by Ben Pastor
“You can’t imagine? A streptococcal infection strong enough to catapult you to your Maker, with a collapsed pulse we failed to detect three times in a row. My father was right when he said that you Germans are like animals: you’re hard to kill. I told Sister Elisabetta you’re not to leave the bed for any reason. And as for you, remember I’m laying the responsibility on her. It falls on you not to make her transgress my orders.”
Frustrated that lying motionless did not lessen the pain, Bora turned on his side. “You will at least let me go to the lavatory.”
“Absolutely not. Sister Elisabetta, come back with a bedpan. Well, I’m off to my other patients, Major. By the way, a police inspector has already called twice, and a German colonel came to enquire about you. I sent both of them to hell.”
The nun came as requested. Bora knew she was there only by the rustle of her skirt, because he would not look at her. Weakness and pain made everything insufferable, even the little things. He said, with his eyes to the window, “Sister, I am ashamed. Can you accompany me to the lavatory?”
“I can’t. If you prefer, I’ll wait outside.”
“I’d rather not do it here.”
The nun laughed a little. “Why? You’re a married man!”
“But I certainly don’t empty my bladder in front of my wife, or in bed.”
“The doctor said you’re not to get up. Be patient. These too are trials.”
Her words made him wretched. Bora fought not to give in, not so well. “If you knew, dear Sister. I have done nothing but face trials for the past year.”
“That means God loves you.”
In Sagràte, Guidi read the mail Turco had brought him.
“No, Turco, I don’t think he’s dead, because Wenzel would be more frantic than he is. But there’s no telling what happened to Bora. Since they won’t tell me a thing about him by phone, I’m going to Verona, and that’s that. Just what we needed, Bora walking off the scene the moment we nabbed the witness. Now God knows what the SS are doing to him.” Guidi set aside the important letters, tossing the rest in the waste basket. “Use them to light the stove tomorrow. If De Rosa calls back, tell him I don’t know where Bora ended up. And since he speaks fluent German, he can find out for himself. I don’t feel like talking to him.”
Because Turco did not move from the side of his desk, Guidi looked up. “Well, what else is there?”
“A farmer found a pair of shoes laid in a cross behind his barn by the river. They were buried in snow, so they must have been there a few days. Diu nni scanza e liberi, Inspector: maybe the convict managed to kill other victims we never did find.” Turco went to stoke the fire. “But it does seem like a thousand years since we were running after him, doesn’t it?”
Guidi gathered coat, gloves, scarf and hat. “I’m on my way. Oh, and listen closely. If my mother insists on knowing where I went, you’re to say you don’t know. If she keeps on pestering, tell her I asked for transfer to Sardinia.”
The truth was, Guidi did not like hospitals. He avoided them whenever he could, and this trip was a chore made worse by icy pavement, roadblocks and his resentment for Bora, whose fault it all was.
Sister Elisabetta was the one who greeted him, leading him down an impeccably tiled hallway with high vaults. Guidi held his breath against the medicinal stench wafting from the half-open doors left and right.
Bora’s room was at the end of the hallway. The chatter of German voices could be heard from here. Colonel Habermehl was in fact leaving now, encumbering the threshold with his blue-grey mass. “Sorge dich nicht, Martin!” He was smiling.
As soon as Guidi walked in, Bora said, “I must speak to you.”
“How do you feel?”
“I’ve been better. It’s the matter of Gardini. Colonel Habermehl tells me not to worry, but I have good reason to worry. Today is the third day since he was taken into custody by the Security Service. It is imperative that we gain access to him. I asked the colonel to pull strings on my behalf. De Rosa will keep you informed.”
There was a chair at the side of the bed, but Guidi chose not to sit down. The matter of Gardini. It was Bora who’d turned him in to the SS. If there were strings that were being pulled right now, they were Gardini’s. “Well, Major, I came to talk about that very thing. Since I’m here, I also plan to go by the prison. What are we to tell Claretta?”
“You might as well tell her the truth. Try to find out if she and Gardini saw each other, if he went to see her at night. Tell her that, if the details are right, his alibi can support hers, and the crime of adultery is in her case preferable to that of premeditated murder.”
Guidi did not react to the words, though they galled him. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking straight at Bora. Freshly shaven, Bora had his usual sternness. He was wearing no prosthesis, and from his left sleeve only a heavily bandaged wrist was visible. Wenzel must have packed his pyjamas, Guidi thought, because these aren’t hospital issue. I bet his wife gave them to him, or his mother. And I bet Claretta thinks he’s good-looking. He is good-looking, after all. “So,” he said, “you don’t suspect Gardini of killing her husband.”
Bora adjusted the pillow under his head. “I never know anything until I have the facts. I merely suppose a great deal. We still have to wrap up all interrogation, including that of the Zanella woman. I intend to leave here the day after tomorrow, if I have to step over the dead body of my physician to do so. You’ll go see Clara Lisi, of course.” Bora reached for a book on his bedside table, where bandages and medicines waited for use. He opened the book – it was in German, a biography of Mozart judging by the title on its spine – and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “When you return to Sagràte, do me the courtesy of giving this note to Lieutenant Wenzel. Poor Wenzel, I have given him a good scare.”
Guidi left. The day had turned clear, with a blinding winter sun that made the interior of the Verona prison seem cavernous and dingy.
Minutes later Claretta was sobbing in front of him, her face in her hands.
“I’m sorry for the bad news,” Guidi said. But he was jealous of her reaction, and helpless before her unrestrained show of grief. “Come, come. Don’t be so upset, he’s only been arrested.” He watched her round shoulders shake with weeping. How fragile and pink she was, even in this grey room. It’d be easy to give in, and embrace her so that she would no longer cry. He limited himself to touching her elbow. “Come now, they haven’t done anything to him.”
What a lie. Claretta was not taken in. “It’s all my fault, because I gave you his name!”
“No, no. We’d have found out anyway. You needn’t cry.”
She let Guidi lift her head, dab her face with his handkerchief. “Why didn’t you come the other day? I don’t want to see the major any more.”
“You won’t. You won’t, Clara. He’s in the hospital.”
“Good!” Angry-eyed, she grabbed his hand in a wet grasp. “I hope he dies, I hope he dies this very minute!”
The moist warmth of her clasp travelled through him with blissful pain. Guidi was aroused and moved by the touch, anxious not to let go. “Tell me at least, Claretta. Were you meeting Carlo Gardini at night?”
She stood from the chair, and impulsively hung from his neck.
As the surgeon entered Bora’s room, Sister Elisabetta was saying, “What a beautiful girl. Write to her, write to her. The poor thing, do not let her be in anguish for you.” Bora was showing her a photograph of his wife, which he now removed from his wallet and placed as a marker in the biography of Mozart.
“Time for another penicillin, Sister,” the surgeon interrupted. “Inject it higher up, we’ve punctured the muscle enough.”
The shot burned like hell. Bora held on to the book, trying to give himself a countenance by keeping his eyes on Travels Through Italy, but he couldn’t even see the words. Fire seemed to grow out of the small of his back, and for a minute or so afterward the pain down his leg was crippling. After dismi
ssing the nun, the surgeon sat at the bedside and handed him a thermometer.
“Turn over. Put this under your arm, and we’ll see how you’re doing. I’m against smoking, but if it lifts your spirits, you may ask Sister Elisabetta to light you a cigarette.”
Bora had to wait until the pain subsided before speaking. “I don’t need to smoke, but I have a favour to ask.”
“Only if it has nothing to do with getting up.”
“I’m looking for a piece of information.”
Having heard what Bora was asking, the physician scowled. “What kind of request is it, just after showing the family pictures? What have you done, knocked a girl up?”
“No. I’m just curious.”
“Give the thermometer back.” The surgeon read the temperature with visible relief, which he did not share with Bora. “Well, we have several specialists in Verona. Practically any physician can handle the matter, but if it is the specialists you’re looking for, I know two that I would recommend.”
“I’m interested in those who have private practices, not those associated with hospitals or clinics.”
“And what do you want with their names?”
“I’d like to contact them by phone.”
“Forget it. You’re not getting up.”
“Will you at least ask Sister to call for me?”
“Ask her directly. If Sister feels like being your secretary in addition to turning you in bed, it’s her business.”
Minutes later, the nun’s little hands, cracked by soap and alcohol, vanished inside the depths of her cuffs. She repeated the question Bora had instructed her to ask. “Is that all, Major?”
“Yes, but I should warn you it is a lie.”
“And you expect me to lie?”
“Only to good ends, Sister. According to the principle of double effect, a little transgression will be more than offset by its worthy result.”
Sister Elisabetta smiled. “So now you’re teaching me religion, Major Bora.”
That evening, back home in Sagràte, Guidi crossed the kitchen floor without greeting his mother. Distractedly, with his greatcoat still on, he walked to the sink, lathered his hands, dried them without rinsing and sat down at the table. When his mother poured him soup, he stood up again and took to pacing back and forth. At one point he walked to the front door, opened it wide, slammed it shut and resumed his pacing.
Whatever amount of unchecked passion showed through, his mother was at once frightened. “Sandro, what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sick?”
“No.” Again Guidi sat at the table, staring at the soup. He unbuttoned his coat without taking it off. “Here.” He stretched his arm out to give her his handkerchief, crumpled and stained with mascara. “I have this to wash, Ma.”
Even early in the morning, one could smell liquor on Habermehl’s breath, despite the Valda mints he constantly chewed. Too big for his uniform, the blue-grey Air Force breeches stretched every which way, and when he sat down at Bora’s bedside, the fabric seemed about to burst on his knees.
“Martin, I spoke to the direct SS superior of Hauptsturmführer Lasser. He promised me he’ll keep the prisoner in Verona for another twenty-four hours. You have access to him, but he let me know that I was asking a great favour. Whatever your business with this Gardini fellow is, hurry up, because we don’t know what they’ll do to him next.”
“If it were up to me I’d be out already, Herr Oberst. No matter what, I am leaving tomorrow.” Although Sister Elisabetta spoke no German, Bora grew quiet when she looked in from the threshold.
“Major, there’s a Republican Guard officer here by the name of De Rosa. He says it is urgent.”
Habermehl recognized the name. He took his cap from the bedside table. “Do you want me to leave, Martin?”
“No, Herr Oberst, stay. Let’s hear what’s new. I might need your help again.”
De Rosa swept in. He stiffened in a Fascist salute, and addressed Bora in German with all the exasperation he was obviously feeling.
“Major, it has come to my attention that a partisan leader has been arrested, and treacherously taken from the Italian authorities. I have come to ask, since it was you who handed him over to your compatriots, that you have him released to us at once.”
Indifferent to Italian politics, Habermehl had left the chair and was leafing through Bora’s book by the window. He found the photograph of Bora’s wife, and lifted it to the light to study it. When he realized that Bora was about to flare up at De Rosa, he burst into an amused laugh to avoid the incident. He laughed to make De Rosa understand the absurdity of his request, and also because he knew fanaticism, and hated it.
At seven thirty on Tuesday morning, when Bora went to take his leave, the surgeon wouldn’t even look him in the face. “I wash my hands of it. Do what you want, it’s your skin.”
By eight o’clock SS Hauptsturmführer Lasser, who looked very much like Alan Ladd and might or might not know it, spied Bora’s ribbons before speaking.
“Haven’t we met somewhere before, Major?”
The same question, from a different SS man. Bora said, “It’s possible, Verona is a small place. Perhaps at the funeral of Vittorio Lisi, the other day.”
“No, no. I’m speaking of military assignments. Weren’t you in Poland back in ’39? Yes. Now I remember. Cracow, Army Headquarters. You served under Blaskowitz.”
“We all served under General Blaskowitz. He was head of the Generalgouvernement.”
Lasser’s office, one of many in the requisitioned insurance building – the “INA Palace” – was cold enough for the men’s breath to condense. Behind his puffing little cloud of irritation, Lasser was not falling for his calmness, Bora could tell. He’d brought up the issue because Army General Blaskowitz had the reputation of being hostile to the SS, and in Poland his young staff officers had dared to expose abuses against the civilian population. Bora, who had hand-delivered written reports on SS activity to Blaskowitz in his hunting lodge at Spala, knew where Lasser was headed. “Well, we left Poland behind a good long time ago. At least,” he said, lowering his eyes to Lasser’s ribbons, “you got France afterward. I did two years in Russia, Stalingrad included.”
“You volunteered to go there, as you did in Poland. Now what do you want from us?”
“Only the opportunity to speak to your prisoner. After all, I turned him in to you. And I believe Colonel Habermehl explained that my presence here has nothing to do with politics.”
Lasser’s eyes narrowed. “This bandit, this Gardini, he is the worst of his kind, stubborn and impudent. He likes to push his luck, Major. If I’m not mistaken, for all your lying low in the Italian countryside, you’re one to understand that feeling.”
“I think you’re mistaken.”
“Weren’t your men the cads who let a truckload of Jews escape just last week? I know all about it.”
“Then you know that the vehicle broke down. It was night by then, the terrain was wooded and treacherous, and the guards were overpowered. That’s all. It should have been apparent to your commander that my unit isn’t trained for that sort of duty.”
Lasser could not stare him down. But as he encumbered the doorway, Bora had to walk around him to get out. Carefully, because every brusque motion still caused pain and sparks of light to dance around him.
“You have five minutes,” Lasser shouted after him. “So be quick about it.”
After Russia, Bora had not believed he could suffer from claustrophobia.
Lack of horizons had haunted his late summer days there, and then the autumn and winter. Haze or rain or snow had in one way or another kept the end of that world from sight, so that he had led his men along as one lost, despite all maps and directions.
Today, the stinging rain and high-walled courtyard near the Palace closed in upon him like a lidless box, and made him unsympathetic and moody. That he’d been able to get these few moments was already miraculous, in the way t
hat Habermehl could perform miracles with his influence. As things were, there was no time to get the information he wanted, but try he must.
Gardini was already seated inside the army truck, under armed guard. One prisoner, one soldier. Bora knew well enough what this “transfer” really meant, and he only wondered whether a sack for the body was being kept in the truck’s cab, or if they wouldn’t bother with that. Rain created chained links from the flap of the truck’s cover, a sad necklace, and each scene like this, each death, was for the past two years like a rehearsal for his own, which added no egotistical pity, but only weariness at the long wait.
Gardini likely believed he was being brought to another jail. He said nothing about it, and neither did Bora. Bora would not climb into the truck, not only because his leg still hurt too much, but because that damp space would soon be polluted by death. So he stood in the rain by the tailgate, with Gardini looking down at him.
“We haven’t much time,” he said, aware of the irony of his words. “So it’s best if you tell me quickly. Clara Lisi is in jail, accused of the murder of her husband. I imagine it matters more to you than to me.” He ignored Gardini’s scowl. “So, if you have anything to do with this case, spill it out. You cannot get in worse trouble than you are. And after all, you must have guts, or you wouldn’t have sneaked into town three times, knowing you might be caught.”
“Four times. I came four times.”
“Well, good for you. I understand how important it is to see the woman one loves. Did you kill Vittorio Lisi?”
“I have nothing to say.”
Bora declined with a gesture when the soldier offered to let him into the truck, and out of the rain. He didn’t mind the rain. From his seat, Gardini only said, as if spitting the words, “You’re a bunch of idiots, if you think Claretta did it.”