The Tuscan Contessa

by Dinah Jefferies

  After a sharp intake of breath, he gave her a disappointed look. ‘Not this again?’

  She bristled. ‘Well, since the armistice with the Allies …’

  Another silence followed, brief this time.

  She carried on. ‘But things are different, aren’t they?’

  He tilted his head from side to side as if easing his neck. ‘It’s complicated.’

  He was right. Here, where they lived under German martial law, he had to carry the Fascist card, for safety’s sake.

  ‘In the south, in Allied-held territory, it’s different,’ he added. ‘But you know what it’s been like since the Nazis occupied most of the country. You’re either with them or against them, there’s no middle ground.’

  ‘So, they will go on thinking you’re with them.’

  She hoped he’d carry the card inconspicuously. And she understood. She really did. He didn’t want to talk about this, a sore point between them since 1932, when all state employees had had to sign the Fascist card or lose their jobs. She never really understood because he hadn’t needed a job, not with the income from the estate and their investments. But he worked in the Ministry of Agriculture and his passion for the land drove him. He’d been riveted by Mussolini’s bonifica integrale, the reclamation and salvage of previously derelict or unusable land. You only had to look at the Val d’Orcia, the visionary way in which it had been cultivated when Lorenzo had been vice president of the local consortium. It had transformed from a dull, dusty landscape into fertile land, with abundant crops and flowering orchards.

  Still, she couldn’t help thinking of her cultured and terribly clever father who had refused to sign the card, and who now lived with her mother in a lofty apartment in a Renaissance palazzo in Rome with barely enough to survive on.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Lorenzo said with a sad little smile.

  She smiled back. ‘You do?’

  He stood and reached his arms out to her. She went to him and they rocked together in an embrace.

  ‘So, what is in that packet?’ She glanced at it lying on the coffee table.

  He blinked and then stared at her. ‘It’s just a small pistol.’

  ‘Cristo!’ She felt more than a little shocked. ‘And you need one now?’

  ‘Actually, I already have one – the package contains yours.’

  ‘You think I need it?’

  ‘You might.’

  ‘And you were just going to hand it to me as if it were a box of chocolates?’

  He didn’t reply. A pistol, for heaven’s sake! She decided to think about it later.

  He leant back a little to gaze into her eyes. ‘You have the darkest eyes and the loveliest of voices.’

  She laughed. ‘You’re changing the subject … and, anyway, you always say that.’

  ‘And I always say I could spend my whole life trying to fathom them and listening to you.’

  He loosened the combs from her hair and it tumbled sheet-like to her waist. ‘Your parents could come here. I wouldn’t object. It’s getting worse in Rome.’

  ‘You know they won’t.’

  She was right, of course. They didn’t tell her everything, but she knew they were involved in something. And to be involved in something in Rome was becoming riskier every day.

  ‘Is Carla still here?’ he whispered in her ear, then nibbled the lobe.

  She felt the usual tingle. At least they hadn’t lost that. ‘She’s gone to her daughter’s, to tuck in little Alberto. She’ll be hours. Who knows what she gets up to?’ she said, although she knew.

  For a moment she pictured Carla hunched up against the rain as she hurried along one of the narrow, cobbled alleys to the row of little stone houses resting in the shadow of the tall bell tower. The wall compressed the houses together as if they were holding each other up, as they all had to do now.

  ‘Giulia?’ Lorenzo asked.

  ‘Left for home. We have the place to ourselves.’

  She saw his eyes soften.

  ‘In that case, I’ll put another log on the fire while you take off your dress. I need to feel your skin.’

  She laughed. ‘In front of the fire?’

  And more than anything, more than war, more than survival, more than winning or losing, or wondering what on earth they were going to eat, she wanted him too. It was the only thing making this bearable because she dreaded the morning when she might sit across from her husband while they sipped their barley coffee and not be able to see who he was or know who he had become.

  She removed two cushions from the velvet sofa plus the old chenille blanket from where it covered a bald patch. Then she undressed and lay on the rug that covered the ancient encaustic tiled floor from where she studied Lorenzo as he took off his clothes. Tall and lean, his shoulders glowed in the firelight.

  ‘Socks too.’ She pointed at his feet.

  He laughed but gave in, then slid under the blanket. She shivered. Outside the fortified walls the ghosts of this war were gathering and growing in number. Were they watching them now, jealous, aching to find a way back into the warmth of their lives? Or did she shiver because of the cold? It was a November night and the warmth of the fire heated only one side of her body.

  Lorenzo rubbed her back vigorously and she laughed again.

  ‘I’m not one of the dogs, you know.’

  He kissed her on the forehead and then on the tip of her nose. ‘I had noticed.’

  Once they were warm, their love-making was fiery. It always had been. They had not succumbed to the dangers of habit, or the careless disinterest that could lead to infidelity. Instead the spark between them had grown, was still growing, into a deeper more reflective bond. And they both knew that human contact, connection, love, whatever you wanted to call it, was the one thing that would pull them through. She sighed and with each touch of his lips her thoughts began to fade until she surrendered to the sensation of their bodies moving together, as they were meant to do. It would be all right. It had to be.

  3.

  Rome

  Maxine Caprioni picked up her bag of clothes and left the drab room in Via dei Cappellari, where she’d been staying. Outside, she pulled her woollen collar up against the cold. Her coat, a dowdy brown colour, was a man’s coat with large pockets, so she’d wrapped it around her tightly and belted it. She hurried down the unlit street, eyes peeled, avoiding the puddles of rainwater. At the sound of scratching she glanced behind her. Stinking heaps of uncollected rubbish littered the street, and she grimaced at the sight of a family of rats weaving through the filth. She moved on, passing through the neighbourhood of narrow streets, small piazzas and ancient churches of Campo de’ Fiori. Then she made her way towards Via del Biscione, not far from the now ghostly Jewish ghetto. A shout somewhere near the corner ahead rooted her to the spot. She took a deep breath but then, without thinking further, hid her bag in the darkness of an alleyway and hurried towards the sound. A nose for trouble? Maybe – but more likely, and as her mother would say, her instinct to rescue a trapped kitten or a bullied child.

  As she rounded the corner, she came to a halt just in time to avoid tripping over two men whose jackets were peppered with badges on the sleeves, collars and fronts. Underneath were the tell-tale black polo necks. Blackshirts, kicking an old man whose walking stick lay on the road out of reach. Her heart thumped in anger as they taunted the defenceless man with each vicious kick, then one of them lifted his head and smashed a fist into the side of his face. A third man – like the others, no more than about seventeen – picked the walking stick up and, laughing, snapped it across his knee. The old man, now in the gutter, bleeding profusely and whimpering as he attempted to protect his head with his arms, was pleading for his life. Maxine calculated the odds. If she intervened, she might get the same treatment but if she didn’t the man could certainly die from his injuries.

  These bullies had free rein to roam the streets before and during curfew, picking on whoever they wanted. She checked her wa
tch. Still fifteen minutes to go before curfew.

  ‘Hey, boys,’ she called out, undoing her coat, throwing back her head and shaking her long curly chestnut hair so that it fell seductively over one shoulder. ‘Fancy a drink?’

  The young men stopped to stare.

  ‘You’re out late,’ one of them said curtly.

  ‘No worries, there’s still time.’ She was Italian by birth, and with her olive complexion and expressive amber eyes, she looked it. She only had to hope the influence of her New York upbringing wouldn’t let her Tuscan accent down. She sauntered up to one and undid the top two buttons of her blouse. ‘Look, that bar’s still open.’ She pointed at the opposite corner.

  They hesitated, then one of them held out his hand. ‘Papers?’

  She burrowed in her handbag and came out with her new identity card and a ration book. Her American passport she’d had to leave with the British liaison officer.

  ‘Drinks on me,’ she said and started to move away, hips swaying as she looked back over her shoulder to smile at them, glad she’d worn her red lipstick. At twenty-nine and having grown up in Little Italy and then East Harlem, Maxine had come across thugs like these before.

  One, perhaps the leader, gave a nod and, with a last kick at the now silent man, began to come after her, the other two trailing behind.

  All three followed her into the bar and ordered wine. Now what? She cracked a joke and made them laugh, taking the measure of them as she did.

  Her mother’s voice came again. You’re too impulsive, Maxine. You never stop to think.

  Her mother was right. One of the boys had an arm wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her into him as he fondled her neck, while his other hand lay heavily on her thigh. They probably thought she was a whore. Get out of that, her mother whispered.

  She ordered a second round of drinks accompanied by large brandy chasers and glanced at the clock on the wall. The minutes passed slowly.

  She would soon be leaving Rome to make her way to Tuscany, where she would be put in touch with key resistance groups – if reliable partisan divisions even existed. Nobody in England had been sure. If her verdict was that it – or they – did, she would liaise between the Allies and the resistance networks. It was a high-risk operation and the British had found it virtually impossible to locate Italians willing to go back to Italy as SOE agents to assist in espionage, sabotage or reconnaissance. She, however, had jumped at the chance to locate and ascertain strategic features of the resistenza.

  Her training was minimal, her liaison officer, Ronald, had been at pains to point out, unlike the training given to SOE operatives sent to France. After all, Italy had only been an occupied country since early September and she had been interviewed by Ronald just a few short weeks later, in October. Admittedly, it was rushed, but they needed people on the ground at breakneck speed.

  The boy was squeezing her thigh. She wriggled out of his clutches, chatting about some inconsequential thing, then smiled as warmly as she could. The image of the old man lying on the ground and her rage at his treatment spurred her on. An idea crystallized; it could work, and it might be her only opportunity. She saw the boy staring at her, so gathered her courage and stroked his cheek. ‘Just going to the washroom.’

  He gave her a wary look.

  She made it her business to know the back entrances to every bar – you might need a quick route out at any moment. And she was shrewd enough to avoid the area around Via Tasso where the Nazi SS and Gestapo headquarters were located. Here, she must be at least forty-five minutes away. She slipped out to the yard, bypassing the toilet, grazing her hands as she scaled the low wall into the next-door yard, then over a broken fence and into the alley running parallel to the street. She picked up her bag from its hiding place, raced back to the old man, helped him struggle to his feet and found out which palazzo he lived in. Luckily, it was close to where she was headed.

  ‘We must move quickly,’ she whispered urgently. ‘They’ll come for us.’

  They began to move but, on such weak legs, he could only shuffle, groaning all the way. She tried to quieten him, but they made excruciatingly slow progress as they rounded the corner into the next street, thankfully the one she was heading for. A shout came from somewhere behind them, echoing into the emptiness. Oh God! The boys. Could it be them already?

  They passed several buildings and arrived at a palazzo with the usual heavily carved and studded wooden door but a little grander than most. Was this the one? She didn’t know but it had to be near. With the boys now on their trail, she pushed the door. Thank God, it opened. She half carried, half dragged the whimpering man through. In the internal courtyard she leant against the door and clamped a hand over his mouth. His breath was too fast and too noisy, and he looked at her with huge pleading brown eyes, obviously unsure if she was about to hurt him too. She shook her head then pressed her lips tight at the sound of booted footsteps. Nerves on fire, she listened and overheard them arguing, the three thugs at each other’s throats as they approached the palazzo. One insisted they retrace their steps, while the leader declared she had definitely come this way. She clenched her teeth, hearing the vile acts they were going to force upon her when they caught her. But how long could she keep the old man quiet? She smelt smoke – not just the noxious smoke Rome was never without – and held her breath. The boys had lit cigarettes and were loitering until more ‘fun’ came their way. Or did they know she was there? She wouldn’t be able to hold the old man upright much longer nor prevent him from crying out. She dared not move him. The street was too silent, and they’d be heard.

  Maxine’s head pounded from the tension of waiting but she fought to keep her breath long and slow. After another five minutes or so the boys finally decided to head off elsewhere. Inside the courtyard, Maxine quickly dragged the man to the ground-floor door he indicated was his own. A woman opened up and stifled a cry when she saw the blood on his shabby overcoat and the cuts and bruises on his face.

  ‘Mio Dio! I always tell him not to go out after dark, but he’s a stubborn old fool. Thank you for bringing him back.’

  Maxine muttered that it was nothing then asked, ‘Do you know where Roberto and Elsa Romano live?’

  ‘Next door. Top floor.’

  Maxine slipped out cautiously and into the next-door building, then up the marble staircase to the top floor.

  Rome had been held by the Germans since 11 September. They had taken over the telephone exchange and the radio station, and with petrol already scarce, people feared there’d be no electricity before long. Although an announcement had declared it an ‘open city’, promising that troops would not flood the centre, Maxine had seen it wasn’t true. She’d watched them marching up and down the Via del Corso with no purpose other than to intimidate.

  Now, when the door opened a crack, she whispered the password and was given entry into a dark hall by an older woman with greying hair who beckoned her down a corridor. The woman told her she was Elsa as she led her into a room lit only by candles and oil lamps. They had made the place look cosy despite the high ceiling and the cold. Maxine shivered. This had once been a grand room and, although the furniture looked shabby, she was sure there had once been money here. She glanced around and saw five pairs of narrowed eyes staring up at her. Naturally, their first instinct would be to distrust her.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, putting down her bag and then tying back her hair as she sat in the one spare seat at a large dining table where sheets of paper stapled together had been scattered randomly.

  The woman was studying her grazes. ‘Your hands?’

  Maxine wiped them on her trousers. ‘It’s nothing. Sorry I’m late. Just managed to escape a spot of bother. I’m Maxine. I …’ She was about to explain but recognized she’d better stay quiet and say no more about what had happened.

  A couple of the assembled men and women nodded.

  A distinguished-looking man smiled at her, although when he spoke and offered his hand, she notic
ed a tremor. ‘I’m Roberto, Elsa’s husband,’ he said. ‘This is our apartment. You come highly recommended. I’m assuming you weren’t seen?’

  Maxine gave him a noncommittal response. Elsa appeared to be quietly confident, but her husband’s hands shook again as he picked up a sheaf of the papers. As the sound of machine-gun fire penetrated the room, they all exchanged anxious glances.

  Elsa shook her head. ‘It’s not close.’

  Maybe not, but Maxine told herself it was a damn good job she’d be heading for Tuscany in the morning.

  The sheets of paper, Roberto explained, were the finished pages of a locally organized clandestine pamphlet produced by members of the Committee of National Liberation of whom he, Roberto Romano, was one.

  ‘When the Germans crushed our troops defending the city at Porta San Paolo,’ he said, ‘and then imposed Nazi martial law, we formed the committee.’

  ‘Now,’ Elsa added, ‘we spread news from Radio London. You know it’s banned?’

  Maxine confirmed that she did.

  ‘And we send out partisan information using underground press like L’Unità and L’Italia Libera.’

  ‘And the printing press?’

  ‘Few are given that information.’

  Maxine glanced around at the assembled people, most of whom looked like intellectuals but for one man. His longish dark hair and slightly unshaven appearance identified him as a partisan except for the formal suit he was wearing. Maybe he’d been a soldier? The man spotted her staring, raised his brows and winked. She held his gaze. His eyes were extraordinary, with caramel-coloured irises shining with intelligence and life. Dangerous, exciting eyes, she thought. His face was angular, and she noticed a walking stick resting beside his chair. So many lost souls were hiding in Rome, including British prisoners of war who’d escaped or been let go by Italian soldiers who were no longer fighting on the German side. The man was now studying her. He didn’t look like an escaped Britisher.