Shadows on the Lake

by Giovanni Cocco

The church stood about twenty meters from the lake. When they went out, Stefania headed towards the back of the building, where a short walk along a path dotted with plane trees allowed for a better view of the rear of the church and the panorama of the Alto Lago, with the Olgiasca peninsula and Piona Abbey on the far shore directly opposite them.

  She was the first to sit down on one of the benches. The sky was clear, the air pleasantly warm. Luca took a couple of snapshots and then joined her.

  “Feel like an ice cream?”

  “Is that all you ever think about, eating?”

  They laughed. For the first time since they’d met, Stefania talked about herself. She recounted stories of her childhood related to her memory of her father. The high school years in Como, the endless hours spent on the bus very early in the morning and the adventures on the steamboat on the days when she happened to sleep in. Then university, graduation, the decision to go into law enforcement, and the death of her father after a long illness.

  “Why did you get married? Were you in love?”

  “Of course I was in love—or, more precisely, Guido was the person I cherished most in life. We’d spent our final years in college together. He was always at my side. It was natural we should get married. In a way he was a replacement for my father.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then, after trying for a long time to have children, Camilla finally arrived when we no longer thought it was possible. I was almost thirty-five.”

  “And why did you break up, if I’m not being too indiscreet?”

  “After Camilla was born, Guido started slowly to drift away from me. First it was our job demands—both mine and his, which took him far away. He ended up renting an apartment in Milan. Then, as Camilla got older, things between us changed, to the point that when we finally separated I realized we’d become strangers to each other.”

  Valli was about to say something when the phone rang. Stefania was momentarily tempted to let it ring, but then decided to check, since it might be her daughter.

  An unknown number.

  “Zero zero four one?” asked Stefania.

  “It’s a Swiss exchange,” said Valli.

  Stefania set aside all hesitation and answered with her heart beating wildly.

  “Inspector Valenti, please forgive me for bothering you outside your working hours.”

  The voice belonged to Montalti. But it didn’t have its usual placid elegance. In fact it seemed, on the contrary, to be trying, and not succeeding, to repress a rather perceptible joy.

  “Actually, Inspector, I have some important news to impart to you. I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday, when the postman left this house. And I couldn’t sleep last night because of it. But I don’t feel like talking about it over the phone. You understand, I’m sure.”

  “Not even a hint?”

  “I got a letter from Leipzig. That’s all I can say for now. Could we make an appointment for tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Shall we meet in my office, at police headquarters?”

  “Actually I had the lake in mind. Do you know the bell tower of Ospedaletto?”

  “Of course I do, Signor Montalti. Would two o’clock work for you?”

  “That would be perfect. Good-bye, then, Inspector. Please don’t forget.”

  Stefania kept clutching her phone for a few seconds after the call had ended.

  Valli’s smile brought her back to reality.

  “Good news?”

  “Unexpected news, rather,” replied Stefania.

  The following day Stefania woke up feeling agitated and nervous about her appointment with Montalti that afternoon.

  She’d slept poorly. Montalti was right. It would have been better not to give her any hints at all. She’d spent the night thinking about the letter that had arrived from Leipzig, wondering who might have sent it and what new information it might contain. She used up a good part of the morning working out a logistical plan that would make her meeting with Montalti as untroubled as possible. The unexpected appointment would give her a chance to spend a few extra minutes with her mother. The years were passing for her, too, and she often had back pain. But it wasn’t physical ailments that worried her. In recent times her mother was starting to have little lapses of memory. She’d once even gone down into town to go shopping only to find she didn’t have her wallet with her. Other times she would forget the name of the person she’d called on the phone.

  Luckily things went smoothly at the station. Carboni was out for a briefing with the commissioner. Lucchesi and Piras were talking about soccer.

  At twelve thirty she went out of the office, got in her car, and headed for the lake.

  It all seemed so strange as she drove down the road. As soon as she’d left the city behind, Stefania felt as if she were entering another life, where time passed more slowly, the panoramas were vast, and life in the village and among friends was peaceful. The rhythms more human, experience more intimate and contemplative.

  When she got to Argegno, she stopped at the piazzetta, where there were already a good number of bicycles and motorbikes parked. Though it was Monday, it was already full of tourists, all huddled around tables for a snack or a fish-based lunch. She parked near the dock and went into the Caffè Motta.

  Montalti wasn’t very familiar with the roads around the lake. He rarely came down into Italy, and when he did, it was usually for work-related appointments. Milan, Brescia, Bologna, Genoa. For thirty years he’d dealt in important financial affairs for a Swiss consulting firm. He’d retired from the business years before, but his consultation services were still in demand.

  He hadn’t been to Como for a long time, or to any of the tourist destinations scattered along the shores of the lake. Even his driver had trouble negotiating the narrow streets of the “low road,” the one Montalti had told him to take once they’d come to the roundabout outside Cernobbio.

  The towns still looked pretty much the same as he remembered them from his childhood and adolescence. Small houses clustered together, some giving onto the lake, and others—most of them, really—taking a piece out of the mountain.

  Near Pizzo di Cernobbio, he asked Hermann, his chauffeur, to slow down.

  “If somebody hired a team of deep-water divers to search this part of the lake,” he said, “they would find more human remains than in any cemetery in Italy.”

  “What do you mean?” the driver asked.

  “I mean that at the end of the war, all those who, in one way or another, made the winners uncomfortable—Fascists, their supporters, former regime bigwigs, and even unorthodox partisans—ended up at the bottom of this end of the lake. A shot in the head and another in the belly, so that the body wouldn’t float back up.”

  The car continued along the Regina road, which afforded a better view for admiring the lake’s magnificent villas from up close. A bit farther on, a small crowd was gathered outside the gate of Villa Oleandra, home of George Clooney.

  The road then went back uphill, to intersect with the new road, the “high” one, which went on to Argegno and from there towards the valleys and the Tramezzina.

  After drinking her coffee, Stefania sat there for a few minutes taking in the show put on by all the tourists’ cars and blue buses along the small pier of Argegno.

  Taking her time, she headed for her car and traveled the next few kilometers through the old towns of Colonno, Sala Comacina, and Ossuccio. Just before one of the tight curves in the road, as often happened, a bus had been blocked by a truck coming in the opposite direction. It took several minutes for the knot to become untangled. When she got to the parking lot above the bell tower of Ospedaletto, Stefania was half an hour early. Time enough to smoke a cigarette and visit the gardens of the park below.

  Montalti pointed out to his driver the bell tower in the distance. Moments later Hermann fo
und a parking spot, got out of the car, walked around the vehicle, and, after opening the rear door, helped the elderly gentleman out.

  The woman standing some ten yards away could only be Inspector Valenti. She was just as he’d imagined her: slender, slightly taller than average, light brown hair, with the shy demeanor of someone who always feels a little out of place.

  “I imagine you wouldn’t accept an offer to continue a bit farther down the road,” said Stefania, referring to Villa Regina, which stood barely half a kilometer away, just past the bend outside the parking lot.

  “There are certain pages, Inspector, that once they’ve been turned, are best not reread,” said Montalti, leaning heavily on a cane.

  Stefania offered him her right arm—after all, the man could easily have been her father—and together they slowly headed towards the sloping path that led to a small garden just opposite the Isola Comacina.

  They sat down at a kiosk, under a broad umbrella. Montalti ordered a cool soft drink, while Stefania limited herself to her fourth coffee of the day.

  Hermann had stayed behind in the car.

  “As a boy I often used to go directly to the Isola from home,” said Montalti, pointing to the island with his walking stick. “It was sort of a family tradition.”

  “Actually, it’s probably only about two hundred yards away,” Stefania added. “And at Villa Regina there used to be that beautiful pier.”

  “Yes, but we used to swim there,” said Montalti, smiling, as he dug into the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “So, this letter . . .” said Stefania, the curiosity eating her alive.

  “You’ll be surprised to learn that there are actually two letters, Inspector,” the elderly gentleman said, setting down on the table two envelopes with numerous pages inside. “The first,” he said, after taking a sip of his soft drink, “was sent to me a week ago by Katrine Dressler, Karl’s sister. It was posted in Leipzig.”

  “And the second?” asked Stefania, feeling restless after eyeing the other envelope, which had yellowed and looked much older than the first.

  “The second is a letter that Karl Dressler wrote to his parents in the days following his escape.”

  “So he was able to send it to Germany in spite of the war?”

  “No. It’s written in his hand, but it was never posted.”

  “So how did it find its way to his sister?” asked Stefania, who was seeing the few sure things she knew about the case begin to vanish.

  “It was delivered by hand. The person who came to Leipzig and delivered it directly to his parents was my uncle.”

  “Colonel von Kesselbach?”

  “I can see that certain details of the case haven’t escaped your notice,” Montalti commented with a smile.

  19

  . . . and the reason, dear mother, I am telling you these things only now is that at this moment, for the first time since this accursed war began, I fear for my life. Not so much for the fact itself that I might leave this earth—something many of the people I’ve had the good fortune to meet now have in common—but because of how this fact would affect the lives of other people. Such as you, first of all, Mother, and then your husband, and my sisters. But above all because of the person I have beside me, Margherita. You should see her, Mother. She is a wonderful girl, as sensible as she is necessary, and courageous. I have no doubt that if the Good Lord allows it, we shall marry once the war is over. Margherita would be delighted to come and live with us in Germany. And there’s one last thing I must confess to you. Forgive me if these seem like the words of a luckless son. Margherita is expecting a baby. That’s right, Mother. I’m about to become a father, and there is no way to express this feeling—which you must know quite well—other than in words of love and happiness.

  Stefania, who had a good grasp of German, reread the last lines of the letter, incredulous.

  The content more than surprised her. She was astonished to learn that Karl Dressler was well aware of the danger he was in during those last days of his life, and likewise that Margherita, the girl he loved, would be bearing his child a few months thereafter.

  At that point, her worries, doubts, and questions got the upper hand. This was a decisive turning point in the case. She was sure of it, in this new light. But there were so many new elements of such unexpected importance that she could hardly believe her eyes in the face of the words contained in that letter of March 1945.

  Montalti watched her in silence.

  “Surprised, Inspector?”

  “Confused, rather, Signor Montalti. I need to think about this.”

  “I understand. I had the same reaction after I first read the letter. In my case, however, there’s a further complication, of a familial nature, let’s say.”

  “And what would that be?” asked Stefania, not following his reasoning.

  “Well, to begin with, the ambiguous attitude assumed by Uncle Heinrich for all these years. I’d been hearing the story of his escape and friendship with Karl Dressler, about the young man’s mysterious disappearance and all the rest, ever since I was little more than a child. I’d been living all this time with the idea that Karl might turn up at any moment. It was sort of a family legend. In reality Uncle Heinrich had always known much more than he’d led us to believe. But my question is not why he’d decided, over the years, to let everyone think he was still waiting for Karl to return, or to give some sign of life, but why he’d insisted for so long on his being buried in the family vault.”

  “Do you think your uncle was in some way working for the Allies?”

  “No, absolutely not. Of course it wouldn’t seem at all strange to me if, at that time, he actually had chosen to be a double agent in the service of the Allies, even if his reputation as a dyed-in-the-wool military man would have come out a little tarnished because of it. The main question is: Why did he lie to us, of all people, his family relations, when he knew perfectly well that Karl was, in all probability, dead? It was he who’d told the young man’s family about Karl’s last moments. Why the whole song and dance, even in the will, about the burial, the sword, and all the rest?”

  “Apparently your uncle needed to justify himself in the eyes of someone else.”

  “Do you see, Inspector, how in the end we always come to the same conclusions? Except for Durand, with whom my uncle maintained good relations till the end of his days, what other person could he have wanted to keep contented in this way?”

  “This is all conjecture. What if there was another reason? Something still eluding us, so to speak? Something we still haven’t taken into consideration? We shouldn’t jump to any conclusions, Signor Montalti. In this investigation I’ve learned that nothing is what it appears to be.”

  At that moment a motorboat passed right in front of them, kicking up a wave of white foam. The garden around them had come to life. Families, youths, and small children passed cheerfully by. The hum of a hydroplane overhead made them look up.

  “What I can’t figure out,” said Stefania, “is why Karl gave the letter to your uncle Heinrich.”

  “He was someone he trusted.”

  “But what need was there? After all, they’d been together the whole time, both at Villa Regina and during their escape. It’s almost as if the young man, at some point in this unhappy story, had sensed that he was in danger, as he says, in fact, in the letter. Let’s imagine the scene. The two have decided to escape together. They make a plan. We don’t know exactly when, but at some point before setting out, or maybe even right in the middle of their escape, Karl decides to write those lines. He can’t mail anything, because of the censors. And so he entrusts his last will, or at least the last expression of his feelings, to the person with whom he is escaping. A person he trusts. It’s as if he knows that their fates are in some way linked, but that the old colonel has a better chance of making it.”

  “So far I fo
llow. Please continue.”

  “So, as the moment of the escape approaches, Karl writes the letter. Maybe even on the day he spends inside the cottage after backtracking at the insistence of Remo Cappelletti. He reveals the most intimate details of his life to his mother. In a way, he is confessing. The man who represents an obstacle for him, Remo Cappelletti, is also the father of the woman he loves, who is pregnant with his child: Margherita. So he gives his confidential letter to the colonel as though knowing that his superior has a better chance of survival. We have to acknowledge that Karl already senses that something doesn’t seem right. Otherwise he could just as easily have kept the letter himself.”

  “It was probably during that brief span of time that he noticed something strange in Cappelletti’s behavior,” Montalti suggested.

  “Exactly.”

  She rummaged through her purse, took out a cigarette, and lit it.

  “Then there’s the question of the fate of the letter itself,” she continued. “Did the colonel read it? How did he get it to Dressler’s sister? What path did it travel?”

  “That’s an easier question to answer,” said Montalti. “You need only read the other letter, the one written by Katrine Dressler,” and he opened the second envelope. “The girl writes that my uncle came to Leipzig in 1946. He got in touch with the family and personally met with Karl’s parents. Her memory is a bit hazy because she was practically still a little girl at the time. She does remember, however, the imposing figure of the colonel and his brief visit, with him sitting in their apartment’s small kitchen as her mother wept in silence. Apparently Uncle Heinrich had to admit that as far as he knew, their son had got mixed up in some murky affair.”

  “And do you think he was telling the truth?”

  “We have no reason to doubt it.”

  “And what happened next?”

  “Then history with a capital H took its course. The Wall, the Cold War, the closing of the borders. Dressler’s father, suspected of being pro-Western, was put in prison, where he ended his days in the mid-sixties. His mother followed him a few years later. Katrine was left alone in the former East Germany, but ended up leading a normal life: she married, had children, and worked in a factory that produced military uniforms.”