by David Hewson
The next day I ate breakfast alone again. Dad was out chasing contracts or girlfriends or both somewhere. Chiara turned up just before nine, told the maid what to do when it came to the cleaning, and fled when I tried to turn the conversation to the war.
Maurizio Scamozzi texted and asked if I wanted to go to San Nicolò to mess around on the beach. They were going to have a barbecue, go swimming, play football, whine about stupid interfering teachers. Maybe there’d be some girls around, he said, though that I doubted. And beer. What Maurizio promised and what he delivered were two things usually. I didn’t like him and his circle much but if he’d asked me before I’d have gone along, out of idleness and boredom as much as anything. Now though …
I told him I was going to be busy for the rest of the week. It wasn’t just the fact I’d promised Nonno Paolo I’d visit him and hear the next part of his story. What I’d read already was making me think harder, about myself, the past, who we were. I couldn’t get the people and the places emerging page by page out of my mind. This wasn’t an imaginary world, certainly not a fictional one. It was my real grandfather there, in a Venice that still existed beyond the door.
I had to see these places for myself. I needed to chase down the ghosts his words had brought to life. So I grabbed my favourite Nikon and went to look for them.
Ca’ Loretti was in San Marco on the other side of the Grand Canal, close to the Giglio vaporetto stop. I would have walked but it was too hot, so I pushed my way on to the number one boat where, as usual, it was standing room only, crammed with tourists sweating in the humid lagoon heat.
Two streets from Giglio I found the place. One more tall canal-side building among many. The place looked exactly what it was: a slightly shabby office block that probably hadn’t seen much more than a lick of paint in thirty years. The girl behind the desk glistened with sweat and looked as if she’d rather be at the beach, not trapped in a shabby blue uniform dealing with an inquisitive teenager. I told her: I wanted to talk to someone who could tell me what Ca’ Loretti was like during the war.
‘This was where the Crucchi were,’ I added. ‘The SS. Where they …’
She stared at me as if I was mad, then asked, ‘Why aren’t you at school?’
Through the large glass doors at the back I could see the courtyard. It was smaller than I imagined and full of pretty palms and raised flower beds, red and blue and yellow. The strange thing was I didn’t find it hard to imagine tortured people here. Or that somewhere close to those pretty flowers the Nazis had tied people to a stake and shot them. That was one of the lessons I think he was trying to teach me: evil wasn’t special. There was no need for extraordinary villains with scars and wicked, dark glints in their eyes. It was ordinary, mundane, a part of the city, a lurking virus within us all.
‘It’s for a project. This is where the Crucchi were,’ I repeated.
‘We don’t do history tours. This is just a council office.’
‘I know but …’
What could I do? Tell her of all the cruelty, the blood, the pain this place must once have seen?
‘Never mind,’ I grunted and went outside.
Here was the alley Aldo Diamante had walked. In many ways it might not have changed in half a century. These were the cobbles the old Jewish doctor had stepped on, along with the boots of so many German soldiers. This was the shade they would have been grateful for if it was summer. To my left there was still the jetty by the canal. A sleek, shiny water-taxi was there. A couple, a woman in a flowing white wedding dress, a man in a dark suit, stood on the wooden platform surrounded by a bustling crowd who applauded and cried at the sight of them. Their photographer was taking pictures, the flash setting off little beams of light that bounced across the water.
A waiter came out with a tray of glasses, spritz and champagne. Fifty-six years before, a group of Germans in uniform had disembarked here, marched into their headquarters guarding a Jew hunter called Salvatore Bruno, a name so hated by the partisans he changed it to Ugo Leone at times. I could almost see them as if they were here, alive and full of energy and rage. This, I felt, was what Nonno Paolo wanted, another reason he was giving me his story. He needed it to be mine now so that I might share his burden. He wanted me to be infected by something, though why, and just what it was, remained beyond my reach.
Halfway along the alley the bar was still called the Marino. Now it advertised expensive foreign cocktails, caviar and panini for a price no true Venetian would ever pay. I went inside and asked if there was a barista around called Beppe.
The waiter behind the counter was Chinese and looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.
‘Who Beppe?’ he asked. ‘Don’t know no Beppe. When he work here?’
Half a century ago, before either of us was born.
‘Doesn’t … doesn’t matter …’ I stuttered.
‘You wanna drink?’
I doubt I even answered.
Back at Giglio I took the number one to Giardini. Via Garibaldi was still a half-humble part of Castello back then, quiet, with local shops and market stalls, fruit and vegetables, fish, outside the iron gates near the old hero’s monument. The statue was a local landmark: Garibaldi, the proud military statesman, bearded, with a cap, beneath him the lion of Venice, all set above a circular fountain where turtles basked in the weed-strewn pool at its base. At his back was a second figure, a stone infantryman, arms folded, rifle slung over his shoulder. A minute’s walk away the Biennale was in full swing, smartly dressed crowds of art lovers heading for the international pavilions. All I could think of was a man called Luca Alberti dreaming he might have made an actor back when they were shooting films there during the war. Not a traitor, a tool of the Germans and the Black Brigades.
The statue of Garibaldi’s guardian soldier seemed to be staring at all these foreigners chatting as they ambled to the gates, as if to say, ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
Venetians love a ghost story. There was one about this place we got told as part of a history project at school. Reunification, the Risorgimento, that we did study. The later wars not so much. Originally the monument was just the old man, beard and cap and lion. But, after it was erected, people in the nearby streets began to report there was a phantom haunting the area, a ghost in military uniform jumping out, scaring people, demanding attention every night. The superstitious Castello locals decided he was a volunteer from the tenements who’d died during the campaign for reunification. The fellow was a bodyguard for Garibaldi who’d vowed he’d always protect him. So they paid for another statue at the old man’s back and the ghost was never seen again.
Greta’s bar seemed much the same, full of locals, cheap drink, cheap food, even a glossy red-painted door at the back. It was called something else now and the sullen chap behind the counter said he’d never heard of Greta, a man called Rocco Trevisan or a hairdresser who once worked there, Sara Vitale.
Taking pictures all the time, I walked across the wooden bridge into San Pietro. Smart speed boats lined the channel where the body of a murdered woman called Isabella Finzi was dragged from the grubby water. A girl with long hair was practising her guitar on the grass. Another bridge led me to the red-brick wall of the Giardino degli Angeli. There was an ugly, grey, metal gate at the entrance, shiny and new, temporary perhaps, a heavy padlock and chain keeping it secure. I wandered over the bridge anyway and poked the lens of my SLR through the bars. The place seemed abandoned, long grass with wrecked masonry poking out in places, fruit trees that looked as if they had gone wild, in the distance the cracked and dusty glass of the old conservatory, rising in three arches, a low stone building behind.
A black-clad figure like a priest or a doctor, Filippo Garzone or Aldo Diamante, lumbered into my viewfinder so quickly it made my heart jump. As I jerked back from the shock an engine sounded and I thought I might look up to see a German launch, a machine gun on its bows, edge across the distant line of water beyond the ruined watchtower. But no. It was simply
a gardener in dark overalls, firing up his saw to work on the sprawling trees.
I needed a long moment to calm down after that. At least the place wasn’t open. That meant I didn’t need to find the courage to go beyond that iron gate.
Head a little woozy I went back to San Pietro and hopped on another vaporetto to the hospital.
He was waiting, more grey-faced than usual. His eyes, always so acute and inquisitive, seemed lazy, though they still caught me as I walked in with a bunch of flowers.
‘Chrysanthemums? You buy them for the dead, Nico. Not the living.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’
In my confused state after a morning spent between my city and his of old, I’d missed my stop, found myself at Fondamente Nove and bought a bunch without thinking from one of the florists that plied the trade to San Michele across the water.
‘I’ll call the nurse for a vase.’
She turned up, tut-tutting and shaking her head. I should have thought: they were the flowers for the cemetery. The coming November the first, Ognissanti, the Day of the Dead, I’d surely be with my father catching a boat to San Michele and placing a wreath of them on Nonno Paolo’s grave.
‘You’ve been taking pictures,’ he said when we were alone.
My camera bag was on the floor. He never missed a thing.
‘Yes,’ I said, and added that Scamozzi had been trying to tempt me out to the beach.
‘Don’t let me stop you if that’s what you want.’
‘It’s not. I want to be here. I want the rest of the story.’
‘Ah.’ He sounded a little down at that. ‘I do hope I’m not upsetting you. That’s not my intention.’
‘What is?’
‘Just … to pass something on that might be useful one day.’
I sat by the bed on a hard, metal hospital chair, staring again at the low, white-walled island across the water.
‘I’ll be there soon enough,’ said the old, tired voice beside me.
‘I don’t want you there.’
‘I must admit,’ he added, ‘I thought I might have enjoyed life a little longer. All those damned cigarettes. Should have given them up years ago. Promise me you’ll never start.’
Naturally I kept quiet.
‘Ah. I see I’m too late. How idiotic of me. When I was young, most lads were smoking when they were twelve or thirteen. I never had the opportunity. Very severe parents. Also they made me cough at first. It took some work.’
‘Did he start that too? Vanni?’
‘You have been reading carefully. Good. I’m flattered.’
‘I never knew you could write.’
He laughed. Then coughed. Then laughed again.
‘I can’t. Not really. I just had one story to tell and that was it.’ He tapped his chest and that made him croak once more. The wheeze that followed seemed to come from deep inside. ‘There was never going to be anything else. Not real writing. I was too busy selling velvet for one thing. But a single story, if it’s good enough … that’ll do.’
‘Would you have smoked if you’d never met them?’
He shrugged and said, ‘Who’s to know?’
‘It’s just that … the Artoms. That couple. They sound bad news.’
Grandpa waved his bony finger at me.
‘Good news. Bad news. Mostly it’s just news in the end. You should never judge a story till it’s finished.’
When we stopped talking the room filled with all the hospital sounds I was beginning to recognize: the whirr of the air conditioning, the beep and buzz of monitors and machines, the tap-tap of footsteps outside along the corridor.
‘Are there any more questions you want to ask, Nico?’
‘Is it true? That you … what Mika said about you?’
He folded his arms, wrinkled his nose and asked, ‘What in particular do you mean?’
He knew full well.
‘Please. Stop playing games with me.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Is it true you and him … you fancied him?’
He nodded.
‘Him being Vanni? A man?’
‘Yes.’ I hoped I didn’t sound too annoyed at the way he’d dragged that out of me. ‘That’s what I mean.’
‘Have you never felt an interest in another boy at school?’
‘No!’ I cried.
‘You don’t have to shout, lad. There’s just the two of us in here. And I’d never tell.’
‘No,’ I said more gently. ‘I never have. I never will. It’s not … not me.’
‘Ah.’ He smiled. ‘A young man who’s certain about the future. Lucky fellow.’
‘I mean … I know. I’m attracted to girls.’
‘So was I. Even now … there are some pretty young fillies in this place. I flirt with them. What’s an old man to do?’
‘But—’
‘I was shy when I was young to be honest. More fool me. There was an English poet who was once asked, towards the end of his life, if he had any regrets. He said yes. He’d never had enough sex. I understand what he meant.’
‘I’m not sure we should be having this conversation.’
‘Though it later turned out that same poet had what the English call “a little bit on the side”. Writers, eh? Why shouldn’t we be having this conversation?’
I was blushing and it wasn’t even that hot.
‘You’re my grandfather.’
‘Correct.’
‘It’s … weird.’
He seemed to find this terribly funny.
‘Oh lord, Nico. If the fact a couple of men in extremis should get close to one another is … weird … I hate to think what you’ll make of life later on. Unless you lead a dull one. I wouldn’t wish you that.’
‘I didn’t need to know. I really didn’t. I’m not even sure I believe a word of all this.’
‘Sometimes stories are lies we tell ourselves in an effort to understand the truth.’
With that cryptic comment he turned to the side of the bed. His blue striped pyjamas rolled up his chest at that moment. His ribs stuck out like those on a starving child in Africa. There were the red scars of operations on his wrinkled chest. Just seeing them made me think of him changing the dressing on Vanni Artom more than half a century before. He’d got beneath my skin and that, I realized, was precisely his intent.
‘Here.’ He retrieved another envelope from the bedside cabinet and threw it on the sheets. ‘Only two more episodes of this story after this. Unless you’d rather give up and spend your time with Maurizio Scamozzi.’
‘I don’t want to hang out with that little creep. I want to be here with you.’
He smiled, reached out and touched my hand.
‘I’m glad of that. I only wish I had better words to tell you how much.’
The title was scrawled on the front. I recognized his spidery hand, the flowing letters and the way the ink from a fountain pen fell across the page.
‘Things happen,’ he said and he wasn’t smiling any more. ‘That’s all I’ve got to say.’
TANGLES IN THE LOOM
The arrival of a group of senior German officers from Salò along with the Jew hunter Salvatore Bruno was the spark for an impromptu evening of even greater debauchery than usual in the upstairs ballroom of the Gioconda. It was important to be seen even if one did not much take part. Those missing would be noted.
Casino tables had come out for the occasion. Hauptscharführer Oberg had stayed for thirty minutes, smoking a series of small cigars, saying little, watching Bruno’s party work their way from roulette wheels to cards, winning always, naturally. Then he pleaded work and returned to Ca’ Loretti, happy to be out of the place.
Luca Alberti stayed. For two hours and a half, which was all he could take. He consumed nothing more than three glasses of Prosecco followed by the tiniest taste of grappa and steered well clear of the women who flocked around the Germans like flies smelling fresh meat. A humble Venetian collaborator was no match for these well-heeled
visitors. The newcomers had more power and wealth about them than any of the locals and didn’t mind showing it. Not just money but illicit items from the black market. Tobacco, drugs, jewellery, perfume and silk stockings were among the whispered gifts in return for a night between their sheets. In the city’s impoverished wartime condition, he could hardly blame the floozies for trying their best. Most were from out of town though one he recognized, a pretty young woman from Cannaregio, a widow or separated, he couldn’t remember, mother to three children, struggling to get by. She smiled more convincingly than the rest, worked harder in bed too as he’d discovered for himself the month before. But it was a cold and false kind of passion, driven by hardship, not the need for company. One night was enough to reveal that her affections came at a price his lowly police salary could never sustain.
Before the conflict the ballroom of the Gioconda was a place for rich foreigners in town for opera, theatre or art, civic events and fancy marriages. It was ornate to the boundaries of good taste, full of ormolu mirrors and gilt furniture, glittering Murano chandeliers dangling from a ceiling decorated with putti and swooping angels. The canal side seemed nothing but glass, a long line of floor-length windows that gave out on to a terrace over the small rio beneath. In summer the hotel laid tables outside for lunch and dinner, but November was too cold for that. It was a shame. Alberti liked that quiet, secluded spot where on occasion one heard the swish of a gondolier’s oar and a snatch of song. No black wells leaked sewage into the waterway that ran straight into the Grand Canal, so the smell was as sweet as anywhere in the city centre.
Alberti was glad to get out of the place and go to bed, though the night was long and disturbed by all the familiar noises from neighbouring rooms.
That Friday morning he’d made sure to be at his desk on time. Oberg was there alone. Throughout Ca’ Loretti Germans who’d indulged too much in the Gioconda the night before stood around sipping at coffee, complaining about the heads they’d got from rotten Venetian booze.
Sander turned up half an hour late, sat down, then suddenly excused himself and raced to the toilet, hand to mouth.
