Last Train from Liguria

by Christine Dwyer Hickey

'It's hardly Timbuktu!'

  'Bordighera is a pretty seaside resort, an all-year resort, where people start to believe they are on endless holiday. If you want to see the real Italy, go to Rome, Bologna or Trieste indeed, where you can be sure there will be those gloating at today's news and eyeing up all they have envied for so long: Jewish homes, jobs, land. I wish you well, my dear, whatever your decision. I will contact your father – no, even if you tell me I mustn't – I will as soon as I get back to London. One last word of advice, change all your money to sterling. Go to James, he'll sort you out, that way at least when you come to your senses you'll be prepared because the lira will be of no use soon enough – shhh now, here she is – ah, Miss Norris! There you are, at last. We were beginning to wonder. Unfortunately, Miss Stuart is just about to leave. You have the butter I see. Well done.'

  *

  When she gets home Alec is in the bath. Elida, crossing the landing with an armful of towels, pauses to throw a complaint over the banisters – Edward has brought the poor child home from the beach, coated in sand 'like he is a cotoletta alla milanese.' It is clear by Elida's face that she hasn't yet heard the news.

  'Hadn't time to dry him,' Edward mutters then pushes her into the kitchen where he makes tea and begins to tell her what happened.

  He'd been wrestling with the crib half the morning and ended up having to carry it, piece by piece, into the Signora's bedroom, the size of the bloody thing like a garden shed. He'd decided to wait for Cesare to give him a hand and so went out onto the terrace to have a smoke and see if there was any sign of him. Edward never got to light the smoke because when he looked down the old man was there already, and he knew at once that something was off. Cesare was standing, hands hanging, back to the garden, nose to the wall.

  Edward called to him – no response. Then after a moment sent down a whistle. Cesare turned, looked at him for a moment, then nodded. Edward nodded back. 'It was,' he tells Bella, 'like an acknowledgement of some sort between us.'

  When Edward came down Cesare pulled the newspaper out of his pocket and handed it to him. 'Siamo fottuti,' he said.

  'What does that mean?' Bella asks.

  'Literally?'

  'Yes.'

  'We're fucked.'

  'Oh, I see.'

  Edward continues. 'Down on the beach the news spread, I suppose like it always does, from group to group – if you remember how we heard about Spain? Or Vienna? – and I must have arrived just after it had. At least, when I came out of the sottopassaggio there was the usual noise – you know, that manic seaside quacking – but as I began to walk along the passeggiata the silence seemed to roll ahead of me.

  'By the time I got to the Parigi all I could hear were the gulls and the sea. I stood at the railing scouring the beach for Alec. Bit by bit people started to talk again. Amongst themselves first, but then they began to break from their groups, get up and cross the beach to speak to each other. By now the newspapers had come through and paperboys were running up and down the promenade or trudging over the sand shouting, "La Difesa della razza!"And something about new racial laws.

  'I don't think anyone knew what to do or how to take it. Most were shocked, I'd say. Naturally, this being Italy it didn't take too long for opinions to form. From what I could pick up the general consensus seemed to be – if he's doing this to the Jews he's rowing in with Hitler, and if he's rowing in with Hitler we're headed for war.

  'I finally spotted Alec and the girls. They were standing a few feet away from a family group, listening to a man reading aloud from the paper. As I got near I could hear his voice, full of approval, announcing the law to ban Jewish children from school. Lina was standing with a ball wedged between her ankles listening to him. Then she began to sob. The other one…?'

  'Martha.'

  'Martha, she skipped the tears and went straight into screaming.'

  'And Alec?'

  'Alec just stood there looking at them.'

  'He said nothing?'

  'Not a squeak. Then Mrs Cardiff came along and that fat lump she sometimes has with her.'

  'Miss Norris.'

  'Yes. They scooped up his beach things, handed them to me and shooed the pair of us off. I took him home while they looked after the girls. And well, here we are, I suppose.'

  *

  It takes an age to get Alec settled that night. He neither eats nor says much during dinner and only agrees to go to bed at all after Edward telephones the station and puts the capo on to personally confirm there will be no more trains before morning. He can then stop waiting for his mother and new baby sister to arrive.

  For a time they hear him up in his room, playing his harmonica. At first he plays in a non-stop tuneless block, then gaps begin to appear that gradually expand into silence.

  Bella goes up to his room, prises the harmonica out of his hand, shakes the spit out and wipes it dry. Then she folds Alec's legs, stiffened with sleep, under the covers. She sits on the side of the bed for a few moments and watches him. His lips roughened by overuse of the instrument, his limbs longer and bonier than they seemed to be yesterday. Ironically, now that all the baby softness and cuteness has gone from his body he seems vulnerable. Even in his sleep, he looks awkward and incompetent for an eleven-year-old boy.

  Bella stands up, checks everything on his bedside table is as he likes it: flask of water, flash lamp should he waken frightened, the tennis ball autographed by the Italian champion six months ago in Monte Carlo that Alec has been carrying around as his portafortuna ever since. Behind all this stands a framed photograph taken in the garden this time last year, with the Almansi girls prancing about in bare feet. There is a postcard, stuck in the bottom corner of the frame, sent by his mother when he first started school, telling him how handsome he had looked in his new uniform. Finally, an old pair of gold spectacles once belonging to Signor Lami and which Alec has recently taken to keeping near his bed so 'Papa can watch over me'. A notion Bella finds just a little disconcerting.

  She pulls a jar of petroleum jelly from a shelf over the bed, dips her little finger in and gently dabs it along the chapped rim of his lips.

  Later, just as she is going upstairs to bed, the sound of the telephone smashes into the house. Bella watches from the stairs while Elida approaches the phone as if she's expecting a bite from it. She tries to catch the gist of the call by the shift of expressions on Elida's face; now alarmed, now puzzled, finally annoyed. 'Da Vienna,' she tuts, holding the receiver to Bella as she comes down the last few stairs.

  'Vienna?' she says. 'The Signora's in Vienna?'

  But Elida has already gone to the house phone to call Edward up from the mews.

  It turns out to be a drunken Amelia. Bella can hardly understand what she's saying. It's as if she's speaking with her mouth full of toffee. In the background there are the hysterical strains of an orchestrina that's asking too much of itself, and the surge and fall of drunken voices, possibly German.

  'I can't hear you, Amelia,' she shouts down the phone. 'I'm sorry I just can't—'

  The noise suddenly cuts. 'Forgota close door.'

  'Yes, that's better.'

  'Look, the thing is, well. I'm in a – you know – fix. The problem. The problem is I can't get out of Vienna.' Amelia starts to laugh.

  'I thought you were supposed to be in Berlin?'

  'Well, I would be! I would be! Let me tell you right now. I would, if I could be, if I could. But they won't let me back in. I'm not kidding. This place is. Gonetahell. That's what. Last time with Grace, it was so. Now. It's a tragedy, that's what. Poor old Vienna. Can't see the buildings for swastikas hanging from every window. The whole damn town overrun with German soldiers. People shrieking "Heil Hitler" at each other like maniacs in the streets, every shop you go into, every bar, even the babies are doing it. All over. I mean, shrie-eeeking. It's more Nazi than Berlin, for chrissake! I want. I want out of here, Miss Stuart. But they won't allow it! Not unless someone whaddayacall vouches for me. They won't even let me
home to the States. I mean, come on! Anyway who cares? I don't wanna go to the States, much rather come visit with you instead. That'd be OK. Wouldn't that be OK? It'd be fun. Like it used to be fun. You, me, Edward, whatshisname Alec. Trouble is, I need Aunt Lami to – you know, whatever. To vouch for me – I thought maybe with that special thing going on between Germany and Italy. If that husband of hers, that Tassi husband lawyer guy, could – you know? And she's got her share of contacts, you can bet on that, Miss Stuart. How are you anyhow? How is Bordighera?'

  'Well, I'm—'

  'Get her to do that for me, would you? Aunt Lami, tell her I'm in a fix, you know. Talk her round, the way only you can, there's a sweetheart. I tried calling her but—'

  'Amelia, I'm sorry but I can't—'

  'You can't?'

  'The thing is I won't be—'

  'You won't?'

  'No, what I mean is. Amelia – are you still there?' Bella asks after a few silent seconds.

  'Lemme get this clear in my mind – did you just say you won't? Is that what you just said?'

  'You see, the problem is—'

  'The problem is?'

  'It's just not possible.'

  Bella listens for a moment to the sounds of Amelia organizing a cigarette: click, suck and blow. Then as if the cigarette has sobered her up, her voice returns almost clear and certainly cold. 'Now you listen to me, Miss Stuart.'

  'I am listening, Amelia, if you'd just let me explain.'

  'Do you have any idea what could happen to me here? I've lost my papers – don't you see? They were stolen actually, if you must know. Without papers I could be goddamn anyone. I could be a fucking Jew. Do you know what's happening to Jews right now in Vienna? Let me speak with Edward.'

  'You don't understand, Amelia.'

  'What I don't understand, Miss Stuart, is just who the hell you think you are?'

  'Amelia, please.'

  'You know something – I'm really not all that surprised if it comes to it. I mean, you've pretty much always had it in for me. Always been something of a bitch quite frankly. Oh sure, you're all sweetie-pie and shiny-shoes when it suits you, but you've never fooled me, you know. She's warned you off, hasn't she? Your precious Sig-nora. She's told you to say you don't know where she is. Well, you go tell her from me that if she doesn't help me, she'll be sorrier than she knows how. Because I have the read on her. And I know.'

  'You know what, Amelia?'

  'I know what she's been taking out of Germany and Italy. Drip, drip, drip. And you can tell her from me that's my uncle's money. Money she no longer has any right to, by the way. You tell her that now. You go tell her that right now, from me.'

  'I promise, she really isn't here.'

  'Let me speak with Edward.'

  'Amelia, I'm simply trying to—'

  'I want Edward – are you deaf as well as dumb?'

  'Please, if you would just listen—' but then Edward is beside her pulling the phone from her hand.

  'Ah, Amelia,' he says. 'Yes, it's me, yes, indeed. Oh dear, dear, how terrible. I see, yes. Do you know – she's not here – oh, but let's not talk about her. I can help you just as well. Now, where are you staying? Well, that's not too bad, eh, that's hardly a prison cell now, is it? From what I hear that's the best in Vienna. But didn't you have to leave your papers at reception when you checked in? Oh I see, you took them back when you went to the bank. Well, did you go back to the bank and see if you'd left them there? Ah, a nightclub. Yes, well I agree, they're most likely gone. Never mind, we'll sort it all out. Yes, of course we will. Now what I want you to do – listen to me, Amelia, are you listening? Go back to the hotel. Oh, you're there now – excellent. Well, I want you to go to your room. Yes now. No, don't even say goodnight to your lovely friends, just go to your room. I'm sure they are, yes. We'll get you out of there before you know it. Now, it could take a few days. That's right, right, right. Just stay put, have them send whatever you want up to the room. Me? Well, you wouldn't know, Amelia, I might very well do. Yes, I'm sure I would love it there. Yes. Splendid. Now what room, did you say? Oh now, Amelia, let's concentrate on one thing at a time, eh? Up to bed with you now. Well yes, that is a shame. I'll get onto it straight away. Promise, absolutely. Don't worry about the Signora, I'll organize everything. Goodbye. Yes. I won't let you down. Night night. You too, you too.' He puts down the phone. 'She was on far too long – I hope no one was listening in.'

  'What's happened?' Bella asks.

  'Do you have an address for Grace? Write it down for me, would you? I'll be back soon.'

  'Where are you going?'

  'To send a telegram.'

  'But what about Amelia?'

  'Don't you think we've enough to worry about? I'll send a telegram, her father can rescue her.'

  'But what did she say?'

  'She's lost her papers, has no money, Tassi's office has been refusing to accept her calls – I think we should do the same from now on. Oh, and she's keeping the bed warm for me.'

  Bella and Edward look at each other and laugh. Elida tuts and closes her eyes in disgust. Then Edward says, 'I was thinking maybe I'll move into the house, for a night or so, until the Signora shows up at any rate – what do you think?'

  'Oh. I'm sure that would be fine,' Bella says. 'What do you think, Elida, it should be fine? I don't think the Signora would mind – would she?'

  'I don't care what the Signora say,' Elida says, clasping her hands. 'If it make it more safe for us all.'

  *

  Every day seems to bring more bad news. The wider world coming in through the radio: Hitler, Czechoslovakia; every move another move towards war.

  A few days after the race laws are published they hear on the radio that all French officers have been recalled from leave.

  'Meaning what?' she asks Edward.

  'The French are preparing for war.'

  Then nearer to home a letter arrives from Alec's school: 'Kindly note that following instructions from the Ministero dell'Educazione Nazionale, there is no longer a place available for the abovementioned pupil in the forthcoming term.'

  Even though she has read the laws, several times, in several newspapers, and has listened to them being endlessly discussed (if rarely criticized) on the radio, Bella can still hardly believe it. After all the time he has put into that school; all the hours fretting and fussing about uniforms and books, the daily struggles with homework and friendships, the small occasional triumph. Up and down that San Remo Road, knowing every stone, sweep and turn of it, every pillar and shopfront to be passed on the way. And the same thing every morning as they came into the centre, Alec pointing to his landmark of the dome on the Russian church and shouting out, 'Almost there. Almost there! Only four minutes thirty seconds minimum, to five minutes at the very maximum, more. Punctuality excellent! Alec Lami. Brav-is-simo!'

  And this is what it all amounts to in the end – a 'To Whom it May Concern' few lines-and-a-bit typed in the middle of the page, as if the secretary had been trying to take the mean look off a few morsels.

  She has to ask Edward to take Alec for the afternoon because she can't bring herself to look the child in the face. She is that upset she almost misses the handwritten note slipped into the back of the envelope.

  Miss Stuart – It might be worthwhile applying to the Demorazza for Alec to be considered for discriminato status. I'm not sure what this means yet, but gather it may allow exemptions in certain cases. It's worth a shot anyhow. Please tell him we send our best. I don't have to tell you how simply awful we all feel about this. Let us hope and pray it blows over soon.

  The note is unsigned, but probably from Alec's geography teacher Miss McHugh who has always been fond of him, despite his indifference to her subject. Bella is grateful anyhow for the comfort it brings and keeps it in her handbag to glance at now and then. At least someone, somewhere, might actually care about their predicament.

  Every now and then they ask each other what should they do? And the answer is always the s
ame – 'Let's give it another day or so – see if the Signora shows up.'

  *

  Meanwhile her letters and messages for the missing Signora continue to pile up, including calls from two different bank managers as well as a notice to attend the Commune Registrar for the stato di famiglia certificate. Elida informs them it's compulsory now, every family has to have its status confirmed and ready to produce at any given moment: for enrolment in school or the Balilla, to avail of free milk. Even at the other end of the scale, to take part in the regatta or go out on a pleasure cruise. A friend of her neighbour's cousin's uncle has the letter E printed on hers.

  'E?' Bella asks. 'Why E?'

  'For ebreo – status of Jew.'

  Then a few days later, another letter, this time addressed to Bella, equally dreaded but also expected, from the Prefettura of the police. She is having breakfast with Edward, as they have done since he moved from the mews into the house, him reading the morning papers, her going through the morning's post, Alec absent but traceable by the occasional drawl of his harmonica throughout the house and garden. Even with all this worry and uncertainty, as she opens the letter with an unsteady hand, Bella is aware that it warms her a little to see Edward across from her, leaning back in his chair, relaxed and manly, his long hand coming around the newspaper to grasp the width of the cup, while she half listens to the items he occasionally reads out, and he half responds to whatever she might say. Since Edward moved from the mews to the house there has been this sense of companionship – the sort a married couple might enjoy and, as she occasionally reminds herself, probably the nearest she'll ever get to the experience.

  The letter is in fact an order to appear before the federal committee on Friday, 30 September, with all her documentation to date and in order. The hearing will require her to explain why she has failed to have her documents verified despite reminders, and also to decide if her future is in Italy. Should she fail to appear an immediate deportation order would be issued against her.

  'Oh God – not this. Not this now, on top of everything else!'

  Edward doesn't seem to have heard her. She is about to slide the letter across the table to him, when something occurs to her.