The Golden Hour by Margaret Wurtele Page A

touch one another at eye level, but I continued to push my way through until I came out at the border of the Santinis’ vineyard. I followed one of the rows out to the end. Then I stopped to see whether the coast was clear.
    A jeep full of German soldiers rumbled up the road from the left. I wanted them to think I was just a young woman out for a stroll, so I walked extra slowly. One of them whistled as they drove by, but I just kept my eyes on the ground straight ahead. Luckily they drove on.
    Bees buzzed around my ankles, but otherwise the Sunday afternoon was quiet, with not a single farmer in sight. I came to the old stone wall bordered by purple irises, turned, and followed it deep into the woods. The brambles were thick and scratchy, but at last I saw the clearing up ahead and the old gazebo. The white of its marble pillars glowed where it peeked through the dark moss and lichen, like camouflage. The old statue of Prometheus, holding a torch missing its flame, stood in the middle of the structure. The round roof was half destroyed. I could see someone sitting there, leaning against one of the columns. At the sound of my footsteps, he got up. “Giovanna? Is that you?”
    Oh, that voice! I ran to Giorgio and hugged him tight. He smelled like he hadn’t had a bath in months, but I didn’t mind. He felt so good I didn’t want to let him go.
    “God, it’s good to see you. Did anyone notice you?”
    “I don’t think so,” I said. “Catarina gave me the note. She probably read it, so she might know I’m here. But no one else.”
    We sat down on the platform and dangled our feet the way we used to do down by the bridge over the river. Giorgio’s pants were torn, and one of his boots was missing its laces. I leaned against him hard. “I’ve been so worried about you, Giorgio. Six
months
—why have you waited so long to contact us? It’s been torture.”
    “I just couldn’t risk it before now. I needed to learn the ropes,meet people and get them to trust me. I’ve been all over Tuscany—too far even to send a message.”
    “Trust you for what?”
    “Enough to give me assignments—I’ll tell you more later—but now, you’ve got to help us. We need food, boots, and more clothes. You said you wanted to help. Did you mean it?”
    Did I? Was he kidding? But I wanted him to take me seriously, so I didn’t show too much excitement.
    “I think I can find some things for you,” I said. “But Mother put all your clothes away in boxes somewhere.” I told him then about the German soldiers living in the villa, about the boxes walled up in the attic, the three of us living upstairs in the five small rooms. “It’s so lonely without you. I just wish I could tell Mama you’re safe.”
    “You know better than that. She’d tell Papa for sure. And then he wouldn’t rest until he got you to tell him where we are. You just can’t—promise me you won’t.”
    I told him he looked thin and I listened to his stories: how he and the other partisans were relying on certain trusted farmers to give them food; how little there was to share among all the Italian runaway soldiers as well as the escaped prisoners of war—Canadians, English, some French; how he and some others were sleeping now in a well-hidden cave not far away.
    I took a deep breath. “There is something that might help. I’m just not sure whether to tell you about it.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Well, there’s this German soldier who works at Santa Maria, where I am helping with the children. He and I are sort of friends. He’s nicer than the others, softer, in a way. I was thinking maybe there was some way he could—”
    He grabbed me by the shoulders, so hard it hurt. “No. No. No. You don’t get it. You are talking about a bastard who would send me to a labor camp in Germany without batting an eye. If you so much as mention me to him…Have you?”
    I stared at Giorgio. He was right. I had become so used to seeing Klaus every day that I had