Tell Me Who I Am

by Julia Navarro

  “She was arrested five days ago. I wasn’t here. I told you that I had argued with her; I went to Switzerland. I wanted to try to make her give up all this political activity, or at least not to get so involved in it. I was waiting to see her in Switzerland, because Marchetti had asked her to cross the border with a man whom the Resistance had managed to infiltrate close to Mussolini. He was one of Il Duce’s stewards and he knew the family very well. He had passed as a Fascist for years, but he thought that they were starting to be suspicious of him. I think he had smuggled out important documents in Il Duce’s possession that spoke about the German plans for Italy and other places in Europe. His comrades decided that the moment had come to get him out of Italy. As you can imagine, he was a man with important information and the Allied secret services were anxious to get in touch with him. Marchetti asked Carla to help him, and she met with Father Müller and asked him for one of his Vatican passports. Father Müller promised to get hold of one, but he took longer than he had promised and Carla grew impatient. She decided that it would be she who took this man to Switzerland. She worked out the plan herself: They would go alone and he would pretend to be her chauffeur. If they asked, they would say that Carla was planning to go to Zurich to meet me. It wasn’t a bad idea, but they decided not to go through the mountains because the man was already past sixty and was not in very good health, and there were German troops all along the Swiss border. The night before they left, Carla went to dinner at a friend’s house and met Colonel Jürgens. He was particularly ironic that night, and even said in public that they would soon be spending more time together than she could possibly imagine. He even hinted to Carla that he would get to know every inch of her body. Carla laughed at him, and was more sarcastic and disdainful than usual. She even said that she wouldn’t let men like him even take off her shoes. Jürgens said that very soon he would do more than that to her. The next night, Carla and the Duce’s steward headed off toward Switzerland. She drove, because although the man was supposed to pretend to be her chauffeur, he was unable to drive. In case they were stopped, he was to pretend to be suffering from muscle spasms that prevented him from driving. Carla drove almost all through the night and they reached the border. They stopped at the border post and were asked for their documentation. Everything seemed to be going well, until Colonel Jürgens came out of the shadows. He ordered them out of the car and laughed at the Duce’s steward’s passport.

  “‘So you’re this lady’s chauffeur, are you?’ Jürgens said, looking straight at the old man.

  “‘Yes... yes... ,’ the man babbled.

  “‘Well, it’s just that Il Duce is missing one of his stewards, a loyal man who has served him for many years. Mussolini is very worried; as an Italian, you must be aware of how much Il Duce worries about his household staff and the people who surround him: They’re like his family. So, do you know where Il Duce’s steward could be? You don’t know? And what about la gran Alessandrini?’

  “‘Why should I know?’ Carla said, defiantly.

  “‘You are so clever. You are unique! Come on, I think I’m going to have to refresh your memory.’

  “They were surrounded by some policemen and put into a car. They were driven to Rome and are now in the hands of the SS.”

  “My God! What are we going to do, Vittorio?” Amelia said in alarm.

  “As you might imagine, I’ve asked all our friends to do what they can, but no one has any influence with the SS, not even any of the people in Il Duce’s entourage. I am desperate.”

  Vittorio rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, trying to wipe away the tears that he had not been able to hold back.

  “We will do what it takes, we won’t leave Carla in the hands of that murderer... We’ll ask Max to see what he can do for her, maybe there’s something...”

  “The baron?”

  “Yes, at least he will be able to find out how Carla is and what they intend to do with her. One more thing, can you arrange a meeting for me with Marchetti?”

  “With that man? Don’t get mixed up with him, Amelia, look at where Carla is because of him... No, I don’t want to hear anything about Marchetti. He came to see me but I didn’t meet him, he has brought enough trouble on us as it is. It was his fault that all these political ideas got into Carla’s head in the first place.”

  “But he might be able to help us.”

  “Help us? How will he help us? He was the one who asked Carla for help, who bent her to his will and made her risk herself too much. No, I don’t want to see this man in my life ever again.”

  “You don’t need to see him, just tell me where I can find him.”

  “I don’t know, he never sleeps two nights running in the same place, and he’s in Rome as much as he is in Milan, he moves all over the place. Maybe your friend the German priest will know how to find him.”

  “Father Müller?”

  “Yes, and him I know how to find. He takes confession two days a week in San Clemente, do you know where that is?”

  “No.”

  “In Laterano, in the Via San Giovanni. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he is there from five to seven. You can call him at the Foreign Office as well. But be careful, Amelia, the priest will only bring you problems, like Marchetti will.”

  “What about that diplomat friend of yours who worked cheek by jowl with Il Duce’s son-in-law, can’t he do anything?”

  “You mean Guido Gallotti? No, he hasn’t been able to do all that much. It is difficult for him to stick his neck out for Carla because she was helping one of Il Duce’s employees to escape. But even so he stood up for her in front of Colonel Jürgens, but that man said that if he was a true Italian patriot then he should be happy that the SS had arrested a traitor.”

  “Vittorio, I know this might be difficult, but you need to trust Max.”

  “But he is a German! A Nazi!”

  “No, he’s not a Nazi. You knew him in Buenos Aires before the war, then you saw him in Berlin, you know how he is and how he thinks. Please believe me when I say we can trust him!”

  Vittorio was silent for a moment, looking straight at Amelia. What he saw was a young woman in love with this German, who might possibly be in love with her in return, but to tell a Nazi that his wife had worked with the partisans? No, he would never do that.

  “No, Amelia, I am not going to put Carla’s life in the hands of any Nazi.”

  “Her life is in the hands of the SS.”

  “I know that you trust him... but I... I cannot.”

  Amelia nodded thoughtfully. She understood Vittorio. Her uncle had felt the same mistrust toward the German, and nothing she had said to him had been able to make him change his mind.

  “I wouldn’t hesitate to put my life in Max’s hands. He saved me from Pawiak in Warsaw, where... Well, I’ll tell you one day what they did to me there, it is why I would do anything to save Carla from the SS. Colonel Jürgens had me arrested, so I know quite well what he is capable of. If it had not been for Max, I don’t know what would have become of me.”

  “The baron and you... Well, I know that he has feelings for you, but why would he do anything for Carla?”

  “Because he’s not a Nazi, and he hates the SS just as much as any normal decent person.

  “Amelia, you’re such an innocent! I’m sure that Baron von Schumann is a decent man, and that he feels distaste for these SS brutes: Given his aristocratic background, he could hardly feel anything else, but he fights alongside them, cheek by jowl, for the same ends, and he has sworn loyalty to Hitler. Conscience sometimes goes one way, and necessity the other.”

  “You’re wrong about Max, but I know I won’t be able to convince you. At least let me ask him to look into Carla’s case, I won’t say a word about her work with the partisans.”

  “If you just say that she’s been arrested and ask what he can do, then... all right.”

  Vittorio asked her to dinner in a restaurant near the Piazza di Popolo. He was keen to hear about her stay in
Madrid and wanted to know how Franco was governing, and she spoke at length about how much it hurt her not to be able to see her little son.

  Max came to visit her two days later. It was Sunday, and in spite of its being winter, he suggested that they go for a walk under the tepid sun. The soldier seemed happy to be in Rome, and they walked all the way to the Piazza Venezia.

  “Look, it was from this window that Il Duce fired up his followers,” Amelia said to Max. “If you want, we could carry on until we get to the Forum.”

  “What’s worrying you, Amelia?” Max asked.

  “They’ve arrested Carla.”

  “And you’ve only told me now? We’ve been walking around for an hour talking about nothing.”

  “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “It’s very simple, why can’t you talk to me anymore?”

  “I’m sorry, Max, it’s just that... Vittorio... well... he didn’t want me to say anything to you. He doesn’t trust any Germans.”

  “You can’t blame him for that, but he knows me.”

  “Even so... he’s scared. Colonel Ulrich Jürgens has Carla.”

  “I found out yesterday that Jürgens is here... I wouldn’t have insisted that you come if I had known, and now you tell me that he’s arrested Carla...”

  Max fell silent. He feared for Amelia, all the more now because he had found out that Carla had been arrested.

  “Why did they arrest her?”

  “She was going to Switzerland and they stopped her near the border. She was driving with her chauffeur, who’s an elderly man and who hasn’t been with her very long. She gave him the job via some friends. Apparently, the man had been in the service of Il Duce. But he was scared when Mussolini was arrested, and even though he came back when the Republic of Salò was proclaimed, he preferred to retire and have a quieter life. He was afraid that if things went badly for Il Duce in Italy, then he could be accused of being a Fascist simply for having worked for Mussolini; so he decided that, having saved a bit of money, he would go to Switzerland and start a new life. And Carla was just a useful way of getting there.”

  “You want to make me believe that Carla would willingly and knowingly help a Fascist? Why are you lying to me, Amelia? Don’t I deserve your trust? I prefer to be silent than for you to lie to me.”

  She lowered her head in embarrassment. She trusted Max and knew that he was incapable of unworthy behavior.

  “Vittorio doesn’t trust you.”

  “You’ve already said that, but do you?”

  “I don’t know much more than what Vittorio told me. This man was not as big a supporter of Il Duce as he claimed to be, and he was going to Switzerland because he had certain information.”

  “And that’s why Carla helped him. Was it so hard to tell me the truth?”

  “I’m sorry, Max.”

  “I’m sorry, sorry that you don’t trust me,” he said with a bitter smile on his lips.

  “I wasn’t trying to lie to you,” she insisted.

  “Don’t apologize, Amelia, I know that you have a conflict of loyalties.”

  “For God’s sake, Max, I trust you! I owe you my life!”

  “But your family and your friends don’t believe that I am a decent person, and you have no way of convincing them otherwise.”

  Amelia started to cry. She felt terrible for not having told the truth.

  “Come, come, don’t cry!”

  “I’m just ashamed not to have told you the truth. You are right to scold me for my behavior.”

  He dried her tears with his handkerchief, then looked straight at her before speaking.

  “I want you to promise me one thing, Amelia, and I want you to think about it before you do.”

  “Yes... yes... Whatever you want...”

  “No, think about it, because I can’t stand duplicity. If you promise to do what I am going to ask you to do, I want it to be whatever the circumstances.”

  “Whatever you want. Tell me what you want and I will promise.”

  “That you will never lie to me again, that you will prefer to remain silent than to lie to me, that you will look at me and tell me by your look that you cannot say more, but that you will never lie to me again.”

  “I give you my word, Max.”

  “That’s good, I believe you. And now tell me as much as you can about what happened to Carla.”

  Keeping hidden that Carla openly worked with the partisans and that her music teacher was a committed Communist, Amelia told Max a good part of what Vittorio had explained to her, and asked him to do what he could to find out about her friend.

  “It won’t be easy, you know how much Ulrich Jürgens hates me. And I’m afraid for you: I regret having brought you to Rome. You should go back to Spain before Jürgens decides to do something to you.”

  “More than what he did to me in Warsaw?”

  “That was a defeat for him, he hasn’t forgiven me for being able to get you out of Pawiak. He didn’t want them to hang you, he was happy to think of you suffering in that prison. He will do anything he can to hurt us.”

  “Do you know why Jürgens hates you so much?”

  “He knows that I dislike the SS, that I don’t agree with what Hitler is doing,” Max replied.

  “No, he doesn’t hate you for that. He hates you because you are everything that he is not. A gentleman, and an aristocrat, and a member of a powerful family, who has studied at the best schools of Europe and who has trained to become an important doctor.”

  “And he hates me because I have you, Amelia, that is what he really envies, that he will never be able to have you. That’s why you have to go back to Spain; he will do whatever it takes to destroy us.”

  “I can’t do it, Max, not before doing something for Carla.”

  “It will be easier for me to act if you are not here.”

  “Carla has been like a second mother to me and I cannot abandon her. Also, Vittorio is distraught and he needs me.”

  “If you stay, Jürgens will try to do something to you... For God’s sake, Amelia, don’t put yourself in danger!”

  “I have to stay, Max, I can’t leave Carla. She wouldn’t abandon me.”

  Max promised to look discreetly into Carla Alessandrini’s whereabouts.

  “But things might get worse for her if Colonel Jürgens finds out that I’m investigating her.”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “I’m sure he does, but what I’m really worried about is that he knows you are here as well.”

  Amelia waited until Tuesday to go to San Clemente. Vittorio told her how to get there, and she decided to walk.

  There were several women praying inside the church. They didn’t look at the new arrival, and she paid them no attention either. She looked for the confessionals; nobody was in them, so she sat to wait and tried to pray. But she could not; she was too nervous and too eager to see Father Müller.

  She had to wait another half an hour before she saw him appear, talking to another priest, and they both went to the confessionals.

  She was just getting up when a women cut in front of her and knelt down in front of the confessional where Father Müller was. Amelia waited impatiently until the woman had finished her confession.

  “Hail Mary most pure.”

  “Conceived without sin.”

  “Rudolf, it’s Amelia.”

  “Amelia! Heavens, what are you doing here?”

  She told him what her life had been since the last time they had seen each other, as well as the motive for her journey to Rome. He told her about Carla’s situation.

  “She’s an extraordinary woman, extremely brave, you can’t imagine how many people she’s helped escape from Rome, Jews above all.”

  “What can we do? We have to help her.”

  “We can’t do anything, the SS have taken her prisoner. The only thing I know is that she’s alive. The SS don’t let priests visit the prisoners, except if they are going to be hanged. A friend was
in prison last week helping various prisoners through their last moments. I found out via him that Carla is still alive, although she is in a very bad state, she’s been brutally tortured.”

  “We have to get her out of there.”

  “Impossible! I’ve told you that the SS have her.”

  “Do you know Marchetti?”

  “Carla’s singing teacher?” Yes, I know him, Carla introduced us. We have helped each other. I got him some passports and he has helped get small groups of Jews out of Rome.”

  “Do you know where I could find him?”

  “We always used to get in touch via Carla, although occasionally, if he was very busy, he would come straight here, to San Clemente. Once he gave me the address of a Jewish family he was hiding until he could get them out of Italy. But I don’t know if that’s still a safe house. There was a woman who lived there whom I never even spoke to. She opened the door, let the fugitives in, and then almost pushed me back out. But what about Vittorio? Carla’s husband should know how to find Marchetti.”

  “No, he doesn’t. Marchetti has not gone back to his house, and no one answers the telephone at his singing school in Milan. He’s gone into hiding.”

  “In that case, we should try looking at the address I’ve told you about, even though I don’t believe that Marchetti can do anything for Carla. I don’t think anyone can.”

  “Don’t say that, Rudolf!”

  “You think I don’t know what might happen just as well as you do? I love her too.”

  They agreed to go together to the address where they might be able to get some information about Carla’s whereabouts.

  “But go now, go and come back at seven.”

  The house was in the Via dei Coronari, just off the Piazza Navona. They hurried up the stairs, scared of running into someone who might ask them where they were headed.

  Father Müller knocked gently on the door with his knuckles, just as he had been told to do when he had come here previously with the Jewish family. They waited impatiently without hearing a single noise from inside the house, and they were just about to leave when the door opened a crack. A woman’s face appeared in the shadows.