by David Hewson
‘Very nice. I will remember the make. This is a large place for one young man.’
‘It’s where I live. It’s where Chiara and I try to earn a living.’
‘Ah.’ He gestured back at the workshop. ‘The weaving.’
‘The weaving, Father. What do you want?’
The priest smiled. He had grey and very bushy eyebrows which, when Paolo was younger, reminded him of the caterpillars his father used to pick off the fruit trees, cursing every one.
‘A very direct question, Paolo. People out there, if they think of you at all, doubtless believe you’re still a child. A frightened little boy. Hiding away here now your parents are dead. Too scared to emerge in the light.’
‘Am I supposed to care?’
‘One should always take note of what others think. But it’s not quite as simple as that, is it? Would you have some tea?’
Paolo poured him a glass of table water from the bottle he kept by the sink.
‘Thank you,’ Garzone said and didn’t touch the glass.
‘They’ll do nothing about Isabella Finzi?’
He frowned and the grey eyebrows furled more than usual.
‘The Crucchi? Of course not. One dead Jew? They’ve bigger things on their mind. They’re the new masters of Italy. At least the part they control. Takes a little while to understand you’ve got your fists round something so precious. Especially when they’re so full of hate.’
‘What about our own people? The police?’
The wry, hurt smile again.
‘Our own people? What does that mean anymore? There are all kinds of Venetians, all kinds of Italians now. Fascists who wish to do others harm. Fascists who don’t and regret they signed up to Mussolini’s accursed ideas in the first place, and now have no idea how to retreat from them.’
Paolo understood that last. His parents had thought Il Duce a decent man, perhaps a necessary one, for a while, someone who put Italy’s interests before those of other nations. Even towards the end they were never openly hostile, though perhaps that was because it would be bad for what little business they had and expose them to accusations of disloyalty, or even treason.
‘Then,’ the priest continued, ‘you have those who wish to fight his failing regime. The partisans. Who aren’t a single group by any means. Some are the people who openly opposed him through the ballot box before. Centrists, democrats, Christians. And others …’ He stopped and scratched his cheek as if trying to decide his own position here. ‘They have a lower opinion of what we used to call democracy, perhaps because it gave us Mussolini and Hitler in the first place. Communists. Marxists. Who again tend to divide into different groups at times in ways I fail to understand.’
‘You seem to know a lot.’
‘Unlike you I talk to many people. All kinds. Ones who approve of me. Ones who are wary. Like you.’
‘My parents weren’t really believers. Not unless there was money on the table. They liked a quiet, private life.’
‘They barely knew anyone here, Paolo. You came from Dorsoduro. You had money. You’re not like the people here, are you?’
It was true. They didn’t mix. Didn’t make friends. He doubted most of the locals even realized they were there most of the time.
‘It wasn’t my choice. Or doing. We weren’t aloof.’
Garzone shook his head and continued, ‘Of course not. These streets … the people here have grown up living on top of one another. It took years before they regarded me as one of their own. And I’m their priest. They’re ordinary folk, dissatisfied with the present situation, desperate for the war to come to an end. Determined that when it does their friends and families will survive if possible.’ He leaned forward and rapped his fingers on the table. ‘You see the dilemma? When the world turns dark do you stay hidden and wait for the light to return? Or do you try to strike a small flame oneself? And know it may snuff out your own life along the way?’
Paolo returned to the kitchen range and retrieved a bottle of his father’s grappa from the cupboard. Two glasses. He poured a large one for the priest, something smaller for himself.
‘There are those out there who doubtless think you too young to be drinking this stuff,’ Garzone said, raising his glass. ‘You’re a stranger to everyone here.’
He wasn’t going to say it but he hated the strong taste of his father’s grappa. There was a point to be made here. That was all.
‘Let them think that. I’m eighteen. Of legal age. We came here from Dorsoduro because the money was running out. If they hate us for once having it tell them to be happy. It’s gone now.’
The rough and fiery taste of the spirit made him cough.
The priest got up and walked to the window. At the back of the building a brick patio extended out to the lagoon and the ruined tower. A rough-hewn staircase led down to a small jetty where the grey water lapped against steps covered in hanks of green seaweed at the foot. Occasionally during the summer they’d sit out on the patio with chairs and enjoy the sun. Sometimes a boat would turn up, a fisherman offering his catch. That would never happen again.
‘I remember your father saying you had a cellar. Imagine that. Not many of those about.’
Paolo kicked the kitchen carpet to one side to reveal the trap door. Once, when the place had been an aristocratic mansion, there’d been a lower level water gate for deliveries, opening straight out on to the lagoon. The exit had long been blocked off but the storage space remained, unused for years.
‘What is it you want me to hide? Guns? Explosives? What …?’
‘No. Something perhaps more perilous. Two people not far off your own age. Brother and sister from Turin. He’s been wounded. She is … dangerous, I gather. A hardened fighter.’
‘Terrorists?’
‘Partisans. They’re on the run. If we don’t find them somewhere safe I fear the Germans will seize them. Which could lead to many more deaths than their own. We …’ He rapped on the window. ‘If you’re agreeable we could arrange for them to come this way tonight. No one will see. The boat will have no lights.’ He laughed. ‘You’re in the shadow of the Arsenale after all. A place full of the military. What better place to hide than under their noses? The last place of sanctuary they’ll ever look.’
Paolo said nothing.
‘They can stay in the cellar for a few days until we find a way out. They’ll do no harm. The two of them will never set foot outside this place all the time they’re here. As I said the brother’s wounded. The sister has some medical knowledge. She can look after him until we find the means to smuggle them somewhere else.’
Still he kept quiet.
‘That will be as soon as we are able.’ The priest was sounding desperate. ‘I can’t promise how long but it will be a matter of priority to get them out of here. By way of reward you must buy food at one place only. Gallo’s in via Garibaldi. Do you know it?’
‘No. We always shop at the store by the bridge.’
‘Good. Then he won’t know you either. Which is for the best. Tell him you’ve friends visiting from the mainland and would like something special for them. Gabriele will be ready and make sure you get enough for three in return. As well as a fee to compensate you for your trouble.’
‘I don’t want your money!’
‘Everyone wants money, son.’ The humour in his voice had gone. ‘If it’s more you’re after go to Ca’ Loretti and tell the Crucchi what I’ve said. Or slip the word to a waiter at one of their brothels. They’ll surely pay you well.’
Paolo sipped at the grappa and thought he might carry on until he liked it.
‘Does Chiara know about this?’
The man in black shook his head.
‘I suspect she can read my mind. Couldn’t you see that in her eyes? She wants to be safe. She wants the same for you. Why not? The poor woman’s already lost a husband and now you, orphaned … I think she feels you’re as much her charge as her employer. All of which I appreciate. But …’ He finished the g
lass and pulled his coat around him. ‘I’m a man of God. A man of peace. I live on the horns of a dilemma, with secrets I fear to share, even in confession. Except a few with you. Well …’
Garzone got to his feet.
‘If you feel disinclined to help I won’t hold it against you. No one will. Just don’t mention Gallo to anyone. Gabriele is a kindly, brave man, but terrified, as he deserves to be. I shouldn’t have spoken of him. You don’t have to give me an answer now.’
‘Good. I won’t.’
That disappointed him.
‘If … if you’re willing to allow them in, then leave a light on in the window tonight. A boat may pass. If the place is dark they’ll know.’
Paolo walked to the door to the workshop and held it open. The priest took the hint.
‘If you should decide to take this path, know it’s not easy,’ he said as they went past the idle machines. ‘No one will come to visit you. I would advise you live as you do now, staying out of sight as much as possible. Do nothing to indicate there’s anything here that’s changed. Go out at the same time. Come back at the same time. Your daily routine must not alter. Chiara Vecchi I would trust with my life. The same cannot be said of others. There are men and women here who would betray their neighbours over the bark of a dog or a cold glance in the street. That is how we are. And as you say … to many of them you’re a stranger. An alien Nicolotto in the territory of the Castellani. It’s curious how old enmities still live on in this place. Even in wartime. At least you’re not fighting one another on bridges anymore. Though …’ He put a wrinkled finger to his chin. ‘I must admit you seem a stranger to me mostly. Not just because I never see you in the congregation. Still, we all have our secrets, I imagine. Even priests.’
Garzone marched up to one of the orange trees, pulled off a fruit and only afterwards asked if Paolo minded. No, he said. He could help himself to as much as he wanted. So the priest tore three more off the tree and stuffed them into the pockets of his cape.
‘This weather,’ he said, waving his hand through the mist, ‘it will lift. It always does. We expect life will be the same afterwards. Which is impossible, of course. Venetians like to think they live outside of time, on this little island of theirs, protected by the lagoon from the horrors of terraferma across the way.’
He retrieved an orange from his pocket and ran his nail through the pithy skin, prising out a segment.
‘If only that were true.’ He took a bite and the juice ran down his chin. ‘Good day, young man. I apologize for attempting to embroil you in our troubles. I apologize, too, if it felt as if I were talking down to you. I realize now you’re not the adolescent I assumed. Which is understandable. These are not times for the naïve. Were I not desperate I can guarantee I would leave you here alone, with your looms, your weaving, with Chiara Vecchi and the peace you seek.’
Paolo Uccello watched him go, a dark, slightly hunched figure wandering down the zigzag path to the wooden bridge across the narrow water. Then he went to the garden door and locked it. Chiara wouldn’t be back until the morning and she was the only other person who now possessed a key.
Back in the kitchen he tucked away the grappa bottle, opened the trap door to the basement cellar, walked down the slippery steps. It was cold and the air was poor and foetid. His father had stored so much here over the years: design cards, drawings, patterns, all wrapped up in oilskin packets to keep out the persistent damp. The lapping of the lagoon whispered through the bricked-up water door where gondolas had once arrived to take the aristocrats of the old palazzo to salons, casinos, theatres and ridotti. Beyond the stained and dirty glass of the window, a metre high, with a tiny tracery design copied from the Doge’s Palace, the murk was setting in again.
There was an ancient table with a candle set in the centre, a single rickety chair on the side facing the outer wall where all the oilskin wallets and chests were stored. He sat down in the dark, listening to the waves, wondering where the corpse of Isabella Finzi was. How soon she’d be laid in the ground and where.
Alberti was a Cannaregio man by birth but from his Carabinieri days he knew where the Castello misfits hung out. A bar run by a deaf, ill-tempered, old woman called Greta who, rumour had it, was once madame of a long-vanished brothel beloved of fishermen. It was a low-ceilinged dive close to the point at which via Garibaldi gave way to the canal it used to be before Napoleon came along with his ideas of reshaping the city. The Frenchman wasn’t alone in that. During the 1930s Mussolini’s builders had created a new waterfront at the foot of the street, extending it towards the tip of the city proper with the name Riva dell’Impero. This addition was almost elegant which was more than could be said for the warren of terraced slums that ran back into Castello behind, ancient cheap housing for manual labourers from the Arsenale shipyard.
The place was essentially Greta Morino’s front room turned into a public bar with a few tables made out of painted barrels. There, each night until the last customer staggered home, she sold beer, wine, spritz, coffee and cigarettes, much of it smuggled he had no doubt. When she felt like it, the old bird cooked steaming pots of cheap soup, cans of tomatoes spun out with what vegetables she could find or the old pauper’s standby of pasta e fagioli. These she sold for a few lire but only to the local men and a few women she knew. A worker’s lunch, said the sign on the door, for no one else.
She was probably part of the communist cell which he knew was active around via Garibaldi. In her case that was, he felt, more because it offered an opportunity to whine than anything to do with politics. Had the communists been in charge she’d probably be a secret Fascist.
The place was almost full when he marched in that afternoon and, as he searched for small change in his pocket, took out his Walther P38 and placed it on the shiny, scratched, wooden surface of the bar.
‘A fellow’s in need of a caffè corretto, Greta. A double shot.’ He grinned at the unsmiling faces staring back at him. Rocco Trevisan, the ringleader of the men who’d dragged Isabella Finzi out of the drink that morning, was among them. ‘Chilly work out there in this weather. You guys did well. I’m grateful. We all are. I imagine the poor old bat’s in the ground now. The Jews like to get rid of them quick.’
The old woman didn’t move and he could see why. She was waiting for the nod from Trevisan. When it came – and only then – she moved and made the drink.
It wasn’t good grappa. There was so much fake and counterfeit junk around. At least in the Marino opposite Ca’ Loretti they didn’t dare serve anything but the real thing. If she could have spat in the cup without him seeing, she’d have done it for sure.
‘Luca,’ Trevisan said and raised his glass.
Alberti put the Walther back in the leather holster he wore around his chest. He’d arrested this man once when he was in the Carabinieri. A fight in a bar near the Arsenale. Trevisan had taken a knife and cut some drunken idiot from the ear almost to his mouth. Six months in jail for that and when he came out he seemed more popular than ever.
‘Such a shame I have to carry a weapon around here.’ Alberti frowned. ‘In my home town. Such a shame.’
‘We all make choices, mister.’
That came from a redhead in her thirties, someone he didn’t know, good-looking in a hard-faced kind of way. Maybe, he thought, she was warming Trevisan’s bed given the way the two stood together like a team.
He pushed the vile coffee to one side and halved the coins on the counter. There were limits to what he’d take.
‘Someone has to, lady. In case you hadn’t noticed the Germans are here and they’re not leaving soon. The Black Brigades come and go as they please. Would you rather they ran free as birds across this place? Or that one of your own stood in the way at times.’
She laughed and said, ‘Oh, so you’re a hero?’
‘No. I’m doing a job someone’s got to. There are people hereabouts who owe the fact they’re still breathing to me. Maybe they don’t know it. Maybe they never will. I do
n’t ask for thanks. I don’t even ask for understanding. But that is how it stands—’
‘Be quiet, man!’ It was a tall, bearded stranger at the back who bellowed at him. One of the bunch down by the water in the mist that morning. ‘We all heard you today. Sucking up to the Crucchi. Telling a decent fellow like Diamante to shut his Jew mouth. You should be ashamed of yourself.’
Alberti nodded.
‘Maybe I am. But I’ve got a job to do and part of that is telling people what they want to hear. You think I should argue with the Germans? You think I should march into the office of some SS boss and tell him he’s being a fool? What benefit would there be for any of you there?’
‘That poor woman …’ He wondered if perhaps the fellow was a relative. ‘She was abused. Murdered—’
‘By a drunken German soldier. An infantryman from Munich. They’re going to put the moron up against a wall in the Arsenale tomorrow and use him as shooting practice.’
Silence then.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Why should we?’ the redhead asked.
‘Why would I lie? I’m risking my neck telling you this. You don’t think it’ll be in the paper, do you? Hermann Schulz. Foot soldier with the Seventy-First Division Kleeblatt. Gets shot by his squad mates. There. Satisfied?’
The old woman behind the counter muttered something that sounded halfway approving.
‘If you like,’ Alberti went on, ‘you can pass on what I just told you to one of their grubby little informers. They could put me up against the same wall. If it makes you happy … Greta, gimme a good grappa this time. I’d like to leave here without the taste of someone’s piss in my mouth.’
She poured a small glass and put it on the counter. He downed it in one.
‘What you have to understand, all of you, is that life’s complicated right now. The Crucchi are here, like it or not. They rule, like it or not. They will take any of us – you, me, old Greta here – right out into the street at any moment and cut your throat. Not a second’s hesitation.’
‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ Trevisan demanded.
