Ten Little Soldiers
Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.
Chapter X: Times Past
One little Soldier boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.
Croccifisso Panforte was sitting in his living room in front of a webcam, waiting for a call from Palermo. He wasn't that fond of the new, breakable, expensive, high-maintenance technology, but when you are one hundred and one travelling isn't just unnecessary evil, it's just plain not worth it. Oh, he was surely the springiest, healthiest man his age in whole Italy, as his many grandchildren who had tried and failed to send him off to a retirement home could attest. He had always known that having a mortal enemy was good for something. He refused to kick the bucket, or become bedridden for that matter, before Talbot-with-no-surname did and he clung to his independence with his Dying Will.
Talbot has entered the chat room; a message alerted him to the presence of his interlocutor. Croccifisso clicked on the small camera icon that appeared in the chat window and clicked on a contact from his Contact List, then clicked Invite to View My Webcam. The new IM window with his webcam active opened. He clicked the View Webcam link. Then he was lefts staring, eyes bulging in disbelief.
"What have you done to your hair?" Croccifisso asked in lieu of a greeting. Gone was the long hair that had reached the old mafia man's shoulders and in its stead was almost wholly shaved head and a Mohawk. A tall Mohawk that looked like Talbot had used half of a hairspray bottle to hold it up like that. At least he had refrained from dying it.
"I thought this would make me look rock," Talbot said smugly. The thing was, combined with those little bird skulls the effect was kind of impressive if one went for the Ozzy Osbourne looks.
"I think it makes you look stupid," he said instead. He was very proud of the fact he hadn't balded any and his hair was impressive steel shine gray that made his haircut resemble a helmet. He would never have mauled it like that.
"You would." Talbot might as well have said that he had always been a bore. Croccifisso bit his teeth together and let it go. They always tried to end their bi-monthly calls on a good note.
There had been time when Croccifisso wouldn't have spat on Talbot if the man had been on fire and the sentiment had been returned, but times changed and people changed. Now Croccifisso was an old man. His wife was dead, all his four children were dead and no parent should have to bury their children, ever. His old friends were dead, the films he had watched no one recognized – even the Oscar winning Wings had been forgotten by all but silent film enthusiasts. When he said he had heard Rhapsody in Blue orchestrated by Ferde Grofé all he received was a blank look. He had once been inspired by Benito Mussolini and dreadfully disillusioned, but even his grandchildren had no time to hear his stories of his time in Resistenza as a member of Giustizia e Libertà Brigades. All his enemies and adversaries were dead now save one. He didn't know how many people Talbot had lost, but now they were the only ones left from the Golden Twenties when men were hotheaded and life was wild.
Talbot wasn't retired since mafia didn't really believe in retirement, but Croccifisso was and that was good enough for them.
"So, how has your life been lately," Talbot begun the conversation after a while.
"Joints ache like crazy when it rains or the winds blows from north, but you didn't need me to tell you that," Croccifisso grumbled and Talbot winced in sympathy. Old age didn't come alone. "A few burglars tried to break into my home two days ago," he continued.
"I think I saw something about it in the news," Talbot muses and Croccifisso nods, smiling grimly. It had been past midnight and he had risen to get a glass of water when he had heard strange noises coming from the hall. He had taken his cane, sturdy, old-fashioned thing made of oak with a bronze head shaped like an eagle's. The lock had given in when he had gotten halfway to the door and a group of disreputable-looking men in slashed jeans had barged in. In the morning, the traffic was jammed when the police found five young gang members tied into a lamp post with their own silly, fashionable chain belts. The criminals had begged for mercy, all of them bruised and concussed, making baffling comments about how terrifying the elders were these days and a cane that had caught fire.
What a shame that was, Croccofisso though, that he had only found his Dying Will of Flame so late in life. He had been over eighty already when he had slipped and fallen down on icy stairs, fallen down badly and broken his leg in eight places. His doctor had said that he would never walk again. He had disagreed strongly. If only he had been a young man, the things he could have done. Talbot had laughed at him, told that he was too thick headed to have got it earlier, but Croccifisso was almost sure that secretly the man was impressed.
They started talking about good old times just like every time they called. They talked about the Great War, Croccifisso about hiding in the mountains with the boys and blowing up railways and Nazi tanks and Talbot about how the Ottavo had guided her family through those perilous years. She hadn't much cared for Nazis or homegrown fascists either; her Rain and Lightning Guardians had been Jewish and her Mist Guardian had been a Gypsy.
"They don't make women like her anymore. Or like Andrea Herrera. Remember her?" Talbot asked with a wistful voice and even after all these decades Croccifisso felt a shiver going up his spine. He closed his eyes and he could see ser standing in the sunlight before him, smiling in her green and yellow sundress. Her lovely dark doe eyes in her delicate face, her dark hair combed in an elegant way, the figure she carried with pride and her mischievous smile. He opened his eyes.
"There was no other," he said simply. Her mastery of the fine art of class wasn't what they remembered her for, however.
She had been a ballet dancer and an agent for the Resistenza, transporting secret messages in her ballet slippers and performing in a series of secret ballets called to raise money for the rebels and their underground war. Once she had volunteered to rendezvous with a British paratrooper hiding in the forests of Valle d'Aosta. Her cover had been strolling through the countryside, innocently picking wildflowers, and when a soldier had caught and questioned her she had avoided official interrogation basically by being adorable. They had both met her during the war and they had both loved her, but in the end neither had gotten her. She had fallen in love with an American soldier after the war and moved with him to New York.
"They are now saying I used to know the Primo, you know," Talbot broke the silence.
"They think you are four hundred years old?" Croccifisso asked, disbelieving. He didn't bother to ask who "they" were.
"Kids these days. No grasp of mathematics." Talbot shruuged and Croccifisso had to agree. His great-granddaughter thought she was saving money when she waited for sale and then used two hundred Euros for clothes. Her parents were much too indulging. He had obviously spoiled the whole lot of them.
The conversation was slowly dying down. They didn't have any set time reserved for their calls. They spoke as long as they felt like speaking and when they didn't they disconnected.
"I still hate you," Talbot said conversationally. Like Croccifisso's greeting, it might not have been traditional, but they both recognized it for what it was. Croccifisso's smile bared his white, even rows of teeth. They weren't his own teeth anymore, but Talbot didn't need to know that.
"I hate you too," he said. The thing was, they did, but for them talking with each other was like they had been running around in the dark with his hands stretched out, groping blindly, and then someone had turned on the lights. "Friends" and "like" didn't really compare to that.
AN: Andrea Herrera is homage for my hero Audrey Hepburn who worked for the Dutch resistance during the World War II and really did all that, except for the marriage. She was plain too amazing for words.