The Garden of Letters

by Alyson Richman

  “Here,” the German says as he momentarily lets go of Elodie’s arm. She pauses as if suddenly stuck by an arrow. On the side of the wall, pressed into the cement pillar, she sees a marble plaque with the words San Giorgio etched into the stone. And above the door of the villa there is a marble relief of San Giorgio thrusting his sword into a dragon.

  “San Giorgio,” she whispers involuntarily, like a single breath escaping. Inside her rucksack, she can feel the flame of her medal, as if the satchel now contains its own fire.

  “Yes,” the German says, as he hears her murmur. “He’s the patron saint of this village. Or didn’t you know that already, living here as you claim to?”

  Music is playing inside the red house as they enter. It is a piece Elodie has performed many times in her life, the prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1. It rises off the Victrola like a lullaby from Elodie’s past.

  “This way,” the German orders her. They walk through a marble hallway. Large pieces of baroque furniture rest against the walls. When they arrive in the main receiving room, Elodie looks up to see a large tapestry woven in green and gold, the image of San Giorgio emerging through the threads like an apparition.

  She suddenly senses Luca all around her. The revelation that the patron saint of Portofino is the same one he had chosen for his own protective talisman makes her feel as though Luca is sending her comforting signs from beyond the grave.

  “Mein kommandant.” The German salutes. From behind, Elodie makes out the kommandant’s thin blonde hair and the thick, pink fingers, which grip his armchair.

  “Just a moment,” he says without turning. “It’s almost finished.”

  Elodie closes her eyes. The music is unmistakable. She hears the cello strings as though they were strung as tight as twine across her heart. It has been months since she’s heard the instrument played, and the record reminds her of her family, her past, and her cello that was taken from her. The pain is raw and piercing.

  “Yes, please . . . let it finish,” Elodie utters, even with the German’s hand still gripping her arm. “I adore the Bach cello suites.”

  The kommandant turns his head, and suddenly the air changes within the room. He looks at Elodie not as prisoner brought in for questioning, but as something unexpected: a fellow Bach connoisseur.

  Neither Elodie nor the kommandant speaks until the conclusion of the piece. But the kommandant watches Elodie carefully. Her body remains rigid under the other soldier’s grip, but her eyes are alive, her pupils registering every nuance of the music.

  When the music ends, the kommandant stands up and goes to the Victrola. He lifts the needle off the record with a careful hand.

  The soldier comes over and whispers something into the kommandant’s ear. The elder man dismisses him from the room and then approaches Elodie. She can see the pores of his skin and the gray of his eyes.

  “What a curious girl you are . . . You recognize the Bach Suites?”

  “Yes. I, too, love Pablo Casals’s recording of them.”

  “Hmm . . . Why?”

  She thinks of making a comment about Casals’s well-known anti-Fascist politics, but refrains. “Well, to start . . . he’s a master of the cello.”

  She is not sure if she has revealed too much. But the presence of San Giorgio throughout the house has bolstered her confidence.

  She knows little about the kommandant except for what Angelo has told her. His proclivity for liquor. The diabetes, and their daily arrangement for his late-afternoon insulin injections. But she also recalls that Angelo has mentioned how the kommandant often needed strong barbiturates to fall asleep. His need for pills and a diagnosis of diabetes were private matters he didn’t want made known.

  “Yes, Casals,” the kommandant says. “I can’t say the men in Berlin would approve of my listening to someone who has given their friend General Franco such a hard time. But he is indeed a virtuoso beyond compare.” As he walks closer toward her, she realizes he believes he is more than just a connoisseur of music, but also a master of detection.

  Her back stiffens like a cat. Her eyes flash, and suddenly she sees in the corner of the room several shapes that are so familiar to her. The dark case of a violin and the large, almost womanly shape of a cello.

  “You are not from Portofino,” he states as he stares at her up and down.

  She returns his gaze. They are both players in a game of chess. “No, I am not . . . I’ve been staying with a distant cousin of mine. Angelo Rosselli, the village doctor . . .”

  The kommandant grunts, a small smile appearing on his lips.

  “Do you know him?”

  “Yes, I know him very well. I was told there was a young, pretty cousin staying with him.” He considers Elodie again, inspecting her even more carefully than before.

  “My colleague said it looks like you’re packed to leave Portofino. Yet you claim to merely be going out for bread.”

  “Yes,” she answers, her voice carefully measured. “Is this now a crime?”

  “I’m not sure . . . Let me see your papers, and then we can decide.”

  Elodie feels her fear ignite inside her. She fishes into her rucksack, touching her medal of Saint George as she searches to retrieve her forged papers.

  She hands them over to the kommandant, who reads them with a quick glance.

  “Anna Zorzetto. From Venice?”

  She merely offers a slight shrug in response.

  “That’s a long way from here. I had no idea our village doctor was partially Venetian.”

  “It’s a distant relation.”

  “I see. And you left Venice because?”

  “The threat of bombs, of course. My mother felt it would be safer here.”

  “Of course.” The kommandant nods his head as if humoring her. “Have they bombed Venice? I thought it was only Verona.”

  The mention of her home makes Elodie feel as though he is dragging a shard of glass across her back. But she stifles her urge to reveal her discomfort.

  “Every night there was the sound of sirens. I couldn’t sleep. Here it is peaceful.”

  “A long way to journey just for a better night’s sleep, Anna.”

  “Insomnia is a plague,” she answers, already aware of his weakness. “If you don’t suffer from it, you wouldn’t understand.”

  Her words register with him immediately. She can see his eyes come alive as though they speak the same language. “I actually do understand. Quite well, in fact.”

  She does not answer.

  “So, Anna . . . I see we share two things in common. Insomnia and a love of music.” He reaches for the decanter next to the Victrola and pours himself a small glass of liqueur.

  “I’m not terribly curious about your life in Venice. I don’t want to hear about your mother nor the suffering you endured from the sound of the sirens. What I would like to know—before I decide what to do with you—is how you could recognize Casals’s playing of the Bach.”

  Elodie remains quiet. Her eyes focus for a moment on the instrument cases in the corner. She is like a drowning woman now eyeing a life preserver.

  “That’s easy, sir,” she finally answers. “I have played the cello for years.”

  He offers her the cello, as if it were a pawn he can spare in their chess game. The black case is placed on a table and then unlatched. The glimmering instrument is more golden than the one taken from her in Genoa, but its beauty nonetheless captivates her.

  “Bello,” she says as her finger reaches to touch its varnish.

  “It was my father’s,” he says. “The violin is mine.”

  She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t want to waste her breath with words. If she is going to save herself, she knows it can only be done by her bringing this instrument to life.

  “May I?”

  He nods. “Yes. Please.”

/>   He offers her a chair. Sitting down with the cello, she expertly positions it between her knees. To buy some time to further calm herself, she searches the case for a piece of rosin, which she applies to the bow as she has done thousands of times in the past.

  She pulls the cello to her chest and notices her abdomen is thicker than when she had played at the Bibiena months before. For the first time, there is now something separating her and the cello she is playing on.

  There is another life.

  This new life buoys Elodie. It gives her a new motivation. It is not only herself that she must now save, but the child as well.

  Elodie grasps the bow and, by rote, slides it over the strings to tune the instrument. In her head, she can hear her father plucking a perfect A to help her, as though he, too, were now standing there waiting to hear her play once more.

  When she feels she is ready, she takes a deep breath and lifts her bow. To anyone looking at the living room, the resemblance between the girl wielding her bow and the image of Saint George raising his sword to slay the dragon, is uncanny.

  The pieces she chooses to play probably have little significance for the kommandant. But for her, they are the most meaningful ones she could possibly have selected. She re-creates her final performance at the Bibiena. First the “Belles of Genevieve,” and then the “Dying Swan.” When she finishes, she lifts her head and sees the kommandant standing with his mouth open, his eyes almost wet with tears.

  “Beautiful,” he murmurs. “Exquisito.”

  He reaches for the glass of sciacchetra he has poured for himself, and extends his arm to take the bow from her.

  “I’m not finished,” she says boldly. “I still have one more piece.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “As you wish . . . I will not stop you.”

  Elodie begins to play, again impassioned, the notes of the Boccherini concerto rising from her cello like stitches of a quilt being plucked and released into the air. When she arrives at the place where she had once mistakenly played the Grutzmacher cadenza, she does not now pause. Instead, she increases the fervor of her playing. She is like a diver thrusting herself deeper into the water. She plays the code that she faltered on months before. She plays it this time for the ears of the Wolf and Luca, and she plays it with perfection. She plays it just for them. A tribute to them alone.

  The kommandant is speechless. He places his drink down and begins to clap. He is surprised by this gifted girl in his living room, brought to him like a stray dog with a dirty rucksack and a face that looks like a fox.

  Elodie does not look up right away. Had she lifted her gaze then, she would have seen the second figure that had just entered the room.

  Angelo had arrived to administer the kommandant’s injection before making his way home to her. He stands at the threshold to the room, amazed by the beauty of Elodie’s music, hidden from him until now.

  Before he can speak, the kommandant’s voice fills the air:

  “What a talent your cousin has, Dottore. Knowing my love of music, why have you kept her a secret from me?”

  Angelo stands at the threshold, seeing Elodie’s head lifting from the scroll of her cello. For a second, her eyelids are still partially closed, as though she is waking from a long sleep. When her eyes finally do open, it strikes him straight to his heart, as though he is seeing her true self for the first time.

  He notices her rucksack against the leg of the chair and reads her more clearly than he has ever before. He doesn’t care what trouble first drove her to Portofino, or what has caused her to leave in haste from the shelter of his home. He will now do anything in his power to save her.

  “Kommandant,” he says walking into the room. His fingers whiten around the handle of his black medicine bag. “I’m so glad you’ve had the chance to hear Anna play. I’ve been meaning to mention her to you for some time now. She’s been a great pride to the family for many years. Isn’t she wonderful?”

  “Indeed, she is,” the kommandant says. “A veritable virtuoso. So unexpected here in this hidden corner of the world.”

  “Isn’t it the nature of Portofino to keep its beauty for a chosen few?”

  The kommandant nods. Another chess game begins, this time between the two men. One with a gun in his desk. The other with a leather bag filled with syringes and pills.

  “Yes. How fortunate we are here compared to the rest of Italy. No one’s bombing us, while Milan and Salerno burn to the ground. Your cousin traveled a great length to get here, just because she couldn’t sleep with the sirens blaring in Venice.”

  Angelo glances at Elodie, who is frozen. Her arms grasp the cello toward her belly like armor.

  “It’s terrible not to be able to sleep, as you well know, Herr Kommandant.”

  “Yes. I’ve told Anna how we share this affliction. So many things we have in common, she and I . . . music, sleeplessness, and a desire to be left here alone.”

  Angelo’s bag contains the sole source of his power. The needle and syringe that he can administer without the kommandant’s ever feeling any pain from his touch, and the white tablets of Nembutal, which enable him to sleep.

  He walks closer to Elodie and the kommandant. He looks to Elodie, his eyes reassuring her with a glance. On the long wooden table, he places his leather bag and unlatches it, the sound of the metal snap filling the air in one sharp note.

  “Your insulin, Kommandant. It shouldn’t be administered too late today.”

  The kommandant walks over to his chair and rolls up his sleeve. His authority suddenly yields to Angelo, who swabs the man’s bicep with cotton soaked with alcohol. He pushes the needle into the glass vial and pulls back the syringe.

  “Another artist in the family,” the kommandant says, rolling down his sleeve. “I didn’t feel a thing.”

  “And how’s your sleep been?” Angelo says as he reaches his hands down into his bag. Elodie can hear a faint jangle of pills. A temptation. She hears it like windchimes.

  “I’m happy to keep helping you with your problem,” he says as he measures out just a few pills and places them in a spare glass bottle. He prudently doesn’t leave too many. He wants to keep the kommandant hungry for more. He needs to preserve their arrangement. He needs to protect himself. And Elodie, most of all. His and the kommandant’s arrangement, much like the cello she now holds to her belly, is a shield.

  FORTY

  Portofino, Italy

  DECEMBER 1943

  The kommandant tells them to both go home. “I have no need to hear any war stories about Venice, Anna,” he tells her. “Or anywhere else, for that matter. But don’t think you’re not going to be playing for me again. You’re my secret now, too.” There is an understanding made between them that requires no further conversation. His eyes communicate their agreement between the two men.

  “Take her and go home, Dottore. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Elodie packs up the cello in silence and returns it to the corner. Angelo waits for her at the steps that lead to the hallway. When she approaches him, her rucksack now strapped to her back, he takes her by the hand.

  They have never touched before and the sensation of his fingers wrapped in hers, feels like a promise. She no longer feels alone. She no longer feels afraid.

  Hand in hand, they begin to walk up the hill toward his house.

  This time when he asks if he can carry her bag, she slips it off her back and gives it to him without any trepidation. When they arrive at the archway, it is Elodie who lifts the tangle of vines, so Angelo can get to the heavy green door with ease.

  They enter the house in silence, their movements are those of a couple who have returned from a long journey and are thankful to be home.

  He places down her rucksack and leaves his medicine bag on a chair.

  She is already in the kitchen peeling an orange. He takes a pitcher and fills it wi
th water. He brings it to the living room. She places the plate of orange wedges down. Then two glasses for the water.

  “Sit,” she tells him softly.

  He lowers himself into the worn sofa. His eyes are blue as a gull’s. His mouth soft like the lip of a shell.

  “I need to tell you a story,” she says as she, too, sits down.

  He looks up at her.

  “I’ve been waiting,” he says. And his words finally release her.

  Elodie starts off slowly. “This is not a story like in your novels,” she tells him. “Nor is it as beautiful as the poetry you read yesterday, which warmed the air. This is a story that is full of heartache and will make your blood run cold.”

  He stares at her. He is full of wonder, the music that she played an hour before is still in his ears. “Anna,” he says. “I am happy that you are here. No matter what you tell me, please know that I will always give you shelter. You are safe with me.”

  She wonders if this is the first seedling of love, the embrace of protection. She feels it like a blanket of warmth covering her limbs and penetrating her bones.

  “You are so very kind . . .” But she holds her breath, not yet fully believing him. Soon he will learn the truth that she is not Anna Zorzetto, but Elodie Bertolotti. A cello student from Verona, a staffetta for the Resistance, and a pregnant woman whose lover—not even her husband—died on the soil of the Monte Comune.

  “When I first arrived, you said you picked me out from the crowd because I looked the most afraid.” Her voice quivers. Her hands are like a folded dove over her belly. Her eyes lift from the floor to meet his own.

  “Two months ago, I left Venice, telling my mother that there was someone in Genoa who needed my help. She begged me not to go, saying that it was too dangerous for me to travel. Already the sound of sirens was deafening, and we slept every night fearing a bomb might drop on our heads.”

  Her heart is racing inside her. She looks again at Angelo, who has not taken his eyes off her.