Photo by Oscar Nord on Unsplash
Every Day, Till Sunset
“Wait for me,” he had whispered, his arms wrapped around her own.
“Every day,” she had said. I will wait for you forever. But that was the thing she did not say – the thing she knew Alonzo knew already. And so she pulled away, forced a smile, took his hand one last time.
Alonzo grinned back at her, a smiling, wobbly smile, an oil painting whose colours were about to run. His cap lay askew on his head, forgotten, and it was all she could do not to reach out and fix it. She forced herself to look away, past him, at the rows of soldiers waiting on the streets. He could not see her cry. No, then he would cry too, and she would not know what to do with herself. This was the way things were.
When Elena glanced back, he had straightened, sniffing ever so slightly. He nodded at her, and for one more moment those blisteringly brown eyes washed through hers and she was within their world once again. But the moment passed – had to pass – too soon, brought back to reality by the calls of the sergeant. He shifted his weight, then smiled. As if to say things would be alright; but that was not a promise, that she knew. He knew that too, of course.
Tears she had not even realised she had let go fell into her mouth as she spoke.“Goodbye.” a whole universe within a single word. The end of a story in a single breath.
“Ciao, amore,” Alonzo whispered. And he stepped back. She watched it like a film, the sequence marred by tears, as he turned and moved to the group of men and took his place in the line. The queues of men parted and sucked him into their legions as if the space had always been there for him, only waiting. In the spaces between the men, she saw Angelo clap Alonzo by the shoulders, grinning, as Antonio said something she could not hear. She watched as a smile spread through Alonzo’s face and he shook his head at some silent joke, brown hair shaking golden in the dim sunlight.
At least the three of them were together, protecting one another. They had called themselves Squadra A, when they were little. Creating a family with each other when their families had not understood. At least abroad, they would carry with them this family they had built.For a second she wondered if he would have joined the army had it not been for the war. He wanted to do this – wanted to serve his country – wanted to do something, get out of this tiny town. But there would have been other ways. Somehow they would have made it out. Not like this.
Inside, her lungs were screaming. They were breaking apart, crumbling to pieces against a prison of bones, all that was left eating her from the inside out. Begging to call out one word. One name. To call him to come back, if only for a moment.
She did not know how long had passed since Alonzo’s hand had left hers, but before her eyes the herd of soldiers began to move. Last waves, shouts to loved ones, as scarlet-faced men called out last words before turning to walk away, over the hill. Elena kept her eyes on Alonzo in the crowd, his face searching for hers until he found it, and she knew her voiceless I love you did not go unseen. But like the others, Alonzo had to turn, had to walk away. She did not – could not – rip her eyes away from the back of his coat. Please look back.
And he glanced back, as she had hoped she would. She knew, but even then that little girlish part of her had worried that he would not look back. But this was her Alonzo, and of course he would look back. As they looked at each other, a second caught in time, the world froze around them and she could no longer hear the cries of the women around her. No, for in this moment it was only her and Alonzo. In her mind she stepped forward into the rows of men and ran to him, traced his face again and again to etch it into her memory. This was her last Alonzo, for a time. Not forever.
He had to look away; they could not stay in that moment forever, even if she would have crawled up to heaven to beg God to freeze time. He turned away as the soldiers reached the crest of the hill, and in a blink he was gone. For a while their footsteps could still be heard on the cobblestone path, but these too disappeared into the wind with every step taken.
Beside her, she felt a hand find its way into hers, grasping it tight. Isabella smiled next to her, leaning into her older sister. “They will find their way back,” she said into the wind. “I am sure of it.”
Elena nodded, looking straight ahead. She could run, could catch up with him. She knew their route, of course; Alonzo had spoken of it for days, Angelo had imagined it for months – her stupid cousin so eager to be a warrior that he forgot of the pain it was causing his family when he mentioned his future adventures. From here, this small band of soldiers would walk two towns over, where they would join with other groups of soldiers to board a train to Cosenza. A city, finally, Alonzo had exclaimed as they had sat around the dinner table the night before. And the cities we will see! Angelo had grinned as nervous laughs resounded. Antonio, she remembered, had stayed silent, his nerves palpable. But Alonzo’s eager smile then had been what she remembered. He was getting out.
From Cosenza, then on to Naples, then Rome, Florence, Milan – the boys had rattled off all of the cities on the list so often that she could recite them by heart, some bitter poem that made her heart heavier with each city. She did not know where they would go from there. Part of her did not want to know.
Isabella spoke then, but she did not hear her. She let her sister lead her away from the abandoned street, and all the way back home. The town was devoid of its men.
The next day, she returned to that spot in the street, just before the crest of the hill. It was wishful thinking, of course; that perhaps he had been hurt – somehow, even though they had not even reached the fighting – and would have to come home. She would be there, every day, waiting. She was not one to break her promise. Alonzo knew that.
He did not come, and Elena should have expected the sky to darken without him. But some small flicker within her had hoped, and she had let it carry her through the hours she spent on that street. She let it carry her through the next evening, too, accepting the disappointment with a curt nod.
Every evening, she was there. As the days fell into weeks, and the weeks into months, she learned to greet the disappointment, to look it in the eyes and say that perhaps his train back was delayed. Angelo had probably put up a fight at the station against it, and Alonzo and Antonio, ever level-headed, had cooled him down, but there was nothing that could be done – the train was coming, but not in good time. They were waiting, packs in hand, bristling with excitement as they talked about their adventures. That was all. She knew somewhere, deep down, that if she did not imagine Alonzo at the station, she would never move from that cobbled street.
The town welcomed the new year with laughter and joy, calling to bring their boys home in 1941, but to Elena it all felt false. And that year came and went. She had cut her hair and it had grown again, never to be shown off to Alonzo. He would see it, one day. Hope was something she had to grasp with two hands now before it scurried off over the hill, taking her dreams with it. But still she went to that street, waiting till sunset, waiting and waiting until the cold nipped at her a little too hard and she had to turn back and begin the long walk home.
The next year was almost as quick. Next door, Aunt Carmela took ill and passed away in her sleep, surrounded by family. Everyone prayed at her feet. In the tear-choked silence Elena whispered another prayer for Angelo, wherever he was. She hoped that somewhere, across the mountains and over the fields, he would hear her call and know to come home, to see his mother one last time before the burial. At the funeral a week later, Elena had comforted four of Carmela’s five children. They had left 1942 behind with a shudder.
Years, and years, and hope was draining. It had been there, like a flood, at the beginning, and she had let herself bathe in it, allowed herself to drown. She could not stop. But it seemed sometimes that she had used up all of that hope too soon and in those later days, only the dregs remained. It was the summer of 1945, and it had been five years since those soldiers had left their town. If their train had been delayed, it was nonexistent now.
Some days she could hardly remember what Alonzo sounded like, and she hated herself for it. Sometimes as she walked through the streets she would catch a glimpse on the sun-speckled stones, a reflection of a memory, a younger version of them that was gone as soon as she realised. It seemed like most of Alonzo was gone. But she would never forget his face as he said those last words.
“Wait for me.” the hope in his eyes, red-rimmed and young and hopeful. That was what she held onto now, pulling herself to that street each sunset. Somewhere, out there in the sky, there they were.
• • •
It was a blood-soaked sunset that day, Elena would recall later, like God had come down to Earth with a giant paintbrush and cast heavenly reds across the canvas above them.
That day, like every day before, Elena took her place on that street, welcoming the shadows the buildings afforded. It was warm, even as it approached the evening, and the heat stuck to her clothes. She sat down on the bench. She would watch the sky again today, watch as long as she needed.
And then she saw him.
A head, bobbing up and down as it made its way over the crest of the hill, dark black hues against a sea of red. A man. Elena stood up. In the dim light, she could not make him out, but he was coming closer. It was a soldier, of that she was sure. His figure sharpened, and she could make out a large backpack, a great big jacket and curls of hair atop his head. He was walking towards her. There was a slight limp to his step, yes, and he was hunched over, almost, as if the weight of the backpack was too much, but he was coming closer. As the sun lowered behind him, it lit up his figure, emblazoning him in red, what she now recognised as golden brown locks of hair. Alonzo. Like the ghost of all those years ago, and yet so real.
She closed her eyes. She was imagining this. She opened them again, half-expecting to find herself passed out on the street, having fallen asleep and fooled herself with dreams, but the man was standing just a few feet away from her now. Staring directly at her.
She tried to speak, but no words came out. In the last five years, sitting here, she had thought of all of the words she would say when he came back. She could have written speeches for him. But here, in this moment, all of those words dissolved.
“Elena?” the man asked. His voice was deeper than it had been when he left, but as he spoke his voice came back to her, filling her, filling those memories she had of him in which he had fallen voiceless. Alonzo was home. A sob wracked the air as she fell into his arms, and once again their worlds became one. It had been too long; much too long. And no time would make up for the years they had lost, but in that embrace there was a future.
Later, she would learn that Angelo had been shot somewhere in Egypt in the early months of 1942. Antonio had made it all the way until a few months back. Alonzo did not know if any other men from their town had returned, or if they ever would. He spoke only of their friends in chopped whispers, staccato tones recounting the years following their departure. But those tearful evenings did not happen just then. In that moment, even briefly, Alonzo had become the entire painting.
In that embrace against the golden sunset, as red blood washed around them, Elena realised that she would have waited forever. Somewhere deep within her she would have found more hope, some remnants to spare. But here he was, and she did not have to wait any longer. They would grieve, and they would remember, and they would be together.