A Dark Song of Blood

by Ben Pastor

  Francesca slapped the magazine on her knees, her bony cheekbone like a blade against the dark upholstery of the armchair. “Why don’t you listen to the gutter, since you’re at it?”

  “If gossip creates danger to the Maiulis, I’ll listen to the sewer.”

  “Ha!” She regained some humor. “Can’t you tell she’s jealous? Just as you are.”

  “Why in the world should I be jealous?”

  “Because I haven’t told you whether I like you.”

  “Neither have I.”

  It was clever of him. Francesca lost the advantage, and for a moment they stared at each other without a word. Then she took up the magazine again, turning the pages in haste. “Anyway,” she said, “if it’s Rau who bothers you, he’s neither Jewish nor the father.”

  “But you do know him. Should anything go wrong, the Maiulis will be in trouble.”

  Francesca teased the magazine’s first page, tearing little pieces off it. “Is it forbidden to know someone who comes for his own business? You’re the policeman. If anything goes wrong, it’s because you’ll make it go wrong.” Her voice, not cold but distant somehow, Guidi would remember many months later, when all this was already a part of the past forever. “And how much do you report to your German friend about us?”

  “He never asks.”

  That, too, would change.

  18 FEBRUARY 1944

  On Friday morning, Guidi noticed the renewed stiffness in Bora’s walk. Other than that, he was his usual self. No trace of worry about the battle for Cassino, raging in the nearby south.

  “Major, I got a call from Captain Sutor, through his interpreter.”

  Bora smirked, walking to close the door of his office. “So, will you meet him?”

  “Next week. While you were away, I also visited the Reiner apartment again. So far, the strongest evidence that someone went through it is that we found no letters, no scraps of paper with notes or numbers or scribbles on them. Only receipts from a couple of stores.”

  “Not everyone keeps correspondence around,” Bora intervened. “I don’t.”

  “Just hear me out, Major. They might have removed evidence, though we don’t know for example whether the pillowcase was missing to begin with, or what a missing pillowcase means. But there were still minute bits of ashes here and there in her room. People are burning anything they can find in their stoves, I agree, but only in her bedroom did I find these.” Out of his pocket, he showed a small clear glass bottle, in which were dust-like remnants. “They aren’t just cinders from the outside. I think paper was burned in her room at some point.”

  Bora remembered the impalpable ashes he’d noticed on her windowsill. “If that’s the case,” he said, “it can only have happened before her death. A third party would have disposed of any documents elsewhere.”

  “Well, let’s assume that for some reason she decided to get rid of letters, addresses, whatever else. Prudent, you might say, for an embassy employee. But it does point out her desire to hide something, or her fear that her belongings might be gone through.”

  Bora sat on the corner of his desk, his left leg extended – bandaged, from what Guidi could tell through the tightness of breeches at the knee. He took from a manila envelope a batch of letters, holding them up for Guidi to see. “These are the originals from which I translated for you. Even when writing home, she was careful not to mention her boyfriends’ surnames. Was it correspondence she received from someone else that she worried about?”

  “Possibly. And there’s something else, too. I’m just curious, but what is stored in the vacant apartments up and down from her own?”

  “Office supplies of some kind.” Bora replaced the letters in the envelope. “Nothing of importance, or else we would not keep them in a house without porter or security. I expect I could gain access to those spaces.”

  “Please try. So far, all we really know is that she came home some time before seven o’clock on 29 December, changed, and by eight she was lying four floors below her window. If she killed herself, for whatever reason – fine, we’ll have to be content with that. But if someone did her in, he wouldn’t be so idiotic as to leave his glasses behind.”

  “Or damning correspondence.”

  “And even if it were true that Merlo left his glasses, Major, on that night he might have just been headed for the apartment to retrieve them, and ran into the scene of her death. It’d have been enough to make anyone sick.” Guidi watched Bora walk to a plainly visible wall safe and put the letters inside it. He said, “Either way, I’m being squeezed. I can’t openly pursue Merlo, but can’t exonerate him either. Whatever is going on between the head of police and Merlo’s faction, I’m in the middle. The other cases coming my way are chicken manure, nothing. I make work by handling small black-market rings, spiteful neighborhood disputes and the like. They got me here for one reason only, as far as I can tell – to prove Merlo’s guilt and take the rap for it.”

  Bora took his place on the desk corner again. “Which does not exclude that Merlo might be guilty. I will check into the vacant apartments, and so much for not making promises. I will stick my neck out and locate Merlo’s optician, too, one way or another.”

  19 FEBRUARY 1944

  “Sciaba?” At the party, Kappler repeated the name pronounced by Bora. “We have no one in custody by that name. It’s a bit impertinent of you to assume that because a man has a Jewish surname he’d be with us.” But he seemed amused that Bora had asked.

  Bora was fairly sure that Sutor had mentioned Magda Reiner to his superior at some point, and gambled on it. “I’m seeking him in relation to the Reiner case.”

  Kappler’s eyebrows rose enough to show surprise, or interest. “Scratch a Jew, you find a womanizer. Why don’t you try the state prison?”

  Bora said he would. As Dollmann had promised, this was a cozy and informal get-together, SS and Security Service men mostly, with a token number from the army and Air Force. Maelzer was not here, and Westphal was expected later. American music was being played on a gramophone, some swinging, wistful love tune that one could well dance or weep to.

  “You know,” Kappler continued, “you could have asked me to acquaint you with the ladies. I believe my tastes are closer to yours than Captain Sutor’s. You don’t come across as someone who’d have trouble getting what he wants. There’s a wayward persistence about you. But that’s how it is with us military men. Women are an entirely different kind of catch.”

  As for Dollmann, he had been floating from guest to guest. “Why on earth have you asked that bunglehead Sutor to play matchmaker?” he whispered to Bora as he passed by.

  “I had other things to discuss. It was a credible excuse.”

  “He’s boasting about it to everyone, and now you’re stuck with having to take a woman home.”

  “I’m hardly stuck to anything any more.”

  Dollmann changed subject. “We heard about your gallantry at Aprilia. Digging through the rubble in spite of your own injuries and on behalf of wounded prisoners, no less.”

  “Being caught like a rat is nothing to brag about.”

  “We know that, but for the world we must say that it was bravery.” Dollmann winked. “Enough said. Here comes one of Sutor’s prospects. I’ll leave you to her.”

  Bora took a glass from the closest tray before the woman reached him. An oversized blonde with sequined ribbons in her hair, she had a friendly, dense look. Her name was Sissi or Missy or other such, and over the generous cleavage the accent was Austrian.

  “So, Major, where do you quarter?”

  Bora had done some rather hard drinking, but still watched his words. “The Flora,” he half-lied, since his office was really there.

  “So do I! Curious. I never saw you there nights.”

  “I often spend my nights out.”

  “You could spend them at the hotel and miss nothing of what’s available outside.”

  “That may be. But you don’t know what I’m looking
for.”

  Her smile widened. Traces of lipstick smeared her teeth as she did. Though she was still young, a weariness of men and yet desire for them came through to him. “It can’t be so farfetched that I can’t guess it. I’m a pretty exotic guesser.”

  Across the smoke-filled room, Dollmann caught his eye and toasted him with a glass in his hand. Bora gulped a shot of bourbon. “I can be, too.”

  “Really!” Her face upturned, she seemed to be judging from his expression whether or not he was aroused enough for a decision. “I hope you’re not the kind who plays hard to get, Major.”

  “I am. You should see me when I haven’t had a drink or two. I’m pig-headed and impregnable. And what could you teach me that I don’t know?”

  On tiptoes, she whispered in his ear and Bora laughed. “I learned that in Spain.”

  “Not the way I do it.”

  By the time Bora knew he was reaching the stage of dangerous candor, safer company was in order for the rest of the night. He eventually came to join Dollmann, who said, “You seem to be doing all right with the ladies. I counted five so far.”

  “Yes, and I have it up to here.”

  “It’s probably the drink, not them. But you’re nearly as good as I am at keeping them entertained. Charm is what they love, and providing that you give them heaps of it, they may leave the rest alone. But you probably don’t want that either.”

  Bora let the statement go past him. With a remarkably steady hand he lit Dollmann’s cigarette and his own. He was uneasy, and distressed with the superficial excitement that came from talking to available women. “Did my wife tell you why she sought an annulment?”

  “I thought we were not to discuss her.”

  “As you see, I ask.”

  “She touched upon it.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “Unlikely match – no loyalties. Very unlike you. I’m puzzled as to what brought and kept you together, even though I suspect what it might have been.” Dollmann’s stare was like a ring around Bora, who did nothing to elude it. The answer slipped from him with great bitterness.

  “No great virtue, Colonel. I could lay her harder than the others.”

  “I bet you could, too.” Dollmann laughed at his own words, and at Bora’s quick apology. “No offense taken. Only, don’t let these women know.”

  At half past midnight, merrier music blared from the gramophone, guests were dancing, and it took Dollmann a while before he even noticed the valet waiting with telephone in hand. A moment later, he was calling on Westphal, whose face went suddenly white. The general found his way amidst the dancing couples to Bora, who was leaning against the wall between two talkative actresses. “Bora,” he said quickly, “come. They’ve just started firebombing Leipzig.”

  Within minutes the Saxons were bound to the Flora for further news. Standing by the phone in his office, Bora felt entirely sober. It was as if no alcohol had entered his bloodstream while he waited to hear what districts and suburbs had been targeted. Westphal paced the floor. “It has to be the airplane works, Bora.”

  Bora glanced at him without removing the receiver from his ear. “Let’s hope so.”

  “Where do your parents live?”

  “Lindenau.”

  “I have in-laws in Moeckern. Keep trying.”

  Bora needed no goading. Long-distance communication, halting, crackling in from Air Force commands somewhere, led to other calls, other heavy pauses. He thought of Thomas Hardy’s verses, broken into the bits that mattered and were full of anguish right now. Upon Leipzig’s lawns, leaf-strewn, and, Whereover a streak of whiteness swept – the Bridge of Lindenau... To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau... Westphal paced the floor, and Bora stubbornly manned the phone. By the time confirmation came that only the Leipzig fighter and bomber factories had been hit, it was Sunday morning, and even the last of Sutor’s girls was in her beauty sleep.

  20 FEBRUARY 1944

  On Sunday morning, small and twisted in her kitchen chair, Signora Carmela knit her brow. “The professor is good enough to say that I’m no gossip, and I take pride in that. Of course he’s too good to me, and many of the compliments he pays me I don’t deserve. All the same, a gossip I’m not. I wouldn’t even mention this to you, Inspector, if I didn’t worry about Francesca. The professor and I are old. We’ve had our life – whatever God wills for us now, it’s well done. But she is young, and the times are hard. I have to tell you that I worry about her.”

  Guidi chose not to ask for details. “Did you speak to her?”

  “It’s like telling the wall. The wall won’t say yes or no. What made my blood run cold, though, was seeing her last night handing something to Antonio Rau. I wasn’t looking on purpose, but it was a big roll of money she gave him.” Signora Carmela squirmed in her shawl. “Where would a young woman get so much money? Why would she give it to a man she just met? I’m afraid for her, I tell you. I wish you’d watch over her, so that she won’t get in trouble.”

  Guidi nodded unthinkingly. His wristwatch read seven in the morning, it had rained buckets, and Francesca had not come home the night before. He promised to “do something about it,” and out of a paper bag he pulled the side benefit of a raid on black marketeers the night before, in the shape of a full loaf of bread.

  He and the Maiulis were readying for an unusually luxurious breakfast when Francesca returned, soaked and pale with cold. She stopped by the kitchen door, crying out, “White bread? Great!” Ignoring the elders, she singled out Guidi, who sat with a piece of bread in his mouth. “Just the time to change,” she said, “and I’ll join you.” Moments later she was back in her nightgown, a breach of decorum in the well-run house. “I hope you don’t mind if I make myself comfortable.” She stood by the table to cut herself a slice of bread. Through the corner of his eye Guidi caught the old people’s dismay at seeing the swell under the loose flannel cloth. The professor’s face had an apoplectic tinge when she merrily said, “Well, and good morning to you all, too! Did the cat eat your tongue?”

  1 MARCH 1944

  It was still pouring ten days later when Bora drove across the Tiber to the “New Prisons” of Regina Coeli, like a dam of bricks facing the bridge straight on. He’d been away from Rome for a week, visiting the troops engaged in the attempted retaking of Anzio, sitting with them at Cisterna and other threatened inland posts, interrogating prisoners of officer rank, and generally seeking danger. Life at headquarters was “getting to him,” he’d calmly told Westphal, and Westphal had cut him loose for a week.

  Now he walked into the prison with a permit signed by Maelzer. Aldo Sciaba, it turned out, was detained in the German-controlled Third Wing, where Bora also expected to find General Foa. He did not, but Sciaba was taken out of his cell to meet him in a bare windowless room. He listened without a word while Bora explained his reason for being here. When handed the case containing Merlo’s glasses, he took them out and studied them.

  “Well?” Bora urged him. “Are they your work?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  Bora dismissed the Italian guard. “Tell me more.”

  “Can you get me out of here if I tell you?”

  “No. What I can do is arrange for your wife to visit you.”

  “And have her arrested too?”

  “Why? She’s not Jewish.”

  Sciaba was a short, patient-looking man with a waxy complexion to which the long prison stay had given gray undertones. “No, no.” He waved a tired hand. “Let’s leave her out of this. Just let her know I’m alive.” For the next minute or so, Sciaba turned the glasses this way and that, looked through them, lifted them to the faint electric bulb. “These aren’t anything His Excellency could use today,” he concluded. “They’re the pair I fitted for him two years ago. His eyesight was never good, but lately it has grown worse. I had to refit him frequently. He wouldn’t carry these around. Where did you find them?”

  Bora chose not to answer. “When did you fit him last?”

>   “In October, before they brought me here. He might still be wearing the last pair I sold him, though it’s been about six months.”

  “Is it your policy to take back used glasses?”

  “Yes, sir, it is. These were in my store. That’s why I wondered where you found them.”

  “I did not find them. And that’s all I want for now.”

  Seeing that Bora was about to leave, Sciaba spoke up. “Please tell my wife not to worry about me. Tell her they treat me decently, and all that.”

  Bora nodded, safely inscrutable under the shade of his visor.

  “I mean, I was born an Italian citizen. That must count for something, right?”

  Bora took the glasses back. He returned them to their case, slipped it into his breast pocket and took a step toward the door. Before knocking to be let out, he pulled from the cuff of his left sleeve a tightly folded piece of paper. His hand met the prisoner’s only for the time necessary to effect the exchange. “From your wife,” he said.

  Back in his office, Bora gave his secretary the afternoon off, and called Dollmann’s work number. The colonel would not give him an answer. Rather, he asked, “Why must you find out where Foa is, Major Bora?”

  “Because one Cavallero ‘suicide’ is enough.”

  “And what would you know about that?”

  “Only that Italian generals who refuse to cooperate don’t shoot themselves in the right temple twice, especially if they’re left-handed.”

  “From what I hear, Foa is alive.” Dollmann dragged his words, clearly unwilling to give out the information by phone. “I cannot tell you where he is. I think you ought to adhere to your sightseeing schedule and visit the Domus Faustae instead.”

  The receiver was clicked down, but Bora had caught the clue in Dollmann’s advice. The Latin name of the Lateran basilica undoubtedly pointed at Kappler’s jail on nearby Via Tasso.

  He stopped by Westphal’s office on his way out. “The only reason I’m letting you go,” Westphal warned him, “is that I don’t like the idea of SS informants turning in army officers, not that I give a damn about Foa. If you do see him, you are to convince him to talk. As for the rest, all you’ll get from me is a signed request to transfer the optician to the Italian section of the state prison. And that’s purely for pragmatic reasons relating to the Reiner case.”