Tears of a Rose

Tears of a Rose

Salty tears rolled down her soft cheeks and fell onto the silken petals of the white rose she was holding. As the teardrops gathered a bead rolled off onto the plastic table cover. She stared at it through misted eyes. The visions were coming faster.

An image appeared in the droplet. She didn’t question the image. It simply was. Always had been, her mind quiet when the sparkling visions took shape. It enlarged to a sphere about four inches in diameter revealing a shimmering panoramic view.

It was the red stone street outside of the Church of Santa Croce in Cuneo. She was looking at herself as a child playing with a ball. There was her father too in front of the church doors arguing with two black shirted men.

“Coletta,” shouted her father as he rushed to gather her up.

The scene dissolved into another. She was at home with her brother Salvatore, listening to her parents quarrelling in the next room. Salvatore raised his finger to shush Coletta, “Something has happened to Uncle Pietro… he’s missing. I think we’re moving over the border.”

This too faded.

Another vision segued in. She was squashed in the cab of the family’s truck as her father drove away from Cuneo into the mountains. The higher they climbed it became colder and stormy. Lightning flashed across the darkened sky. She pressed her face tight to the glass. The rain came down heavily. At the road’s highest point a bowl of open land appeared below. She stared at the road ahead as it wove back and forwards in narrow bends. In the distance, at the bottom of the basin, the road disappeared into a forest of impossibly tall pine trees.

Father had stopped the truck and was speaking through the window with a caped man wearing a helmet, rifle over his shoulder. She didn’t understand what they were saying. She heard clattering noises from the back of the truck. A man appeared at the window next to her. She pulled back and shrieked at the face uglily distorted by rain running down the glass. Suddenly she was above the truck looking down. The man stared into the cab at her and Salvatore and then waved his arm. A soldier raised a red and white wooden pole across the road and father drove on.

Back in the cab, turning to Salvatore, she said, “What are those funny round things?’ pointing at the mountain side. “They’re gun emplacements… full of soldiers,” raising his hands as though shooting a rife, “Boom… boom.”

Mother slapped him, “Be quiet.”

***

At ninety-seven Coletta knew her time had almost run out. The frequency of the visions seemed to confirm this. She raised her thin frame from the kitchen table and slowly glided towards her husband’s office. A black and white photo of him hung on the wall. She gently traced her fingers around the carved teak frame, kissed her index and middle fingers, pressed the finger tips to his picture, then placing her hands together in prayer spoke: “Charles where ever you are I hope you are well. I think I may be with you soon. I hope you’re being looked after and you’re at peace. You suffered too much before you left us. You were a difficult man, grumpy and argumentative and always spending money we didn’t have on that garden of yours… but I loved you. I miss you so much my dear.”

It was the late end of spring, rolling into a hot summer of light for Coletta as she returned to the kitchen and looked at the silver framed photograph of Salvatore on the shelf of the dark wooden sideboard. For her daughter, nephews, granddaughter and great-granddaughters the photo was just one among many. As little people, sitting at Coletta’s feet over the years, it meant nothing other than the sighs and wistful smile that occasionally shadowed her face when she looked at it.

“Why are you sighing Mimi?”

“Are you sad?”

“No little cabbage I’m not sad.”

***

The vision released memories of the war breaking out when Italian soldiers came into Nice and along the coast, some of them barracked at the Fort on the sea front. Coletta was fourteen, Salvatore nineteen, they’d settled into life in the small village of Biot easily.

Some of the soldiers were uncles and cousins they’d never met. They’d visit the family bringing them bread, chocolates and cigarettes.

“I’m Uncle Luigi you’ve grown little one.”

“Ah Coletta how beautiful you are.”

“Salvatore – you’re a man. Bravo.”

It was a time of new discoveries and lightness. The war barely touched them.

Then the Germans arrived.

They barked and shouted, looking for Jews, Communists and Gypsies, hauling people off in the middle of the night. On a still night the distant sound of gunfire reached even the village. In the evening she’d often stand in the garden, arms folded, listening to the distant popping sounds.

Father spoke to Coletta and Salvatore, “The Jews have come from all over Europe because Nice is safe. The resistance and priests are trying to save them, but my friend saw hundreds of them being beaten, crowded onto trains. You are not to go into town, most certainly never to Nice. Stay in the village, it’s safer.”

One morning Salvatore rushed breathlessly into Coletta’s room, excited, eyes twinkling, “Look, look,” he whispered quietly clutching a piece of paper in his hand.

“What is it?”

“It’s a night letter.”

He didn’t need to say anymore.

Coletta felt panicked, “Salvatore, it’s dangerous. The explosion the other night...”

“Yes I know, Pierre blew himself up, it was an accident… I won’t be planting bombs. They want me to be a look out.”

“It’s still dangerous,” she cried, her voice feeling like a whimper.

Leaning in he said, “No… you mustn’t tell mother or father. I’ll never forgive you if you do.”

She nodded, already knowing she would lie for him.

Salvatore came home with stories of what he’d been up to. Cold lances that pierced her heart as he spoke of how he hid in the harbour water as German boots crossed the planks above his head. Churning anxiety as he described walking openly beside a horse and cart, smiling at soldiers while food for hidden Jews and their children lay beneath the hay. A shrinking heart as he tossed aside his damp clothes after laying in undergrowth, breathing through leaves mapping the movement of Germans on the dark roads.

In the late evening he slipped out while their parents slept. During the day, when he was needed, Coletta lied for him smoothly, surprised by how easy it came.

“Tonight, Coletta we’re breaking into the offices of the Milice to steal documents.”

“Don’t go, please don’t go… They’re hateful, they torture people. Look what they did to Patrice.” Coletta jumped up and threw her arms around his neck. Her sudden clenching broke the chain that carried a crucifix around his neck. Picking it up he said, “I have to. I can’t let them down.”

Clenching her fists she thumped his chest and sobbed.

The Milice office was on Rue Sade, a long narrow street running from the town square, close to his parent’s bakery, to the covered market place. Salvatore’s compatriots Laurent and Charles were seasoned. He felt reassured, they knew what they were doing. Charles reminded him, “If anybody comes three quick taps on the door and slip away before you are seen.”

Despite his many nightly forays Salvatore was nervous but with their dark clothes and canvas and rope soled espadrilles they crept through the empty market place and along the narrow streets as silently and invisibly as cats, shadows within the shadows. Laurent picked the door lock within a minute. Salvatore leant back into the doorway alcove, hidden in the darkness. Cupping his hands he lit a cigarette to quell his nerves, careful to hide the glowing tip. His heart slowed down.

Then he heard it. The sound of boots on cobble stones. It was a patrol coming from the direction of the market. Grinding the cigarette into the floor he tapped on the door quickly three times, turned and ran in the opposite direction towards the square, the street narrowing, the night closing around him, the sound of boots terrifying him. He ran straight into two Gestapo officers in long leather coats.

Salvatore was never seen again.

***

When Salvatore didn’t return Coletta had to tell them. Mother wailed long and loud. Father was angry and then withdrew into a silence so full of unspoken grief it could be touched. Charles and Laurent disappeared into the mountains. They couldn’t know whether Salvatore had broken under torture. The family lived in constant fear, but it turned out to be just that, a nebulous mist of swirling feelings that came to nothing.

Then one day Coletta had her first vision. It was autumn, she was sitting on the beach wrapped in a shawl. The rhythmic murmuring of waves lapping onto the pebbles stilled her mind. Looking out over the Baie des Anges she felt ever so slight, light, without weight. As she stared into the distance a shimmering image appeared before her. It was Salvatore laid out on wooden boards. He was skeletal thin. A golden mist rose from his body.

“He’s gone. He’s been freed.” She pulled the shawl tighter.

***

Despite the years, the memory of the vision was still strong. Coletta gently rubbed the stem of the white rose between her fingers, looking through the terrace doors, worn shutters flung back, at the quarter acre of land the house was built on, the vines bursting with tomatoes, the courgettes, lemons, figs, sunflowers and tall pine trees, the land Charles had devotedly cultivated.

She’d married Charles in the turbulent days following the end of the war. She recalled the happiness she felt standing on the ancient steps of the church at their wedding, the goat they had won in the town fete, the tempestuous mistral sweeping in from across the Mediterranean.

She turned to look at the photo of Salvatore again. Below the shelf the children’s tablet computers, electronic toys with large round eyes and small pink karaoke machine were scattered across the sideboard. She smiled and whispered to herself, “Everything has changed, yet life is still the same.”

***

Again her mind went back to those turbulent days. When news came through the resistance network that the American’s were planning a landing at Cannes, Laurent and Charles came down from the mountains. They visited the family several times and told them how steady Salvatore had been, how trusted, how brave. Charles often repeated the stories in careful ways, as if it might help diminish the hurt and pain. She remembered when the Germans were withdrawing to Italy, Charles coming to the house, “I have a surprise for you, you must come.”

Charles rushed the family to a grove of trees overlooking the road to Nice. A green tarpaulin covered something angular and heavy looking. Charles tugged at the tarpaulin revealing a large tripod mounted machine gun.

“We’ll wait until they’ve driven past and then shoot them.”

Mother crossed her arms. Father and Coletta argued ferociously about who should shoot first, the heat of it, beneath the anger the need to fight back, to survive, in some way.

Charles held his fingers to his lips, “Ssshh.”

They heard the grinding sound of engines in the distance. Charles shot a few bursts into the air to make sure the gun was working.

“I’ll shoot first,” and then turning to Coletta and looking at her deeply, “You then have a burst and Pipi you can finish off.”

Coletta laughed at the memories. When she sat behind the machine gun it seemed enormous, she grasped the handle as shown with two hands, squinted her eyes, pulled the trigger and flew backwards as the barrel of the gun recoiled upwards. Father grabbed her shoulders roughly, pulled her away, threw himself behind the gun, firing continuously at the retreating soldiers. As the column disappeared they cheered. What she thought of as hatred and triumph, was in fact release.

***

Coming back to the present she pushed the Nice Matin newspaper to one side, picked the white rose up from the table, and turned it between her fingers. The memory of Salvatore felt dreamlike, like water running through fingers, that of Charles was much closer, everywhere, in the tomato vines, the sunflowers, the plump courgettes. “It’s been quite a life, but it feels so small now.”

She looked through the patio doors, over the bougainvillea shrubs and their fiery red flowers towards the pastel blue sky, “Everything is falling away, memories are just pictures, fading feelings. It all feels so unreal.”

Gazing over the gently sloping land at the wild pig tracks running along the bougainvillea shrub line Coletta watched a long thin line of shimmering opaque gold light appear and then disappear.

Coletta smiled softly, “It’s coming.”

She brought the rose up to her face. The outer petals whirled.A spinning flurry of images appeared, further memories of her life, the patisserie her and Charles had opened, the church off the market were they got married, Charles’ coffin draped in the French tricolour, the sweet innocence of the children and on and on, all the little details she didn’t know she had forgotten.

At the edge of her vision the shimmering opaque gold light returned drawing in from every direction. As it reached her feet she held her hand to her cheek. It felt as soft as a baby’s skin. The glowing light softly cocooned her, suffusing her with light and warmth. The pulsing centre of the rose held still.

Her last words were whispered, “Ah, Charles, Salvatore... now I understand.”

In the morning her daughter, Magali, found her reclined on the cushioned terrace chair, arms folded across her chest, clasping a withered white rose.