by David Hewson
‘Vanni. You can’t. You’re in no fit state.’
‘Then you can help me. Or stay here. Either way I have to …’
Lurching for his jacket, he stumbled, fell to the floor, straight on to the stricken leg.
Paolo pulled him to his feet.
‘You’ve got to stop this now.’ The two of them were as close as the night before. ‘Stay here. With me.’
‘Tonight she says she’ll come back and we can go and steal a boat somewhere.’
‘Then that’s what we’ll do.’
‘You think?’ Vanni laughed, just a little. ‘Mika lies. She tells people what they want to hear. Then does what she feels like anyway.’
‘I know,’ Paolo said and held him. Found the courage to kiss his cheek, hold his hair. ‘But maybe she’ll come back. Give it a little time. I was … indulging you.’
‘A little time may be all we have.’
‘Then let’s use it.’
But he withdrew from Paolo’s close embrace, limped towards the coats that hung by the back door.
‘I need to see beyond your garden of angels. I need to see the light. The sky.’ Vanni rapped on the window and looked at the weather. A few soft and gentle flakes had begun to fall. ‘The snow. I love the snow.’
‘A few minutes.’ Garzone shook his head and frowned. ‘You want me to beg for my life in a few minutes?’
Alberti glared at him.
‘I don’t need to do this. I could have let them come straight in.’
Garzone didn’t doubt that was true. But the man must have had his reasons.
‘I won’t tell them you talked to me. Don’t worry. I won’t say you tipped me off.’
Alberti stubbed his cigarette in the tin ashtray on the desk, lit another, laughed and shook his head.
‘What’s so funny?’ Garzone wondered.
‘You. I already wrote down that I spoke to you. Kindly. You’re a priest. I was trying to work out what you knew. Thinking maybe I could get you on our side—’
‘That’s not true and you know it.’
Alberti threw up his hands in despair.
‘Jesus Christ! Why do I bother? None of this is about what’s true. It’s about what they want to believe. Outside the Gioconda they ambushed some idiot partisans last night. Watched and cheered, threw a party. Then that Jewish girl ruined it. They were supposed to grab her too. But they were too busy enjoying the show. She killed one of theirs and now she’s gone.’ He swore under his breath. ‘Nasty little thug called Sander. Did us all a favour.’
‘Every life has meaning. Even that of a nasty little thug.’
‘You’re not in the pulpit now, Father. Give it up. Sander would have come in here, cut your throat and laughed while you bled to death on the floor. Done it often enough. Any minute now his boss Oberg’s walking through the door. He’s a half-decent man for a German. Give him something and he might let you out of here.’
Garzone kept quiet.
‘Are you even listening? The Crucchi shot four Venetians last night. Some fools who thought they could be heroes. The Jew, Mika Artom. She killed one of theirs. You know that name …?’
‘No. I don’t.’
That brought a smile to Alberti’s face.
‘Good, I believe you. Or else you’re a pretty decent liar for a priest. Either way I’m impressed.’
‘I don’t care what you believe.’
‘Believe this. They lost one of theirs. When that happens there’s a calculation. How many locals got to die to make up for it? How many of our lives make up for one of theirs? There will be reprisals. As sure as the acqua alta comes when you least want it. For that they need names. You’re a good guy. A decent guy. A scared guy who got pushed into helping them out.’
‘Did I?’
Alberti sighed and closed his eyes for a second, exasperated.
‘I know you saw Diamante. I know you and the old Jew were close.’
Garzone reached over, took one of Alberti’s cigarettes, lit it, coughed, then coughed some more and stubbed the thing out.
‘I thought you didn’t smoke.’
‘I don’t. Bad for your chest. Still, what does that matter now? Do you sleep well?’
‘No,’ Alberti said with a shrug. ‘I don’t.’
‘Do you go to confession?’
The man’s eyes looked sad and weary, not quite dead. Not quite.
‘I’m not the religious sort. If you’d seen what I have maybe you wouldn’t either.’
‘Or perhaps I’d believe even more.’
Alberti was silent for a moment.
‘We don’t have time for this. You don’t have time.’
What came next was surprisingly easy to say. Somewhere along the way, in the company of the grunting troops who’d dragged him through the midnight streets, a corner had been turned in Garzone’s head. All lives were journeys. He’d said that from the pulpit often enough. They had a single destination too, the grave.
‘I’ve all the time the Lord allows,’ he said. ‘As have you. We’re not so different.’
‘I told them you were a friend of Diamante’s. That you spoke to him not long before he cheated them of their list.’ He ground his cigarette into the tin tray. ‘Not that it matters any more. They’ll round those Jews up anyway.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I’m going to give you the names you offer them. Not the Artoms. You know nothing about them. They were Diamante’s. But there were those among your flock who confessed to working with the terrorists.’
‘The confessional is sacred—’
‘I’m trying to help! These names. Remember them. Rocco Trevisan. Adolfo Tosi. Gabriele Gallo …’
‘The grocer? He wouldn’t harm a fly. I won’t—’
‘Greta Morino.’
‘Greta? The poor woman runs a tiny little bar. Why would I give them her name?’
The man opposite him winced.
‘Christ, this is hard.’ He leaned forward and jabbed a tobacco-stained finger in Garzone’s direction. ‘Listen and try to get this into your thick head. All the names I just gave you. They’re either dead already or somewhere else in this dump as good as. They’re not leaving. You still might.’
There were voices outside the corridor. Alberti glanced anxiously at the door.
‘Oberg’s coming. You’re going to give them those names.’
‘I don’t know any names.’
‘That doesn’t matter! Say these people mentioned something that made your ears prick up when they were in church. They don’t think you’re a partisan. Just a fool who got taken in by all that shit.’
Garzone nodded.
‘And if I do this you think they’ll let me go?’
‘Maybe. Give them nothing except your preaching and you’re dead. One more corpse on my conscience.’
‘Poor man! So this is for you? Not me at all?’
Mad all of a sudden Alberti reached over the table, grabbed the collar of his black jacket, pulled him close.
‘Listen to me, you old fool. There’s not a damned thing you can say or do that’s going to keep them alive. The only one you might save is yourself.’
The door crashed open. Three people marched in. Dark suits, severe faces. The one in front, a hatchet-faced man who looked like the boss, Oberg he guessed, said something in rapid German.
Alberti swiped his hand round Garzone’s face and the shock of the blow made the priest whimper, more in surprise than pain.
‘This one’s going to talk,’ the Venetian said and slapped him hard again. ‘Not that I think he’s got much to tell.’
He got out of the chair and let Oberg take it. The other two lounged at the back, staring right at Garzone. From a neighbouring room came the sound of someone screaming. A woman, the priest guessed, though it was hard to tell. Greta Morino was pushing seventy and more than a little soft in the head. If it was her she wouldn’t even know why she was there.
‘Want me to
stay?’ Alberti asked.
‘You speak their language,’ Oberg replied. ‘My Italian is somewhat rusty.’ Not as bad as he made out, Alberti thought. ‘Of course you’re going to stay.’
‘I have nothing to tell you,’ the priest said before they could ask a thing. ‘Except Aldo Diamante was my friend. A good man. Honest. A saint to everyone he met. We talked. Of the time when Venice was free. When men and women could walk the streets without fear. That’s all.’
In German, Alberti said, ‘He’s a church man. He hung around with Jews.’ Then, in Italian, he barked, ‘Tell them what you told me, Garzone.’
The priest shook his head and said, ‘And what exactly was that?’
‘Rocco Trevisan came to you in confession and told you he was thinking of planning violent acts. So did that thug Tosi—’
‘They’re both dead,’ Oberg snapped.
‘What about Gallo and the bar woman?’ Alberti demanded, staring hard into Garzone’s face. ‘You know them.’
‘They are not of my flock. I believe the church of San Giuseppe is closer for them. As far as I’m aware—’
‘If a man tells a priest he has murderous thoughts,’ Oberg cut in, his Italian clear and exact, ‘then we should know of it.’
‘What happens in confession is for my ears alone, sir. Never yours.’
Alberti stepped forward, struck him hard around the face, then followed up with a couple of punches. Blood began to leak from Garzone’s nostrils. His right eye was closed, bruised and cut above the brow. Still he said nothing, just stared at the desk, waiting for the next blow.
‘We’re wasting our time with this one,’ Alberti said. ‘He’s not got the guts or the wit to do any harm. Let’s kick him out of here. I’ll watch to see who comes calling from his flock. If there’s anything to be found there …’
Oberg lit a cigarette and sat back in the chair.
‘Ah, but Alberti. You lost a colleague last night. I know you and Sander were not the best of friends but all the same. A woman terrorist we should have apprehended murdered him. On our own premises. One German victim. Ten locals must pay.’ He shrugged. ‘Think yourselves lucky. If this were Milan or Bologna there’d be twenty, thirty of them. I’m being generous.’
‘He’s a priest,’ Alberti said. ‘Popular. It will cause … offence.’
‘All the more reason he should stand alongside the rest.’ Oberg closed his eyes for a second, thinking as a spiral of grey smoke curled around him. ‘I want an execution with meaning. Somewhere public. A place they’ll remember.’ He thought of something and pointed across the table at Garzone, dabbing at his bleeding nose. ‘That square outside the church of his. Bring the others. They’re all from around there. All known. They have that curious bell tower standing on its own …’
‘A practical decision,’ Garzone cut in with a smile. ‘Had my predecessors attached it to the church then the whole building might have sunk deep into the sand.’
‘How very interesting,’ Oberg replied. ‘White marble from what I remember. We’ll stand them in front of that. The blood will show.’ He glanced at Alberti. ‘If you’d tracked down that damned pair of Jews in the first place none of this would have happened.’
‘I am aware of that, sir …’
‘Good.’ The German glanced at the burly pair next to him, then nodded at Garzone. ‘Bind his arms and get the rest. We’ll march them through the streets, a squad all round.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Make sure there’s a crowd. At noon we shoot them all and their families can watch. After that we send troops house-to-house searching for that pair of Jews. They must be there somewhere. I want every last tenement searched and turned over till we find them.’
‘You break a butterfly upon a wheel,’ the priest said, looking up at him from the table.
‘There are no butterflies in winter,’ Oberg replied. ‘Spring and summer are a long way off and for you they’ll never come. Take him now. Don’t rough him up any more. Don’t do anything else to the rest of them. This …’ He blinked and for a moment looked as if he might have second thoughts. ‘This is a demonstration of our strength. Our determination. Not our cruelty.’
Garzone looked up from the table and burst out laughing.
‘Poor man. To assign all this to your duty.’ He struggled to his feet and held out his hands. ‘I am ready, sir. Are you?’
The address Salvatore Bruno had scribbled on his pad was for a ground-floor apartment on the Fondamenta Fenice, a short street that ran behind the opera house by the side of a narrow canal. It was a monied part of the city, well away from the rundown terraces of Castello. A little enclave of luxury, with fine shops not far away, restaurants where liveried waiters in white jackets with gold braid were serving late breakfasts to clients who looked a little worse for wear from the previous evening.
The tributary to the Grand Canal where Trevisan and his fellow partisans had been betrayed by Sara Vitale, then slaughtered theatrically by German machine guns was only a few blocks away. But the Fondamenta Fenice appeared somewhere the war had yet to reach.
Well-off looking locals shuffled along, the women in fur coats, a couple carrying small dogs, heads held high, noses in the air since there was the remnant stench of an emptied pozzo nero nearby. Accompanying most of them, often arm in arm, were men in the uniform black of the affluent Venetian male in winter, heavy wool coats all the way down to the ankles, homburg hats, shiny leather gloves. As Mika Artom stopped by the corner, wondering how to proceed, a pair, elderly, meandered across the low bridge to Fenice, talking loudly about the opera and how much they were looking forward to seeing a coming performance.
Somewhere in the bulky concert hall across the narrow water a rehearsal had begun. The strains of an orchestra drifted out into the frosty day, accompanied by a lone female voice straining at an aria. This rich and comfortable couple stopped and smiled at the sound. She stayed where she was by the foot of the small bridge, determined they’d see her, about to speak. But the woman caught her with a shocked glance and the man muttered something about being in a hurry. The two of them dashed off towards San Marco, huddled together as if she were some kind of threat.
‘I’m not a bloody beggar,’ Mika yelled at them as they retreated into the shadows of a nearby sotoportego. ‘I didn’t want anything.’
Just a word or two. Some acknowledgement that the pain the rest of the world was sharing was visible to them too. They’d had this argument in Padua, so many times with students there. Pretty much none of them sided with the Fascists and the Black Brigades, or if they did, refused to acknowledge it. But most were reluctant to become involved, to act, to fight. She understood this wasn’t simply cowardice, though that played its part. There was a mood abroad, one that called for patience in the face of horror. The Americans and the British were coming. Whatever the lying fascist newspapers and radio stations claimed, Hitler and Mussolini were losing the war. One day it would be over. They knew the brave had to die to make that happen. They just wanted the brave to be someone else.
In the meantime snatch squads seized Jews, young and old, dragged them from their homes, harried them in the street. Sealed them in railway trucks made for cargo, sent them off to foreign countries, unknown ends. Or, in the case of her parents, gunned them down in a drab field outside the city after making them dig their own graves. Italy was a jail and so many of its prisoners kept doffing their caps to the warders. It was insulting. It was just plain wrong. That last thought more than any dogged her, night and day, burned in her head, demanded she do something. It was why she’d ignored Vanni’s pleas to stay safe inside his comfortable little nest in the Giardino degli Angeli. Why she sought out Trevisan and the band of partisans in via Garibaldi, in spite of the risk.
Why she’d agreed to their plan to murder as many Crucchi as they could in the ballroom of the Gioconda. Only to be betrayed.
Maybe Sara Vitale’s treachery had saved her life. That and the intervention by the sad-eyed Venetian collaborator who
’d tipped her off. Not that this mattered. She’d felt bad after the failed raid in the mountains. That was her fault too. Now her attempt to make amends had failed as well. The death of one lecherous drunken German wasn’t enough. Maybe nothing ever would be.
In the dark of the sotoportego, three doors along from the door to Bruno’s apartment, Mika Artom waited, thinking she might force her way in when someone came or went. Church bells rang somewhere, marking the hour. Still no one appeared. The gun weighed heavily in her pocket. Six shells. Enough for one Jew hunter.
The sky, so bright when she’d left by the back door of the apartment, had grown dull as she strode, head down through the streets. Now it was a miserable shade of grey. Wispy flakes of snow had started to fall, fluttering down like tiny white feathers, settling on the white marble bridge to the opera house, disturbing the few passers-by who brushed them crossly from their sleeves and jackets.
Deep winter was descending on Venice, bitter and icy, with a hard breeze rolling down from the mountains where she and Vanni and their little band of partisans had stumbled as they sought Germans to kill, railway lines to sabotage, weapons and ammunition to steal.
There was no going back. Not much going forward either.
A girl of maybe fifteen or sixteen was marching briskly along the pavement from the west. In her arms was a bundle of laundry. A lot of it. She had a sheet of paper in her right hand and kept glancing at it, then the numbers on the doors.
The snow kept getting heavier by the minute, the flakes fatter.
When the kid came to a halt in front of the block, Mika stepped out, walked over, said in as strident a voice as she could manage, ‘You’ve come with laundry for Signor Bruno? Finally.’
She was young, nervous, a little frightened maybe.
‘The Germans in the Gioconda sent me with fresh sheets. I don’t know who for.’
‘It’s for the gentleman from Turin. The one the Crucchi love so much they put him here.’ Mika held out her hands for the laundry and said, ‘Let me in. I’ll do it.’
The girl didn’t move.
‘This is my job. Why would you want to do it for me?’
A smile, then: ‘Because Bruno ordered a morning whore as well. Unless you want that position as well.’ She touched the laundry. ‘But if you’d like to join us I’m sure he won’t mind. He likes them young.’
