The Liberation

by Kate Furnivall

Leonora was sitting cross-legged on the marble flooring beside Caterina’s table on the terrace, her dark hair cropped much shorter as if in penance. Bianchezza’s head lay across her lap and the girl’s hand gently soothed the dog’s painful ribs.

  ‘She is getting better by the hour,’ Leonora assured Caterina. ‘The vet has given her an injection.’

  ‘So, Signorina Lombardi,’ the Count interrupted, ‘are you here to visit the sick animal or are you here with news for me about my jewelled table?’ He was again swaddled in his pristine white toga under his canopy.

  ‘I am here to thank Leonora.’ Caterina slid to the floor beside the dog and ran her fingers affectionately around its ear. ‘Bianchezza was wonderful,’ she said to her friend, ‘and so were you.’

  Leonora’s pale cheek flushed at the compliment and she raised her glass in a toast. ‘To us,’ she grinned.

  Caterina turned to take her own glass from the chess table and as she did so, from this low angle she caught sight of the underside of her father’s table and her hand froze in mid-air. The maple veneer underneath was wrong. All wrong. The patterns and whorls on its surface did not flow into each other or mirror each other, as they would if veneer had been correctly applied. She opened her mouth to voice her astonishment to the Count, but stopped.

  Her father would never do such shoddy work. It would break his heart. Unless he had a good reason. If he wished to indicate to collectors – or even to Caterina herself – that this exquisite chess table was not right. Telling them to look closer.

  His voice speaking from the grave.

  Without a word Caterina reached into her canvas bag and pulled out the sharp-bladed scorper she kept there now in case a wounded Aldo ever blundered on to her path. The Count cried out at the sight of the tool in her hand, but she sliced the tip of it through the veneer on the underside.

  ‘No,’ the Count shouted in horror and struggled to his feet.

  Strip by strip Caterina peeled back the veneer and suddenly the table top was no longer secure. It was Octavia who lunged at her, but too late. Before she reached her, it was done and Caterina lifted off the table top.

  She heard the gasps and was dimly conscious of voices raised, but all her senses were absorbed by the glorious work of art revealed beneath it. It was the jewelled table. Light and beauty leapt from it with a radiance that made her heart slow. She heard again her father’s voice in her ears. ‘Be patient, my Caterina. Listen to the wood.’

  The scene depicted on the table was the one that had been described to her. The sapphire blue sea lapping around the isle of Capri with the Count’s villa perched on the cliff. It was breathtaking. The inlay work was magical, a master craftsman at the height of his powers, using the finest jewels and exquisite woods to create a work of art that would rival the masterpieces of the ancient world.

  Caterina laid a hand on its glowing surface, and only then did she become aware of the conversation around her on the terrace. The three members of the di Marco family were each claiming ownership.

  ‘How in God’s name did it get here?’ the Count demanded.

  Octavia was kneeling beside the table, her hand, like Caterina’s, unable to resist touching the beauty of it. ‘I brought it here,’ she said, ‘when you were sick in bed with pleurisy two years ago.’

  She spoke to Caterina. ‘Your father had hidden it in the lock-up storeroom, the secret one cut into the hills of Sorrento, but we feared your mother had a key, so we moved everything after your father’s death. But before then I persuaded him to let me keep the table for Italy, instead of giving it to Leonora or to the Count. So he designed a cover for it using our chess table. It was brilliantly conceived and we were grateful to him.’

  ‘We?’ the Count queried. ‘Who are we?’

  ‘Augusta Cavaleri, Maria Bartoli and myself. Though I have no money of my own, I have always supported the partisan resistance.’ She regarded the Count with distaste. ‘Even though you chose to take no part in it all. No part in anything,’ she added with a hint of bitterness. ‘I’d even have taken part in the four-day rebellion battle against the Germans in Naples in 1943, if I’d been a few years younger.’ Her face, usually so impassive, was alight with passion for her cause. ‘All I could do was help supply money for weapons and radios. But we did it. We drove the Germans out of Naples and liberated our city.’

  The Count shook his head in sharp sorrow. ‘More than five hundred were killed in those four days of revolt. And you wonder why I will have nothing to do with the world any more.’ A breeze ruffled his robes and he retreated to his chaise longue once more, deep in the shade.

  ‘You have to choose life,’ Octavia said urgently. ‘Or what is the point of our being here?’

  Leonora regarded her aunt with wide shocked eyes. ‘So why did you keep this table, instead of giving it to the partisans?’

  A trace of Octavia’s old disdain returned to her expression. ‘Because the partisan movement is run by men. And all they want to do is spend it on weapons and bombs. Augusta, Maria and I were preparing for peace. We kept this table to finance the election campaign for the partisan party next year.’ She ran her long-fingered hand lovingly over the emeralds and sapphires that scintillated even in the shade. ‘This table will buy Italy’s future under Palmiro Togliatti.’

  ‘Take it,’ her brother growled. ‘Take the table and be damned. Togliatti is a communist and will bring Italy to its knees before a year is out.’

  Caterina let her fingers caress the table one last time and then she rose to her feet to leave.

  Papà.

  A good and decent man.

  On the front steps of the villa Caterina turned to say goodbye to Octavia. Leonora had remained on the terrace to nurse Bianchezza, but Octavia grasped Caterina’s arm before she could descend the steps. There had grown up between them an unexpected respect.

  ‘What is it?’ Caterina asked.

  ‘It’s Aldo Facchioni.’

  Even now his screech of pain when the sword bit into his flesh would not stop hammering at Caterina’s mind.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

  ‘He is with the Cavaleris. They are hiding him in the shed behind their garage.’

  ‘Ring the police. Quickly. They can . . .’

  ‘No, Caterina.’ Her grip tightened. ‘Don’t. He is dying.’

  ‘Dying?’

  Relief and horror both raced through Caterina together. ‘Tell them to take him to hospital,’ she urged.

  ‘He wants to die with his family.’

  ‘The Cavaleris?’

  Octavia nodded.

  Always there were webs within webs. Paralysing those caught in them.

  ‘Let him die in peace, Caterina.’

  Caterina drew her arm away. ‘It’s over now.’

  ‘So it’s over, Caterina.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s really dead,’

  ‘Yes. Drago Vincelli is dead. No need to be afraid any more.’ Her mother gave a low whistle through her teeth, the kind of harsh sound a barrow-boy would make. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you.’

  ‘You don’t know me, Mamma.’

  They were at the railway station, standing in a waiting room painted an ugly brown. Lucia Lombardi inhaled on her cigarette and regarded her daughter through the drifting veil of smoke. She was wearing what looked like a new eau-de-nil jacket and matching shoes and a ridiculous feathery hat. Caterina wondered who had paid for it all.

  ‘You’re right, sweetheart. I don’t know you.’ She gave an appreciative pout of her lips. ‘Under all the unsightly hair and hideous clothes, you are more like me than I thought.’

  A train growled to a halt at the platform outside the waiting room and grey steam belched from its heaving engine up into the sky, briefly blocking out the sun. Her mother picked up the same brown leather suitcase that had stood by the door eleven years ago, but this time without the scarlet umbrella. Caterina’s stomach lurched.

  Don’t go.

&
nbsp; Her father’s words.

  Stay. Please stay.

  ‘Where will you live in Rome?’

  ‘Oh here and there.’ Lucia Lombardi gave a loose flick of her hand. ‘I know some places.’ She patted her handbag. ‘Now that I have a little cash to keep me going.’ Caterina had given her the other half of Papà’s secret stash. It wasn’t much, but it would keep her for a while until it ran out. What then?

  ‘Will you sing in Rome?’

  ‘Of course. They love me in the clubs.’

  That’s not what she said before, but truth was a movable feast where her mother was concerned. She stubbed out her cigarette and walked out on to the platform.

  ‘Mamma, come and visit us. For Luca’s sake.’

  Her mother turned her blue eyes intently on her daughter, as though she too had heard the same echo that Caterina heard from long years ago. Her carefully painted mouth gave an odd little smile.

  ‘Can’t you bring yourself to ask for your own sake?’ she said and Caterina was back on the stairs of her childhood watching the triangle of light.

  She stepped close to her mother and put her arms around her, inhaling her musky perfume. She kissed her cheek and had to make herself pull away.

  ‘Well,’ her mother looked pleased, ‘what was that for?’

  ‘To thank you for coming back to give me the address of where the Rolls-Royce Phantom was kept. It helped me.’

  The carriage doors were open. People were climbing the steps.

  Don’t go.

  ‘Have a good journey.’

  Lucia Lombardi was eyeing a good-looking man heading for the nearest carriage. ‘I intend to.’

  She was just about to step aboard when Caterina said firmly, ‘Mamma.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘If you don’t come to visit Luca in Sorrento, Luca and I will come to Rome and find you.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come, sweetheart.’ But her attention was already on the good-looking man entering her carriage. She smiled at him and he carried her case on board, talking to her, so she forgot to wave.

  As the door was closing, Caterina called out, ‘Come, Mamma, for my sake,’ and saw her mother stare at her from behind glass.

  The train belched out a bellyful of smoke and the massive wheels started to move, smuts of ash billowing in the air. Caterina hurried alongside the train, moving faster as it picked up speed, then a window lowered and her mother’s face was there with its feathery hat and beguiling smile.

  ‘I’ll send a postcard,’ Lucia Lombardi called out. ‘With my address. I promise.’

  The engine pulled away and Caterina stood on the platform, waving a handkerchief back and forth, faster and faster, until the train was no more than a dot on the horizon. She lowered her hand and walked out of the station, conscious of a lightness in her chest that had not been there before.

  It was time to open the workshop.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  A week later, the Bay of Naples shimmered out towards Torre Annunziata and Salerno, with the islands of Capri and Ischia drifting in and out of the distant blue haze. Caterina and Jake stood side by side. They were looking out to sea, drawing in deep breaths of the clean sparkling air, to rid their lungs of the corruption and canker that had crawled inside them when they were deep in the subterranean world concealed beneath the city.

  The ancient fortress of Castel dell’Ovo reared up on their right and Castel Nuovo on their left, battle-worn monuments to Naples’ violent past. And Caterina knew that the violence still smouldered here among the ruins and the alleyways, like a fire that could never be stamped out. Yet it was a city they both loved and that fact gave Caterina hope when she turned to Jake in his army uniform and asked, ‘Will you stay?’

  His hand brushed along her forearm, his thumb easing its way down the jagged scar of the dog bite. ‘I have to be here to give evidence at Augusta Cavaleri’s trial, just as you will have to. And at our own hearings too, though they have accepted that our actions were in self-defence. So yes, my Caterina, I will stay.’

  That wasn’t what she meant.

  ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Will you stay? Or will you pack up your wood and your dreams and travel to Rome and Paris with your beautiful furniture designs?’ He smiled, and there was laughter in his voice as he added, ‘Or to London? Even New York?’ But the laughter was warm. The laughter told her he believed in her.

  ‘I’ll stay,’ she said simply. ‘If you’re here.’

  She studied his strong hands and watched the way he had of tightening the muscle above one eyebrow when deep in thought, as he was now, and without warning she felt something leap into life inside her. This was the moment to tell him what was in her head.

  ‘Jake,’ she said. The words were rising fast to her tongue but she kept them in check, aware that though Italian blood coursed through his veins, he had been born and bred an American. She chose her next words with care. ‘Jake, Naples needs policemen. Good, trustworthy policemen to help bring honesty and decency into the running of this city after all the Allied troops leave. You speak excellent Italian. With your experience as a police officer in Milwaukee, you would qualify easily.’

  His gaze locked on hers, eyes bright. ‘Me?’ he queried. ‘In that fancy Italian polizia uniform?’

  He raised one eyebrow, teasing her, and she burst into laughter, fighting back the desire to wrap her arms around his waist and hold him here in Italy. In the harbour, troopships were being loaded for the journey home. Cranes swung jeeps up into the air like clumsy metal birds and men in uniform yelled instructions, eager to be on their way back to their loved ones.

  Jake wrapped an arm around her shoulder and held her tight against him, and she felt the connection at some deep level. His dark eyes still gazed out to sea and she wondered what he was seeing there.

  ‘Think about it, Jake,’ she murmured.

  ‘I love you, Caterina,’ he said. ‘And I love Italy. Far too much ever to leave either of you.’ He turned and looked at her, eyes full of things she couldn’t know but things that she would discover in time. So much was still unsaid, and she felt no need to say it. Not now. For now she stood beside Jake and accepted the simple pleasure of breathing the same good clean air he was breathing.

  She loved him. That was enough. The future for Italy was a slippery road that shimmered as brightly as the Bay of Naples itself, and yes, it would be rough and chaotic and even dangerous at times. After all, this was Italy. But Caterina intended to take her music boxes and her designs in a strong sack on her shoulder and walk along that road.

  Acknowledgements

  People say that writing is a solitary occupation but they’re wrong. I am surrounded by a whole team of wonderful supporters who keep me getting out of bed each morning with a pen in my hand and I owe them all a great debt.

  I want to thank my wonderful new publisher, Jo Dickinson, and all the fantastic team at Simon & Schuster. Your belief in me and this book got me over the yawning chasm at dark moments and safely into the sunny uplands of a final draft.

  Huge thanks also to my brilliant incomparable agent, Teresa Chris, who is both inspiring and inspired.

  I am also grateful to Marian Churchward for her winning ways with a keyboard and her constant good cheer, even at absurd hours in the morning.

  Thanks also to Brixham Writers and David Gilman for keeping me afloat with life-rafts of wise advice, tea and biscuits.

  And as always, my warmest thanks to Norman for understanding the weird life of a writer and offering love, chocolate and darn good ideas for filling in plot holes.

  My thanks to you all.

  Kate Furnivall was born in Wales and studied English at London University. She worked in publishing and then moved to TV advertising, where she met her husband.

  In 2000, Kate decided to write her mother’s extraordinary story of growing up in Russia, China and India, and this became The Russian Concubine, which was a New York Times bestseller. All her books since then have had a
n exotic setting and Kate has travelled widely for her research. She now has two sons and lives with her husband by the sea in Devon.

  Visit Kate’s website at www.katefurnivall.com

  Also by Kate Furnivall

  The Russian Concubine

  Under a Blood Red Sky

  The Concubine’s Secret

  The Jewel of St Petersburg

  The White Pearl

  Shadows on the Nile

  The Far Side of the Sun

  The Italian Wife

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2016

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Kate Furnivall, 2016

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  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-5555-0

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-5556-7

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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