The Garden of Letters

by Alyson Richman

  Within seconds, he placed the case on the floor and opened it. She watches with horror as he pulls off the silken scarf.

  “And what do we have here?”

  She is so afraid that she has bitten through her lip. The taste of salt and iron flickers over her tongue.

  She says nothing, but instead stares horrified as his fingers, as long as icicles, slither across her cello’s strings and caress its wooden curves. His touch is like a predator’s.

  “This looks quite valuable . . .” He looks up from examining the cello and tries to find Elodie’s eyes, but she quickly closes them.

  She cannot bear to see her instrument being touched by someone so loathsome. She feels as though she’s being forced to watch something she loves being violated.

  “Please . . .” she says. Her voice escapes her like the sound of a small child pleading. “Please, it’s only a cello.”

  “Why,” he says, “I can tell that this is no common cello. I’m certain of it . . .” He pulls it out from the case and begins examining it more carefully. As his hands move over the instrument, she feels as if he’s touching her own skin and she is overcome by revulsion.

  “It’s not special,” she says. “Please, just put it back.”

  He turns to her and smiles again, like someone who has just discovered a hidden treasure that will soon be his own.

  “This is a very rare instrument. Even I can see that.”

  He takes a single finger and draws it across the red varnish.

  “What’s a young girl like you doing with such an expensive cello?”

  “It was a gift,” she says quietly. “From my father.”

  He lifts the cello up and stands it on the floor. He takes his hands to it, mapping it as she has done so many times. He places a finger on the bridge before inserting another finger into one of the intricately scrolled sound holes. He closes his eyes, as though touching the cello brings him some sort of ecstasy, which once again revolts her.

  “You could have a grenade in there, for all I know.” Again, he continues to search the cello with prodding fingers.

  She doesn’t say anything, but allows him to study the instrument. She knows that the truly important item she is carrying—the code inside her memory—is something he will never find.

  Having discovered nothing to incriminate her, he places the cello back in the case and snaps the latch closed.

  For a second he seems to hesitate, as if pondering what to do next.

  Suddenly, she can see that a decision has come over him. His eyes ignite.

  He comes to Elodie, his skin nearly touching her own. He smiles and caresses her cheek. He takes her chin in his hands and gently, almost tenderly, raises her face to meet his eyes.

  “I will give you something of great value in exchange for your cello,” he says so softly she feels as though he is blowing each word into her ear.

  Elodie fixes her gaze. “What’s that?” she whispers, trying not to tremble.

  The officer smiles.

  “Your life.”

  He lifts the cello from the floor and opens the door.

  “This is your one chance to get out of here. Now go.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Portofino, Italy

  DECEMBER 1943

  Angelo returns home that afternoon, quieter than normal. Elodie can hear the anguish in the silent way he moves. There is pain in his step and in the dropping of his keys on the table, even in the way he puts his medicine bag down by the door.

  Elodie places the book that she is reading down beside her and walks toward the kitchen, where he is now washing his hands.

  She stands behind one of the white columns that separate the rooms.

  “Is everything all right?” she asks quietly.

  He shakes his hands, and sprinkles of water fall onto the tile floor like rain.

  “Yes,” he says, his eyes softening at the sight of her. “I just had a very bad day. Three girls and their mother had been combing the woods for mushrooms when one of them stepped on a land mine. The father had to be pulled away from the site.” Angelo’s voice cracks midsentence. “He refused to leave until they had found every limb.”

  Elodie shudders. She remembers her mother telling her, just a few days before the battle at the post office, about a girl who had gone strawberry picking a week before her wedding and had treaded over a mine. Her mother said that the family buried the girl in her wedding dress.

  “I’m not sure if you’re hungry,” she asks him. “Vanna came by with some squid her husband caught today. And I picked some zucchini from the garden. I could fry them with a little garlic and oil.”

  He manages a weak smile. “No, I think today’s events have stolen my appetite. But thank you.”

  “I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been . . . looking for the bodies.”

  “You have no idea.” He shakes his head. “The Germans are claiming it was a partisan mine.”

  “Really?” She is careful not to reveal any sort of expression on her face, but the mention of the partisans startles her.

  “Yes. I hear there’s a group living in the cliffs in Cinque Terre, some even in caves. They’re doing all sorts of things to sabotage the Germans.”

  Her stomach turns in knots. In seconds, her mind flashes to the mountains outside Verona, the sight of Luca’s body lifeless on a stretcher made of vines, and of the partisan Rita Rosani with a gun strapped to her side.

  “I had no idea . . .” The words fall from her mouth, but her mind leaps between her own memory of being in the mountains and the fear that she might not be as safe in Portofino as she had thought.

  “But it doesn’t do any good now to blame the partisans, or even the Germans. The women are dead. Nothing will change the fact that there will be four needless funerals next week.”

  Elodie glances at the clock on the wall. It is half-past six.

  “And the kommandant? Did you already give him his injection today?”

  “Yes, just before I came home. Why?”

  “Did he mention the mine incident?”

  Angelo walks into the living room, pulls up the legs of his trousers, and sits down next to her. “He did mention it, in fact. And he was very irritated by it.”

  She raises an eyebrow.

  “Yes. He’d already had what looked to be his third sciacchetra by the time I gave him his shot. Not the best thing for a diabetic. Nor a man who needs strong sleeping pills . . .”

  Elodie tries to choose her questions carefully. She needs to know if the kommandant is more of a threat to her than she has previously thought.

  “I’m surprised they allowed a diabetic into the army. I thought the Reich only promoted men in perfect, Aryan health to such a position.”

  Angelo is bemused by her mental alacrity. “Oh, he didn’t know he was a diabetic when he first arrived in Portofino.” He shakes his head. “I was the one who diagnosed him. I’m not sure how they missed it at his physical. A simple urine test would have shown the results. And his symptoms were as clear as day. He was thirsty all the time, going to the bathroom constantly. Losing weight. He thought he had cancer, so when I told him he’d be fine with just a shot of insulin every day, he nearly gave me a medal.” As he answers her, he can’t help but smile; it is clear how intently Elodie is listening to him, and her attention flatters him.

  “Still, none of his men know about his medical issue. We have an unspoken agreement. I quietly take care of his health, and he lets me take care of my patients without interfering.”

  “Your patients? Why would he interfere with you taking care of children or old people? I’m sure there aren’t even a handful of men left in this town who could possibly be a threat to the German command.”

  “Well, I consider you one of my patients,” he tells her. “You’re someone who needs m
y care. It was clear as day that afternoon I first saw you coming off the dock.”

  “I am not sick, Angelo,” she says.

  “I never said you were sick, Anna.” He looks out the window before returning his gaze to her. “I just said you need my care.”

  When he calls her “Anna,” it always makes her feel as though she is somehow betraying him, and she dislikes that feeling immensely.

  “I am grateful for your kindness,” she says, folding her hands over her lap. She wonders if he already suspects what she feels obligated to tell him. That underneath this tired, white blouse is a stomach that is growing more taut with each passing day. He is a doctor, a man whose profession is rooted on his powers of observation. If Vanna has already sensed it, then perhaps she is the only one maintaining this facade of chastity.

  They return to the living room, where an open window brings fresh sea air into their lungs. He reaches into the coat of his suit jacket, rumpled from the day and soiled with what looks like mud from the woods.

  From his pocket he withdraws a small volume, a book of poetry a friend in the village has lent him.

  “Eugenio Montale, a poet native to this part of Italy . . .” He places a hand on the cover. “Do you know him?”

  She shakes her head no. “I’ve been reading one of your books by Moravia when you walked in just now . . .”

  He pulls off his coat and stretches his legs. “This one is even better,” he says, smiling. He licks his finger, turns to the first page, and begins to read aloud.

  Be pleased if the wind that enters the orchard

  brings back the surge of life:

  here where a dead tangle of memories

  sinks and founders,

  there was no garden, only a reliquary . . .

  Around them the poetry, the breeze, and the sound of his finger touching the edge of paper all feel like a protective embrace. A shield against the world and the war outside.

  The commotion you hear is not flight,

  But a commotion in the eternal womb . . .

  “Eternal womb . . .” and as the words lift off his tongue, she hears his voice crack.

  There is a brief pause between them. Elodie looks at Angelo, his face seemingly etched between two worlds: his past and the possibility of a shared future between them.

  She is moved by the sight of his fragility. A vulnerability that makes her want to reach out and touch his hand.

  She has an urge to be transparent with him. To tell him the truth about who she really is. To confess her real name and to tell him the story of what brought her to the Portofino dock that afternoon, when he picked her out from the crowd and saved her.

  But, after all this time, she doesn’t even know where to begin.

  She lifts her eyes up to him slightly, questioning if he has selected this poem for a particular reason. She wonders if it contains a code like the ones embedded within the music she played in her former life. But his was a message that had nothing to do with weapons, but rather of something growing between them.

  Her hands fall near the folds of her skirt. She sees his eyes fall to the small mound above her waist, no bigger than a wheel of bread.

  He doesn’t say a word. She looks at him. Notes and words, things that float on a page, are easy to read. But the interpretation of eyes is an ancient code. She studies his quiet focus; the blue-gray softness of his pupils. She wants to believe that his gaze is a benediction, a silent dialogue between them; an acknowledgment that he already knows the secret Vanna has pressed her to confess, and is not upset by it. But the potential danger from the mine incident and her new fear of the kommandant undermine her confidence. Suddenly, she finds herself very afraid.

  That night, after dinner, she walks out to the garden. The December air is cool, but not enough to cause the flowers or lemons outside to frost. The bees have all left and the mosquitoes are asleep. She imagines for a moment her mother now entrenched in Venice and wonders if up north there is already snow.

  Beside the small wooden bench, where small pots of herbs grow, she sits down to gather herself. Inside she feels a thousand things—fear, vulnerability, and a desperate urge to tell this man who has given her shelter that a life now grows inside of her.

  When she looks up, she sees Angelo standing underneath a trellis of roping green vines. She is suddenly struck in a way that both softens her and terrifies her. Her secrets have the potential to destroy him, and this creates an almost instinctual urge within Elodie to flee.

  “Anna,” he says. “May I sit with you?”

  “Yes,” she whispers. They rest for a moment side by side.

  “I never finished that book of poetry this afternoon. Would you like me to read you the rest?”

  She nods. As he begins to read, she is struck by the difference in his voice from the other times he has read for her. Angelo now reads not like a storyteller, but like a musician. She hears the melody of his voice, like the memory of her long-lost instrument. She hears the unmistakable sensation of wanting to keep certain words suspended in the air.

  “Bring me the sunflower so I can transplant it here in my own field burned by salt-spray . . .”

  She hears the beauty and sadness in his voice. The pull of his heart. And it haunts her. Blindsides her. She hears it as though he is channeling the ghosts of her cello and bow.

  That night, she lets him read to her until he reaches nearly the last page. He brings her a blanket, and she allows herself to receive this act of kindness from him for the last time. She has a desire to touch him, to feel the warmth of his fingers and the grip of his hand. But her fingers instead twist inside the cotton blanket.

  “Angelo . . .” She whispers his name with great tenderness. There is so much she wants to tell him, but “thank you” is all she manages to say.

  When she says these words to him, she feels her heart breaking. She places a hand on her abdomen, knowing full well she must now leave him before it is too late.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Portofino, Italy

  DECEMBER 1943

  The next morning, she hears his movements in the kitchen. The withdrawing of the plates from the cupboard. The placement of the cutlery on the table. The sound of water coming from the faucet. It is a familiar melody to her, but now Elodie hears it like a dirge.

  When Angelo leaves for his rounds in the village, she starts to pack the rucksack she held so carefully when he picked her out in the port months before. Now she replaces the contents inside it in reverse order. She places Luca’s sweater like a cushion on the bottom. Then she puts her own clothes directly on top of his.

  She pauses briefly to open the pages of The Little Prince and for a moment, the memory of Luca washes over her so strongly that she finds herself closing the book and resting it for a moment on her belly. She feels the sensation of movement inside her once again. It’s like a trapped wing beating within her, but the music of this fledgling life is like nothing she has ever known.

  She picks up Luca’s medal of San Giorgio. She places it on top of the book and the sheets of music she still hopes to one day return to the Wolf. With all of her remaining worldly goods now safe inside her rucksack, she laces it tightly and then silently makes her way out the door.

  She has not left the safety of Angelo’s home in the entire time she’s been in Portofino. From the height of the cliff, she can see the port below. The brightly colored fishing boats. The water, the color of a dissolving jewel. As she starts to walk down the steep hill, her legs feel as though she herself has spent too much time at sea as they shake beneath her.

  She knows that she is fleeing out of fear and has no clear plan for leaving Portofino. She hopes she can at least find one fisherman willing to take her someplace west. Like to an island as remote as Elba, a place where people go to forget, to live quietly and unnoticed like grains of sand.

  The
same sense of panic sweeps over her as it had when her cello was taken from her in Genoa. From the very moment the German said “Anna Zorzetto from Venice . . .” she knew she couldn’t go back to her mother and Valentina. She might place both women in danger if the officer decided to pursue her connection to the Wolf. Now, she feels a similar sense of panic wash over her. All she knows is that she needs to get away, to take the first boat leaving the port and protect the people she loved.

  She glances at the sky, a dull shade of pewter, and prays the village will now be as empty of Germans as Angelo has told her it is in the off-season.

  Midway down the hill, she is stopped by a German officer on patrol. His jacket is green, his jodhpurs the color of bark. Across his chest is a rifle that makes her blood grow cold.

  “Where are you going?” His Italian sounds wooden, as if he has learned the language with only half an ear.

  “I’m just going into town to buy some bread,” she answers without offering any further detail, as she was taught to do by Luca and Beppe.

  “It’s three o’clock. The bakery is now closed.” He glances over her, studying her carefully. “I haven’t seen you before. Do you live here?”

  “Yes,” she lies, thinking he would be more inclined to let a local girl move on her way.

  “Where?”

  “Just up the hill.” She gestures abstractly in that direction.

  “Why are you carrying such a big rucksack just to buy bread?”

  She does not flinch. Instead she looks straight into his eyes, as if she were aiming a revolver at him.

  “You’d better come with me,” he says, grabbing to take her by the arm.

  They walk for only a few minutes, down the path then up another hill toward a yellow church. Right before it stands a large red house with a tower, protected by an imposing metal gate.