Last Train from Liguria

by Christine Dwyer Hickey

  'Edward?'

  'Mmm?'

  'Haven't you had anything from the Prefettura yet?'

  'Who?'

  'The Prefettura of the police, or the federal secretary even – haven't they been in touch with you yet?'

  'No. Not yet.'

  'Nothing at all? Not even a notice to verify your documents?'

  'I've been here longer than you.'

  'What difference does that make? Edward, are you listening to me, don't you think it's odd, I mean? You filled out the census form in August, didn't you, so really there ought to have – Edward?'

  He puts down the paper and looks across the table at her. 'The British fleet has just been mobilized,' he says.

  *

  For days they've been keeping to the house and garden and Alec has finally stopped asking why. Not that this self-imposed exile has been discussed or agreed between them; it has simply become easier not to go out.

  Days in the garden, trying to make more of it – picnics in a different corner each time, badminton at a makeshift court set up by Edward. Alec, sitting on the rim of a forgotten pond that Cesare has revived and filled with fresh water, splashing his legs or playing with boats. Everything is about keeping him distracted, his mind off questions and away from dark corners. But there are days when nothing can please him. Not talk of building a tree house; nor of getting a puppy; not even the ping-pong ball battle they staged one evening, which only set him off sulking and crying.

  Only the postman calls now, or the ice man, who is related to Elida and is, according to her lights, discretissimo. Even so, Bella has noticed, he never goes away from the kitchen without a bag of something or other swinging not so discretamente out of his hand.

  One day Bella asks Elida how much longer she thinks she'll stay working for the Signora.

  'It's only work if you take money. So if I don't take money, only food and a bed, then I don't get paid so I don't work really but stay as a guest in the house who just help.'

  'But you can't work for nothing.'

  'I have nowhere else to go, Signora,' Elida quietly says.

  'You could look for another job.'

  'So many others like me also suddenly must look for another job.'

  'The authorities know you're here, Elida. They know where everyone is now since the census. How long do you think you'll get away with it?'

  Elida folds her big fists. 'Until they come drag me away.'

  *

  Elida has stopped putting in grocery orders over the phone for delivery. She says she won't run the risk of being refused Jewish credit. Instead she goes out herself, counting the money from a box in the steel-plate safe, and filling it full of receipts on her return.

  Carting two big basketfuls back up the road each morning, she brings home along with the fruit and the meat more and more worrying snippets. On the posters outside the market Elida has read: 'Those names failing to appear on the list below must relinquish their party card.' Or: 'Those names not published in next Saturday's newspaper must not enrol for the coming school year and need not apply to renew their Balilla membership.'

  Elida hates these indirect hits. 'At least when Hitler stabs you,' she fumes, 'he sticks it in your belly where you can see the hand that is holding the knife.'

  She keeps them up to the minute on the comings and goings in Bordighera. Most classical concerts are cancelled, she says, only German musicians seem willing to travel. But Vizzali–Marini, the dancing duo, continue to shine – tonight's demonstration in the Kursaal will be of 'The Lambeth Walk'.

  She often complains that there are more and more military on the streets every day. Or that the town is full of suspicious types pretending to be holidaymakers; one eye on the border, the other on your purse. Or that greedy grabbers are already starting to hoard – today she could only get five packets of Nazionali cigarettes for the Maestro and six kilos of sugar, which means they now have only twenty.

  'In the name of God, Elida, why do we need twenty kilos of sugar?'

  'Signora, in wartime everything is currency.'

  She reports on shop conversations. Private whispers over the counter. Or free-for-all rants involving customers and staff. Today's gripe – the new French law banning Italians without a visa, even for a day trip, even for an hour. Disgrazia – is what they are saying. Italian workers losing jobs because of delays at the border. One woman in the queue of the tabaccheria said her son got the sack because he was three hours late for his work in Villefranche. And when a man at the back of the shop said they only wanted an excuse to get rid of him anyway, because he's Italian – voice by voice, the whole packed shop had agreed.

  In the pharmacy Elida heard someone tell the assistant that there are signs up in the shops in Rome. The signs don't say 'Juden Nicht Begrüen', or 'Juden Verboten', like in Germany, but 'Negozio Ariano'. Aryan shop.

  'Another back-stab,' Elida snarls, clutching her metaphorical knife.

  'Oh God, Elida! Tell us something nice for a change, something hopeful,' Bella pleads when she hears this last piece of news.

  'The olives are starting to ripen, Signora. They are laying olive cloths all over the ground.'

  *

  Her father actually telephones. Even down the line, behind the voices of English and Italian telephonists, she can feel him simmer with rage.

  'They'll be pipping me in a minute or two,' he growls as he comes on, 'so I'll keep this brief. Your Mrs Cardiff has been to see me on her way to Northumberland and I must say I am appalled not to mention utterly ashamed by the total disregard you have for those with your best interest at heart. And safety, I might add. Do you know this very morning our prime minister has issued a warning to Germany to stay out of Czecho slovakia? Do you imagine for one moment that warning will be heeded? And do you have any idea of the possible consequences? Ina and I are getting ready to leave London, when – rather than should – the need arise, but we will be staying in the country with her sister. I will leave the details here on my study desk, Mrs Carter has the spare keys, but let me tell you now, Bella, that I will expect to see you at your haste either in London or at Ina's sister's house. Old as I am, I would be prepared to go over there to you this minute and personally drag you home were it not for the fact that the Home Office has curtailed travel to the continent. I hope I've made myself clear in this matter and I certainly don't expect to have to repeat this call.'

  The pips sound and he hangs up the telephone, before she has a chance to say a word in her defence, or any word at all.

  *

  There is an electric storm one afternoon, about halfway into the month. Big bruisers of hailstones first, hammering against the windows and battering down on the garden. Then only rain. No wind or thunder. A sky snagged with eerie light. Under this relentless downpour everything in the garden gleams. Half-mesmerized, she sits with Alec looking out a window in his mother's sitting room.

  Until Edward sticks his head around the door to announce he is going out. 'There's someone I've been meaning to talk to,' he says. 'This would be a good time to go.'

  'You'll be soaked. Should I drive you?'

  'No. Stay here with Alec.'

  'We could all go,' she begins. 'It means we'd at least…'

  He looks at her, waiting. And for a moment she pictures them cosy in the car, the wheels pressing into long swills of water, the shushing windscreen wipers. She sees the blur of premature light from cafés and bars and a sudden pair of brave feet splashing across an otherwise deserted street. The rain hopping off the ground with such force, and bouncing off the bonnet of the car, straight back to the sky, as if it's raining in both directions. She feels if they could only do that, get into the car and keep driving and driving through rain.

  'Well?' he says.

  'What I mean to say, Edward, is, we could get out of the house for a while, you know, but because we'd be in the car, there'd be no need to worry about meeting anyone, saying the wrong thing. That's what I mean.'

  'No. Best if
you two stay here,' Edward says.

  A few minutes later Bella gets up. 'Alec, I'll be back,' she says.

  'Where—?'

  'Just popping down to the kitchen for an apple – would you like one?'

  'Yes please.'

  She stands at her bedroom window, watching the spike of Edward's black brolly bob down the lane towards the town centre. Bella is assaulted by thoughts of the worst, the fact that she has started to doubt him. Supposing he doesn't come back? Supposing there's somebody waiting at the end of the lane to drive him away? Or worse, he starts drinking? What if she is left here alone? Left to make all the decisions. And how can she make the smallest decision without knowing what has already been done, or said, by the Signora, or what she may yet have up her sleeve? And now Edward disappearing into a haze of rain, not saying who he is going to see, or where or when he'll be back, or if.

  She notices the shape of the postman then, sleek as a seal at the garden gate. Bella slips off her shoes and runs downstairs. She opens the front door and the postman peers in at her through a veil of rain.

  'O che brutto tempo!' she says and invites him to step inside, maybe have a coffee to help him on his way. But the postman says he'll carry on, that at his age he finds temporary comfort worse than no comfort at all.

  He fumbles under the fall of his sou'wester cloak and she asks him how long he's been postman to this house. He smiles under a thick white moustache. 'Da tanti anni, Signora,' he explains. Since he was a boy when he used to come with his uncle, the postman before him. He had always loved coming to the Villa Lami, he tells her, the old Signora would give him something sweet from her pocket. Gentilissima. She did her own gardening, he adds, as if this is a fact that still bemuses him.

  He produces two letters and she asks him if he has anything for the mews.

  'Scusi, Signora?'

  'La casetta in fondo al giardino? Il garage? Signor King? Edward King?'

  He looks at her blankly, as if he doesn't know who or what she is talking about. Then he smiles again and takes a step back into the rain.

  When she comes back to Alec he is at the table, teasing a pencil across a page. She walks the length of the Signora's sitting room where lately they seem to spend so much time. As if there is no other room in the house. The most private anyway, even with all the lights on, it remains hidden from the street. The piano is here, and a few days ago she had Cesare move the wireless and gramophone down from the library. They have started to eat dinner here, now that the evenings are darkening and Elida says it's easier to have only one fire to light. Bella believes she just finds it easier to eat with them in here, as equals, rather than downstairs in the dining room with its association of servant and served.

  They eat, then play cards, listen to the gramophone or to Edward play the piano. After Alec has his bath they allow him to lie on the sofa in his pyjamas until he falls asleep and Edward carries him to bed. They can listen to the radio in peace then, fussing through wavelengths and unrecognizable languages, until they find a speech or news item they can understand. Everybody is making speeches these days. It irritates her the way Edward cocks his ear closer to Russia or Hungary, as if any moment it's all going to start making sense. But then lately she has noticed many things about Edward annoy her.

  Bella leans over Alec and looks down at his drawing. 'Oh, that looks good. What is it?'

  'It's a dragon. It will be a dragon. I saw it in the sky. Where's my apple, Miss Bella? Did you forget?'

  'Oh sorry, yes I did.'

  'It doesn't matter very much anyway,' he says, and looks as if he's going to cry.

  'Alec? It's only a silly apple and it will only take a minute to go back down, you know.'

  'No. I no longer want it. I really no longer do.'

  She watches him for a moment. 'If you change your mind, just tell me.'

  'Mmm,' Alec says but already he is being pulled down into his picture and is starting to forget the apple.

  Bella goes to the sofa, lies on it, fixing one cushion under her back, another under her neck so she can watch him work – the movement of his hand and forearm, the way he brushes the hair on one side of his head with the harmonica or taps himself on the forehead with it or nuzzles it against his lips at intervals to make a short discordant blare. The smudge of charcoal on his cheek, the rise of colour behind it as the picture takes shape and he becomes more excited, the tip of his pinkie slipping up his nostril for a sly pick.

  'All right, Alec?'

  He turns to her and smiles.

  'Good boy,' she says, and for a few seconds they stay looking at each other.

  She must have dropped off because she wakes to hear the harmonica blasting through the room. Then Alec's voice, peevish: 'When, I said, when?'

  He's still sitting there at the table, in the same way, nothing altered except for the bloom of dark colour all over his page. Bella pulls herself out of the comfort of her snooze. It's still raining. 'When what, Alec?' she asks.

  'When am I going back to school?' He is whining now. It's the same question he asks at least twice a day. Usually, she tells him that start of term has been postponed because repairs are being carried out on the roof of the school. This morning when he asked, he had looked carefully at her mouth, as though examining each word to come out of it, and Bella knew then he no longer believed her.

  The afternoon of the September storm, she decides – in so far as it's possible anyway – not to tell any more lies to Alec.

  'How old are you now, Alec?' she asks, sitting up.

  'You know how old I am.'

  'Yes, but tell me anyway.'

  'Do you mean now this minute, or next month on my birthday?'

  'Now.'

  He drops his pencil, sends it rolling amongst the crayons and charcoals with a short impatient sigh. 'O Dio!' he says. 'Undici. Eleven. Onze. Elf. Nine and two makes me. So does ten and one.'

  'I was hoping you'd be old enough to tell something important to, but if you're going to be a cheeky-boots.'

  'No,' he whispers. 'I'm not a cheeky-boots. I'm a big boy.'

  'Alec, these are things I'm not really sure about myself, never mind if I should be telling you – but.' She pats the sofa and he comes and sits beside her.

  *

  When she's finished he says, 'So the boys in the Balilla were right then?'

  'What boys?'

  'The fat one, the comandante's nephew, and his friends, you remember when they take me home from the Balilla?'

  'Yes. So they did say something to you then?'

  'No. It was only about two weeks ago. The last time I go to tennis I saw them on my way home. And he say, "Ah, il piccolo ebreo da Villa Lami."

  'The little Jew from Villa Lami?'

  'Yes. Then they run after me, all singing together, "Il piccolo ebreo da Villa Lami, Villa Lami, Villa Lami!" But then they see Edward at the top of the road and they stop and go the other way.'

  'Alec, why didn't you tell me this?'

  'I don't know, Miss Bella. Am I a Jew then?'

  'Sort of, I suppose. Part of you anyhow.'

  'Papa's part?'

  'No.'

  'Well, that's all right then because I want to be like Papa.'

  'But you are like your Papa, in so many ways. It makes no difference to the boy you are, really, Alec, it's just something some people get worked up about.'

  'Why?'

  'I don't know, to be honest. So they can find someone to blame, someone different to themselves.'

  'Blame for what?'

  'I don't know.'

  'But I go to holy mass now. I say my prayers. I'm not different now.'

  'Well, yes, darling, of course. You know, this will pass in a while and all seem very silly. But just the same, we have to be careful. That's why I'm telling you because I want you to understand. I want to keep you safe.'

  'Why hasn't Mamma come?'

  'Probably because she wants to keep you safe too.'

  'But am I not safe?'

>   'Of course you are.'

  'Yes, of course I am!' he shouts and jumps up from the sofa. 'I am safe here with you and Cesare and Maestro Edward and Elida!'

  'You're as safe as houses.'

  'I'm as safe as all the houses in Bordighera! Imperia! Liguria! Italia! Libya and the colonies of the Egeo!'

  'Shh, shh, calm down, Alec. Sit down. Come. You are safe. Absolutely safe.'

  Alec puts his head on her shoulder and they look out at the rain for a while. Then he sits up. 'If Il Duce doesn't like the Jews, then they must be very bad.'

  'But Alec, you know Martha and Lina Almansi are Jews. Your mamma is a Jew.'

  'Oh yes, of course, that's right.' He frowns.

  Later when Bella is passing his room, her eye falls on his bedside table. An absence. The photograph of the Almansi girls, along with his mother's postcard, has disappeared, and she is sorry now not to have stuck to her lies.

  *

  Her days are solid with hours. Hours that won't lessen no matter how much she chips at them. So that a day can seem like a week, a week as long as a month, and she can hardly believe it's still only September. Other hours seem to slip through the cracks of the day, so she can't remember how they were spent, or what date they belonged to, or even the name of that day.

  She decides to keep note, to write the day and date on top of a notebook page every morning. To keep, not a diary but a reference of some sort: an incident that has occurred or perhaps a small household task carried out. A pin to keep the day in its place.

  She has come to dread her own bed, lying in the dark listening for danger in every bat squeak or palm shudder out in the garden. It's been that way since Elida came home with Signora Codoni's story. Signora Codoni, who lives at the far end of via Romano, had recently returned after three months abroad to find a middle-aged Austrian couple living in her garden shed. She called the police to remove them, but the military had arrived instead. They were so brutal the gentle Signora had felt heartily sorry for the poor Austrians. After all, they had known her house was empty but had slept in the shed just the same. They had taken nothing apart from some fruit and vegetables from the garden, which would have rotted anyway. The Signora had tried to say she'd changed her mind, the Austrians could stay after all. But of course it was too late, the soldiers had been determined to have them.