The Last Double Sunrise

by Peter Yeldham

  Beatrice managed to park her car near the Spanish Steps and walked to the Villa Medici. She saw guards on duty outside the building, and spoke to one of them about her son’s arrival the previous day. The guard seemed nervous, claiming to know nothing about it, before a corporal in charge came to intervene.

  “I’ll handle this,” he told the guard, who seemed glad to be abruptly dismissed. “My apologies, Madam,” he said to her, asking if he could help.

  “My son was due to arrive here yesterday,” she started to tell him, when the corporal politely interrupted.

  “Of course, Madam. I feel sure you mean the young man with an artistic scholarship. The poor fellow had a heavy suitcase, and was tired and very disappointed to hear the Villa was locked. Not our fault, I told him.”

  “So what happened to him?” Beatrice asked.

  “Well, I was sympathetic, but unable to help. We were on duty, you must understand. He talked about returning home when he left in the late afternoon. He said it was a long walk back to the main station. I wish I could have helped.”

  “So you think he went home?”

  “As I explained, that’s what he said.”

  From long years of detecting fabrications by pupils, Beatrice felt sure this explanation was questionable. He would certainly not talk of going home. But she could hardly call this man a liar, nor see any reason why he’d try to deceive her. Carlo had clearly been here and found the place locked. So he had to go somewhere. But where? She studied the corporal, but before she could ask him anything else he said he was needed at his headquarters, so she had no choice but to leave.

  She was about to descend the Spanish Steps, when she turned to see he was still standing there, watching her depart.

  They were unloaded from the van in a yard with high gates, the back part of a police station Carlo assumed, seeing armed police there in full support. But there were also army personnel at numerous desks, both officers and NCOs, the latter mostly middled-aged and wearing campaign ribbons like those his father had from the Austrian war. His handcuffs were removed and he was taken to one of the desks manned by a grizzled sergeant. Alongside the desk was a visibly younger lieutenant, who seemed to be a sort of supervising officer.

  “Name?” requested the sergeant and Carlo, although anxious to explain his situation, thought it best to give them his name and address first. It was written down on a form, then he asked if he could please explain.

  “Nothing to explain,” he was brusquely told by the elderly sergeant. “You’re accused of evading military duty and you have two choices. You either admit to a guilty plea and serve a term of imprisonment, or…”

  “Sergeant, may I please explain?” Carlo interrupted, with one eye on the young supervising Lieutenant. It was hard to know if he was showing any interest or not. He looked so much younger than the NCO, and wore no campaign ribbons.

  “I said no explanations,” the sergeant snapped. “We don’t have time for excuses. Admit guilt, or take choice two and sign right now for the army. In that case you avoid prison and think yourself lucky. Now which is it, and stop wasting my time. We don’t hear excuses from cheats who try to dodge their patriotic duty.”

  “But I’m not a cheat,” Carlo said heatedly, “and it’s not an excuse. I’m a student, wrongly arrested. I’ve got papers to prove it. I can provide witnesses.”

  The sergeant glared at him, beckoning a policeman. “Guilty plea, this smart-arse coward. We’ll see if a few days in a cell converts him into a patriot.”

  “For Christ’s sake…” A shocked and disbelieving Carlo tried to argue, but was interrupted.

  “Blasphemous obscenity. Put the bastard in isolation.”

  “I’m truly a student.” With vanishing hope of any fair treatment Carlo was now desperate to be believed, deciding only strong language would make them listen. “I’ve got the fucking proof right here in my fucking pocket.”

  He pulled out the crumpled Villa Medici papers, about to slam them on the desk, then decided he’d give them to the lieutenant instead. “If he won’t listen, then maybe you will, Sir,” was all he had time to say. But the Lieutenant made no attempt to take them. As two policemen dragged him away Carlo saw his precious papers lying scattered on the concrete floor, where the officer had deliberately let them drop.

  Beatrice reached her parents’ apartment upset and bewildered. She was sure the corporal was lying, she told them. But why? And why had the guard been nervous? After leaving there she’d found a phone box and spoken to Salvatore, to be told again he was selling the vineyard. No, he had not seen Carlo, nor expected to. He would keep in touch with Gina alone among the family.

  “He then asked if I was moving in with Gushing, the headmaster. It made me angry, as he intended. The kind of unpleasant and offensive remark that helped destroy our marriage.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell him that,” said Sofia.

  “Mamma, he said it deliberately, and expected a reply. That was the kind of marriage we had in the end. I told him ‘Gushing’ was a worse fascist than him, absolutely delighted soldiers would be killed so that fat-arsed Mussolini could go to the peace treaty.”

  “Beatrice, you didn’t!”

  “I most certainly did!”

  “Not very diplomatic if you want a fair property settlement.”

  “But I don’t, Mother. There won’t be one. He did the hard work, he’s entitled to it. If I get a teaching job I won’t give him any fight over property.”

  “We have a very strange daughter, Giovanni. Did you hear that?”

  “I did hear it, Sofia. She is different and always has been. But if you recall, I also liked the old saying: Vive la difference!” He sneaked a glance at Beatrice who smiled and he guessed it was her only smile in a troubled and difficult day. “So let’s get back to what matters. Where the bloody hell is Carlo?”

  NINE

  The cell was two paces wide and three long. A thin old-fashioned iron cot, complete with a canvas bag containing straw and meant to be a palliasse, took up a major part of the available leg-room. There was a discoloured chamber pot in a corner and a soiled towel hung from a nail on the wall. A few days in here, Carlo estimated, could rattle a man, a week could probably send him stir crazy under the more official heading of technically insane. So how long could he endure the cage where they’d incarcerated him and the crushing blows of the past twenty four hours?

  Had some malevolent force decided the gallery should be locked, that his scholarship be cancelled, as well as his first night of love with Silvana snatched away by a jealous corporal? On top of that was the spiteful and surly sergeant with wartime ribbons calling him a cheat, a coward, and coldly consigning him to this cell where exercise could only be taken one tiny step at a time. As for the indifferent officer, the Lieutenant who’d snubbed him, he’d tried to appeal to him as he was far younger than the sergeant, and perhaps willing to listen. But that was another false hope. It was as if the world had set out to crush him, and it had succeeded.

  His mother would be shattered. How many years since she’d found out he loved to paint? He’d been thirteen. Eight long years ago. He could still remember her face after the nervous test with the sixteen year old class; he had never told her, but he’d rushed outside to look through the classroom window to see her searching the pile of paper and finding the portrait of herself. Her face when she saw it! He would never forget the look on her wonderful face, revealed in that moment. He hadn’t been sure if she was going to cry or jump for joy, until in the car afterwards she did cry from happiness. But in the end it was eight wasted years for her, years of anger and fights and moving to a single bed, then a spare room. So much personal and private pain that she’d endured for him. She would be devastated if it was to end like this.

  His father? No, his father would not be devastated. Yet it was a shame he’d never had a chance to show him the portrait that was now beyond reach of anyone, locked up by order of Mussolini inside the Galleria. Despite all evide
nce to the contrary, he’d always had a strange feeling Salvatore Minnelli might’ve liked it. Might’ve even felt proud of it, although he would never have allowed himself to say so.

  Time passed. He couldn’t tell how long, for his wrist watch was left where he had placed it, beside the divan in Silvana’s apartment. What was she going to think when she returned to emptiness? Just his watch and a heavy suitcase of clothes and other belongings. Had anyone who knew her witnessed his arrest?

  He heard a distant metal door open and clang shut. Another poor devil for isolation. Then the sound of approaching footsteps were louder, as if nearer to his cell and stopping. There was a rattle of keys, and through the network of iron bars he saw the face of the lieutenant, the bastard who’d not bothered to accept his documents and let them drop onto the concrete. Carlo stared with sudden surprise: was he carrying them now? They looked like—and surely were—his proof of the scholarship! Had he wrongly assumed this man was like the bigoted cranky sergeant?

  “You’d better come out of there. We can’t both fit inside,” the lieutenant said, as he unlocked the grill door. Carlo suspended belief; it did not sound like the tactic of a bastard. The next moment of hope was when the lieutenant shook hands. He had to be hopefully different to the surly sergeant!

  “I’m Luigi Revira,” he said. “I’ll call you Carlo, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind, if you’ve brought some good news. I think those are really my documents,” he said with a sense of relief.

  “I wish it was good news,” came the words that obliterated his smile.

  “What’s wrong, Tenente Rivera?”

  “Forget the rank. In civilian life I’m a lawyer. Call me Luigi.”

  “What’s wrong Luigi? It hasn’t been the greatest day. Wrongly arrested and I’ve lost my girlfriend. What else can go wrong?”

  “Almost everything,” the lawyer replied. “You’ve had such lousy luck, that I hardly know how to tell you.”

  “What is it?” He pointed at the documents. “At least you believe what’s said in those. I am an art student.”

  “You should be—but that’s the trouble, Carlo. You’re not.”

  “What? But the Villa Medici…”

  “It’s French owned, and since yesterday we’re at war with them. So this is now an illegal scholarship. Not your fault, just bloody horrible misfortune.”

  “Illegal scholarship? Mussolini declares war, so I’m no longer allowed to study art? Is that what it means?”

  “It means you’ve no status as a student. It also means, and I hate to tell you this because it’s so unreasonable, but you’re stuck in the hole that cranky old sergeant was trying to wedge you. It’s volunteer for the army, or go to prison as a non-combatant.”

  “Shit!”

  “That’s just what it is. Shit and grossly unfair. If I had a choice I’d say walk out of here and keep walking.”

  “But…?” Carlo said. “As you’re a lawyer, I suspect there’s a word like ‘but’ on the end of that sentence?”

  “I’m afraid there is. From now on, anyone young and fit like you and not in uniform will have to publicly account for their status.”

  “So if I walked, it wouldn’t be far?”

  “Not with this city full of eager citizens hunting evaders. And it’d be a long stretch in gaol. Not worth the risk, Carlo.”

  “Fuck!”

  “Indeed,” agreed Luigi.

  “There was a Shakespearian phrase about bad news coming in battalions. He knew a thing or two, bloody Shakespeare. So what happens now, Luigi?”

  “The only advice I can give you is this. We believe the war with France could soon be over. German tanks, followed by the infantry are in Paris. If the French government surrenders, it could mean the Medici gallery is no longer enemy owned. It might be just a few months before your scholarship could be reconsidered and become legal.”

  Carlo tried to come to terms with this. “Even so, I’d either be in the army or in prison.”

  “Forget prison, for God’s sake. Civilians get bashed in there. I want to help, Carlo. It’s why I took your papers to study, by-passing the sergeant.”

  “I thought…” Carlo began, then shook his head. “No, never mind what I thought.”

  “I can easily imagine what you thought. Pompous prick or words to that effect.” Luigi smiled. “I’m afraid veteran sergeants in this army have more influence than part-time junior officers. That’s my lowly grade. I waited until he was busy with someone else, then picked up your papers. One glance and it was obvious they’re genuine.”

  “But useless.”

  “Not necessarily—if France surrenders. Your best chance, when they do, could be an application for discharge on the grounds of creativity.”

  “That sounds a bit legal for my mind. Tell me how it works.”

  “I can only tell you how I hope it might work. An approach to the army H.Q. saying you gave up a prestigious award to join, but now you want to claim the honour back. If France surrenders, there’d be a real chance the army could treat that sympathetically.”

  There was a silence while Carlo puzzled over this.

  “Lots of ifs and maybes.”

  “There are. We’re facing army rules, not a civil court or a magistrate.”

  “So nothing’s certain?”

  “Nothing is. That’s why I said—I hope it’ll work. It should,” he added after hesitating.

  “I sense another but,” Carlo said.

  “The army might make it a test case. That’s why I suggest you take some time. Think it over carefully. But please, whatever you do, stay out of jail.”

  “I can only do that by joining the army.”

  “I’m afraid so. Not much help, am I,” Luigi said regretfully.

  “On the contrary,” Carlo answered. “I have to trust someone. I’ll trust you and I’m grateful, Luigi.”

  “You don’t want more time to consider? I can’t guarantee anything.”

  “It’s at least a hope, if a bit uncertain. I’ll sign. I really haven’t a choice, have I?”

  Beatrice was persuaded to remain with her parents in their apartment near the university while she made phone calls trying to trace Francois Fouquet. She soon learned that he and the French staff had left the country the day before Mussolini’s declaration of war. They’d obviously had prior knowledge and fled before being arrested as enemy aliens. Why hadn’t Francois contacted her? She felt disappointed in him. It would not have taken long and a warning would have made such a difference.

  After a restless night with her parents she drove back to the Villa hoping to further question the corporal, but found he was no longer there. One of the guards told her he had volunteered for duty overseas, and been transferred late the previous afternoon. Walking away dispiritedly, she heard another voice call her. It was the nervous guard, the one who’d been interrupted by the corporal on her last visit.

  “I was here asking questions,” Beatrice said. “I tried to speak to you.”

  “Yes,” he nodded.

  “I know my son came here. But I was told he had decided to go home.”

  “Is not true,” the guard said.

  “I didn’t think it was,” Beatrice told him, “I didn’t like your corporal.”

  “Nobody like him.” The guard was from Palermo, and spoke with a strong accent. “We glad he leaves here. The Signorina, she don’t like him.”

  “What Signorina?” Beatrice asked.

  “The pretty one. She like your son, not the corporal.”

  “What was her name? Can you tell me?”

  He shrugged and shook his head. “I hear she pose without clothes.”

  “Ohh,” Beatrice said realising. “Oh yes. The life model at the Villa.”

  She thought of the drawing she’d briefly seen that was doubtless locked inside the gallery. It had only been a nervous sketch of the girl and a hardly recognisable face. She needed more; a name or an address.

  “Your son
, they happy. Him and her go.”

  “Do you know where she lives? Would anyone know that, or know her name? Anything might be a help.”

  He beckoned to one of the other guards, who came to join them. After a brief exchange the other man spoke to Beatrice.

  “Sorry, we don’t know her name. Our Corporal knew where she lived, but he’s gone. We think your questions scared him.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  “Going to the army overseas, we think. A long way, we hope.”

  “What about the people who worked there?” She thought in particular of Francois. He must know where she lived. Had he really fled to France?

  “They all gone before we come here. We never meet them.”

  “They go back to France,” the other guard said. “That’s what we hear.”

  “Yes, I also heard that,” Beatrice said. She felt dismayed. She’d come close. Now she had to search for the live model last seen with her son, but where could she begin? After fruitless hours questioning people in the district, she gave up and went back to join her parents in San Lorenza.

  It was late in the afternoon and Sofia poured them drinks in the small upstairs living room where Beatrice had always felt more at home. They both understood her distress but were concerned about her well-being.

  “You’re going to drive yourself sick with worry, my darling,” her father said, trying to calm her. “Forget Fouquet, he seems to have skipped the country. Let’s concentrate on what we know. We do know Carlo found himself locked out, but met the girl from the life class and went off with her. It seems there might’ve been an attraction on her behalf and if she’s as pretty as they suggest, he could feel the same. In which case he may still be with her.”