Two Women in Rome

by Elizabeth Buchan

  Something flickered momentarily behind his eyes. Then, he reached over and turned off the light. A dawn light crept around the blind. ‘It’s a bit late to go back to sleep.’

  She laughed, for he was already rolling the T-shirt that she wore in bed up over her head. ‘That’s blatant,’ she said.

  ‘So it is.’ He bent his head. ‘It’s meant to be.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Rome

  29 April 1978

  THE GENERAL DEMANDED DINNER AND I RECKONED HE WOULD enjoy the quirkiness of Eau Vive and took him there.

  ‘It’s very proper,’ I warned him. ‘You have to behave. No naughtiness.’

  That perked him up.

  He ate heartily, approved of the nine o’clock cabaret and wanted to talk about sex.

  We were drinking our coffee when Leo’s Uncle Beppo was ushered into the restaurant.

  I avoided eye contact but he halted by our table. There was no help for it and I had to introduce the general, who was just getting going on what he planned for later and bristled at the interruption.

  Then something caught the general’s eye and, I swear, it was like a light being flicked on.

  A message had passed between them, an acknowledgement they belonged to the same tribe. The general invited Beppo to join us for a drink and they talked for half an hour or so about acquaintances in common, the shooting of the prison warder in Milan by the Red Brigades and the latest letter written from his prison by Moro addressed to the Christian Democrat Party.

  All stuff that was common currency.

  Once or twice, Beppo drew me into the conversation, but in a way that indicated that his impression of me as a good-time girl still held. In the end, I got up, said I was going to the Ladies, went outside to smoke a cigarette and tried to work out what they had spotted in each other. When I returned every survival instinct crackled into life. They had agreed on something and it was probably over me. I could tell from the way they welcomed me back. Very polite. Very false.

  Never allowing your contacts to meet is a good principle and should be observed. I blamed myself for not thinking through the location of the dinner carefully enough.

  The general came back to my apartment for ‘coffee’. I had tidied meticulously. Not a scrap of paper or any of my artist materials in sight. Everything compromising in the cache under the bath.

  He has no finesse, not an iota, and I gritted my teeth while he had his way. Hoping to get some more inside detail, I was very careful with my questions about the Moro kidnapping, but he was jumpy.

  Whose side was I on, he demanded, and I told him ‘his’. Of course.

  I left it at that. He sent me a mean look and said that he wondered about me.

  Wonder away, I advised him, and forced myself to trace a line of kisses down his torso. Lower and lower.

  He fell asleep and I waited until he was well and truly snoring and got up. Very carefully, I lifted his jacket from the chair and took it into the bathroom.

  Wallet, keys, a letter from – I think – his wife, who lived in the country, and a lapel badge with the insignia of a sword. The Gladius.

  I replaced everything carefully and slid my way back into the bedroom with the jacket.

  He was on the case and demanded to know where I had been and I told him that a girl needs the bathroom.

  In bed, he reached over and grabbed me by the throat. ‘Do I believe you?’

  The grip was painful and vicious. I saw flashes of light and fought for breath.

  It was a warning.

  Did he do this to his wife? I managed to gasp.

  The grip slackened and he told me to leave his wife out of it and I said I would if he treated me properly. It seemed to do the trick and he released me.

  That hurt, I told him, and it wasn’t the deal.

  He blustered and told me he could hurt a great deal more and it was obvious he was enjoying his little reign of terror.

  I fingered my throat, which felt bruised and swollen, and asked him if he would ever tell his wife about interludes like this one. It was high risk.

  I remember the threat in his voice as he said: ‘Women like you …’

  I pulled myself together and told him that women like me were here to serve their country, and ran my hand over his chest. He was not to worry: I had no hidden depths.

  To butter him up I asked him to tell me all about his days in the field (only one or two, I suspect), about his prowess, and he rattled on at length. ‘When you’ve killed once,’ he said, ‘the line is crossed. Next time is easy.’

  The general left my apartment in the early hours and I lay awake.

  The misery I experienced most days washed through me. I have not seen or heard from Leo since our final meeting last year. That terrible day in early autumn. Missing him does not get easier.

  I wanted him.

  I wanted him and – for every possible reason that he might think of and not think of – I needed him and I could not have him.

  Rex visited the apartment. Not good practice but we needed to go over the situation and to take our time.

  I drew the curtains closed. We drank coffee and ate the best cantucci, dipping them into Vin Santo.

  He and I agreed. Neither the Italian state nor the US wanted Moro alive, although they would never say so and everyone would fall over themselves issuing statements of profound shock and horror. Given Moro’s push to do a deal with Italy’s large and powerful Communist bloc, many in his party – and in the Parliament – view his kidnapping as a godsend.

  However, a few of the more thoughtful are asking: how come the Red Brigades were so much more efficient at this sort of operation than the state was in finding him?

  Without doubt, the operation has been suspiciously well funded and planned. We mull over the theories.

  Under international law, it is an offence for an outside country to meddle with the internal affairs of another nation, but the Americans and, almost certainly, the Brits are doing so. They are concerned about NATO security. The last thing they wish is for the Communists to have any leverage in an Italian government.

  Did the general intend to let the information slip, or not? He hinted that indeed it was a secret, right-wing paramilitary group that was hell-bent on preventing the Communists having any power. (We must bear in mind he might have been feeding me false leads.)

  On the other side of the argument, a secret, left-wing underground group is working to put the Communists in power. Moro is the exprime minister who mediates between the two. Who acts? Who takes advantage? Who loses?

  I had never seen Rex so on edge or noticed worry lines on those Renaissance features. Over the years, I had grown fond of him, and I wondered about his life. His home. His emotional stability. How long he would last?

  Ours is a strange relationship. It would never be called a friendship by the observer, but it is. It is.

  Naturally, I have no idea who Rex’s other sources are, but I wondered if he pushed them as hard as he pushes me. He orders me to keep going with the general just in case we can feed something more to HQ. They will be working on their responses.

  I kept my expression neutral. In the past, I have treated my body as resilient, yes, but friable and disposable. It did not count for that much.

  In that past, I would have had no problem. My body was easily deployed if it was necessary. My spirit, too, was willing. It had been part of the game, a portion of the undertaking I took all those years ago.

  That had changed. My body and spirit have been re-stamped and newly tempered in a different fire, which makes that easy, obedient disposal hard.

  Metamorphosis was something I had only read about until I met Leo. But it has happened to me. I have dived in deep as one person and come up another.

  I imagined that I knew myself. But it was far from the truth and I must learn about the new me.

  I made fresh coffee and filled up Rex’s cup. It was bitter and bracing and he gulped it down.

  I s
at down opposite him and told him that, when I took that time off earlier, I had done some thinking and I would be leaving as soon as I could arrange matters.

  He gave a start and said he bloody hoped not.

  I cannot be the first, nor will I be the last to leave his stable – or indeed The Office – and his reaction surprised me.

  Among other things, you have to be lucky in this work, I pointed out, and I worried my luck was running out.

  Curiously, Rex understood. As a tribe, we are supposed to be logical and calculating, but there is always an element of superstition. He asked me what I planned to do.

  I said I was already packing up my papers, and that I was thinking of training as a teacher.

  Rex laughed so hard that he knocked his cup over.

  I cupped my chin in my hand and gave him some advice, which was to treat his flock more gently. We need encouragement, I told him. We need to feel wanted and loved.

  ‘What?’ he exclaimed and I told him to remember my advice when I had gone.

  He turned serious and warned me that I couldn’t leave yet. Not until the Moro affair was done. We needed the general, he said.

  To be fair, Rex didn’t know what he was asking of me.

  Several days later, I was sitting at the table with my journal. Lacking the energy, I had not written anything in it for days. It lay on the table. A once ultra-smart accessory, now battered, water stained and, because I had inserted so many letters, dried flowers, sketches, unable to close.

  Leo disliked cars. Loved olive trees.

  I was thinking about the future. I had to think about the future and I was making plans.

  The phone rang. I let it and it went on and on. Finally, it stopped.

  In the corridor, Marta Livardo was kicking a bucket along the tiles in a bad-tempered way and music blared from the pocket transistor radio she always had with her.

  The phone rang for the second time. Second time around, it was easier to ignore.

  She banged on the door. ‘Signorina, are you all right?’

  I didn’t answer.

  Prying was a way of life for Marta Livardo. Given the job, it was inevitable. People coming and going. Love affairs, quarrels, mortalities, debts and their fallout, are all compressed under this roof. A microcosm of human life. There are so many telltale details on which to feast. Extra laundry, raised voices, late payments … To observe is to accrue power.

  I should know.

  In another existence, Marta and her nosiness would have been amusing. I might even have felt affectionately about it. In her position I, too, would want to watch the endlessly fascinating comedies and tragedies played out under this roof.

  The door handle rattled. In a flash I was on my feet and flung open the door.

  The lightning change in her expression from cunning snooper to startled innocent was masterly. She shoved her keys back into her apron pocket and muttered that she had heard the phone go and was worried that I was ill.

  That made me angry and I pulled her inside, accused her of trying to find out if I had a visitor and invited her to open the cupboards and look behind the curtains.

  I had to hand it to Marta Livardo. She did look round, her mouth set in its customary mean and miserable lines.

  Then I recollected what has happened to me. How the experience has loosened the emotional sinews, how judgement of others has become softer, how love makes it possible to suggest alternatives.

  I captured one of her hands in mine, told her we had known each other a long time and wouldn’t it be better if we were friends? Her fingers felt rough and swollen in mine, and I thought of all her years of thankless work. I told her that I knew how hard she worked and how sad she was.

  The fingers between mine jerked and she spat at me that I knew nothing.

  But I do know, I insisted. She turned her head abruptly away from me but I held on.

  We can help each other, I told her. If we choose to.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ANTICIPATING HER NEW ROLE, LOTTIE WAS REORGANISING her days and readying herself for the work ahead.

  At the time the Espatriati documents had been extricated from the warehouse in the south of the city, it had been assumed that all the material had been reclaimed.

  Not so. Valerio Gianni rang Lottie to say that the warehouse had been slated for development and four boxes of documents had been discovered in a cellar. The entrance had been hidden by machinery that had been installed when the warehouse had been used as a wholesaler. Arrangements had been made to send them in.

  When they arrived, Lottie made a preliminary reconnaissance.

  What wonderful people.

  She read on a sheet of lined paper torn out of an exercise book.

  The Fatebene Fratelli, the Do-Good Brothers (a name to which they live up), have taken me in to their hospital. When the Germans ask to question all the patients, they are told that there is a special isolation wing where patients, which include me and several Jews, are suffering from the highly infectious Syndrome K, and it would be dangerous to inspect it. So far, it has worked …

  The note appended to it read: Written by Guy Peters in May 1943 at the Fatebenefratelli hospital.

  With a pang, she remembered that Nina had been taken there. Lottie checked the map. The hospital was on the Isola Tiberina. She hoped the reason the letter had never been sent was not the worst. It was followed by:

  The coffin was so very small … It was easily covered by the roses. When I laid them on it, I did not think it was possible to feel such pain.

  At the bottom of the page, the same handwriting stuttered to a final sentence:

  My heart is now closed. For ever.

  The note accompanying it recorded that Louise Burlington soon after died of grief in May 1880 and was buried beside her son.

  Next up provided a sparkling antidote to the sadness. A clutch of black-and-white photographs showed a group of magnificent-looking women modelling clothes: form-fitting sheath dresses, a huge round hat, a strapless satin ball gown, trousers with figure-hugging blouses and billowing sleeves. All were labelled in a sloping script with the initials of the client for whom they had been made in the top right-hand corner.

  The accompanying article read:

  The 1950s was the moment to be a fashion designer in Italy and, when he arrived penniless, Harold Welsch sensed a female yearning for beautiful and frankly uninhibited clothes. ‘You can only dress a woman perfectly when you know what’s going on in her head,’ he said. ‘Desire permeates her bones. Desire for men, for attention, to be free to be herself …’

  Where had Harold got his expertise and energy? Or the louche, wild vision that resulted in clothes that ached with sex and style, cocked a snook at the establishment and made him enormously rich? Harold died from liver failure in 1961 and, at his funeral, the female mourners dressed in his creations turned out en masse and caused a sensation.

  She saluted him.

  Several documents required work and, before they were allocated to the relevant departments, Lottie rang Gabriele to ask his opinion.

  They discussed the projects and, then, he asked, ‘Is the work completed?’

  Lottie did not need to ask what Gabriele was referring to.

  ‘I’m pretty sure it is. As far as I know. But I’m still reading through the journal. I thought you might look at the cover, which needs attention.’

  At the other end of the phone, Lottie heard him moving around. A restless, awkward tread.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.

  ‘Perfectly OK.’

  The conversation ended with Lottie none the wiser.

  She was scanning the final entries of the journal into her phone when Gabriele rang back and asked if he could meet her later that afternoon. He had something to say about the murder and could she meet him at the Ponte Sisto.

  ‘So you have a theory about who did it?’

  ‘Yes. And no.’

  His voice was thin and troubled.


  The Ponte Sisto linked the Via Giulia on one side of the Tiber with the Trastevere on the other.

  Sublime architecture, Lottie thought as she approached it. Even the graffiti contributed to its spell.

  But this was where Nina died. As such, the scene carried extra resonance and she had come armed with the police diagrams of the murder scene in case Gabriele wanted to consult them.

  She crossed the bridge. On the Trastevere side, she ran down the steps from the embankment, her hand brushing over the heated stone. The river was grey-brown, and the air above the line of tents straggling up the towpath in the direction of St Peter’s shimmered in the late-afternoon heat.

  In the baggy shirt and trousers he wore in the workshop, Gabriele waited at the bottom of the steps, his customary pallor tinged with colour.

  ‘Gabriele—’

  He did not bother with preliminaries. ‘I knew her.’

  The confession was painful.

  The sun hit her four-square in the face and her heart began to pound.

  ‘You knew Nina Lawrence?’

  ‘In the notebook … the journal … does she refer to a trainee priest?’

  Lottie closed her eyes for a second, the better to absorb her feelings and the punch that came with the revelation. ‘Yes.’

  ‘With whom she had an affair?’

  ‘You’re the man she fell in love with.’

  ‘I am.’ His features were a mask of distress. ‘I loved her. Very, very much. Her murder changed my life.’

  The river, the birds coasting on its surface, the sun, the straggle of booths and tourists … the bright scene took on a tragic quality.

  ‘And you were the nephew.’ Lottie trod carefully. ‘But you’re supposed to have forged your way through the Church hierarchy and be a cardinal by now.’

  ‘I never took my vows.’

  She could see it now: the hermetic workshop, the hidden history, an old anguish that she sensed so often when she was with him.