In Love and War

by Alex Preston

Then he went to Bailey’s room, picked up the map of Florence, as many papers as he could carry and threw them in the kitchen fire. The W/T radio he brought back down and hid in the sacristy. Bailey forced the thugs to wait in the entrance hall as he filled in the details of the congregation in the service register, and then, underneath it, wrote Chaplain Rev. F. J. Bailey arrested – sent to concentration camp. Goad is coming with me to the Quaestor. I don’t know what’ll happen now. I must bury this disc, find Ada, make sure she’s safe. I’m scared, whoever-you-are – pray for me.’

  Open City

  VILLA DELL’OMBRELLINO, BELLOSGUARDO, FLORENCE, 1941–1944

  1

  He wakes with a rising feeling in his chest. An arm draped across him, a gold ring on one finger. The heavy warmth of Tatters on his feet. The dog wakes too and patters around sniffing, looking over eagerly at Esmond. Ada sighs and withdraws the arm, turning over and nesting the sheets between her legs. He stands and crosses to the window, opens a crack in the shutters to see the city, the spires, the dome of the cathedral, all glowing. The sun along the hillsides of Fiesole. Tatters sits behind him, clearing a cone-shaped space in the dust with his tail.

  It had been Ada’s idea to sleep up here, the eaves which had been Alice Keppel’s studio during a brief painting fit in the early ’30s. It is large, light, fluttering with doves that roost in soft dun clumps on the roof. This is the sound of their life now: the burble of doves, the wind, the hiss and hum of the radio on the desk by the window. He looks down at her, the hair falling across the pillow, sleep-creases on her face. Against the wall at the end of the bare mattress, stand the three paintings of the triptych. She loves this, she says, almost as much as Anna’s collage of photographs, which hangs beside it.

  ‘Today’ she says, eyes opening, ‘we go to the sea.’ He doesn’t reply, but stoops to scratch Tatters behind the ear.

  ‘Vieni qui.’ She rises and draws him and the dog towards her.

  ‘The bonfire was a risk,’ he says in her ear.

  They’d waited until late twilight, when the air around them was violet and the smoke from their little pyre might drift unnoticed. It had seemed important, somehow, to have a fire, to match his mother’s, six years ago, on the icy Shropshire field. They’d lit it down by the swimming pool, a small pile of sticks on the flagstones, brightening the dodos’ patient vigil over the pool. It flared higher as page after page of In Love and War was fed into it.

  Ada’s idea. She’d read the novel in an armchair in the drawing room, hair tied up and a pencil in her teeth, marking the margins, adding a question mark here and there. She’d sipped nettle tea and hummed to herself as she went with Hulme from London to the trenches. When she finished, she sat for a long time, cross-legged in the armchair.

  ‘It’s no good,’ she said, finally, firmly. ‘Don’t look at me like that. You write well – I like so many passages, so many individual images and phrases.’ She got up to stand beside him at the drawing room window. ‘You began to write too early, I think,’ she’d said softly. ‘You’ve watched other people living without coming alive yourself. What I read here, it feels— like the difference between orzo coffee and the real thing. What do the Germans call it? Ersatz?’

  He nodded his head and looked glumly out. She took his hands in hers, cold and bony.

  ‘And you’re one of us, Esmond,’ she said. ‘You don’t want the world to see you through the lens of a book like this. You’ll live a long life, write many great novels, but you’ll be followed by this piece of Fascist propaganda—’ He bristled and tried to pull his hands away but she’d held onto them. ‘However well written. You don’t want our children to read this, to know their father ever thought this way. You’ve outgrown the thing. The truth is, Esmond, you don’t need to answer to your family, to Mosley, any more. You’re your own man now.’

  After the fire, he sat up late with the triptych, candlelight on the faces and then on Ada’s sleeping beside him, her eyelids trembling softly under the spell of some dream, her breath quickening and slowing. He let his mind spool into memory before the eerie green of the triptych, Florence concentrated in the layers of paint, the wandering tresses of Mary Magdalene’s hair, the sinews and tendons and bones of the Christ.

  2

  After Bailey’s arrest, Esmond and Goad had made their way together to the via Zara for their meeting at the Questura. Count Gaetano, the Podestà, was also there, looking sheepish. Goad gave quiet, precise answers to their questions. Esmond had tried to ask about Bailey, but the Quaestor, alcohol-flushed, held up his hand.

  ‘There is a Red Cross boat to Southampton from Genoa in three days. You must be on it. If not, you will join your friend, the priest, breaking stones in the south.’

  That evening, Esmond had packed clothes, his bundle of correspondence and his novel in a morocco travelling case, wrapped Anna’s collage in brown paper and closed up the studio. With Tatters at his heels, he walked out of the wicket gate, locking it behind him. He and Goad were booked on a train at eleven the next morning, a change at Pisa and then up the coast to Genoa. As the city’s many bells tolled nine, he stood in the middle of the Ponte Santa Trinità, a golden moon rising to the east. To leave all of this behind. He remembered walking across the quad with Blacker after being discovered with Philip. Here, again, he’d found love and was being expelled.

  He lit a cigarette, tossing the match into the water. The moon caught the lips of waves in the river and was carried on them downstream before slipping into darkness. He patted the parapet wall and moved off. He turned right along the Lungarno, past where he’d kissed Gerald a year and a half earlier, still a boy, he realised, thinking of his young, unhappy self. Up through the arcade of the Uffizi and into the Piazza della Signoria, the perfect centre of the human world. He passed a sandbagged David, sheltered under wood, nodded at him and wended his way up past the Bargello into the warren of streets he now knew better than any. He was a Florentine, he realised, more at home here than anywhere.

  Ada was waiting at the balcony, looking down at the square. She stood on tiptoes when she saw him, then disappeared and ran out of the front door of the apartment and across the street into his arms. He held her against him, and they couldn’t breathe with the force of it, and he felt that, if he could manage not to tell her, not to say that this was their last night together, it might not have to be true.

  They sat in the drawing room. She’d understood without words. They talked, sank to the floor and made love very slowly, looking out at the moon-gold trees. He held her head in his hands, covering her pale face with kisses. Tatters trotted from room to room, then found a corner to sleep in and began to snuffle and twitch. Esmond and Ada did not sleep. Only when he handed her Anna’s collage did she begin to cry. At eight they walked down to a café on the via della Piazzuola. They fed Tatters pastries under the table, held hands, regretted each sip of coffee, as if by keeping their cups full they might halt time. One last kiss on the corner of the street and then Esmond left, his tears not coming until he’d arrived at the station.

  Six Blackshirts, including Carità, were there to see them off. A look of triumph as Goad and Esmond climbed up into their compartment. Carità came right up to the window, rapped on it three times and waved. As the train pulled out, beginning a long arc towards Pisa, Esmond could still see him on the platform, in his shorts, walking with a little bounce and grinning. Goad came and sat next to Esmond and put an arm around his shoulders, but the tears had passed, and he felt something else. The day was hot, the train kept stopping and starting, fishermen lolled by the side of the Arno.

  On the outskirts of Pisa, outskirts Esmond recognised with a swell of distress as the same ones he’d driven through the night of Fiamma’s death, the train halted again. Almost without thinking, not giving himself time to change his mind, Esmond stood up.

  ‘I’m going back,’ he said to Goad.

  The older man looked at him through his spectacles, before nodding.

  ‘Will t
hey be looking for us here at Pisa? Or not until Genoa?’

  Goad thought for a moment. ‘I’d guess Genoa. It will give me time to come up with a convincing – hum – canard.’ He rose and took Esmond by the hand. ‘Good luck. You’d better get moving.’

  The train gave a creak and began to chunter forward. Esmond went into the corridor, reached out of the window, opened the door and leapt down the embankment, tumbling with his case into some thorny bushes, tearing his trousers and opening cuts on his cheeks and hands. He looked up in time to see Goad leaning out of the window, waving discreetly, but furiously.

  He walked back along the Arno with his bag over his shoulder, keeping out of the way whenever he saw a cart or bicycle. At Pontedera he bought a ticket for Lucca, but instead boarded for Florence, getting out a stop early at Ginestra Fiorentina. It was dark by the time he reached the Oltrarno.

  He waited in the tree-cover of the Villa Ventaglio until past eleven, watching the light in Ada’s apartment, her hair, her shadow on the ceiling. Sure that no one was watching, he crossed to ring at the door. She’d taken a while to come down, asked Chi è? through the letterbox.

  His voice was heavy, choked. ‘I couldn’t go,’ he said, and the door opened, and there she was.

  3

  Esmond had suggested they move to the villa. There was already talk of the MVSN requisitioning Jewish property, and the apartment was simply too small to hide him for long. Carità’s smile at the railway station came to mind. He knew that, if word of his escape reached the Blackshirts, they’d be after his blood. One evening in October, over dinner with the Professor, he mentioned the unoccupied villa that sat on a hilltop to the south, the key to the front door given to Bailey before the Keppels left, now in a drawer in the sacristy. The Professor had nodded.

  ‘It may be the answer to a few other problems we’ve been having,’ he said. ‘We need a base out of the city, where people might–– disappear.’

  Later that night, Bruno Fanciullacci pulled up outside the apartment in a battered and spluttering Bianchi. He’d secured himself a job on the Fiat factory floor in Novoli by day; by night he organised hushed meetings, arranged messages to and from the numerous Communist Party leaders in gaol in Florence. He had shaved and showered since Esmond had seen him in Ada’s apartment. His moustache was a slick black line beneath which, ever twirling, the matchstick. He was wearing a new beige suit, a thin navy tie. He looked dashing and capable and Esmond felt a twist of jealousy. Ada sat in front beside Bruno with Tatters on her lap, Esmond in the back. They drove through the deserted town, lights off. The car jerked and squealed around corners, struggled up the smallest incline.

  Every plume of mist from the river was a Fascist spy, every shadow hid a Blackshirt with a Beretta. They parked in one of the side streets in front of the Pitti Palace. Ada kept watch outside while Esmond and Bruno went into the church. It was dark inside, cool despite the warm night. Esmond picked up the key to the villa and, under a pile of surplices, Bailey’s Army standard W/T radio. Then, just as they were about to leave, he stopped.

  ‘Aspetta,’ he said, and Bruno shone his torch down the aisle. It found the triptych, which brought Esmond up short. ‘D’you think we’ll be bombed?’ he asked Bruno. ‘In Florence, I mean.’

  ‘Maybe. Depends how bad things get. How long it all goes on. They talk about an Open City, but––’

  ‘I want to take the paintings. Keep them with me up at the villa. If they’re evacuating art from the Uffizi, the Bargello, all the other churches, we should take care of these.’

  Bruno looked at the triptych with a little shake of his head. ‘They won’t fit in the car.’

  ‘You go ahead, I’ll carry them up.’

  Bruno shrugged, then smiled, moving the matchstick from one side of his mouth to the other. ‘We’ll see you up there – if the car makes it. Don’t get caught.’

  With the paintings balanced on his head – not heavy, but catching every breeze – he set out up the via Romana. The moonlight was broken by clouds, but he kept to the shadows, relieved when he left the main road and began the long climb towards the villa. He heard the sputtering of the Bianchi’s engine somewhere ahead.

  Bruno and Ada were waiting when he arrived at L’Ombrellino. He carried the paintings up into the house and arranged them by the table in the hall. Bruno had found a bottle of champagne, some glasses in the kitchen. Ada lit the candelabra in the entrance. They stood beside the paintings in the candlelight and toasted the new home. Tatters was already exploring, his footsteps clicking, halting as he caught a new scent, then darting into the upper parts of the house. They were silent in the hallway, listening to the dog’s progress. As he left, Bruno embraced them both, the matchstick prodding Esmond’s cheek.

  ‘Be careful, you two,’ Bruno said. ‘It’s a risk to love someone these days. They’ll use it against you, if they get you.’ Esmond drew himself up when Bruno left, the quicker to fill his space. They stood there, in the hall, watching the flames on the gilt of the paintings. Tatters clacked back in with a mouse clamped softly between his jaws. It was still alive, squirming gently. Esmond reached down and eased open the dog’s mouth. The mouse dropped, paused for a moment, overcome briefly by this unexpected redemption, then scurried off into the skirting-board.

  4

  They have been here at the villa for a year now. They have grown used to the strictures of their new life as eyes grow accustomed to darkness, though Esmond is dreading winter. He can scarcely believe they survived January ’42, when snow packed so thickly on the roof they’d heard it groaning like a whale in the night. Ice had patterned the windows, the pool had frozen over and the Arno, flowing heavy with snow-water, was just a black slash across the city below them. He’d had to drop rocks down the well in the garden before he could lower the bucket for water. During the day they’d huddled under eiderdowns bundled in clothes, Tatters a furry, breathy hot-water bottle between them. Later they lit fires in the kitchen, hoping no one would see the smoke. They barely slept, tucked into the hot fug, feeding vine-wood into the stove, gradually removing clothes and then bathing in a copper tub. They’d pour jugs of near-scalding water over each other, letting out animal bellows and gurgles of pleasure, then sit wrapped in their towels while potatoes baked in the oven, a bowl of carrots boiled on the stove. They read to each other: Ada Gerusalemme Liberata, Leopardi’s Zibaldone, Svevo’s Confessions of Zeno; Esmond Eugene Onegin, Mrs Dalloway, The Way We Live Now. They began to speak Italian as much as English, Ada correcting him on his grammar and pronunciation; now he dreams in both languages.

  Once a week – Wednesday afternoons – Bruno would arrive at the wall at the end of the garden with a chicken or a stick of salami or a haunch of ham. He had Communist contacts in the north who could bypass both the government rationing teams and the black marketers, while relatives of Maria Luigia on a pig farm out towards Pistoia happily provided Bruno with supplies. He spoke breathlessly to Esmond of his efforts to unite the various liberalsocialista factions and their obdurate Communist cohorts. He was always fizzing with news, the matchstick dancing under his moustache as he talked, his hands sweeping across Florence as he described how they’d hound the Fascists into the Arno, throw them bodily from the Ponte Santa Trinità, and then build a country on the teachings of Gramsci, how Esmond and Ada’s children would grow up in a socialist paradise. At this last, Ada would blush and shove him in the chest. As he left, he’d hand them scribbled messages to transmit over the W/T set. They were always in code and made no sense to Esmond, although he began to recognise certain names – Penna, Rossino, Babbo.

  Sometimes the Professor came in Bruno’s stead, climbing over the wall at the bottom of the garden and rapping on the window of the drawing room until they let him in. He’d brush the snow from his jacket and peer at them: avuncular, anxious. They’d serve him tea, extinguishing the fire as soon as the water boiled. He’d bring news that wasn’t on the radio: about the partisans high in the hills waiting for thei
r moment to pounce, strikes at the factories in Milan, about the growing strength of the unions in the big cities and discontent among contadini in the south.

  Esmond had made several late-night trips to the church that last winter, a hat pushed down over his head, his breath misting in the sharp wild brace of the air. He’d pressed himself into ice-stiff bushes at the slightest sound, leapt garden walls, disappeared into the shadows of buildings where he watched Blackshirts garrulous and greasy after a night in a brothel on the via delle Terme. The curfew was loose, often ignored, but he couldn’t afford to be caught by the carabinieri and so he waited until the small hours before setting out. He came back loaded with books, jumpers, candles. He found Bailey’s service Webley in the priest’s bedside drawer, a Sam Browne belt of ammunition under the bed. He sleeps with the gun on the floor beside their mattress.

  Finally, April – the trees shrugged of snow, the box-hedge parterre cutting shaggy lines through the whiteness. Only on distant peaks did snow still vein down. The town below woke with difficulty from winter. Petrol was increasingly scarce, food heavily rationed, the young men all away at war. Most of those who stepped out into the serene light of spring wished the snow and cold and darkness would come back. But the sun continued to shine and the city resumed life haltingly, stretching its stiff limbs.

  That summer, they lived in the garden. The precise Italianate order at L’Ombrellino unravelled into wild profusion, geometric lines smudged and finally erased by fiercely sprouting fennel, fig, oleander, morning glory. The pool was dark with algae and frogspawn, knots of weed. Swallows threw themselves down over it to drink from the reflections of their beaks. Esmond imagined them flying up in a great dark wing over the desert where brave sunburnt soldiers stared across a landscape of dunes and mirages of the enemy. When summer ended, they’d swoop – on sudden instinct – southwards to the desert and the dying. The sand would be crossed with bones, dark blood, husks of tanks and troop-carriers. If the swallows knew anything at all, he thought, they’d weep as they passed over, or fly north, back into frozen whiteness.