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The Last Italian: A Saga in Three Parts
Category:
Historical Fiction
ISBN-10: 1695172787
Type: Fiction
Pages: 303
Copyright: October 1, 2019
ISBN-13: 9781695172784
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
In World War II Italy, Donato Como fights with Italian forces on the Russian front while in Castrubello businesswoman Regina Vacci confronts the evil of fascism's persecution of Jews.
Ettore Vacci celebrates his 80th birthday even as Italy embraces its disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany.
Serving with the Italian 8th Army near Stalingrad, Donato Como's unit faces a massive Soviet offensive and killing temperatures in a battle for survival on Russia's frozen steppes. When the Axis lines break, Donato leads his men in a desperate trek across a desolate wasteland, hounded by the enemy and oppressed by retreating Germans now violently disdainful of their Italian allies. As Donato confronts the realities of unforgiving warfare, his allegiance to the home of his forefathers deepens as never before.
In Castrubello, Regina Vacci, Donato's beloved, courageously defies the fascists' merciless persecution of Jews. Meanwhile, Ettore Vacci is shocked to witness his nephew Pietro Como rise to political power within Benito Mussolini's iron regime. With family loyalties divided, like Italia itself, Ettore Vacci finds he must act one last time -- for justice, for his village, for family honor.
DEATH TO THE WOLF is the third and final volume of "The Last Italian, A Saga in Three Parts", an epic tale that begins in 1882 Italy and spans over six decades of social and political tumult. Three generations of the Como and Vacci families face rapacious landowners, deadly epidemics, harrowing warfare, perilous immigration, and Fascist brutality during the Kingdom of Italy's final sixty-three turbulent years.
Throughout, as the male and female protagonists balance their commitments to love, loyalty, and honor against the implacable demands of physical survival, Fate forever stands ready to randomly intervene.
Excerpt
“No! No! Not there!” Regina shaded her eyes from the glare of the late winter sun. A dozen workmen on the scaffold and atop the concrete factory stopped, stared, awkwardly holding the bulky loose netting in place.
A crew chief stood on the flat roof of the structure covering the four silos, some thirty feet above the ground. A large rectangle of camouflage netting stretched halfway across; the rest hung in tangled disarray onto the scaffolding, held up by other members of the crew.
The man shouted down. “Padrona, I am sorry. I confess, I do not understand. You said to cover the building.”
The plant owner, dressed in a gray sweater, brown skirt, and an overlarge pair of work boots, slammed shut the passenger door of the truck. She cupped her hands and shouted.
“Yes, but there is not enough netting for the sides. Cover the rooftop only.”
The worker threw his arms up. “Now she tells me this,” he exclaimed to the man beside him, who offered a sympathetic shrug.
Regina was still learning the art of managing males. Papà Ettore had helped during her first weeks in charge of Naviglio Quarry & Concrete, showing the workers he had faith in his daughter. He also privately had spoken with some of the key men. And Regina had watched Ettore operate for years, how he balanced a personal appreciation for the men with his unyielding standards of quality. Above all, she strove to emulate his decisiveness, right or wrong.
For the most part, it was working. The men liked their jobs at the quarry, understood that she was the one who paid them now, and were willing to accept the old padrone's decision. After the first month, Ettore stayed home.
It helped that concrete was in high demand. Relentless allied bombing had brought the northern cities to their knees. Clearing wreckage and rebuilding never stopped. Roads streamed with trucks and wagons laden with concrete and building materials.
Farther south was another huge market where the Wehrmacht continued to consolidate its Gothic Line. The allies bombarded the positions by day; the Germans rebuilt by night. The cycle required a constant flow of concrete, reinforcing bars, gravel, sand, mixers, and grading equipment into the mountains.
Consequently, a staggering amount of the Social Republic’s lire flowed into Regina's accounts. The paper notes were valuable enough within the fascist regime – to the extent any goods were available for purchase—but except for Germany and its vassal states, they were worthless. It was plain to Regina that the only lasting wealth she had were the buildings and equipment and the property they sat on.
The risk was increasing. A chain of small industries lined miles of the Naviglio, including other quarry operations. The previous week, American bombers attacked the parachute factory at Cascinetta. It was the first such raid in the area, and no local mill owner was under the illusion it would be the last.
Some level of protection was needed. A brisk north-south black market trade thrived across the front lines.
Naviglio Quarry & Concrete often ran convoys that rendezvoused with smugglers out of Naples. Hard gold and silver bought construction supplies purloined from the vast allied depots. On the most recent run, with help from her foreman, Eunizio Caderre, she'd acquired the truckload of the camouflage netting her work crew now struggled to install.
Caderre was among the oldest in a workforce of middling-old men. Cantankerous, opinionated, a lifelong Vacci loyalist, Eunizio was the first man Ettore had convinced to accept Regina as boss. The valuable foreman was a large reason Regina had accepted the challenge of Naviglio Concrete & Quarry.
Unlike many of his generation, the foreman felt no qualms about a woman as boss. Regina was a Vacci, adopted or not, that was enough. Still, he understood his workers. To them, appearances were critical, maintaining God's natural order paramount. Yes, she was the owner, la padrona, beyond dispute. But, as foreman, Eunizio could not appear to his men to be the pawn of a woman, whatever her status. If they thought such was the case, he would lose his authority. Fair, unfair, it was the simple truth of the matter.
Eunizio cupped his hands and called to the men on the roof, “Wait, wait, what are you doing?” He climbed to the top of the scaffold while everyone waited.
Regina watched, arms folded.
Silhouetted against the sky, Eunizio made a show of surveying the American netting, hefted part of it up and down, looked carefully at the interwoven burlap strips of dark green, light green, field drab brown.
He grunted his approval. “Yes, this is to cover the roof! Not the sides!” he announced loudly. “Let it only drape down slightly at the edges. But also, men, gather bricks and pieces of timber to thoroughly weigh it down once it's spread out. Fancy supplies are all well and good, but worthless if they blow away in the wind!” He looked around at the faces, cocked his head slightly toward where Regina stood below while lifting his eyebrows, implying he had caught a significant detail the well-meaning woman had missed.
The men, satisfied, returned to their tasks.
“Such a wise man,” Regina said to the foreman upon his descent. “I assumed weighting the net was obvious.”
Eunizio ran a hand over his grizzled-gray chin. “Ah,” he smiled. “You know us old men. We crave order, the predictable. If anyone doubts who is the boss, confusion follows.”
Regina returned a small smile of her own. The two had gone through this galling dance before. “As long as you, Signor Caderre, have no doubts. Because any confusion of that importance will end quickly.”
Eunizio laughed slightly, out of the workers' earshot now. He touched the brim of his flat cap. “Si, si, padrona mia,” he said with good humor. “I thank you from deep in my heart for allowing me to be so good at my job.” With another touch of his cap, he returned to his tasks.
Regina watched the work a few more moments, then turned back across the yard with a certain eagerness. She could manage the rough culture of the big operation well enough, but it was paperwork — contracts and invoices and inventory – that consumed most of each day.
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