A Place to Avoid

something awful had happened on that lonely promontory

Bauer Had Taken possession of his land.

He was a resort developer from the Rhineland, a big, burly man in his 50s with a comfortable paunch. Even in winter, he perspired easily. Now, tramping about under the Italian sun on a summer day, he was sweating prodigiously. The sea was just a stone's throw away, but there wasn't the breath of a breeze and the smooth surface of the water fired the sunlight back up at him.

Bauer's property did not seem promising. The only spot of any natural beauty was a rocky promontory, crowned by a grove of pines, that jutted out high above the water. The rest was sunbaked earth, almost bare of vegetation; the beach was narrow and pebbly. But Bauer was pleased. He had seen that land first during the war. Even then, he'd had an instinct about it. In the years that followed, he had thought of it often--thought and dreamed . . . and begun to plan. Now the project was under way. Within two years, the beach would be expanded by dredging and stabilized by jetties. The tennis courts would be in place and the golf links in playable condition. Then there would be the residential center, with its apartments and restaurants and shops, and cottages scattered along the rolling land near the shore. Up on the promontory, a cluster of villas would be built among the pines.

Bauer glanced up at the promontory, his soldier's eye automatically evaluating it as an observation post. He hadn't climbed up there yet, but he wouldn't be surprised to find an old concrete bunker sunk into the side of the cliff. If so, he might leave it. It would be a picturesque reminder of how greatly things had changed in 30 years. The Germans were occupying Italy once more--but this time it was an army of tourists that came rolling down from the north each summer. There were millions of them, literally millions. If Kesselring had had such forces under his command, Bauer thought whimsically, the Allies could have been swept out of Italy altogether!

His mood soured as he drove his jeep back over the rough terrain toward the site of the access road. The work was lagging, and now he saw to his annoyance that everything had stopped again. The bulldozer was silent, its great blade lowered. The laborers behind it were immobile, too, their picks and shovels dangling from their hands.

Leaving the jeep at the construction shed, Bauer strode over to the Italian work manager, a dark and spare young surveyor named Giachetti, who was talking to the bulldozer operator and the mechanic.

"So it's broken down again?" Bauer asked in irritation.

Giachetti explained in his fluent German what the trouble (continued on page 136) A Place to Avoid (continued from page 115) was--he'd already sent a man to Grosseto for the necessary new part--but Bauer cut him short. "All right, all right," he said, his round, snub-nosed face flushed with exasperation. "We'll try to make up the time later. But what about those fellows?" he grumbled, indicating the laborers, men from the nearby village. "They're like statues. Are they afraid of a little sweat?"

"I'll have another talk with their capo," Giachetti said, but dispiritedly. He didn't think much could be done about the laborers. The young men had left the village for jobs in the cities. Those who remained were the middle-aged, the elderly and the infirm. One of the workers had lost a leg, perhaps during the war; he stumped about on a wooden peg. Another man, his face maimed by a terrible wound, was blind in one eye. Their leader, the capo, was in his 70s.

"If only I had a few tough Germans here to set the pace," Bauer said, kicking the dirt He scowled at the workers, who were regarding him impassively. "What's wrong with them?" he complained. "Maybe they don't understand that this project will mean a new life for their village. Those people won't have to work as peasants anymore. Once we train them, they'll have nice, light jobs as waiters and groundskeepers, with plenty of tips to put in their pockets. Tell them that, Giachetti," Bauer added, more energetically. "If they realize what they're working toward, then they'll give the job the best they've got."

But as he glanced at the workmen again and saw them still watching him, his face darkened resentfully. "What's wrong with them?" he muttered once more, but in his own Rhenish dialect, as though seeking comfort in that familiar accent from what so frustrated him in this foreign land.

Bauer lived in a camper-trailer parked just off the state highway near the beginning of the access road. It was snug and well equipped, with a tiny kitchen, where he cooked all his meals. For entertainment he had a radio and for companionship he had his police dog, Prinz, which he sometimes took with him on his jeep rides around the project.

At dusk the workmen trudged back to their village, a cluster of stone huts that topped an inland hill. The bulldozer operator and the mechanic drove by car to the town beyond. Giachetti, who also had a hotel room there, stopped by the trailer each evening before leaving to see if Bauer had any special instructions for the next day.

He found the German still fretting about the laborers. "Those peasants are capable of doing the work," Bauer said testily. "Why don't they do it, then? They're going slower all the time." The air was hot and damp; he sat sweating in his undershirt, absently scratching Prinz behind the ears. "It's not just laziness," he said. "It's more than that." The dog stirred, softly growling. Bauer cocked his head, listening. Across the darkening land, the evening breeze brought the distant syllables of the sea and a gentle sighing that might have been the wind in the grove of pines on the promontory.

Bauer glanced shrewdly at the younger man. "Tell me, Giachetti. What's bothering those peasants? Is it because of what's been happening to the bulldozer? The breakdowns?"

Giachetti hesitated. "Yes, I'm afraid so. They think it's a bad omen."

Bauer grunted in disgust. "Primitive nonsense," he muttered, mopping his brow.

"Yes, but they're primitive people. Whenever there is a poor harvest or an accident, they think it's the work of evil spirits, and now"--Giachetti shrugged his shoulders--"they've got the idea in their heads that the land itself is reacting against the project."

Bauer cursed under his breath. The mosquitoes were swarming in now. He had to get up and close the little window.

"One other thing," Giachetti said. "There's a legend of some sort connected with the woods--the pines on top of the promontory."

"Well?"

"They call it a place to avoid--un luogo da evitare. Something must have happened up there once. It could have been centuries ago. The people themselves may not know. These legends get distorted over the years and mixed up with other stories, and sometimes the original version is lost, so that all that's left is a vague feeling of aversion."

"Stupidity," Bauer grumbled. "Ignorance." He glowered across at Giachetti. "That's exactly the kind of thing I'm fighting against. There's nothing here but empty land . . . graves and shadows. What I intend to do is bring in a new world--the real world. Money and life and energy! Those peasants had better cooperate, Giachetti. I'll build this project with them or without them! But it's in their interest, too."

Giachetti was finding the trailer stuffy; he was aware of Bauer's odor and the rank smell of the dog. He thought of the reality of the new world Bauer proposed to build on that deserted shore--a playground for moneyed Germans, for whom the Italians would be servants. "The people here have little reason to trust outsiders," he said, more sharply than he had intended. "Their history isn't very reassuring on that point. They've had nothing from the outside but bloodshed and exploitation--" He broke off, reminded of his subordinate position. "Of course, I don't mean that you--"

"No, no. You've got a point," said Bauer, nodding. "These people have reasons for being suspicious, all right. They have long memories." He gave Giachetti a quick glance. "No, they don't forget easily," he said softly, staring down at his hands. Then, abruptly, he rose. "It's getting late, Giachetti, and you've got a drive ahead of you, so I'll say good night. See you tomorrow."

Bauer seemed balked no matter what he did. He ordered a second bulldozer and a grader but was told that the equipment would not be available for two weeks. He offered a bonus to the workmen, to be paid on completion of the job, but this seemed to make little difference. The work kept lagging; sometimes it seemed to Bauer that the road was growing positively shorter. One morning he took up a shovel himself to show the men how it ought to be done. For 20 minutes he worked furiously, drenched in sweat and dizzied by the sun, until the handle snapped in his hands. For several moments he remained stupidly grasping it, panting, the perspiration flooding down his face. Then he flung it away and stalked back to his trailer, where he dried himself and opened a bottle of beer.

By the time Giachetti stopped there at the end of the day, Bauer had drunk a lot. He wasn't tipsy, but his face was swollen and patchy and his eyes were bloodshot. "Listen, Giachetti," he said. "I know what the reason is. The real reason. Why they're sabotaging me." He leaned forward, squinting. "When we first went to the village to hire the men, I happened to tell a couple of them that I'd been here during the war. I was a fool to have done that."

"Oh, well," said Giachetti, "that doesn't mean anything now."

Bauer shook his head. "It's different here. You see, there was some trouble back then. The older people in the village must remember it like yesterday. But I had nothing to do with it. That's what I want you to tell them. They obviously identify me with it--being a German and an ex-soldier--and you've got to clear that up and explain it, see?"

Giachetti backed off a step to avoid Bauer's heavy breath. "What happened, exactly?" he asked, but unwillingly. He didn't want to hear Bauer's confidences.

"My regiment came through here in Forty-four," Bauer said. His voice was thick, but his little reddened eyes were keen. "We'd been fighting in the south and were being pulled back. We got a rest here, maybe ten days. We were the first German tourists," he added wryly. "Then we moved on north. Some other outfit came in, for coastal defense. They thought the enemy might try another landing, up here. Anyway, one night two of our men were going through the village on patrol--we'd heard there were partisans about--and they were shot. Murdered. Well, the villagers said they knew (continued on page 162) A Place to Avoid(continued from page 136) nothing about it. But, of course, they lied. They were hiding the partisans and that couldn't be allowed, you see."

"Yes?"

"And so. . . ." Bauer's voice sank. He spoke so softly that Giachetti had trouble understanding all that he said. "The commandant ordered a reprisal. Sixteen men of the village were executed by a firing squad." Bauer glanced up expectantly, but Giachetti said nothing. He stared down at the floor, not wanting to look at Bauer's face. "It's a small village." Bauer went on. "I suppose damned near every family there lost a brother or an uncle or someone. But I wasn't personally involved in it. It was my regiment, yes, but I was just an ordinary soldier and I had nothing to do with the executions. That's what you've got to make clear to those people." He shook his head muzzily. "They're taking revenge on me, Giachetti. They want me to fail and be forced to withdraw, but they're wrong if they think that without me the project will be built. The whole thing is mine. I've organized the financial backing and I'm the one with the ideas and the initiative, and I've got the connections in Germany, so you can see that everything depends on my continuing here." He sat smiling and nodding his head. "Tell them that, Giachetti. If I leave, this miserable little strip of shore will remain just the way it is--empty and useless. And then let them try to get jobs and money out of those devils and spirits of theirs! Eh? Let them try that!"

In the days that followed, Bauer became increasingly restless. He would go off for hours in the jeep. Sometimes Giachetti would see him bouncing along in the distance over the rocky slopes; at other times he would reappear, driving up sweating and dusty, and go directly to the trailer. When he did remain at the site, he watched the bulldozer with a peculiar intensity, squinting his eyes and hunching his body forward each time the machine strained to make another gouging scoop. Every so often, too, he would snatch up a pick and drive it deep into the soil, twisting it and wrenching it free, only to cast it aside and walk on. Sometimes he would go several steps out of his way to kick a clod of dirt or stamp on it with all his weight, crumbling it. It seemed to Giachetti that Bauer was venting his frustration on the earth itself, as though in some obscure way he had accepted the legends of the village and recognized that the land and the spirits that dwelt in it were his enemies, to be gouged and trampled and overcome.

But the work was finally going well. In a few more days the access road would be finished. The bulldozer had begun to level the final part of it, creating a plateau where the central buildings of the project would be constructed, and one work gang was cutting a path down to the sea. Giachetti strode about with his clipboard under his arm, relieved that things were moving so smoothly and taking satisfaction in the sounds of work-- the whines of the earth mover, the shouts of the men and the occasional ring of metal against rock.

It was late one afternoon when he realized that the workers had stopped. They were standing immobile, gazing up toward the promontory. Giachetti looked that way, too. Halfway up the slope, Bauer was skidding the jeep along in spurts of dust, working a diagonal course toward the pine grove on the summit.

The capo came over to Giachetti, gesturing, and after a few hasty words with him, Giachetti hurried off at a trot. It took him 15 minutes to scramble up through the brush to where the jeep had halted. Bauer had gotten out and he was cursing. Some rocks blocked his way.

"Better not go up." Giachetti said when he arrived, sweating and short of breath. Bauer scowled at him questioningly. "They've stopped work down there," Giachetti added, pointing at the men below. "The capo says if you go on, they'll quit."

Bauer mopped his face. "I can't get up this way anyhow," he grumbled. He turned, his eyes searching the slope. "Back there, though, it might be easier."

"Listen," Giachetti said, "you'd better not go up at all--not until the job is finished. Just a couple of days more."

Bauer looked up at the pines. "Un luogo da evitare?" he remarked sarcastically. "Well, this is my land now, and I can go anywhere on it I damned well please--I'll prove that to those peasants, by God--and if there are any devils up there, I'll give them a good German kick into the sea!" He stared broodingly down the slope at the men on the construction plateau. Then he turned and climbed back into the jeep. "All right, Giachetti. Get them back to work." He started the engine and began backing the jeep down to a point where he could turn it around. "I won't go up today," he shouted. "You can promise them that. Not today."

That evening, when Giachetti stopped at the trailer to make his report, Bauer for the first time offered him a drink. "Sit down, Giachetti, sit down. What would you like? Beer? Whiskey? I've got some ice, if you like." His geniality seemed forced, though. He was restless and preoccupied. The trailer seemed too small to contain him as he moved about. Giachetti sat on a camp chair, holding his drink, and made his report.

Bauer didn't pay much attention. "It's strange, being back in Italy after all these years," he said. "And living out here alone the way I do--even with Prinz," he added, giving the dog a rough pat. "You come to feel isolated." He lifted his bottle of beer to his mouth and took a long pull at it. "There's nothing out there. I know that, Giachetti. But when you're alone, you can't help feeling as though you're cut off. You know--surrounded." He smiled wryly, but his face was morose and his eyes kept flicking to the window and the door. "You were too young for the war, Giachetti, but it was like that then for us . . . being cut off in the darkness, living in a strange country, hearing unfamiliar sounds, far from home. Oh, I wasn't alone then, obviously. I had my comrades and our loyalty to one another was a powerful force. We were like brothers in those days. And when one of us was killed . . . ah, it was terrible, terrible." Bauer shook his head moodily and sighed. "I feel I can speak to you frankly. Giachetti. We have much in common, after all. We are educated men. We are builders. There's a vast gulf between us and those peasants . . . and even if you don't know from personal experience what it was like during the war. I'm sure you can understand me when I tell you how it was to live on the very edge of death day after day, and night after night, never knowing when the attack might come, and being strafed and bombed. . . ." He closed his eyes for a few moments. When he spoke again, his voice was sharper and had a resentful edge to it. "In many ways, the worst thing of all was the untrustworthy attitude of the people. Giachetti. We felt their hostility keenly. It made many of us bitter--after all, we didn't want to be in Italy. I can assure you. If Mussolini had stayed out of the war, it would have been far better for both of us. With a neutral Italy," he went on more rapidly, his eyes fixed on his visitor, "there wouldn't have been those diversions in Africa and the Balkans. Germany would have had the strength to conquer Russia--we came damned close as it was! And then we could have made some sort of peace with England, you see, and the whole course of the war would have gone differently. . . ."

He went to the window and gazed out. Giachetti finished his drink and shifted position, preparing to rise and take his leave, but Bauer, sitting down heavily again on the edge of the bunk, continued:

"The reprisal was a cruel thing. Giachetti--but so was the murder of our two comrades. The commandant was, I understand, severely reprimanded for his action. Sixteen lives for two--that was excessive. But if we hadn't done it, the murders would have continued. And then later reprisals would have been savage. There might have been executions of women and children."

"That did happen," Giachetti said shortly.

"But probably not here. No, I think (continued on page 194)A Place to Avoid(continued from page 162) that one incident would have been enough. There would have been no further trouble here." Bauer tilted his bottle up. draining it. "Well, the past is past, Giachetti. We're building a new Europe, you and I." He smiled blearily across at the young Italian. "Cooperation is the way now. The war proved that military domination by a single country is not feasible. The Romans were wiser, Giachetti. They adapted themselves to the ways of the people in the areas under their influence."

Giachetti got to his feet, pushing back the camp chair. It tipped and fell, but he didn't stoop to right it.

"The Romans ruled for nearly a thousand years," said Bauer. He sat smiling softly and nodding his head, a dreamy expression on his face. "A thousand years! And for the most part, they exerted the force of their natural superiority by trade and commerce. That is, they achieved the result of war by peaceful expansion and control. That was the key to their strength, you see. They didn't depend on conquest. They spread out bit by bit. establishing their own colonies among the less disciplined peoples."

"If you'll excuse me," Giachetti said harshly. He turned and opened the door.

"Yes, the Romans showed that there are other and more effective ways to rule--"

"Good night, Herr Bauer," said Giachetti, and he stepped outside, closed the door behind him and strode off into the darkness.

Three days later, the access road was completed. Equipment for later stages of the project was beginning to arrive. Laborers still were needed, but the capo told Giachetti that the men from the village did not intend to continue working.

Bauer was not disturbed by this when Giachetti reported it to him. "What," he asked sarcastically, "are they still worried about the spirits?"

"The capo didn't say."

Bauer gazed with satisfaction at the completed road that curved and dipped across the rolling land toward the distant highway, out of sight. "Don't worry, Giachetti. They'll come straggling back tomorrow." He chuckled. "I think they realize now that we've laid their ghosts to rest for good!" He started over toward the construction shed, where the men had assembled for their pay. "Pay them off, Giachetti," he said genially, "and tell them to come back tomorrow. There'll be work for them all! No--don't bother. I'll tell them myself."

He came to a halt among the villagers and swung about, his hands on his hips, smiling, and began speaking to them in his harsh, accented Italian. "Domani . . . venite domani! Lavoro per tutti!" The men edged away from him, crowding toward the table where Giachetti had brought the cashbox. Bauer called after them: "Tornate qui domani. Molto Invoro da fare--per tutti quanti!" Giachetti unfolded a camp chair, sat down behind the table and took out the packet of pay envelopes. Bauer moved over to stand beside him. "Domani," he repeated loudly. "Venite domani!" Giachetti began calling out the names and passing out the envelopes one by one as the men stepped forward.

Bauer stood sweating in the sun. "They must think they're millionaires now. Giachetti," he muttered. "With a little cash in their pockets, they don't have to worry for a while." He raised his voice again, repeating his summous: "V'enite domani!" None of the men looked at him. Each one took his envelope, opened it. counted the bills, and then walked over to join those who had already been paid. They stood with their backs to Bauer. The German didn't realize this at first. Then he frowned. "What are they doing that for. Giachetti?" he asked in annoyance. Giachetti, pretending not to have heard, went on reading off the names. The men who stepped up to the table continued to ignore Bauer: the group that stood turned away from him grew steadily larger.

"Those bastard peasants," Bauer muttered angrily. "What are they trying to do--insult me?" He squinted distrustfully their way. The sight of the silent men all facing in the other direction enraged him. The color rose in his neck: he worked his fingers, clenching and unclenching his fists. "They take my money quick enough, damn them," he snapped. He strode a few steps toward the group; then, irresolutely, he paused and returned. "Venite domani," he repeated, shouting out the words, his voice sounding choked, as if stilled by the silence. He wiped his forehead, cursing under his breath.

When the next man approached the table, Bauer moved forward, confronting him. "Vieni domani, tu," he said, his voice hoarse and challenging. The man didn't look up. He examined his envelope, moving his lips as he counted the money. Then he turned aside to go over to the others. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Bauer called after him, in German. "You bastard--when I speak to you, you look at me, do you hear?" He was sweating heavily now; his face was darkly flushed. "Make a note of that man's name." he told Giachetti. "I won't be rehiring him. I can tell you--or this one. either," he added, as the next man to bewalked away from him with averted eyes. "Strike them both off the list!" Then he burst out, raging: "Strike them all off! Let them rot in their filthy village! Pigs! Animals! I won't hire any of them!" He stood breathing hard, his fists doubled. "They'll pay for this, Giachetti," he said, with a savage smile. "Don't they realize that things are going to change around here? Don't they know there'll be a new order in this misbegotten place?"

The last man was paid. Giachetti snapped the cashbox shut and got up. his mouth working tensely. "Listen, Herr Bauer. I don't think they're trying to offend you personally. It may have something to do with their superstition about this place--

"Oh, really?" said Bauer, sneering. "Well, they won't have to worry about that any longer. It doesn't belong to them now. It's mine. I own it--ghosts and all!"

He tightened his belt and went over to the jeep, glaring vindictively at the villagers. "Watch this." he yelled at them. "Guardate!" He climbed in behind the wheel. "I found a better way up yesterday," he told Giachetti, who had followed him. Then, cutting dangerously close to the group of workmen, he gunned the jeep off toward the sea, swung left at the edge of the plateau and went twisting among the scrub vegetation and boulders there, heading toward the promontory.

Giachetti moved over toward the men. who were silently watching the progress of the jeep. He spoke to the capo: "Why did you have to insult the man?" The capo looked at him quietly but made no reply. Giachetti lowered his gaze and turned uncomfortably aside.

"Eccolo," one of the men remarked softly. Giachetti looked up at the promontory and saw the distant jeep appear, vanish behind some rocks and reappear higher up.

The top of the promontory was not flat. It still had an upward slant, mounting to the point where it broke off above the rocks. 100 feet below along the shore. The men standing on the plateau could observe the greater part of the grove of pines and saw the jeep when it reached the top. Bauer stopped there and stood behind the wheel, a tiny figure, triumphantly waving his arms. Then he resumed his seat and began driving among the pines, wheeling all about in an erratic circuit, at times lost to sight, then reappearing, one arm raised high and still waving, as he cut back and forth, taking possession of the place. Giachetti imagined that he could hear him shouting, but the only sounds were the far-off grinding of the jeep, faintly echoing down, and the breathing of the silent men around him and the whispering wash of the sea against the rocks.

It was on Bauer's fourth or fifth swing around the grove of pines that the jeep exploded. They all saw it clearly. There was a great puff of dirt, lifting machine and man together. Then came the slap of the blast. After that, silence. A plume of smoke wavered in a current of air and dissolved.

Giachetti seized the capo by the arm. "What was it?" he said hoarsely, staring at the old man. The capo regarded him impassively but said nothing. Giachetti looked up again at the promontory. He could see nothing there now.

The capo disengaged his arm from Giachetti's grip. "They put it there," he said.

Giachetti shook his head, dazed and uncomprehending. "They? You mean the Germans?"

"There are many mines up there," the old man said softly. "They left a great many."

"But after the war, the mines were located and removed." Giachetti looked around uncertainly. "At least ... in most places. Some may have been missed."

"They left a great many." the capo repeated. "Up there and down below, too. We have had several people killed by them."

"You knew there were still mines up there?"

The capo shrugged.

"You knew." said Giachetti, "but you didn't warn him?"

"He was warned,"said the capo, and then he turned and joined the other men, who were trudging back along the road, going home.