes.

  ‘We’ll bury her tomorrow,’ she said harshly, and turned away.

  The next morning a bitter cold rain came lashing down in torrents. It swept in from the sea, a grey shroud obliterating everything on the mountainside except the nearest objects.

  ‘Perhaps we should wait,’ Raul suggested, not relishing digging in the stubborn, rocky soil on such a day. />
  ‘We’ll do it today,’ Liana said.

  Raul bit his lip in exasperation but didn’t argue. When Liana made up her mind, no-one could change it. If he didn’t help her, he knew she would do it alone. Anyway, he thought sombrely, maybe it is better to get the unpleasant task over and done with.

  ‘I’ll light the sanctuary lamp in the chapel.’ He knew Liana would not renege on her promise to Eleanora. She would light a candle.

  Ten minutes later Liana hurried across the cobbles towards the chapel to fulfil that promise. An old blanket flung over her head and shoulders partially shielded her from the penetrating rain.

  At the door of the chapel she paused. The flame of the sanctuary lamp flickered dull red through the dusty glass, illuminating the statue of the Madonna in the alcove. The familiar sight unlatched a door into her memory, and for a brief moment Liana remembered how it had been in those far-off days before the war. Then it had seemed that nothing could threaten the rhythm of their lives. The blue-robed Madonna had been real in those days, a living, breathing person always able to grant the simple wishes of two small and innocent girls. A smile touched her lips as she remembered. ‘Light a candle, say a prayer, and everything will be all right.’

  Reaching out, Liana tried to hold on to the comforting image, but it receded as rapidly as it had materialized, leaving the merciless reality of the present, the cold grey bleakness of the day, rain penetrating the gaping holes in the roof and forming dirty puddles around the masonry which littered the floor.

  Now I see as a woman, she thought, staring with distaste at the puddles, an old woman, too old for childish dreams. Too old at nineteen; Liana couldn’t decide whether it was funny or sad, or just plain stupid. Whatever it was, she knew it was impossible to go back and find the girl she had once been. So much had happened in the last few years which made the past meaningless. So now, she looked again at the blue-robed Madonna of her childhood, and her critical eyes saw a chipped and faded plaster figure. The brass crown looked cheap and tarnished, bereft of the semi-precious jewels it had once held. Liana remembered them being prised out of their sockets by looters.

  She wished she had not come, but she had promised Eleanora, and a promise had to be kept. Skirting the puddles, she made her way over to the Madonna and lit a candle. Oh, it is so cold, she thought, trying to concentrate, cold as the grave we shall soon prepare for Eleanora. Her fingers shook and she had difficulty putting the candle in the rack. It was full of candles burned down to blackened wicks. Eleanora had lit all those, never missing a single day. And much good it did her, Liana thought bitterly. This will be the last time a candle is lit in this chapel.

  ‘This is for Eleanora,’ she said loudly, as if daring the statue to contradict. She slid to her knees and tried to pray, but nothing came. I promised and I must do it, she told herself. The familiar words were there, she could hear them jangling painfully in her head, but they were confused and in the wrong order. Getting out her rosary, she slipped the beads through her fingers, hoping for comfort from the familiar shapes. But the beads were no comfort. They were cold as death itself.

  ‘It’s no use, I can’t do it.’ Liana struggled to her feet and stared at the statue. Why have I never noticed the stupidity of that simpering painted smile before, she thought, a terrible hatred welling up inside her. ‘There is no God,’ she found herself shouting.

  ‘There is no God, no God, no God.’ The words sneered and mocked at her, echo upon echo building up into an earsplitting cacophony. ‘No God, no God, no, no, no . . .’

  Liana turned and ran. At the door, held back by something stronger than her own will, she turned for one last look. The driving rain, penetrating the roof, was dripping down over the statue. The Madonna was weeping, or so it seemed. Tears coursed down her cheeks, streaking a pale path through the dust. In the flickering light from the candle the weeping face came alive. Eleanora’s eyes followed Liana, mute and reproachful. The tears that fell streaked down Eleanora’s cheeks.

  ‘You’re dead. Don’t look at me like that.’

  With a scream Liana pushed through the door and slammed it behind her. Taking a deep breath, she deliberately raised her face to the drenching, cold rain. Her mind was playing tricks on her. The sooner they buried Eleanora the better. She ran to find Raul.

  The next hour was physically hard for both of them; but for Liana, putting Eleanora into the unwelcoming wet earth was the most horrific thing of all. She cringed back, recoiling from what had to be done. Raul hadn’t even permitted the use of one of their precious blankets as a shroud.

  ‘We’ll need it for ourselves this winter. We have to stay alive. Our need is greater,’ he said.

  And she knew it was true. What had to be done had to be. But her heart ached at the indignity of it all. At last they were nearly finished, and Raul began to shovel the heavy earth, sodden from the unceasing rain, into the shallow grave.

  Liana fell to her knees, oblivious of the mud and rain. Reaching down into the grave, she touched Eleanora’s face one last time.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered.

  She drew her hand away as earth began to cover the face. A clod of earth must have triggered a rigid muscle, for suddenly Eleanora’s eyes flicked open, and she stared up into Liana’s terrified face. Tears of rain began to streak a pale path down her cheeks. It was just as Liana had seen her in the chapel.

  ‘You’re supposed to be dead. Don’t look at me like that.’ Liana’s scream curdled the blood in Raul’s veins. Aghast, he watched as, propelled by the floodtide of hysteria, she flung herself into the muddy grave and began clawing away the earth.

  ‘What the hell . . . Liana, have you gone mad?’ Raul tried to pull her away from the grave.

  Liana fought him like a wild thing. ‘She’s looking at me. We must get her out. I must . . .’ Then there was silence as merciful oblivion descended.

  Raul hadn’t meant to hit Liana quite so hard, but now he took advantage of the time she was unconscious, and finished filling in the grave. He did it blindly, trying not to look. What an awful freakish trick fate had played on them. The staring eyes unnerved him, too, but he didn’t let them deter him, and as soon as the mound of earth was secure, he picked up the still unconscious Liana and carried her back to the castello.

  He took off her wet clothes, and, wrapping her in a blanket, cradled her, childlike, in his arms. He stayed like that, in front of the warmth of the stufa, until she regained consciousness.

  ‘But her eyes,’ Liana said.

  ‘You imagined it. You were hysterical. I’m sorry I had to hit you.’

  Raul held her close, reasoning that there was no point in telling her the truth, and Liana believed him. She wanted to believe him, telling herself that he was right, her overwrought imagination had run riot. There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all. But she clung to him for comfort for the rest of that night. His was a warm, solid body; he was not a figment of her imagination. Her need to be close to another human being was desperate, and Raul was there.

  After that day in December, Liana began to like Raul and to trust him little by little. They talked and talked, and gradually she confided in him, and the small bits and pieces that formed the jigsaw puzzle of her life fell into place. Eventually, she openly admitted that all the food and money came from prostitution.

  ‘I don’t understand. How could you do it?’ Raul was curious. He had seen the sensitive, fastidious side of her character, and the squalid nature of prostitution did not fit her image.

  Liana shrugged. ‘I had to do it, so I did. I could kill someone if I had to, couldn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never really been put to the ultimate test,’ said Raul reflectively. ‘I’ve always managed to avoid trouble.’ It was true, he had. Always running, never staying to fight. His family and friends were all dead, because, foolishly, they had tried to defy the evil powers unleashed by Il Duce and Hitler. In his opinion, fighting was for idiots. Only those who either ducked out, or went alon
g with the system, stayed alive, and he was one of them. What would I really do if I was forced into a corner? If someone depended on me? Would I behave differently? Of course, said his conscience soothingly. No, mocked his brain, it would be the same as always. He turned to Liana. ‘Did you have to become a prostitute? Was there no other way?’

  ‘We needed food,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘I tried to get other work. I even begged.’ She gave a desultory half-smile. ‘Begging was worse than prostitution. I hated the humiliation of it. But anyway, I was a hopeless beggar. I achieved nothing. Don Luigi and Eleanora were both ill, and the three of us were starving. I was desperate. Then, I suppose you could say the gods smiled on me, because I met Rosetta. She showed me how to get food by letting men use my body. So I let them. It seemed a small price to pay then. Perhaps if I’d known they would both die anyway . . .’ her voice trailed away.

  ‘In war-time people do many things they are ashamed of.’

  ‘I am not ashamed of it.’ Liana’s eyes flashed scornfully. ‘I would do it again. Now, if it was necessary. I told you before, I could, and would, kill. I’d do anything.’ She laughed humourlessly. ‘I didn’t like it, sex, I mean. Why on earth it is called “making love” I cannot imagine. Men seem to enjoy it, but for a woman, pleasure is impossible.’

  Her words and demeanour reminded Raul forcibly that she was a survivor. In that respect they were alike. But whereas he survived by devious means, and always for himself, she was different. Liana was motivated by a conviction that her actions were right and by a deep instinctive courage to fight for her life and for those she loved.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘It was wrong of me to use the word “ashamed”. But you are mistaken about one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Women can enjoy making love.’

  ‘Hah!’ Liana scoffed. ‘You’ll never convince me of that.’

  Raul remained silent. He could be patient. He had plenty of time to kill and he knew the right moment would come, sooner or later. Then, and only then, would he introduce her to a sensual world as yet unknown to her. He smiled, looking forward to the task of convincing her. And she would be convinced! Until then, he could wait, and in the meantime be her friend and brother.