his thigh. Blood leaked from the wound, flowing steadily down his leg.
“Help!” Elisabetta called out, hoarse. The medical personnel didn’t come. Everyone alive was screaming for help. She started to remove the shard, but stopped herself. Instinctively she knew it should stay in place. It was plugging the vein. She had to stop the bleeding. He could bleed to death.
“Mamma, Mamma, Mamma,” the little boy whispered, over and over.
“I’m here,” Elisabetta said, frantic. She held the boy in one arm and clawed at her shirt with the other, ripping off her sleeve. She rested the boy on her lap, used both hands to twist the sleeve, and tied it quickly around his thigh, making a tourniquet above the shard of glass.
“Mamma,” the little boy whispered, his eyes rolling back in his head. He must have been going into shock.
Elisabetta yelled for help again, but the medical personnel were busy. She remembered the hospital wasn’t far. She could get him there. She gathered him in her arms, struggled to her feet, and started making her way. The boy went limp, and his lips kept forming the word Mamma, over and over.
“Help!” Elisabetta called out, stumbling through the rubble. Electrical wires sparked. Wood burned and smoldered around her. Gray smoke obscured the way.
She tripped and almost fell. She held the little boy to her chest. His legs dangled. His feet were bare. Blood dripped from his thigh wound, but less than before. Her tourniquet was working.
She kept going, calling for help. There was no path, no street. She passed mangled bodies amid the debris of buildings, collapsed walls, and crushed cars. Moaning and screaming emanated from piles of rubble, where people had been buried alive. She saw a crowd collecting at the end of the street. It looked as if there were authorities there, too. She headed in that direction and kept going. The crowd was shouting at something she couldn’t see. She was almost there.
“Mamma . . .” the little boy whispered, and all of a sudden, his body went limp in her arms.
Elisabetta looked down in fear. His head drooped over her arms, his neck stretched. She kept going, holding him tighter. Tears spilled from her eyes.
“Help, please!” Elisabetta wailed, and heads turned in the back of the crowd. The faces were grimy and bloodied, their expressions dazed and deranged.
“The King is here!” shouted a man.
“What king?” Elisabetta asked, feeling as if she were walking in a nightmare. The little boy sagged in her arms, lifeless.
“The King of Italy! Vittorio Emanuele! The Pope was here an hour ago!”
Elisabetta craned her neck. She caught a glimpse of uniformed Republican guards and Fascists, forming a protective escort for the gray-bearded King Vittorio Emanuele III. It was bizarre, a King amid the hellish scene, resplendent in his uniform with its shiny brass buttons, fancy ribbons, and gold-braided epaulets. His elegant wife was in their gleaming black limousine, and a uniformed aide was giving money to the crowd.
“Keep your money, you bastard!” The crowd threw it back, jeering and spitting. “We want peace!”
“You’re no good!” a woman yelled at the King. “Look what you’ve done to Italy!”
“It’s your fault!” Another man hurled rubble at the limousine. “You got my wife and daughter killed! Their blood is on your hands!”
“You betrayed us!” an old woman screamed. “You ruined us!”
“Down with the King! Down with Mussolini!” The crowd began throwing rocks, turning violent.
Elisabetta edged away in fear and grief. She sank to her knees on the hard rubble, holding the boy to her chest. It was all too horrific. War and death. Kings and Popes. Bombs. Nonna. The boy. She couldn’t take it anymore. She felt as if she were losing her mind.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She kissed the boy’s sweet face and told him that his mother loved him very much.
And she stayed with him until a nurse came and took them both away.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Marco
25 July 1943
Marco was on the second floor of Palazzo Venezia, standing with a grim crowd of Fascist officers. In the early morning hours, the Grand Council had voted a motion of no confidence in Mussolini, and Il Duce was being escorted to the grand marble staircase. Many said it was the end for Mussolini, and that King Vittorio Emanuele III would be taking command of the armed forces. Italians hoped that the war would be over for Italy. Outside on Piazza Venezia, thousands were celebrating.
Marco watched, reeling, as Mussolini passed him. Il Duce looked haggard in a rumpled