The Sweet Hills of Florence. Jan Wallace Dickinson

Give it to me.’ He jerked it from her.

      ‘Mind your own fucking business!’ he shouted as she opened her mouth to answer.

      She struggled to stop her chin trembling. She had been looking for a pair of old boots to give to a man who had come to the door asking for food. She tried to explain but Enrico was already gone, with a bang of the door. He had never shouted at her before. What had he been up to? The anti-fascists were active everywhere now. Communists, the butcher told her, all communists. But she knew Enrico was not a communist. She had seen a small paper called La Libertà in his room, belonging to something called the Action Party, but what action, she was unsure. He went out at night to meetings of this party and Annabelle was convinced his mother had gone with him on occasion, bizarre as that seemed. Reports of the clandestine newspapers and leaflets, and the cutting of telephone-exchange wires and derailing of trains and other acts of sabotage, were in the news every day – the acts of traitors and rebels who would be shot when caught. Bolsheviks, communists, saboteurs, socialists.

      The eleven o’clock bulletin brought no good news but it was habit. Annabelle was almost asleep, curled into the high wing-backed armchair, a cushion under her arm.

      ‘Why don’t you go to bed, Ciccia,’ Enrico said.

      ‘Why don’t you mind you own business,’ she snarled. ‘I’m not tired.’

      Her father, busy tamping tobacco into his pipe, glanced up in mild surprise, shrugged and returned to the ceremony of the pipe – one of the few pleasures still left to him. As the deep gong of the clock boomed eleven, the news broadcast began.

       A German officer of the 90th Panzergrenadier Division was assassinated in Florence last night by two socialist traitors. A hand grenade was thrown into a bar in via Faenza, where five officers were the last customers, enjoying a nightcap. One was killed and the others wounded. It is believed one of the assassins was wounded in the attack.

      Annabelle sat straight in her chair. Her pulse pounded in her ears. The news bulletin must have continued but she heard nothing else. She looked at the wall, careful to avoid Enrico, who tensed but did not turn his head. Her father clucked his tongue and noticed nothing.

      Annabelle said, very quietly, ‘You are right, I am tired. I think I will go to bed.’

      Her legs were rubbery. Of course it was blood on his jacket. As she left the room, the radio voice continued:

       The German High Command has not yet announced the reprisals for the act of barbarism committed in via Faenza.