The Secret Messenger

by Mandy Robotham

  Eventually, I can’t suffer the suspense any longer, and I walk towards Cristian’s desk, as casually as I can and with a translation query in hand. His face is a strange mix of worry and – if I’m not mistaken – a vague glimmer of pleasure. But then I’ve rarely managed to read him well.

  ‘There seems a big response to the explosion,’ I prod as he pores over my query.

  ‘Um, yes,’ is all he will say. He offers a solution to my translation question, hands back the paper, and then says, almost as an afterthought, ‘Sadly, some fatalities. Not pretty.’

  It’s not pretty, or it won’t be pretty? What does he mean? He doesn’t elaborate, and he’s back in Breugal’s office before I can nudge any more.

  After work, I make my way over to the streets near the Ca’ Giustinian, for no other reason than I feel I need to witness the scene, aware I will need to report on it for the paper. The site itself has been swiftly boarded up, with grim-faced sentries on guard. The smell of cordite, though, they can’t contain, and it sits in the air like an acrid fog. I fall into conversation with a few old women walking past who look like they might live nearby, casually asking if they witnessed the event, playing the part of a bewildered city dweller.

  ‘Isn’t it dreadful?’ I nod towards the debris.

  ‘My husband says he heard the explosion in the docks,’ one woman says.

  ‘It was pure chaos,’ another adds. ‘The guards were running around in total shock like little boys lost.’

  My conversations give me little more hard fact, but they will add a sense of humanity to the story, in grounding how real Venetians feel.

  The hard truth emerges later that day. There are thirteen dead, and the news is soon flooding Venice. Not all are military, but that won’t matter to the German High Command – we all know they will claim the moral higher ground, and declare the civilian casualties as martyrs when it suits them. And we wait for the retaliation.

  It comes soon enough. Another thirteen lives are lost, this time prisoners from the partisan band of San Donà di Piave, just outside Venice. They are marched into the ruins of the palace, subjected to a farcical mock trial and shot amid rubble from the explosion they clearly didn’t cause. Even so, they are branded ‘terrorists’ on the front pages of the fascist-run newspapers; rampant, bold words branding them as traitors to Italy. I’m reminded of how relieved I am to be out of the Il Gazzettino office.

  I’m sad and livid and desperate all in one heartbeat. I can barely contain my anger at work, and the next day I cry off early with a headache as I’m forced to type up details of the incident. I know for certain my brother’s name isn’t on the list of suspects, or the executed partisans, but it feels like little comfort. I wonder how on earth they can be stopped, this murderous machine of bullies?

  It goes against our safety measures as partisans, but I need to locate Sergio and beg to do something. I have an idea where he will be at this time of day, and I criss-cross most of Venice on foot, still careful to slink into alleyways and weave through courtyards fluttering with drying bedsheets, using them as a cloak for my movements. Some of the streets are eerily quiet in the afternoon siesta, the heat and the clip of my shoes bouncing off the sun-baked walls. More than once, I feel the crawl on my skin that I’m being followed, but in these highly charged times, it proves to be my own paranoia knocking.

  I locate Sergio, and beg to do something to help. He agrees to my request – the one thing I can do, need to do, when I feel out of my depth, when the world starts to spin. I need to write, to articulate these young and not-so-young men in words, make their case in print and stamp out the lies being told.

  ‘You do know that if we print the list of the dead there’s a good chance they will suspect it comes from your office?’ Sergio points out. He’s a calm, gentle man when not in the firing line, and his measured tone does make me think for a moment. Equally, he can see the flame in my eyes and nothing less than a direct order will stop me.

  ‘It could come from any number of places,’ I reason. ‘The news is all over Venice. Whispers from staff around the explosion site, witnesses to the execution. Anywhere.’

  Sergio sighs. He won’t quell my fervour.

  ‘All right,’ he says, his own frustration evident. ‘You go to Giudecca. I’ll send word to Arlo and the others and we’ll put out a special edition for tomorrow. After that, Stella, you lie low. Keep your routine, smile, be nice. But do not drop your guard.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I pledge. I’m not sure how I will do it, but I promise him all the same.

  By the time Arlo, Tommaso and Matteo join me in the basement, I’m already halfway through my front page. My typewriter voice is beating out a rhythm, seemingly of its own accord – we’re both intent on the same message and I can barely tear my eyes away from the keys as the men descend the steps.

  ‘All right Stella?’ Arlo nods, but there’s more sadness than cheer in his tone. Tommaso has brought a cup of coffee for me and sets it down with a weak smile. I could hug him.

  We work on with little chat and banter, given the subject of the paper, and it’s nearing curfew by the time I leave them putting on the finishing touches and getting ready to distribute. I only hope we’ve done the cause justice, put to the people of Venice the reasons behind such so-called ‘terrorism’ and why it’s both a necessity and consequence of war. However much it is wrong and heartbreaking, war creates casualties.

  I feel Popsa’s presence as the last vaporetto pushes its way towards the main island, imagine the breath of wind around me as his large hand on my shoulder. I feel I’ve done something – a small thing maybe – to redress the balance of Nazi slander against those sacrificed men. But as with everything, I question whether it’s enough. Will it really make a difference?

  Judging by the vehement bellow pushing out of Breugal’s office as I arrive the next morning, I gather it has had some impact.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ Marta pushes a copy of Venezia Liberare towards me, Arlo’s prominent headline of ‘INNOCENTS EXECUTED’ staring out.

  ‘His highness is livid.’ She sighs and smirks at the same time – at the level of Nazi behaviour we are forced to tolerate, and the fact that it’s also mildly amusing to see.

  I pray my face doesn’t betray how familiar I am with every letter of the print.

  ‘When did that come out?’ I say, all innocence. ‘They’ve got some nerve.’

  ‘This morning,’ Marta says. ‘I took it to him with his morning coffee and I thought he was about to explode. De Luca’s been in there ever since.’

  I settle down to work as best as I can with a herd of elephants stampeding around my guts. I catch only a little of the alternate grumble and barking coming from beyond the carved doors, but I don’t envy Cristian being in such close proximity to the sweating, swearing and apoplectic general. It’s not a pleasant image.

  Cristian emerges looking drained and is immediately immersed in phone calls; I catch snippets about extra patrols. He’s speaking in Italian, and I wonder if ‘the patrols’ means the fascist Black Brigade, the men in ebony whose actions are only ever malicious, but I can’t make out the conversation. I sense Cristian looking across at me on occasion and, once again, I think he might come over to ask me something. But his face is drained, his eyes focused and his nose almost touching his notebook, and he scratches away at the pages. I wonder if he’s compiling a list, and whose lives will be changed irrevocably as a result.

  24

  Across the Lagoon

  Venice, July 1944

  I feel helpless and lonely as I leave work. The anger fuelling my adrenalin the previous day has sunk inside me, shaping a melancholy I have no hope of evicting, not today at least. Guilt sits alongside, with my own admission that I don’t want to escape to my parents’ house for what has reverted to being only a weekly visit. I have nothing to ease their ongoing distress over Vito’s absence, and it’s become painful to see my mother wither with angst. Mimi is at her day job or engaged w
ith Resistance work. I envy her being kept busy, but I also know Sergio has spread the word that I should lie low and avoid messenger duties for a while. I could sit in Paolo’s bar, but it’s so close to home I’ll have no excuse but to finish my drink and sit inside my own four walls, with only my desolation for company.

  I sit on the waterfront instead, not far from San Marco, the space in front of me shared by a line of discarded gondolas, five or six tied together in a huddle. A large patrol boat sweeps by, causing the wash to smack against their sides in sequence, the noise almost as a united protest at their pitiful abandonment. I feel equally forlorn.

  I look to San Giorgio tower and, in the distance to its left, the Lido, and beyond to where I know Jack is, and a willing ear for my woes. Doubtless, too, a cheerful slant on what feels like the dark side of Venice’s gleaming jewel. Jack could spot the colour in the grey mist, I’m sure of it.

  I know I’m feeling unduly sorry for myself and, on a whim, I decide to do something about it. It goes against Sergio’s orders and it’s reckless, but I board a Motonavi vessel for the Lido. I can’t think what I’ll do when I’m there, but I will be nearer at least. There’s a combination of green and grey uniforms as I sit on the deck and adopt a well-practised neutral expression, face drinking in the warm glow of the sun. One of the troops works hard at catching my eye and, lest he mistakes my neutrality for a scowl, I smile back, pasting on more of my guise. Luckily, we approach the berth and I escape his approach, but I feel his eyes on my back and the knowledge of where I’m about to go makes me fizz with excitement and fear.

  Checking I’m not being followed, I walk purposefully to the smaller harbour, where the fishing boats moor up. With fuel on ration for the smaller motorboats, there’s plenty of demand for transport around the Lido and to the other islands, and I catch the eye of one of the fishermen – old and grizzled equals experienced to me. He raises an eyebrow at my stated destination, but he doesn’t refuse the lira notes I offer.

  It’s dusk when we reach the small harbour, but I know where I’m going this time. The woman behind the bar recognises me and, with a wry smile, escorts me a few doors down to another tiny cottage, up a small flight of outside stairs, and raps on the door.

  ‘Jack, you’ve got a visitor,’ she calls, and there’s a scrabbling behind the door.

  His expression is everything I’d hoped for – not shock but genuine surprise and pleasure. For a split second after the door knock I felt sure I’d made a huge mistake, that he was entertaining some local girl in there, and the barmaid was playing a cruel trick on the naïve, city girl, that I should turn tail and somehow make it back to Venice and the safety of my own house and heart. But the bright white smile amid his darkened, tanned skin is everything I need.

  ‘Hey traveller, come on in,’ Jack says, and opens the door wide. I feel truly welcome.

  It’s a tiny, one-roomed annexe, with bare boards and a small sink off to one side. Instantly, I see Jack is a military man – the room is ordered and tidy, a small pile of clothing folded and stacked beside a mattress on wooden pallets. There’s a paraffin cooking stove, a teapot standing to attention beside it, and a desk in one corner covered by a rough tarpaulin. But the most striking element is the light; windows on three sides of the room, waist-to-ceiling height, causing beams of dusky purple to stream across the boards.

  ‘Hello, I hope you don’t mind me—’ I’m silenced by a kiss, urgent but tender, and I don’t need to ask or worry any more.

  We take advantage of the remaining light outside and walk along the harbour, hand in hand. His limp is less pronounced now; he barely notices it any more, he says, only a slight twinge if he gets up too quickly.

  ‘So what’s wrong, Stella? What brings you here?’ He says it with a wry smile – he’s not annoyed I’m using him as a sounding board.

  I tell him, about the crescendo of past weeks – the fire, explosion and the executions. The news has reached him, of course, but it’s my own reactions that he listens to intently, squeezing my hand when I can’t help but overflow with tears. He stops and offers me a square of cloth from his pocket – it smells of engine oil but is strangely comforting.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be coming here and offloading on you.’

  ‘Why not? I can add confidant to my list of new-found skills – radio operator, fishnet specialist and boat mechanic.’

  I knew I could rely on Jack to inject some humour into any situation.

  ‘For the first time in this war, I feel totally at sea,’ I say, ‘and yet I have no right to be. I haven’t lost anyone close to me’ – here I banish thoughts of Vito lying on a slab from my mind – ‘and I have employment. I’m proud of the newspaper—’

  ‘So you should be,’ he cuts in. ‘It’s a route to the truth, when all we have are the fascist printed lies. I rely on it for the real news.’ He kisses me again, full on the lips but not beyond. It feels like deep affection pulsing through. Then he breaks into his boy-Jack grin that’s such a comfort.

  ‘And I see you in every word, every letter. I can tell it’s you.’

  ‘You can?’

  ‘Of course,’ he adds. ‘So you can’t give up. None of us can. We have to keep going, because that’s what will win this war for us. Sheer bloody-mindedness.’

  I feel foolish in admitting that I miss Gaia and Raffiano in times like these – a silly, fickle figment of my imagination, but my release all the same. Still, I’m at ease in declaring it to Jack.

  ‘Then why don’t you write it?’ he says, and suddenly it seems so sensible. I’ve been waiting for a purpose when I don’t need one. I just need my typewriter.

  ‘When I’m low, I write letters to my mother,’ he adds. ‘I know they won’t get to her, there’s no way I can send them, but it makes me feel we have some form of connection. One day she’ll read them.’

  He dips his head low as we walk. ‘I write to you sometimes too.’

  ‘Do you?’ I’m genuinely surprised I occupy a space anywhere near his family.

  ‘It makes me feel that we will at least meet again.’ He grips my hand again. ‘And here you are. So clearly it does work!’

  Jack restores something in me, not just with his talk of Resistance determination, but in the way he looks at life. Stuck in the middle of the Mediterranean, with no foreseeable way out for now, he is contributing in any way he can, looking to the future beyond a Nazi-led fascist Italy.

  We call into the bar and Jack talks to the woman behind the counter, clearly one of his many ‘mamas’. She emerges with a pot of something wrapped in a cloth and a hunk of seed bread. Soon we are back in his room, candles dotted around and food laid on a blanket on the floor. It’s the tastiest shrimp pasta and the best picnic I’ve ever had. One of the harbour cats paws and mews at the door, and Jack lets it in, setting down a saucer of the pasta juice, and giving up one of his own shrimp.

  ‘He’s taken a bit of a shine to me, this one,’ he says.

  ‘I’m not surprised, feeding him shrimp. Has he got a name?’

  ‘I just call him Matey. Seems appropriate.’ And the cat falls into ecstasy as Jack tickles his dirty white fur under the chin.

  Afterwards, he makes tea and we lie on his bed, propped on our elbows and talking about our lives beyond the war, him making me laugh about his army training and the ‘soft’ mama’s boy made tough.

  The curfew comes and goes and it’s clear I’m staying the night. But I feel no pressure or presumption. I undress down to my underwear and he follows, the scar on his leg a deep purple welt until we slip under the blanket and kiss. But it goes no further. Not because I don’t want it to, but because it feels right to take it slow. He’s so gentle, and such a gentleman, and he makes me feel that it’s right too. He strokes at my hip but he doesn’t clasp, falls short of pulling his body towards mine. We fall asleep to the distant clanking of the boats and the gentle purring of the cat at the bottom of the bed.

  The light bombarding the windows
wakes us. It’s five a.m., and I need to move if I’m to make it back to the Lido in time for the Motonavi to the main island and tidy myself up for work. Another long day ahead. But it’s worth the gritty sleep in my eyes as the wind blows through my hair on the boat back to the mainland. It will have to be a substitute for a bath or a strip wash, for now at least.

  Jack makes the parting easier on the dockside, kissing me with combined affection and cheer, almost like he is a husband and I a wife, and he’s waving me off to work for the day. ‘I’m not going to say a proper goodbye,’ he smiles. ‘Because hopefully that means you’ll be back. Be safe, Stella.’ I believe him as he waves and turns before I have time to be sad.

  The office is still in a state of unrest over the next two or three days, despite the absence of both Breugal and Cristian. Everyone is clearly wondering what lies around the next corner in this war.

  On the third day, Cristian returns. I think he looks drained and, after our time at the palazzo party – how long ago that seems now – I wonder how much appeasement and diplomacy he’s had to dispense. Then I think: good. He needs to. They, the filthy Reich and their hand-holding Benito-lovers, need to know we will retaliate.

  I put my head down and concentrate on pulling every secret, valuable piece of information from what’s in front of me.

  ‘Are you well, Signorina Jilani – Stella?’ I glimpse Cristian’s polished shoes to my side, that familiar accent in my ear.

  ‘Er, yes,’ I say, still typing. His feet shuffle and I have to look up, but his expression means I can’t draw my gaze away instantly. ‘I’m … I’m all right.’

  ‘In the circumstances?’

  ‘Yes, in the circumstances.’ What is he talking about? Is he trying to draw out my sympathies for the dead, those executed in retaliation?

  ‘I hoped you were all right,’ he goes on. ‘You seemed upset.’ It’s the first time he’s asked after me personally since that night on my doorstep.