Hairs rose on her arms and silently she rolled out of bed. She snatched the carving knife from under her pillow, gripped its bone handle and felt safer as she made for the door, blind in the darkness. She turned the doorknob. On the landing she listened intently but she heard no further sound, so had she imagined it? Was her mind so fearful that it was filling in the gaps?
She waited in the blackness, the night air moist and heavy, the house closing in around her while the minutes ticked past. A snore rumbled out from her grandfather’s room, but from downstairs came a rustle of papers, faint but distinct. A mouse shredding Nonno’s newspaper? Mice were bold these days, driven by hunger, and had been known to rip a cardboard box to pieces or tear strips off a book’s leather binding. There were too few cats to keep down their numbers and too many homes that could ill afford traps. On bare feet Caterina edged to the top of the stairs.
It came again, paper rubbing against paper. Then she heard a faint metallic chink as she descended in the darkness, mouth bone dry. She knew each stair, where one was bowed in the middle and would utter a soft groan when stepped on, so her foot stepped to the side to avoid it, and on tiptoe she missed out the next one that possessed a high squeak. The knife in her hand led the way to the bottom where she paused.
She blinked, her eyes fighting the darkness, and as she turned her head towards the kitchen, she saw the living room door ajar. Saw it. In the darkness she should see nothing, yet she could see the edge of the door, a black line against a blurred grey background. She knew what it meant. There was a dim light inside the living room.
She could turn. Walk away. Creep back up the stairs as silently as the mice, gather Luca and Nonno together and barricade themselves in the topmost bedroom. Wait till daybreak, when the intruder would have departed, if they were lucky. If not, and he came prowling upstairs, they would be ready for him, the long carving knife directed at his throat. Caterina cursed the fact that the Bodeo pistol was still in Leonora’s bedroom on Capri.
She could turn. Could walk away from this. Instead she moved forward and placed a hand on the living room door.
The living room was not large and Caterina saw the figure immediately. It was hunched over her father’s desk in the deep shadow of the far corner, its back towards the door, so confident of being undisturbed in the blatant act of thievery. By the dull glow of a torch Caterina could see a scene of destruction, papers thrown in confusion, drawers upended, pens scattered. Luca’s collection of shells hurled to the floor. The sight sent a wave of anger through Caterina and she stepped into the room.
‘Who are you?’ she hissed.
The scream was high-pitched. Stifled almost before it was uttered. The figure straightened and spun round, the torch beam leaping around the room and clambering up to the ceiling before finding Caterina’s face. For an instant it blinded her, but instinct took over and she flicked on the electric light switch by the door, flooding the room with light. Grimly she stared at the figure that was clutching a wad of banknotes. She lowered the knife.
‘What the hell are you doing, Mamma?’
Her mother stood motionless, her face taut. Caterina could see her trying to work out which way to jump – to opt for bravado, brazen her way out of this, or to beg for forgiveness with tears. Caterina wanted to hate her, wanted to shout at her and point to the mess she had made of their father’s belongings. She wanted to say what her grandfather had said: Get out of my house.
But she couldn’t. The words were not inside her. The figure in black was her mother and she was here in this house after eleven empty years. Her blonde hair was pulled back from her face and tied with a black bootlace the way she used to wear it when chopping garlic to make her favourite polpette di pollo. In her mind, Caterina was back in the kitchen as a child, smelling the rich sugo al pomodoro, dipping a finger in it and receiving a quick rebuke from the wooden spoon.
She shook her head, dislodging the image. She put down the knife, walked over and inspected the disarray more closely. Unexpectedly the anger suddenly drained from her, slithering through her cold fingers, and she tried to grasp it back but it was too late. It was gone.
She asked once more, ‘What are you doing, Mamma?’ Her eyes settled on the money in her mother’s hand.
‘I’m not stealing, Caterina. I have a right to this. God knows, I earned it. For twelve years I was here in this back-end of nowhere.’
The insult stung.
But where had the money come from? Her eyes fell on a shallow drawer made from rosewood, lying on top of the mess of opened letters and papers on the desk. Caterina frowned. She had never seen it before. Then she noticed a thin gap under the shelf where pens and ink sat and realisation dawned. It was a secret drawer. One her mother knew about.
Caterina stretched out her hand, palm up.
‘Give it to me, Mamma. It belonged to Papà, not to you.’
A thin bead of sweat clung to Lucia Lombardi’s temple and she brushed it away impatiently with the back of her wrist.
‘Come, my Caterina, let us not argue. After all these years, let’s be friends. I have missed you.’ She smiled invitingly. ‘We can share it.’
But Caterina’s eyes had returned to the secret drawer and she could see that one item still lay inside it. A key. A big iron key, the kind that would open a church or a wine cellar or a basement where fine artwork was concealed. She snatched it from the drawer.
‘No, Caterina. That key is mine. Mine alone. Give it to me.’ Lucia’s eyes blazed for one second with a flash of rage, but as fast as it came, it vanished. An icy blue stare took its place. ‘Let me have the key.’
‘Mamma, I am not an imbecile.’
She started to walk away but her mother pulled her back.
‘I am ordering you to give me that key immediately. I am your mother. Here, you can take the money, all of it. You can buy Nonno and Luca some decent food that will . . .’
‘No, Mamma.’
The slap rocked her on her heels. Her mother’s hand slammed into her cheek and pain flared up the left side of her face, slicing into her ear, but that pain was nothing compared to the one inside her chest where she felt something break.
Instantly her mother’s arms were around her, holding her close, stroking the back of her neck. ‘I’m sorry, Caterina, so sorry. Forgive me. I didn’t mean it. I would never hurt you, my darling.’
Caterina felt her mother’s tears wet on her cheek, but firmly she extricated herself from the embrace.
‘Let’s sit down,’ she said, ‘and talk about the key.’
‘This wine tastes like piss.’
They were sitting at the kitchen table, facing each other. Caterina wanted the solid table between them, no more embraces. No more slaps. She wanted to look at her mother’s face to see when she was lying. At first Caterina asked questions. What made you go? What made you come back? But once her mother had downed a glass of the sour red wine and started talking, the words kept coming of their own accord. She told Caterina that she had loved Roberto Cavaleri because he had all the energy and humour that Antonio Lombardi lacked. He knew how to have fun, she said. All Caterina’s father knew was wood. She did not seem to notice Caterina flinch at that.
‘But he was like your Papà in some ways, always full of ideas and ideals, the foolish donkey.’ Yet it was said with an affectionate shake of her head. ‘Roberto was forever fighting alongside the partisans, harassing the Germans, sabotaging their convoys and stealing their trucks of weapons. He had such courage.’
She knocked back another glass of the wine and pulled a face that didn’t quite disguise her anguish. He was caught, and shot by a German firing squad. After that salutary lesson in warfare tactics, as she called it, she shifted allegiance to the winning side and became the mistress of a German general who was stationed in Rome.
‘Klaus was kind, Caterina. Kind and generous. Those two qualities go a long way in covering up a lack of love. We had good times, Klaus and I. Germans know how to party.’
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br /> She rolled her blue eyes dramatically and laughed, but it was thin, that laugh, so thin it slid under Caterina’s defences.
‘How was I to know,’ her mother declared, ‘that the big beefy Yanks and the stuffed-shirt British would go and march all over Italy with their Sherman tanks?’ She shrugged one shoulder, expressing her opinion on that subject with eloquence. ‘My Klaus was shot. The Allies put a violent end to our parties.’ She lit a cigarette and watched the skein of smoke drift between them, a bitterness tugging at one corner of her mouth. Caterina listened in silence.
‘I was tarred and feathered, Caterina. Can you believe that? Tarred and feathered by the ungrateful citizens of Rome for being a collaborator. That’s what they called me, a collaborator. Even though a fair few of them had invited me earlier to sing at their parties.’ She smiled now, a precarious smile that would fool no one. ‘You should have seen me, Caterina. I looked outrageous in my stinking tar and feathers, like a lost soul from hell.’ Another laugh, and the sound of it brought the last of Caterina’s defences crashing down.
You were a lost soul, Mamma. Lost in your own betrayals. But she said nothing. How could she? If she started to tell her mother what was in her head, she would never stop.
‘Where did the money and the key come from, Mamma? What was Papà doing with them?’
Caterina could guess. It wasn’t hard.
The lire banknotes, tied in a bundle with a strand of green wool, sat on the table between them, but the key lay clutched in Caterina’s hand.
‘The money is your Papà’s savings. Escape money for all of us. That’s what he intended it for if things went wrong.’
‘What things?’
‘Oh, you know, under Mussolini you never knew when you might be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by his Blackshirts.’
Caterina stared. ‘You admit Papà was doing something illegal even back then?’
Her mother didn’t meet her gaze. ‘No, no, of course not.’ She flicked a hand vaguely through the air. ‘You didn’t need a reason to be hauled into the street and beaten with their bloody truncheons. They did it just for fun.’
The lie sat there on the table between them along with the banknotes. Neither of them touched it. Instead Caterina rose to her feet and dangled the iron key from her fingers. Instantly her mother’s eyes grew suspicious, though a smile curved her full lips.
‘Cara mia,’ she murmured in a low voice, ‘let me have the key.’ She pushed the pile of lire nearer her daughter. ‘Take it all. Your brother and grandfather would want you to. Think of them. Don’t be selfish, Caterina. The key is meaningless to you.’
Caterina was thinking. Briskly she headed for the door. ‘Come, Mamma. Time for us to take a walk.’
‘What? Are you mad? It’s the middle of the night. It’s pitch black out there.’
Caterina held the door open. ‘All the more reason to go now.’
At the top of the cliff in Piazza Vittoria, Caterina stood leaning out over the balustrade that divided the piazza from the sheer drop. The moon shed its light like lace over the black waves and a night wind tucked itself in the folds of her work-dress, but her gaze remained fixed on the pale oval that was her mother’s tense face.
‘Now, Mamma. What does this key open?’
Caterina made no fuss. Her voice was calm, but her fist was stretched out over the abyss that tumbled down to the sea, the iron key clearly visible in the moonlight. All she had to do was open her fingers. A quick release of her grip and the key would be gone forever.
‘As you said, Mamma, it means nothing to me.’
‘Don’t.’ Lucia Lombardi’s voice was panicky. ‘Don’t, Caterina. You don’t know what you are doing.’
But Caterina knew exactly what she was doing.
‘Tell me what it opens.’
‘Give it to me and then I will tell you.’ Her mother held out her hand, soft and white in the darkness, and took two steps closer. The night had merged with her black dress, so that her face and arms seemed disembodied as they edged nearer her daughter. ‘I promise I will tell you.’
A sceptical laugh escaped from Caterina. ‘Better still, Mamma, show me.’
Limestone is made up of skeletons, millions of them. Fragments of long-dead marine organisms. The thought that Sorrento was built on skeletons rose in Caterina’s mind when she was standing in front of a massive overhang of limestone rock. The beam of her torch cut a hole in the surrounding darkness and transformed the grey sedimentary surface to a dirty yellow, but she had a sense of something slipping, something that would slide out of her grasp if she so much as took her eyes off it for a second.
Beneath the overhang stood a heavy oak door.
‘You see,’ her mother said behind her with a note of triumph. ‘I told you it was there.’
Long tendrils of ivy snaked from the knife in Caterina’s hand and she could smell the pile of torn vegetation that lay on the ground. Excitement hammered at her. She tried not to expect too much, but failed. She didn’t speak, just drew the iron key from her pocket.
Her mother had led her to a spot on the back edge of town where the houses squeezed up against a shoulder of limestone as it rose to form the mountains that threaded their way down the spine of the peninsula. The overhang protruded, causing the small road to dogleg around it, but underneath there must have at one time been a large gap, an inland cave of sorts, but the mouth of the gap had been boarded up long ago and a dense layer of ivy had grown over the timbers, making them virtually invisible.
‘In there,’ her mother had whispered. She was tense and nervy. They had walked in silence and Caterina could feel her mother’s anger bubbling between them. Caterina had hacked at the ivy, tearing her hands as she ripped it off the wood and her mother had stood there and watched without lifting a finger. The door looked in surprisingly good condition and gave Caterina hope because it meant someone had kept it in good repair until not many years ago. Presumably her father.
She inserted the key and heard the lock turn. That was when her mother elbowed past her and pushed the door open. Her mother screamed and the high-pitched sound was sucked into the limestone walls, a thousand million dead creatures feasting on it.
‘What is it, Mamma? Are you hurt?’ Caterina touched her mother’s arm.
‘Look! Look!’
She snatched the torch from Caterina’s hand and its yellow glare swept over the stone floor and up the walls.
The cavern was empty.
You have a week. One week. To find the table.
Drago Vincelli’s words in the confessional box seemed to echo in the emptiness of the cavern and drip down the limestone walls, mocking Caterina. All the hope that had sparked into life the moment she snatched the key from the secret drawer had been extinguished.
She turned to her mother. Lucia Lombardi was standing in the centre of the cavern, rigid and silent.
‘I am finished,’ her mother whispered. ‘I will starve. The contents of this place were what I . . .’ Her words ceased.
Caterina stood close, so she would see the lie if it came. ‘They were what you came for, weren’t they? The reason you returned to Sorrento. Not for Luca. Not for me. You came for the valuable artefacts Papà had stored here.’
Her mother could have said no. She could have lied. Just a little lie. It would have hurt no one. But she didn’t. Instead she let out a murmur of misery and gave the smallest of nods. But Caterina could not bear to see her so stricken. Gently she wrapped her arms around her slender frame and held her tight.
Caterina took her mother home with her.
The impact of the night breeze seemed to bring Lucia back to life and she walked with her arm tucked through her daughter’s, clinging to her, their flesh touching, their voices muted. As they walked along the empty pavements Lucia admitted that the hiding place under the rocky outcrop had been a secret known only to Caterina’s father and herself.
Without warning, Caterina experienced a flash of jealousy.
It flickered behind her eyes, back and forth, startling her. Why had Papà never shared the secret with her? Did he not trust her? He had often rested his warm hand on her cheek and said with pride that he could always trust his Caterina with any job he gave her. Not only to do the job, but to do it well. Yet now she learned he had kept so many secrets from her, and that knowledge created a cold place inside her. He had laughed that he could trust her with his life, but he had not done so.
Her mother turned her head to look at her as they walked through the dark streets.
‘Don’t, Caterina, don’t be hurt. Your Papà loved you.’ She made a soft throaty sound. ‘God knows, that man loved you far more than he ever loved me.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Of course it is, cara mia. The only reason he kept the store of antiques a secret from you was because he wanted to protect you. He always knew it was a dangerous business to be caught up in. And your precious father couldn’t bear you to think ill of him. You were the centre of his world.’
‘No, Mamma, you are wrong. You never saw how Papà was when you weren’t here, when you disappeared for days or weeks at a time. He was torn to pieces. And when you ran off with Roberto Cavaleri, he was destroyed. You ripped the heart out of him.’
‘Don’t hate me, Caterina,’ her mother whispered softly. ‘I tried to make him happy.’
The lie was swallowed by the darkness. They walked the rest of the way in silence.
Caterina sat her mother on the sofa and put a glass of wine in her hand. The night was hot and humid but her mother was cold, so Caterina wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, tucking it under her chin and spreading it over her knees. Touching her. Patting her. It was as though Caterina’s hands were trying to make up for all the years of drought, and no amount of reprimand from Caterina could stop them.
Caterina made herself take the seat opposite her mother, rather than sit beside her on the sofa. She didn’t trust herself. Or her hands. So she sat up straight, not leaning forward, her fingers curled firmly around the wooden arms of her chair. Her mother began to talk. About her life in Rome with the German general, her lavish apartment, the clubs she sang in, the applause she received, the parties she attended, a dance with Crown Prince Umberto and her fingers dressed in diamonds. Her hand kissed by Adolf Hitler himself.
The Liberation Page 29
