by Ben Pastor
“Well, what do you think of the party?” Unlike Dollmann, Bora never volunteered information, and his questions were intended.
“I had never met so many SS officers in one spot. Colonel Dollmann tells me there may be spies and prisoners of war and even shirkers mingling with us.”
“It’s possible.”
Guidi noticed that Bora carried around a full glass to avoid unwanted refills. His glass had already been taken and substituted three or four times, and he was starting to feel a pleasant but dangerous effect, with great leaps toward carelessness. When he looked toward the table again, Rau was gone.
“Who are you looking for?” Bora inquired. “You’re searching the hall.”
“Me? No, Major. I’m just being provincial.” But Guidi was relieved to see that Rau was still here. With his back to the hall, he circulated among the Italians now.
A few steps away, Bora rejoined the elegant woman Guidi had seen him approach earlier. Whatever he was telling her, she listened with a skeptical cast on her face, though she very much seemed to want to smile.
Moments later, the electricity failed, but there were candles already in the chandeliers, and at once valets lit them. In the muted glare the decorations of skulls and seal-like sheen of belts and boots darted sinister. Bora was still talking to Mrs Murphy. Dollmann had turned to a group of his own, and Rau spoke to a fat civilian, both of them holding a plate with food on it. General Maelzer was helping himself to drink; Westphal eyed Guidi, which put him at unease, since he could not intelligibly communicate with him.
After the party, Rau left early and alone, which meant he had the privilege of a safe conduct. Guidi regretted not having brought his car, which would give him freedom to tag him. Facing him in the lobby a few minutes later, Bora was nonchalantly pulling his glove on the right hand with the help of his teeth. “Let’s take a walk, Guidi. You need to clear your head. So do I, and I haven’t even gotten drunk.”
Soon Bora was preceding Guidi down the high-banked canal Via Veneto resembled at night, shored by large buildings and trees and leafy gardens. “So, what came of the scraps we found? You never mentioned them once all night.” Hearing no answer from Guidi, Bora turned to look at him. In the moonlit cold air, impatient clouds of vapor formed around his uniformed figure as he breathed. “Well?”
“Nothing came of them, Major. I sent them off to the Questura Centrale and somehow they were misplaced. I’m confronting Caruso about it tomorrow, and you should know I may be dismissed from the case as a result.”
Bora smiled, and Guidi could see how women might find him charming, as Dollmann said. “Caruso means nothing,” he said, not so amiably, “and I’ll remind him of it.”
“He is chief of police, Major.”
“Because we let him be. By our grace. I will come down on him and there’s nothing else to be said. Don’t irritate me, Guidi. Why do you resent being helped?”
“For the same reason you do.”
“That is incorrect.” Bora stopped on the sidewalk, and Guidi with him. “I accept assistance, from some. My injuries have taught me that humility. I hate it, but I learned it. How could I not, when I had a nun help me relieve myself because I was too weak to stand? I could die with shame, but there I was, thinking, ‘She’s a nun, and look what she is doing.’ No. There’s a time to accept help. And in any case, don’t place much stock in anything Captain Sutor might have told you. Tonight I had the impression he didn’t take the interview with you seriously.”
Guidi loosened the knot of his tie. “I’m a step ahead of you, Major. I suspect Captain Sutor was in Magda’s room the night she died. Why else would he be so anxious to discuss her with me? He was in no way a suspect and, as you said, he volunteered. I might have lost some of the evidence to Caruso’s machinations, but I haven’t been idle in the past three days. I traced one more guest at the holiday party that night, an Italian. It seems he arrived late and, since the power was on, took the elevator. In his haste he ended up on the fourth, rather than the third floor. Even though he didn’t turn the corner to see what it was about, he heard a violent altercation between a man and a woman, speaking German. This was at seven-forty. I submit to you that Sutor was very much in the building just before Magda died.”
By the cessation of quick clouds in front of Bora’s face, he might be holding his breath. In fact, he said nothing whatever. Guidi looked down the dark, wide emptiness of the street. He smelled the night air, bitter and already green. He said, “So, you see, Caruso may be working for the Germans after all, and your intervention might make a worse mess of things. I cannot prove Sutor killed Magda Reiner, but Merlo was framed – this I know. You may have been as much a pawn as I have, Major Bora. Only, your own people may be behind it all. I’m not about to help convict an innocent man. And, whatever happens, I will continue to look into that woman’s death until the result satisfies me.”
“What about the man hiding just three doors down from Magda Reiner’s?”
“Well, what about him, as you assume it was a man? Since I came to Rome I’ve been told that spies and informers are hiding all over, and even showing up at elegant parties!”
Again Bora fell silent. He’d taken Guidi’s words in a way undemonstrative of frustration or resentment. Now he walked alongside him, but nearly at the edge of the sidewalk, close to the curb. For all the world, the night sky seemed to interest him more than what had been said.
“That’s Capella,” he said eventually, pointing up. “The ‘Little Goat’, in the constellation of the Charioteer. A beautiful star, don’t you think? It’s so distant that the light it shows now was emitted when my mother was seven years old. Its light today will shine on us when we’re seventy-two.” He had a subdued, friendly laugh. “When you’re seventy-two, anyway. I wouldn’t gamble on numbers for Martin Bora.” The star seemed alone in an empty and dark region of the sky. “I’m much preferable as a friend than as an enemy, Guidi.”
“It’s probably true of most of us.”
“Some people make ineffectual enemies.”
“Some circumstances make ineffectual friends.”
Bora lifted his collar against the night wind. “You mean the war? The difference between you and me is that you don’t look at it as a contingency.”
Guidi did not know why he was angry at Bora. All he knew was that he wanted for him never to meet Francesca, never to have anything to do with her. He was afraid for her, though on the surface there was no motive to worry about Bora, who never invaded his privacy. It was Rau he had to worry about. And Rau dealt with Bora’s friends.
They continued to walk. Bora had a sore want to share some of the anxieties that beset him, but checked the desire at once. Because it couldn’t be done, or shouldn’t, which came to the same. So he walked alongside Guidi, listening to his own steps as he took them: steps that grew regular as his leg healed. And once more strength was within him as it always had been, but with nearly neurotic intensity, as if after being injured his body had to compensate for the forced interruption. It was hard, wholly physical. A great sense of manhood went with it, whether or not Dikta wanted him, a hope that like the war she was after all incidental to him, and he did not need her.
And yet the structure inside was flimsy, thin. The supports of it did not stand trial. And the American woman, tonight – he’d been attracted to her in an irresponsible way, which she had no doubt noticed but decided not to use against him, merciful as fine women will be at times. He was grateful for it. The loose, liquid sound of the English language was still in his mouth like slowly melting candy, good to savor, soothing, fresh. Carelessly he said, “I’ve been promoted to lieutenant colonel.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. I’ll add a stud to the shoulder braid on 1 June.”
Guidi walked with hands in his pockets, driven deep into them and thinking thoughts of his own, which to Bora were yet unrevealed, though Bora had a keen attuned mind and perceived things and moods, and this was why
in the end he refused them and his wife could tell him, Didn’t you know? or You should have understood, you’re an intelligent man, as if intelligence had anything to do with knowing in the way he knew most of the time, whether he accepted it or not. It seemed to him at times that the world was thick and he thin, transparent, going through it as a glass needle into porous, thick wood, affected by it but still getting across.
And it was perhaps meaningful that since Dollmann had asked him whether he had nightmares (and he had answered, “Not about guerrilla warfare”), he had nightmares nearly every night now. The nameless animal chased him endlessly. And even now that they walked in the city street – the full moon had risen above the roofs and was erasing the stars, shadows were long and as rolled-out carpets before them – he could see the sinister triangle of the airplane rudder, and the nightmare was never to reach it, knowing well what was there. It was unthinkable to tell Guidi what was in his heart.
10 MARCH 1944
“Had you been home yesterday, I’d have given this to you then.”
Francesca looked at the flat parcel in Guidi’s hands. “Why, what was yesterday?”
“Your name day.”
“Was it?” She took the gift and began unwrapping it, smiling at first, but only until she saw what was in it. Then her face grew earnest. “Silk stockings. God, are these silk stockings?”
Guidi, who’d spent a fortune on them, and on the black market to boot, said, “I hope the gift is not too personal,” though he was eager for them to be taken as a personal gift.
Francesca licked the base of her nails to wet down the cuticles, before slipping her right hand into one of the delicate woven tubes. “They’re beautiful, that’s what they are.”
It was Friday morning, and they were alone in the apartment. The Maiulis had gone to the San Giovanni Hospital to visit an acquaintance injured in one of the recent air raids. Even now the windows rattled with the hammering on distant railyards. Guidi wanted to alert Francesca about Rau without spoiling the moment, and as a result he stood irresolutely in the middle of the kitchen. She thought it was something else entirely. “All right,” she said, and kissed him, less hastily than in the past week but not deeply, not with open lips. Guidi returned the kiss the same way, and then kissed her fully. “My, my... They teach you that much in Catholic school?”
“I’d like to make love to you, if you let me.”
“Ha. And what about my lover?”
“You haven’t got one.”
“Well, whatever.” Francesca carefully returned the stockings to their wrapper. “You’ll be late for work if you don’t get going.”
Her lack of response was an irksome letdown for Guidi. “Look,” he said with a sudden lack of diplomacy, “are you aware that Rau is connected with the Germans?”
Again, she surprised him. “Yes. He’s gutsy, isn’t he. He told me he’d attend this big party you went to last night. It’s amazing what he learns by listening. Don’t worry about him. He won’t be coming here this week.”
“Why, has he had enough Latin lessons?”
“He just won’t, that’s all.”
In his office, Bora was reading reports on the three-day air raid on Berlin. The weather in Rome had turned bad overnight, and he doubted bombers would strike here: but he heard them fly over, and Mrs Murphy surely heard them from the Vatican, like a beautiful prisoner in a maze. Did she have children? He should have asked her. What a wonderful thought, to make children with her. He could not think of it without trepidation of body and soul. And all the while, down he went through the dreadful list of losses in Berlin. The Daimler-Benz airplane engine plant had been hit, and the Bosch Works; he read about those and the secondary targets, preparing to brief Westphal.
By telephone, confirmation came from Fascist headquarters that today’s parade was about to begin at Via Tomacelli. Yes, he knew where that was, and no, he would not attend. No Germans would attend. Could he at least send a representative? No. No Germans would attend.
Actually Westphal had told him, “Avoid it like the plague.” Bora cast a glance at the wall map of Rome. More and more like an island, its irregular outline was eroded by daily raids. The ancient roads fanning from it – Aurelia, Flaminia, Cassia, Salaria, clockwise to the southernmost Appia and Ardeatina – could be made impassable any day. And the claustrophobia of army and SS was on. He heard from the next room that his secretary had arrived and engaged in her routine of morning motions. Removing her coat, nearing the desk, moving back the chair to see what orders had been left for her. Reading them. He came to the door of his office, and she stood at attention. “Why don’t you take the day off?” he said.
“The day off, Major?”
“You deserve it. Take the day off.”
She put the papers back on the desk. “Thank you, Major.”
“You looked very charming at the reception.”
She saw through his courtesy, still. “Thank you, sir,” she said.
Shortly Westphal came in with a cigarette in his mouth and newspapers under his arm. “Where’s your girl going?”
“I gave her the day off.”
“Relenting, are we?” The general smiled. “Are you taking her to bed?”
“No, sir.”
“I was just joking. As if there were reasons. Well, what about Berlin? I bet you’ll get me out of good humor quickly.”
What happened in Caruso’s office could be surmised by the occasional barking shout of the old man, and the crash of his fist on the desk, and the liberal use of the word merda in what already resembled a diarrhea of insults.
Guidi found himself uncannily calm under it. He let the barrage crest and wane and flush down to a grumbling sewer, only worried that spittle from Caruso’s vituperative mouth would leave stains on his typed copy.
“Do you know what this is? This is shit! These are big, round pieces of shit you’re handing me, expecting me to gobble them down!” Flung from his hand, the report fluttered like a wounded bird across the room to the floor. “You have the murderer, you have him! The proofs are there, if you have eyes to see! What’s this nonsense about reasonable doubt and the possibility of culprits unknown, who do you think will buy it?”
“The Germans will.”
“The Germans will do as I recommend to them!”
“That’s good, Dr Caruso. Westphal’s aide will be here at ten.”
Caruso swallowed, bilious with contempt. “I won’t receive him. And as for you, no further investigation is allowed. Get out of my office.” Guidi leaned over to retrieve the report. “Leave that alone!” Caruso shouted. “That stays here, and no one sees it but me! It goes to the trash along with you!”
Guidi dropped the report. “If you would read past the first page, sir, you’d see how I arrived at my request for more time. I intend to find Magda Reiner’s killer. The only thing I have not yet figured out is why Merlo is being framed, but that may emerge eventually.” And, though Caruso had grown fearfully congested, veins knotting on his temples, he added, “In the end, exposing a possible conspiracy is as important as finding how the woman died. I am modeling the readiness to ‘prosecute one of our own’ you insisted on, Dr Caruso.”
Silent and motionless, Caruso sat in the chair with his eyes sunken under the contracted brow. The only sign of activity on his body was the flicking from marker to marker of the gold hand on his bulky wristwatch. It seemed hours before he said the words. “You are fired.”
Suspended is what he should have said, but he said fired, like an outraged employer. As Guidi went without comment to the door, he growled after him, “Someone else will take over for you. Out. Out. Out. Do you think you’re clever? You don’t know what clever is!”
In the next office, the policemen were silently standing behind their desks, and when Guidi went by, they clapped a mute applause to him without letting their palms meet.
Knowing that Bora was not one not to be received, Caruso went home indisposed by nine o’clock.
By this time Guidi had driven back to Via Paganini. Frustration and anger were catching up with him quickly, in excess of what they would be had he vented them somehow during the argument. His head throbbed hard when he stepped inside. The apartment was cold, quiet. The Maiulis had not yet returned. From their glass domes in the parlor, only the saints were staring out. Guidi tried the radio, but the power was off.
The more he tried to nurse his spite, the more disgruntled and vengeful he became, sick of his ways. Having been shouted out of a room mortified him, as though his composure were not a strength. Hell, he had unobtrusively gone through life this way. He was sick of it.
In the cloudy day, the hallway was dark, and only Francesca’s door, slightly open, afforded some light at the end of it. Is she home? he wondered. Why is she home? Guidi walked to the door, reached it and was about to knock but didn’t; he simply pushed the leaf inwards.
Francesca sat on the bed, sallow against the white of the sheets, bare-breasted as he had seen her once, except that she had removed blouse and drawers this time. Only the cotton stockings sheathed her legs still, up to the widening of the muscle of her thighs. And on her pale flesh the contrast of black cloth made an impression on Guidi, as did the unexpected triangle of dark fleece between her legs, which the growing belly did not hide yet, but would soon.
She had in her nakedness the oblivious immobility of the model who removes her mind from matters at hand, such as nudity and being watched. The lack of emotion that went with the display of her body was perhaps what emboldened Guidi into starting to unbutton his shirt, plucking each with fumbling energy. Halfway through the buttons on his chest Francesca lay back, resting her elbows on the mattress, so that her belly was lifted and flattened by the position, and more visibly the triangle draped dark in the thighs was revealed. Then Guidi was quick with his clothes, undid his trousers and removed those, shoes and socks followed, and he was long and lean and white at the foot of the bed. His skin felt like candle wax, and was clear and hairless and of the kind that seems to glow opalescent in the light. Last came his shorts, which were tensely molded around the painful knot of his groin. And he could not have borne it had Francesca laughed or looked away or moved in any other way than she did, calmly drawing her stocking-sheathed feet to the edge of the bed and parting her knees like a beautiful animal.