‘No, I simply recognised you in the language and the emotion,’ he adds. ‘It was clearly written with passion, and I sensed that in you. It was Marta who made the final connection.’
‘Marta?’ Now I am visibly surprised.
‘Yes, she was the other SOE agent we had placed in the office.’
‘And her sudden disappearance?’ I had always questioned if Marta was a Staffetta but couldn’t find any proven links with other partisan groups. Her sudden departure had always mystified – and worried – me. We weren’t particularly close but her bubbly attitude always lifted the office and I was sorry to see her go. She certainly played her role well in Breugal’s presence; she wore her innocence on her sleeve and played it real enough in her sending up of his ridiculous behaviour. It proved a clever bluff.
‘Again, there was a whisper that her cover was in danger,’ Cristian says. ‘We had no real proof, but we couldn’t risk it. So she was pulled out and I planted some mild suspicion once she was well away from Venice, to justify her disappearance.’
‘And I suppose that cemented your loyalty even more in Breugal’s eyes?’ My tone is mildly accusatory.
‘Well, yes, it did.’ His eyes narrow. ‘Believe me, Stella, I was sorry to see her go. Aside from anything else, it made my life a lot more difficult in terms of dispatches. But you are right – Breugal was convinced of my allegiance.’
‘And Klaus?’ To me, it seemed that at my war’s end, certainly, it was the prying eyes and ears of Breugal’s deputy that put us most in peril.
‘He was much harder to satisfy,’ Cristian agrees. ‘He’d been suspicious of me from the start, mainly I think because of being Italian – he didn’t trust any of us, fascist or not – and more so because I wasn’t military. In his eyes, I was never ruthless enough.’
I take another sip of tea – it’s lukewarm by now, but it has the effect of at least whetting my dry mouth. My head is swimming and I’m having trouble absorbing this new information, piecing it all together. I’ve spent the years since the war’s end feeling at least satisfied that I’d done my bit. I had made sacrifices – those last few years in helping out my parents especially, and not being able to see my own brother buried. And I had been torn away from my beloved home, denied the sight and smells of the glory, of those last days towards liberation in early April 1945, when the Allies were moving ever closer across the Veneto towards Venice and the streets had cracked with the gunfire of the Resistance, finally allowed out of its hiding. I would have given almost anything to be part of it – tearing up the steps of the Rialto Bridge and flooding into San Marco, finally in the ragged uniform of a partisan soldier, bearing arms for freedom. It’s what every word I’d ever typed had been for. For Venice. For us, its people. Our right to live as free Italians. But Cristian, I now know, had robbed me of that experience. Of the closure I still so desperately need.
What he tells me next reminds me that I got back my life in exchange.
‘Klaus had recently gained a contact,’ Cristian explains. ‘We didn’t know until later that it was one of your newspaper staff. He kept it very close to his chest. Eventually, I discovered he was getting near to revealing your name and, after the newspaper office raid, I felt sure he would go after you.’
‘But someone else found out first – they took the typewriter,’ I say quite innocently.
He takes his glasses off and places them on the table in front of us. ‘That was me,’ he says. ‘I took the typewriter.’ He doesn’t look in the least bit smug, or satisfied, just meets my look of utter shock with a firm stare.
‘But you were there! You were searching with them, in my apartment. It had already gone,’ I protest in a violent whisper, careful of our voices travelling. At the same time, I know I’m being quite naïve – everything I thought I knew about him has already been shown to be a lie, so why not this too? But the throbbing in my head is preventing the events slotting together in a single, straight line.
‘You don’t believe me?’ he says, although the way his eyebrows suddenly rise and ripple signals that he’s not annoyed.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I simply don’t know.’
For a minute, I think I’ve said too much already: Hitler might be dead, the war won, but I know that in parts of London and across Europe a war of intelligence is still being waged. The tentacles of distrust between nations has extended beyond Europe, east into communist Russia. Jack, in his new hush-hush role in some communications department, has hinted as much sometimes. He’s warned me to talk to no one about our time in Venice, and be wary of those who ask. But I can’t help being drawn into this, having wondered for several years who it was that removed my typewriter. Who very possibly saved my life that day.
‘And who did you think it might be, the person who took it?’ Cristian presses me.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say irritably. ‘Somebody from Sergio’s unit, perhaps. I didn’t think too much at the time, aside from the fact it was gone.’
‘Did you ever wonder where to?’ He’s returned to being a little playful again, and I’m irritated by his light-hearted treatment of what to me was a great loss at the time.
‘At the bottom of the lagoon, I guessed. If they had any sense.’
‘I can prove it was me,’ he says quietly. Now there is a grin lurking under the bristles of his beard, which spikes at my irritation even more.
‘What?’
‘I can prove my story. I can show you right now.’ He reaches down and behind his knees, which I now see have been shielding a case. I recognise it immediately. It doesn’t look as if it’s been fished from a Venetian lagoon, rescued from the depths. Well-travelled but not traumatised or water-marked with a salt crust.
‘What? I don’t …’ I trail off, as he settles it on his knees and flicks both catches. The sound immediately transports me back there, the throttle and hoot of boats, the pungency of the jade water. I’m there in my bedroom at Mama’s, at my desk at Il Gazzettino, and then Matteo’s basement, in happier times.
‘But how have you … when did you?’ Again, the messages are misfiring, scuttling inside my skull.
‘Just before Klaus and his troops arrived,’ he says. ‘I only just made it out, with minutes to spare, and was almost caught by your observant neighbour – who, by the way, was a formidable security force.’ I can’t help smiling at the memory of Signora Menzio and her defensive, fearless fury.
‘I just had time to stow it in a nearby doorway before I was nearly caught myself,’ he goes on. ‘Rather than risk being seen walking away, I presented myself as a witness. The rest you know.’ His stance isn’t the sheepish, cowardly air I remember from that day. It’s not pomp or pride either, just someone trying to explain.
Still, I can’t absorb the likelihood of any truth in what he says, not while he holds the case on his lap. My heart is starting to beat faster with anticipation, and my stare prompts Cristian to continue with his unveiling. He turns the case to face me and lifts up the lid, as if revealing a luscious birthday cake.
She doesn’t disappoint. Aside from needing a good clean, she is perfect; the keys glowing in the dim light of the bar, the black panels giving off a sheen where the smudging isn’t too heavy. There are even fingerprints still indented on the dusty film, which should match my own. I sigh and gasp in unison, and extend a hand to feel the cool, silken metal. I would recognise her anywhere, even if it were among a whole host of the same make of typewriter. Her slightly bent limb – that beautiful, damning quirk – hovers slightly above the others. This machine is mine. In that, Cristian speaks the truth.
‘Are you happy to see it?’ he says. He’s looking at me expectantly. Though surely not for instant forgiveness?
‘Yes I am,’ I say. ‘But why bring it today? How could you be certain it would be me?’
‘I couldn’t, wasn’t. I’ve only had replies from two other publishers, and each time I brought it to the meeting. When it wasn’t you, I simply took it away again. But no
w you can have it. That’s if you want it.’ He parts his lips, and again I’m conscious his pupils are trailing over my face, translating my reactions.
‘Stella, please say something,’ he says at last. ‘Please say I haven’t been wasting my time in this … I don’t know … this quest.’
‘Oh Cristian—’
‘Gio,’ he corrects. ‘Please call me Gio. I hope I’ve long ago dropped the personality of Cristian De Luca.’
‘Well, that might take me some time, but all right – Gio.’ I try to soften my features, but look him straight in the eye. He at least deserves my honesty. ‘This is a shock, I don’t mind admitting, and in more ways than one. I need to think about what you’ve said, about what happened.’
‘I understand that. But will you at least agree to have dinner with me?’ he says. ‘Perhaps hear me out a little more. Give me a chance to explain, to prove myself?’
‘All right. But give me a few days, please. To absorb it all.’
I see the breath catch in his throat, holding it aloft, with something like hope. ‘Am I right in assuming you’re not married, or engaged?’ he says. ‘I’m hoping, entirely selfishly, that you’re not, but I really don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.’
It is presumptuous of him, and I should be irritated, but somehow I can’t be.
‘No. I’m not married,’ I say. There have been several romances, and one near-engagement, which in hindsight turned out to be a fortunate escape, but I haven’t yet found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I’m even less sure it will turn out to be Cristian – or Gio. ‘But I need time,’ I say firmly.
‘However long you want. Just, please, give me the chance.’
‘I will,’ I say, and I mean it. After all, didn’t we fight, suffer, and win that war to improve tolerance – our humanity?
‘Thank you, Stella,’ he says, and it’s his eyes that relay the pleasure inside. He pulls the lid down on my beloved typewriter, secures the clasps, and places it on my lap.
‘I’ll telephone you at the end of the week, in your office – about dinner,’ he says. And then he’s gone to the bar, pays the bill and leaves me sitting, winded, in the bustling bar of the Savoy hotel, wondering why the hell someone just sent a tornado ripping through my otherwise fairly ordered life.
I’m late to meet Jack, not because I’m lost in work, but because I’m so adrift in thought – stupefaction more like – that I miss my stop on the bus and have to catch another back home before I change clothes and head to his house.
‘Are you sure it’s him?’ Jack whispers as we wait for his wife, Celia, to return from the kitchen. ‘I mean, absolutely sure?’
‘Yes, I’m pretty certain my eyes aren’t deceiving me. Very little has changed about his appearance. It is him.’
‘And he says he was SOE?’
‘Yes. Deep undercover, he claims. That no one in Venice knew, not even the Resistance leaders. Could that be possible?’
Jack scratches at his chin, now clean-shaven since his marriage – Celia prefers it that way, he says. He still has the same mischievous look about him, though, and I’m infinitely grateful we’ve remained friends – good, committed friends despite our brief liaison back then. When I found him soon after arriving in London, as the only person I could anchor myself to, it felt immediately different.
I was in no fit state to pursue any kind of romance, but Jack helped piece me back together. Venice was there, in the past, but we had grown. Not apart, just in different directions. He landed not back at his mother’s deli on his return from Italy, but had been absorbed into war intelligence, and then into government communications after the armistice. We comforted each other – the loss of his brother on the battlefields of France remained raw for a time.
Jack met Celia soon after – it was a mutual and instant attraction, and I saw then what they have now: pure love. I’m so very happy for them. Celia doesn’t know of our past, I’m fairly certain, only that we helped each other in Venice, and in private we’ve alluded to it only once, on his wedding day, when he thanked me for being the best – and most enduring – friend.
‘It is possible he’s telling the truth,’ Jack says thoughtfully. ‘Some of the stories I’m hearing now, I can believe anything was conceivable in that war.’
‘Is there any way of checking it out?’ He knows what I’m angling for.
Celia comes in bearing dishes of tiramisu – her proud contribution to Italian cooking – and Jack mutters: ‘Let me see what I can do.’
Over the next two days, an odd feeling comes crawling back to me. I know it – it feels very familiar, yet not recent, not since I came to London anyway. It’s as if the hours and days are yawning in front of me – that same feeling I had when I was aching to get back to my typewriter on Giudecca, days with the stretch of water separating us, and yet craving the contact. I’m waiting for something. Yet what? Proof that Cristian is telling the truth, or satisfying myself he is the liar and fascist I thought he was? Either one rattles the foundations of my war and my belief.
Meanwhile, the typewriter sits on my sideboard in my small flat. It takes me a day to open up the case again, another day before I can slide in a piece of crisp white paper and will my fingers to push down on the keys with enough force to create a mark. I’m almost afraid of the familiarity, certain it will take me back to places I both do and don’t want to go. Good memories, though tainted in places, like basking in the delicious language of a well-read novel, but having to stop before the final pages because the desperately sad ending makes your heart deflate so much it physically aches. I hope that fingering the keys in this case won’t be equal to lighting a touch paper on memories best left dormant.
Still, I can’t resist. I type: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. As expected, no one has fixed the wayward e.
I type the first thing that comes into my head. Cristian De Luca. Then: Gio Benetto. I read them over and over again. Can they be the same person? Can – and did – either one of them love me, as he says? There was a spark of something, I can’t deny, but in our love of books, of language. I felt he was thirsty for conversation, but little else, in those few times we met outside of work. The thought that I had read him so wrong nags at me. Who else was I duped by? And how close did we all come to losing our lives because of it?
Jack meets me three days after my exchange with Cristian, or Gio. I’m thankful I still refer to my friend as Jack – even though Celia calls him Gio – or my head would be spinning even more. Against the spit and hiss of our favourite Italian café, he pilots me to a table at the back.
He dives in swiftly.
‘It seems there is something in what he says,’ Jack whispers, careful to make sure we’re not overheard. ‘A friend of mine in records has found him.’ He narrows his eyes in that ‘I’m about to show you something you can never talk about’ expression and slides a folded piece of paper onto the table, the edges well thumbed. I’m almost shaking as I unfurl the sheet.
The photograph is older, the flesh a little leaner, but it is Cristian’s face – as Gio Benetto. It’s his SOE identity papers. In clear type, it states: ‘Aliases: Marco Rosetti, Maurizio Galante, Cristian De Luca’. It’s signed and dated, stamped as ‘discharged’ in April 1946. Underneath is scribbled: ‘with honours’. I stare at it for an age, enough that Jack has downed half his coffee.
‘And yes, it is genuine,’ he adds. ‘My friend also happens to be a specialist in forgery.’
There’s a pause. ‘So what are you going to do now?’ Jack poses the almost impossible question.
I come back with a suitably vague reply. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
On reflection, the least I can do is meet him, I decide. I have grave doubts about the emotions he’s expressed towards me, but there are still questions I need answering. When he does call, as promised, on the Friday after our meeting, he seems pleasantly surprised at not having to work at further persuading me.
‘Just din
ner,’ I stress into the receiver.
‘Yes, just dinner.’
The next evening, we meet in a London hotel well known for its Italian food, though purposefully not in any of the Italian trattorias that have sprung up since the war’s end, where I often satisfy my craving for good cannelloni or arancini. Italian restaurants mean Italian speakers, and I at least want our conversation cloaked to some extent.
‘You look beautiful,’ he says as I arrive at the bar. Have I made an effort? Yes, I suppose I have, but in a way that I might deny to myself is anything special – a plain black dress I often wear to work functions, the pearls my mother gave me. I did, however, spend time on my make-up and hair in the office washroom. I convince myself that it’s simply what any self-respecting woman would do.
Cristian – Gio – is in a night-blue navy suit, double-breasted, with a pale blue shirt and a crimson tie. A different, but nice, cologne. The waiter shows us to a table and, oddly, he treats us as an established couple, rather than dancing around us as if we were on a first date.
‘Wine?’ Gio says. I consent to a glass, but promise myself no more. I need a clear head. Maybe it helps, but maybe I don’t need it, because the conversation is quite easy. It flows without rancour. I ask lots of questions, which he seems prepared for, and willing to answer. After finishing his degree in his native Naples, he had taken up a PhD at Oxford when he was approached by someone from the British government, he tells me – Oxbridge then being rich pickings for the intelligence services. They wanted him not for his knowledge of literature, but his languages, and his ability to ease back into Italian life. They stressed the influence he would have on the war and appealed to his patriotism for an Italy before Mussolini, that it was vital work.
The Secret Messenger Page 28