“Do you also know the mother superior?”
“Sure. Every Monday she comes into town with her driver to go to the post office and back, or to Bergamo for business concerning the institute. She’s a smart lady.”
“Is she nice?”
“I find her a little intimidating, but everyone has only good things to say about her. Do you know her?”
“Not personally, but I’ve heard about her. I have an appointment with her today.”
Stefania realized that she’d moved several steps up in the woman’s esteem. She paid and went out after casting an amused glance at the main table, where a lively game of scopa d’assi was reaching its conclusion.
She got to the institute in just a few minutes. It was just like in the photograph: a massive white building amid the pine trees. She parked the car and headed up the main allée. Everything was very well maintained, from the perfectly mowed lawn to the orderly roses in the flower beds, to say nothing of the great windows in the lobby, shaded by white-and-blue-striped curtains. There was everywhere a scent of lavender mixed with the smell of disinfectant.
A corpulent attendant from the reception area came and accompanied her to the management offices, taking care that the new arrival had no opportunity to stop and look around along the way. The building must have had a series of internal courtyards with trees and gardens. A broad corridor around the perimeter gave onto the outside and led to rooms with linoleum floors and small sitting rooms furnished with sofas and chairs. It was all very tidy and orderly. Stefania didn’t see a living soul in any of the rooms, which probably meant that people were resting. Visiting hours for relatives, as the sign posted at the start of the corridor said, were from four to five thirty P.M. They went through a door of colored glass and entered a different, apparently older area, the rooms used for management offices and the nuns’ apartments. Great walnut armoires and red leather armchairs alternated with monumental plants in shiny brass pots. Fresh flowers were arranged outside the chapel intended for private prayer. A strong scent of pine wafted in through the windows, which at that moment were wide open. When the attendant knocked at the door of the mother superior’s office, it was half past two.
The room was large and bright, with the same dark furniture Stefania had noticed in the waiting room. The only pleasantly different note was a bouquet of roses in a vase placed in front of a wooden crucifix hanging over a prie-dieu.
Sister Maria was sitting at the desk. There were a number of large open registers in front of her. When Stefania entered, she raised her head and leaned back gently in her chair. Then she put on a pair of glasses and started calmly observing her. Stefania put up with her stare.
“This is Inspector Valenti,” the attendant announced.
“Thank you, Pinuccia, you can go now. Good afternoon, Inspector Valenti.”
“Good afternoon, Mother.”
“Please sit down.”
The mother superior gestured towards one of the chairs in front of the desk.
“I won’t hide the fact that your phone call the other day caught me entirely by surprise. How can I help you?”
Stefania looked up. The black coif and robe with a silver crucifix framed a gaunt, dour face, which contrasted sharply with the woman’s lively, dark eyes, which were surprisingly still quite mobile. Her bearing was proud, and Sister Maria certainly looked younger than her eighty-five years. She kept her hands folded and immobile, waiting.
“I’ve come here to speak with you about events and circumstances from a long time ago, things that are related in part to your sister, or so I believe, based on what has emerged so far in our investigation.”
“An investigation involving my sister?” the nun asked, showing no obvious emotion.
“That’s right. The investigation I’m referring to got started when some human remains were found inside a ruined cottage near the San Primo Pass. You must certainly know the area. It’s right where a new tunnel is going to be built through the pass.”
“Yes, I’ve read about it in the papers.”
“We have reason to believe that the human remains belonged to a German soldier who came into northern Italy during the Nazi occupation period.”
At this point Stefania paused and looked straight into Sister Maria’s eyes.
“His name was Karl Dressler. Did you know him?”
The mother superior’s eyes flashed, but her tone of voice remained neutral.
“Yes,” she said.
“Can you tell me in what circumstances?”
“He was interned for a few months at Villa Regina, during the period when the villa was requisitioned and turned into a military hospital for German soldiers injured in battle.”
“Were you also at Villa Regina at the time?”
“Yes, I was a nurse before taking the veil. I worked there until the medical center was closed shortly before the end of the war.”
“But didn’t Villa Regina belong, and doesn’t it still belong, to your family?”
“It became theirs afterwards.”
“Some of your relatives still live there, is that correct?”
“If you’re referring to my brother’s widow and her children, then I suppose that’s correct.”
“Have you not seen them for a long time?”
“The last time I saw my brother Giovanni and his wife was the day of my father’s funeral. I left Villa Regina that same day to enter a convent. And I’ve never gone back, not even when my brother died. That’s why I said I ‘supposed’ that my sister-in-law still lived there with her children. I know she’s still alive.”
Stefania didn’t reply, but remained silent for a few moments, pretending to look for something in her purse.
It was Sister Maria who resumed the thread of the discussion.
“What makes you think that the person you found was Karl Dressler?”
“A number of circumstantial details and objects that were found beside the corpse.”
Stefania started rummaging in her purse again, trying to prolong the wait. Sister Maria’s voice then betrayed a barely perceptible note of anxiety.
“Objects?”
“I was thinking you might be able to identify some of them. That’s the real reason for my visit. These, for example.”
Stefania set down on the desk the fragment of the eyeglasses’ earpiece and the silver cigarette case, which was turned over so that the side with the initials was hidden.
“Do you recognize any of these things? Do you remember whether Karl Dressler smoked?”
Sister Maria eyed the objects without touching them.
“All the soldiers smoked and drank. And he smoked, too.”
“And did he drink?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“But this is a rather fancy object for a simple soldier, don’t you think? Did he come from a wealthy family?”
“Not at all, as far as I can recall. On the other hand, for a while there was also a colonel at Villa Regina whom the soldier had served as an auxiliary. He was from a noble family, and it’s possible he gave Dressler the cigarette case. It wasn’t hard to get your hands on precious objects at the time, especially if you had money and connections. There were many such things in circulation, which had been confiscated and then resold cheaply on the black market, or things that had belonged to people who’d been . . .”
“Eliminated or deported, for example?”
“Yes, that too.”
A silent pause ensued. Stefania decided to press on with her questions.
“Do you recognize these glasses? Could they have belonged to Karl Dressler?”
“Yes, they could. But what does all this have to do with my sister?”
“Margherita died more or less at that same time, as the war was ending. And the circumstances of her death have never been clarified.”
Sister Maria looked up. Stefania thought she perceived a chink in the nun’s self-assurance. She felt uneasy.
After all, the woman in front of her was nothing more than an elderly nun. She was forcing her to remember things, to reawaken a family sorrow that perhaps had never fully faded with the years.
Involuntarily her tone became softer.
“I realize I’m awakening painful memories for you, Mother, but I have to ask you these questions. It’s imperative. You can help us to discover the truth. We must all do our utmost on behalf of that young man who was killed. We owe him justice, insofar as this is within the power of earthly justice.”
Sister Maria said nothing, but continued to stare at the cigarette case.
Stefania resumed speaking.
“You see, Mother, we know that Karl Dressler and your sister, Margherita, knew each other.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a photo that shows them together in a group of other people. Margherita was also at Villa Regina at that time, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, she helped take care of the patients.”
“Exactly what sort of relationship did your sister have with Karl Dressler?”
Sister Maria hesitated for a moment, as though trying to find the most appropriate words.
“That young man, who at the time, I think, could not have been more than twenty-five years old, was very nice and spoke English and French rather well. Margherita hadn’t yet turned twenty-one, but she also spoke French well, thanks to my sister-in-law. In short, they could understand each other. He played the piano, and she used to listen to him, spellbound, in the main salon of Villa Regina. She didn’t know much about music, but she felt it emotionally, so to speak. She felt beauty wherever she found it.”
“Yes, I was already told that.”
“By whom?”
“By your sister-in-law, Madame Durand.”
“The two girls got along well because they were almost the same age. But Miss Durand was very different. Different from everyone, truth be told. All the same, she loved Margherita, in her own way.”
“Go on, please.”
“There isn’t much else to add. Margherita never told me anything, but I realized that something had developed between her and that soldier. I watched her. She would push his wheelchair along the terrace every evening. She helped him in his rehabilitation, taught him to get around on crutches. Or she would support one arm as he walked with a cane.”
“Had he been wounded?”
“Yes, in his right leg. It was a nasty wound that wouldn’t heal properly. In the end the leg came out much shorter than his left one.”
Sister Maria paused and looked far into the distance out the window. Then she resumed her account, speaking more softly.
“There were things—details, mostly—that an older sister couldn’t help but notice. He was very attentive to Margherita. He would follow her everywhere with his eyes, turn around at the sound of her voice. The moment Margherita would walk into the great room with the other nurses, he would give a start. They spent a lot of time walking in the garden together. At a certain point, very early each morning large bouquets of fresh flowers began appearing outside our room. And I assure you they weren’t for me.”
Stefania made no comment.
“And what happened next?”
“Everyone could see what was happening, and after a while I thought it was my duty, as an older sister, to demand an explanation. She told me quite simply that she had fallen in love with him. She added that as soon as the war was over they were going to get married and she would follow him to Germany. Those were her intentions. It was a big blow to the family. My sister-in-law was scandalized, and my father hit the ceiling when he found out. Margherita was his favorite daughter.”
“So what did your father do?”
“He decided to take her away from Villa Regina at once. Monsieur Durand offered to put Margherita up at his house in Switzerland. He said she could complete her education there. In reality, however, that last detail was simply what people in town were told, to silence the gossips. Margherita became desperate. She cried and cried and begged my father to change his mind, but he was unshakable. In the meantime he forbade her to go back to the villa. Margherita went and stayed in our old house up the mountain, with my mother and our brother Battista.”
“And what did Karl say about all this?”
“My father confronted him, in a harsh way. I never did find out what was said. My father never wanted to tell me about it.”
Sister Maria leaned back in her chair. She looked exhausted. Their talk seemed to have suddenly aged her. Stefania waited without saying anything, and the nun resumed speaking.
“Then everything happened very quickly. Less than a week later the hospital’s military commander received the order to evacuate. In a single night, the wounded and convalescent were loaded onto trucks and smaller vehicles. We were woken up in the middle of the night and ordered to move the most seriously wounded on stretchers. I clearly remember the orders being given in German, the sound of the engines rumbling, the cries of the wounded. We didn’t have time to change all their dressings. Shortly before dawn, when the column was ready to leave, the colonel and his young ward were nowhere to be found. They looked everywhere for them, smashing in doors and searching the attic, the closets, the cellars. But they were in a big hurry to leave. And in the end they did, amid a tremendous uproar. We nurses were left alone in the abandoned villa. Some who had relatives in the area left that same night. Others did the same the next day. The great house fell silent.”
“And what did you do? And what about your sister-in-law?”
“I stayed at the villa with two servants who didn’t have anywhere to go. We closed everything up, barred the doors and windows, covered the furniture with white sheets, as at the end of the summer holidays. It was madness, thinking back on it now.”
“Why do you say ‘madness’?”
“Yes, madness, quite so. And vanity. Our concern was for the furniture, the paintings, the carpets, when people outside were fighting and dying. The Germans had taken away the most valuable things, which none of us was in a position to prevent. In the end we locked the great gate and left. It was evening.”
“And your sister-in-law, Madame Durand?”
“As pandemonium was raging around Villa Regina, she had shut herself up in her rooms together with her personal chambermaid. She came out only when I pointed out to her that if she didn’t, she would be left completely alone in the abandoned villa. After much insistence on my part, she was finally persuaded. She came away with me and set herself up in an apartment not far from the villa. She didn’t want to join us at our house in the mountains. She probably thought such an arrangement unworthy of her social standing. She would wait there, in the apartment, for her father to send her a car to take her back to Switzerland.”
“Was Margherita with you?”
“No, she’d already gone up to the house in the mountains a few days earlier. My father had arranged with Durand that the two girls would leave together as soon as it was possible. Everything seemed taken care of.”
“And instead?”
“The car arrived the following day, late in the evening. I was informed by a trusted person. I was given the task of accompanying my sister-in-law and Margherita. But Margherita had disappeared. I looked for her everywhere, I called her name, but to no avail. And I never saw her again after that. I never saw her alive again.”
Stefania could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall. Sister Maria sat with her head bent forwards and her hands folded, as though praying.
“And what about your sister-in-law? Didn’t she know where Margherita was, or why she’d run away?”
“My sister-in-law certainly knew more than she has ever wanted to admit—also because the two girls shared confidences; they had the sort
of intimacy that young women have only with girls their own age. At any rate, she didn’t seem very surprised, nor very worried. And she didn’t wait very long for her. She left in the middle of the night that same evening, with that silly chambermaid of hers and the driver.”
“And what did you do at that point?”
“I let her leave. In reality it meant having one less disturbance around. I went back up the mountainside, where we had a hut where I knew my father and brother were. I wanted to let them know that Margherita had disappeared, but they were out that night, and I had to wait until dawn the following day. When they finally came back, they had Karl Dressler and the colonel with them.”
“Were you surprised to see them?”
“Yes, and seeing the German boy at that moment seemed like a kind of miracle to me. I was hoping he would have news of Margherita. I said this several times to my father, and as I was telling him what had happened I begged him to go and look for her, or to allow me to look for her. I knew those mountains well, at least as well as they did. But my father was inflexible. He ordered me to return home at once and said nothing else. My brother Giovanni even offered to come with me. But my father wasn’t the kind of person you could argue with, especially at moments like that. Two days later, Margherita was brought home dead.”
Stefania said nothing. Sister Maria closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the burden of these memories, and then heaved a long sigh.
“Forgive me for insisting, Mother, but didn’t it seem strange to you to see Karl Dressler, of all people, up in the mountain with your father and your brother?”
“No, not really. Let’s speak clearly, Inspector. I was perfectly aware of my father’s activities—aware, that is, that he was helping whoever needed to leave the country to cross the border clandestinely. On top of that I also knew that Karl Dressler and the colonel had disappeared from Villa Regina the day of the evacuation. I merely put two and two together. In other words, it didn’t seem the least bit strange to me that they wanted to escape. It’s better than being shot as deserters, don’t you think?”
“No doubt. But that’s not the point. I’m thinking about the coincidences. First your father talks to Karl Dressler, and from what I have gathered I don’t think it was a very friendly conversation, given the circumstances. Then, in the confusion of the evacuation, two German soldiers disappear from the villa, alone and in uniform, certainly not the best way to pass unnoticed. You remain alone in the villa the Germans have abandoned, practically defenseless, together with your sister-in-law, a chambermaid, and two servants, but, despite the obvious danger, and despite the fact that it wasn’t your house yet—based on what you just told me—you actually stay there for a whole day to close up and put things in order. Amid this general confusion, if I’ve understood correctly, Margherita also disappears, at the very moment when she’s supposed to leave for Switzerland with her future sister-in-law—that same Miss Durand who, again based on your story, doesn’t seem terribly surprised by Margherita’s disappearance, and who doesn’t have any great qualms about leaving without any further delay. Finally, you, Sister Maria, go up the mountain to inform your father and brother that Margherita has disappeared and you see them appear in the company of Karl Dressler and the colonel. Two days later, Margherita’s lifeless body is found. Don’t you think there are too many coincidences in all this?”
Shadows on the Lake Page 20