I barely hear the soft footsteps of someone approaching, only sensing the gentle waft of her habit as a nun approaches. She comes and sits next to me.
‘Evening Sister,’ I say. ‘I have something for you.’ I offer up the parcel, and she smiles and rises.
‘Come,’ she says.
We move behind the altar, through the vestry and beyond into a corridor, the air colder as we step into an open walkway behind the church. On the opposite side of the small garden is an old brick building that looks like a storeroom, with just two blacked-out windows above head height. The nun gets out an old key from under her habit, so big it looks almost theatrical. She unlocks the door, glances left and right, and ushers me in. There’s a glow from a candle in one corner, and from the gloom nearby I hear a single cough. A shifting movement seems to disturb the combination of soap and disinfectant, plus the musty, aged smell all such buildings have.
‘Sister Cara – is that you?’ a voice croaks.
‘I’ve brought you a visitor,’ the nun says, and there’s some more shuffling, although no one approaches.
‘You’ll have to go to him,’ she says to me. ‘He can’t get up.’
She brings another candle and sets it down on an upturned wooden box acting as a table. The cast of light outlines a man, his well-worn, dark clothes peeking out from under a rough woollen blanket. His face is grimy, and in his hairline are crusts of dried blood he hasn’t managed to wash away. Out of the bottom of the blanket sticks a limb, braced with wooden struts and heavily bandaged, a loose old sock unceremoniously stuck over his toes.
‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ the man says in Italian, and there’s a grimace as he tries to haul himself into a sitting position on the old metal bed.
‘No, no don’t move!’ I say in alarm. I pull up a wooden box that looks hardy enough and sit on it. He extends a hand from his half-sitting, half-lying position. Less grimy but not clean.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he says, breathing heavily with the effort. ‘It’s nice to have a visitor. Thank you for coming.’
His Italian is faultless but his accent is strange – foreign perhaps? There’s a small pause during which we simply size each other up. He is handsome under the fresh scratches around his high cheekbones and forehead, dark and with full lips. He looks Italian, but that accent …
A boat horn honks outside and breaks the spell.
‘So, I’ve been told you need some help,’ I say.
He laughs good-naturedly, despite his obvious discomfort. ‘Yes, clearly wasn’t as good a parachutist as I thought.’ And he looks down at his prostrate leg. ‘Well and truly broken.’
He was part of an Allied parachute mission, he explains, designed to drop in radio sets for dispersal across the north of the country, allowing the partisans vital links with the outside world. There are unknown numbers of Allied soldiers still stranded after the Nazi invasion without any contact, as the Germans cleverly suspended all Italian radio communications when they occupied the country in September ’43. Since then, we in Venice have relied heavily on Radio Londra, the BBC’s daily broadcast to Italians, to bring us coded messages about partisan and enemy movements. But Radio Londra is reliant on a good radio signal and we know the fascists have spent millions of lira on jamming equipment to prevent such dispatches reaching us. Even a small network of radios would improve communications between the Allies and the Italian Resistance, but they are of little use lying dormant in this church.
‘Thankfully my radio equipment fared better than me and it’s intact,’ he adds. ‘Would you be willing to transport it across to the main island?’
I think of how big the equipment might be, how I will hide it and look in no way suspicious. A larger bag would almost certainly be searched by a fascist patrol. Even in the gloom, this man sees the working of my mind.
‘Don’t worry, it comes apart in multiple pieces,’ he says. I see the white of his teeth in his smile. It’s nice. He looks friendly, genuine.
‘How small?’ I wonder.
‘I can make each package small enough for your handbag, at worst a small shopping bag. But it will mean several trips.’
‘I’m here on Giudecca twice a week, but I can easily manage another trip,’ I say, not daring to think how I will fit it into my life.
‘Well, I’m not going anywhere, not for a while,’ he quips, and taps the brace on his useless leg. I feel sorry for him, trapped in this dank hole. He’s undoubtedly well looked after by the sisters, but he must be bored stiff.
‘Is there anything I can bring you? Books, or a newspaper?’ I offer.
His face lights up. ‘A book would be wonderful, even a cheap thriller would lift my head out of here for a while.’
I get up to go, and hold out my hand to shake his. ‘I can be back in two days. Is that enough time to get the first parcel ready?’
‘Plenty,’ he replies. ‘I look forward to it …’ and he’s clearly hanging out for my name.
I look at him intently – the expression that says no names are safer.
‘Please,’ he says. ‘Listen, I’m a sitting duck here. I don’t think names between us will make much difference. It’s just nice to have contact with the outside world.’
‘Stella,’ I say after a pause, for no other reason than I think I can trust him.
‘Jack,’ he offers back, still holding onto my fingers.
‘Jack? Surely that’s English?’
‘Which I am – sort of. It’s Giovanni, really. But everyone at home calls me Jack. Except my mother, of course.’
The perfect Italian with a foreign accent suddenly fits into place, and the fact that he’s part of an Allied operation.
‘Seemingly, they thought I would be better equipped to blend in, with having Italian parents,’ he adds. ‘Only they didn’t reckon my coming down on some very hard Italian stone. Just my luck.’
I find it difficult to concentrate as I return to the bar and descend into the cellar. Arlo is already starting to lay some pages – I have to work fast to catch up. At the back of my mind, projecting a very distinct image, is this evening’s earlier meeting – both Jack, and the job ahead of me. Every time I make the journey over to Giudecca I’m breaking fascist law, since even owning a wireless tuned into Radio Londra can earn you jail time. Being caught creating anti-fascist propaganda will undoubtedly result in far worse than that. Each paper message I transport is heavily weighted contraband, and yet it has never felt dangerous, or potentially fatal. It’s just what I do. I wonder if adding one more task is pushing my luck? And whether I will live – or die – regretting it?
6
Two Sides of the Coin
Venice, late February 1944
It seems like a lengthy wait until my next visit to Giudecca – to Jack and the task ahead of me in transporting his handmade receivers. Luckily, Mimi is there to distract me.
‘So, come on, tell me all,’ my oldest and best friend says as we nestle into the corner space of a crowded bar in the Santa Croce district. It’s tucked down a side street and not widely known by Nazi or fascist soldiers. Still, we’re careful to keep our voices low, hunkering under a fog of cigarette smoke for cover. Mimi’s big eyes are even wider than normal, her painted red lips pursed in anticipation. With her near-black curls, she often reminds me of the American cartoon character, Betty Boop, though Mimi is infinitely more beautiful.
‘I’ve made contact with an Allied soldier, and I’m to transport some vital packages,’ I tell her. Saying it aloud still makes me fizzle with both nerves and excitement, and I can see Mimi – a seasoned Staffetta herself – is impressed. I tell her why the soldier can’t deliver the radios himself and she’s aghast at the story. Since Mimi also has a reputation as a shameless matchmaker, I brush her off when she asks whether Jack is good-looking, saying simply, ‘He’s very grubby.’
For all her flightiness, Mimi understands the risk I’m taking. ‘Be careful,’ she says, although she knows I will be, as we all are – hav
e been trained to be. We are all too aware of the consequences of being caught; man, woman or child, the Nazi and fascist regimes are uncompromising when it comes to betrayal.
Being with Mimi, full of fun and smiles, and talking about her latest flirtations, is the release I need when I’m holding myself in for days at a time, strapping myself into a straitjacket of a different persona, whether it’s at the Reich office or slipping into another guise as a Resistance messenger. It’s good to feel like the real Stella, even for just a few hours, and we dip into what I’ve come to think of as ‘normal conversation’, events untouched by war – the handsome operator at the telephone exchange where she works by day, and her plans to secure his affections. ‘You’re incorrigible,’ I say to her, although I’m full of admiration for Mimi’s ability to rise above the dense cloud of conflict. She’s not unaffected, but she refuses to let it crush her natural optimism.
‘You never know, my current fancy could well have a nice friend,’ she says with mischief.
‘Stop that, Mimi!’ I chide her. While I’m not averse to having someone in my life, I just can’t fit them into it right now.
The next day passes slowly, and I find myself willing the clock to go faster and release me from the endless tapping and chatter. At lunch, I simply have to escape the stifling Reich office and take a walk along the water towards the Arsenale, drinking in my share of the sun’s glittery reflection on the lagoon. Reluctantly, I cut into the side streets behind, where the sun is spliced with shadows and there’s an instant chill, knowing there are some second-hand bookshops I can trawl through to pick up a few cheap volumes for Jack. My own shelves are full of mostly Italian classics, and I’m not sure he would be in the mood for the classically Italian Boccaccio, amusing though he is. I pick out something light, and then an English copy of Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia, thinking it really will take his mind far from Venice. I treat myself to a cheap, dog-eared Italian translation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, having left my old copy at my parents’ house.
I’m walking back towards the office when I spy someone familiar standing on a small bridge gazing intently into the still canal water, his elbows leant on the brickwork. I make to turn sharply, away from the waterside. Too late – he pulls up his stare and clearly recognises me. His expression means I have no choice but to approach Cristian De Luca like the friendly colleague that I am, the pleasing office girl and follower of our great leader, Il Duce.
‘Have you spotted the answer to the universe in there, or simply some poor unfortunate after a night with too much grappa?’ I say lightly.
He looks up, smiles instead of grimaces, catching my humour. ‘No, I’m just admiring the shapes, the sunlight. It’s beautiful.’
He’s right. The reflection of the houses onto the green channel creates warped lines and colours, like some enticing, modernist painting. Every second, each subtle swirl morphs the scene into something more beautiful.
‘See, even the water is art in Venice,’ he says.
‘Really? Even under the cloak of war?’ I turn my eyes away from the water and upwards, to the drone of aircraft overhead – perhaps Allied bombers determined to lay waste to some poor unsuspecting Italian city, either Turin or Pisa. No one around us scrambles for cover; in among the revered beauty of Venice, we’re generally safe, as it’s those vessels out on the lagoon – fishermen or ferries – that run the risk of being strafed with bullets.
He smiles some understanding, showing white teeth and full lips under his neat moustache. I watch his brown eyes track across my face, trying to read me. I’ve seen that deep, enquiring look before – in Nazi and fascist officers, trying to scan inside you for the dirty truths hidden behind the innocent facade. I’m still unsure what Cristian’s motives are though.
Finally, he lets out a laugh. ‘You Venetians! You’re far more practical than the city itself, clearly.’
‘Perhaps it’s a good thing we don’t wear our rose-tinted glasses all the time, or we wouldn’t have a city to wallow in,’ I shoot back, though with an element of humour. ‘Plus, we would fall in the canal far too often – and that’s never good for anyone’s health.’
He pauses to ponder again, eyes on the water, as if he can’t steal them away. I’m just about to walk on when he raises himself up to his full height alongside me. Now I’m genuinely curious.
‘So tell me, what were you really thinking? Not about to toss yourself in, I hope?’ I add.
‘If you must know, I was wondering how many people – classes, creeds and colours – have travelled under this bridge over the centuries. What they would have worn, talked about, were eating, drinking or reading.’ He looks at me directly, like it’s not a musing or a rhetorical question. It’s the longest conversation we’ve ever had. And the most revealing. ‘Do you ever wonder that, Signorina Jilani?’ he adds.
I have, many times. Despite its familiarity, and the practicalities of living in a place that hovers between reality and fantasy, I spent endless hours of my childhood pondering over the colours and past opulence of my own city, the love stories buried in the mud, alongside the wooden piles on which Venice is suspended. Some of those stories were created in my head, to be crudely drawn on the paper while sitting in the kitchen next to my grandfather, as he smoked and dozed. It’s the war that has halted my imaginings on the past or the future, stone dead. Much like my lack of religious faith, I hope it’s temporary. These days, I dream only in grey – a slate war hue. The Venice of now is all that matters; day by day, it must survive and bring with it some sort of future, so we can bring back the colour and vitality to our city.
Cristian’s brow furrows at my silence, and I bring myself back from a sugary nostalgia. ‘So, do you wonder what it might have been like?’ he presses.
‘A darn sight smellier, I would imagine,’ I reply, and turn abruptly off the bridge, in the direction of the Platzkommandantur. I’m purposely glib because I don’t want him tapping into what’s in my head, either past or present. I hear his footsteps as he follows, several steps behind me. Perhaps he imagines – rightly so – that I wouldn’t want to be seen walking with a badge-toting collaborator. And yet I don’t feel any hatred towards him, only slight pity. There is a heart inside him, clearly – one capable of deep feeling. It’s only a shame about the shell he covers it with.
He catches up with me, the clip of his smart shoes resounding through the alleyways. We pass wordlessly under a covered walkway leading to an open street. There’s an old man under the oncoming archway lighting a cigarette and he looks up as we approach.
‘Good day,’ he says and smiles at us both. ‘Come to express your devotion?’ He’s clearly amused at his own humour.
I know exactly what he’s referring to – the small, reddish heart-shaped stone standing proud above the arch brickwork, a natural relic apparently, and a popular pilgrimage for tourists and lovers alike. I try to satisfy him with a weak smile, but the old man is having none of it.
‘You need to touch it,’ he insists, ‘the both of you.’
Cristian is looking perplexed, and I go to explain swiftly so that we can move on, but the old man is in full flow.
‘It’s an old tale from centuries ago,’ he rambles. ‘If you both touch the stone your love will be sealed forever,’ and he coughs from too many cigarettes, chuckling to himself as he shuffles off.
Cristian looks at me for clarity. ‘It’s true,’ I say. ‘Or at least it’s true that’s what the myth says.’ I duck under the stone sotto before he can ask any more.
He catches up again. ‘What is it, Signorina Jilani – don’t you believe in fairy stories?’
He’s smiling once more and I see he’s looking directly at the volume of Jane Austen clutched in my hand.
‘Oh, this? This isn’t a fairy story,’ I come back, striding ahead to avoid any awkward conversation. ‘It’s literature.’
‘I agree,’ he says. ‘It’s very good literature. But equally, it’s not real life, is it?’
‘All the better in this day and age,’ I snipe, though not meaning to do so quite so sharply. ‘Everyone deserves a place of fantasy and safety.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ he says. But he’s no longer smiling or making light, and we walk the rest of the way in silence.
It gets me thinking, though. Cristian De Luca, as much as I hate to admit it, has touched a nerve. I indulge in past centuries and places away from this war by devouring what books I can, on the occasions I’m able to stay awake after the day’s activities. But I miss the creation; as a journalist, I indulged my free time in writing short stories, one or two of which were published in sister publications of Il Gazzettino. It was a total release to open up my beloved machine and simply lay down sentences and words, fabricate people and conversations, without once glancing at notes or quotes. I felt free.
I realise war has stifled me since then. Unsurprising, given the simple desire and effort to stay alive. All the same, I find myself resenting it. Typing up the news stories for the partisan paper comes easily, almost automatically. But it’s not me – yes, there’s a passion in the aim for freedom, but nothing of my heart in the words, despite Arlo’s teasing about my lyrical language. I resolve to try and write. As me, for me. Just for pleasure. Is that so wrong in the times we live in?
If only I could stay awake at the day’s end and find the time.
7
New Interest
Venice, March 1944
Jack is a little more mobile on my next visit. He’s out of bed when I arrive, although limping with obvious difficulty. The sisters have rigged up a table with an oil lamp for him to work at, and there’s an array of metal pieces strewn across it. His welcome is warm; he’s clearly glad to have anyone visit, and is even more delighted with the books I’ve brought.
The Secret Messenger Page 6