A Dark Song of Blood

by Ben Pastor

  On his way out of the office, General Westphal said, “I’m not telling you anything, Bora. I never waste time advising grown men who tell me they know what they’re doing. It’s the field marshal who says you’re a fool.” He sat with arms crossed, nodding toward a short message on his desk. “Does it read, ‘Tell Martin he’s a fool’, or not? It’s fine with me if you get your head blown off at Anzio. It will look damn good on the second-last page of the Leipzig paper that my aide was killed at the front.”

  Bora kept silent, because he did not wish to sound contentious and decrease the likelihood of a transfer.

  Westphal suspected it. “You know, most men smash furniture and get drunk when this sort of thing happens to them. You shaved and came back to work. It’s no good. When it comes out it’s going to be much worse than smashing furniture.”

  By now Bora had such control over himself, his own image in the mirror would not betray his thoughts. “I assure the general that nothing will come out. And the general is in error if he thinks I want to leave Rome because my wife’s here. Her presence is not why I wish to resign my position now. However, had the general given me permission, I would have left last Saturday.”

  “I knew better, didn’t I.”

  “Except that I still wish to be ordered out.”

  Westphal gave him a critical look from over his arched nose. “Don’t bother the field marshal with your wishes. He’s in a foul mood after this morning’s mess at Castel Gandolfo, though it works for us. Five hundred dead refugees in the Propaganda Fide villa, and no Germans around to blame for Allied bombs! I’m off for the night, and expect you to have forgotten about reassignment by tomorrow. If you wait long enough, I guarantee that Anzio will come to you.”

  Everyone else in the office, even Bora’s secretary, had left by the time Dollmann strolled in with an invitation and placed it on the desk.

  “An informal get-together at my place, Major, and I dearly hope you’ll come. Am I to understand you are, so to speak, back on the market?” When testily Bora said nothing, Dollmann drove the point home. “I just had occasion to escort your charming wife to the train station. Oh, don’t worry. She’s been taken care of these past days. I even took her dancing a couple of times. Come, come, Major. Before you get hot under the collar, think about it. Better myself than someone else. You can trust me.”

  “If it’s all the same, I’d rather not discuss my wife.”

  “Very well.” Dollmann smiled vapidly. “Whenever you feel like it, you know you can. Good Lord, I’m not going to tell you I sympathize. I think you’re better off single in Rome.” His face, without warning, hardened into an unkind sneer. “I noticed your car running in idle outside and your driver waiting. You’d be a fool to give in and go to see her off now.”

  The nib of Bora’s pen bent against the paper, bleeding ink all around. “I wish you’d mind your business, Colonel.”

  “You know I won’t. Saturday of next week at 1900 hours sharp, undress uniform.” Dollmann flicked his glove in a salute and left the office.

  Bora did not look up from his work again until ten at night, when whatever distraction he’d hoped to get from his bureaucratic duties gave way to blank weariness. Disastrously, all that stayed when everything else was stripped off in clean layers, was the thought of his wife.

  By dinner time, Francesca was back. At the table, Professor Maiuli informed everyone that he would soon be giving private lessons. “The name is Rau, Antonio Rau. He’s a boy who wishes to hone his Latin skills, Inspector. Only this morning I was thinking how nice it’d be to teach again, in the comfort of my own house, and this worthy woman,” he said, pointing at his crooked little wife, “comes into the room and says, ‘May the angel fly by and say amen.’ Well, what do you think? By noon I had a student. Just like that. I tell you, if the Americans had this woman as a mascot, they’d be here already.”

  Guidi smiled. “Well, take comfort in the fact that the Germans don’t have her either.”

  At the other end of the table, Francesca laughed. Her large, hungry mouth was so attractive to him that for a moment Guidi forgot everything else about her, as though that red, laughing receptacle were meant as a message of friendliness toward him.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” Maiuli went on. “My wife was sitting by the radio, wishing for all these bombings and attempts to end, and the news came this evening that they found a bomb at the Caffè Castellino in Piazza Venezia, and defused it in time. It was supposed to go off at ten o’clock, when German officers frequent it. Knowing their penchant for reprisals, it was a blessing that nothing happened. And all this remarkable hunchback had to do was wish for it.”

  Francesca was still smiling. But, quickly as a cloud modifies the light of day, the intensity of her smile was obfuscated. Guidi noticed the change, without passing judgment. He was famished, and the soup steaming in his bowl received most of his attention. Only when Francesca excused herself did he wonder whether Maiuli’s words had anything to do with her behavior. Was she thinking that she and Guidi had been at Piazza Venezia earlier today, and could have been caught in the blast? Was she afraid? After dinner Guidi stayed up to read, in case she should show up again. But Francesca was in bed for good, and he went to his own room eventually.

  Hours later, a knock on the door roused Maiuli long after he had gotten his dentures off and pajamas on. There was no electricity, and at the weak twilight of a candle he stumbled down the corridor to the threshold, where the sight of the German uniform made his scanty hair rise. Although he tried to dominate himself, the flame swayed so that medals and silver cord ran glinting streaks before him.

  “Inspector Guidi, please,” Bora said.

  The extent of Guidi’s impatience showed in that he came out of his room buttoning his trousers. “Major Bora, really —”

  “Get dressed, Guidi.”

  “I’m sure that whatever it is, it can wait until the morning.”

  “Get dressed.”

  The half-light did not allow for reading of expressions. Guidi could only see that Bora stood with his usual wary stiffness. “Does it have to do with Magda Reiner?”

  “Yes, of course. What else? I’m not in the habit of getting people out of bed to chat with them.”

  “All right. But I must ask you to wait outside. You scared the wits out of these poor people.” Walking back to his room, Guidi heard the Maiulis’ stifled talk behind the thin wall, and caught a glimpse of Francesca’s contemptuous white face through a crack in her door. He threw his clothes on and angrily grabbed Merlo’s glasses, carelessly shoving them into his new coat’s pocket.

  At the Hotel d’Italia, the lobby was deserted except for two German officers dozing over their drinks. Guidi, who hardly drank at all, downed two cognacs at the bar before feeling sociable enough to converse about the latest evidence.

  “This is what I found out, Major, and I hope you have something important to add to it.” It galled him that Bora should seek company tonight, when he’d just spent a week with his wife and could very well sit cat-faced and calm without touching the liquor in front of him.

  “To be honest, I didn’t realize you had left a message for me until this evening.” Bora fueled his vexation. “My secretary gave it to me, but I paid no attention.”

  “Well, you had other things to do.”

  With his thumb, slowly, Bora turned the gold band he wore on the ring finger of his right hand, a small steady gesture that seemed habitual and did not alert Guidi. He said, “I received a packet from Magda’s parents, and spoke to them by phone earlier today. I think you should hear what transpired. But first,” Bora took a note out of the cuff of his army tunic, “here is what I scribbled in response to your message.”

  Guidi read the slip of paper. “What do you mean, Not once, but twice was the room searched and cleaned up before we arrived? How do you know?”

  “A copy of the key was made for the head of police on 13 January. The German Security Service had gotten insi
de on the night of Magda Reiner’s death.”

  Emboldened by the drinks, Guidi had no desire to agree. “Leaving a pair of eyeglasses behind is not what I’d call ‘cleaning up’. What are you implying, Major?”

  “I’m not implying anything. You’re the investigator. I’m just a soldier who comes along for the ride.”

  Bora’s arrogance came through too obliquely for Guidi to respond. He placed the oblong leather case on the counter, saying, “You read this time. See if it is more likely for you or me to track down Merlo’s optician.”

  Bora glanced at the name embossed on the case. “Sciaba,” he read under his breath, and then, again, “Sciaba,” he said. “Great. Of all the opticians in Rome, he had to use a Jewish one.”

  “Well, Major, Rome is yours. The man’s shop is locked up, and there’s no one at his home. No information as to where he is, or went.”

  Bora copied down the optician’s name. “I’ll try, but I make no promises.”

  “Did the Reiners tell you anything new?”

  “They unwittingly confirmed the image most people seem to have of their daughter – ambitious, somewhat light-headed, frivolous without being mercenary. But as for her being unlikely to brood over unhappy thoughts – that’s another story. In the packet they sent me there was a newspaper clipping. Here, you can see it’s a notice of army casualties. Magda had apparently taken up with this fellow, who went missing in action on the Greek Front last summer and is presumed dead. Her mother glosses over it, but I gather that at the time Magda thought about, if not attempted, suicide.” Musingly Bora smoothed the article with his fingers. “Her work record shows a three-week medical leave shortly after the fellow’s disappearance, no details given. If she had any suicidal thoughts, surely she kept them under wraps, or else she’d have lost security clearance.”

  Suddenly free of drowsiness, Guidi’s mind was going a thousand miles an hour. “What else was in the packet?”

  “Letters and photographs. They’re in my office safe.”

  “Damn. I was hoping – but why in the safe?”

  “Because that’s the appropriate place for them.” Bora’s words came as always, polite and discouraging further inquiry. What he meant by that, Guidi could not say. He could read nothing into the German’s composure. But he had to wonder whether Bora ever lost control, or swore, or went one day without shaving twice. “I brought the photographs,” he was adding now. Out of his pocket he took several snapshots, which he lay on the counter. “She, and occasionally her relatives, identified date and place on the back.”

  Guidi studied the pictures. In the batch there were several from the last two years – Magda posing with a variety of friends of both sexes, sitting in a horse-drawn tourist buggy in front of the Colosseum or sunning at the beach.

  “This was taken at Ostia last November.” Bora pointed to the last one. “Three months past, twenty miles away. And if you pay attention, the man standing behind her with a magazine is Ras Merlo.”

  “Wearing glasses, no less.”

  “Yes. The rest are photos from the past – the Olympic Games, Paris, the fellow from the Greek Front, Christmas at home.” Bora took a sip from his drink and put it down. “I am in the process of reading the letters. I’ll let you know if there’s anything in them worth noting.”

  Guidi yawned, glancing at his wristwatch. “Look, Major, it’s nearly two o’clock, and I have to be off to work by seven. Was it really necessary to bring me here?”

  “It was. I’m celebrating.”

  “Really. Celebrating what?”

  Bora took another sip from the amber-shaded cognac. “I was at the Caffè Castellino at ten o’clock today. Worth celebrating, I think.”

  12 FEBRUARY 1944

  Francesca sneered as Guidi walked from the bathroom past her door on Saturday morning. “The Germans must really like you if they come to get you in the middle of the night.”

  Guidi stopped. Forgetful that he already had his shirt on, he whipped the wet towel over his shoulder. “We’re lucky they didn’t come to ask about Piazza Venezia.”

  She laughed. In her nightgown, she sat cross-legged on the bed, and hair like a dark limp wave hung about her face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “On the contrary, I think you do.”

  “Is that supposed to be policeman’s talk? Because if it is, you’d better be ready to act on it. All I did is deliver a package, and you drove me there.” Carelessly, with no regard to his presence, Francesca pulled the nightgown over her head. Suddenly her torso bloomed bare, breasts bluish at the tips and engorged by pregnancy, her belly rounded but still small. “You can be sure that would take some explaining.” She reached for a cotton slip at the foot of the bed, and smelled the armpits before putting it on. “Do we both turn ourselves in?”

  Guidi opened his mouth, and closed it again, having said nothing. He could remember exactly – exactly – the last time something like this had happened, a year, six months and two weeks ago. It was her name that he didn’t remember. Blood rose to his face there where he stood, on the threshold of her room, with the wet towel across his shoulder. Legs dangling from the side of the bed, Francesca was now covering the slip with a plain woolen dress. Finally she looked at him. “What?” And, “What is it, haven’t you got a girlfriend you see naked now and then? Why, you turned red!” She burst out laughing, with her face in the black bundle of her cotton stockings. Guidi stepped back from the threshold, breathing hard. The clicking of keys in the front door warned him that Signora Carmela was back from early Mass at the Bellarmino Church, and her husband from his snail-paced constitutional around the block.

  That evening, he was back at Magda’s address. The limestone-framed main door let him into a now-familiar arched passageway, looking on to the paved dark well of the inner courtyard. There was no porter, and taking the stairs to the left of the entrance Guidi climbed directly to the fourth floor.

  With Bora’s help, he had gathered a partial list of people who had attended the holiday party on the evening of her death. The German officers among them were off to Anzio or Cassino, and German civilians had already left Rome on 9 January. Guidi had since traced two Italian guests, from whom he learned that Merlo was not at the party. They had never heard Magda Reiner’s name, and couldn’t tell whether she was expected or not. Tonight, for an hour, he went through every detail of the bedroom. He knew he could not necessarily trust the clues left behind by those who had preceded him in the search. Her dress – one button missing from it – and stockings lay on the armchair, as she had left them when preparing for bed, or readying to go out again. All he came up with were store receipts, a scrap of crumpled white paper wedged between the bedstead and the wall, and a handful of dust from under the bed. Cloth fibers were caught in the dust, a hair, fine ash-like impalpable bits, bread or cake crumbs, a bit of dark chocolate.

  His skimpy file on Ras Merlo had grown steadily, mostly thanks to Danza’s knack for burrowing through papers and getting folks to gossip. It included dated reports of rough carousing in army brothels up near Vittorio Veneto back in 1917, a couple of serious injuries to political adversaries in his Matteotti period, and the frustrated, petty overbearing typical of local Party officials. Details that Guidi (but not Guidi alone) now so much associated with fascism. But the man seemed indeed honest when it came to money. As for his relationship to Magda, Bora had gotten out of her girlfriend that she’d come to work twice with bruises on her arms, and had taken to wearing a neck scarf lately. It was something, but not enough. Bruises are nameless. Having placed his flashlight on the bed table, Guidi stood in front of the window, tried its lock, opened and closed it, measured the two steps between the window and the bed. There was no escaping the conclusion. Why would the window be open on a late December night, if not to throw herself out?

  On his way out, floor by floor, Guidi stopped by every locked door in the apartment building. No name tags, no tenants. What were the Germans storing in those empty spaces?
He tried his key in several locks, without success. Through the soprano’s door on the ground floor, exceedingly loud sounds came from a radio. The news reported how the American 34th Division had been halted below the town of Cassino.

  Bora heard the same news at Mount Soratte, where he spent the day with Kesselring and General Westphal. Dusk was spreading over the city at his return, sheets and streaks of violet drawn across a clearing sky; he drove past the dark expanse of houses at high speed, bound for the mud-clogged Anzio front.

  13 FEBRUARY 1944

  In fact, Bora only made it as far as Aprilia. He’d managed to reach it by a miracle, along country lanes spared by shelling and bombs in the convulsion of craters, upheaved earth, trees splintered as they began to bud. Past a disused railway bed, at dawn he reached the station of Carroceto, where cannon fire was still being exchanged, but fighting had stopped enough for troops to crawl out of foxholes and gather the dead. A gray-faced, high-strung lieutenant showed him around and began to cry with exhaustion when Bora commanded him to sit down. American dead and English dead lined the streets on quilts of bloody mud, face up where they fell; medics looked like butchers. “Watch out, live wire!” someone yelled, and the gray-faced lieutenant was still sobbing with his face in his hands when Bora rode off in an army truck toward Aprilia.

  Smoke hung in pallid layers over the town. All around lay disabled vehicles, dead mules, overturned carts, civilian dead pasted with dust and ashes, worn embankments, a geography of war Bora had learned by heart elsewhere, until he could move through it with a steady, heavy heart. Artillery fire came in fits from the direction of the sea, beyond fruit trees not even ten years old and zigzags of whitewashed orchard walls. Under the wraiths of smoke, Aprilia bore the name of its birth month and, like other towns in the Reclamation Land, showed its usual handful of factory-like brick buildings: city hall, church, casa del fascio, a few blocks of workers’ housing. Hard to tell what was what right now. Fitful artillery fire came and went.