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Alice arrived at the station just in time to catch the train to Padua. The pleasant June morning in Desenzano, on Lake Garda, greeted her with a gentle breeze from the hills.Commuters filled the station platform, their hurried footsteps echoing against the backdrop of the clear azure sky.Alice barely noticed the surrounding people waiting on the platform for the train from Milan to Venice. Impatiently, she expected to board the train, find a seat, and open her books to study for her English Literature exam.
The announcement for the train finally came. Alice approached the yellow line and waited for the train to stop. As she walked down the narrow aisle on the train, the soft hum of conversations and the rhythmic clatter of luggage wheels filled her ears. She found two seats facing each other. The opposite seat was still unoccupied. She felt relieved, as she preferred not having any distractions. Before putting the bag carefully on the overhead luggage rack, she took out her mobile phone and her books. She sat down, eager to revise what she had studied. After checking messages and calls, she turned off the mobile phone. She laid it on the small tray table next to the window, and she concentrated on her book.
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Justin arrived at the station in Desenzano in plenty of time. He wanted to have a coffee before taking the train to Vicenza. He had arrived in Italy a few days before from Chicago, because he wanted to visit his grandson Mark at ‘Caserma Ederle’ in Vicenza. Mark's assignment as a soldier had taken him to Italy the previous year. Before joining Mark, Justin had stayed a few days on Lake Garda. He had been in Italy only twice in his almost eighty years of age, but this third time he couldn’t help feeling a wave of sadness. Desenzano was so different from the last time he had been there. This time, he felt so lonely. He had hoped against hope that his old friend would still be there to meet him, but… He knew he would not see Italy again; he would not see this beautiful little town on the lake, little more than a village the first time he had seen it. Justin’s light blue eyes welled up with tears, his heart heavy with memories, as he inhaled the familiar scent of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the station.
The train arrived. Justin looked back towards the station building and the little town beyond it. He would take with him the image of the lake reflecting the colors of sunrise. He sighed and got slowly on the train. It was becoming hard for him to climb the steps. A man offered to help him with his suitcase and he gratefully accepted, smiled and said one of the few Italian words he still remembered: “Grazie!” The man looked at him kindly and answered: “Di nulla!”, a gentle way to say ‘You are welcome’.
Opting to enjoy the landscape, he slowly walked along the aisle and looked for a seat next to the window. He saw that there was just one seat left, opposite a young girl with shoulder length hair. She seemed completely absorbed in her book and oblivious to the people around her. He turned his gaze to the window and looked out, while the train slowly abandoned the station and took speed.
After less than ten minutes, the train arrived at Peschiera, where the river Mincio flows into the lake. While they were waiting for the train to leave the station, Justin’s mobile phone rang. He took it out of the pocket of his trousers. He fumbled for a few seconds with the icons on the screen and he put it to his ear.
“Hello, Mark!” He listened and smiled. He reassured the person at the other end of the line: “Yes, everything is fine… Yes, I am on the train, and it is on time. I will be in Vicenza in little more than an hour… Thanks, Mark. See you soon.”
He put the phone on the tray next to the window, and he thought he was really lucky to have such an affectionate grandson. He was the son of his only daughter, Sheila, and he was proud of him, because he was a brave soldier and a considerate man.
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While he was talking on the phone, he noticed that the girl in front of him had raised her eyes to look at him. She raised her eyes from her book for a moment, and he could finally look at her. She was a pleasant girl in her early twenties, with soft brown hair and green eyes framed by round glasses. As she was about to bury her head in her book, the ticket inspector arrived and kindly asked them to show their tickets.
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Alice saw an old man take the seat opposite her. ‘I hope he will not start talking!’ she thought, a little worried about losing her precious time on the train.
She looked at the man for a few moments, but he immediately turned to look out of the window, and she went back to her revision.
After a few minutes, she heard the man’s mobile phone ring and, when he answered in a low voice, she couldn’t help noticing that he was speaking English. She recognized the American English accent and, since she was a foreign language student, she instinctively listened with curiosity to the man’s part of the conversation. The man said just a few words, but his calm, deep voice and his gentle face attracted Alice. She judged him to be in his late seventies; he had light blue eyes and wavy white hair. He was certainly American, but Alice noted he pronounced the name of the town ‘Vicenza’ in perfect Italian, with no foreign inflection. She reflected that maybe he lived in Italy or had lived in Italy for some time.
She was debating whether to ask him anything, but then she decided to keep studying. That exam was very important, it was the last one before her graduation thesis…
She was concentrating on her book when the ticket inspector arrived. Alice stood up to retrieve the ticket from her bag and her book fell to the floor. The man bent, took it and handed it to her. He smiled at her and she instinctively said: “Thank you, sir!”. After she had sat back, she locked eyes with him for a moment… There was something in those blue eyes, in that charming smile, that reminded her of … She couldn’t quite place it, but…
As she looked at the man, she realized that her expression must have conveyed amazement. The man smiled and told her kindly: “Do you speak English?” She nodded and answered: “I have been studying English and French at university.”
The man turned his gaze once more to look out of the window, but for Alice it was really difficult to go on studying now. There was something in that man, maybe the white hair, maybe his gentle face and the sparkling clear blue eyes, that reminded her of her dear grandfather, who had died almost a year before. She had been so sad when he had died so suddenly. She knew he had had heart problems for a while, but his heart attack had been so unexpected. Her grandfather was the person she loved most since she was a little child. Her parents were frequently busy with their jobs, and she spent her afternoons after school with her granddad. Maybe what seemed to compel her to talk and to listen to that American man was the long time she had spent with her grandfather, while he talked about her grandmother, about the time her mother was a child. She cherished the moments she had spent listening to her granddad, fascinated by his tales of those times, so different from her life now, but still connected to her family and her relations. That was one of the reasons she had decided to study History and Literature, both Italian and foreign, because she loved to learn about the way people felt and lived in the past and to imagine what her life would have been like in a different period.
She closed her book, and the man looked at her with a smile. She asked tentatively: “Where are you from?”
“I am from Chicago, in the United States. Have you ever been to America?”
“No, I would like to visit your country. When I finish my studies, I would like to go abroad to teach Italian.” She had a dreamy expression on her face, and she looked out of the window for a few moments, absorbed in her projects for the future.
“That’s a wonderful plan… My name is Justin!” He extended his hand and Alice felt a great warmth in his handshake.
“My name is Alice.”
“Do you live in Desenzano, Alice?”
“Yes, I do. Do you live in Italy, Justin? I have noticed that you pronounce the names of Italian towns perfectly…” She trailed off, afraid of intruding into the life of this old man, because she noticed a sad expression on his face.
He looked out of the window for some moments, as if he didn’t know what to say. Then he locked eyes with Alice and he smiled.
“Oh, Alice, I learnt Italian such a long time ago…” He stopped for a few moments, not sure whether the young girl was interested in his past life. He noticed she had closed her book and had laid it on the tray next to her mobile phone. For some reason, that kind girl reminded him of his daughter, when she asked him to tell her the story of the period of the war or of how he had met her mother…
He looked into Alice's eyes and he saw the same curiosity, the same desire to know.
“I learnt Italian before coming here during the Second World War.” Alice tried to hide the tears that were coming to her eyes, because her grandfather had been a Partigiano during the War, and he often talked about his experiences. A lump in her throat prevented her from talking about his grandfather and she simply nodded, waiting for the old man to go on.
“When I arrived in Sicily, I knew only a few words of Italian. As we traveled across Italy, we encountered wonderful people along the way..." His eyes clouded as he added, "But it was a terrible war, and we witnessed devastated towns, destroyed buildings, and families left homeless... And, of course, the German and Italian army attacked us, and we feared for our lives many times...”
“Did you come to the North of Italy?”
“Yes, and it was a long and difficult journey across your country. When we arrived here in the North, we believed … oh, we were so young, just twenty years old , and we had never been so far from home… we believed that the war was finally over, but … we found still some resistance, some German soldiers who were not ready to surrender…”
Justin stopped because all the horror, all the fear he had experienced, came back to him with all the violence of the war, of that terrible time for a young man who only wished to go back home to his family. His face had a sad expression, when he went on talking, but his voice was incredibly calm and collected, the voice of a man who had had to detach himself from what he had seen and heard if he wanted to go on with his life.
“Alice, you can’t imagine what it is like seeing your friends die and not being able to do anything for them… War is unfair, Alice. It is violent, and it only brings destruction and misery. We believed, when we left America, that we would fight for freedom, for justice, against the tyranny of Hitler, but, when you are trying to save your life, you only think of your mother back home, of your family, and you just pray to be able to see them again. There is nothing heroic in war, believe me!” His voice was deep and calm, but the expression on his face was more and more anguished.
Alice had heard her granddad say similar things about the war many times and she said: “My granddad was a ‘partigiano’ during the war, and he often told me about his fear, his sense of desolation and solitude, about his friends who were killed…”
“Oh, if I am here today, if I have been able to live all my life, to get married and have my darling daughter, it is thanks to a partigiano, Alice…”
“Really?” Alice bent forward, eager to listen to Justin’s story.
Justin seemed uncertain for a moment. Did he want to share this part of his life, so dramatic and, at the same time, so beautiful and precious to him, with this girl he had just met?
The train was slowing down, because they were arriving at Verona station. Many people in the compartment stood up and gathered their bags, preparing to get off the train.
Justin sighed deeply, as if he was trying to collect his thoughts. He gazed out of the window until the train had regained speed and was travelling in the countryside just outside the town.
He slowly turned to Alice, and he saw kindness and genuine involvement in her eyes. It was as if he had known her for a long time. He didn’t look at her while he was talking, he just stared ahead of him at an imaginary person beyond her. There was detachment in his voice, as if that experience had left him emotionless.
He talked slowly, as if every word cost him an effort: “When we were in the countryside just south of Lake Garda, we were attacked by a group of German soldiers. They took us by surprise and I was too slow in looking for a shelter. A bullet grazed my shoulder, and I got wounded in my right leg. My comrades didn’t know what to do, because they didn’t want to leave me behind. Nevertheless, it was dangerous for us to remain there, with no hiding place and with little ammunition. I was begging them to leave me there, because I was only a useless burden for them, when a man appeared from behind a little shed in a clearing. He had a gun on his belt and a rifle in his hands. We saw immediately that he was not German, but we were frightened, since we knew nothing about his intentions.” In Justin’s words, Alice could feel all the tension in those terrible moments. Those soldiers were younger than she was now. She just couldn’t imagine what it must have been like, being in a country thousands of miles from their home, in danger, fearing for their live. She didn’t know what to say, and she waited for the man to go on.
“That man recognized us as Americans, and he smiled at us. He asked, in a language that was half English and half Italian, what had happened. He saw I was badly wounded. He said that he was a ‘partigiano’, that they had met those German soldiers a little further, and they had killed them. He added that we were still in danger because there were other groups of soldiers, ready to fight.” Justin locked eyes with Alice, and he smiled for the first time since he had begun his story.
“He took us to his home, that was not far, in Desenzano.” Alice’s eyes widened at the thought that Justin had been in her hometown during the war. “He told us that the Allies had destroyed the railway bridge in a recent bombing.” Justin seemed to notice Alice’s bewilderment, and he added: “Oh, Alice, your town was much smaller than it is now. Few buildings had been destroyed, but you could sense fear and desolation in the people and on the streets. That good man gave us something to eat and drink. His wife, who was a certified nurse, dressed my leg and my shoulder. I had lost a lot of blood, and I was weak after months of walking and hiding. When my comrades went back home, I stayed with the ‘partigiano’s’ family for some time, until I was strong enough to go back home. I will never forget that man and his wife. They weren’t much older than I was, but without their help, I would have certainly died!”
Alice had forgotten everything about her exam by then, and she was completely wrapped up in Justin’s story.
She commented: “That’s why you have come back to Italy…. You came to visit your friend… But… have you kept in touch with him?”
“Yes, we exchanged letters. I came to visit him once with my wife, after I got married in 1955. He had a son and a daughter. We spent a great time together here, and he promised to visit me in America, but, you know, life runs so fast. You have children, then maybe health problems…” His voice trailed off and for a moment he seemed lost in his thoughts…
He smiled at Alice and went on: “Then his wife died, my wife began to suffer from Alzheimer's, and I had a really hard time assisting the love of my life, who didn’t even recognize me…” Alice knew what a terrible ordeal Alzheimer was for old people and their families, and her heart went out to Justin, who had seen his wife slowly fall into oblivion.
The train was now arriving at San Bonifacio station, and Justin looked at his watch. In half an hour, he would be in Vicenza.
Alice asked: “Are you visiting someone in Italy?”
“Yes, my grandson is at Caserma Ederle and I am going to spend some time with him, but I stopped in Desenzano for a few days, because my friend has stopped answering my letters, and I was afraid … In reality I had not written to him because my wife’s assistance had completely absorbed me. Last year she died, and last Christmas I happened to find all the letters my friend had sent me. I decided to write him a letter, but I had no reply. I went to his home in Desenzano yesterday, but there is another name on the bell…” Alice could see that Justin had difficulty holding back the tears. She put a hand on his, and she asked softly: “I am sorry, Justin. What is the name of your friend? Maybe I know him. He must be more or less the same age as my grandfather, who died last year…”
The man held Alice’s hand in his for a few moments, then he took out his wallet from his trousers pocket. He opened it and took a little black-and-white photo. He looked at it with infinite tenderness and gave it to Alice, saying: “His name is or was Mario!”
Alice stared at the photo in amazement. Then she looked at Justin, and he saw tears rolling down her cheeks.
“What’s the matter, Alice?” He asked, worried. “Do you recognize someone?”
He pointed at the people in the picture one by one and explained: “This was taken when I came to Desenzano with my wife. This is me, my wife, my friend Mario and his wife … Oh, my memory is not what it used to be… I can’t remember the name of the woman who saved my life…”
In a voice choked by emotion, Alice said: “Lucia!”
“Yes, that’s the name: Lucia. So, you know them, don’t you?”
Alice had to wait for a few moments before she could answer in a steady voice: “Justin, this is my grandfather, Mario, and my grandmother, Lucia. When I saw you, there was something in your eyes that reminded me of … I just couldn’t place it… Now I see: my grandfather had a similar photo on his credenza at home. When I asked him about the two people in the photo, he told me they were an American soldier and his wife, and that he had met the man during the war, but he never told me the complete story…”
Then, without thinking about it, Alice went to hug this man, who, after many years, had come to look for her granddad. In that embrace, she felt the warmth of her dear grandfather, all the memories of his affection towards her, of his encouraging smile whenever she approached him with a problem or doubt, and the comforting presence he always provided beside her. When she told him about her grandfather's unexpected passing, she made Justin promise to visit her in Desenzano with his grandson sometime soon. She wanted to introduce him to her mother and her uncle and to take him to the cemetery to visit Mario’s grave.
When he arrived at Vicenza station, he embraced her, and he told her: “Your grandfather often wrote about his grandchildren, but I think he had a special affection for you, Alice. When I go back home, I will let you have the letters, because I am sure you will keep them. They tell a lot about our life, our families and the changing world around us…”
She watched him get off the train and a tall handsome man in his early thirties embrace him and help him with his suitcases.
When Alice arrived at Padua, she knew that, even if she had not revised what she had studied, she had learnt so much more about life, about her family, about the courage of her grandfather, and about the precious value of friendship and gratitude.
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