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up there on the embankment we were well in sight and in those days for helping Allied prisoners the penalty was execution by shooting, often family included.

I got off the bank, followed at a distance by the man. We crossed the street, entered the garden, then into the house. As he sat in the kitchen swallowing one piece of chicken after another I asked him where he was headed. To Rome, he said. I warned him that it was impossible to cross Italy with checkpoints everywhere. I would have asked my parents to help him hide. No, he had to reach Rome, he said. He was Australian and was to rejoin his regiment and return to fight.

I was showing him on a topographic map the areas to avoid - as far as I knew - when the door opened. Behind him, a basket of vegetables in his hand, Stefano appeared, Stefano whom I had considered my "boyfriend" until it was pointed out to me that my love was hopeless because there was a wife involved, our cook Lisa, and three children.

Stefano cast me a worried look, it was not prudent to be seen with an Ally. From my serious eyes he could tell that I could not have done otherwise. I put the basket on the floor and, as silent as he had entered, left the kitchen. The Australian, who hadn't noticed the silent conversation, seemed pleased when I suggested that he take the topographical map and the chicken leftovers with him.

At the gate he asked my name. "Thank you, Adriana. God bless you." You need God's blessing, I thought as I watched him walk away. Long way to Rome... 

Just potatoes and turnips, someone grumbles at breakfast. A cat had stolen the chicken, Stefano explained stiffly in his white jacket.

Speaking of eating, Gianfranco was the only one in the family to have tasted the paper. With some of the 43 splinters still...