The Villa Triste

by Lucretia Grindle

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Eleanor Sachs said. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

  On the phone, her voice sounded exactly the same as it did in person. In Pallioti’s experience this was rarer than one thought. For some reason, it made him smile.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Actually, I was going to call you.’

  ‘You were?’

  He heard the hesitation, and the excitement underneath it, and felt a pang of guilt.

  ‘I haven’t found Il Spettro,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. But I do have three names. I was wondering if you might have come across any of them. In your research.’

  ‘Oh. Sure,’ she said. ‘Of course. Like I said, my memory’s not perfect. But – shoot.’

  ‘Giancarlo Menucci. Piero Balestro. Giovanni Rossi.’

  He could hear her writing them down, the faint scratch of a pen on paper.

  ‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘Not right off the bat, anyway. Who are, were, they?’

  ‘Well, Giovanni Rossi was Giovanni Trantemento.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rossi was his father’s name. He stopped using it sometime in the spring of 1944 and started using Trantemento. One of the other two was, I believe, Roberto Roblino.’

  Eleanor Sachs made a humming noise. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘That would explain the birth certificate. Or lack of it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Pallioti went on, ‘I’m not sure who the third man is. But I do know that they were in the same GAP unit. I believe his code name was Massimo.’

  ‘Massimo.’ Pallioti could hear the pen again as she wrote the name down. ‘So. Let me get this straight. Massimo joins Beppe, Roblino. And Trantemento, Il Corvo, who was formerly Giovanni Rossi?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Pallioti nodded. ‘So I believe Massimo and Beppe-Roblino are Giancarlo Menucci and Piero Balestro, or vice versa. I don’t know which is which, but I do know they were using those names in the spring of 1944.’

  ‘Interesting. There are lots of reasons people change their names. I wonder what theirs were?’

  ‘No idea,’ Pallioti said. ‘But all three of them were arrested and taken to the Villa Triste. On Valentine’s Day, 1944. They escaped together, three days later, from a truck on its way to the train station. It skidded and crashed into a wall. On the night of the 17th.’

  ‘In bocca al lupo,’ she muttered, the phrase for ‘good luck’.

  In the wolf ’s mouth indeed, Pallioti thought. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Given that they were on their way to a labour camp.’

  ‘Well.’ Eleanor Sachs paused. ‘Thank you for this. I’ll – I’ll look into it. See what I can see.’

  ‘But the names mean nothing to you?’

  ‘Off the top of my head?’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Do you mean are any of them my family names? My father’s middle name, perhaps? No. But you never know,’ she added, ‘what you find if you keep turning over rocks.’

  ‘There is something else—’ Pallioti hesitated, not sure if what he was about to do was exactly right, then deciding he could see no harm in it. ‘You might,’ he added, ‘want to talk to a Signor Cavicalli. There are two of them, senior and junior. The father started a business called Patria Memorabilia. I don’t know how active it is any more, but it dealt almost exclusively in partisan memorabilia. Giovanni Trantemento did some business with them,’ he added. ‘It’s in Santa Croce.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard of it. The only time I went, the shop was closed. I’ll try again.’ She hesitated. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, finally. ‘For all of this.’

  ‘ Eleanor—’ He tried to keep the urgency out of his voice. ‘If you find anything,’ he said, ‘on the three men—’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course. Don’t worry. I’ll let you know right away, I promise.’ Pallioti wondered if she was making an X over her heart. ‘In fact,’ she added, ‘that’s why I was calling you. About those two women, the sisters—’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I gave you the wrong name.’

  ‘Oh. Because I was going to tell you, there was one who died. In San Verdiana, in the winter of 1944.’

  Pallioti thought about that for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That would have been their mother. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to send you on a wild goose chase.’

  Eleanor Sachs laughed again.

  ‘No harm done,’ she said. ‘I barely came up with a pinfeather. What was the right name, just out of interest?’

  ‘Bevanelli. Chiara and Laura. They were active in Milan. In 1944 and 1945.’

  ‘Oh. OK.’ He could hear the scratch of the pen. ‘Well,’ she said when it stopped. ‘If I find anything. I mean, if I stumble across it – if you’re interested. I don’t suppose,’ she asked, ‘you know what happened to them?’

  ‘No.’ Pallioti shook his head. He put his own pen down. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have no idea at all.’

  March 1945

  The bombing got worse.

  We all understood that this was in preparation for the ‘final assault’, but that in no way lessened the terror of it. Or the destruction. The main targets were, of course, the railway lines and stations and marshalling yards, but the church near our building was hit early one morning. The sound was deafening, like a volcano. Issa grabbed the baby and we ran downstairs and out into the street, not certain at all that our old building was going to remain standing. It did, but the doctor’s office I worked in was not so fortunate. Two days later it was destroyed completely. I was spared because I had a cold and had gone home early.

  The sadness of it when I went to look the next day was like a blow in the stomach. The lovely Liberty building was a pile of rubble and a crater. There were no survivors. There was nothing.

  We had been in Milan only a short time, but those months were the first time I had worked, day in and day out, with a group of fellow resistants, all of us in that office knowing what we were doing – where our extra supplies went, what the nights would bring. I could not say that they were my friends – they never knew my real name or where I came from, and perhaps I did not know theirs – but for the first time I had experienced the com-radeship, the bond of trust that Issa must have shared, not only with Carlo and Rico, but with the others in her GAP unit and in the mountains. It brought home to me, as I walked back that evening, the depth of the betrayal over JULIET, the loneliness of it, that she must have felt, that she must still feel every time she thinks of it.

  The thought made me ill, and again, that night, I almost told her. Almost confessed that I was sure we had not all been betrayed by someone inside – that the fault was not theirs, it was mine. But once again, I was too much of a coward. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead I vowed, as I have before, that I would do anything, forever, to make it up to her.

  The chance came earlier than I thought.

  I could not go back to work. I had nowhere to go. I was going to volunteer at a hospital or a clinic, but instead Issa asked me to take care of the baby. In the spring, probably some time in the next month, the Allies will make a final effort to break through the Gothic Line. Everyone believes that this time, they will succeed. But we also understand that, with their backs to the wall, the Germans will fight savagely. They have little left to lose.

  Intelligence is crucial, and of course the Allies do not have enough of it. Once more, they needed to know the location of every gun emplacement, every anti-tank trap and mined stretch of track. This is especially difficult in the mountains. Issa told me that in the past month there have been attempts by the troops dug in around Monte Sole to capture German soldiers in order to get information from them. These efforts have met with some success, but spies are more effective – spies who know the mountains and can get in close to the German positions.

  As she told me this, my first reaction was to protest. To say ‘no’. To plead with her that it was too dangerous. Beg her not to do it. Then I saw her face. For the first time since the baby was born, there was that other light in
her eyes.

  And so we fell into a routine. Issa was not gone all the time, but sometimes for several days. I stayed in the apartment, in our two rooms, to care for my nephew.

  He is a fine boy. Already I can see Carlo and Issa in his tiny face. He gurgles when I sing to him, though I dare say from the way he waves his hands, he does not always think much of my singing. When his mother comes back, he twists his body towards her. He cannot yet control his little arms and legs, but his eyes look to her voice, widen at the sight of her face.

  During all of this, the bombing went on. It seemed crazed, as if the Allies had adopted the same scorched earth policy the Germans favour on their retreats. Perhaps they are competing, to see who can destroy the most first. Issa reported that the corridor to the Brenner was a corridor of death. Anti-aircraft guns firing into the skies and explosions dropping from the heavens. There is heavy bombing on either side of the Po, and anything on the road is in danger of being strafed. There is almost no petrol, and no coal at all. So the Germans have taken to towing two supply trucks behind one that is still running, or to using oxen and carts. People say that a great number of the poor animals lie dead in the ditches.

  Issa moved mostly at night. I could never tell when she was going to arrive or go. A few nights ago, it was very late when I heard footsteps on the stairs, then the rasp of the key in the door. I did not realize until the next morning that she had brought another letter from Lodovico. By the time I opened it, she was gone. Which was a good thing, given what it said.

  Lodo said the assault was coming and everyone knew it. The Germans had their backs to the wall, the Fascisti, too. They would fight like cornered dogs. As for the Allies, they would throw everything they have at this effort in order to stop the enemy getting to the Alps. We would be in the middle of both a devastating attack and an equally devastating retreat.

  But Lodo had a plan. He could get me out. There was a fishing boat called the Santa Maria leaving Genoa. The captain would be looking for me and would take me aboard. Lodovico had already paid him one half of the fee. The Captain would receive the other half when I landed safe in Naples.

  I stared at the words. They swam in front of me, refused to stay still, as if they were slipping off the page. The date Lodo named was three days away.

  I folded the letter and hid it.

  What I did not count on, of course, was Issa.

  The next day when I came in, she was sitting at the kitchen table, the single sheet of paper smoothed in front of her. She held it down with both hands, as if it might fly away.

  ‘What is this?’

  I stopped dead. Then I closed the door behind me.

  ‘You know what it is,’ I said, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. ‘You’ve read it.’

  I was kicking myself. I should have kept the wretched thing on me. I should have destroyed it when I had the chance. I should never have fooled myself that I could hide anything from Issa.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  I set my few pathetic parcels down, then turned and looked at her.

  ‘I won’t leave you,’ I said. ‘I’m not going. I won’t leave you,’ I said again, trying to reassure her that I would never betray her.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I shrugged and laughed.

  ‘Exactly what I said. I’m not going,’ I repeated. ‘I don’t want to. And I couldn’t get there if I did want to. And, in any case, I don’t. I won’t leave you.’

  ‘But you must. You must!’

  It took me a moment to realize she was angry.

  ‘You can’t stay for me.’ She shook her head. ‘I won’t let you. I don’t need you,’ Issa said. ‘I’m fine on my own.’

  Not believing what I was hearing, I stared at her, and saw again that cold, hard thing in her eyes. That thing I had seen that afternoon on the terrace – in another lifetime. Nemesis.

  ‘I wouldn’t do it for you,’ she said.

  The words hit me like a slap. They took my breath away. I stared at her, as if she had suddenly become someone I didn’t know.

  ‘If Carlo was alive,’ she said quite calmly, ‘and I could be with him, I would. I’d run. I’d crawl, if I had to. I’d leave you in a minute.’

  I could feel myself shaking. My eyes were blurring.

  ‘Well, I,’ I said, gasping for breath, ‘I, thank God, am not you!’

  I pushed past her and stormed into the other room. I slammed the door. The baby began to cry. I heard Issa go to him, heard her singing to him. I stood for a moment, feeling the walls slip and slide around me. Then I sat on the bed and rocked – back and forth, back and forth, in time to her voice coming through the thin wood of the door. Then I cried. I cried until my throat was sore and my eyes were swollen, until I finally fell asleep.

  There was an old armchair in the kitchen, next to the bassinet. Issa must have slept there, because she did not come near me. The next morning, I heard her moving around very early. I fell asleep again, hoping, I think, that she would simply go. Disappear into the mountains and leave the baby and me in peace; return in a few days, another person. But when I finally opened the door, I saw that both of them had gone. I stood there in the kitchen, alone. She had stuck to her word, I thought, but the other way round. She had abandoned me so I would have no choice but to leave.

  I sat down at the table. I had no idea what to do. Without her, I was adrift. Even if I had wanted to go to Genoa, I had no idea how I would begin to get there. I could hardly go to the station and get on a train. The day was brighter than it had been. Sun was spilling through the single window in the kitchen. I sat watching it play on the sill, and thinking of what my life would be like without her, of how the years would echo into emptiness. I was still thinking that when I heard her footsteps on the stairs.

  She walked in, carrying the baby, and set him down in the bassinet without speaking to me. When she turned around, she had that look – the one I remembered from when she was going into the mountains or came to the hospital in Florence and wanted something. She was not angry any more, but very calm. She had made up her mind.

  ‘You have to go,’ she said. She looked at me. ‘You have to go, Cati. And you have to take him with you.’ Before I could even open my mouth, she added, ‘It’s all arranged. They’ll come for you this afternoon, and take you both to Genoa.’

  I stared at her. Then I shook my head.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t. I can’t, Issa. I—’

  Before I could stop her, she got down on her knees in front of me and took my hands.

  ‘Cati,’ she said, studying my face. ‘I’m begging you. I’m begging you, for my son. You can take him out of all this. Out of what’s coming. He’ll be safe in Naples.’

  I opened my mouth. I started to speak, and then couldn’t. Because she was right.

  ‘You take him,’ Issa said. ‘If you love me, Cati. You take him.’ I had always known that she was utterly ruthless. That when she thought something was right, she would stop at nothing. She squeezed my hands. ‘I’ll join you. I’ll come as soon as I can.’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘No.’ I saw my opening and took it. ‘We must all go together, the three of us.’

  Issa shook her head.

  ‘There won’t be space on the boat. And, even if there was, rail passes are all but impossible. I could barely get one for you and him. I can’t possibly get another.’

  ‘You could try. You could—’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘The captain won’t wait. He’ll sail tomorrow night. He has to. He has to get to sea when there is no moon.’

  ‘Then you go,’ I said. ‘You go in my place, with your son. And I’ll follow. I’ll get there. Lodovico will look after you.’

  At that, Issa actually smiled. She rocked back on her heels, still holding my hands.

  ‘The best way will be to come through the mountains,’ she said. ‘Who do you think is more likely to survive that?’

  I looked at her
. We both knew that the answer was not me.

  ‘I can’t bring you and a baby, Cati, through the mountains. And there isn’t room on that boat, not for all of us, and it won’t wait. Besides,’ she added, ‘I have a job to do here. When it’s finished, I’ll come. I promise you.’

  I looked at her then, and saw the loss of Carlo in her face, and remembered what I had promised myself. What I had vowed – that I would do anything for her.

  Isabella told me to listen to her. She told me she had thought about it all night, and that she had already planned to go to Bologna. She said she would see out the fight there – that they needed her, and that it was close to the mountains. When she was ready, she would disappear, follow the Via degli Dei home, find Mama, then get them both to Naples. She could walk the mountains blindfold. She knew where and who to turn to for help. She studied my face.

  ‘Could you do that?’ she asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Don’t you believe that I can?’

  Even as a child, Isabella always understood how to ask the right questions, how to stop me in my tracks. And of course, she was right. She was a legend. If anyone was going to survive, it would be her.

  ‘You must take the baby and go now,’ she said. ‘As it is, it will be hard enough. Please,’ she added. ‘Please, Cati. I’m asking you to do this for me. To save him. Get him out of here. If you love me.’

  I looked down into her face. I felt her hands, gripping mine. ‘If you love me.’ What could I say to that?

  So we are going. In an hour. Or two. A man is coming with a set of papers that says I am his wife and we are travelling with our infant son to live with relatives in Genoa. All signed, sealed, and stamped. That is what Isabella was doing this morning. I forget sometimes who and what she is. That there are people who owe her things. Favours. Their lives.

  A few minutes ago, she pulled me into the bedroom, as if the baby might overhear us, and said there was something I had to swear to: that if anything happened to her, I would never tell her child that he was not my son.