‘Get her to do that for me, would you? Aunt Lami, tell her I’m in a fix, you know. Talk her round, the way only you can, there’s a sweetheart. I tried calling her but—’
‘Amelia, I’m sorry but I can’t—’
‘You can’t?’
‘The thing is I won’t be—’
‘You won’t?’
‘No, what I mean is. Amelia - are you still there?’ Bella asks after a few silent seconds.
‘Lemme get this clear in my mind - did you just say you won’t? Is that what you just said?’
‘You see, the problem is—’
‘The problem is?’
‘It’s just not possible.’
Bella listens for a moment to the sounds of Amelia organizing a cigarette: click, suck and blow. Then as if the cigarette has sobered her up, her voice returns almost clear and certainly cold. ‘Now you listen to me, Miss Stuart.’
‘I am listening, Amelia, if you’d just let me explain.’
‘Do you have any idea what could happen to me here? I’ve lost my papers - don’t you see? They were stolen actually, if you must know. Without papers I could be goddamn anyone. I could be a fucking Jew. Do you know what’s happening to Jews right now in Vienna? Let me speak with Edward.’
‘You don’t understand, Amelia.’
‘What I don’t understand, Miss Stuart, is just who the hell you think you are?’
‘Amelia, please.’
‘You know something - I’m really not all that surprised if it comes to it. I mean, you’ve pretty much always had it in for me. Always been something of a bitch quite frankly. Oh sure, you’re all sweetie-pie and shiny-shoes when it suits you, but you’ve never fooled me, you know. She’s warned you off, hasn’t she? Your precious Sig-nora. She’s told you to say you don’t know where she is. Well, you go tell her from me that if she doesn’t help me, she’ll be sorrier than she knows how. Because I have the read on her. And I know.’
‘You know what, Amelia?’
‘I know what she’s been taking out of Germany and Italy. Drip, drip, drip. And you can tell her from me that’s my uncle’s money. Money she no longer has any right to, by the way. You tell her that now. You go tell her that right now, from me.’
‘I promise, she really isn’t here.’
‘Let me speak with Edward.’
‘Amelia, I’m simply trying to—’
‘I want Edward - are you deaf as well as dumb?’
‘Please, if you would just listen—’ but then Edward is beside her pulling the phone from her hand.
‘Ah, Amelia,’ he says. ‘Yes, it’s me, yes, indeed. Oh dear, dear, how terrible. I see, yes. Do you know - she’s not here - oh, but let’s not talk about her. I can help you just as well. Now, where are you staying? Well, that’s not too bad, eh, that’s hardly a prison cell now, is it? From what I hear that’s the best in Vienna. But didn’t you have to leave your papers at reception when you checked in? Oh I see, you took them back when you went to the bank. Well, did you go back to the bank and see if you’d left them there? Ah, a nightclub. Yes, well I agree, they’re most likely gone. Never mind, we’ll sort it all out. Yes, of course we will. Now what I want you to do - listen to me, Amelia, are you listening? Go back to the hotel. Oh, you’re there now - excellent. Well, I want you to go to your room. Yes now. No, don’t even say goodnight to your lovely friends, just go to your room. I’m sure they are, yes. We’ll get you out of there before you know it. Now, it could take a few days. That’s right, right, right. Just stay put, have them send whatever you want up to the room. Me? Well, you wouldn’t know, Amelia, I might very well do. Yes, I’m sure I would love it there. Yes. Splendid. Now what room, did you say? Oh now, Amelia, let’s concentrate on one thing at a time, eh? Up to bed with you now. Well yes, that is a shame. I’ll get onto it straight away. Promise, absolutely. Don’t worry about the Signora, I’ll organize everything. Goodbye. Yes. I won’t let you down. Night night. You too, you too.’ He puts down the phone. ‘She was on far too long - I hope no one was listening in.’
‘What’s happened?’ Bella asks.
‘Do you have an address for Grace? Write it down for me, would you? I’ll be back soon.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To send a telegram.’
‘But what about Amelia?’
‘Don’t you think we’ve enough to worry about? I’ll send a telegram, her father can rescue her.’
‘But what did she say?’
‘She’s lost her papers, has no money, Tassi’s office has been refusing to accept her calls - I think we should do the same from now on. Oh, and she’s keeping the bed warm for me.’
Bella and Edward look at each other and laugh. Elida tuts and closes her eyes in disgust. Then Edward says, ‘I was thinking maybe I’ll move into the house, for a night or so, until the Signora shows up at any rate - what do you think?’
‘Oh. I’m sure that would be fine,’ Bella says. ‘What do you think, Elida, it should be fine? I don’t think the Signora would mind - would she?’
‘I don’t care what the Signora say,’ Elida says, clasping her hands. ‘If it make it more safe for us all.’
*
Every day seems to bring more bad news. The wider world coming in through the radio: Hitler, Czechoslovakia; every move another move towards war.
A few days after the race laws are published they hear on the radio that all French officers have been recalled from leave.
‘Meaning what?’ she asks Edward.
‘The French are preparing for war.’
Then nearer to home a letter arrives from Alec’s school: ‘Kindly note that following instructions from the Ministero dell’Educazione Nazionale, there is no longer a place available for the abovementioned pupil in the forthcoming term.’
Even though she has read the laws, several times, in several newspapers, and has listened to them being endlessly discussed (if rarely criticized) on the radio, Bella can still hardly believe it. After all the time he has put into that school; all the hours fretting and fussing about uniforms and books, the daily struggles with homework and friendships, the small occasional triumph. Up and down that San Remo Road, knowing every stone, sweep and turn of it, every pillar and shopfront to be passed on the way. And the same thing every morning as they came into the centre, Alec pointing to his landmark of the dome on the Russian church and shouting out, ‘Almost there. Almost there! Only four minutes thirty seconds minimum, to five minutes at the very maximum, more. Punctuality excellent! Alec Lami. Brav-is-simo!’
And this is what it all amounts to in the end - a ‘To Whom it May Concern’ few lines-and-a-bit typed in the middle of the page, as if the secretary had been trying to take the mean look off a few morsels.
She has to ask Edward to take Alec for the afternoon because she can’t bring herself to look the child in the face. She is that upset she almost misses the handwritten note slipped into the back of the envelope.
Miss Stuart - It might be worthwhile applying to the Demorazza for Alec to be considered for discriminato status. I’m not sure what this means yet, but gather it may allow exemptions in certain cases. It’s worth a shot anyhow. Please tell him we send our best. I don’t have to tell you how simply awful we all feel about this. Let us hope and pray it blows over soon.
The note is unsigned, but probably from Alec’s geography teacher Miss McHugh who has always been fond of him, despite his indifference to her subject. Bella is grateful anyhow for the comfort it brings and keeps it in her handbag to glance at now and then. At least someone, somewhere, might actually care about their predicament.
Every now and then they ask each other what should they do? And the answer is always the same - ‘Let’s give it another day or so - see if the Signora shows up.’
*
Meanwhile her letters and messages for the missing Signora continue to pile up, including calls from two different bank managers as well as a notice to attend the Commune Registrar for the stato di f
amiglia certificate. Elida informs them it’s compulsory now, every family has to have its status confirmed and ready to produce at any given moment: for enrolment in school or the Balilla, to avail of free milk. Even at the other end of the scale, to take part in the regatta or go out on a pleasure cruise. A friend of her neighbour’s cousin’s uncle has the letter E printed on hers.
‘E?’ Bella asks. ‘Why E?’
‘For ebreo - status of Jew.’
Then a few days later, another letter, this time addressed to Bella, equally dreaded but also expected, from the Prefettura of the police. She is having breakfast with Edward, as they have done since he moved from the mews into the house, him reading the morning papers, her going through the morning’s post, Alec absent but traceable by the occasional drawl of his harmonica throughout the house and garden. Even with all this worry and uncertainty, as she opens the letter with an unsteady hand, Bella is aware that it warms her a little to see Edward across from her, leaning back in his chair, relaxed and manly, his long hand coming around the newspaper to grasp the width of the cup, while she half listens to the items he occasionally reads out, and he half responds to whatever she might say. Since Edward moved from the mews to the house there has been this sense of companionship - the sort a married couple might enjoy and, as she occasionally reminds herself, probably the nearest she’ll ever get to the experience.
The letter is in fact an order to appear before the federal committee on Friday, 30 September, with all her documentation to date and in order. The hearing will require her to explain why she has failed to have her documents verified despite reminders, and also to decide if her future is in Italy. Should she fail to appear an immediate deportation order would be issued against her.
‘Oh God - not this. Not this now, on top of everything else!’
Edward doesn’t seem to have heard her. She is about to slide the letter across the table to him, when something occurs to her.
‘Edward?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Haven’t you had anything from the Prefettura yet?’
‘Who?’
‘The Prefettura of the police, or the federal secretary even - haven’t they been in touch with you yet?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Nothing at all? Not even a notice to verify your documents?’
‘I’ve been here longer than you.’
‘What difference does that make? Edward, are you listening to me, don’t you think it’s odd, I mean? You filled out the census form in August, didn’t you, so really there ought to have - Edward?’
He puts down the paper and looks across the table at her. ‘The British fleet has just been mobilized,’ he says.
*
For days they’ve been keeping to the house and garden and Alec has finally stopped asking why. Not that this self-imposed exile has been discussed or agreed between them; it has simply become easier not to go out.
Days in the garden, trying to make more of it - picnics in a different corner each time, badminton at a makeshift court set up by Edward. Alec, sitting on the rim of a forgotten pond that Cesare has revived and filled with fresh water, splashing his legs or playing with boats. Everything is about keeping him distracted, his mind off questions and away from dark corners. But there are days when nothing can please him. Not talk of building a tree house; nor of getting a puppy; not even the ping-pong ball battle they staged one evening, which only set him off sulking and crying.
Only the postman calls now, or the ice man, who is related to Elida and is, according to her lights, discretissimo. Even so, Bella has noticed, he never goes away from the kitchen without a bag of something or other swinging not so discretamente out of his hand.
One day Bella asks Elida how much longer she thinks she’ll stay working for the Signora.
‘It’s only work if you take money. So if I don’t take money, only food and a bed, then I don’t get paid so I don’t work really but stay as a guest in the house who just help.’
‘But you can’t work for nothing.’
‘I have nowhere else to go, Signora,’ Elida quietly says.
‘You could look for another job.’
‘So many others like me also suddenly must look for another job.’
‘The authorities know you’re here, Elida. They know where everyone is now since the census. How long do you think you’ll get away with it?’
Elida folds her big fists. ‘Until they come drag me away.’
*
Elida has stopped putting in grocery orders over the phone for delivery. She says she won’t run the risk of being refused Jewish credit. Instead she goes out herself, counting the money from a box in the steel-plate safe, and filling it full of receipts on her return.
Carting two big basketfuls back up the road each morning, she brings home along with the fruit and the meat more and more worrying snippets. On the posters outside the market Elida has read: ‘Those names failing to appear on the list below must relinquish their party card.’ Or: ‘Those names not published in next Saturday’s newspaper must not enrol for the coming school year and need not apply to renew their Balilla membership.’
Elida hates these indirect hits. ‘At least when Hitler stabs you,’ she fumes, ‘he sticks it in your belly where you can see the hand that is holding the knife.’
She keeps them up to the minute on the comings and goings in Bordighera. Most classical concerts are cancelled, she says, only German musicians seem willing to travel. But Vizzali-Marini, the dancing duo, continue to shine - tonight’s demonstration in the Kursaal will be of ‘The Lambeth Walk’.
She often complains that there are more and more military on the streets every day. Or that the town is full of suspicious types pretending to be holidaymakers; one eye on the border, the other on your purse. Or that greedy grabbers are already starting to hoard - today she could only get five packets of Nazionali cigarettes for the Maestro and six kilos of sugar, which means they now have only twenty.
‘In the name of God, Elida, why do we need twenty kilos of sugar?’
‘Signora, in wartime everything is currency.’
She reports on shop conversations. Private whispers over the counter. Or free-for-all rants involving customers and staff. Today’s gripe - the new French law banning Italians without a visa, even for a day trip, even for an hour. Disgrazia - is what they are saying. Italian workers losing jobs because of delays at the border. One woman in the queue of the tabaccheria said her son got the sack because he was three hours late for his work in Villefranche. And when a man at the back of the shop said they only wanted an excuse to get rid of him anyway, because he’s Italian - voice by voice, the whole packed shop had agreed.
In the pharmacy Elida heard someone tell the assistant that there are signs up in the shops in Rome. The signs don’t say ‘Juden Nicht Begruen‘, or ‘Juden Verboten‘, like in Germany, but ‘Negozio Ariano‘. Aryan shop.
‘Another back-stab,’ Elida snarls, clutching her metaphorical knife.
‘Oh God, Elida! Tell us something nice for a change, something hopeful,’ Bella pleads when she hears this last piece of news.
‘The olives are starting to ripen, Signora. They are laying olive cloths all over the ground.’
*
Her father actually telephones. Even down the line, behind the voices of English and Italian telephonists, she can feel him simmer with rage.
‘They’ll be pipping me in a minute or two,’ he growls as he comes on, ‘so I’ll keep this brief. Your Mrs Cardiff has been to see me on her way to Northumberland and I must say I am appalled not to mention utterly ashamed by the total disregard you have for those with your best interest at heart. And safety, I might add. Do you know this very morning our prime minister has issued a warning to Germany to stay out of Czecho slovakia? Do you imagine for one moment that warning will be heeded? And do you have any idea of the possible consequences? Ina and I are getting ready to leave London, when - rather than should - the need arise, but we will
be staying in the country with her sister. I will leave the details here on my study desk, Mrs Carter has the spare keys, but let me tell you now, Bella, that I will expect to see you at your haste either in London or at Ina’s sister’s house. Old as I am, I would be prepared to go over there to you this minute and personally drag you home were it not for the fact that the Home Office has curtailed travel to the continent. I hope I’ve made myself clear in this matter and I certainly don’t expect to have to repeat this call.’
The pips sound and he hangs up the telephone, before she has a chance to say a word in her defence, or any word at all.
*
There is an electric storm one afternoon, about halfway into the month. Big bruisers of hailstones first, hammering against the windows and battering down on the garden. Then only rain. No wind or thunder. A sky snagged with eerie light. Under this relentless downpour everything in the garden gleams. Half-mesmerized, she sits with Alec looking out a window in his mother’s sitting room.
Until Edward sticks his head around the door to announce he is going out. ‘There’s someone I’ve been meaning to talk to,’ he says. ‘This would be a good time to go.’
‘You’ll be soaked. Should I drive you?’
‘No. Stay here with Alec.’
‘We could all go,’ she begins. ‘It means we’d at least…’
He looks at her, waiting. And for a moment she pictures them cosy in the car, the wheels pressing into long swills of water, the shushing windscreen wipers. She sees the blur of premature light from cafes and bars and a sudden pair of brave feet splashing across an otherwise deserted street. The rain hopping off the ground with such force, and bouncing off the bonnet of the car, straight back to the sky, as if it’s raining in both directions. She feels if they could only do that, get into the car and keep driving and driving through rain.
‘Well?’ he says.
‘What I mean to say, Edward, is, we could get out of the house for a while, you know, but because we’d be in the car, there’d be no need to worry about meeting anyone, saying the wrong thing. That’s what I mean.’
Last Train from Liguria (2010) Page 27