by David Hewson
‘I am involved. We all are.’
She shook his jacket.
‘Did you hear me? One of theirs is dead. They’ll shoot ten of ours, maybe more, to get their vengeance. You must convince that pair to give themselves up and save some innocents.’
His face flushed.
‘I can’t do that. You know I can’t.’
‘Then tell them to go!’
‘Go where?’
‘Wherever! They’re not your responsibility.’
‘They’re my guests.’
She closed her eyes for a moment.
‘If you don’t get rid of them you’ll end up standing in front of the firing squad by their side.’
That thought had already crossed his mind.
‘Then I’d die like a soldier.’
‘But you’re not a soldier, are you?’ she cried. ‘Come with me. Walk where I walk.’
Filippo Garzone spent the night alone in a small room on the ground floor of Ca’ Loretti. There was a single window high in the wall, a table and two chairs. The walls were bare apart from a two-year-old poster for a Fascist meeting in Mestre. Once it must have been the office of some minor council official. He’d been in the building before the war when Mussolini’s bureaucrats used it as their base though for what he couldn’t remember. Probably asking for some impoverished local to be excused their taxes or begging for repairs to the rough streets around San Pietro. Life back then had been filled with such mundanities. How they were missed now.
There was no food, no water. But no handcuffs either and the Germans hadn’t beaten him. Judging by the shrieks and shouts from the neighbouring rooms that was soon to come. Yet still he found it impossible to pray. His head was full of memories. Old ones, growing up in Vicenza with his loving, gentle parents. Later, finding his feet at the seminary. Coming to Venice and marvelling at the city, its richness, the peculiar nature of its inhabitants, cold and suspicious at first, filled with a genuine selfless warmth, most anyway, once he got to know them.
Then Mussolini’s harsh, dictatorial rule – which many never minded so much until, by slow but steady degrees, the cruelty and the bitterness came, both never Italian traits. The Jews were picked on. Dissenting voices were exiled to the far south to work in the countryside, among people they didn’t know. Fear crept through streets and factories, schools and hospitals. Loud, discordant voices – which Italians took for granted since everyone loved an argument – fell silent. People were waiting, wondering. Then it came, war. It seemed to him now an inevitability, like a change in the season, winter following autumn. Before anyone was ready, men who would otherwise have fished the lagoon or carried bags for wealthy foreigners appeared in military uniforms and vanished amidst forced cheering, to front lines in Africa and beyond. A good number never returned. Those who did were utterly changed.
Some aspects of this new Italy were amorphous and affected the nation as a whole. Others were small and personal and hurt like a pebble in the shoe or a scabby wound that refused to heal. Such as bullying a young and innocent man, an orphan, almost a boy still, barely able to look after himself, persuading him to accept two fugitive partisans into his isolated, lonely home. Though he wasn’t sure the Paolo Uccello he met the day before, determined, unwilling to look him in the eye, was that same fellow. Sometimes it took a lifetime for people to change. On occasion, in extraordinary circumstances, it could happen in a week, a day, an hour.
He would not, he swore, offer up Uccello and those two Jews. Whatever they did to him. When Diamante and he had spoken in the cafe outside Zanipolo both had wondered what torture might do to a man. Garzone, someone who hated pain and suffering in himself as much as others, feared he’d fail, however hard he thought about all those revered martyrs whose deaths lined the walls of every church he’d ever visited. They went to heaven with an angel standing over them, holding out a palm leaf to welcome their holy deaths. But that was the pretty picture the Church wished to paint for its flock. There were no angels around Ca’ Loretti. The palms he’d seen in the courtyard as they dragged him inside were mean and scrubby things. Among them stood stakes hammered between the cobbles with the obvious marks of bullets scarring the sooty brickwork behind.
‘I will give up no one,’ Filippo Garzone said out loud as the door opened. ‘Hear me now. Whatever you do. I will give up no one.’
‘Buon giorno,’ replied a man with a familiar Venetian voice.
Luca Alberti walked in on his own, closed the door behind him, took a seat at the table. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.
‘You might have offered me a smoke,’ the priest said.
‘Do you know how much these things cost?’
‘No. I … don’t use them. I thought you might wish to be polite.’
Alberti appeared troubled. Not just on edge the way he always seemed when there were Germans around listening to his every word. Garzone felt he was good at looking into men’s eyes. You didn’t always work out what was wrong there. But at least you recognized the signs.
‘I always hated church,’ Alberti said. ‘Too hot in summer. Too cold in winter. Damned sermons going on forever and never making any sense.’
‘I doubt I’ll be giving any more, will I?’
He leaned forward, blew smoke across the table.
‘We’ve only got a few minutes, Father. Then they’re in here. Do as I say and you might get out of this place alive.’
Sleep hadn’t been easy for Mika Artom. Or her brother who kept wriggling and sighing beside her on the bed. Maybe an hour or two was the most she got and they were interrupted by dreadful, vivid memories. The lout Sander grabbing at her. The way he’d bled. The noise he made as he died.
Out in the mountains, patrolling with the partisans on their raids, she’d killed three Germans and one Italian, wounded a few more. But always from a distance. It was safer that way. The one time they got close on that last abortive mission Vanni had picked up the injury from a soldier’s bayonet. Getting close was more than dangerous too. You saw their eyes. You were aware for a moment of the spark of humanity inside them, however dim.
Was it there in the German? Maybe somewhere. But the war was raging through her blood, hot and angry and vengeful. Trevisan and his comrades were being ripped to pieces by machine-gun fire outside the Gioconda. The raid had been betrayed by a woman the dead all trusted. The German would have raped her, then handed her straight over for interrogation once he was done. After that the inevitable. There was no choice. She didn’t regret a thing. Still the images, the sounds, the hard brutality came back to taunt her. And the simple fact she’d wanted that, enjoyed every second.
From the bed, propped against the pillow, hands behind his head, Vanni watched her dress: the clothes she came in. Old shirt, wool jacket, mountain trousers with pockets for weapons, a knife, ammunition. The compass she’d used out in the wilds was still there. As if she needed one now. Everything looked poor, worn, a little dirty and it felt right too. This was who she was. Not a pretend-whore in a scarlet dress. Had she the opportunity she’d have found some way to wash the blonde dye out of her hair. But time was running out. So she found her old wool cap, then Sander’s gun, checked the magazine: six shells.
‘Mika. Is there any point in me asking what you’re going to do?’
‘You can always ask.’
‘I did.’
She came and sat next to him, smiled, put a hand to his leg. The livid redness was going down but slowly.
‘When will I be able to walk? Normally?’
‘A few weeks. Hide out somewhere with your friend. This isn’t your time. It’s mine.’
His eyes had that sheen she hated to see. There was a gentleness inside him Mika tried so hard to ignore at times. But it was impossible. For him the battle was intellectual. Something he’d prefer to wage with words, not weapons. In that way they were so unlike.
‘It’s not safe here,’ he said. ‘Someone’s bound to talk. Maybe they have already.’
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‘Then … find somewhere else.’
‘You’re my sister. I want you with me. With us.’
Mika raised an eyebrow.
‘Us? I barely know him. He’s a kid.’
‘I think maybe we robbed him of that. There’s a strength in him. A decency. You’ve seen it.’
‘Decency gets you killed.’ She gripped his arm. ‘Look. I have to go. You hide here. Steal a boat when it’s dark. There’s plenty round the corner. Go out to the islands and find a cabin somewhere. Just the two of you. Steal. Live off the land. Be patient.’
‘Why can’t you wait too?’
‘Because …’ It was a good question and deserved a better answer. ‘Because there’s something I need to do.’
Her hands came away. She retrieved the gun from the pocket of her trousers, looked at it, put the thing away.
‘I know where Salvatore Bruno may be right now.’
He said nothing.
‘Did you hear me, Vanni? The man who betrayed us. So many innocents. Our family. The man who’s going to send so many more to their deaths.’
‘I heard.’
‘I think I can find him. If I can then I can kill him.’
He rolled his legs off the bed and sat on the sheets, trying to hide the pain.
‘Let me come with you.’
‘You’re in no fit state.’
‘I can handle a gun.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake don’t be so stupid! Look at you. I don’t have time for an invalid. I don’t …’
She stopped. That was enough.
‘And if I could walk—’
‘Then I still wouldn’t want you. This is one man. It doesn’t need an army. He’s my prize. I’ve earned him. I’m not prepared to share.’
He hobbled off the sheets, grimacing as his feet hit the cold tiles.
Mika came and held him, head against his bare chest, for once struggling for the right words.
‘We were happy in Turin,’ he murmured into her hair.
They were, she thought. Mum and Dad, three kids. A good school though she sometimes had to take on a few of the older boys when they began picking on Vanni because he was a Jew. The darkness was always there, waiting to fall.
‘They stole that from us too,’ she whispered close up, enjoying the warmth of him, that fuggy brother smell he had.
‘Mika. We’re still family even if it’s just the two of us. We can steal that boat together. Paolo can come along if he wants. If not … I’m with you. You’re my sister. My blood.’ He pushed her back from him, took her by the shoulders. ‘We can do this. Together. We have to …’
She smiled. She kissed his cheek, brushed against him and knew he’d feel her tears.
It took a while but then she said, ‘Stop making this so hard.’
For once he sounded cross.
‘I want to. I have to.’
‘I know where I can find Salvatore Bruno. The Jew hunter. The one who killed Mum and Dad. And all the others.’
He sighed.
‘And if he ends up killing you.’
‘He won’t. I saw him last night. He’s just a creep. A spy. A traitor. Not a soldier.’
‘You don’t need to do this—’
‘God, Vanni! What are you saying? Of course I’ve got to do it. Who else is there? If I don’t he leaves here, goes back to tracking us down and handing us over to the Nazis. Who else? Please …’ She was crying freely and she wished she wasn’t. ‘Don’t tell me I shouldn’t do it. Send me out of here with your blessing.’
‘And if I do that … you’ll come back. We’ll find that boat together.’
She wiped her face.
‘Yes. I promise. We’ll sail away. Somewhere they’ll never find us. You, me, Paolo. The three of us can wait things out. See what happens.’
Vanni Artom kept quiet. His face wasn’t made for misery. Any more than he was made for war.
‘You’re my kid brother,’ she said. ‘I’ll always come back to look after you.’
Funny, she thought, how easy it was for two people so close to one another to lie with such glib and shallow ease. And both know it.
She kissed him and asked, ‘Where’s he now?’
‘I don’t know. I heard him go out. For food I think. He’s been gone a long time. I’m worried.’
‘You worry enough for all of us. Stay here. I’ll be back. We’ll survive this. Just like we got through everything before.’
He followed her into the kitchen and opened the door on to the rock ledge.
The winter sun was so low and harsh it hurt his eyes.
‘You look like the old Mika,’ he said. ‘The one we left in the mountains. You look … happy.’
That got a grin and she made a pretend gun with her hand, mouthed a pretend shot, blew away pretend smoke from the barrel like a cowboy in one of the films they used to watch in the cinema in Turin as kids. Until the Jews weren’t allowed past the door.
‘Happier still in a little while,’ she told him as she left.
It was the kind of winter day Paolo’s mother used to love. Washed out colours, sparkling light. Venice in the guise of a daydream painted by that English artist she so admired, Turner. Though grey clouds were gathering, starting to build from the mainland, tumbling down from the Dolomites. Snow was on the way, probably soon.
Chiara made him stay to her right as they walked down the broad street, on the opposite side to Greta’s cafe. The bar was normally full of locals at this time of morning, busily downing coffee and cheap grappa. Now German soldiers lounged by the door cradling their weapons while others, men in dark suits, crowded inside.
‘Don’t make it obvious you’re looking,’ she ordered. ‘Keep walking.’
There were more soldiers outside Gallo’s shop and the sharp, high screams of a woman wailing. Chiara took him into the alley opposite so they could watch unseen. The cries, he guessed, were coming from the man’s wife who stood outside shrieking at the Germans. Then the little grocer came out, arms behind his back, mouth bleeding, head down, pushed into the street by a couple of Crucchi troops.
They could hear his wife’s voice over the stamp of boots.
‘He’s done nothing. Signori. Signori. He’s a good man. A loving father. He’s done nothing.’
Paolo thought, Doing nothing’s the same as doing something in times like this. There was no place to hide. No way of pretending you were innocent when they came for you. Garzone had simply begged him to pass on food and money to Paolo every time he came into the shop.
‘Gallo doesn’t know who I am,’ he whispered. ‘He doesn’t know where I live. Garzone arranged things that way.’
‘I told you,’ she shot back. ‘The priest’s in their hands too.’
One of the soldiers fetched Gallo a hefty smack in the back with the butt of his rifle. The wife screamed again and got knocked to the ground. A group of locals had emerged from the alleys that led to the meaner terraces near the abandoned Biennale gardens. A few were throwing insults at the Crucchi. Most simply watched.
Chiara swore then, a vile, local curse. One he’d never heard before.
‘You never should have taken that pair in.’
‘My father never should have agreed to make those banners for a bunch of Fascists. But he did. And we made them. You and me. And Vanni. We got paid too.’
It was rare for them to share such cross words.
‘I came out for food,’ he added. ‘Where’s safe?’
‘There’s a question.’
‘You can help me or I can do this myself.’
She said there was a place in the Campo Vittorio on Sant’Elena, the last island along, beyond the Biennale. It was too dangerous to go the other way, by the Arsenale which was crawling with Crucchi troops.
‘You want me to come with you?’
Across the street soldiers were dragging filing cabinets from Gallo’s store. A bunch of locals had surrounded the grocer’s wife to stop the others hitting her. The woman
was red-faced on the ground, beating the frozen cobbles with her bloody hands. One of the troops raised his rifle, pointed it straight at her. A man in a fisherman’s jacket walked right in front to get in the way. A standoff. After a brief shouted argument a couple of women hauled the wife off the ground, took her in their arms and walked her down the street.
‘Sant’Elena’s too far,’ he said. ‘I’m going home. We can … we can make do till it’s safe.’ He corrected himself. ‘Safer.’
‘Paolo. Please, listen to me now …’ In his head he could see her teaching Vanni the ways of the Jacquard loom like this. ‘I told your mother I’d look after you. If anything happened to them. I promised …’
‘So you said. A million times. You did look after me. When I needed it.’
In the damp, malodorous shadows of the hidden alley they embraced.
He was about to step back into via Garibaldi when she pulled him to her.
‘This way,’ she said, pointing into the darkness. ‘I can take you home and none will see.’
Ten minutes later, along a circuitous route he felt sure he could never find again, they emerged close to the Rio di San Daniele by the Arsenale’s eastern edge. Two minutes from home. He embraced her again, said something about how she shouldn’t worry. They would survive this somehow. They’d see the war through.
‘Are you taking the boat to Burano?’ he asked.
‘Soon.’
He wasn’t going to get a straight answer to that one. So they said goodbye and he walked back to the little wooden bridge, unlocked the door, closed it securely behind him as always, and walked through the garden.
Vanni sat at the kitchen table picking sardines out of a can with a fork.
‘Where is she? Where’s Mika?’ Paolo asked.
‘You should know my sister by now.’ He lumbered to his feet. Blood was dripping through the fabric of his pyjama trousers again. ‘I couldn’t stop her. I tried.’ He grimaced. Whether it was pain from the wound or the memory Paolo couldn’t guess. ‘Dammit. Ah …’
There was a long groan as he tried to walk for the door.
‘I have to get out of here.’