Tell Me Who I Am

by Julia Navarro

  “What problem is that?” Professor Soler asked.

  “Well, I believe that journalism is a public service whose most important duty is to truth, not to the interests of the politicians, the bankers, the businessmen, the unions, or whoever it is who pays my wages.”

  “Well, you’ve got a problem, then.”

  “You can’t imagine how big it is.”

  After I had said goodbye to Professor Soler I walked along thinking of Francesca Venezziani. I was happy with the idea of seeing her again, it was pleasant when she’d invited me to dinner at her loft. My mother would be angry, of course, when I said I was going away again. Maybe I would have to sit her down and tell her something about her grandmother, maybe that way she would forgive me. But no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I regretted it. It was not ethical to give out information that didn’t belong to me. But I had to tell my mother something to make her trust me, and I couldn’t imagine what that might be.

  I was lucky, because as soon as I arrived at Prat airport I found a flight for Madrid just ready to leave. When I got back to Madrid I went straight to my mother’s house.

  “Surprise!” I said when she opened the door.

  “Haven’t I told you not to call on me unannounced?” she said, as her way of greeting me.

  “Yes, but I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to come and give you a kiss whenever I felt like it,” I said as I hugged her, trying to overcome her ill humor.

  My mother gave in and invited me in for dinner, and to my surprise we argued less than we normally did, I don’t know if it was because I was tired or simply because she thought that it better to give up on me as an impossible case.

  The next day I decided before leaving for Rome to call William Hurley, the important military archivist. I wanted him to clear something up that Professor Soler had mentioned: those two mysterious visits of Señora Rodríguez. I knew something that I thought Professor Soler probably did not, that this woman was in fact an agent of British intelligence. I needed to know if she had visited Amelia for questions of “work.”

  Major Hurley was not at all pleased that I should call him so soon after our last meeting. He had thought that after telling me about Amelia’s adventures in Warsaw he would be free of me for a good long while, but here I was, just a week later, ringing at his door, or rather, his telephone.

  He tried to give me excuses: He said that he was very busy with a bowls tournament that the veterans of his former unit were organizing, and that he had no time to tell me why Señora Rodríguez had visited Amelia in Madrid.

  “Are you so impatient you can’t wait even a week?”

  “You don’t know how sorry I am to interrupt your planning for the bowls tournament, but I cannot continue without you.”

  “Young man, you are the one investigating your great-grandmother’s past, not me.”

  “Yes, but I think that the past I am looking for is in your archives, so I have no option other than to bother you, Major. But I promise it will not take long.”

  “I have to admit that I was expecting this call, though not so soon, but I must insist that I cannot help you now, I am going to Bath tomorrow afternoon and neither you nor I nor any force on God’s green earth will stop me from attending the bowls tournament.”

  “Nothing was further from my intention...”

  “Well, the only thing I can tell you is that your great-grandmother was persuaded to return to her collaboration with the British Secret Service.”

  “So it was Señora Rodríguez who convinced her to return to action.”

  “In fact, it was not down to Señora Rodríguez’s powers of persuasion, but the cause espoused by Carla Alessandrini.”

  “So now you are leaving me with more questions than answers. Couldn’t you tell me something else? I am going to Rome soon and I don’t know where to start.”

  “Call me in the morning,” he ordered me, ill-humoredly, and hung up.

  I called him the next day, with British punctuality.

  “You are right, at the end of 1942 and later in 1943, the British Secret Service got in touch with your great-grandmother in Madrid. It wasn’t the first time that they did so, but it appeared that she didn’t want to hear anything else about the war or spying, and so they sent Señora Rodríguez. After her life had been saved in Poland, Amelia had sent a long report to Lord Paul James in which she told everything that had happened to her and at the end said that they shouldn’t rely on her for any more help. Lord James was not one to turn away from problems, or allow flaws in his plans, so he did not give up: It was only a question of waiting for an auspicious time to bring Amelia back to spying. And such an occasion arose in Rome, where she and Colonel von Schumann were going to have a nasty surprise.”

  “Yes? What happened?”

  “Señora Rodríguez got in touch with Amelia Garayoa to tell her that her friend Carla Alessandrini was collaborating with the Allied secret services, and that she had run into some problems. No, I’m not going to tell you anything else. I’ve told you that I’m heading off this afternoon and I have a lot to do. Call me in a week and I will see you with pleasure.”

  There was no point insisting. Major Hurley was implacable. We agreed that we would see each other in a few days, and so I could spend the time in between investigating with Francesca in Rome. The plan seemed perfect.

  8

  I went to Rome without telling Francesca in advance, taking it for granted that she would be pleased to see me. I called her as soon as I arrived at my hotel.

  “Cara, I’m in Rome! Can I invite you to dinner this evening?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you... Well, I came for you to help me with my investigation into my great-grandmother. I’ll tell you tonight. Apparently Amelia Garayoa came to Rome in the autumn of 1943 to meet your diva, Carla Alessandrini. I’m sure you can help me. But we can discuss the details over dinner. How about Il Bolognese?”

  “I’m sorry, Guillermo, but I cannot have dinner with you this evening, I am otherwise engaged.”

  “Oh, what bad luck! How about lunch tomorrow?”

  “No... I can’t do tomorrow either. Maybe it’s better for you to tell me what you’re looking for and then if I find it I can call you, how about that? Where are you staying?”

  “Close to your house, at the Hotel d’Inghilterra. I want to know if Amelia was here with Carla in Rome in the winter of 1943.”

  “I’ll call you,” she said, and hung up.

  I was very disappointed. I hadn’t thought that Francesca would be so indifferent to me. I was sure that we had hit it off, and that we’d had a good time together the last two times we’d seen each other; and now here she was, evasive, even unfriendly. It was upsetting.

  I walked around Rome for two days, my mind made up not to call her. I wanted her to realize that I had no intention of following her around like a lapdog. But I got nervous and decided that I couldn’t waste my time anymore, and on the third day I called her.

  “Francesca, cara, have you forgotten about me?” I said in my best tone of voice.

  “Oh, it’s you! I was going to call you to ask if you would like to have dinner with me this evening at my house.”

  “Wonderful! You can’t imagine how much I want to see you. I’ll bring the wine, is that alright?”

  “Yes, bring what you want. Come at nine.”

  What a weight off my shoulders! It’s not so much that Francesca had been friendly with me, but at least she had invited me to dinner in her wonderful loft, so I couldn’t complain. I was sure that she must be going through a bad time professionally, and that this had meant that she wasn’t in as good a mood as she had been the last couple of times. Nothing better than a good meal and a good bottle of wine to sort things out.

  I went out at once, to find a shop where I could get a bottle of excellent Barolo. I was so excited that I decided to buy a cake for dessert as well.

  Francesca seemed a little distan
t when I arrived at her house. She opened the door and scarcely allowed me to brush her cheek with my lips.

  “You don’t know how much I have wanted to see you,” I said in my most seductive tone of voice.

  “Come and sit down, so I can explain some things to you before we eat.”

  “Alright, we’re in no hurry.”

  “It depends for what.”

  “If you want, we could eat first and talk later,” I suggested.

  “No, we have to wait for Paolo, we can’t eat until he gets here.”

  “Paolo? Who is Paolo?”

  “Didn’t I say?”

  “No,” I said, slightly annoyed.

  “Goodness, how strange! I’m sure I told you that Paolo was coming.”

  “Well, who is Paolo?” I insisted.

  “Paolo Plattini is an expert in the history of the Second World War in Italy. There isn’t anything he doesn’t know. He has spent years working with archives and classified documents. You can’t imagine how much he is helping me. And you. Because if it weren’t for him, it would be difficult for me to tell you what you’re going to be told about Amelia’s stay in Rome at the end of 1943.”

  The bell rang and Paolo came straight in to Francesca’s apartment.

  “Hello everyone!” he said, and went over to Francesca and gave her a kiss straight on the lips. Then he held out his hand to me and smiled broadly.

  I had no sooner seen him than I thought that it must be a man I had seen that morning, looking at the Piazza di Spagna.

  Sadly for me, Paolo Plattini was charm personified. He was an extroverted Roman with a great capacity for communication, which made him the center of attention. He was too clever and attractive to compete with, and he was at that mature age that makes sensible women lose their heads. I immediately said goodbye to Francesca in my mind.

  “I don’t know if you know, but there’s a book of memoirs written by a partisan a few years after the war ended that mentions your great-grandmother. This is the most trustworthy and direct source of information on Amelia’s travels and adventures in Italy, because it’s by a person who knew her and who had a close relationship with her. He was called Mateo Marchetti, and he was Carla Alessandrini’s singing teacher, an old Communist whom the diva worshipped.”

  “I had no idea that the book existed,” I said, interested.

  “That’s not surprising, it has only ever been published in a very limited edition, only two thousand copies. It was a favor from the editor of a small publishing house, another Communist, to Marchetti. The book didn’t make much of a splash, but it has a certain historical value. I remembered it when Francesca told me that she was finding it hard to get information about what Carla Alessandrini had done in the war. Can you read Italian?” he said, and held out to me an old paperback book.

  “I can try.”

  “Well, I think that it will be of use to you. In any event, if you want to take notes or record what I’m going to say, then I think I can reconstruct pretty well certain details of your aunt’s stay in Rome in the winter of 1943.”

  Paolo began talking, and I must confess that I said nothing until he was finished.

  Amelia came to Rome accompanied by a colonel in the German army, Baron von Schumann, whom Carla had met years ago in Berlin. According to Marchetti, von Schumann was no fan of Hitler’s, but, like a good Prussian, he obeyed orders without complaint.

  Colonel von Schumann was staying at the Excelsior, a very elegant hotel, and accompanied Amelia to Carla Alessandrini’s house. The diva would not have forgiven Amelia if she had stayed anywhere else. Carla had asked her on numerous occasions to come and visit, you know that she loved her like a daughter. But Amelia and von Schumann were surprised when they arrived at Carla’s house and found, not her, but her distraught husband, Vittorio Leonardi.

  “Amelia, how happy I am to see you!” he said, embracing her tightly.

  Then he greeted Colonel von Schumann politely, but coolly, which surprised Amelia. Vittorio had met Colonel von Schumann in Berlin and they had spent several evenings together, and this new coolness was at odds with their former relation. Amelia saw Vittorio’s nervousness without understanding his hostility toward Max von Schumann. He didn’t even invite him into the house. Von Schumann took his leave. He had to go and report to his superiors. As soon as Vittorio and Amelia were alone, she asked him straight out.

  “Vittorio, what’s happened? Where is Carla?”

  “She’s been arrested.”

  “Arrested? But why?” Amelia said in alarm.

  “For collaborating with the partisans. Really, it’s my fault.”

  “My God, tell me what happened!”

  “The SS have her.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve told you, Carla has been working with the Resistance and I think that... well, I think that she’s also been in touch secretly with the Allies.”

  “And you?”

  “This is my fault for having allowed such things to happen. We even fought about it, but you know the influence that her singing teacher Mateo Marchetti has over her. Carla has always helped Marchetti’s friends, she’s been opposed to Mussolini ever since he became leader of Italy, and she has never been shy about showing it. But she is la gran Carla Alessandrini, and so everyone was nice to her, as if her opposition were merely an eccentricity. But actually, Carla’s collaboration with the partisans has grown ever closer. Our house in Milan became a refuge for fugitives, as did our place in Rome. Then she started to help take people over the border, people who were about to be arrested by the police or the SS. People whom Marchetti asked Carla to save. And not just him, but also that German priest who’s a friend of yours, Father Müller. You can’t know how many times he’s come here asking us to help some Jewish family or other to escape.”

  “Father Müller is still here?” Amelia asked in surprise.

  “Yes, he lives in the Vatican, and he is with them.”

  “With whom?”

  “With the partisans, he collaborates with the partisans. Carla put him in touch with Mateo Marchetti. Father Müller is a minor official in the Foreign Office, and every now and then, don’t ask me how he does it, he steals Vatican passports to help certain people escape.”

  “You still haven’t told me why they arrested Carla.”

  “I wasn’t here. We had fought for the first time in our life together. I was scared of what might happen because every day, without thinking of the consequences, she was getting more and more daring. She took lots of risks. I tried to reason with her, to make her understand that she shouldn’t be so open about what she believed, but she wouldn’t listen to me. And she didn’t practice much anymore, because she had lost all interest in singing, in what had been her reason for living, what she had sacrificed her whole life for. She lived only to meet with Mateo Marchetti, to cross the border, to conspire with your friend Father Müller. It was clear that they were beginning to suspect her, but she didn’t want to notice or listen to reason. I told her, I kept on telling her: Colonel Jürgens suspects you, I said, but she didn’t want to listen to me, she thought that he was on his knees before her, like all men had been up to that point.”

  “Colonel Jürgens?” Amelia asked in alarm.

  “Yes, Colonel Ulrich Jürgens. Apparently he’s been promoted recently because he was wounded on the Eastern Front. Everyone in Rome is afraid of him.”

  “Tell me what sort of a man he is.”

  “He’s tall, and blond and handsome, but he hasn’t got any class. He’s successful with women. I think he was on the Russian front and then in Poland. He’s very popular here, there’s no party to which he isn’t invited.”

  Amelia felt as if she could no longer breathe, and she started to shake. Her path had crossed once again with that of Ulrich Jürgens, the man who had broken Grazyna Kaczynski’s network in Warsaw, who had ordered Grazyna to be tortured, along with all her friends and Amelia herself. The man who had condemned her to a year of living hell in
Pawiak, the prison where they had tortured her and had murdered her friend Ewa. She relived everything she had suffered in Poland, and cried for Grazyna and for that group of young people who had traveled through the sewers, mocking the Nazis and plunging into the heart of the Warsaw ghetto to bring a little bit of help to their Jewish friends. Faces swam into her memory, the faces of Grazyna, of Ewa, of Piotr, of Tomasz, of Szymon, Grazyna’s lover, his brother Barak, their mother Sarah, Sister Maria, the Countess Lublin... She remembered her time in Warsaw so clearly that she felt once again the blows of the SS torturers, the laughter of Major Ulrich Jürgens, as he had been at the time. The cold floor of her cell in Pawiak, the lice that ran through her hair and bit into her head until they made it bleed... And now Vittorio was telling her that the devil was back, that Ulrich Jürgens was here, in Rome.

  “Amelia... Amelia... what’s wrong?” Vittorio grasped her shoulder, to try to bring her back to reality.

  “How did you meet Colonel Jürgens?”

  “At a party. Immediately he was extremely interested in Carla, and said that he remembered her performances in Berlin. He praised her voice and her beauty. He flattered her ridiculously. But Carla ignored him, or rather, she didn’t even bother to hide how much she disdained him. We started to run into him everywhere. I told Carla that this man had an unhealthy interest in her, but she thought that I was jealous, can you imagine that! She didn’t want to see something that was so evident, that this man wanted to possess her, yes, but also to destroy her. One day he asked after you. Carla was surprised that he should know about you and he laughed and said, ‘Oh, you’d be surprised just how much I know about her!’ But she didn’t believe him, and said in a very undiplomatic way that it was impossible for a woman like you to pay any attention at all to a man like him.”

  “I know him, Vittorio, I know him,” Amelia said. “He... he ordered me to be arrested in Warsaw and... Well, I’m not going to say what happened, it’s not important now, the important thing is Carla. Tell me, how long has she been detained?”