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.“How long do I have to take her there?”“You’ll get there all right – just don’t stop on the way.”They placed Francesca on the front seat, and covered her with the quilt.She was sweaty and red-faced with strain, but the neighbor said, “As long as she moans like that you’re fine.If she starts holding her breath in to push, you’d better step on it.”The Square of St John Lateran was divided into light and shadow by the great masses of the basilica and its annexes.Hopeful pigeons speckled the sky over it in search of food.Two German soldiers sat on a green wooden bench, young and lost in their oversized, faded field-gray uniforms.An old priest, looking like a black mushroom under his wide-brimmed hat, climbed the steps to the church.Enormous apostles perched in two rows as frozen suicides on the edge of the awesome facade, at the sides of a titanic cross-bearing Christ.Bora had left his car at the corner of Via Emanuele Filiberto and walked into the blue shadow projected by the Lateran Palace to wait.He was efficiently not thinking of things at hand.He enjoyed the morning, the city.He felt a brimming love for the city today, a juvenile irresponsible romantic love for it.There was the narrow entrance to Via Tasso, cut through the block of buildings fencing the northern side of the square.An army truck was parked at the beginning of Via Merulana.The few soldiers in it were invisible to him.He walked out of the shade after checking his watch.His arm ached deeply in the sling, but differently from before – the ache was fresh and crude, bearable.And the holster of his gun was unlatched already.Guidi welcomed the emptiness of the wartime Sunday streets as he raced through them, a white handkerchief secured between the glass and the upper edge of the window to mark an emergency.He’d studied the itinerary, just in case, and confidently drove toward Via Morgagni.Francesca did not answer his attempts to distract her.Her face was contracted and she let those deep moans out, grabbing at her body.“Hurry up,” was all she said to him in a husky voice.“It’s killing me, hurry up —” and then she’d cry out and start moaning again.They’d come halfway down Viale Liegi before Guidi saw the German roadblock ahead, barring the crossroads of Via Tagliamento and Viale della Regina.There was nothing to do but stop and frantically reach for his papers to show to the soldiers.But the soldiers did not want to see papers: they were here to keep all traffic from Viale della Regina.Guidi left the car and showed his police identification, which did not impress them.Polizei, it was all very well.But even the police couldn’t go through,“I have a woman in labor in the car!”At his gesticulations the Germans grew wary and lowered the guns from their shoulders.One of them shoved Guidi toward the car and Guidi answered in kind.The muzzle of the gun found the pit of his stomach, and then an army lieutenant came from across the street to see what was going on.Guidi tried to explain.The lieutenant understood and spoke back in heavily accented Tyrol Italian.“These are all excuses – we’ve seen plenty of women pregnant with pillows.Go back, go back.”“Will you take a look at her?”“No, go back.”“If you don’t let me through she’ll have the child right here!”An acute cry from Francesca drew Guidi back to the car, and the lieutenant too, but warily.She cried out, “Ooooh, it’s coming, it’s coming.” and the German was less rigid, but still unconvinced.Then she did the unthinkable, lifting up her nightgown and exposing the dome of her belly.The German turned crimson.“I’m sorry.” he stammered.“Get going, then, get going!” And to the soldiers, “Nur heran!” to make them get out of the way.It was under the unlikely escort of a German army motorcycle that Guidi drove Francesca to the Raimondis’ home.Things moved quickly upon their arrival.The doctor and his wife helped Francesca in, to a room already prepared for her.“Is it almost time?” Guidi anxiously asked.“Not quite.”“But she said.”“She said you had to get out of the jam with the Germans.She’s definitely in labor, but it’s going to be a few hours yet.”Guidi couldn’t help thinking that Clara Lisi, in Verona, might be going through the same ordeal now, bearing her executed lover’s child.Another criminal case, another disappointment in finding out what the truth was.How foolishly close he’d been to falling in love then, too.“Should I wait?” he asked Dr Raimondi.“No reason for you to stay.She’s in good hands.We’ll call when the birth occurs.”Eugene Dollmann sprang to his feet when Bora walked into the lonely back room of the Birreria Albrecht on Via Crispi, so calm in appearance that the colonel thought him successful.“The routine has been broken,” Bora said.“The informer did not show up.I waited close to one hour and I had to move eventually.Are you sure Kappler is not on to this?”“I’m sure of it.I can’t understand what happened.”Bora would not take a seat.“I’m due at Soratte all day tomorrow,” he said [ 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