The Villa Triste

by Lucretia Grindle

  Letting his eyes adjust to the internal twilight, Pallioti looked around. He realized he had expected to see the solid little figure of Marta Buonifaccio standing in her usual spot beside the huge fireplace. But she was nowhere in sight. On the far side of the hearth, her door was closed.

  He turned towards the cage of the tiny elevator. Its door was open, the coffin-like box waiting to be called into action. He considered it for a moment, then turned away towards the stairs.

  It was like climbing out of a well. The building improved with height. At every landing, there was a little more light. Even so, it wasn’t until he reached the landing above the third floor that he was actually able to look out of one of the windows. And then only if he stood on tiptoe. He craned upwards. All he could make out was the blank wall of the palazzo on the other side of the alley and a slice of sky above. Reaching up with both hands, he pushed on the leaded diamonds of glass. The frame did not give at all. Nor could he see a latch. As he suspected, it was welded shut. Satisfied, he turned and went back down to the hall.

  He had knocked four times at the door on the far side of the fireplace, each time with a little more urgency, and was still getting no response, when he heard the voice behind him.

  ‘You’ll be bloody lucky.’

  Pallioti spun around, expecting to see the squat Russian-doll shape of Marta herself. But it was not Marta. Instead, it was another old crone. ‘She’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Gone!’ She shouted it at him, as if he were deaf. Pallioti tried not to flinch.

  ‘Do you know where?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a clue,’ she replied, eyeing him.

  The woman, who might have come up to Pallioti’s chest if she stood on her toes, swung the shopping bag she was carrying as if she were considering using it as a dangerous weapon.

  ‘I’ll tell you though, it’s bloody inconvenient,’ she added. ‘You should have seen the mail. All over the floor when I came in. Them up there’ – she nodded towards the upper storeys of the building as though she were talking about the gods on Olympus – ‘having kittens. Why they couldn’t pick it up themselves, don’t ask me. I had to spend a bloody hour sorting it. Chinese food, taxis—’ She leaned forward and hissed between her teeth. ‘Blue movies.’ She looked at Pallioti and nodded. ‘You name it, they put it through the door. Although,’ she said, ‘I’d lay money, someone asked for the films.’ She nodded as if she was imparting the wisdom of the ages. ‘They don’t waste flyers where there isn’t any business.’

  ‘No,’ Pallioti said. ‘No, I’m sure you’re right, Signora—?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  He started to reach for his credentials, then thought better of it. If he wanted Marta to talk to him, which he did, he probably wouldn’t persuade her by causing gossip about visits from the police.

  ‘I’m a friend,’ he said, smiling. ‘Severino Cavicalli,’ Pallioti added quickly, extending his hand. He hoped the proprietor of Patria Memorabilia would forgive him, but it was the first name that came to mind.

  ‘Cara,’ she said. She considered his outstretched hand for a moment before extending her own. Enclosed in a red mitten, it looked like a small paw. ‘Cara Fratto. I clean for them.’ She nodded at the stairs again. ‘Three days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year, including Easter. They’re babies, can’t even cook a meal for themselves. I leave their dinner with a note telling them how to put it in the oven. Nati con la camicia.’ The unliteral translation of Born with a silver spoon in the mouth. Cara Fratto rolled her eyes. ‘But they pay well.’

  ‘Do you have any idea,’ Pallioti asked, ‘when Marta might be back?’

  She shrugged in a way that suggested that perhaps she did, and perhaps she didn’t. Pallioti tried another tack.

  ‘Do you know how long she’s been gone?’

  This time the shrug came with an answer.

  ‘Well, I haven’t been for three days and there was certainly that much mail. All over the floor. What is it? People get a university degree and they can’t bend down? Not only that, they see me and they walk right past. Not a word of thanks. Nothing.’ She leaned towards him. ‘You wait,’ she added. ‘You just wait. You get old you become invisible. Poof!’

  Pallioti started slightly. Which apparently gave Cara Fratto some satisfaction. She treated him to a grin that creased her wizened-apple face.

  Pallioti nodded sympathetically. Feeling that they had formed some kind of bond, he decided to push his luck.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I guess Marta’s probably visiting family.’

  Cara gave a sharp snort.

  ‘If so, it’s the first time in ten years.’ She raised the shopping bag. ‘They can’t cook,’ she said, jerking her head towards the stairs, ‘but there’s nothing they don’t know. According to them, Marta doesn’t have any family. Also according to them, I don’t get this in the refrigerator, the spinach will wilt, the pears will rot, and the cheese will sweat. After that, the world will probably come to an end.’

  She turned towards the elevator. Pallioti watched as she pulled back the metal grille and dumped the shopping bag on the floor. Cara Fratto closed the door, pushed a button, stepped back and watched as the gears started to grind. She gave a nod of satisfaction, then turned towards the stairs.

  ‘You find her, you tell her the mail’s her job,’ she said over her shoulder.

  She gripped the banister, looked up, sighed, and started to climb.

  Pallioti waited until the small shape had disappeared, plodding its way towards the heights of Olympus. Then he crossed the room quietly, lifted the waste-paper basket parked under the lamp, and upended it onto the mail table.

  Eleanor Sachs had every intention of breaking the promise she had made to Pallioti. And doing so sooner rather than later. In fact, she had considered turning around and driving straight back down to Siena on Saturday evening. Then she had thought better of it. Not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of Piero Balestro. Everything about him, to put it bluntly, gave her the creeps.

  The fact didn’t lessen her determination to talk to him, to find out who his children were, and whether their stepfather’s name had been Faber. But it did persuade her that forewarned might include being forearmed. Or something like that. The long and the short was, if she was going to venture back to cross-question the Minotaur – and that was exactly what he’d reminded her of, a cold-eyed randy old bull – then she ought to be prepared. Finding out something – anything – she could about him, might come in handy. Even Theseus had taken a ball of string.

  So she’d given up the idea of making the excursion on Sunday, and instead spent the day online. There, she had found information on four Bales Clinics, all in what appeared to be poor, remote townships in South Africa. Doctor Peter Bales had also had a private practice, considerably more stylish, if the website was anything to go by, in Johannesburg. The accompanying picture showed a much younger Piero Balestro. The biography agreed that he’d graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1950. There was no mention of his wife, or of any children. No mention of a family at all, or even of the fact that he was Italian. From his photograph and biographical notes, Peter Bales looked to be an all-American boy.

  It was the hope that she might find some record of his marriage to the American nurse he claimed to have married in Florence, and with any luck his wife’s name – or even better, an address – that had driven her to the city archives early on Monday morning.

  By eleven, Eleanor had trawled through marriage records, and Red Cross records, and records concerning hospitals and come up with nothing. She was about to quit, had about decided that it didn’t matter, that she’d just get in the car and drive down to Siena and confront the old creep, when she thought about the Pergola Theatre, and Radio Juliet – and what Pallioti had told her. And Piero Balestro’s reaction when he had brought it up. It was the only time Balestro had faltered, the only time anything Pallioti ha
d said had seemed to have any impact on him. Admittedly, it hadn’t been much. A prick in his bull’s hide. But it had been something. And if she was going to break one promise to Pallioti, the least she could do was keep another.

  Eleanor filled out a search slip and put in two more requests, for material covering the dates a week on either side of the Pergola shooting in February and the Radio Juliet arrests in June of 1944. The library was not terribly busy. She got up, stretched her legs, went outside and checked her mobile phone. There were no messages. Her husband had stopped calling since the disaster of a weekend they had spent in Positano. She came back twenty minutes later to find two document boxes deposited at her work station.

  The material was almost all copies, the original documents either being elsewhere, or deemed too fragile to be handled by researchers. Some of it – the copies of news sheets and testimonials, reports of GAP actions – she’d seen before. She glanced at her watch. It would take her an hour and a half, at least, to reach Balestro’s estate, and she wanted to eat something before she left. She was hungry and pretty much losing interest when she came across the papers at the bottom of the second box.

  Eleanor recognized them at once. She’d seen some of them before. They were records from the Villa Triste. She lifted them out and set them on the desk. They always made her feel slightly queasy, these meticulous records of death, so neatly kept. So carefully noted. They were only photocopied sheets, but she ran her fingers along the lined entries anyway. It was an exercise she made herself carry out – to remember that these neat letters represented, not just names, but lives, hopes, dreams, and ambitions that had been beaten, broken, and snuffed out.

  She closed her eyes and willed herself to think of the small, insignificant pieces of lives that had been lost. The memory of a birthday party. The joy of sunlight, or rain. The sound of a voice. The taste of a favourite food. A glass of wine. Of bread and salt. Nothing to anyone, except those who had lost them. Then she looked down at the page, and blinked.

  Eleanor Sachs felt her pulse quicken. She looked, and looked again. What she saw was wrong. It had to be. But it was there, under her fingers. She moved them slowly along the words, along the neat copperplate writing, like a child learning to read, just to be sure she wasn’t making a mistake. But she wasn’t. She checked the date at the top of the page. 15 June 1944. She looked again. But the words still said what they said.

  Eleanor glanced around the room. There hadn’t been many other readers to start with, and most of those had left, either for lunch, or for the day. The girl at the front desk was reading something. Occasionally licking her finger, flipping through pages. Without taking her eyes off her, Eleanor reached down into her shoulder bag.

  The thing was too big, cavernous. She should get a neat little purse so she would have no trouble finding things. Like her mobile phone. She was lifting it out, when she realized it was stupid. The phone would make a chirping sound when she turned it on and another when she took a picture. There was no way, in the silent room, that she wouldn’t be noticed – and promptly thrown out. And even if she managed to get a picture of the page, the screen was so tiny it would hardly do any good. Something told her she didn’t have time to mess around linking the phone up to a computer. Pallioti needed to see what was in front of her and he needed to see it now.

  Eleanor looked around again. Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips. Then in one swift motion she reached out, slid the page onto her lap, and into the open mouth of her bag.

  Pallioti had finished his sandwich and was on his way back to the office when his phone rang. Without breaking his stride, he pulled it out of his pocket. When he saw that the caller was Eleanor Sachs and not the Mayor calling to shout at him again, he stopped and flipped it open.

  ‘Good morning, Dottoressa,’ he said. ‘Or should I say afternoon?’

  The results of his hunt through the waste bin had been most satisfactory. The sun was still out. His sandwich had been better than usual. All in all he was feeling remarkably chipper.

  ‘Where are you?’ Eleanor Sachs sounded strained. Worse than strained. She sounded frantic.

  ‘Where am I? I’m in the piazza—’ Pallioti looked at the phone and frowned. He could hear traffic, the honking of a horn. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘What’s the matter? Are you driving?’

  ‘Yes. No,’ she said. ‘I’m on the Lungarno. I’m pulled over. Near the Excelsior. Can you come?’

  ‘Eleanor?’ Had she been arrested? Pulled over and wanted him to bail her out? ‘What’s—’

  ‘I’ve found something,’ she said, cutting him off. ‘You have to see. It doesn’t make any sense. But it’s important. It’s from the Villa Triste.’

  Five minutes later, Eleanor Sachs looked up and saw Pallioti coming towards her down the pavement. He wove past a couple of window-gazers, held up his hand and stepped into the traffic to avoid a woman with a baby buggy. When he opened the passenger door, she felt a pang of relief. She had been sitting with the bag on her lap, her hand inside it, holding the paper as if it might vaporize before she could show it to him.

  ‘Here.’ Without saying anything else, she handed him the flimsy photocopy, glad to be rid of it, as if it were explosive, or somehow incriminating.

  She watched as his face creased with concern.

  ‘What—’

  ‘It’s from the Villa Triste,’ she said. ‘Thursday, 15 June 1944.’

  He looked up.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘I stole it, about an hour ago, from the archives.’

  Pallioti frowned.

  ‘It’s just a copy!’ she said. ‘For God’s sake, it’s not the end of the earth. Halfway down – just read it!’

  Pallioti pulled out his glasses. He lifted the sheet up so he could see it better. Under the date, there was a list of names.

  Aurelio Enrico Cammaccio, B. Florence, 1885, 59 yrs, Professor. 11 a.m. Removed – Executed.

  Enrico Bernardo Cammaccio, B. Florence, 1921, 23 yrs, Deserter.11 a.m. Removed – Executed.

  Carlo Francesco Peralta, B.Venice, 1921, 23 yrs, Deserter. 11 a.m. Removed – Executed.

  The next three names on the list he did not recognize.

  Mario Tommaso Benelli, 19. Porfirio Rodrigo Andarri, 18. Romolo Teodoro DellaChiesa, 19.

  All listed as deserters, they too had all been ‘removed’ at 11 a.m. on 15 June, and executed.

  Strong arms, lopsided smiles. No more than boys, they had dug a trench and knelt down. Pallioti felt his chest tighten. He looked at the last three names on the list.

  Piero Balestro, B. Siena, 1921, 23 yrs.

  Giancarlo Menucci, B. Siena, 1924, 20 yrs.

  Giovanni Rossi, B. Pisa, 1921, 23 yrs.

  After each were written the words, 11 a.m. Removed. And then the final word. Executed.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  He had not bothered to call Enzo Saenz, or even Guillermo. Instead, he had stared at the paper in his hand, then opened the door and ordered Eleanor Sachs out of the driver’s seat. When she had insisted on sliding over to the passenger side instead of getting out of the car, he hadn’t even bothered to argue, just barked at her to fasten her seat belt.

  They were past San Casciano before she said anything.

  ‘They did it, didn’t they? They betrayed that Radio group, Juliet? That’s what this is about?’

  Without taking his eyes off the road, Pallioti nodded. He came shockingly close to the car in front, flashed his lights and leaned on the horn until the driver swung over, gesturing obscenely.

  ‘What happened?’ Her voice was tight.

  ‘They were arrested. In February. After the shooting at the theatre. The three men, Massimo, Il Corvo, Beppe.’ Pallioti had a straight empty stretch of road ahead, but still didn’t look at her.

  ‘But not Lilia?’

  ‘No. She got away.’

  ‘And they were taken to the Villa Triste, and kept for three days, and then they escaped. Except’ – E
leanor glanced at him – ‘They didn’t. Not really.’

  ‘No.’

  Pallioti heard Signora Grandolo’s voice in his head. No one ever walked out of the Villa Triste. They didn’t escape from there, either. Isabella had told Caterina as much. One guard in the front of the truck. One in the back. For three men. Both too injured to prevent all three escaping. It was nonsense, and Giovanni Trantemento had all but laid it out. Antenor. He must have half hoped, consciously or not, that someone would figure it out. That someone would take the burden away. Absolve him before it was too late. You deserve this medal more than I do. He had all but underlined it in red. No wonder Massimo had cause for concern, had decided to close Trantemento’s mouth before he could finally spit out the sin.

  ‘So, it was a set-up,’ Eleanor said. ‘They were allowed to escape, get away, and the price was Radio Juliet.’

  Pallioti nodded. And what else, he wondered? The safe house used after the weapons drop, almost certainly. In which case, they must have been Mario Carita’s golden boys. A cache of weapons, ammunition, explosives – and how many arrests? How many lives smashed? Then Juliet.

  No wonder they had been able to ask for anything – new identities. Sets of papers to get a Jewish family to Switzerland. Safe passage into Spain. Money for doctors and drugs. All that mattered, Piero Balestro had said, was to take care of your own. But Issa had thought GAP was her own. GAP will take of me, she had told Caterina. We have a sacred bond of trust. It was that belief, not her sister’s carelessness, that had cost them their lives. One of them must have contacted Carita that morning, as soon as they were told the address of the meeting place, the house off the Via dei Renai.

  Pallioti tried to tamp down the rage he could feel growing inside.

  ‘But how did he do it?’ Eleanor asked. ‘How did Balestro come back and fight at the liberation, how was he there in August? Wouldn’t people have guessed, known he was arrested with the rest of Juliet?’