Liar Moon by Ben Pastor Read Free Book Online Page A

the hairy little neck of Claretta’s lapdog. Blitz was more easily distracted. The female kept to the appointed task, pulling and jerking the soldier her way. The sudden passage of a dozen loud crows didn’t cause her to so much as look up, nor did the friction of dry branches in the wind. She led the group toward the
east, in the direction of the nearby town of Lago, only to make a sudden about-face when Blitz started barking.
    “She’s heading for the mulberry tree,” Turco whispered to Guidi. One after the other, even though no danger was apparent, the policemen clasped their weapons.
    At the foot of the tree Lola-Lola acknowledged the cooling trail discovered by her mate, but was still restless. The soldier could hardly hold her back. She started in a straight line, crossing a brownish cornfield where meagre stubs were all that remained of the harvest. Here she picked up speed until the men had to keep up with her by jogging.
    “Now she’ll lead us where the other shoe was found,” Turco predicted.
    Thus they came to the place where the swinging, leafless tops of the willows along the county road, at first pale like a distant haze, grew more distinct as the men drew closer. Here the river bent into a deep meander, nearly touching the verge. The water’s surface, lazy and even sluggish, was deceptive enough. Guidi had heard that deep mud and fast-moving currents lurked below.
    Lola-Lola sniffed the spot where the first shoe had been found, wedged between two rocks. She sat on her haunch to be praised by the snub-nosed young soldier. Blitz came to sniff around after her, and sneezed.
    “ Da. Da drüben. ” Taking Guidi by the sleeve, the German soldier pointed to the stretch of the road just ahead. Guidi understood he meant to show him the place where the German convoy had been ambushed in September. The first partisan hit had been aimed at Bora’s car, which led the convoy. “ Da drüben wurde der Major verwundet .” With the edge of his right hand, the soldier made a chopping
motion on his left wrist, to make Guidi understand that Bora had been wounded here.
    Right. As long as the partisans don’t get the idea of doing the same to us now.
    The wind awoke gloomy sounds in the willows and across the cornfields. Blitz perked up his ears, but Lola-Lola kept busy. Her greying chin quivered. She turned her tawny head against the wind, half-closing her eyes. She smelled the wind. Suddenly she started out again, without haste but assuredly, nose to the ground, while Blitz trotted festively after.
    A long march followed across fields mowed so long ago as to seem fallow, beyond unkempt expanses of land and trails cancelled by time. Silently men followed animals, until they came so close to Lola-Lola’s goal that she let out a growling call. Blitz echoed her with a menacing howl. Turco, who had until now held his rifle underarm like a vengeful hunter, lowered it to take a better look.
     
    In Verona, Bora said, “I don’t understand why you’re so irritated, De Rosa. If she’s telling tales, it’ll be easy to call her bluff, but the photograph is convincing enough.”
    “I don’t believe any of it, Major. Soldiers all look alike. Until I see the priest’s marriage certificate, I won’t believe it.”
    “That will be difficult to obtain. Our Lisi did not marry in church. As a good socialist – you knew he was an ardent socialist until the Great War, didn’t you? – he kept well away from religious encumbrances. But since there was a child on the way, why, as the golden-hearted fellow he was, he did consent to a civil marriage. The woman says the little girl died of meningitis within one year,
by which time Lisi had already cleared out. You heard the rest. He didn’t show up again until 1920, when he returned to live off her parents for a year. Other long absences followed, then came the March on Rome, the car accident, politics. For a girl from the backwoods in the Friuli borderland, who can’t read or