Strangers in Venice

by A W Hartoin

  “We have a half hour and then some. These trains are always late.”

  “I have to see if Nicky is here,” said Stella.

  “If he’s not here, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “I’m not leaving without him.”

  Bast didn’t answer and she got a new feeling. He was having her on that train one way or another. She had to think of something quick.

  “Forget it, Mrs. Lawrence,” said Bast, walking her down the length of the park next to the tracks and the station. “I was tasked with keeping an eye on you and bringing you back safe and sound. That will happen.”

  “What about Nicky?” she asked but already knowing the answer.

  “If I can get him, so much the better. He’s not my priority.”

  “The ambassador told you that? I don’t believe it.”

  “The earl is a player, but not the only one.”

  “What in the—”

  He shushed her. “There’s the door. You are Italian. Do you have your passport?”

  She gritted her teeth, but said, “Yes.”

  They left the park and walked along a high brick wall to a narrow green door with a simple pull ring instead of a door knob.

  “I won’t leave without him,” Stella said.

  “You will and that’s how he’d want it.” Bast pulled open the door and they walked into the station far down the platform. The trains were coming to a halt and, like Bast, they were in no great hurry. The platform teemed with people, but something wasn’t quite right. The food vendors and people selling trinkets that she remembered so well were back, moving through the crowd hawking their wares. The tourists and travelers were looking politely or turning away in annoyance as they usually did, but it wasn’t the same. Bast felt it, too. He was stiff beside her. But if their bodies hadn’t been locked together, she never would’ve known. His face was still relaxed and jovial. He greeted people and eased her through the crowd without missing a beat.

  Then he stopped at a woman selling cheap necklaces with a bit of Murano glass dangling off the end. “Look at these,” he whispered in her ear.

  His grip stayed as tight as ever, so she looked, not knowing what else to do. Bast went up on his toes and scanned the crowd. He remained smiling, but she could see the intensity in his look.

  Then he pulled out some lira and negotiated with the seller for a necklace. She caved easily and he flicked a glance at Stella. That’s what was wrong. The sellers were there, but they weren’t trying. There wasn’t the usual obnoxious thrusting of their wares into the tourists’ faces, the insistence that they buy. This time they looked as though they’d rather be somewhere else.

  Bast paid the woman and she slipped away silently without urging another purchase. That was so odd. Stella looked back and saw the woman slip out the door they had entered, even though she had a full tray of jewelry.

  Bast tapped a man on the shoulder and asked about the train that had now stopped. The man tossed an answer over his shoulder and rushed to get on, but he couldn’t do it. People were trying to get off and the porters pushed him away. He wasn’t the only one on the edge of panic. The whole row of cars had similar interactions going on. It wasn’t the rain. That was over. It reminded Stella of Vienna with the furtive glances and atmosphere of dread.

  She went up on her tiptoes. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not certain,” said Bast. “But neither of those trains are the two o’clock to Rome.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have a ticket anyway.”

  Bast scanned the platform, still jolly but squeezing her hand painfully. “Let’s go to the counter and check the board.”

  They walked to the end of the train. Arriving tourists crowded around them, all smiles coming into a sunny Venice, none the wiser to whatever was going on. The tall doors to the station were wide open, but crowded. Stella kept looking for Nicky, but didn’t see anyone so tall or nearly as blond. She checked the big station clock over the door. Twenty minutes. He had to be there, but it was such a mess, she might not see him until they got on the train whenever it showed up.

  Bast guided her through the doors, jostling her left and right. When they got through, he whispered, “Pull down your hat.”

  He did the same and she brought down her brim as far as possible. There was no need to ask twice. The station was packed with carabinieri and polizia, all carrying weapons and looking more intense than usual. People were giving them a wide berth and Bast followed suit, taking Stella to the ticket counter. He stopped a few feet away and looked up at the board listing the arrivals and departures. The two o’clock train to Rome was already flagged as late.

  “We may have to get on another train,” whispered Bast.

  “Not without Nicky.”

  He looked her in the eyes and a hardness came over him. “I will get you out of here.”

  She looked back at the board. “What do you suggest? Verona to Munich or Trieste to Vienna?”

  Bast’s jovial expression stayed firmly in place. “I think we’ll choose not to visit Herr Hitler today.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  They turned to the ticket counter and got run into by a group of school children rushing through. “Scusi! Scusi!” called out a woman, frantically herding them. More people rushed at them with looks of distaste or fear on their faces. Bast pulled Stella tight to his side again and fended off the crowd. They got in the short line and some shouts erupted from the door in Italian. Stella went up on her toes. It could be Nicky.

  “Don’t look,” said Bast.

  “What is it?”

  “The carabinieri.”

  Stella got as stiff as Bast. “For us? Me?”

  He glanced over and a flicker of something, a tiny little reaction, crossed his face. If she hadn’t been looking at him so intensely, she wouldn’t have seen it.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” said Bast. “Do not look.”

  Her heart hurt. The air in her lungs burned. “Is it Nicky?”

  “No.”

  “Promise me.”

  Bast bent over and looked in her eyes. “It is not Nicky. I don’t see him.”

  Right or wrong. She believed him. “Okay.”

  He squeezed her hand and stepped closer to the ticket window.

  “I have money,” she said, pulling her handbag from the crook of her arm.

  “Never mind that.”

  “Don’t forget a ticket for Nicky.”

  His smile grew larger. “I couldn’t possibly.”

  He stepped up to the window and spoke to the grumpy woman behind the glass in Italian as a burst of yelling broke out behind them. Bast had to let go of her to get his wallet out and Stella turned toward the sound. The woman demanded a hefty sum, but Bast didn’t answer. He reached for Stella instead. “Don’t look.”

  She couldn’t help it. To tell the truth, she didn’t try to stop herself. A voice was raised. In German. A woman’s voice. She knew it.

  “Mrs. Lawrence,” he growled, but she went anyway, pushing through the crowd toward the voice. People ran into her going the opposite direction away from the voice that had become wailing. With it was pleading and sobs of other voices, men and women. She couldn’t stop going. She had to know.

  A group of carabinieri surrounded several people with suitcases. They were talking to the carabinieri, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Stella caught the words for hospital and doctor. When she got closer, she saw someone was on the floor. A woman. Her face lolled toward Stella and she gasped. Rosa. Rosa von Bodmann. Karolina was on her knees beside her, wailing. Two carabinieri pushed her out of the way and grabbed Rosa’s arms, pulling her upright. Someone barked an order. They dropped the unconscious lady and her head hit the floor with a solid thunk. The carabinieri seized Karolina and dragged her away, her face stricken. Stella went for Rosa, but Bast wrestled her off her feet, carrying her backward through the horrified crowd. “You can’t help her.”

>   “It’s Rosa von Bodmann. Let go.”

  “You can’t help her. She’s beyond help.”

  “She needs a doctor.”

  He tried to get her to the door to the platform, but so many people were streaming out, he couldn’t make any headway. She could see Rosa laying there in a heap, a circle of people widening around her. No one was helping. No one was doing anything. Stella kicked back, connecting her heel with his shin. He gasped and let go, dropping her on her feet painfully. She ran for Rosa and dropped to her knees.

  “Rosa?” She held the old lady’s face between her hands. It was cold and clammy. “Rosa? Can you hear me?”

  A face appeared in front of hers and Stella drew back in shock.

  Bartali took her hands from Rosa. “She’s dead.” He looked up and said over her head, “Get her out of here now.”

  Bast lifted Stella off her feet.

  “Rosa,” she whispered, staring at the slack face of such a sweet person. “You killed her.”

  “Go now,” said Bartali, looming over Rosa’s body. “My men know her face.”

  Stella focused on him, pain bursting through her chest, an agony of unexpected grief. “Why don’t you just arrest me? That’s what you’ve wanted to do the whole time.”

  “Dr. Spooner’s wife told us who you are,” he sneered at her. “You could’ve saved me a lot of trouble.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not sending an American heiress to a camp. I don’t care what that murdering German says.”

  “Why did you arrest Karolina and Rosa then? They’re innocents.”

  Bartali sneered at her. “They’re Jews.”

  “But—”

  He leaned in close. “Let the Germans eat their own. It will be their undoing.”

  Bast pulled Stella back into his chest. “The world isn’t going to allow that,” she said.

  “I don’t know what world you’re living in,” said Bartali. “Get out of the station.” The carabinieri turned on his heels and marched through the crowd that frantically made way for him.

  Bast paused for a second and then spun Stella around toward the outside doors.

  She fought him, writhing and twisting in his grasp. “No. He has Karolina.”

  He tightened his grip, whooshing the breath out of her lungs. “She’s been arrested. It’s done. Don’t attract any more attention.”

  They went for the doors, weaving through other passengers, and Stella glanced back at Rosa’s body between the multitude of legs passing by.

  “Your train will be here in thirty minutes. Track one. Be on it,” said someone with a different British accent than Bast.

  Stella whipped her head around but only caught a glimpse of a man in a grey fedora melting into the crowd. Bast pushed her out of the door and the sun blinded her for a second. She dug in her heels at the edge of the first step.

  “No. We have to do something.”

  “Keep walking,” he said, forcing her down the steps onto the wet piazza. The water had receded, but it was still very wet. Bast didn’t seem to care and plowed right into it, mindless of his fine leather shoes and pant legs.

  “They’ll take her to Germany.”

  “Yes. Do you want to go with her?”

  “No, but—”

  “Mrs. Lawrence, you have a price on your head,” he said.

  “Since when?”

  “Since you slipped the net in Vienna. You’re lucky Bartali has a deep hatred of Germans from the war.”

  “But—”

  “Look for your husband. Do that. Find him and leave. There’ll be a time for your weapons, but it isn’t now.”

  He’d turned her left and they walked across the piazza toward the vaporetto stop and the expansive Scalzi bridge.

  Stella scanned the tourists taking pictures and lining up in front of the vaporetto ticket booth. No one caught her eye. “Where are we going?”

  “We’ll take the street between the station and the church.”

  She nodded and kept looking as the next vaporetto pulled up and bumped the pylons. The tourists bunched up together, twittering anxiously and pouring over their maps. They were all surprisingly short, even with their hats. Bast turned her to skirt the long line and she looked over their heads at the bridge. It was crowded with people taking pictures and admiring the sunny view. She saw several blondes, but they were women.

  Just as Bast turned her toward the end of the station, something caught her eye. Not a blond, but it was a head. A tall one, taller than anyone else, but it wasn’t the head or its hat that attracted her attention. It was the way the man was moving. His head bobbed and jutted to the right sharply with every step.

  She stopped walking.

  “Mrs. Lawrence.”

  “Wait.” She couldn’t see his face. The man beside him had a hat that blocked her view. “I think…”

  The man came over the crest of the bridge, clearing the glut of tourists.

  “Nicky,” Stella whispered and relief flooded her chest. “Thank God.”

  “Come with me now,” said Bast.

  She lowered her voice further. “It’s Nicky.”

  Bast clutched her waist, but she pivoted and rolled herself out of his grip.

  “Stop.”

  She didn’t stop and he lunged for her. She slipped on the wet pavers, falling backward. Bast grabbed her wounded arm and she shrieked at the sudden pain. He tried to pull her up, but only succeeded in grabbing her wound a second time. She shrieked again and Nicky heard her. He ran down the rest of the bridge with a pair of suitcases in his hands.

  “È lei!” a man yelled.

  “Bloody hell,” said Bast, yanking her upright and dragging her toward the bridge.

  Two carabinieri came from the right, yelling and holding out weapons. Stella and Bast ran through the crowd coming off the bridge, dodging screaming tourists. Bast drew his weapon and people fell into the canal as they tried to get out of the way. Nicky saw them coming and dropped the suitcases. He spun around the two people with him and yelled, “Run!” They took off and he met Stella at the end of the bridge, taking her free hand.

  Between the two men, Stella got yanked off her feet. Her galoshes were dragged off and her knees scraped on the ground.

  “Stop!” she screamed.

  They reached the crest of the bridge and Nicky looked back. “Holy shit!” He scooped her up and ran, his limp worsening with every step. The carabinieri yelled for them to stop and fired a warning shot over their heads. People scattered, so panicked they hit the stone railing and buckled, falling to their knees. One man hit it hard enough that he flipped over and went screaming into the canal.

  At the end of the bridge, Nicky put Stella down and grabbed two people hesitating at the foot of the stairs. “Come on!”

  They all ran left into the terrified crowd on a small piazza. Another shot rang out and everyone ducked, except for them.

  “Boat!” yelled Bast.

  They ran for a power boat at the end of the short dock. An astonished man stood at the helm with his mouth open and his hands on the wheel. Bast and Nicky leapt onto the boat and tossed him onto the walkway, where he rolled away and curled up in a protective ball.

  “Get in!” yelled Nicky.

  Stella and the people with Nicky tumbled on board as Bast took the wheel. He revved the engine and they pulled away from the dock into the traffic on the Grand Canal. The carabinieri were at the pylons. They both fired.

  “Get down!” Bast didn’t get down. He didn’t even crouch.

  Nicky forced Stella to her knees and covered her with his body behind Bast. “Who the hell is that?”

  “Mr. Leonard Bast, lately of London.” Stella glanced at the woman next to her. The one blue eye she could see was wide with terror. “Who are they?”

  “The Sorkines!”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “I know!”

  Bast jerked the boat starboard, screaming obscenities. They listed so far to the righ
t they took on water and there was a grinding impact that nearly rolled them over. When the boat righted itself, Stella looked up to see another boat. They’d collided with a water taxi. It had a crumpled bow, but it was turning in a tight loop. At the wheel were two men fighting for control. Peiper and presumably the captain grappled with each other. Peiper pulled out his weapon and shot the man in the chest. He flipped over the side into the wake. Peiper righted the craft and came after them. Behind him was a polizia boat with a wailing siren. They almost ran over the man in the water, dodging to the right at the last moment.

  Other boats were trying to get to the man and got in the way of the polizia. They were cut off. Bast deftly weaved past two large delivery boats, but Peiper was right behind them.

  Nicky pulled out Gabriele’s pistol and aimed with his arm bouncing around. He didn’t fire.

  “Shoot him!” yelled Bast.

  “I can’t!”

  There were too many people and boats. No clear shot with such bad aim. Bast wove between a series of boats with Peiper right on their tail.

  “Shoot him!” he yelled.

  Nicky’s arm couldn’t hold steady. “I can’t! I’ll hit someone else!”

  “Just do it!”

  “He’s slowing down!”

  The woman beside Stella was shaking so hard she was vibrating the both of them. “Are you okay?”

  Her eyes showed no understanding. Stella rubbed her back and tried to think of something, anything in French, but her mind was blank.

  “I’m turning onto a side canal,” yelled Bast. “It’ll be clearer then.”

  “Hurry up!” yelled Nicky.

  Stella got out from under Nicky’s arm and went for Mrs. Sorkine. She was shaking more violently than ever.

  “It’s all right,” said Stella. “It’ll be fine.”

  But she didn’t look at Stella. She was looking back. Stella turned. Mr. Sorkine was sitting behind them, upright, with an odd, fixed expression. Blood covered his white shirt and a drip ran out of the corner of his mouth.

  Stella scrambled back to him.

  “Get down!” yelled Nicky.

  Mr. Sorkine fell to the side, but Stella had him. There was a hole under his breast bone. She pressed her hands to it and blood soaked them.