“I’m getting my boots and my money clip back.”

Mrs. Conte shook her head and said, “Tito’s cunning and dangerous. You’ll stay away from him if you know what’s good for you, Pino.”

Pino felt disgusted with himself for not standing up to Tito. He couldn’t stay at the party any longer. It was over for him. He tried to borrow some boots or shoes, but no one had his large size. In the end, he took wool socks and low rubber overshoes from the innkeeper, and flailed through the storm back to Casa Alpina.

When he’d finished telling Father Re what Tito had done and that he or one of his men had killed Nicco and maimed the children, the priest said, “You chose the greater good, Pino.”

“How come I don’t feel good about it?” Pino said, still angry. “And he said to tell you to stay off Angel’s Step and the Emet.”

“Did he now?” Father Re said, turning stony. “Well, I’m sorry, but that we will not do.”

Chapter Ten

A meter of snow blanketed the mountains above Casa Alpina on New Year’s Day, followed by a day’s break, and then another meter fell. There was so much snow it took until the second week of January before the escapes could resume.

After locating replacement boots, Pino and his brother began leading Jews, downed pilots, and other refugees in groups as large as eight. Despite Tito’s warnings about using Passo Angeloga they stuck to the more gradual southern way to Val di Lei by constantly changing the days and times they’d go, and then skiing back along the northern route to Madesimo.

This system worked well into early February 1944. When the lantern was shining in the upper window of the Campodolcino rectory, a steady stream of refugees hiding under hay in oxcarts moved up through Madesimo to Casa Alpina, and then followed Pino or one of the other boys over the Groppera into Switzerland.

Reaching the shepherd’s hut in a daze early in the month, Pino found a note nailed to the wall of the hut. It read: Last warning.

Pino threw the note in the stove and used it to light the wood stacked inside. He adjusted the damper and went outside to chop more wood. He hoped Tito was out there somewhere in the vast alpine terrain around him, looking through his binoculars and seeing Pino refuse to—

A thunderous explosion blew open the hut door. Pino dove into the snow. He lay there shaking with fear for several minutes before he could build up the courage to look inside. The stove was barely recognizable. The force of the bomb, or grenade, or whatever had been put in the stove had blown the firebox apart, throwing shards of heated metal that chipped the stone foundation and stuck like tiny knives in the beams and woodwork. Glowing wood embers burned holes in his pack and lit the straw bed afire. He dragged them both into the snow and got them snuffed out, feeling completely exposed. If Tito was willing to put a bomb in the hut’s stove, he was willing to shoot him.

Pino fought off the sense that someone was aiming at him as he put his skis back on, hoisted his pack onto his shoulders, and picked up his ski poles. The hut was no longer a refuge, and the southern route was no longer a viable option.

“There’s only one way left,” Pino told Father Re that evening by the fire as the boys and several new visitors ate another of Brother Bormio’s masterpieces.

“With the snow piling up, it was inevitable that you would have to use it at some point,” the priest replied. “The spine of the ridge will be blown free of snow, and the footing will be the best on the mountain. You’ll go again with Mimo the day after tomorrow, teach him the way.”

Pino flashed on the chimney, the catwalk, and the cable traverse below the Groppera’s crag, and was instantly full of doubt. Any misstep up there in these conditions meant death.

Father Re gestured at the visitors and said, “You’ll take that young family, and the woman with the violin case. She used to play at La Scala.”

Pino twisted around, puzzled before recognizing the violinist he’d seen at his parents’ party the night of the first bombardment. He knew she was in her late thirties or early forties, but she looked like she’d aged and was ill. What was her name?

He put thoughts of the Groppera out of his mind, got Mimo, and they walked over to her.

“Remember us?” Pino said.

The violinist seemed not to recognize them.

“Our parents are Porzia and Michele Lella,” Pino said. “You went to a party at our old apartment on Via Monte Napoleone.”

Mimo said, “And you yelled at me in front of La Scala for being a little boy who couldn’t see what was happening all around me. You were right.”

A slow smile built on her face. “That seems so long ago.”

“Are you okay?” Pino asked.

“Just a little queasy in the stomach,” she said. “The altitude. I don’t think I’ve ever been this high up. Father Re says I will get used to it in a day or so.”

“What shall we call you?” Mimo asked. “What do your papers say?”

“Elena . . . Elena Napolitano.”

Pino noticed the wedding ring she wore. “Is your husband here, Mrs. Napolitano?”

She looked ready to cry, hugged her belly, and choked, “He made the Germans chase him while we escaped our apartment. They . . . they took him to Binario Twenty-One.”

“What’s that?” Mimo asked.

“It’s where they take every Jew they catch in Milan. Platform Twenty-One in the central station. They put them into cattle cars, and they disappear, bound for . . . no one knows. They don’t come back.” Tears rolled down her cheek, and her lips quivered with raw emotion.

Pino thought about the massacre in Meina, when the Nazis machine-gunned the Jews in the lake. He felt sick and helpless. “Your husband. He must have been a brave man.”

Mrs. Napolitano wept and nodded. “Beyond brave.”

After she’d regained her composure, she dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes and in a hoarse voice said, “Father Re said you two will take me to Switzerland.”

“Yes, but with this snow, it won’t be easy.”

“Nothing in life worth doing is easy,” the violinist said.

Pino looked down at her shoes, low black pumps. “Did you climb up here in those?”

“I wrapped them in pieces of a baby blanket. I still have them.”

“They won’t work,” Pino said. “Not where we’re going.”

“It’s all I have,” she said.

“We’ll find you boots among the boys. What size are you?”

Mrs. Napolitano told him. By afternoon, Mimo had found a pair and rubbed the leather with a mixture of pine tar and oil to make the boots waterproof. He’d also gotten her wool pants to wear beneath her dress, and an overcoat, and a wool hat and mittens.

“Here,” Father Re said, handing out white pillow sacks with holes cut out for shoulders and heads. “Wear these.”

“Why?” Mrs. Napolitano asked.