by JH Fletcher
‘Taking a ride, eh? That what you’re saying?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nice day for it. Nothing in your pannier?’
The suddenly barked question was like a blow. She had to hide her fear, yet how could she? The air stank of it. She swallowed.
‘Take a look, if you want. Nobody’s stopping you.’
‘I’d like to see anyone try.’ Slowly he walked forward. He was so close that she could smell the sun-warmed grey cloth, the whiff of oil from the gun about his neck. His boots crunched on the gravel as he placed his hand on the pannier. Face frozen, she would not look at him but was conscious of his smile focusing on her like the muzzle of his rifle. From the trees beside the road came a commotion of wings as birds flew skywards. Lucia stood helplessly under the soldier’s knowing smile. ‘What’s your name?’
Her stiff lips barely moved; she knew better than to say that he’d already seen her identity card. ‘Visconti.’
‘Visconti? That all? Haven’t you got a first name?’
‘Lucia.’
‘That’s better. So, Lucia, you say you live in Montegallo?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s nice. What do you do there? Nothing to do with farming, I’ll bet, not with hands like that. Let me guess. Teacher? Clerk in a bank?’
‘I’m a singer at the opera house in Parma.’
‘Singer, eh? That’s new. What sort of stuff do you sing?’
‘Opera.’
Again the measured crunch of boots as he circled her, taking his time about it. He stopped behind her. He was so close that she could feel his eyes, his breath.
‘Word of advice, little singer. I could check what’s in that pannier of yours, but I won’t. If I found anything, I’d have to take you in and that’d be a pity. For both of us, especially for you. So I’m going to let you go. But I’m not stupid. Be careful, all right? Another time I might not be feeling so generous. Get me?’
She was unsure whether he was releasing her or not.
‘Get moving, then. Before I change my mind.’
She nodded stiffly and remounted her bicycle. He clapped his helmet firmly back on his head.
‘I’ll be seeing you, then. Lucia.’
His eyes danced. He laughed as though he meant every word of what might have been a promise or a threat. Somehow she managed to ride on. It seemed to take for ever to reach the next bend; all the way she could feel his eyes nailed to her back. She didn’t turn her head or slow down but, as soon as she’d rounded the bend and was safely out of sight, she stopped and buried her head in her hands. She could scarcely breathe.
She arrived home to find her mother listening to the wireless. After what had happened to her she thought that the day, surely, could contain no more dramas, but she was wrong. Helena hurried to her at once and held her hands tight. For her mother to show such emotion was so unusual that Lucia was alarmed.
‘What is it?’
‘Mussolini …’
The once all-powerful leader had been deposed and arrested. The king had asked Marshal Badoglio to form an alternative government.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
1
Crowds were dancing around bonfires in the streets. From the city came reports of some shooting: people taking the chance to settle old scores, or so Helena claimed. Eduardo disappeared once more. She said he’d been called to fascist headquarters for discussions about the future of the Party and the war, although what he had to contribute on either subject was anyone’s guess. The wireless reported that a number of Fascists had been killed in Milan. The German troops around Montegallo were nowhere to be seen and there were rumours they’d been withdrawn. Rumours were endless. Hitler was dead. German armour had been seen heading south across the Brenner Pass. The Italian divisions in the Balkans had gone over to the Russians. Trieste and Udine had been occupied by the SS. The truth was that, in a world in chaos, no-one knew what was going on or what the outcome was going to be.
Somehow life continued. People got up each morning and went to bed at night never knowing what the next day, or even the next hour, might bring. The war would end or it would not. The boys would come home or they would not. Leaflets calling for Italy’s surrender were dropped by Allied aircraft. Tomorrow bombs might replace the leaflets. Uncertainty did not cause panic but made everyone stoical. There was nothing they could do so, as far as possible, they tried to put the war and its attendant miseries out of their minds.
Once again the trams were out of action. Three days later they started running again and Lucia went into Parma. There were German troops at the station, more manning roadblocks in the city. Twice within half a kilometre she had to show her papers. Most of the shops were shut and there were fewer people about than normal. The empty pavements made Parma seem like a city of ghosts. A tank was drawn up on a corner near the theatre. Conscious of the tank crew watching her, she walked past it without turning her head. It was a relief to reach the theatre. She stood inside the auditorium, looking at the white and gold decor, the red plush seating, and thought that here, at least, things still had the illusion of normality. She didn’t stay long. Only the caretaker was there; despite appearances, things were far from normal. Once again she braved the streets as she walked to the conservatorium. No-one was at the reception desk but she found Marta Bianci in her room.
Her teacher — plump, radiant smile, dressed as always in formal black — flung her arms around her. ‘Thank goodness! I haven’t seen you for days. I was afraid something must have happened to you.’
Minutes earlier, passing once again in front of the tank whose cannon seemed to threaten not only the street but civilisation itself, Lucia had been grey with fright; now she laughed. ‘The trams weren’t running, but today they’re back again. The world goes on!’
She was laughing and crying at once; it was so good to see this woman who was not only her teacher but her dearest friend.
‘What’s going to happen to us all?’ Lucia stared at her teacher. The bones in Marta’s face were as commanding as ever but the lines cut deeply into her face and for the first time Lucia thought she was showing her age.
However, Marta shook her head decisively enough. ‘You must put the war out of your head. There’s nothing any of us can do about it. What we can do, though, is talk about the next opera season. As you know, I’m on the programme committee.’
She paced the room, heels clicking, then came swiftly to Lucia and clutched her hands.
‘Tosca.’
Lucia put her hands to her throat. ‘What about it?’
‘Tosca, the voice of defiance: Scarpia, the tyrant overthrown by love! Can you think of a more suitable opera to perform at this time?’ Perhaps none more suitable, but …
‘Do we dare?’
‘Who’s going to stop us?’
‘The Germans?’
‘They’re not running this country yet!’
Lucia remembered the tank but said nothing. She feared for the future but was willing to hope she could be wrong. For the moment there were other considerations.
‘Who’ll take the lead?’
Again Marta took her hands. ‘I would’ve liked it to be you.’
But.
Lucia’s hopes dissolved.
‘Teresa Sciotto has been with the company longer and has a fine voice, too.’
Lucia would have strangled the cow where she stood but was determined to be fair.
‘A very fine voice,’ she agreed, but playing the saint proved beyond her. She threw back her chestnut hair, while her eyes blazed blue fire. ‘Pity she can’t act.’
‘Lucia!’
Now disappointment was allied to a sense of betrayal. Fury, too, at her inability to prevent her tears. ‘You know I’d do it better than her!’
‘You’ll understudy her. Perhaps you’ll get your chance.’
Lucia remained sulky but Marta had made up her mind.
‘It’s the best I can do for you. Some would say it’s too much for
someone as young as you are. And Teresa has her own supporters, as you know.’
It was true. On stage Teresa Sciotto was as wooden as a fence post but there would always be those who thought that purity of tone was more important than the ability to act. And purity she had, in voice if not in temperament. Curse her.
The chance to understudy the star role in a major production was certainly a step up in her own career. And, as Marta said, there was always the chance that Teresa might become ill.
Although Lucia doubted it. That one would drag herself on stage if she was dying. Out of spite. She’d be happy to give her poison herself, to prove it. Purely in the interests of science. But managed to shrug off her rage. Once again, as when she and Teresa had alternated in the role of Beatrice, she would accept the challenge. She would prove to the world, or at least to the officialdom of the Parma Opera House, that the understudy was a greater performer than her rival.
2
She went home to trouble.
A stone had been thrown through one of the cottage windows. Helena had been shouted at in the street.
‘Who was it?’
‘I couldn’t see who they were. They were standing in the shadow of the trees.’ Helena wept. ‘Why should they do such things to us?’
They both knew the answer. Eduardo was a Fascist. A month ago they’d been heroes, the leaders of the nation; now they were the enemy, with all who were their friends. Lucia herself was not exempt, as Helena, not wishing to be alone in her trouble, was quick to remind her. ‘They’ll be after you, too. You sang for Mussolini, after all.’
Lucia responded violently. ‘I didn’t sing for him! He was there, that was all!’
‘It’s enough.’
Helena was right. It frightened Lucia. It might endanger her chances in Tosca. With everything she had dreamed of at risk, even to understudy the part she had wanted for herself was now immensely desirable. But to her mother she said: ‘It wasn’t exactly like you and Eduardo, was it? I didn’t sleep with him!’
Helena’s slap rattled her teeth. ‘Don’t talk filth to me!’
Lucia, too, could be a spitfire when she wanted. ‘Maybe I could have done, if I’d wanted. You saw how he looked at me.’
Not caring if it were true or not, wanting only to wound the woman who had wounded her. It took days for them to get over it. Eventually it was Helena who found the right words.
‘If we fight each other, it means they’ve beaten us. We must stand together. That way we shall overcome them all.’
Yes! Yes!
They hugged each other, weeping, and were strong. Outside the door, the world was in chaos. No-one knew what was going to happen next. The shops and banks were shut. Helena and Lucia had kept to the house, afraid of what might be waiting for them outside. Now they went out arm in arm, laughing to spite the world. They walked down Montegallo’s main street, they exchanged pleasantries with the handful of passers-by. One or two gave them looks but there was no trouble.
Helena said: ‘It will take more than Montegallo to get the better of the Sforzas.’
Or of the Fishers, Lucia thought, feeling herself a real Aussie, defiant in the face of persecution. Contact with her father would have helped, too, but in a war that was impossible. If only she’d been home, and safe, in Australia! But that, too, was the stuff of dreams.
They went home. Safe inside the house once more, Helena’s courage evaporated. She threw herself face down on the bed. Her clenched fists pounded. ‘Where will it all end?’
Lucia knelt at her mother’s side. ‘We shall be brave. You said so yourself, remember? We’re Sforzas. We shan’t let them get the better of us.’
Helena was exhausted, her lover vanished, and could not be comforted. Eventually, when she had wept herself dry, she fell silent. She stood up, making a visible effort to gather herself together. Her eyes were shadowed, her black hair cloaked a face of tragedy.
‘I shall go to bed.’
‘I’ll bring you a hot drink.’
A wan smile. ‘Of what? Water?’
‘We can do better than that.’
Lucia had scrounged some herb tea from Marta Bianci; until now she’d kept quiet about it. Originally she had intended it as a surprise; later, after the fight with her mother, she had made up her mind to drink it herself. Now it could be used in a better cause. She managed to squeeze two cups out of the precious leaves. There was no milk but she sweetened the brew with a drop of honey and carried the cups through to the bedroom. Helena was sitting up in bed and looked curiously at the cups in Lucia’s hands.
‘What have you got there?’
Lucia told her everything but her intention of keeping the tea for herself. They wept together, more kindly, and drank the tea like old friends. It seemed so strange, after all that had happened.
The next day, shortly after dawn, they were wakened by the sound of a klaxon, the screech and rumble of tracks. They ran to the window in time to see a column of tanks moving down the road. Early morning sunlight played on the camouflaged turrets and lit up the lightning flash emblem of the SS.
Caught up in their own problems, Helena and Lucia had not listened to the wireless last night. They had missed Marshal Badoglio’s broadcast in which he announced that Italy would ask the Allies for an armistice. This, within a matter of hours, was the Germans’ response. Whatever the Marshal might say, the war was clearly a long way from over.
3
Now came the devil years. Not of frenzy or blood but of fear, heavy in every heart. It was the ever-present companion. It rode in the trams, it prowled with silent feet in every street and lane, it formed an invisible miasma over the land. It raised barriers before the eyes of passers-by. While the crunch of booted feet, rhythmic and deadly, the harsh echo of alien voices, curdled the air. We, the Occupiers. We, the Oppressed. Each fearing the other, despising the other, willing death upon the other. Life became fear and caution and weariness. While the struggle to breathe, to survive, to pretend to some illusion of normality, went on.
4
Lucia came home one evening to find two soldiers sitting in the parlour with her mother. For a moment she thought they’d been billeted with them but Helena explained they’d been searching for hidden food. They had found nothing. They were intruders but unembarrassed. Their outstretched legs, their black combat boots, proclaimed it. They were the masters, their eyes said. They were willing to be friendly, but could be otherwise. As and when they chose. One of the soldiers turned as Lucia came in and they recognised each other at once.
‘What d’you know? The girl on the bicycle!’
It was the soldier who’d stopped her when she’d been cycling back with the food from the farm. She’d thought of him often since that day, well aware how much she owed him. He was bound to have guessed what she was up to, yet still he had let her go. Fair hair pared prickle short, he gave her a friendly nod. ‘I told you I’d see you again, one of these days.’
He was a German, she reminded herself. But he was also a man, barely older than herself, smiling up at her with tunic unbuttoned. It was hard to be frightened of such a man. She nodded at him.
‘You won’t find any extra food here. More’s the pity.’
‘Perhaps I should check the pannier on your bicycle.’
Making a joke of it. She did not answer. A German, she reminded herself. They stood to leave. In the doorway, tunic once more tightly buttoned, he turned. His grey eyes appraised her. ‘No more tricks, eh?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes, you do. But it’s the SS now. You don’t want to mess with them. Stick to opera singing.’
He thrust out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation she took it. He gave a half bow, a suspicion of a heel click.
‘Reinhardt Hoffmann.’
His hand was warm, softer than she would have expected for a soldier.
‘Lucia Visconti.’
‘I haven’t forgotten. Lucia.’
She
closed the door on his grin and went back into the parlour. Her mother looked at her.
‘I didn’t know you were friendly with the Germans.’
‘Hardly friendly. He stopped me once to check my ID. Anything more than that I leave to you and Eduardo.’
Who was back in town again and as bumptious as ever, now that the SS were here.
‘I’ll wash your mouth out, you talk to me like that.’
But her mother’s voice was listless. Once she might have meant it but that slap, only the other day, had been the end of her fireworks. The way Eduardo had dumped her when Mussolini fell had taken something away from her. Now it was safe he was back again, taking it for granted she’d welcome him with open arms. She had, too. It meant a measure of protection, a bag of coffee now and then, a slice or two of ham, but it had done nothing for her self-esteem. Perhaps she hoped to regain some of it by taking it out on her daughter, but Lucia was twenty years old now. Whatever Helena might have to say on the subject, there’d be no washing anybody’s mouth out, and both of them knew it.
Lucia stared at her mother, seeing not the woman with whom she had shared her precious tea and confidences but the tyrant who had uprooted her from the only life she’d known and brought her to Italy, war and unceasing danger. Why had she done it? Lucia told herself she knew very well. Out of selfishness, because Helena had been homesick. Even worse, because she’d made up her mind she was too good for her husband and the country that to Lucia would always be home. She had told Lucia she wanted her to be not simply an opera singer but the greatest opera singer who’d ever lived. Ever since, she’d held that ambition over her, like a bludgeon. She would work her to death to achieve it, not for Lucia’s sake but because it would justify everything she’d done, restore the respect that she felt she deserved. And where had it led them? To this pokey little cottage in a town no-one had ever heard of, where a mongrel like Eduardo could use her mother when it suited him and where enemies broke their windows because the world knew that Helena was no more than a fascist whore. Lucia felt no compassion for the mother who was trying to ensure their survival by whatever means she could. Instead there was only rage that she, too, had been dragged into something that by rights had nothing to do with her at all. Who knew, it might even affect her chances at the opera. Helena had used Eduardo’s influence to get Lucia into the conservatorium and to keep her there. Between them they’d made a fool of Professor Menotti. He wouldn’t have forgotten. Perhaps making her Teresa Sciotto’s understudy was his way of getting back at her. Understudy, she thought contemptuously. And to Teresa Sciotto, of all people. She’d have to see what she could do about that.