The Tuscan Contessa

by Dinah Jefferies

  ‘Oh hell!’ Maxine exclaimed and ran her fingers through her curls. ‘Let’s hope this is all done and dusted before then.’

  37.

  Sofia could neither eat nor sleep and, now that the night of the raid had arrived, she longed for it to be over so much she could barely breathe. Maxine had been briefed the day before and now Luca’s men were in place, hidden in buildings around the barracks on Via Fume and in the Valfonda gardens. Very few men were staying in the Carabinieri barracks these days as most had already absconded or been disarmed. The few who remained had been coerced into guarding the usual foodstuffs stored there and, as far as any of them knew, that was all there was. But now a new consignment had arrived and not of flour or beans. Two armed Carabinieri patrolled the perimeter, remaining outside for approximately an hour each time, one at the front, the other at the back of the long complex, then one at a time they went inside for fifteen minutes, so there would always be one of them outside. While these two were outside together, the plan was that Luca’s partisans would get inside during the brief blind spot at the side of the building between the two patrolling men at the front and back. Once inside they would knock out the interior guards, bind them, blindfold them and gag them. They couldn’t shoot the two men on the outside, nor could they remove them, because any passing German patrol might hear the noise or spot their absence. Plus, they had all been warned not to shoot unless Allied bombing was loud enough to disguise the sound. A few days earlier, Luca had captured the brother of one of the Carabinieri whose job it was to guard the inside and was trading the brother’s life in exchange for the side door to be left locked, but unbolted. The lock wouldn’t be hard to break. Afterwards, the Carabinieri guard and his brother would be given safe passage to the mountains.

  At one in the morning, Sofia, Maxine and Anna left the palazzo and individually made their way to the Santa Maria Novella neighbourhood near the station. Sofia was carrying her pistol while Anna and Maxine both had knives. With an old scarf from the attic wrapped round to mask her face and her hat pulled low, Sofia waited at one end of a grim alley. It split off from a narrow street close to the train station and smelt of rotting vegetables and animal excrement. Anna, dressed like a man, waited at the other end. The waiting went on forever. Time stopped and, in the stillness of that horrible alley, Sofia listened to the sounds of the city and the hills all around them, just a low rumble at this time, but distinguishable all the same. She pictured everyone in the dark buildings, sleeping or trying to. And there was a part of her longing to call a halt to this. But then, after a few moments, Maxine and Irma arrived, dressed as prostitutes might, and it was already unstoppable.

  Maxine and Anna walked together, sauntering casually, keeping to the darkest places. There were no street lights and no moon, but their job was to watch for anything unusual. Sofia remained in the alley as much out of sight as possible, but with a good view of the side door of the barracks. Luca was watching for the exact moment that the men could not be seen by either guard. Then he signalled, and he and five partisans dressed in dark clothing crept rapidly along Sofia’s alley to the side entrance. They didn’t have any trouble breaking the lock and, once they were in, Irma slipped in too. She was to wait just inside the door. If anything alarming was spotted, Maxine, Anna or Sofia would enter the building by the side door and warn Irma. She would then alert the men.

  As a vehicle slid down the street at the end of Sofia’s alley, she saw the dark figure of the driver accompanied by another man. She glanced around the corner after the car had passed to her right. She recognized the car; not an ordinary patrol car but the same type Lorenzo drove. Lorenzo’s was an older model, but this was one of the new Lancia Artenas, built at the request of the Italian army to chauffeur officers around. She watched as it pulled up and a man carrying a briefcase climbed out. She held her breath, unsure what to do, attempting to mentally rehearse the instructions she’d been given. While the man went into a house, she waited. A few moments later he came out without the briefcase, signalled to the driver to open the car window and leant in to speak. Then he got into the back and the car slowly moved off. She breathed a sigh of relief and, at the same moment, heard the first bomb fall in the direction of Fiesole.

  The time was passing incredibly slowly, and Sofia had no idea how things were going inside the barracks. Apart from that one passing Lancia, she had seen nothing. Eventually she could just make out a Fiat truck heading her way from the direction of Via Bernardo Cennini. It pulled up right outside the side entrance, three men got out and successfully jumped the guards, first one then the other, daring to shoot as the noise was now masked by close Allied bombing. They dragged the bodies inside then began bringing out crates and loading them into the truck. Just as they finished, Irma came out and climbed into the truck with another man and the driver. Luca and the rest of the men slipped away.

  It was just as well that Luca had only managed to get hold of one truck because soon after it pulled away, the Lancia reappeared and skidded to a halt. Had there been another truck being loaded up they’d have been caught. The Lancia stopped at the precise moment Maxine was coming round the side of the building and a German officer in uniform was already getting out of the car. He drew his revolver and beckoned her to approach him. Sofia’s pulse was going so fast she thought she was going to vomit as she saw it was too late for Maxine to run. The driver remained in the car with the window wound down. The officer had his back to the car and didn’t see Luca appear from a side alley and put a gun to the driver’s head. From the corner of her eye Sofia saw Anna creep towards Maxine and the German officer, then draw back into the shadow of a recessed doorway close by. To keep an eye on Maxine, Sofia thought.

  ‘Did you hear a vehicle?’ Sofia heard the officer ask Maxine.

  ‘Yes, yours.’

  ‘Not my car, idiot. Sounded like a truck.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Hold on, don’t I know you?’

  She nodded and held out a cigarette case.

  ‘Massima, right?’ he said. ‘What are you doing out so late?’

  Then everything happened so fast Sofia could hardly believe it. The man declined her offered cigarette and put his revolver back in its holster while he dug in his pocket to take out one of his own cigarettes. Probably the Turkish type that some of them smoked, Sofia thought. He put it in his mouth and bent his head as she offered him a light.

  ‘Must be out of fuel,’ Maxine said, giggling flirtatiously as she looked up. ‘Sorry. Anyway, I have matches.’

  Maxine took a box of matches from her bag, struck one and, when he bent his head again, lit his cigarette.

  At that moment Sofia spotted the driver of the car lunge forward, slamming the car horn as he did, the sound blasting out just before Luca shot him dead. The officer reacted swiftly, looking up and round, then back again, his eyes wide. And in the sudden realization that Maxine was somehow involved in this, he grabbed her arm.

  ‘What the hell?’ He spat out the words.

  With his other hand he withdrew his revolver and held it point-blank at her chest. ‘You will pay for this,’ he growled.

  Then he half twisted them both to glance back at the car, while still maintaining his grip on her arm and the gun to her chest. With his eyes fixed on the slumped body of his driver, he failed to spot Anna, who had silently leapt out at lightning speed and was now right behind him.

  She withdrew her knife from her pocket, grabbed his hair, pulled his head back and then slit his throat from side to side with enough strength to sever a major artery and his windpipe. In that split second of shock, Maxine managed to knock his revolver to the ground. As the blood gushed out, Maxine shied away from the man. The blood pumped and pumped in a wide arc on to the wall and on to the cobblestones. He made a terrible gurgling sound and, finally, slumped to the ground, senseless.

  In her rising panic, Sofia hesitated, almost paralysed, and tried to will herself to be calm. It didn’t work but she recovered e
nough to take off her coat and run to Maxine, who was now soaked in blood. There was very little light, but they could see enough to stare at each other, wide-eyed in terror, and then at the dark stain of blood pooling in a dip in the street.

  ‘Thank you, Anna,’ Maxine whispered, then squatted beside the man. ‘I do know him,’ she whispered. ‘Vogler. That’s who he is.’

  ‘Is he dead yet?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Almost. He’s bleeding out. Jesus, the smell!’

  Sofia watched the gruesome sight of the blood still seeping from the ragged fleshy cut in his neck, then she threw the coat at Maxine. ‘Quick. Put this on. It will cover the blood on your clothes.’

  ‘Hurry. We need to get out of here, and fast,’ Anna hissed. ‘I’ll go with Sofia. Maxine, you go the longer way round.’

  As they left, Sofia was trembling uncontrollably from the shock, but Anna was unnaturally calm. When they reached the Ponte Vecchio, Sofia’s voice quivered as she whispered, ‘Have you done that before?’

  ‘Only to a pig.’ Anna gave a bitter laugh. ‘It wasn’t very different.’

  ‘You need to wipe your shoes. They’re covered in blood.’

  ‘There’s blood all over me. Lucky it’s dark.’

  Sofia’s breath caught in her throat and her mouth tasted sour; even though she hadn’t had to pull the trigger or use a knife, she had witnessed the killing of a man. A German man, but still a man, and she had no idea how to process it.

  ‘Don’t think,’ Anna said as if she could tell what Sofia was feeling. ‘Don’t go over it in your head. We need to get back without being caught, burn the clothes and get clean. That’s it. Plenty of time to think tomorrow. Tonight, we sleep.’

  As Sofia’s terror gave way to common sense and self-preservation, she didn’t say that she couldn’t imagine ever being able to sleep again.

  38.

  After the murder of Vogler and his driver, and the raid on the barracks, there were roadblocks and multiple checkpoints everywhere. Cornered like animals, the three women had to wait it out. The rumour was that a mountain of machine guns, mortars, pistols and ammunition had been stolen and the Germans were furious. Nobody could leave the city and armed police patrolled the streets and stations day and night. It was twenty-four hours since Anna had killed Vogler, and although Sofia was sure she had most likely saved Maxine’s life by doing so, she felt sick about the whole thing. She walked the corridors and wandered the empty rooms, trying to find a place in this huge house where she could feel safe. Even as she escaped to her bedroom and slammed the door, fear snapped at her heels and she failed to shut it out.

  She longed to leave Florence, the city she had once loved above all others, and she lay wide awake in the dark hour before dawn, shaking with misery. What they had done was incomprehensible. Could it have really happened? Or was she caught in an endless nightmare from which she could not awaken? Things were moving too fast. Hold on, she wanted to say. Couldn’t they simply go back and think? When she did get up, the ache in her bones deepened by the hour. Haunted by the killing, she prowled the silent house and longed for Lorenzo to keep her rooted in the life they used to have. But even he could not make this right and she felt unnerving changes moving within her.

  Was it ever acceptable to kill, she found herself wondering again. She heard people say that after you’d killed once the second time would be easier, but she had to hope she would never witness such a thing again. Anna didn’t have any such qualms. To her he was a German and it was because of the Germans she had lost a beloved husband and a brother too. To her, there was no point brooding. No, they had to get on with living as normally as possible, especially if Major Kaufmann came calling as he had suggested he might. How would Sofia manage to conceal her guilt if she couldn’t make a show of appearing to be her normal self? She slipped out to the garden, hoping for solace, but it was no longer the birds she heard, it was the sound of boots thumping on cobbles and Germans shouting, bullying, ordering, laughing. In her mind’s eye she saw their boorish faces, imagined their cruel objectives, and trembled. But she knew she had to let these dark thoughts go.

  As she returned to the kitchen, Anna narrowed her eyes. ‘Contessa, you have to eat. You are too thin. You will make yourself ill and, if they come, they will see something is wrong. Please. It will do you good.’

  ‘What’s the point of it all?’

  ‘The point is, do you want to speak German for the rest of your life? And instead of spaghetti al pomodoro do you want to eat frankfurters and sauerkraut?’

  Sofia snorted in derision.

  ‘I thought not,’ Anna said with a wan smile.

  ‘So, we’re fighting over what food we’ll eat.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Anna put a bowl of broth on the table and pulled out a chair.

  ‘Maxine up?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I don’t know how she can sleep so long.’

  Sofia sat and forced the food down. Anna was right in a way. It was about preserving their culture, but it was more than that. No human wanted to be controlled by another and no country did either.

  Afterwards, she went back up to her room and pressed her cheek against the cold glass of the window where she could look out over the river Arno at the southern parts of the city. She thought of the Piazza Santo Spirito and the Basilica di Santo Spirito where Lorenzo and she would go on Sundays to sit on the steps and watch the world go by. The little square with its trees and tranquillity was one of her favourites. But then her attention was attracted by a commotion in the street below where German soldiers were dragging a young man over to one of their vehicles. Take me, she wanted to shout, as if that would mitigate the overwhelming feeling of guilt.

  She wanted to hate the Germans, all the Germans, and she did hate Kaufmann. But Vogler? She hadn’t even known him and yet he was dead. The worst thing, however, was that she had no pity left. She knew there were good, kind Germans like Wolf, who’d never wanted the war, who’d emphatically never wanted Hitler. Many Italians hadn’t wanted Mussolini either and so many families on both sides only wanted to get on with living their lives. But war was making monsters of them all.

  39.

  There was no battering down of doors, no yelling as Sofia made her way down the stairs. Anna remained upstairs tidying up the floor beneath the attic area and replacing the ladder in its cupboard. She had only just finished hiding the radio and the pistol for the umpteenth time, each time worrying it might too easily be found. Even if soldiers were to go up to the attic there was too much junk for them to find anything: boxes of clothes, curtains, bedding, crates of old toys, rocking horses, doll’s houses, unwanted paintings, pottery, ornaments, kitchen and dining-room chairs, old tables and other furniture, even some cast-iron bed frames and worn mattresses. Lorenzo’s parents and their parents before them had clearly never thrown anything away.

  ‘Anna,’ Sofia called up the stairs. ‘The door.’

  Sofia was perfectly capable of answering the door, but she wanted to alert Anna in case she hadn’t heard.

  ‘Everything is done,’ Anna whispered as she hurried down. ‘Go to the salon. I’ll answer.’

  ‘Your apron. Look.’

  Her white apron was streaked with black. She tore it off and handed it to Sofia. ‘Take it to the washroom. There’s already a tub full of dirty things soaking. Add it to them. I’ll show them to the salon. When you come up, say you were in the garden.’

  A little later Sofia entered the salon to see Kaufmann standing by the window, gazing down at the Lungarno, the street that ran along the riverbank. He spun round the moment he heard her and then walked towards her briskly. She tried for a smile.

  ‘Major Kaufmann,’ she said as warmly as she could manage. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘Expecting me?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? In the Bardini gardens. You said you might drop by.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘Sorry I was so long coming up. I was in the garden.’r />
  He frowned and his steely blue eyes narrowed very slightly. ‘Hardly the weather for gardening.’

  She waved his comment away. ‘I don’t usually garden. We have people for that. I like to listen to the birds.’

  ‘I thought I overheard you calling the servant to answer the door.’

  She thought quickly as she inclined her head. ‘Indeed, you did. I was on my way to the garden in case there were any early flowers. I do like fresh flowers in a home, don’t you? I didn’t know it was you at the door.’

  ‘And were there any?’

  ‘Any?’

  ‘Flowers.’

  She assumed a look of disappointment. ‘I didn’t really get that far. I came up to the salon when Anna called me. But we usually see crocus, maybe some violets and hyacinths at this time of year. I must admit I haven’t been feeling too well so haven’t been outside as much as usual.’

  He raised his brows as he studied her face. ‘You do look pale. Nothing serious, I hope.’

  She shrugged.

  His stare was imperious and, as she gazed back at him, it was clear from his stance he believed himself invincible.

  ‘To what do I owe the pleasure? You haven’t told me why you’re here.’

  ‘I was simply passing.’

  ‘Ah.’

  A shaft of sunlight brightened the room and Sofia walked over to the window. She looked out to see his men smoking as they waited. ‘The sun has come out,’ she said as an idea came into her mind. ‘How lovely.’

  ‘You are aware of the murder of two of our officers?’

  She still had her back to him, thank goodness, and fought not to tense up her shoulders. There was a horrible moment when she thought she was about to let every detail escape her lips without her permission. That she would tell him about the blood and the ragged cut. Tell him how they had lain in wait. Tell him how she could hardly breathe.