“Listen, I know it’s none of my business and I shouldn’t meddle, and of course I would never presume to give you any advice. However, if I were you, I would move a little on all fronts, without, however, neglecting the lead you’re already following, and without ruling out any of the others. I would cast a very wide net, in short, in the hope that the fish you’re seeking will sooner or later end up in it.”
Without realizing it, Valli had lightly grazed the back of Stefania’s hand.
“For example, I would dig further into the local history of that time: look at newspapers, archives, city hall, records offices, parish archives. The family is well known. The whole area must have been shaken up a few times by newsworthy occurrences, if only because it was simultaneously a theater of partisan struggle and, being a border region, a nucleus for smuggling and refugees. Something of note must certainly have happened. For example, there were some barracks for repubblichini and Germans, representatives of the regime; they surely must have left some souvenirs, however horrific. Then you should start looking for people who still remember that period, living witnesses. They’ll all be over eighty, but there must be some around, after all. People around here live a long time.”
Stefania looked at him, and he stopped talking. Then, a bit confusedly, he said:
“I’m sorry, I got carried away, I let my enthusiasm get the better of me.”
“You’re really something, you know, Valli,” Stefania said, smiling. “I’m glad I met you, I mean it. And now I guess I should thank you. But, please, let’s change the subject. Would you like half a prosciutto sandwich, for example?”
“I’ll gladly trade it for this half sandwich of leftover roast and mayonnaise and a tangerine.”
“Getting into the refined stuff, I see. Okay, then, I’ll make it up to you by telling you everything I know about this church, so that next time you’ll think twice about following me.”
“But I didn’t follow you. It was Tommy who found you.”
“Why do I have to go to school? I’ve been going to school for so long, I’m tired of it. Why should anyone have to go to school after they’ve learned how to read and write?” complained Camilla.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about all the other useless things they make you study.”
“So what would you rather do?”
“Certainly not spend my afternoons studying how to find the area of an isosceles triangle.”
“Would you rather have a job?”
“No, I’m too little to have a job.”
“So if you don’t want to study and you don’t want to work, what would you like to do? Who’s going to support you?”
“What’s that got to do with it, Mommy?”
“A lot . . .”
Whenever Camilla returned to her daily routine of school and homework she had trouble getting her bearings back, especially after a vacation. She’d started complaining as soon as the alarm clock went off, and she hadn’t stopped for a second. Stefania, between wet laundry, the meowing cat, and the ringing telephone, listened to her with a distracted ear.
“Have you had breakfast?”
“I don’t like Mulino Bianco plum cakes.”
“Then get something else.”
“Like what?”
Stefania looked at her watch. “At this point you can’t have anything else. It’s too late. Have you brushed your teeth?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
“I was waiting to eat breakfast, obviously.”
“You’re so pleasant this morning.”
“Look who’s talking.”
For Stefania, too, coming home to Como was always an ordeal.
Suitcases to unpack, a half-empty refrigerator, not knowing whether Martina was coming or going with her university classes . . . Life as usual, in short, starting up again.
They slipped into the downtown traffic and got to Camilla’s school a split second before the first bell.
“Don’t forget to come pick me up this afternoon!”
“Bye, love. Hugs and kisses.”
Entering her office, she tossed her purse onto the chair, cast a glance at the metal in-box, then picked up the phone.
“Ciao, Raffaella, this is Stefania. I need a big favor from you—I need to consult your archive. Local news from the thirties to the fifties, more or less.”
“Is that all?” asked Raffaella in a mocking tone. “What about the Vatican Archives, and the gestapo’s?”
“If you also have a historical photo archive, I’d like to look at that, too. And I could also use a list of the associations and foundations that collect the testimonies of survivors, partisan fighters, ex-military types . . .”
“What’s got into you this morning, darling? The Easter holiday didn’t do you any good, I’m afraid. Take a deep breath and tell me clearly exactly what you need. We can’t very well go digging randomly. The archive is endless.”
“Shall we meet at your office in an hour?” asked Stefania.
“Yes. Coffee and brioches for me, thanks.”
Raffa laughed and hung up, giving her no time to reply. They could understand each other with a mere gesture or inflection of the voice.
Stefania went down to the bar behind headquarters. She’d never seen it so crowded. After a cigarette with Marino, at nine thirty she headed for the editorial offices of La Provincia di Como. She was almost in a good mood, but didn’t know why.
Raffaella was waiting for her at her computer. It was ten o’clock.
“Alone?” asked Stefania.
“The others never come in before the editorial meeting at ten thirty.”
She told her everything calmly, trying to proceed in orderly fashion. She left out a few details, such as her encounter with Valli.
Raffaella listened attentively, but when Stefania had finished her account, she remained rather unusually silent, as though perplexed.
“Well?” asked Stefania. “Why are you making that face?”
“I’m happy to lend you a hand, it’s the least I can do. But I get the impression that you’re floundering a little. I don’t get exactly what it is you’re looking for.”
“Shall we start with the archive?” asked Stefania.
“The eighties?”
“No, earlier.”
“How much earlier?”
“The thirties and forties. Weren’t you listening when I told you over the phone?”
“It’s all on paper. In those days they made bound volumes of I don’t know how many editions. Great big tomes.”
“So you’re saying I should pitch a tent in the square outside.”
“Come on, let’s go down into the main archive. All we’ve got on this floor are the last twenty years.”
8
Stefania started with the bound volumes of the first few months of 1935. After just a few minutes, she went on to the following months in rapid succession: 1935, 1936. As the hours went by, history passed under her fingers—history with a small h, that of the provinces, and real History, that of Fascist Italy, as seen from a peripheral, privileged point of view. She turned the pages one by one, went through each edition, casting a quick glance only at the front page and those concerning the lake and the surrounding valleys.
July 17, 1936: A leading article on the Spanish Civil War. “Fascist Youth Games at Menaggio Attended by His Excellency the Prefect.” The death in prison of the notorious Clemente Malacrida, nicknamed Ul Màtt, the Madman, king of the local contraband circuit.
January 11, 1937: The economic crisis reaches the textile industry, all the fault of the sanctions against Italy following the Declaration of Empire. Parade of Youth Brigades of young Italian women at Lanzo for the anniversary of the founding of Rome. Housing crisis. Great public
works celebrate the glory of the regime: inauguration yesterday of the Casa della Madre e del Bambino. Inauguration of the offices of the Fascist Union of Industrial Workers. New barracks for the Fascist militia at Cernobbio: group photo in front of a bust of the Duce. Replacement of the old nineteenth-century cars of the funicular. After two years of state collections, Como figured among the top Italian cities for donating gold to the Fatherland. The new urban development plan: hygienic reclamation of the Cortesella finally under way.
January 11, 1938: The race laws.
June 10, 1940: Italy enters the war.
Stefania gave a start when her cell phone started ringing. It was Raffaella.
“You’re still there? Do you know what time it is?”
“I’ve just started the forties. We just went to war in the last issue.”
“Think we can manage to eat a sandwich before they start shooting, darling? I doubt you’re going to want to stay there till nightfall without ingesting so much as a coffee.”
Stefania would gladly have stayed on, but she didn’t want to seem impolite. Raffaella had been very nice to help her out.
“I’ll be there in five minutes. I would like to get at least to the first microfilmed issues before four o’clock.”
“Why, what happens at four o’clock?”
“I have to go pick up Camilla.”
“And when do the microfilmed issues start?”
“In 1945, I think.”
“So we’re all set, then.”
Stefania was back hunching over the bound volumes before two o’clock. The lunch break had only made her more restless.
The early war years, 1940–41: Indispensable commodities rise sharply in price. “Exhibition of Autarchic Radios at the Broletto a Huge Success.” Agreement reached with Swiss customs authorities to suppress illicit traffic across the border; group photo of finance police at the San Primo Pass.
Stefania gave a start, then cast a quick glance at the article, eyes gliding over the page. Nothing of interest. She sighed and kept turning the pages. News on crimes in the areas of concern to her were very rare. She desperately wanted a Muratti but chased the thought from her mind; smoking, at any rate, would not have been possible, especially in that sort of underground bunker.
June 26, 1941: The glorious Sixty-seventh Regiment, back from Albania, on parade in Via Plinio. A number of instigators discovered among the workers at Omita in Albate, order quickly reestablished. Fugitives and deserters arrested at the Italian-Swiss border; numerous Jews arrested with large quantities of gold and precious stones.
She stopped to read the article, which was accompanied by a photo, but it didn’t concern the San Primo Pass. Increasingly discouraged, she carried on.
Pages and pages of news from the various war fronts; bread lines; ration cards; increasing difficulties for the population, which was beginning to tighten its belts, notwithstanding the regime and its mouthpieces constantly blaring triumphalist optimism.
Floral festival at Menaggio: Young women of Italy gathered at the picturesque lakeside locale throw flowers at the spectators, a floral homage to the wives of the authorities on the stage.
She was starting to get a backache. She skimmed the pages quickly, reading only the headlines before moving on. She rang headquarters twice to keep abreast of two ongoing investigations.
July 1943: Mussolini deposed.
September 8: Chaos breaks out. Public meeting in Cathedral Square, with prominent anti-Fascists on the stage.
September 12: The Germans invade Como. Large photo of Piazza Cavour and the Hotel Suisse, which has now become the command headquarters of the Wehrmacht.
There started to be some issues missing. The time measured in the pages of the newspaper seemed to be rushing towards the grand finale.
1944: The bigwigs of the quisling Repubblica di Salò continue to display optimism. Photos of party officials in villas around the lake with children dressed in sailor suits and maids in starched caps.
German soldiers billeted in the villas, small German trucks parked beside the statues of Venus at her bath and at the foot of monumental staircases. Group photos of Nazis, repubblichini, and local administrators, all smiling.
She stopped, drawn by a full half-page photo showing a group of German soldiers, doctors in long white smocks over their uniforms, other military men in uniform seated in carriages with their heads and legs bandaged, and candy stripers and nurses in front of vans bearing the Red Cross symbol. Behind them, plain as day, Villa Regina.
“Find anything?”
“Yes, this.”
Raffaella looked at the page Stefania held out for her.
“Lovely. What the hell is it?”
“An article from spring 1944. It talks about Villa Regina. It says that the villa had been serving for several months as a hospital for German soldiers wounded on the various fronts. The salubrious lakeside serenity and climate, the loving care of the military doctors and candy stripers, and so on. Officers interned at Villa Regina would recover their physical strength and spirit in a hurry and go off again to serve the glorious Third Reich.”
“Wonderful. Is that some sort of news you can use?”
“Who can say? Maybe. At any rate, it’s more than enough for today. I’m going to pick up Camilla now, and then drop in again at the office. In the meantime I’ll think about this. I’d like to come back here early tomorrow morning. From this point on, everything’s on microfilm. It’ll all go more quickly, both the research and the printing.”
“I’ll be here as of nine thirty.”
“Perfect, you’re a sweetie. By the way, I asked Anna to look for the original print of the shot reproduced in the newspaper—provided it still exists, of course—and to make me a copy of it. Or else the negative, at which point my own photographer can take care of the rest. Provided that it still exists. I told her to leave it with you. Is that all right?”
Raffaella smiled.
“See you tomorrow, then,” said Stefania, blowing her a kiss and dashing headlong down the stairs.
As soon as she got into her car, the cell phone rang. It was Giulio. She hesitated for a moment, then decided not to answer.
I haven’t got time right now, Giulio, she said to herself. In reality she didn’t feel like talking to him. Halfway to Camilla’s school the phone rang again. One ring, then two, then three. I’ll call him later, she thought.
When she pulled up in front of the school, she gestured to Cami to get in the car.
“Hi, Mommy, today I actually got a good score in math.”
The girl’s voice was interrupted by the phone ringing a third time. He can be really exasperating when he wants to be, thought Stefania. She grabbed the phone with her free hand and answered.
“Giulio, what is it? I don’t have time right now. When I don’t answer there’s usually a reason. I’ve just picked up Camilla at school and we’re already running very late. I’ll call you later, okay?”
There was nothing at the other end. She was about to hang up when she heard a hesitant voice.
“It’s Valli, Stefania, but maybe it’s not the best time.”
“Valli—I mean, Luca, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else,” said Stefania, blushing.
Camilla, meanwhile, was huffing and puffing in the backseat, as she always did when her mother wasn’t at her complete disposal.
“Who are you talking to, Mommy?”
“To a friend. We’re talking about work. Be quiet for a minute, Cami. I’m sorry, Luca, I was saying that I’m right outside my daughter’s school and—”
“No problem, we can talk later, more calmly. Oh, and thanks for that ‘friend.’”
Stefania remained silent for a moment, trying to think of a reply. Meanwhile Valli had hung up.
“So who’s this Valli?” Camilla asked in an inquisitorial
tone.
“He’s a friend, as I said.”
“So you could have let me talk. You always let me talk to Giulio.”
“But it wasn’t Giulio. So, how’d it go today?”
Camilla started telling her about all the new things that had happened and quickly forgot about the phone call. Martina was already waiting for them at home. That evening it would be Gran Pizza–brand pizza by the slice and Esselunga-brand woodland fruit meringue because the refrigerator was still empty and Stefania wouldn’t have time to do any shopping.
“But why do you have to go back to the office?” asked Camilla.
“It won’t take long; I’ll be back for dinner. If I’m a little late you’ll be with the babysitter and you can eat together. But maybe leave me a slice of pizza.”
She grabbed a packet of crackers and dashed off as the babysitter yelled into the stairwell: “I have to leave by nine o’clock, nine-thirty at the latest.”
By ten past five she was at the office. Piras and Lucchesi had vanished. She sat down at the desk and started opening her e-mails, feeling tired. She lit up a Muratti and went over to the window, looking distractedly over the expanse of rooftops and balconies between Via Italia Libera and Via Cadorna, past the boundary wall of police headquarters.
She dug out of her pocket the article she’d had photocopied, reread it, and then examined the photo through a magnifying glass. The reproduction was too grainy, the details getting lost despite her efforts to coax them out.
She kept thinking about things. The place equipped for officers to convalesce. A perfect spot for the Germans, no doubt. Perhaps the villa had been confiscated, but where were its owners? Were they pro-Fascist? Had they sold it? Had they been chased out?
She picked up the phone and dialed Raffaella Moretto’s cell phone number.
“Hi, it’s Stefania again.”
“Long time no see, darling.”
“Could you check the proofs of that article you wrote on Villa Regina to see whether there’s anything on the period in which the house was occupied by the Germans?”
Shadows on the Lake Page 10