The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom

by Alison Love

  —

  A week later Bernard Rodway was strolling through Bloomsbury to buy a newspaper when he saw Antonio on the far side of the street. His trilby was pulled low over his forehead, but it did not occur to Bernard that he might wish to be left alone.

  “Antonio!” he called. “Hallo there, stranger! Where are you going?”

  Antonio looked up. He could see that it would be impossible to avoid Bernard. “I am on my way to Queen Square, to the Italian hospital. My father was admitted two days ago, I’m going to visit him.”

  “In that case I’ll walk with you.” Amiably Bernard fell into step as they strode east along Montague Place. “We’ve missed you, Antonio. I can’t remember the last time you came to Bedford Square for a singing lesson. Konrad keeps asking what has become of you.” The image of Herr Fischer’s face sprang into Bernard’s mind. Since his appearance before the Home Office tribunal he had grown more lugubrious than ever, his eyes lightless, his jowls drooping.

  “I am sorry. There is so much to do, with my father in hospital, and my singing engagements. I will try to come this week, or maybe next.”

  There was a newsstand on the corner of Malet Street. Bernard paused to buy a couple of papers, reaching into his pocket for small change. He read the news as avidly as a schoolboy reads comics.

  “Pah,” he said as he examined the front pages. “I hate the newspapers when they’re in a moral frenzy. Have you seen them? They insist that Norway was betrayed from within by Nazi sympathizers. According to them we ought to learn the lesson and clamp down on enemy aliens. The only one to talk sense is the Daily Express, and that’s just because Beaverbrook has a Jewish mistress.”

  Antonio nodded without speaking. These days he could think of nothing except those rare gilded hours in the abandoned flat beside Hyde Park; the rest of the time it seemed he was only half alive. Even his father’s illness, even the progress of the war, appeared as distant as the gray grainy images upon a newsreel.

  Bernard gave a grim chuckle at his paper; then, registering Antonio’s silence, he glanced up from the page.

  “Don’t let me detain you, Antonio. I can see that you’re anxious about your father.” He laid a comradely hand upon Antonio’s shoulder. “These are difficult times, with so much uncertainty. You will tell me, won’t you, if there is anything that I can do to help?”

  —

  Late in April the British forces in Norway were diverted north, to join the offensive against the Arctic port of Narvik. Still Filomena had no news of Stan. She called at the post office every day now, and she detected a wariness in the clerk’s expression when he saw her, fearing hysteria or rage. It is no good, Filomena thought, this is going to drive me mad. Any day now I will do something foolish. I have to take action.

  The next day she was not expected at the laundry. After breakfast, as soon as Antonio had left to open the kiosk, she put on her best hat and coat, and set off for Bermondsey. She had the Harkers’ address, but she had never been to Bermondsey before and as she got off the bus the unfamiliarity of the streets made them seem menacing. She walked the pavement stiffly, eyes straight ahead, trying to look as though she knew exactly where she was going.

  At the street corner a woman was mopping her front step, a blowzy-looking woman with her hair tied in a yellow scarf. She straightened with a groan when Filomena spoke to her.

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Harker,” she said, holding out the paper with Stan’s address on it. The blowzy woman gave her a searching look, full of self-confidence. It reminded Filomena that she might speak perfect English but she still looked like a foreigner. The woman glanced at the paper, and gestured with her thumb to the next left turn, before she doused her mop in the gray tin bucket once more.

  The house was narrow, built of red Victorian brick, with thin curtains pulled shut over the sash windows. Filomena hesitated. Now that she was here she had no idea how to introduce herself. Acquaintance? Friend? Girlfriend? If she stopped to think, though, she would lose her nerve. She rapped on the door with the tarnished knocker. In the neighboring house a girl of about twelve put out her head from an upstairs window and watched her, without speaking. Like the woman on the doorstep she did it as though she had a perfect right to stare.

  There were slow footsteps in the hall, and the door creaked open. Stanley’s mother had the same wide, pale face as her son. She was wearing a cotton overall and her eyes—blue like Stan’s—were bloodshot. The sight of her, so like and so unlike Stan, made Filomena’s heart turn over.

  “Mrs. Harker?” she said.

  Stan’s mother lifted her chin. “Who’s asking?”

  “My name is Filomena Trombetta. I am a friend of your son Stanley—”

  “Ah, you’re the Eyetie girl, aren’t you? You look like an Eyetie.”

  “Yes, my family is Italian, although I was born here in London—”

  “I’ve got your letters,” Mrs. Harker went on, in the same blank, dogged voice. “The letters you wrote to Stan. That’s how I know who you are. They sent them to us, with his things.”

  There was a cold ringing in Filomena’s head. “What?” she said.

  Mrs. Harker, seeing the shock on her face, smiled. “Oh, yes. The telegram came a fortnight ago.” She looked Filomena up and down. “If he hadn’t been messing with a foreigner he’d have got married. I know my Stan, he liked to be sure of things. And plenty of girls would have been glad to marry him. He might even have had a kid by now, a grandson maybe, to carry on the family name.”

  Filomena gripped the doorjamb. She could not seem to catch her breath. “But what did the telegram say? Is he dead?”

  The smile was still on Mrs. Harker’s lips. She waited, as though by prolonging Filomena’s anguish she could somehow, temporarily, relieve her own.

  “Missing,” she said at last. “Missing, believed killed. In Norway, near Trondheim. So you won’t get your man after all, missy.”

  Filomena gave a cry; then she pressed her gloved hands to her mouth. A vision came to her of Stan, lying abandoned in a wasteland of ice, his face turned empty to the moon.

  “I suppose you’d like your letters back?” Mrs. Harker’s blank blue eyes softened for an instant. “No, don’t come in. I don’t want you crossing my doorstep, thank you very much. You’ve done enough harm to my family. I’ll fetch them.”

  She disappeared into the house, wiping her hands on her overalled hips. Filomena took a step back, away from the door. The sallow girl next door was still hanging inquisitively from her window.

  Stan’s mother came back with a Huntley and Palmers tin in her hands. The tin was green, decorated with pictures of King George and Queen Elizabeth. As she approached the doorway she pulled off the lid, angling it so that Filomena could not see inside.

  “There,” she said, “there are your precious letters,” and swinging the tin she let its contents fly, sluicing them across the doorstep, out into the street. The letters had been torn into fragments. They fell about Filomena like confetti, or fallen petals, or black-stained flakes of snow.

  —

  Stanley Harker was not the only man to be destroyed by the Norwegian campaign. It brought down Neville Chamberlain, blamed by Parliament for its failure. By November he would be dead from cancer, his achievements eclipsed by that tainted word appeasement. In France he would always be known, scathingly, as Monsieur J’aime Berlin.

  The new prime minister—Churchill—came to power on May 10. On the same day Hitler launched his long-feared, long-awaited offensive against Western Europe. British troops in Norway were shipped to France, to strengthen Allied forces there. Not that it made much difference: the Western Front tumbled like a house of cards, first Luxembourg, then the Netherlands. It was rumored that when German paratroopers landed in Holland they carried death lists of Allied sympathizers, supplied by the network of Nazis within the country.

  “Belgium will be next,” Bernard said grimly to Olivia over breakfast, “and after that France. What was it that numb
skull Lionel said? The French have the strongest army in Europe? Ha!”

  Olivia took a halfhearted mouthful of toast, smeared with yellowish margarine. She had given her weekly ration of bacon (four ounces) and eggs (two) to Bernard, to stoke up his energy for his ARP shifts. They had begun to sleep in separate bedrooms, she in their room, he on the chaise longue in his study. I don’t want to disturb you when I come in late, he had said, and the truth is, darling, it’s only going to get worse.

  “What do you think Mussolini will do?” asked Olivia.

  “Unless there’s a miracle he’ll come in on Hitler’s side.” Bernard sliced the top from his boiled egg. He did it casually, with no acknowledgment that it was by right Olivia’s. “What would you do, in his place? If he doesn’t act soon he’ll miss out on the spoils of war. And he’ll find it harder to defend his own German-speaking territories from Hitler’s grasp.”

  “So Antonio will become an enemy alien,” Olivia said, “just like poor Herr Fischer.”

  For a moment Bernard did not speak; then he said: “I am afraid so. There will be more tribunals, more internments. Churchill, I fear, will be a man for grand gestures. I will do what I can for Antonio, of course I will, but you must see that the situation has changed. We are ourselves in danger now. I don’t mean you and me, I mean Britain, the way we live, our whole democracy. If France falls—when France falls—we will be the last line of defense against the Nazis.”

  There was a note of pride in his voice. Olivia looked at him in surprise. “You think it’s exciting, don’t you, Bernard?”

  “Of course I don’t. That’s an appalling thing to say. We have the barbarians at our gates. How could I be excited?” Bernard’s face had flushed to a dark wine-red. “Let me remind you, Olivia, that they’ve raised the age of conscription to thirty-six. I could be called up at any time. I could be facing the enemy within months.”

  “You won’t be called up, though, surely? You’ll be exempt on health grounds. Your asthma.”

  “We cannot be sure of that. We can no longer be sure of anything. That is what I am trying to tell you.” Bernard pushed back his chair, abandoning his half-eaten breakfast. “And thank you for reminding me of my physical weakness. It is always so delicious when a wife has confidence in her husband.”

  —

  The fall of the Netherlands persuaded the government that stronger action was needed against the enemy within. Two days later the home secretary quietly gave the order that all category B aliens be interned.

  The police arrested Konrad Fischer the next morning, knocking half-apologetically at his landlady’s door in Riding House Street. Herr Fischer did not argue, but asked for time to pack some belongings: shaving tackle; a framed photograph of his sister, Brigitta, smiling toothily beside the Danube; the score of the song he had written for Olivia. When he was ready to leave he raised his Tyrolean hat to his landlady and bowed from the waist.

  “Thank you for your kind hospitality, gnädige Frau. I hope that my presence here has not caused you any embarrassment. If you could do me one last service I should be grateful. Send, if you please, to Mr. Rodway and tell him I will no longer be able to give singing lessons at his house.”

  Filomena was sitting in the kitchen with Renata when they heard that Mussolini had joined the war. He made the announcement at four o’clock on June 10, standing on the balcony of the Palazzo Vecchio in Rome. An hour appointed by destiny has struck in the heavens of our fatherland, he proclaimed, to loud and enthusiastic cheers. In private he believed the war would be a short one. I only need a few thousand dead, he said to Marshal Badoglio, his army chief of staff, so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought.

  The past weeks had altered Filomena. She had told nobody about Stan’s death. It seemed to her that she had swallowed all her grief, and now it was spreading through her like embalming fluid, transforming her into some inert resilient substance: rubber, perhaps, or nylon. The change unnerved her but it made her feel better able to face the future.

  “What does it mean?” Renata turned her bulging rabbit’s eyes upon Filomena. Pregnancy did not suit Renata. She was sick so often that there was always a sour whiff about her clothes.

  “It means that we have become the enemy.” Filomena switched off the radio with a click. Bruno had taken charge of the kiosk that afternoon, so that Antonio could visit his father in hospital. She felt an overpowering urge to be with her menfolk, to see their faces, to touch their sleeves. Briskly she began to put on her coat.

  Renata let out a cry of dismay. “Don’t leave me on my own. What if the baby comes early, like Danila’s?”

  “Don’t be silly. The baby’s not due for months. Anyway, your uncle will be home soon. So will Bruno, he won’t keep the kiosk open now.”

  “But Bruno said he was going to the fascio after work,” wailed Renata, “to hear the latest news.”

  “Well, then, he’ll know to hurry back quickly. I can’t stay, Renata, I have to make sure that Papa is all right. You’ll be quite safe. Lock the door and don’t open it to anyone.”

  When Filomena reached the hospital she found it in chaos. Nurses with frightened faces were scurrying along the corridors, and high in the building she could hear shouting. As soon as she entered the ward she saw that Enrico’s bed was empty. The sheets were idly pushed back as though he had disappeared, just for the moment, to the bathroom or the lobby. Then she realized that there were two policeman at the end of the room. They were waiting as one of the patients, a gaunt young man with a yellowish complexion, climbed into his clothes, his fingers all thumbs. Beside them the doctor from Verona hovered, fierce and ineffectual.

  “The fellow is ill,” he said in English. “He has the jaundice, can’t you see? You cannot arrest him. It is an outrage.”

  “His name’s on the list, I’m afraid.” The police sergeant tapped the piece of paper in his hand. “Collar the lot: that’s what old Winston says. I’m sorry, my friend, but I have to do what I’m told.”

  The jaundiced man was dressed now. As the policemen turned to escort him to the door Filomena recognized Constable Sellers, with his acned cheeks and his face too young for uniform. Salty, Stan had called him, Salty Sellers.

  “Constable!” she called out. “Constable Sellers!”

  Sellers took a diffident step toward her. “You heard about Stan, did you? Rotten luck. I’d go home, miss, if I were you. There could be riots in Soho tonight.”

  “I’m looking for my father. Enrico Trombetta. He was here in the hospital. In that bed over there.”

  As she pointed, the constable’s face closed up, and Filomena knew that Enrico’s name had been on the list. She seized his arm, the blue serge coarse beneath her fingers. “Do you know where they have taken him? My father’s not well, he has an inflammation of the lungs.”

  “Wait until morning, Miss Trombetta, that’s my advice. You can ask at the police station tomorrow. Nobody knows anything right now.” Sellers glanced swiftly about and then hissed in her ear: “And be prepared. We’ll be arresting another batch tomorrow.”

  “Come on, Sellers,” the sergeant shouted. “Get a move on.”

  “But they won’t arrest my brother Antonio, he’s not a fascist,” said Filomena. The constable did not answer; he only shook his head, and disappeared along the ward.

  —

  Antonio had not visited his father in hospital that afternoon. He had gone to the apartment in Hyde Park, where Olivia was waiting for him, naked beneath an indigo silk kimono. He did not know of Mussolini’s announcement until six o’clock, when he switched on the walnut-veneered radio in the living room.

  “Oh my God,” he said, as the newscaster’s voice boomed soberly across the thick carpet, the brocade curtains, the vast beige sofas.

  “What is it, my darling? What’s wrong?” Olivia was coming out of the bathroom. Her hair had got wet in the bath, and her head was wrapped in a white towel.

  “Italy has declared war on Britain. It
happened this afternoon, in Rome.” Antonio was climbing into his discarded shirt, struggling with his inside-out sleeves. “I must go home at once. I must make sure that my father is safe.”

  “But he is in no danger tonight, surely—”

  “I do not know,” Antonio said. He felt sick with the knowledge of his own lie. “Herr Fischer was arrested without warning. God knows what they will do.”

  Olivia rubbed at the damp mass of her hair and let fall the towel. “I’m coming with you,” she said, as she reached for her own clothes, pulling on her silk knickers, hooking up her ivory brassiere.

  “Olivia, you can’t. How would I explain it?”

  “I don’t care.” Olivia stood firm and straight in her underclothes, her eyes burning. “We belong together, Antonio. We always have. I’m coming with you. We can go to the house in Sussex, Bernard can’t stop me, I don’t suppose he’ll want to stop me, he’ll be glad to have me gone. We can start our lives all over again…”

  Antonio fumbled with his shirt buttons. He dared not stop dressing, even for a moment. “Oh, my love, I can’t. You know I can’t. I’m not a free man. I don’t mean Danila, I mean my family, my father, my sister—”

  “We’ll take them with us. There’s plenty of room.”

  “Olivia.” Antonio had fastened his shirt and was dragging his braces over his shoulders. “My love, we don’t have time. We don’t have time to talk about this. They could be arresting Italians at this moment. I must go home. I lied, Olivia, I said I was going to see Papa in the hospital. I must find out if he is safe.”

  Olivia stared. He remembered how he had first seen her face, across the floor of the Paradise Ballroom, that pale beautiful desolate face. It stirred him now as it had stirred him then.

  “How will I know what has happened to you?”

  “I will meet you,” said Antonio. “There is a café in Old Compton Street, Ricci’s it’s called. Go there at eleven, tomorrow or the next day. I will meet you if I can.”