The Liberation

by Kate Furnivall

  Caterina muttered a curse under her breath at the memory of how the German troops had trapped a group of partisan fighters here in Sorrento and gunned them down in the street outside the pastry shop. The bullet holes were still there in the wall. She shook her head and set to work, starting with stringing.

  Stringing was a technique of wood-inlay that involved laying ribbons of contrasting veneer in a decorative design that was inset into a wooden object or piece of furniture. It was a process that Caterina particularly enjoyed. It took precision and a steady hand because the strings of veneer were fragile and could snap all too easily. She had selected a pale satinwood for the string on the lid of the jewellery box and took a sheet of it over to her workbench. She laid it tight against a fixed board to keep it stable and proceeded to cut a two-metre-long ribbon off the veneer using a slicing-gauge. She had just inserted the fine end of the ribbon into a thicknessing gauge to ensure the ribbon was a constant width and depth, when her concentration was suddenly broken.

  Caterina felt a flicker of annoyance. The throaty growl of a motorcycle engine was making its way up the street towards her. Since American troops had taken over Sorrento’s best hotels, the raucous noise of motorcycles and jeeps and huge Dodge trucks forever flooded the town, the soldiers spending freely in the cafés and shops. But they didn’t often come all the way up this end of town and rarely this early in the morning.

  The motorcycle was close and travelling slowly. It drew to a halt right outside her workshop. The door stood open a crack to let fresh air in and wood-dust out, so that a blade of sunlight had squeezed through on to the flagstone floor. The motorcycle gave one final harsh bark and lapsed into silence. Abruptly the blade of sunlight vanished and a tall figure in uniform stood in her doorway.

  ‘Buongiorno, Signorina Lombardi.’

  ‘Buongiorno, Major Parr.’

  It was the American, the one who spoke Italian like an Italian, the one with dark eyes that looked as though he expected her to pull a gun on him and shoot him in the chest.

  ‘This is rather early to come calling,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I knew you’d be an early bird.’ He opened the door wider and gave her a polite smile that softened his strong features no more than a fraction. ‘May I come in?’

  He stood in the middle of the spotless floor and inspected the workshop for so long that Caterina gave up waiting for him to finish and went back to threading the string of satinwood through the thicknessing gauge. He was the kind of man who did things at his own pace. Well, that was fine with her as long as he didn’t stop her working. She could, of course, ask him why he was here but she didn’t. Stubbornness, her father would have called it, pig-headed stubbornness. But it was the same stubbornness that had made her the only female wood-inlay worker in a town where male wood-inlay workers were thick on the ground.

  ‘No, Caterina, no, it’s not a job that women ever do. It’s just for men,’ her mother had insisted with a dismissive flick of her fingers when Caterina asked to be trained into the family business. ‘For God’s sake, child, have some pride in yourself! Don’t be a donkey all your life.’

  A donkey.

  Caterina balanced the satinwood strip in her hands and took a good look at the American studying her wall of tools. Why was he here? He wore no cap, his dark hair tangled by the motorbike ride, and his US officer’s uniform sat easily on his broad frame, as if it paired well with something inside him. His eyes were more deep-set than she remembered, not as impatient as last time, as his gaze took in the regimented rows of tools. Each handle faced the same way, each blade was polished and sharpened to perfection. No dust. No rust.

  Was he considering what kind of person she was?

  She looked away from the wall. ‘How did you find me?’ she asked.

  His mouth twitched briefly as though tempted to smile. ‘I’m an Intelligence Officer, remember? I get paid to know how to find things.’

  She gave a small laugh. ‘War,’ she commented, ‘makes hunting dogs of men. They like to catch and kill.’

  He glanced up quickly. ‘I’m not hunting you, Signorina Lombardi.’

  ‘Aren’t you? It feels like it.’

  ‘Of course not. In Naples you mentioned your mother’s surname – Lombardi – and that you lived in Sorrento.’ He shrugged, but there was nothing casual about it. ‘It wasn’t that hard to find you.’

  ‘And why would you want to do that?’ She faced him squarely. ‘Not to admire my tools, I’m certain.’

  ‘No.’

  The sharpness of his answer increased her unease. She turned away and ran the ribbon of veneer through the thicknessing gauge, making several passes to shave off a millimetre of its width. Her experienced eye could judge when it was the exact measurement she required and the familiar rhythm of the action calmed her.

  ‘I’m here to ask a few questions of your father,’ he said.

  Her hands didn’t falter as they removed the string of veneer and picked up the lid of the box.

  ‘Is Signor Lombardi here?’ Major Parr pressed her. He looked expectantly towards the rear door that led into the tiny kitchenette.

  So that was why he was here. Well, Major, you’re in for a very long wait. She set about carving out a channel around the edge of the walnut lid, the teeth of the gouger cutting a straight line scarcely deeper than the satinwood string. It was delicate work but it came to her as naturally as breathing.

  ‘Signorina?’

  Caterina looked up. He had moved closer. She could see the dust that coated his black eyelashes despite the goggles he must have worn.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is Signor Lombardi here? Yesterday you claimed that he made your boxes.’

  ‘I lied.’

  ‘Why would you lie about a thing like that?’

  ‘If I’d told you the truth, that I made the boxes myself, not a master craftsman, you and your men would have thought less of them and paid less for them.’ She saw his eyes widen with surprise. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

  He gave a brief nod. ‘Yes, it’s true.’

  ‘But the boxes are good enough to be the work of a master craftsman. Admit that.’

  He paused and for a moment she thought he would deny it, but he nodded again. ‘You’re right. The workmanship is beautiful.’ His eyes lingered on her hands, but he switched his attention back to the door of the kitchenette once more, losing interest in her lies. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Who?’

  He frowned. ‘Your father.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where can I find him?’

  Caterina waved a hand towards a photograph in an ebony frame that hung on the wall right next to the scannella where she sat for hour after hour each day, cutting out the inlay sections.

  ‘There. That’s Papà.’

  He strode over and pushed his face towards the picture in the frame. He studied the heavy-jawed laughing face closely.

  ‘Where is he?’

  His voice had an edge to it now, as sharp as her gouging blade.

  ‘Papà is dead.’

  Grief seeped into her words, despite all her efforts. She couldn’t hold it back, couldn’t stem its flow at the mention of the death of her father. It was private grief, not meant for this soldier’s ears, so she turned quickly away and picked up an exactor. With rapid flicks of her wrist she started to clean out the channel, removing wood flakes to leave a crisp groove in which to inset the inlay strip. She reached for a large syringe of yellow fish glue.

  ‘Signorina.’

  Still she didn’t look at him, but bent over her workbench and placed several beads of glue along the channel.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘for the loss of your father. How did Signor Lombardi die?’

  ‘One of your American bombs, Major Parr. Two years ago.’ She slid the satinwood string into the groove and snipped off the end with a chisel. She did not let her hands shake, not in front of this soldier. ‘It fell on his workshop and he died in the explosion
and the fire that followed.’

  A silence seeped into the room and she could hear laboured breathing. She thought it was his, until she realised with shock that it was her own.

  ‘What are you here for, Major? Why did you want to speak to my father?’

  ‘Because I have some questions for him.’

  ‘Then ask me. I now run the Lombardi business.’

  ‘Very well, Signorina. The first question is this: is it true your father was a thief?’

  His words stunned her. Her head whipped up. The American officer was watching her intently, everything about him alert, his eyes fixed on hers. She strode immediately to the door and yanked it wide open.

  ‘Get out,’ she ordered.

  ‘First I would like us to talk about . . .’

  ‘How dare you? My father was a good, honest and trustworthy man all his life. He was respected in the community, elected on to councils, his word stood for something in this town. Antonio Lombardi was not a thief.’

  Caterina could feel her blood pulsing in her cheeks and hear her voice rising in anger. She found the chisel still gripped in her hand and she pointed it straight at the soldier.

  ‘Get out of here!’

  He approached her slowly, the way he would a spooked horse, and stood unblinking in front of her, the buttons of his crisp buff shirt only a hand’s breadth from the point of the chisel.

  ‘Talk to me,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I will get my grandfather’s gun to talk to you,’ she hissed.

  He gave her a joyless smile. ‘It will make it easier for both of us in the long run if you listen to what I have to say.’

  ‘There is nothing you have to say that I want to listen to, Major Intelligence Officer. How dare you barge in here and blacken my father’s name? In America, maybe a good name counts for nothing, but let me tell you that here in Italy a man’s good name means everything.’ She stepped forward and jabbed the tip of the chisel against one of his buttons. ‘Here in Campania, men have been killed for less.’

  She heard his quick breath.

  ‘When everything is stripped away,’ she told him, ‘a man’s good name – or a woman’s – is all that is left to them.’

  ‘In which case, all the more reason for you to talk to me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, if you are not willing to answer my questions about your father,’ he gestured towards the street, ‘I will have to go out there and speak to others who are prepared to answer them.’

  It was said reasonably. Almost apologetically. It was not said as a threat, but still it sounded like one.

  The kitchenette was too small for him. His voice rebounded off the walls and his words were too big to fit inside it. Major Parr had brought coffee, and he made a cup for each of them but she would not touch his thirty pieces of silver, not even when he placed the steaming cup in her hand and its aroma beguiled her starved senses.

  He placed himself between her and the door, as though he feared she might bolt, but she had no intention of doing so. She might throw her coffee over his clean shirt but she wouldn’t run. To remove temptation, she folded her arms across her thin body.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked bluntly.

  ‘I am stationed with my unit in Naples. If you wish to confirm that fact, you can speak to Colonel Quincy at . . .’

  ‘What unit?’

  ‘A special Intelligence Unit appointed by the government of my country in collaboration with your country and Britain. We are working together on this.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On tracking down artefacts stolen from the Museum of Naples and from the churches and the many old palazzos that were bombed or just abandoned when their owners fled.’

  ‘Artefacts? You mean ancient marble statues?’

  ‘Yes, among other things.’

  ‘You’ve made a mistake,’ Caterina said and unlocked her arms. ‘My father had no interest at all in old statues.’

  ‘Not statues, maybe.’ He left a pause for her to leap into but she kept her mouth shut. ‘Antique furniture perhaps?’

  ‘You’ve made a mistake,’ she repeated.

  He was good at watching, this Major Parr. Good at listening. She saw in the faint tightening of the muscles around his dark eyes that he had heard the whisper of sudden uncertainty in her voice.

  ‘My father was not a thief,’ she declared. ‘If you have heard otherwise, they are lies. What proof do you have?’

  He smiled and it made her feel a whole lot worse.

  ‘Well, there you have me, signorina. The truth is that proof is a bit thin on the ground. When I heard you say in Naples that your father was a master craftsman and that his name was Lombardi, I came out here to question him. To discover the truth. But . . .’ his gaze drifted to her hands and she remembered the chisel she had pointed at him, ‘I am too late.’

  ‘His death is recorded in the town’s register. Go take a look for yourself if you want proof.’

  ‘I will.’

  There was something about this man, about the stillness of him, about the straightness of him that made her unable to fathom what was going on behind his cool eyes. She looked briefly at her coffee growing cold but made herself ignore it.

  ‘What makes you think my father was involved in those thefts?’ Her tone was brisk now. She wanted him gone.

  He leaned a shoulder against the wall and she knew whatever he was going to say would be bad. Were all Milwaukee men like this, taciturn and watchful? And where on earth was Milwaukee anyway? Somewhere in the middle of America, she thought, maybe somewhere cold where ice froze the heart.

  ‘Antonio Lombardi’s name kept cropping up in my investigations in Naples. The more people I questioned, the more I heard his name.’

  Caterina shook her head vehemently. ‘My father would never have been involved in theft. Believe me. I knew him, you didn’t.’

  For the first time since this American soldier had set foot in her workshop, stirring up her life, she saw a flicker of doubt in him, a faint fear that he may be wrong. It made him uneasy and his manner became stiffer, his eyes sharper.

  ‘Did you ever see any antique furniture in his workshop, pieces that he was repairing perhaps?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he go to Naples often?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he talk about what might be happening to the priceless antiques in the great houses of Naples? Did he wonder what steps were being taken to protect them?’

  ‘No. Major Parr, it may seem strange to an American, but here in Italy it was the lives being destroyed by your bombs that we worried about, not the furniture.’

  He blinked. Taken by surprise. ‘Of course. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.’

  She stared at him long enough to be rude, but passed no comment. He put down his coffee cup and faced her squarely. His eyes looked weary.

  ‘It was war,’ he said. ‘Italy and Mussolini sided with Germany, so your country brought the bombing on itself. I saw many of my friends and comrades killed during the fighting, terrible bloody deaths of fine young men who came all the way from America to free the people of Italy from the stranglehold of Fascists and Nazis. It was war,’ he said again, his voice so quiet that the small room seemed to fit tighter around them and Caterina snatched a breath in case the air was sucked out.

  ‘The war is over,’ she reminded him. ‘But still we are fighting to survive.’

  ‘America is helping Italy to start again. So I’m asking you to help me, Signorina Lombardi.’ He gave her something approaching a smile and it briefly touched his eyes. ‘Where is your father’s workshop, the one that was bombed?’

  ‘In Via Caldoni. You can’t miss it. It’s still just a heap of rubble. You go past . . .’ She paused. Thought again. She couldn’t let this American’s boots trample over her father’s workshop alone.

  ‘I’ll take you there,’ she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Caterina couldn’t look
at it. Even now, two years later, she could not look at the broken remains of her childhood, because that’s what the workshop had been to her – the place where she was happy. All the good things in her life had happened there and at the centre of them all was her father. Her father and his wood. She found herself a spot in a patch of shade out of the morning heat and leaned her back against the wall of the neighbouring building that had been damaged by the bomb but was still standing drunkenly.

  She could hear Major Parr scrambling through the fire-blackened remains of the workshop, turning over stones with his boot, pushing aside weeds and raking through dirt. He was thorough. He took his time, but Caterina did not watch. She observed the street instead with its bustle and its noise and a woman waved to her from a window across the street, old Signora Addario with the glass eye. The Rocco brothers, two card-playing hard-drinking amicos of her father’s, walked past with a rolled carpet over their shoulders. She didn’t ask where it came from, but they kissed her warmly and invited her to join them for a coffee which she knew would be half sawdust. She thanked them, inhaled their familiar ferocious garlic odour and declined.

  ‘I have to stand guard,’ she told them.

  They understood. The older brother made a rude gesture to the American officer whose back was turned and all three of them laughed, but even that didn’t blunt the rasp of her father’s saw in her ears or the echo of his deep bass voice carving a path through the Te Deum from Tosca. The brothers ambled off with their carpet and she continued her vigil alone in the shade.

  ‘Tell me what happened that day.’

  The American lit a cigarette, handed it to Caterina and lit one for himself. Her patch of shade had melted away by the time he had finished poking around among the broken stones and startled lizards. She accepted the cigarette and narrowed her eyes against the glare of the sun. His expression was sombre, and dirt coated his army trousers below the knee. His hands were filthy, large and muscular, and he had a smear of black soot streaked across his forehead where he had brushed back his hair with . . . with what? With frustration? Impatience? Despair? Or was it anger?