The Tuscan Contessa

by Dinah Jefferies

  She shook her head. ‘But it’s awful. Where are they meant to go? Roberto and Elsa aren’t young.’

  ‘They have friends in the city.’

  ‘Are they communists?’ she asked and then frowned. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Does that scare you?’

  She felt her cheeks heat up as he laughed at her.

  ‘Americans are terrified of communism. But here in the countryside we’re sick of never having enough. When we win the war, everything will change. But no, Elsa and Roberto are intellectuals, not communists. We all try to get along together to drive out the Nazis. It doesn’t always work.’

  Maxine could hear that the Germans had entered the café now, their loud, imperious voices and their terrible Italian instantly recognizable. A rush of fear mingled with the excitement from a moment ago, but she didn’t glance round to look. They continued with their drinks and now Marco lifted her hand to his lips. ‘I have a room.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘When I begin to rise, get to your feet too, slip on your jacket and saunter out into the street. I will pay for our drinks and follow you. Look in a shop window while you wait and then go to your motorcycle. I’ll join you there.’

  ‘A cousin of mine lives here. I was planning to go back to his house.’

  ‘Another time.’

  Maxine did as she was instructed, pausing long enough to plant a kiss on his cheek before leaving the café. The barman said something to Marco and they both burst into laughter, but Maxine couldn’t be sure what about. She suspected the man had congratulated Marco on the speed of his conquest. She didn’t care. This was the way she liked to live her life, always on the edge, always a hint of danger and always absolutely zero commitment.

  Out in the street, Maxine crossed over to glance in a shop selling hats, scarves, overcoats and gloves. With winter coming she could do with a warm scarf, so she nipped in to choose, keeping one eye on the street. She saw Marco pull his hat brim down over his eyes as he left the café, limping slightly and leaning on his stick, then looking around to see where she’d gone. For a moment she enjoyed his expression of uncertainty but then, after quickly paying for her scarf, she went outside. He spotted her but didn’t smile and she noticed he was looking in the direction of her motorcycle. Her heart banged against her ribs when she saw two Nazis were inspecting it. If she hadn’t stopped to buy the scarf, they’d have caught her right beside the bike for sure.

  ‘Walk in the opposite direction,’ Marco commanded.

  ‘The bike?’

  ‘You still have the pamphlets?’

  ‘In the pannier.’

  ‘Better there than on you. Walk away now. If they don’t find the pamphlets, I’ll arrange for them to be distributed in local villages later. If they do, we’ve lost the bike.’

  They began to head down the hill, Maxine on shaky legs and Marco’s limp more pronounced than before. He’d raised his shoulders, slid his hands into his pockets and hunched up, seeming to shrink into himself.

  They took a few more steps away before a German voice shouted out, his words unclear. She clutched Marco’s hand. The German had to be ordering her to stop.

  ‘Keep moving,’ Marco hissed.

  ‘But –?’

  ‘Move.’

  She was still shaking but did what he said, then couldn’t prevent herself glancing back to see the two Nazis marching off in the direction of an officer further up the hill, who had obviously called out to them. To them. Not her.

  Marco laughed as he straightened up.

  Suddenly, she cottoned on. ‘You knew, didn’t you? You knew it wasn’t about us.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ was all he said in reply.

  She punched him on the arm and then began to laugh too. He’d used the hunched posture to make himself look like a useless limping man who would, therefore, be of little interest to the Nazis.

  ‘We’ll go round by the back alley, pick up the bike and then ride it a little nearer to my place. We can transfer the pamphlets to my bag. Try to look normal and we’ll talk as we go. When we get to a quieter spot, tell me more about why you came here.’

  Maxine considered the question as they walked.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ she said as they reached a quiet street. She pictured her family and imagined how it had once been for them. Way back in November 1910 her parents and some of their extended family had disembarked at Ellis Island, New York, from the SS Chicago, a ship that had left from Le Havre. They’d been farmers and cattle merchants in Tuscany, but the family had grown too large for the land to support them all. Some had gone to work in Siena or Arezzo; others, like Maxine’s parents, had emigrated in the hope of a better future. The country of Maxine’s birth, four years later, had never felt like her true homeland and it left her with something of an identity crisis. Now, being in Tuscany frequently brought a lump to her throat. Her mother had often told the story of their long journey to America, and her continuing homesickness and glowing descriptions of home had dominated Maxine’s youth. The excitement of the grape harvest, the sweet country air, the bottling of fruit and tomatoes, the wine, the fields of golden sunflowers in June, the ripe cornfields in July and August. Indeed, she sometimes believed she’d inherited her mother’s occasionally melancholy disposition, and the reckless way she lived her life had been a conscious decision to counteract that.

  ‘So?’ Marco prompted. ‘You drifted away again. Tell me, what else have the British asked you to do?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, keeping it brief as she focused on him again. ‘Once I’ve worked out where the partisans are and how numerous, I have to liaise with the Brits and then work to provide the weapons necessary to build up the partisan fighting units.’

  ‘Really?’ he scoffed. ‘They send a woman to do that?’

  ‘Apparently there haven’t been many Italians willing to come back.’

  He looked over her shoulder then back into her eyes but didn’t give the impression that he believed her.

  ‘So, are you coming to my place then?’

  She nodded. ‘You know the vintner, Francesco?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And he is …?’

  ‘A good man. You can trust him.’

  ‘I have the location for a radio drop. Can you arrange for some men to help with that?’

  ‘Of course. When?’

  ‘That’s the thing, we don’t know for sure. Very soon, but it may mean waiting around for a couple of nights.’

  That afternoon, mist was already snaking along the ground, shrouding the lower parts of the tree trunks. Without a hat or gloves, Maxine shivered in the forest’s green gloom, jumping as birds burst from the trees, shrieking like devils from hell, their wings flapping. They’d hidden her motorcycle in the bushes and now Marco rarely glanced back to see if she was still following, although her footsteps and muttered curses as she struggled through dense undergrowth, her skin stinging from vicious thorns, meant he could hear her. The limp didn’t seem to be bothering him now at all. When he did jerk round to check her progress, the playful expression on his face said Are you up to this? And Maxine would narrow her eyes and toss her chestnut curls. She didn’t say she’d just seen a deer staring at her. Were there wolves too or wild dogs? She had no idea.

  As she walked, her mother’s voice sounded in her head, a never-ending tape of admonishment. A nice girl waits until she has a ring on her finger. What is the matter with you? Raimondo is a good man. Maxine didn’t doubt it, but she had no desire to marry a grocer. A grocer’s wife, for heaven’s sake. No matter that he owned a chain of shops and was going places. She’d prefer to go straight to Hades, thank you very much.

  After a while they approached a particularly dense clump of trees where Marco held aside the trailing vegetation to reveal a narrow path leading to what looked like a derelict stone farmhouse, standing alone in a small clearing.

  ‘You are joking?’ she said as she gazed at the roof where the holes caused by missing tiles were visible.<
br />
  He shrugged.

  ‘Your room?’

  ‘A room is a room. I have a bed.’

  She raised her brows. ‘Which you no doubt share with the rats and cockroaches.’

  He gazed at her with amused eyes fringed by thick dark lashes. ‘I like insects … and animals.’

  She took another look, now spotting the boarded windows and peeling paintwork, and screwed up her lips. Was she even safe here?

  ‘We can make a fire.’ He spoke nonchalantly, ignoring her expression. ‘If you are cold.’

  ‘If?’

  He didn’t reply, merely studied her face and gave her an enigmatic smile. She took in his bronzed skin, dark curly hair and high cheekbones. Like a gypsy. So good-looking it almost hurt and, undoubtedly, he knew it. She smiled at him. ‘Well, are you going to invite me into your castle?’

  Marco inclined his head, and she saw he meant it as a signal for her to follow. She swallowed her misgivings and stepped inside. He led her across an earthen floor, bypassing a room which, judging by the small table and remaining few chairs, must have once been a kitchen. Then, after throwing open a creaking dark-brown door with a theatrical flourish and making her laugh, he steered her through to the back of the house. The whole place reeked of damp, stale cigarette smoke and, rather oddly, of bitter lemons. After he’d lit a candle, she glanced around the small square room. The only window had been loosely covered with a ragged piece of cloth, but the stone floor looked clean enough. Hardly a glamorous location and yet, despite everything, she found the rustic simplicity romantic. They were not here for an intimate dinner for two. And the more rudimentary their surroundings the better. Plus, he was even more wildly striking by candlelight.

  ‘Sit,’ he ordered, taking off his hat and coat. Then he went about building a small fire, using chestnut shells for kindling and coaxing the weak flames until they blazed, while she poked at the mattress on the floor. He called it a mattress but when she examined it closely she saw it was little more than straw packed tightly inside a bag of mattress ticking. Scratchy, itchy, prickly, especially if you were naked.

  ‘Have you got sheets?’ she asked, although she already knew the answer.

  ‘So you’re the princess type?’

  She laughed. ‘Get a move on with that fire and I’ll show you the kind of princess I am.’

  ‘You do this often?’ he said.

  ‘Do you?’

  He laughed, and she laughed with him. Then he opened a small trunk in the corner of the room. From it he withdrew a corkscrew, a bottle of red wine and two china mugs. ‘They’re a bit chipped but the wine still tastes good.’

  He uncorked the wine, poured and handed her a mug, then sat beside her. She noticed a kind of brilliance in his eyes. Passion or the fervour of his cause? Maybe both.

  Suddenly nervous, she gulped down the rich, fruity wine and held out her mug for more. Here in Tuscany she was free to be whoever she wanted to be, with no one from home to restrain her. He didn’t need to know she had tweaked this version of herself and honed it until she could almost believe she’d really become the gutsy, fiercely independent individual she wanted to be. Maxine knew that if you didn’t feel it, you had to fake it until it became a reality. As for the occasional stirring of a need she was unable to name, that she didn’t want to name, she couldn’t admit that even to herself.

  ‘So, what’s your story?’ she said.

  ‘No story.’

  She narrowed her eyes and studied his face. ‘We all have a story.’

  ‘Not one I am willing to tell.’

  ‘Well, just tell me one thing.’

  His brow furrowed while he hesitated but then his eyes lightened. ‘I can tell you that I used to be a journalist.’

  ‘So was I.’

  ‘Well then, I am like you.’

  ‘I see. And are you really like me?’

  ‘It will be interesting to find out, don’t you think?’

  His response made her smile, his low, soft voice enthralling her as he cast a spell. She was enjoying this.

  ‘I worked for a while at the Nazione,’ he added, ‘the principal Tuscan daily, but it became impossible when the Germans arrived. They only wanted pieces condemning the Allies.’

  They drank for a while in silence until he lifted her chin and kissed her full on the lips. Her breathing grew shallower as her body responded. She made no attempt to hide her rising desire and slipped a hand beneath his belt, pulling it loose and feeling his erection. Despite discovering that sex was a brilliant way to counteract the horrors of war, she hadn’t fully appreciated how much she needed this.

  Within moments he kissed her again and they fell back on the mattress, tearing at each other’s clothes. Little had been said and seconds later they were lost in the act itself.

  Most men didn’t believe there were women who preferred this kind of coupling. No flowers and no promises of love. It was carnal, animal, visceral. Skin on skin. Flesh on flesh. And the kind of man who cared about virginity was not the kind of man Maxine wanted. No. Far better this. No hearts to be broken. No faithfulness to be demanded, and none to be given.

  Afterwards she lay beside him and watched the light changing the atmosphere in the little room. Then she stroked his now luminous skin. Pretty dancing patterns from the fire flickered on the walls, bringing them closer and making Maxine feel cosy. How must it have once been when a family lived here? She imagined a husband and wife with maybe three or four children who cared for their animals while their mother cooked tasty stews from their own produce and their father worked in the fields. She asked whose place it had been, but Marco told her there were many abandoned farms in the countryside where the inhabitants had given up the struggle to eke out a living from the land. And she understood her vision of family life here had been a fantasy. It would have been hard and lonely with viciously cold winters, especially when there had not been enough to eat.

  ‘I need to sleep.’ He had spoken rather gruffly, and now pulled a blanket over them both. ‘We have work tonight.’

  ‘Work?’

  He frowned. ‘The less you know …’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous. I need to know. It’s why I’ve come. I told you that.’

  He raised himself up on one elbow and gazed into her eyes while scratching his chin. ‘You want to come? I get that. But why? Why did you volunteer for this? You are a beautiful American girl. It is not even your war.’

  ‘It would have been if my parents had not emigrated. I have to understand what you are doing, and I need to know where the partisans are.’

  ‘It’s simple. We make trouble for the Germans. Demoralize the enemy any way we can. Hit at their German pride, you know? And the majority of the men are in the forests of Monte Amiata. Hundreds of them.’

  ‘And here?’

  ‘In the woods around the towns. Not so many here and a mixed bunch but we’re licking them into shape.’

  She gave him a look. ‘And you won’t let me come?’

  ‘At this stage you’d be a liability. How did you even get this far?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It really is incredible.’

  ‘I told you, the Brits didn’t have many to choose from. If you let me come, I can request more support for what you’re doing.’

  ‘We certainly need it, although we do have the farmers’ support, at least. Had enough of giving up their harvest to the Germans. But as for you coming? No.’

  ‘I’m used to danger.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Now let me sleep.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  He made a groaning, exasperated sound but didn’t reply.

  ‘Well, if you won’t tell me that, tell me how old you are?’

  He rolled over with his back to her.

  She did eventually fall into a restless sleep but at one point half woke to hear Marco moaning. When she touched his bare shoulder, she realized he was not awake and so she curled into him and slid back into sleep herself. When she fully awoke it
was to the sound of gruff male voices coming from the kitchen. Marco sat bolt upright as if on alert but once he’d recognized what it was, he lit a cigarette and relaxed. She watched the glow of it in the now dark room.

  ‘It is the men,’ he said.

  She clutched his arm and hissed at him. ‘If you don’t allow me to come, I will follow you.’

  He frowned. ‘Don’t be a fool. You stay here or you go back to town. Maybe next time.’

  She nodded. ‘Very well. If that’s your last word.’

  13.

  Maxine had not been long back at the Castello when Sofia suggested Aldo should join the men for the drop. She’d wanted Aldo to feel involved without having to run away from home. Maxine had thought it a risky strategy and argued that he’d get a taste for it and then he’d be gone. Nevertheless, three nights later, and on the second night of waiting, here he was. Maxine huddled in the deep shadows of the trees with her eyes fixed on the small clearing in the valley where a fire was burning. Aldo’s excitement at being included was obvious as he paced back and forth, glancing up at the sky every few minutes.

  It was a clear night, thank goodness, although the excellent visibility also meant the Germans had more chance of spotting the plane and shooting it down. The pilot would still attempt the drop even if the weather was foul, in which case the equipment might well have ended up lodged in a tree. Obviously, it still might if something went wrong or the plane was shot down. They had already been waiting for three hours and the men were on edge. Even Aldo’s enthusiasm was wearing thin. Nobody could tell why the plane hadn’t arrived. If it didn’t come before dawn approached it would be too late.

  Maxine held her breath and listened to the sounds of the night: animals scratching in the undergrowth, birds’ wings beating the air and the wind rustling the leaves of the trees. She smelt the smoke, the vegetation and the damp earth as she waited and watched, the darkness closing around her.

  ‘Why is it late?’ Aldo whispered.

  ‘I don’t think anyone knows.’

  ‘I didn’t expect it to be so dull.’