‘Ha! I can do better than that,’ the old man says. The lines in his face spring upwards and he’s suddenly full of mischief. ‘Now there’s a tale to be told, even by the war’s standards.’
He gestures for Pietro to come close and whispers something in his ear. The grandson nods and disappears, returning a long five minutes later and placing something in Paolo’s lap. It’s a thick, bound book of white paper, although the title page is face down at first and Luisa can only see a blank back page, dirtied with age. She feels her heart crank into the same rhythm as that day in her mother’s attic. The odour of dust and slight damp wafts across the space as Paolo’s spindly fingers scrabble to turn it over – she hears the old man’s dry skin scrape across the brittle paper, and Pietro is visibly holding back from hurrying his grandfather.
‘Here,’ he says finally, pushing the book towards Luisa. ‘This will tell you everything. Stella gave it to me – she told me I was in there somewhere, but I always suspected I was keeping it for someone else. And finally that someone has made their way to me.’ He smiles with satisfaction, and she sees what might be a tear teetering on his reddened lower lids.
Luisa takes what is clearly a manuscript into her own hands and turns it over. In bold old-fashioned type, a single line states:
THE HIDDEN TYPEWRITER:
A Story of Resistance
38
After
London, March 1948
I look at the clock, disappointed that it’s only eleven a.m., yet the brilliant spring sunshine streaming through the window tickles me to yawn, dust motes caught in the shafts tumbling lazily in the otherwise empty office. My colleague and assistant, Anne, is out on an errand, and Charles, the head of the publishing house, is not due in until after his business lunch, which will doubtless stretch long into the afternoon. I can appreciate a slice of silence, even crave it sometimes, but at work I prefer a busy hum – Anne chattering on the phone or typing ten to the dozen. I laugh to myself at yet another English-ism creeping its way into my Italian vocabulary. The longer I spend in London, the more I realise I’m becoming less Venetian and more of an Anglophile. Does that make me sad? I’m not sure, since each year I’ve grown to love my adopted home, the bustle of the city, and sometimes even the traffic. Getting used to cars and lorries took some time – and a few near-misses crossing roads – and I do sometimes long to hear that distinctive throttle of the vaporetto on the canals. But, equally, I love sitting on the top of a London bus, creating my own little bubble of observation, sometimes taking notes and squirrelling them away for a character in my next book.
Still, I have dinner with Jack to look forward to this evening; he’s left a message to say it’s seven p.m. at his place. He signed the note ‘Gio’ but I’m not yet coming round to using the name his mother prefers. To me, he’ll always be Jack, with his pot of tea never far away.
Just for something to energise me, I make myself a cup, the British way – hot, strong and a dash of milk – knowing my towering post pile cannot be put off any longer. I’m aware that once I begin slicing into the large, foolscap envelopes, heavy with hopeful manuscripts, the old feeling and the reasons why I love my job as an editor will come flooding in – that fizzle of expectation and anticipation, of finding something quite special in that first paragraph, often from a first-time author. Words that will lift me, or incite a tear, or spark such curiosity that I will put off everything else in my diary that day just to keep reading.
Most days, the pile reduces rapidly as I read the first page, and the covering letter: ‘Dear Sir’ – never Madam, I’m irritated to see – ‘Please find my enclosed novel, which I hope you can see stands out from the general milieu’ – a word designed to impress – ‘currently on our shelves.’ Not all are quite so bold; some missives even make excuses for what the author’s work lacks, not particularly inspiring me to read further. The best letters strike a note somewhere in between. Then, some are swiftly on the ‘no’ pile after just the first paragraph, words flailing and struggling to hold my attention.
What rarely causes me to raise an eyebrow is the mere title itself. But today, the ninth or tenth envelope I open forces the hot tea down into my throat far quicker than I planned. It’s difficult to say if it’s the shock of the scalding liquid or something else which causes me to cough and my heart to miss a beat.
The paper is crisp and new, the manuscript a good thickness and the type clean on the title page:
‘The Hidden Typewriter’, it says. ‘A novel by Sofia Treadwell’.
I scan the covering letter – it’s a strange mix of formal and informal, yet with a relaxed tone that neither blows its own trumpet or begs me to believe in its brilliance. In essence, the author is simply saying: ‘Please read my offering, I hope you like it.’
My tea goes cold and the post pile is ignored as I read … and read and read. The setting, of course, draws me in immediately – has Sofia Treadwell done her homework and knows I hail from Venice, cleverly targeting this particular publishing house? Does she come from Venice herself? Sofia is a common Italian name, although Treadwell sounds solidly British. But then, isn’t my own name Hawthorn? How could she know that I’d been encouraged to change my name by the War Office when I arrived in England, part of their plans for a ‘seamless’ drift into an entirely new culture. I wonder for a second if it’s someone probing for details of my past, but in truth that’s just part of a lingering paranoia. And besides, we’re no longer at war. Why would anyone care?
As I put aside each page, I’m conscious of my eyebrows rising and falling while I scan the sentences. Even Anne, who’s returned from her errand, looks at me like I might be coming down with something. It’s uncanny. But is it also a joke? I’ve heard of doppelgangers – strangers who are virtual doubles in appearance – but can people have parallel lives too?
The descriptions are graphic, and the writing ornate – perhaps a little too emotive in places if I’m being picky – but there are few surprises to the plot. I can predict with accuracy what will happen next, though not because the story or the writing isn’t creative. But because it’s my life. I find myself being drawn into the story of a partisan woman in Venice, working on the Resistance newspaper and planted in the Reich’s inner office. And there it is: the typewriter, described almost to a tee, the slightly drooped letter e, the demonic tool prickling at the Nazi shield of domination.
It must be a joke, I think. It has to be. But, of course, I have to satisfy my curiosity. If there’s one thing my dear Popsa always said about me, it was that I had the nose of a bloodhound in wheedling out facts.
There’s no phone number on the letter, only an address in Camden Town. I write immediately, asking if Sofia Treadwell can meet me in the Savoy Hotel bar a week from now at two o’clock. Charles and I rarely ask prospective clients into the office on first meeting; it’s a working publishing house and can look a little crowded and messy, with its piles of manuscripts on every surface that we’ve become accustomed to treating as furniture. To a fresh eye, however, it may just reflect disorganisation.
Despite being busy, I find the week passes slowly, The Hidden Typewriter lingering in corners of my brain, popping up when I least expect it, when I’m shopping, or reading other pages. Deep down within me I can hear the tick, tick of my own beloved machine, almost feel the vibration of the resounding keys, a fleeting depression at its loss that I haven’t experienced in years. The next Monday can’t come soon enough, to quell my curiosity about the mysterious Ms Treadwell.
It’s a beautiful March afternoon, London’s winter smog finally bowing to spring light, as I head towards the Savoy and take in the art deco beauty of its entrance, which never fails to impress. But I’m also slightly nervous, which is unusual – I expect it of a prospective client who’s keen to forge a good impression on us as agents and publishers, but not from me. I make sure to arrive early, as I always do, to relay that air of efficiency. Sofia Treadwell, though, is even more prompt; the head barman,
John, gestures towards a wingback leather chair and I breathe in and walk over, pasting on my professional face.
‘Miss Treadwell, pleased to meet—’ I start as I round on the chair, hand ready to extend.
Rarely have I been struck dumb in my life, but this is the moment. Any further words are literally wedged in my throat.
I recognise him immediately. A little older, and his face filled out from post-war portions, but in essence, the same features. His expression reflects surprise too, only his reaction has caused his lips to spread, while mine are like a fish sucking air.
Cristian De Luca pulls his tall frame out of the chair and stands, holding out his hand.
‘Stella,’ he says. ‘May I still call you Stella?’
He could call me almost anything, such is the shock I’m feeling at seeing him here. My surprise and curiosity overrides any enduring anger I might muster later, for the moment at least. One of the last times I saw him, he stepped out of the ether in much the same way, a figure of surprise, but that concrete pavement outside my Venetian apartment feels worlds away from the elegance of the Savoy. I say nothing for a good few seconds, and then just a muttering of incoherence.
‘Perhaps we should sit down?’ Cristian says, almost having to guide me into the chair opposite. ‘I’ve ordered tea. But perhaps a brandy as well?’
I nod, watching him as he converses with the waiter. Despite a healthier look, his outward appearance hasn’t changed much – a cropped beard and hair neatly cut, a crisp Italian grey suit and those tortoiseshell glasses. But his brown eyes have sparkle, and his demeanour too – I rarely witnessed Cristian De Luca in a truly relaxed mode, perhaps only glimpses, seconds at a time. Back then, he held himself constantly. Now, though, his body moulds into the chair with ease, as if his veins were once filled with starch, now flushed entirely from his body.
‘I’m so sorry to have startled you like that,’ he says, this time in Italian, which has the effect of filling my own circulation with something like glycerine. ‘But I’m so glad to have finally found you.’
Finally found me? That suggests he’s been actively looking, and for some time. That this isn’t just some bizarre consequence the papers have been peppered with since 1945, with the war’s nomads drifting back to their homelands, their territories, reshaping the contours of Europe once more. People seemingly lost forever bumping into each other on street corners or chancing upon each other in the cinema.
I take a sip of tea, and then the brandy, before I’m able to speak. By rights, I should turn tail and walk out – the perfect opportunity to leave the man who abandoned me in a vacuum of the unknown. A sweet revenge.
But I’m too curious, and besides, my legs are jelly, turned swiftly to lead.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I am thoroughly confused. I was expecting to meet a Sofia Treadwell.’
His hands splay in a gesture which signals: and here she is!
‘You are Sofia Treadwell? But how? Why?’ I can’t fathom the reasons. And how is a confirmed fascist now sitting larger than life in a London hotel? Europe’s borders may be more labile than even I imagined.
He smiles again – already he’s smiled more in the last five minutes than I witnessed in all those months in Venice. ‘I wanted to find you,’ he says quietly. ‘I managed to discover you were working in publishing, but I didn’t know where. With your change of name, it’s taken me this long.’
It solves the question of why he assumed an alias to track me down – he might guess the very name of Cristian De Luca would be immediately consigned to my bin, let alone my slush pile. But why does he want to find me? With courage from the alcohol, I pose the question outright, looking him in the eye directly.
‘Because I’m in love with you,’ he says calmly, his pupils propelled into mine. ‘And I have been since that very first day in Venice.’
A second brandy is needed, and he arranges it while I absorb his last sentence.
‘I’m sorry, Cristian,’ I say. ‘I’m very confused. I … I just can’t take in what you’re saying. How can you possibly love me? You betrayed me, in the worst possible way. You despised me at the end, and what I represented. You must have. You led them to my house. To me.’
‘No! You’re wrong, Stella. I never despised you,’ he protests. He looks down into his own lap, and for the first time in our exchange his face is dark and pensive. His fingers weave together, and he flicks nervously at his thumbnail. ‘But yes, I admit it did appear as though I betrayed you. It almost broke me to do it, but I was forced to. It’s very complex. A long story.’
‘I’ve got time,’ I say. Now I’ve got my voice back, it has a steely edge. If this man who forced me to leave the home, the city and the country I loved is now demanding my attention, he can give something too. He can explain himself.
I listen wide-eyed, and probably with my mouth still gaping as Cristian De Luca reveals his role in my downfall – and my saving. He is not Cristian, he says, but Giovanni Benetto by birth, born in Rome. His name and his persona were an elaborate creation of the Special Operations Executive – or SOE – a wartime collection of multi-national agents designed to spy and subvert deep within enemy organisations. His cover was two years in the making, he explains, gaining trust and kudos from inside the fascist hierarchy, almost from the dawning of the war.
‘No one, not even the Venetian Resistance, was allowed to know,’ he says. ‘I reported directly to London. But you can’t conceive how many times I wanted to come clean, to tell you. It burned inside me that you imagined I was some heartless fascist who would help in our country’s ruin.’
I’m silent for a minute in trying to take it all in. ‘I didn’t always think of you as heartless,’ I say honestly. ‘But I was confused that there seemed to be two sides of the man who was so sensitive as to love literature, and yet cold enough to betray his fellow countrymen. In all honesty, you bewildered me. Far more than the war itself.’
He half laughs at my assessment. ‘Emotionally, it was one of the hardest things I had to do – keeping up the pretence with you, Stella. I’d had years of training, schooled in enduring torture if I was ever caught, and yet so many times I almost pulled you aside and revealed the truth.’
‘And that kiss, outside my apartment, was that a lapse, or part of some elaborate double-bluff?’
He laughs again, reddens a little, the colour visible even in the dim light of the bar. ‘Yes, well. Not my finest hour as an impenetrable spy. It was the one time I couldn’t keep my emotions in check – it was real, I promise you. There were a lot of near-miss moments, but that was the closest I came to spilling it out, all of it.’
‘So what stopped you?’ I can guess at the answer, but I want him to say it.
‘The consequences,’ he says. ‘The number of people I would be sacrificing if my duplicity was ever known to the Nazis. I was passing back highly strategic information going through Breugal’s office. He may have acted and looked like a fool at times, but he was an important cog in the Reich’s machine. And once you knew about my part, you would have been even more vulnerable. I couldn’t have borne that.’
He lets out a breath as his fingers weave, looks at me squarely. ‘It did change things, Stella,’ he says. ‘What we did. We can’t ever forget that.’
This time I puff out a sigh. ‘Well, compared to changing the face of the war, I think my own part was small in comparison.’
Cristian – Gio, whoever he is – flicks up his eyes swiftly. ‘No, don’t ever underestimate it, Stella. What you and your partisans did was powerful. It was a constant rumbling at the foundations of dissidence. It made my job easier – as the Nazis became more agitated, they let their guard down, communication became sloppy. I took advantage of it, and so did the Allies.’
I’m able to muster a laugh then, at the memory of his dealing with Breugal’s childish tantrums and his eye-popping fury. ‘It’s true that whatever I thought, I didn’t envy you having to face Breugal with each week’s edition of
our paper.’
Cristian smiles again. ‘Yes, well, that was probably torture enough on some days. It was a good job my training gave me a skin like elephant hide.’
We sit for a moment without speaking, the clink of glasses around us, both staring into our teacups. We each know what has to come next.
‘So, what about me?’ I venture. ‘What about that day – at my apartment, before I left?’ I want to say ‘forced to leave’, but I can’t raise the venom right now. ‘Why would you lead them to me?’
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and I smell his cologne, noticing that he still wears an expensive brand. It shouldn’t, but it has the effect of chipping at the frosty veneer I am struggling to maintain.
‘I knew they had intelligence that would lead to them discovering your typewriter,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t get to the office on Giudecca in enough time to prevent the raid, and besides, there was too much heavy equipment to ever get rid of all the evidence. I’d been trying to hint for some time, in getting you to type out your own wanted posters.’
I’m immediately bemused. ‘So, you knew I worked on the paper, that it was my typewriter used? For how long?’
‘I had an idea after the first few weeks after we met,’ he says. ‘And as I got to know you, the way we talked, about books and writing, it seemed more and more likely that you were the storyteller. I knew you had it in you.’
‘Was I really that transparent?’ I’m concerned I’ve been deluding myself all this time about how effective and useful I’d been to the Resistance. Or worse, that my lax behaviour unwittingly betrayed even one person.
‘No,’ he says firmly, and this time his hand reaches out towards my own. In any other person I would accept it as a gesture to reassure and soothe. A myriad of emotions comes flooding back – the way I could never quite hate him, was bemused by him … And then the sick, heavy feeling of betrayal that lingers to this day. I pull my fingers away sharply and back into my body. His hovers for a half second and then draws back. We are dancing, it seems – me with mistrust, he with eagerness.
The Secret Messenger Page 27