The Garden of Angels

by David Hewson

  Her face was like thunder. She thrust the sheets into Mika’s hand.

  ‘You go sleep with a traitor. Not me.’

  ‘Now that …’ Mika wanted to hug her, to scream at her too. ‘That is just the kind of thing you don’t say at times like this.’ The sheets were still warm from the laundry. ‘Open the door.’

  Without another word she did.

  The hallway was dark. It took a while for the girl to find the light.

  ‘Which is it?’ Mika asked.

  ‘There’s only one on the ground floor. Didn’t they tell you?’

  ‘Whores.’ She nodded back at the world outside, where the snow was starting to fall steadily like a winter blanket. ‘We’re good at one thing only. Now get out of here. Don’t say you saw me.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ the kid said and slammed the heavy slab of wood behind her as she left.

  Mika dropped the laundry, took out the gun, stood outside the door, listened.

  Voices. A man and a woman. Laughter. The squeak of a bed. She waited for that to stop, then rapped hard on the door with the butt of the pistol and yelled, ‘Laundry from the Gioconda, Signor Bruno.’

  ‘Leave it outside,’ a woman’s voice yelled back.

  Sara Vitale. It sounded like her. Two in one, Mika thought.

  ‘Can’t do that. They won’t let me. People steal things. Please let me in. I’ll just leave it on the floor. It won’t take long.’

  Not long at all.

  The door opened a crack. Red hair, the glint of lazy, sated eyes.

  She kicked at the wood, as hard she could, forced the thing open, slamming the edge straight into the face of the figure behind.

  The gun.

  One shot, stray, unaimed, stupid.

  It missed of course.

  Sara Vitale was moving sideways, quick as a scuttling rat.

  The apartment was little more than a studio, poorly lit. The only light came from near the bed, where Bruno lay naked on top of the sheets, head back on the pillow, a look of surprise and anger on his face.

  A second shot.

  It hit him straight in the gut and he began screaming.

  Something flashed in the dim light, a curse followed, a woman’s voice. Then, in her left side, came the fiercest pain Mika Artom had ever felt, a sharp blade biting deep until it hammered into bone.

  It took the best part of an hour to get Vanni dressed and out into the open air. He could barely walk more than a few steps at one time. Paolo had found a scarf of his father’s, thick wool and a Scottish tartan, and told him to wrap it round his face. Underneath a fisherman’s cap he was surely unrecognizable even if there were Germans or their agents out on their streets with a description. The greater risk was a sudden stop and search. The only papers Vanni had were his own and the counterfeit French ID in the name of Pierre Goulet, one he thought compromised, too risky to use. So, after a short and intense argument, Paolo gave him his own card and told him to use it if questioned. He, in the meantime, would plead stupidity for leaving his ID at home. Any Italian collaborator accompanying the Crucchi patrols would recognize him as a local from his accent. It wasn’t a rare event and usually the soldiers were too busy or lazy to bother with anything but a reprimand.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ he asked as he unlocked the gated door to the bridge.

  ‘Anywhere. Somewhere I can sit and breathe. A cafe. I need a beer.’

  ‘The nearest bar’s a long walk from here. It’s been shut by the Germans. They’ve taken the woman who ran it.’

  ‘Then the one after that.’

  ‘Christ, Vanni.’ He was leaning on the bridge post, out of breath, a dark stain on his trousers where the wound had begun to bleed again. ‘You won’t get there. You can’t help Mika. Not like this.’

  He didn’t answer, just looked up and down the alley. To the left was the larger bridge to San Pietro where the marble campanile, stranded on its own in a patch of grass in front of the church, was half obscured by swirling clouds of snow, spiralling along its length in the icy breeze. To the right the narrow way led to the broader street which wound down towards via Garibaldi.

  ‘Let’s go back inside,’ Paolo begged.

  A group of men and women were gathered by the corner, gossiping, looking worried.

  ‘No,’ said Vanni as he hobbled over the steps.

  ‘Twelve o’clock,’ a dishevelled old man in a thick seaman’s jacket was saying, shaking his head, balling his fist as he spoke. ‘Twelve o’clock and they’re advertising it like it’s a circus or something. Sweet Jesus. They murdered Rocco and the others last night. Now this.’

  There was a middle-aged woman in the heart of the crowd. It took a moment for Paolo to recognize her. Gallo’s wife, from the grocer’s shop. Her face was red, tears streamed down her cheeks. A woman of similar age and looks, a sister perhaps, had her arm round her shoulders.

  ‘My Gabriele never did nothing wrong,’ the wife cried, voice cracking. ‘Never harmed anyone. Let all of you run up debts when you had nothing.’

  ‘That damned priest got him into this,’ said the woman with her. ‘Garzone. He was in cahoots with the Jews. If it wasn’t for him …’

  ‘They took the priest as well,’ the old man barked back. ‘Leave him out of this. He’s a man of God who’d never turn away a soul in need.’

  ‘The Jews …’ the woman retorted, furious.

  ‘They haven’t harmed anyone. Aldo Diamante’s dead, the best doctor we ever had. The Germans are putting the rest in cattle trucks at Santa Lucia! For the love of Jesus—’

  ‘They’re Jews! It’s not our god, Beppe.’

  The old fellow turned on her and snarled, ‘These are men and women I grew up with. Venetians. Like us. Blame the bastards who are murdering them. Not their victims. I just told you. Last night they shot Rocco Trevisan. That fool Tosi too. Two others … I don’t even know their names. The Crucchi did this. Not the Jews.’

  ‘If they’d stayed at home Rocco wouldn’t be dead,’ she cried. ‘If Garzone hadn’t got Gabriele in his fool scheme he’d still be behind his counter, serving us all like he always did.’

  He threw his hands in the air and yelled something about giving up. Then turned to go.

  Vanni stopped him and asked what was happening.

  The fellow eyed him up and down sharply.

  ‘And who wants to know? You don’t sound like you’re from round here.’

  ‘I’m an Italian, friend. Maybe I knew someone who got caught up in that shit at the Gioconda last night.’

  He scowled.

  ‘In that case you’ll be dead soon too.’

  ‘The priest,’ Paolo cut in. ‘The grocer Gallo. I know them.’

  The old man shook his head and looked close to tears.

  ‘One of theirs got killed last night. Which means someone has to pay. They’re going to parade them through the city. Through San Marco. Along the waterfront. All the way up via Garibaldi. Going to make sure we all see. We all know.’ He wiped away the soft snow from his creased forehead and nodded at the pale white pillar of the campanile ahead in the eddying white cloud. ‘Then they’re going to line them up against that thing and shoot the poor bastards. Nine men. Poor Greta from the bar. All because some woman from out of town killed one of theirs last night.’ He pulled his old fisherman’s jacket tight round him. ‘Ten of ours dead for a single stinking German and it wasn’t even us that murdered the bastard. One of them a priest too. Christ …’

  ‘I need to be there,’ Vanni murmured.

  The man peered at him.

  ‘Why? That’s what they want. To put us all in the fear of them. A crowd of wailing women getting pushed back by their bloody soldiers. While the rest line up those poor buggers against the tower. Who the hell wants to watch that?’

  ‘Garzone’s my friend,’ Paolo cut in. ‘I want him to see me. I don’t want him to feel alone.’

  ‘Dying’s best done on your own these days,’ the man said. ‘You don’t need an a
udience. It’s coming for us all soon enough.’

  Vanni took his arm.

  ‘Twelve o’clock? You’re sure?’

  ‘That’s what they’re telling everyone. They’re Crucchi. I imagine they’ll get there on time.’

  Salvatore Bruno was writhing and squealing on the bed, mired in his own blood.

  She couldn’t think for a moment. The pain was that bad.

  Then Sara Vitale, half-naked in a flimsy nightdress, was coming at her again, a knife in her right hand.

  Mika ducked, still clutching at her side. The blade stabbed into a crack between door and frame and stuck.

  ‘You stabbed me, bitch,’ she said, then kneed Vitale hard in the groin. Which maybe hurt her even more.

  The woman staggered back. Mika was between her and the knife now. No getting it. Not so long as she could stay conscious and the sharp, bright pain of the wound in her side made that easier somehow.

  ‘You gave Trevisan and the other to the Crucchi.’

  Vitale was trying to think of some way to come back at her.

  ‘You were screwing this louse all along and Trevisan never knew. You—’

  ‘We lost!’ Vitale shrieked. ‘Can’t you see that? We lost. Nothing left to fight for.’

  ‘There’s always something …’ Blood was starting to trickle down her waist. She could feel its warmth and the way it was coagulating on her skin. ‘We win in the end. That’s how history works. Even if we’re not the ones there to see it …’

  Vitale laughed at her. She looked crazy.

  ‘You sound like Rocco. All the crap he’d swallowed from the books his old man pushed at him. Like they were the bible or something.’ She took a step closer. ‘Dead means dead. Always dead. Dead means others get to come along, step in your shoes and enjoy the life you should have had. I don’t want anyone in my shoes. I’m owed better.’

  ‘You’re owed,’ Mika said as she raised the gun. The man on the bed was getting louder. She needed to deal with that.

  Vitale stood up straight, hands on bare hips, gazed right at her.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. They’re going to shoot you all. Last night they were rounding up people. Names they’d heard of.’

  ‘Names you gave them?’

  She shrugged and the shoulder of her flimsy nightdress fell off. There were bruises on her shoulder, bite marks by the look of it. Bruno maybe wasn’t the kindest of lovers.

  ‘I told you. Dead is dead. It doesn’t matter. Can’t believe they were so stupid they didn’t pick you up in the Gioconda.’

  ‘Of course it matters.’

  ‘They’re going to search every last house in Castello till they find you. And your brother. Then they’re going to tear you apart in Ca’ Loretti, tie you to a stake in that yard out back. They were going to do that to me when they found me.’

  ‘But you turned?’

  ‘Yes. I turned. No more fighting. No more dreams. No more Marx and Gramsci.’ She leaned forward, eyes blazing. ‘Dead … is … dead. Unless you run. You want to know where? I can show you. You and your brother if he’s still alive …’ She glanced at the bed. ‘We need to finish that bastard. You don’t think I came here willingly, do you? I was part of the prize.’

  One brief moment of hesitation. That was all it took. Vitale saw her chance, lunged for the weapon. Mika was quick enough to fall back, slam against the wall, cold and sweaty fingers wrestling with the gun.

  The first shot went somewhere into the woman’s left thigh. Then, as she fell screaming and thrashing to the floor the second caught her in her head.

  Mika stumbled away, got to the bed, put her hands down to stop herself falling on the naked, bleeding man there.

  ‘Don’t shoot me,’ Bruno begged. ‘I got a wife and kids.’

  Four shells down. Two left. There was more ammunition in the store Trevisan had her hide in Uccello’s little house. A better handgun too and she’d stupidly left it there. Instead she took the dead German’s weapon for no more reason than it felt right. None of this was thought through the way they’d planned raids with her vanished partisan band in the mountains. From the moment she’d woken that morning the day and her hunger had dragged her along, one direction, one aim only. What happened along the way. That was the only thing that mattered.

  ‘I won’t shoot you,’ Mika said getting up and going to the door. ‘I can’t afford to.’

  She retrieved the knife from the wood and tried to think of the bruises on Sara Vitale. Tried to summon up some excuse for the brutality she was about to wreak on the dying man on the bed, his guts half out.

  Soon she could hear the rhythmic rattle of her own breath, panting from the pain and the work, almost obliterating his screams.

  The church bells kept ringing as Garzone and the nine other condemned prisoners lined up outside Ca’ Loretti. Perhaps that was another order from the Germans, following Oberg’s demands. Make a performance of this. A piece of bloody, public theatre. Looking at the rest of them shivering in the steadily falling snow the priest felt he’d got off lightly. Most bore signs of beating. One, a man he didn’t know, had a bloody mouth and no teeth. It looked as if someone else was missing an ear since there was blood leaking out from beneath a ragged white bandage, and the fellow kept feeling at his head tentatively as he trembled, barely able to stand in the bitter cold. A squad of troops had gathered around them, all in deep winter gear. They looked ready for battle in Russia, not a march through the streets of the old lady of the Adriatic, all the way from San Marco to San Pietro, one aim only on their minds.

  Luca Alberti stood outside the cafe opposite smoking a cigarette, sipping at a cup of coffee. He caught Garzone’s attention and the two men’s eyes stayed locked on one another for a few seconds. The priest wondered what that meant. Probably Alberti saying, Don’t blame me. I tried.

  He wished he could have told him, I know you did but you were wasting your time. There would be no angels, no outstretched arm with a martyr’s palm leaf beckoning him to heaven. No need of any of that either. He was the priest of San Pietro, a servant of Venice. These people were among the city’s flock, strangers, residents of other parishes, it didn’t matter. If a man of God was asked to accompany them on that final journey it was impossible to refuse.

  Greta Morino was too old to walk far. So they’d found her a wheelchair and told Gallo to push her. The grocer, his face bruised and cut about, did his best as he guided her across the cobbles trying to fend off the questions she kept asking as they set off for the Piazza San Marco.

  What’s happening?

  Where are we going?

  What did I do wrong?

  She kept on asking as the doomed and sorry band was marched through the narrow streets, watched from windows by silent, resentful faces, until they stepped beneath the arches of the Correr museum, out into the grand piazza itself.

  There were faces behind the windows of Florian’s, visitors, Germans perhaps, enjoying the coffee and pastries. No sign of life in the great basilica which he loved, after a fashion, though he preferred the modest plainness of San Pietro, more in keeping with his parish, to its baroque grandeur of glittering gold mosaics.

  No lights in the Doge’s Palace as they moved along in this strange formation, choreographed to the stamp of the soldiers’ heavy boots.

  They’d been ordered not to talk. Not to try to make contact with any of the locals who’d now joined the procession, silent but casting hateful glares at the troops. All the same the noise of the marching men was loud enough for Gallo to nudge him as he pushed Greta along. The old woman had given up on her bleating and seemed almost asleep.

  ‘Father?’

  ‘Gabriele.’

  ‘Forgive me. I gave them your name.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘They made me. They beat me. They said they’d let me go.’

  ‘The Devil knows how to tempt. When did they pick you up?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘Well, they took me last night in my c
hurch. So you’ve nothing to feel guilty about.’

  The word jogged something in the old woman. She started singing fragments of an old folk song, one in Veneto, not Italian. A rambling tale about a young man meeting Satan one night while out fishing in the lagoon. Selling his soul for nothing more than a catch good enough to win the hand of a young woman he admired. She’d forgotten everything but the first two verses. As they approached the rise of the Arsenale bridge, the crowd behind now numbering perhaps a hundred or more, she gave up and started to weep.

  The bells kept tolling. More modest ones now, in smaller campanili, their tones fainter, higher, more gentle.

  ‘Don’t cry, Greta,’ Garzone said, putting a hand to her damp and greasy grey hair. ‘Don’t cry …’

  ‘Where are we going, Father?’

  ‘Home,’ he said. ‘Home for good.’

  She went quiet. Gallo tugged at his arm again.

  ‘Forgive me. Even if they knew still I should never have told them your name. They hurt me.’ He spat on the cobbles. ‘I was stupid enough to believe them.’

  Garzone took the handles of the wheelchair and helped the two of them along.

  ‘The ways of others led us here, Gabriele. We’re a part of their scheme. Not the cause of it.’

  They struggled over the last bridge before via Garibaldi. He turned and took one last look at Saint Mark’s Basin. Steady snow obscured the view across to San Giorgio Maggiore. Above the soft bells sounding he could hear the cries of gulls and the engines of a few boats on the water. Four pairs of cormorants sat on the wooden piles by the nearest jetty, like hunched black hooks, witnesses to everything.

  Home, he said to himself again as they entered a street so familiar he took the place for granted. Now he tried to take in every last detail. The ornate iron lamp posts. The flagpole where a swastika hung in place of the golden winged lion of Venice. There was such delicate intricacy here, the lace-like tracery of the Gothic arch windows on the bank by the corner, the plaque on the wall that said it had once been home to the Cabots, father Giovanni, son Sebastian, who, more than four centuries before, mapped and explored much of North America. Almost every building in the street had some characteristic of its own, like a feature on a unique face. A trio of funnel chimneys, a carved balustrade, a piece of sculpture stolen from an ancient site. He wondered how he could have missed them all across the years.