by David Hewson
She shook her head.
‘No. I always tried to kill another German when I needed a new one.’
Quick as a flash Trevisan turned the thing round and in a way she couldn’t follow disassembled the slide and then the barrel. Then notched it all back together.
‘Here.’ He threw her the thing, then a pack of shells. ‘Show me how to load the magazine.’
The moment she’d got the bullets in he snatched the weapon off her and pointed the barrel straight at her head.
‘Now. Tell me where you’re living. And who with?’
Mika looked straight at him, straight at the woman and said, ‘Fuck you. I wouldn’t tell the Crucchi. I won’t tell you. They’re my comrades. I don’t give them up for anybody.’
Trevisan pointed to the pin. There was a shell in the magazine.
Mika shrugged, looked down at the floor for a moment, as if she was about to give in. That was enough. The red fire was rising and there was no stopping now. Trevisan hesitated. She flew at him, one knee to the groin, nails biting deep into his hands until he yelled. The weapon fell to the floor and she followed it, got her fingers round the butt, rolled once, rolled again, let the momentum help her to her feet, pointed the barrel straight at him.
Trevisan was sucking at his hand.
‘Here.’ She threw him the gun and he caught it in one. ‘Kill me if you like. If you don’t have the balls to take down Nazis you might as well.’
He looked at Sara Vitale.
Mika tapped a finger against her long, dark hair.
‘Go on then.’
‘Stay still,’ Vitale barked, then grabbed at a pair of scissors and a bottle by the mirror.
‘Why?’
‘You talk too much,’ Trevisan said, then came and placed his hands firmly on her shoulders.
He was bleeding where her teeth caught him. She felt good about that.
They worked through the day, barely stopping except for a drink and a piece of bread and dried-up ham, a chance to rest their weary arms. Mika never came out to see how things were going. Sleeping, Paolo guessed, and he was happy about that. Vanni seemed more relaxed when she wasn’t around. So did he. The gun she’d held to his neck was hidden somewhere in his parents’ room. He’d be happy if he never saw that again.
At six, exhaustion set in. Paolo told Chiara to go home and after a long argument she agreed. She’d overseen the two of them, watching everything they did, uttering a few sharp comments if something looked wrong.
By the end of the afternoon they’d made good progress. The pattern was well-established, the rampant golden lions, the contrasting scarlet background. It was the kind of bellicose design that still hung in rooms in the Doge’s Palace, marking victories of the past. He couldn’t imagine the Uccello producing something quite as forthright as this. The claws, the limbs, the upright roaring head of the lion lacked subtlety, deliberately so, he felt.
In his heart Paolo understood the commission had to be connected to the military. Turin had a reputation for being a hive of Fascists. They had the money for this kind of thing too. But if Vanni had guessed too he didn’t say. The newcomer seemed happy to be learning the way of the loom. The gentle persistent rhythm of building the velvet, Chiara’s careful, considerate tutelage when he went wrong, and her encouragement as more and more, and so quickly, he got the hang of the process. They would make the order in time if they kept up like this. He’d deliver it himself to the Hotel Gioconda that Saturday afternoon.
Then Father Filippo would come along and say it was time for the Artoms to move on to another safe house. They weren’t supposed to be in the Giardino degli Angeli for long. He’d be on his own again. A little money but no work. Sitting in the desolate emptiness of his old home, missing his parents, waiting for some other challenge to find its way into his life.
He thought he’d miss Vanni Artom too, though this seemed a rapid, even rash, judgement to make so quickly. His talkative, thoughtful nature brought a warmth to the place that had been missing since his parents died in that firestorm in Verona.
When they were finished, he rushed to help Paolo tidy up some of the litter around the looms even though he limped with every step, wincing too from time to time. Then they returned to the apartment, for food and drink and rest. He needed the dressing on his wound changed. The blood was seeping through the torn sheet that passed as a bandage.
Vanni called out for his sister. No answer. Paolo watched him go into the bedroom, heard cursing in there, one voice only. When he came out he was red-faced and angry for once.
‘She’s gone,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘How would I know? She does what the hell she likes.’
It was strange. When they’d burst through the door, the Germans so close behind them, he’d never really felt fear. It was all so unreal. Now, though, he got a picture straight in his head, his mother and father lying in their coffins, wrecked bodies, battered faces past recognition. The war had been somewhere else when the three of them set to work on the looms, a different world beyond their walls. In that moment, Mika vanished who knew where, the bloody nightmare had wormed its way back into his life.
‘Don’t worry, Paolo. She won’t betray us. Even if they caught her. She won’t …’
‘I don’t understand why she left.’
Vanni was leaning on the table. It was obvious from his face he was in pain.
‘She can’t sit still. Not anymore. I do my best. Things haunt her. She can’t let them go. I guess none of us can but at least you can try. In the hills …’
There was something he wanted to say even though it was a struggle.
‘In the hills …’ Paolo repeated.
‘We were there to blow up the railway line, then get out. Mika, when she starts on something, there’s no stopping her. It’s like the danger makes her feel alive, I don’t know. She pushed us all too hard. Took risks we didn’t need. Just the two of us made it out of there. She feels guilty about that. We both do. Which only makes things worse for her. And I can’t even bloody—’
He cried out and his leg gave way. Paolo had to take hold of him round the chest to stop him tumbling to the floor.
They stayed like that, so close it felt like an embrace, until Vanni smiled and said, ‘If you could rip me a sheet … I can try and change it myself. I’m sorry I’m so useless.’
‘You’re not useless at all,’ Paolo replied, easing him down on to a chair. ‘You rescued me today. Without you I’d …’ He was blushing. He could feel the heat in his cheeks. ‘I’ll do it.’
He went into his parents’ room and found an old piece of cotton bedding by the corner, some strips torn off already, by them a tube of cream. Back at the table Vanni had removed his trousers and sat there in baggy underpants, eyes closed. Around his right calf fresh blood was seeping through the fabric.
‘You shouldn’t have been working so hard, standing so much,’ Paolo said. ‘You could have told me.’
‘You said you needed help. We owe you that.’
He touched the dressing. It was stuck and there was more than blood there. Yellow pus too.
‘You killed him? The German who did this?’
‘Mika did. Stuck him with a knife afterwards too. Lots of times. She gets mad. Can’t help herself.’
The first line of bandage came off, sticking to the inner section. Vanni whimpered, ‘I’m really not very brave. Best you just tear it off quickly. She does.’
‘Take a deep breath. My mother always said something like that.’
He ripped at the bandage. When it came away the wound looked worse than he’d expected. It was a deep slash into the muscle at the back of the leg. He understood why Vanni couldn’t manage to deal with it himself. There was no way he could see what he was doing.
‘Paolo. I can manage with the cream if you give it me.’
‘No you can’t.’ The ointment was white and had that antiseptic smell he remembered from when he grazed himself as a kid.
The tube was almost empty. ‘We’ve got something like this in a cupboard. You can have it. This is pretty much gone.’
A dab on his finger and then he ran the ointment round the scabby wound. He stared at the purple skin, the gashed flesh, the thick yellow ooze around the edge. It looked worse than anything he’d seen on a crucifix of the dying Christ, set behind an altar.
Vanni’s fingers ran through his hair and he said, ‘You’re a sight more gentle than my sister.’
He pulled his head away. Being touched like that felt wrong.
‘I’m sorry, Paolo. I didn’t mean … I didn’t mean anything.’
‘Take a deep breath again.’
He wrapped the clean sheet round the wound and the smears of cream. It wasn’t going to hurt so much. He just didn’t want to hear any more.
Silence filled the room. Then a wave broke against the rocks outside.
A series of deliberate knocks on the door made the two of them jump.
‘It’s alright,’ Vanni said, getting up and taking the key from the kitchen table. ‘It’s her.’
He unlocked the door. The wind flew in and so did Mika Artom.
The hood was so far over her head Paolo didn’t recognize her at first. There was a large, khaki, military-style holdall in her right hand.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Vanni barked at her.
She laughed and dragged off her baggy hood. Mika’s long dark hair was gone. Now she was a platinum blonde, the colour blowsy, cheap, straight out of a bottle, her hair styled in a bob like an old movie star.
You look like a whore, Paolo thought. One of the women of the night he’d sometimes see slipping between the colonnades of the Piazza San Marco, asking men if maybe they’d like to buy them a drink. Or just a straight walk to one of the flophouses behind San Lio.
Mika put down the bag and ran her fingers through her locks. A few strands of gaudy, fresh-cut hair fell to the floor.
‘Sorry, brother. Did I interrupt something?’
Paolo got to his feet and handed over the rest of the tube of cream.
‘I’ll leave you two,’ he said and went to his room.
An hour later Vanni Artom’s heat and anger had subsided. There was no point. They were both in tears, seated on the old bed, his arm round her, Mika’s around him. Vanni understood full well there was no way she could stop herself. It didn’t matter how much he argued. It didn’t matter, sometimes, that she knew herself what she was doing was wrong. Joining the partisans had changed them both, in different ways. It had made him more cautious, more wary of the peril around the corner. Mika simply wished to find its source, confront whatever was there, kill it, and to hell with the consequences.
She’d changed into an old woman’s nightshift she’d found in the wardrobe. He was in a pair of ancient men’s pyjamas.
‘At the very least he deserves an explanation, love. We could get him killed.’
Mika wiped away the tears, stroked his hair and asked about the wound. Anything to change the subject.
‘Paolo helped me change the dressing.’
She nudged him with her sharp elbow.
‘I think he likes you. Haven’t you noticed the way he keeps stealing a glance now and then?’
‘We promised we wouldn’t leave this place—’
‘He’s queer. Even if he doesn’t know it. You do though.’
‘This isn’t important.’
She smiled.
‘What? Hiding who you are from yourself? That doesn’t matter?’
‘Not right now.’
‘Maybe not. Maybe it matters more than ever. You know … I never pushed it in Padua but there was that boy you used to hang around with. The one from Vicenza, philosophy or something.’ She came close and nuzzled his cheek, delivered the softest, quickest of kisses. ‘He always had a smell about him. Like violets.’
‘Don’t.’
‘They’d kill you twice over even if you never did a thing. Jew and a homo.’ She nodded at the door. ‘Him just for the one.’
‘Padua was a long time ago. You met Giulia—’
‘Oh yes, I know. Giulia from Mantua. You had girlfriends too.’ She punched his shoulder. ‘Greedy boy. You turn whichever way you like. That’s fine. I don’t mind. We’re beyond their stupid rules. So long as it doesn’t get in the way of what matters.’
‘What matters …’
In the bottom of the bag she’d brought he could see something wrapped in canvas. Khaki. It looked military and familiar.
‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t get to open it yet. They said not to. I’m just keeping it for them.’
‘Did they? We said we wouldn’t try to run anything. That we’d just hide. No weapons.’
He reached for the bag but she put a hand out and stopped him, took out a letter from a pouch on the side instead and thrust it into his hands.
‘Time to wake up, brother. The banners you’re making are for Salvatore Bruno. The Jew hunter. The one who helped kill Mum and Dad and all those others.’
‘How—?’
‘Read the letter, Vanni!’ There was that sudden flash of anger. ‘Just read it, will you?’
He could scarcely believe what was there.
‘My God. Do you think Paolo realizes?’
A shake of her bright, shiny head.
‘That kid doesn’t know what day of the week it is. Besides, it doesn’t say anything in there about the Fascists. I went through all this place’s business correspondence while you were playing at being Ariadne. Bruno’s name’s on the first and an address in Due Fontane. Then everything else comes from someone who calls himself Ugo Leone.’
He closed his eyes, leaned back on the pillow and said, ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
‘We can pass it on. I tracked down the cell in via Garibaldi. The one they told us about. We can trust them.’
Vanni rolled his eyes and wrapped his hands round his knees.
‘Oh for pity’s sake. How can you possibly know that?’
‘I know! These are the people they told us about. I never let them know about this place! Don’t look at me like that.’
‘A week ago we nearly died. Maybe we should have. Maybe it should have been us up there in the mountains not—’
‘This is war, brother.’
‘Keep your voice down. I don’t want him to hear.’
‘No.’ She played with her hair again. ‘I guess you don’t.’
‘We’re in Venice. We said we’d stay out of sight.’
‘We fight. That’s what we do. We fight and people die.’
‘Soldiers die! Paolo’s barely a boy.’
‘We’ve lost younger than him.’
‘Yes! Shepherd kids who didn’t have a clue what they were getting into. He’s no soldier. You can’t—’
‘I told you. They don’t know where we live. I go to the place they’ve got. Nowhere else. That’s the deal. I’ve compromised no one. I won’t. I promise.’
‘You promised you wouldn’t set foot outside this place.’
She waved Bruno’s letter in his face.
‘Very good, Mika. There’s two of us. Me, I can barely walk. What are we supposed to do about that?’
‘Are you serious?’ She shook her head. ‘Salvatore Bruno’s coming here on Saturday. A bunch of Nazis and Black Brigades with him. We know where they’re going to be. In that hotel of theirs.’ She touched her hair again and smiled. ‘I got a job there. They took my picture. I get a fake ID card.’ She tweaked his arm. ‘I called myself Giulia. You know. After your Giulia. Giulia Grini. Start work there tomorrow. Serving drinks. Doing whatever the Crucchi want.’
Mika rolled off the bed, grabbed the holdall and lugged it on to the cupboard. His heart fell. The thing looked heavy.
‘If you want to stay here with your boyfriend that’s your choice.’ She dragged something out of the bag, then pushed the thing under the bed. Whatever else was in the khaki canvas she didn’t want him to see it.
Beaming, she held up in her hands a shiny evening dress, scarlet shot silk, worn, a little creased, but still elegant.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think you’re crazy and you’re going to get us all killed.’
Mika laughed, so freely, seemingly without a care. He loved her, of course, but that love was so close to pity when she was like this. It was as if the world outside the door, grim, dark and bloody, wasn’t quite real.
‘Not till Salvatore Bruno’s gone,’ she said, dancing round the room.
She turned on the light and started to sing a song. A cabaret number that was popular in Padua.
He liked the sound of her voice. Then a noise grew over it and Vanni Artom couldn’t work out for a moment what it was.
The door burst open. Paolo stormed in, scared out of his wits, slapping the wall for the light switch.
He found it. Mika fell silent. Outside they heard the sound again. A motorboat, cruising the lagoon. The small and dusty side window on the room wasn’t shuttered. A beam of pure white light pierced through at the corner.
‘Down,’ Paolo whispered and gestured with his arms.
All three of them fell to the floor, stayed there, breathless, silent, waiting as the spotlight ranged round the darkened room.
The voices were German again and nearer than before. Mika began to edge towards the bag she’d brought until Vanni’s arm went out to stop her.
A good three or four minutes passed. Then one of the boatmen yelled something, the rattle of the motor went a few tones higher, and soon there was nothing beyond the window but darkness and the slow, relentless rhythm of the lagoon.
Still they waited. The Germans didn’t come back. Paolo got up, went to the window and dragged the wooden shutters together.
‘I should have thought of that,’ he said. ‘No one’s lived in here for a while. If you leave the lights on they might notice.’
Silence. Finally Mika said, ‘I’m sorry, Paolo.’
‘You said you wouldn’t go out.’
‘I did. Something happened. It won’t involve you. No one will know we’re here. But I can’t …’ She put her arm round her brother again. ‘We can’t ignore it.’
PART THREE
