Not far from where Holtz left the mortar team there was the VM-90 of the scout platoon. The Lieutenant stopped to confer with Rossi and Ottonese.
“How are you doing warriors? Otto...A local is coming here with a doctor to have a look at your forearm. He brings painkillers that we don’t have to take care of you little baby. Holtz tried to sound ad funny as possible, but it didn’t seem to work. Holtz turned to more practical things. “Rossi...hand me over that Dragunov and the AK. Give me the spare magazine as well, I’m going to bring it to the local militia as a token of gratitude for their hospitality.”
Ottonese barely acknowledged the presence of his superior. Rossi instead hurried up, collecting the material the Lieutenant had asked for. Holtz gave Rossi a deep investigative look. The soldier gestured to the officer not to worry. His section leader would be alright; then he joined his superior outside of the vehicle, to hand him the weapons.
“Be sure that he is able to function again at the double, or I will have to relieve him from command. Does he know that he is not the first one to lose a brother in this fucking war?”
“I think he does Sir. It’s just that it is the first time it has happened to him. He and the Sergeant were really, really close.”
“Put him in condition to work again at full crank...Soon! If he fucks up in action you are the first one to die, you know that right?.” Holtz gave one last significant stare at Rossi, and walked away in the snow, his thermal camo making him look like a walking fatman.
In the dining room of Mrs. Berglund illuminated by some candles on the table, Major Siviglia was insisting to help her to bring to the table the meager meal based on a vegetable soup with a little bit of beef meat in it. The beverages consisted of a glass of the precious reserve of red wine that Jonna still had in the house. A young daughter of Mrs. Berglund, Louise, was talking with the Major.
The militia man introduced Holtz inside the house right in the middle of the something she was saying to Siviglia. She had the determined expression of her mother, and her same eyes. Holtz heart had a couple of misfires before retrieving the signal correctly. He was fast to recover or so he hoped; he would be so incredibly embarrassed if somebody noticed the stoppage.
Siviglia and Louise both looked at him like if he was a burglar. And with all that weaponry stacked on him, that was exactly what he looked like. He quickly put down the Dragunov against the sofa, and got rid of the AK and of his Beretta assault rifle in the same fashion, after having made sure that the entire arsenal was on safety; not exactly the routine of a gentleman entering some ladies house. To get out of the embarrassment, he militarily saluted his superior, subconsciously emphasizing the martial gesture and trying to look as passively cool as he could.
“Lieutenant, let me introduce you to Miss Louise Berglund. Madame Mayor was telling me that she is the only child out of four that she has still at home. This charming young lady was just explaining to me that if it wasn’t for the war she wouldn’t be here either.”
“And charming she is indeed for the love of God.” Thought Kurt. Even though she was wearing an old blue robe on a pair of faded jeans, had poorly dressed hair and not even a thread of makeup, she was still very beautiful. Kurt tried to picture her in his head under different circumstances.
“One of this days some divinity will have to explain to me how in the hell it is possible that this damned country doesn’t have a single ugly female walking on it,” Holtz told himself.
Kurt took off his hat and extended his hand trying to put on a warm smile. He miserably failed at looking nonchalant and he realized that too.
Louise put her blue eyes on him and shook his hand asking him his name, before Major Siviglia could finish with the introduction.
“Kurt...Kurt Holtz”
“A strange name for an Italian man” she said with a calm unconcerned voice.
He matched her look: “I am not completely Italian...my father is Austrian”
“Oh...I see!” answered Louise just before her mother entered in the dining room with the pot of soup.
“Lieutenant…!” Mrs Berglund noticed him...welcome we were just waiting for you to start.” Then she looked at the pile of weapons against the sofa. “Are you expecting an attack Lieutenant?”
“Yes...I mean….no Madam. I brought these weapons for your your city militia. We captured them from the Russians and this AK-74 also has a spare…”
“Let me interrupt you for a second Lieutenant. It is dinner time and at these latitudes we do not discuss business at dinner”...Jonna smiled maternally at him. “I will be happy to attend these matters with you and the Major may be after dinner!?”
“Yes Ma’am...of course.”
In order to complement the dinner the Italian officers each produced one of their last MREs and offered them to the two women, hoping that they would accept them as a sign of gratitude from the 8th Alpini towards the Mayor of Stopen. Holtz’s had Pasta with mushrooms, a Milanese steak and a chocolate little cake. Siviglia’s MRE consisted of Prosciutto Crudo a small slice of orange melon, Tuna-fish meat with black olives, and an instant espresso to be heated on a flame. Jonna decided that the act was to kind to be refused, but she was irremovable on the fact that the five of them had to share all the goodies. Mr. Karl Albinsson, the militiamen bodyguard of Mrs Berglund was particularly happy of the deal.
Kurt took the opportunity to explain to Louise all the subtleties of a Milanese cutlet. She seemed to enjoy the lesson.
Dinner went on with no particular hiccups despite the fact that nobody was particularly good smelling, well groomed or carefree, and that the house was full of loaded weapons. It was a little candlelight banquet anyway warmed by a crackling fireplace, with a bunch of humans from two distant cultures, sharing their humanity in the middle of a global tragedy; that particular layer of humanity that doesn’t know culture barriers.
Major Siviglia asked the women about the region and the town of Skovde before the war. Jonna remembered the days before the war and all the beautiful things. Then inevitably the conversation steered towards less pleasant subjects. Jonna told the Italians about her husband, a manager for an aerospace company in Linköping, of whom she hadn’t had any news since the day that town was hit by a nuclear warhead. She told about her two sons drafted in the army when the Soviets invaded. She didn’t know anything about them either. And the same thing was for her other daughter Karin who was caught by the war in her senior year in college in Netherlands.
Siviglia on his part summarized their experience in Sweden, pointing out that they had just seldom contacts with the civilian population up to that time and that the Regiment had practically been destroyed in two years of operations. But it seemed that the other military units, allied and enemies alike were more or less in the same conditions.
Jonna asked Major Siviglia if it was possible to speak of allied and enemies any longer. A group of American soldiers dropped in from the east the week before. Some of them were radiation sick. "They took a good part of our food reserves that the Russians didn’t previously take."
“May be they were stragglers. I doubt an organized lawful US military unit would ever do that” said Siviglia trying to comfort Jonna.
“Three months ago a unit of Russian Marines did the same thing, right while we were trying to store our harvest for the winter. Some families resisted before I could intervene. The Russians beat up many people and ended up raping three girls, one of them only sixteen.
“Holy fuck!!…..I mean…. I am sorry Ma’am” Holtz shut down like a phalanx CIWS saturated with targets, and tried to apologize for his French and most of all for his gaffe, but it was evidently too late.
“There was nothing holy about those particular ones young man” Jonna reproached Holtz involuntary bad joke and even Major Siviglia looked at him pretty sternly.
“I am sorry...I didn’t mean...I meant did those subhumans ever showed their face again. I would like to organize a nice made ambush for them If they ever do.”
“No...Mr. Holtz, they did not. I think their unit was surrounded and destroyed in a pitched battle against an American battalion or at least that is the rumor.
“Anyway” concluded Mrs. Berglund, “Those are the reasons why we met you so impolitely when you showed up today.”
“Oh you don’t worry about that Madam” Siviglia reassured her. “I can only begin to imagine what it must have been for you to go through everything since the beginning of the war.”
The discussion hanged over for some time after dinner. Then the women thanked the Italians for the wonderful dinner. Louise told Kurt that she hadn’t felt that satiated in months. Jonna told the two officer that they would have been welcome to share the living room with Karl. The fireplace would have been on all night of course. Both officers politely declined the offer adducing that they both had night duties to attend, which in case of Lieutenant Holtz was even true, since he had a scheduled watch shift with 17th company.
Jonna promised that they would discuss the next day about the weapons that Lieutenant Holtz had brought over, and that they could leave them there for the moment if they so wanted.
So the Italian Alpini left the house thanking once again Madam Mayor for the opportunity given to the Italian troops to rest in the village for the night.
“It has been a wonderful night Lieutenant Holtz...thank you very much” Louise extended his hand when Kurt was already out the door.
“Plase call me Kurt”, he took her hand in his two hands, and it was her turn to blush. “I will see you tomorrow.”
Walking towards the positions of the 17th company Major Siviglia looked sideways at his junior officer, and grinned with the hidden side of his face. His Lieutenant was flying on the snow.
Louise intent on listening about the Milanese cutlet