Preface

It is in the most hidden folds of history, in the peripheral places, that the essential happens, what defines and qualifies the human. Where the echoes of vast, ruinous events of evil come cloaked in a torpor of unreality, the presences of individuals stand out more clearly, each with their own heresy of hope, with their own tenacious innocence. Daniele Ferroin knows how to depict this suspended atmosphere, a marginal scenario, bent under the crashes of war and marked by arduous days, dense with waiting between opposing offensive plans penciled onto walls. Between shots in the wind, deadly snipers embedded in ditches, lifeless bodies wrapped in tarps. Everything rendered in chiaroscuro with the infinite tenderness of childhood, with the miracle of help, of an outstretched hand in the cold. In the generous and strong land of Romagna, humiliated by the insanity of war, by its brutal events, here are fields desecrated by death, small afflicted villages. Here is poverty, houses battered by grenades, flocks of ragged and hungry children, chilled by the cold who sleep huddled together like puppies, full of light and hope for the future. And so, barely grown children, almost beardless soldiers, the Canadian boys of the Perth, Irish, and Lanark and Renfrew Scottish Regiment fully reimagine themselves as human beings, confronting the fear of the enemy but also their own most intimate truth and they find in it the crossroads of mercy. In the characters of this story there is a humanity that happens seriously: the supernatural experience of the gift given and received in its fullness, absolute in its totality and courage, that pierce the heart of everyone, forever, an absolute of totality and courage, lifts the heart from the chest of each one, forever. The gesture of peace in their farewell salute, the smile as they strap on their helmets, knowing that many would not return; the tears of the women, of the mothers, the blessing of the Madonna of Mercy. The warmth of solidarity, which lights torches in the darkness of atrocious events. The light in the eyes of the good-hearted, who stare evil in the face without yielding to it, because they know the tiny foothold: eternal, unchanging love. Ferroni’s tale, written with the grace of precision and affection, is full of the most delicate symbols which narrate the real while signifying the perpetual safeguarding of the invisible. There is a point - the narrator seems to say, at the center of our hearts, where we are free, even if hungry, afraid, held in chains. It is the place where we choose not to hate, not to yield to the work of death that roots itself slowly as long as we refuse to extend ourselves, stripping us of everything. Already angels, the afflicted who persevere in goodness are fortresses of charity: they become an offering, a gift salvation, like the broken bread of Christ.

Isabella Bignozzi

Borgo Giacconi

The soldiers of the Perth, the Irish, and then the Lanark and Renfrew Scottish Regiment, coming from the southeast, arrived at Luciano’s house along Via Canala. The Germans, who had occupied it only hours earlier, had retreated, leaving behind an eerie silence. It seemed that the entire world held its breath in the uncertainty of the moment. In their haste and terror, the Germans hadn’t even bothered to erase the large topographical map they had penciled on the wall. Soon enough, it was wiped clean and replaced with the Canadians’ annotations. The Allied Army’s target points were overwritten with detailed depictions of German positions on the other side of the river, across the countryside and in the village of Villanova, information provided by their observers, local civilians, and partisans. Every tree, bush, clump of grass, dirt path, or stream was marked on that wall above the radio station, awaiting the order to cross the Lamone River. From time to time, the crack of light gunfire broke the air. The damned snipers, left behind to cover the German retreat and perfectly hidden in ditches, among reeds, or within the ruins of houses, continued to claim lives among the regiments that, day after day, crowded against the right bank. Luciano, Lauro and Novarro, who were friends and neighbors, watched as the number of bodies lined up on the ground and wrapped in strange tarpaulin shrouds continued to grow. They had almost grown used to it, as if that were their normal life and the future they could expect. They remained children, though, leaping on and off the Canadian truck that shuttled between their homes and the cemetery for the fallen, located at the highest point of the countryside, between Piangipane and Camerlona. They played hide and seek, and in the evenings, dodging their parents’ reproaches, they eagerly attended Fred’s lessons. They would sit by the fireplace, next to the Canadian soldier whose clean face was as luminous as a winter moon. Despite the war and the deaths, Fred was always cheerful. With that magical box on his lap, he taught his young friends the game of checkers, sliding the black and white pieces across the intricate squares.

John, Judd, Craig, Cris, and Roy, also stationed at Santerno, were no more than a hundred yards from the Lamone River in a small cluster of houses at the end of Carraia Bezzi, nearly aligned with Via Cocchi, on the opposite side of the river.

This little hamlet of eight or nine unplastered houses, built of crumbling stones held together with river clay, was desolate. The windows, shattered by grenade blasts, were empty wooden frames that looked like eyeless sockets. A few scraps of fabric hung as makeshift curtains in the one room still somewhat intact. This was where parents and children slept together, tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets, their feet often ending up in each other’s faces. Poverty ruled, worsened by one of the harshest winters in fifty years. Firewood for stoves and fireplaces was scarce, and there was little to eat. They burned pieces of furniture—cabinet doors, drawers, and whatever else they could scavenge from the river. The retreating Germans had looted what little remained. Only some potatoes hidden in a barrel under the courtyard, a few roots gathered from ditches, and a meagre store of cornmeal for polenta kept starvation at bay. In the sole chicken coop, there was a hen and a rooster, both survivors of the enemy. The hen had managed to escape Billo, the village dog—a mutt with one eye buried in a large patch of brown fur that extended down to his muzzle. The rooster, on the other hand, was almost featherless, save for a single black tail feather drooping downward—a souvenir from a German soldier’s failed attempt to make it his last supper before fleeing. The children walked as though barefoot, their shoes made of old car tires for soles and sackcloth for uppers, held together by strips of worn-out sheets. Their pants were short to save fabric, and their jackets were patched together from their father’s or grandfather’s clothes, skillfully turned inside out and reworked by their mothers to hide the wear and poverty. They played from dawn to dusk, in the cold and in the rain of those days. They climbed the field elm in the center of the courtyard, filling its branches like flocks of chilled sparrows, puffing up their feathers to keep warm. But everything changed in December 1944 when the Canadians arrived, changing their fortunes overnight. They brought plenty of supplies and comforts: chocolate for the children, cigarettes for the men, and white bread for the women—luxuries they had never seen before. Smiles blossomed on every face, and for a brief moment, even the war seemed to have ended. Poverty has always been paired with generosity, and those who have the least often give the most. The inhabitants of this small cluster of houses offered much of their homes to shelter the soldiers who, day by day, arrived to join those already stationed there, awaiting the order to advance. What remarkable young men they were! Where they came from, it was customary to help one another. Often, regiments would gather young men from the same town, neighbors with farms next to each other. Many of them were familiar with rural life, with farmyard and barn animals. They were used to working the land and getting their hands dirty with it. Faced with such generosity, and at the same time such profound poverty, just moments before the attack to cross the Lamone River, the soldiers decided to give up their winter coats, part of their standard equipment, and offer them as gifts to the people of that village, who, even if only for a few days, had made them feel at home, part of a new family. These coats issued to the Anglo-Canadian army, were made of thick, warm wool. They had wide sleeves and two sets of three vertical buttons – one on the right and one on the left – allowing them to be buttoned on either side. The coats also featured large collars which, in moments of intense cold, could be lifted to cover the nape of the neck meeting the standard-issue cap. The women wept, moved by the soldiers’ generosity and because they knew that many of those young men would never return to their families. So, they blessed them holding tightly in their hands the image of the Madonna of Mercy, who had always been venerated in our area. Turning back, the soldiers gave a gesture of peace with their hands. Smiling, they fastened the helmets under their chins and with rifles slung over their shoulders, they began to climb up the riverbank.