by Ben Pastor
Across the sealed darkness of the room, as Guidi lay shivering, music travelled up from the deep great body of the house. Faintly at first, coins of sound rolled lightly. Then, the notes became a tender and haunting and clear ripple across the Silbermann. The melody was known to Guidi. He couldn’t attach a title to it, but it was a voice saying things he had somehow heard or intuited before and only half-understood, a voice young and vulnerable and wise. Questions and answers creating a sequence without echoes but unmistakably Mozart, and unmistakably, by the repentant interruption of it, played by Martin Bora.
At daybreak the next morning Bora left with Moser, and however he managed to direct his business, he was back by half-past eight with an army car and driver.
Guidi had meanwhile awakened in his heavily draped room, where worn velvet here and there showed the morning sun through webbed patches. His rising from bed caused a storm of dust motes. He went to the window and peered out, fearing that if he touched the drapes they’d crumble in his hands. Through the chink he could see little: only a segment of the portico below, bearing a worn crown of limestone statues white as bones.
When he walked downstairs, the house’s decay was more evident in daylight. Thin cracks in the walls ran ominously close to the stucco decorations and up the painted cupola, celebrating overhead the apotheosis of some military ancestor. In gruesome old cabinets built into the corners, blood-red Ottoman flags stood fading and cracking at the creases. Guidi glanced at them and then neared the long body of the fortepiano. He plucked at the keyboard, and tinny notes were all that came out of it. What a waste of time, this entire interval. It made no difference that they’d likely have had to spend the night out of doors otherwise. And now there was the car to repair, as if he needed further trouble.
He wondered what Claretta was doing at this hour. Bathing? Sipping coffee? Lounging in bed with the little dog at her feet? In the name of justice, if nothing else, he had to persuade Bora to let go of his hostility toward her. It wasn’t Claretta’s fault if Bora carried his own luggage of Puritanism or misogyny, different from a bachelor’s but no less there, and more bigoted. What if he isn’t Catholic at all, and only went to church to entrap Monsignor Lai? Bora liked reading features, and what he unfairly detected in her pink looks was not the fragility Guidi perceived. Unfair, unfair. This morning Guidi was determined to find another motive for the murder, and another murderer. What about money, power and lust? They were strong motives, perhaps in excess of jealousy. But then Bora would likely say that at one time or another each of the four motives had entered Claretta’s curly head.
When the German army vehicle entered the curved space of the portico, followed at a close distance by Moser’s dusty car, Guidi was anxious to leave. On the doorstep, compared to Moser’s worn shabbiness, Bora looked every inch the soldier. Guidi was not about to even enter his slept-in clothes in the competition.
“I called Verona from the closest public phone I could find,” Bora took him aside to inform him. “There is news. Clara Lisi has been arrested for her husband’s murder.”
“What? How is it possible, Major? Why? What has changed from yesterday?”
Bora said he did not know. “I haven’t the time to look into it now. I have urgent business to attend to at my post, and so should you.”
It was true enough, but Bora’s arrogance was out of place. By the time Guidi entered the army vehicle, he was in a quiet rage, which Bora’s coolness only made worse. Soon they were leaving the overgrown garden in a cloud of ice crystals and vapour, spewed by the exhaust across the chill morning air.
Back in Sagràte, Guidi did not hear from Bora for the rest of the day.
What he did hear was the rattle of machine guns and automatic rifles in the foothills, and now and then the dull explosion of a mortar shell. The head of the local carabinieri – that overzealous, royalist army branch of the police – stopped by Guidi’s office just before noon. He reported how his patrol had encountered a group of partisans at the edge of Sagràte’s territory.
“We didn’t exchange one word,” he shared in a noncommittal way. “We ignored one another. And I’m not telling the Germans about it, either.”
“You could have at least asked them if they saw anyone fitting the convict’s description, or if one of them was killed near the ditch at Fosso Bandito.”
The carabiniere shook a plump finger. “I don’t talk to partisans. Besides, judging by the looks of them, they’re having a tough time these days. The German major at Lago doesn’t give them a breather. If he doesn’t go after them in person, he sends his men. Do you hear them? They’ve been at it since before dawn. Thank God once in a while a German gets it, too, and just the way he had it coming.”
Guidi had no reason to feel alarmed at the words, but he did. “What do you mean?”
The carabiniere pointed to Guidi’s wall map. “You mentioned Fosso Bandito. Are you familiar with the thicket of holm oaks beyond it, near the old watering hole? One of my men went searching there yesterday afternoon, and found a dead German in the brush. We knew soldiers and partisans had been in the neighbourhood because of the shooting.”
From the next room one of the policemen, deep in paperwork, began whistling a song under his breath. Guidi found it out of place, but not enough to silence him. “Well?” he urged the carabiniere.
“Well, the dead soldier was there, dead as they come, so there was nothing to do. We resumed our work. If they care to, the Germans can go look for him on their own.”
“Had he been killed by rifle shots, or what?”
“He had a hole this big on his right side. A chunk of meat was missing from him. I thought maybe a mortar shell had grazed him, and he’d dragged himself off to die in the woods.”
“Was he wearing his boots?”
“He was.”
“But I bet it wasn’t the partisans that killed him.”
Here the paper-shuffling policeman started singing out the words of the song, so that Guidi wheeled toward the door to shut him up. “Cavuto, what is it with you? Go sing La Strada nel Bosco somewhere else!” But it might not be an accident that Cavuto – who played dumb but wasn’t – should sing about hidden trails in the woods when they were talking of partisans.
Whether the carabiniere agreed with Guidi, he did not say. “At any rate,” he added, “whoever killed him, I stand by my decision to leave the soldier where he was. It’s too complicated to explain to the Germans where and how it might have happened. And you know about this morning, eh?”
“No, I was away. What about this morning?”
“News came that the truck that left Lago yesterday – the one with the Jews in it – got in trouble somewhere along the way. The Germans must be mad as hornets.”
“Is a search party what they’re up to now?”
“Don’t know, but their commander has joined them in the hills.”
Less than half an hour later, in the holm-oak woods, Lieutenant Wenzel lost his temper with the corporal, who’d doubled over to vomit at the sight of the dead soldier.
“Wenzel,” Bora said sharply, “get back here.”
Wenzel obeyed. He was somewhat myopic and, though he did not wear glasses, he had an expectant way of staring at those who addressed him.
“Don’t look at me.” Bora pointed at the body. “Look at him.”
“Yes, Herr Major.”
Bora took the deference as a given. He’d known Wenzel since their private-school days in Leipzig, where Wenzel was a first-year student and he an upperclassman. Wenzel maintained the younger student’s admiring respect, reinforced now by the difference in rank.
“When did you notice that Gerhard was missing?”
As ordered, Wenzel stared at the dead soldier. “As I wrote in my report, Herr Major, we had suspended fire no more than five minutes earlier. The men were spread out in a fan, three or four hundred yards across. Some had advanced more than others, and Gerhard had been keeping to the left. According to plan I did not suspend the operation at sundo
wn. However, now that the bandits had disengaged, I decided to gather the men and return to the post. We’d had two serious casualties, plus one fracture, and I was now informed that Gerhard was missing. We didn’t know if he’d been wounded, or had got lost. I ordered a search until it became impossible to see our way around, and then re-entered.”
“Why didn’t you resume the search first thing this morning?”
“Because with Oberfeldwebel Nagel escorting the Jews and you gone, I decided to wait for you to come back to Lago, Herr Major.”
From where he stood, Bora could fully see the massacred side of the dead soldier. A file of ants scaled his thigh, seeking the edge of the wound. Gerhard was not even twenty, and had the stunned, wide-eyed, beardless face of an ignorant child. Bora thought, Now he’s learned at least one thing, poor Gerhard. But what good is it to him? “Have Nagel gather Gerhard’s belongings,” he said out loud to Wenzel, “and draft a letter of condolence for me to sign.”
Just then in Sagràte, Guidi’s mother was listening to a woman’s voice on the telephone. Bewildered as she was, she fought off the temptation to ask why the message for her son was being conveyed to his home rather than at the office.
“When is the inspector due back?” the woman enquired.
“He’s a busy man,” Signora Guidi said stiffly. “I usually expect him back for lunch at about one.”
“I see. Then do me a favour. I’m calling from a public telephone, and don’t have much change with me. Please tell the inspector that Enrica Salviati needs to see him again, and ask him if we can meet Saturday afternoon in Piazza Victor Emmanuel here in Verona, near the park fountain.”
“Near the park fountain,” Signora Guidi repeated. She was trying to estimate the woman’s social standing from her tone and inflection, and how old she might be. Her accent – Venetian, maybe. “Any other messages?”
“Only that the appointment is at two. Thank you ever so much.”
“My pleasure, I’m sure,” Signora Guidi spoke back in a falsetto more honeyed than required, and hung up the phone. Pleasure? She was thinking of Sandro’s handkerchief. Too bad she couldn’t see the woman, or smell her perfume. The voice was neither here nor there. Polite, that was all, but try as she might, she sounded accustomed to speaking dialect. And she had little money with her, called from a pay telephone. Guidi’s mother fretted. What if Sandro spoke the truth about the street-walker?
Bundled up in his chilly office, Guidi had his own phone troubles. He could hardly make out the far-away voice of the Verona prison warden floating to him through the earpiece, seemingly saying that no prisoner had ever been allowed to converse by telephone.
“I am very sorry, Inspector. Regulations are regulations, you know better than I. We’re in Verona, not in America.”
What did America have to do with this?
“At least let me know how she is,” Guidi said irritably. “The investigation has been assigned to a German officer, and it is of the utmost importance that Signora Lisi be treated well. We have not yet concluded the interrogation.”
The warden’s quivery voice came and went through the wires. “…has had breakfast… feeling well. Don’t worry, Inspector, we’ll do our best. You may come and see the prisoner at any time during office hours, and in the case of a resumed interrogation, we can supply office space.”
Noisily, Turco trundled into the office with an armful of green wood.
Guidi looked up from the phone, covering the mouthpiece. “Why are you bringing in that garbage? You know it only gives out smoke, and the air gets unbreathable.”
“We’re out of dry wood, Inspector.”
“Wrong! There’s some under the stairs, go and look.”
Turco backed up. A moment later there followed the crash of wood on the floor. Judging by the blast of cold air and the curt German comment that came at the same time, Guidi knew that Bora had entered the building in haste and slammed the door against the exiting Sicilian.
Within moments, Guidi found himself standing behind his desk, noticing that when Bora was angry the afflux of blood under the skin darkened his eyes, and the scar on his neck looked livid. He was saying, “I just brought back one of my men to the post, dead. I have good reason to believe he was killed by your escaped convict.”
“My convict, Major? He doesn’t belong to me any more than to you. I’m sorry about your soldier. Where did it happen?”
“In a holm-oak grove north of Fosso Bandito. The blast tore a fistful of flesh and bone from his left side. I have not come to tell you this, Guidi. I am perfectly aware that I risk my men’s lives each time I send them out on patrol. It’s seeing them killed for no motive that enrages me.”
No motive. And what about the Jews you carted off? Guidi was within a hair’s-breadth of saying it, but he knew it wouldn’t help matters. “Excuse me.” He reached for the ringing phone. “Mother? What are you… Yes. Really? Who was she, did she say?” He called Bora’s attention with a meaningful nod, and jotted down for him “Enrica Salviati wants to add to her statement” in his notebook. “Listen, Ma,” he said, “if she calls again, tell her it’s all right, I’ll see her on Saturday at two. No, I won’t need the good shirt. Just tell her I’ll be there.”
Bora read the words, and walked back to the door. Grumpily he crushed an empty cigarette packet in his right hand and tossed it across the room into Guidi’s waste basket. “Don’t expect me to come with you to Verona. For the rest of the week I go after the coward who assassinates my men.”
Yes, and the prisoners who got away from you. Guidi said, “As you prefer. Any questions you want me to ask Enrica Salviati?”
“Yes. Ask her if Clara Lisi has a lover.”
“I wonder how much you can trust the testimony of a rival.”
“Don’t worry about that. Simply ask Salviati the question. I’ll take care of asking Clara Lisi directly.”
Bora’s intentions were not destined to be carried out. Having failed to find him in Lago, the SS had come looking for him at the Sagràte post. There was no wriggling away from confrontation, and Bora only thanked his stars that Wenzel was still in the woods. This afternoon the anonymous Standartenführer wouldn’t trouble himself with leaving the car.
“Things don’t look good, Major,” he rolled down the window to say.
Bora ordered the soldier guarding the doorway to go inside. “Things is a vague term. I take it you refer to specifics.”
“Please. Let us not play games. I have difficulty reconciling your present clumsiness with the high degree of achievement you displayed in Russia. If you could break out of Stalingrad with your entire unit, you could surely get fifteen Jews to Gries.”
“Mechanical failure happens to the best of us. The Republican Guard delivered the prisoners in a disgraceful lorry. The front tyre rod gave in, and the Jews went off the road in the mountains. It’s a miracle I didn’t lose my men in the accident. It was night-time, and the Italians were too drunk to be of any help. I will have to report, of course, the fact that two of my soldiers were pulled out of an anti-partisan operation because of your request. In view of the impeccable record I seem to hold here as a rebel-hunter, doing without any of my highly trained men places my continuing success in jeopardy. As for the prisoners, we will leave no stone unturned in hunting them down. The rugged terrain hampers us considerably, but I am hopeful.”
“The hell you are. Negligence is the least you’ll have to answer for.”
Bora was careful to show no alarm. “You’re making a lot of fuss over fifteen Jews. I must say I am astonished by your lack of interest in my pursuit of bandits. They’re much more dangerous than Jews.”
“Nothing is more dangerous than Jews.”
“I stand corrected.”
“Corrected? That, I’m going to make certain you are.”
On Friday, Bora was grateful for the call ordering his immediate presence in Verona, where the drafting of a plan for a joint military action on Lake Garda was under way. The co
mbined German – Italian operation was expected to begin on 15 December. He even looked forward to a night in some lonely hotel room, unless Colonel Habermehl offered him hospitality in his bachelor flat behind Palazzo Maffei. By evening, it was raining in Verona, but it turned cold enough for ice to form on the streets in the morning.
“Thank God you’ve come to visit. I die of boredom at night if I have no one to talk to.” In shirt-sleeves and grey braces, Colonel Habermehl poured a Scotch into his glass, and after a moment of hesitation added no ice to it. “You’re sure you don’t want one, Martin?”
“No, thank you.”
“Too bad.” Habermehl gulped the liquor with a toss of his head. “What generation is this of yours, that would rather get killed than make love?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that, Herr Oberst. If I had a choice in the matter—”
“As if I don’t know you. When I heard about your accident in September I told myself, ‘Here goes my best friend’s stepson, without even enjoying his wife for a straight month.’ You should have insisted on evacuation to Germany, and at least a couple of weeks’ furlough. Even without your left paw, I bet you could have figured out how to entertain her.”
“Times are hard.”
“Times are always hard for somebody. You must learn to extract as much as you can.” Habermehl returned to the bottle. “Just a drop, what do you say? Let’s drink to our little Paul Joseph Goebbels’ intimation that ‘Our will to win is unshakeable’. Or, no, better yet: let’s drink to his ‘Hit a rogue more than once!’”
“No, thank you.”
“Have it your way. Speaking of little men, this morning I met De Rosa. Puffed-up as always, like a bantam rooster. He told me he’d tried to telephone you without success.”
Bora sat upright in the armchair, where he’d slumped until now. “Was it in reference to the Lisi affair?”
“Yes. I even wrote it down somewhere. You know I have no memory. Now, where did I?… Oh, I know. I’ll check the interior pocket of my tunic.” Quickly for a man of his size, Habermehl walked out into the hallway. He returned holding an envelope, on which he had scribbled with a fountain pen. “It washed out, sorry. It was raining when I took it down. See if you can make it out, Martin. Or else call De Rosa from here.”