‘Ispettore Pallioti,’ she said, her face lighting into a smile, ‘what a pleasure it is to meet you. Your sister is a dear friend of my great-niece, Maria.’
Pallioti extended his own hand nervously. He had not intended for Maria to summon up her great-aunt in person. A researcher would have done, would have been more than enough. Now he found himself pressing an utterly trivial issue on Cosimo Grandolo’s widow herself.
‘Please, please.’ Signora Grandolo was gesturing towards the open door of what was apparently her office. ‘Do come in,’ she said. ‘And tell me how I can help you?’
‘My husband started this organization, quite soon after the war. Did you ever meet him?’
Signora Grandolo had settled herself behind her desk, which was wide and highly polished. The fog of the night before had cleared and a bright, sharp sun fell through the tall windows of the office, burnishing the glass-fronted bookcases that lined the walls and the great ship of a desk to a deep chestnut brown.
‘No.’ Cosimo Grandolo had died only a few months earlier. ‘I’m very sorry,’ Pallioti said, ‘that I never had the pleasure. It was a terrible loss, for the city. And, I am sure, for you.’
Signora Grandolo smiled, acknowledging the compliment.
‘There was a great need, you see,’ she said. ‘After the war. So many of them, the partisans, were so young when they were killed, and quite a few had families. Parents, grandparents, who would have been depending on them, had they lived. And in many cases, of course, small children.’
She spread her hands, her wedding band catching the sun.
‘Cosimo realized that they needed help. The country, the new government, was in its infancy. Germany bled us dry.’ She glanced at him. ‘Not many people understand that – how much they looted. I’m not talking about paintings and fur coats. I mean our machinery – they stripped it out of the factories and took it, you know. Also our gold reserves. Literally, our coin. After that, and after more than twenty years of Fascism, when we finally had our freedom my husband felt the least we could do was try to help the families of the people who made it possible.’
Pallioti nodded. He knew, everyone knew, he supposed, about the devastation at the end of the war. But the truth was, he had never considered what had happened to the families who had been robbed of the generation that would have been expected to care for them – those in their twenties and thirties who would have taken on the role of provider.
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Do you know, I had never really thought about it.’
Signora Grandolo regarded him for a moment. Then she smiled.
‘Very few people have,’ she said. ‘The practicalities, I mean. After the parades were over. And those that did are mostly dead.’ She shrugged. ‘At your age, why should you have thought of it? You have other things to worry about. And the state has always taken care of you. But back then, there were so many other things to deal with. And in the meantime, where would children’s clothes come from? Who would buy their books? Who was going to make sure the Nannas and the Nonnos who had been bombed out, who all those young people had died fighting for, that they had a place to live? It’s not just countries and factories and bridges that wars destroy.’ She looked towards the window. ‘It’s families.’
A shaft of sunlight caught her hair and turned it white-silver. Beneath her fragile skin, the bones of her cheeks and the straight line of her nose were hard and clean.
‘The scale of the problem was larger than anyone anticipated,’ she continued. ‘Do you have any idea,’ she asked, looking back at him, ‘how many members of partisan brigades, organizations, groups – whatever you want to call them – there were by the summer of 1945?’
Pallioti shook his head. ‘None. I am embarrassed to say.’
‘Don’t be. I’m sorry to lecture. I shouldn’t.’ She smiled. ‘It’s a privilege of age. The best estimate is two hundred thousand. Of those, some fifty-five thousand were women. Approximately thirty-five thousand of them fought in armed engagements.‘
‘I had no idea.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Well, Italy was quite different, in that respect. Our women didn’t just run messages and clip telephone lines. They fought shoulder to shoulder. And died. Just like their men. My husband spent the war interned. He was in the army, arrested and shipped to Germany within hours of the armistice. He never quite recovered from the guilt of not having taken part. Not fighting for his country. He tried his whole life to make up for it.’
The story was not unfamiliar.
‘I think,’ Pallioti said, ‘that a lot of people felt that way. Especially men.’
Signora Grandolo smiled. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I think that is probably a male cross. Not uniquely. But I have always believed that women are better at giving up regret. In any case,’ she added, ‘Cosimo just wanted to do what he could to help. Hence’ – she spread her hands and gestured to the office – ‘Remember The Fallen. And now, of course, it would run perfectly well without me. It’s just a hobby for an old woman with too much time on her hands, to come in here and meddle. More interesting than needlepoint, or playing bridge.’ She laughed. ‘And safer than meddling in my daughters’ lives. Do you have children, Ispettore?’
Pallioti shook his head.
‘Just the police.’ Signora Grandolo smiled.
And Seraphina, he started to say. Then he realized she was teasing him.
‘Now,’ she said quickly, before he could become embarrassed, ‘I think you did not come here to discuss any of this – the ruthlessness of women and the superior sensibilities of men.’
‘No.’ As agreeable as that might be, she was right.
Signora Grandolo appraised him for a moment. Then she said, ‘So, tell me. What can I do? Maria said you needed a favour?’
‘Yes.’ Pallioti leaned back in the armchair she had shown him to. ‘Giovanni Trantemento,’ he said. ‘In a word. Or rather, two.’
Signora Grandolo nodded. ‘I suspected as much.’
She pulled open a drawer, extracted a file, and placed it on her desk.
‘I took the liberty of asking Graziella to pull together anything we might have on him. I’m afraid it isn’t much. We really only concern ourselves with partisans’ family members who need our help – the children especially. Who have now turned into parents and grandparents themselves. As children have a habit of doing.’ She produced a pair of glasses, slipped them on, and opened the file. ‘It doesn’t appear that he had any.’
From where he was sitting, Pallioti could see that the folder contained only one typed page. ‘No. A sister and nephew in Rome are his only remaining family. The father was killed, in Russia. The mother died at the end of the war. In Switzerland.’
She looked up. ‘Switzerland?’
‘Yes. He got them out. The mother died there, in a sanatorium. The daughter married, and moved to Rome.’ Too late, he realized that, having now heard what Remember The Fallen did, there was little chance that they would have come across the Trantementos. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Now that I understand what you do, I doubt that Signor Trantemento was the kind of case that would have come to your attention.’
She nodded, flipped the file closed and slid it across the desk towards him.
‘Then,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure I understand how I can help you?’
‘Actually,’ Pallioti said, ‘there is someone else.’
Her blue eyes fastened on him.
‘Someone else?’
Pallioti leaned forward.
‘A Roberto Roblino. Possibly from the south. He also fought with the partisans, and was also decorated, like Trantemento, at the sixtieth anniversary celebrations. We’re having some trouble,’ he added, choosing his words carefully, ‘with his background.’
As he spoke, he thought of Eleanor Sachs’s small, intent face, so completely unlike that of the woman sitting opposite him. And of her suggestion that Giovanni Trantemento and Roberto Roblino had been friends. Possibly o
ld friends. Yet, when he had spoken with Enzo this morning, he had been told again that they had found no connection between the two. Nor had they been able to locate Roberto Roblino’s birth certificate.
‘I understand,’ he added, ‘that records were – confused – after the war.’
She smiled at his choice of words.
‘Your diplomacy serves you well, Ispettore. Confused is a very polite way of putting it. Chaotic comes closer. In a lot of cases, destroyed.’
‘So a missing birth certificate, for instance, wouldn’t be unusual?’
‘Quite the opposite. Birth, death, marriage, baptism. In a lot of cases there was no evidence that anyone was anyone.’
‘But you were able to verify genuine families of partisan members?’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Yes, at least in many cases. We used what records were available. And, yes, word of mouth, too. Letters sent home, reports of comrades and commanding officers – that sort of thing. That having been said,’ she added, ‘I wouldn’t die of shock if we paid for a few books, bought a few pairs of socks for children whose parents weren’t exactly what you and I would call heroic. But as far as this man is concerned, if he was from the south – well, of course that was behind Allied lines. If he was with the partisans, he was away from home. As I said, we deal almost exclusively with the families of combatants who came from this area. There are other similar organizations. One in Turin does excellent work – the Piedmont, of course, was very active. And there is another in Padua.’
She picked up a fountain pen, unscrewed the cap, then put it down and clenched and unclenched her fist.
‘Arthritis,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Such a bore. I don’t suppose it’s anything you have to worry about yet.’
Before Pallioti could reply, she picked up the pen again, and reached for a pad of paper. As she began to write she said, ‘I know the directors of the organizations in Turin and Padua personally. I’m sure they would be most helpful.’
‘I’m not certain,’ Pallioti said, ‘where Roblino was active.’
Signora Grandolo stopped writing and looked up. ‘You mean you think he may have been in Florence?’
Pallioti nodded. ‘He may have stayed in touch with at least one partisan member who was here. So, yes, I think it’s possible.’
‘Well, in that case,’ she said, ‘let us check.’ She swivelled towards her computer. ‘I take it,’ she added, ‘by the fact that you are asking me and not the man himself, that Signor Roblino is no longer with us?’
Not surprisingly, she apparently did not keep up with the tabloid papers, who had run yet another story this morning. Pallioti shook his head.
‘Sadly, no.’
Signora Grandolo’s computer, unlike the mother ship on Graziella Lombardi’s desk, was slight and silver, and looked as if it could not possibly weigh more than a pound. She tapped quickly on her keyboard, then stared at the screen. From where he was sitting, Pallioti could not see what came up. Whatever it was made her frown.
‘Nooo,’ she said slowly, running her finger down what had to be a list of names. ‘Roberto. Robbicci. Robeno. But no Roblino. No, I’m sorry. We don’t seem to have any record of anyone with that name at all. Of course,’ she added, glancing at him over the top of her glasses, ‘I could look further for you, if you like. Contact you, if anything came up. If he’s not here, though’ — she gestured towards The computer – ‘I tend to doubt it. Graziella is quite good at keeping our data in order.’
Pallioti decided he wasn’t surprised. Trantemento and Roblino could have met in dozens of other ways. They could have met through some old partisans’ network – after all, the souvenirs Giovanni Trantemento had kept suggested he wasn’t entirely dedicated to forgetting his past – or they could have met for the first time in Rome, during the sixtieth celebrations. Or this could be one of the things Eleanor Sachs was lying through her teeth about. In fact, rather than being disappointed, Pallioti decided he felt rather smug.
‘Tell me,’ he asked, wondering if he was on a roll, ‘I don’t want to waste your time, Signora. But have you ever heard stories, anything, concerning a character called Il Spettro?’
As he spoke, her face broke into a smile.
‘Ah, Ispettore,’ she said. ‘Someone has been pulling your leg. Telling you tall tales all about the Scarlet Pimpernel of Florence.’
‘I’m afraid it’s possible,’ he agreed. ‘I take it you think there’s nothing in it?’
She smiled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Stories are lovely. Especially exciting ones, aren’t they? But no.’ She shook her head. ‘Perhaps it’s the cynicism of age. Or perhaps,’ she added, ‘I prefer to believe in real heroes. There were a lot of them, you know. And most of them, what they did was extraordinary. But to my mind, the most extraordinary thing of all was that they were shockingly ordinary men and women.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have known. The source was hardly reliable.’
‘Well, many of them aren’t. Especially when it comes to the war. That’s human nature. Everyone wants to remember themselves as a hero. I know they had quite a lot of trouble, for instance, verifying the stories behind the medals, at the sixtieth.’
‘Were you involved in that, at all?’
She shook her head.
‘No. As I said, we deal largely with surviving families. And with the memorials, here in the city. We were invited, of course, to the celebrations. Cosimo would have liked to have gone. But he was very ill by that time. In the end, like most of the country, we watched it on the television.’
Pallioti nodded. Signora Grandolo was far too polite to fidget or glance at her watch, but he was aware that he was taking up her time. He had infringed enough on her goodwill.
‘Signora,’ he said. ‘Thank you. For being so generous.’
She smiled as he got to his feet.
‘It has been a pleasure.’ She stood up and came around her desk. ‘I hope if there is anything else I can do, in the future, you won’t hesitate to ask. As I said, this is my favourite hobby. Please.’ She handed him the file she had had put together on Giovanni Trante-mento. ‘You’ll find my card inside,’ she added. ‘With my direct numbers. If there is anything at all that I can do.’
‘Thank you.’
Her hand, when Pallioti took it, was soft and firm; her grip unexpectedly strong.
‘I don’t like to give warnings to the police,’ she said, smiling, ‘but I am an old lady, and you are young enough to be my son. So, a word – when it comes to the war, there are a lot of suspiciously big fish swimming about. A lifetime of experience has taught me that tall stories are rife.’
He sighed. ‘I’m afraid you’re right. I heard another one last night.’
‘Along with Il Spettro?’
‘Yes. Something about the reward for betraying a member of the partisans. Someone told me it was five pounds of salt.’
She was still holding his hand. Her eyes fastened on his face.
‘That, I am afraid,’ she said, ‘is not such a big fish.’
‘You mean it’s true?’
She nodded. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? In this city of Botticelli and Michelangelo. Obscene. But I am afraid that sixty years ago there were people who thought that that was what a human life was worth.’
Chapter Fifteen
13 March 1944
It is difficult to describe what the city feels like now. The best I can think of is some kind of magician’s box that is growing smaller and smaller – pressing us up against one another, making us cruel and frantic as trapped animals. We squabble over scraps and lumps of fuel, while for the Fascisti and the Nazis, the staff officers and the SS, a grotesque parody of life is staged. Restaurants are open. The cafes are bright with music and champagne. There is a ‘theatre season’. And the arrests go on.
Everyone has stories about the Missing. This is how it happens.
They don’t send you a note. No one lets you kno
w. You are supposed to meet someone, or you are at home – making dinner, mending their sweater, or waiting to argue, or apologize, or tell them you love them. And you just wait and wait and wait. That is what it is. Nothing. Just an emptiness where your husband or your child, your wife, or lover, or friend is no longer.
We have all heard of people, women usually, who have put on their best clothes and gone to the Café Paskowski or the Excelsior bar and thrown themselves at officers and the black-suited Gestapo men. Sidled up to them and slipped pathetic rolled-up wads of money, jewellery, little pieces of paper with a name written on it, into their pockets. Some people go to the Questura. Others stand in the street outside the Villa Triste until they are chased away. The German consul, Herr Wolf, is said to be sympathetic. In the right circumstances.
In the meantime, we hear whispers of informers and occasional gunshots and ignore the air raid sirens, when they go off at all, and curse the Allies for the rubble that blossoms across the city, while at the same time we long for them to come, and fear what will happen before they do, and fear even more what will happen if they do not.
GAP goes on throwing grenades and hiding news-sheets in menus and bibles, but no one speaks any more of triumph, or freedom, or ideals. Instead, we simply bow our heads – narrow time down to a day, an hour – and fight on. Not because we are lit with inspiration and hope, but because we have no choice. Because the alternative is death.
And each of us would like to meet it thinking the best of ourselves. But these days that is unlikely. Still, we do our best. So, as I have said, this book, these words, are a type of penance. And given that, I think I’ll write about Valentine’s Day. Because that was the day Issa was shot.
Dawn that morning was as fragile as the inside of a shell. It had been bitter. The river was white with cold. A skin of ice, powdered with snow, covered the water. In places it cracked, allowing a swirl of black to show through. I had been working most of the night, and had gone out to breathe, just to feel air on my face that did not bear the cloying smell of illness. I had gone also to think of Lodovico. I find I can no longer do that at home or at the hospital. Instead, when I am desperate and can no longer bear not to summon him up, when I must reach for memories of him like an addict for a drug, I walk fast and alone through the city. Then, sometimes, I can outpace the person I have become and find him in my mind as what I used to be. The moments are fleeting, I admit. But on the whole, better than dreams. Even if I never see him again, or never know, I am determined to believe that he is still alive, as if my thinking of him eating, breathing, laughing could make it so. Although I know, of course, that this is nonsense. What I think does not matter. Any more than what I wish for matters. This great machine of a war grinds on, and does not care what we think or wish.
The Villa Triste Page 23