The Metal Heart by Caroline Lea

Author:Caroline Lea [Lea, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B08HW7H4BR
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2021-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Cesare

When he first sees the old metal huts, half rusted and moss-coated, Cesare has to work hard to keep the smile fixed upon his face. He and a small group of men, including Gino and Marco, have been released from digging duties to decide what supplies they might need.

All of them stare at the building that is to be their ‘church’. A bundle of tangled barbed wire lies next to the decaying huts.

The guard who had accompanied the prisoners up the hill pokes the wire with his toe. He is young and blond and new – just recently put in charge of supplies. He’d introduced himself by name, as Stuart, and then, perhaps worried about seeming too friendly, had shouted at them to get moving. When Cesare had met his eye, the guard had given a nervous grin, which he quickly turned into a frown.

But he had soon relaxed, and as they walked up the hill, he’d told Cesare about his five younger sisters: how much they argued and how much they ate.

‘Gannets, they are. Bloody gannets.’

‘What is gannets?’

The guard had glanced at Cesare in surprise and said, ‘You know, those birds. Greedy buggers.’

‘Yes.’ Cesare had smiled, not knowing which bird the guard meant, but enjoying, for a moment, the familiarity – the companionship in assuming that another person understood what you were saying. You know, those birds.

Now Stuart stands, blinking nervously, holding a clipboard and a scrap of paper flapping in the wind, and pokes at the wire again.

‘And this is a church you’re making? A church, from this . . . stuff?’

Cesare nods, more confidently than he feels.

‘And,’ Stuart says, ‘you don’t think someone’s pulling your leg?’

‘He is right,’ Gino says in Italian. ‘This is a pile of shit. They’re laughing at us.’

‘Fooling us,’ Marco agrees, ‘so that we will work on their barriers.’

The other men agree loudly, in Italian, and Stuart watches them, listening to the patter of foreign language, the angry gestures. Cesare notices his hand moving towards his baton.

‘Stop!’ Cesare says in English, but to the Italians, not to the guard. ‘Stop this complaining. We ask for a place to pray. This is our place. It does not look like a church – it is not a church. It was a prison, this place, or it was used in war. These huts are the dark places. We live in the huts like this. We know. But –’ he holds up a hand so the men can’t interrupt ‘– but we will make this a beautiful place. We will bring light to this place. In these huts, there will be no more the war. In these huts, we will make the peace.’

The men nod. Some of them smile. And they follow Cesare, one by one, into the darkness of the first hut.

Like the huts they sleep in, it is cold and draughty. The whole structure is a single semicircle of corrugated steel. In some places, rain has corroded the metal and scrawled curlicues of rust over the ceiling and walls.

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