大象传媒

My Dad banged on about going back to Italy all throughout my childhood. In my mid twenties, my partner and I offered to take Dad and Mum on holiday there and to ferry them about (Dad had lost a leg in an operation).
We booked into a fifteenth century castle in the Tuscan hills near Pistoia. I noticed that Dad showed no interest in visiting any of the places that he must have seen during the war, and I decided not to press the issue.
One evening, Dad drunk more Chianti than he usually did (two glasses being his normal quota - indeed, I never saw my Father drunk, ever)and the following short story emerged with some tears on his part.
He said "We were travelling through the Italian mountains when we came across a farmhouse. We received information that the Germans were hiding in there and were instructed to surround the farmhouse. The order was given to fire and we blasted the house to smithereens. When the dust had settled, an old man came running out of the nearby barn with tears streaming down his face and babbling incoherently. We calmed him down and asked what was wrong and he told us that there were no Germans hiding there, but four small children had been asleep in the upstairs bedroom." Dad said no more and continued weeping for a few minutes.
What could I say? I wanted to ask if they went inside and dealt with the situation, but I didn't want to hear the answer. This was the first unpleasant story that Dad had ever told me and it brought home to me the reality of war and also the reasons why people do not want to talk about it. I couldn't bear to see him upset so I changed the subject and we never spoke of it again.

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