He didn’t understand the Italian words in her dialect, except that “fagioli” was beans, and this did not look like beans—more like oatmeal. He didn’t think he’d ever seen an oat when he was in Florence, and certainly nobody ate oatmeal for breakfast.

“What is this?” he asked.

“It is made of white beans cooked in water and then cooked again with olive oil, rosemary, sage, and garlic in the coals of the fire all night. We put it in a Chianti bottle and cook it slowly in the embers. Then we mash it. It is very good and nourishing. We eat it all the time these days when there is no meat or eggs to be had.” She reached into the basket again. “And some bread this time. Signora Gucci already baked us a loaf.”

He took the crusty knob that she handed him and used it to scoop up the bean puree. The fagioli was good—so smooth he thought that milk or cream must have been added to it. She watched him eating, her face like that of a mother who knows she has provided the best nutrition for her child. When he was done she nodded in satisfaction. “That will keep you going for a while. And I brought you other things. Here—this is one of Guido’s shirts that he used to wear to work in the fields in winter. It is made of wool and will keep you warm.”

“I couldn’t take Guido’s shirt,” he said, not wanting to accept it from her outstretched hand.

“Take it, please. He is not here to wear it and, who knows, maybe the moths will get at it and then it will be useless. And if he returns to me, I will be happy to make him a new shirt from the best cloth at the market.”

“Thank you.” He took it with reverence.

“And also I think it must be hard to be here in darkness at night. So I’ve brought you a candle. Please try to make it last. I do not have many and we often lose electricity these days. Do you need matches?”

“I have my cigarette lighter.” He patted his pocket.

“You have cigarettes?”

“Yes. Would you like one?” He fished for the packet.

She shook her head. “I do not smoke, thank you. But it is a pity I cannot let anyone know about you. Cigarettes are the best things to barter with. The men around here would find me a pheasant or a rabbit for a pack of cigarettes.” She paused, then shook her head. “But alas, English cigarettes would not be a wise thing to show anybody.”

“You should go and look for your mushrooms,” he said.

She stood up. “You are right. I cannot stay away too long. My son was in tears this morning because he wanted to come with me to help find mushrooms. But I had to tell him it was too far for him to walk. He is afraid every time I leave, poor little one. He has seen men taken from our village. And he thinks about the father he has never seen.”

“Please be careful, Sofia,” he said. He didn’t realise immediately that he had called her by her first name.

Their eyes met. “Don’t worry about me. I am always careful.”

“Are there Germans in your village now?”

She shook her head. There was a long pause and then she said, “A German staff car came early this morning because someone had reported seeing an aeroplane crash. We told them we heard the noise of a crash but it was the middle of the night and we saw nothing. Then they went away again.”

Hugo let out a sigh of relief. “Are they often in your village?”

She shook her head. “They do not come much these days because they have taken most of what we have. And we are too far from a good road. But we never know. I pray every night to la Madonna that the Americans will come and make them flee north. Arrivederci, Ugo. May God be with you.”

In the doorway she paused, adjusted the shawl around her head and shoulders, looked back at him, and smiled. He sat still as a statue, watching her go. She is still a child, he thought. If she had married at eighteen, then she was still in her early twenties, and yet she bore this worry and deprivation with such grace and fortitude. No blaming God or weeping about her lost husband. Just getting on with it, the way that Hugo had been brought up to do.

“Just a child,” he reminded himself. Far too young to touch the heart of a man of thirty-five.

The pigeons startled him, fluttering to land on one of the fallen beams. A snare, he thought. I should try to build a snare. And he thought back to his childhood. In those days there had been poachers in the Langley woods. The gamekeeper played a never-ending game of cat and mouse with them. A waste of time, really, Hugo had thought, because mostly they were only after rabbits. But the squire’s pheasants had to be protected for the shoot. Hugo remembered going around the property with Ellison, the sour old gamekeeper, while the old man grumbled ceaselessly about the louts and layabouts and what he’d like to do to them, only stopping to destroy any traps he found. Some of them were vicious steel-toothed devices, strong enough to dig deep into an animal’s foot. Others, probably made by local lads, were simple snares—wire hoops that would pull tight when an animal triggered them. Hugo tried to remember what they looked like and how they worked. No point, really, as he had no wire, but it was something to occupy his mind. He thought how pleased Sofia would be if he presented her with a brace of pigeons.

He got to his feet, which was harder to do now with the splint in place, retrieved his makeshift crutch, and hobbled to the door. The light clouds of morning had been replaced by heavy grey ones, and a thick bank of them was moving in from the west. The wind had picked up, too, buffeting him as he tried to walk. It would rain before long; that was certain. He drank again from the rain barrel and tried to do more foraging among the rubble, but he was unable to climb over the loose stones and bricks and couldn’t bend to lift any of the debris and see what lay beneath. He didn’t find any wire or string, but he did manage to extricate an old kitchen drawer. That might just work, he thought, and began to carry it back, just as the first raindrops pattered on to the rock.