Page 11 of Daughter of Genoa (Escape to Tuscany)

‘I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a friendship.

’ Teglio’s voice was cool and steady. ‘But we certainly got on well. We flew together a number of times – he was a seaplane pilot, too. He spoke his mind around me, as did I around him. When the Racial Laws were passed, he did what he could in my favour, and I often wonder how my life would have gone if his plane hadn’t been shot down.

So, yes, before 1938, he was my good acquaintance.

After 1938, he was something like an ally to me and my family.

And now he’s something far more powerful. He’s an asset.’

‘How can he be an asset?’ I said, rather stupidly. ‘He’s dead.’

‘Precisely. He’s dead, and so we’ll never know whether he’d have recanted his opposition to the Racial Laws, or to the alliance with Germany.

There are men in our city’s administration, influential men who have made their entire careers in the Fascist system, who cherish Balbo’s memory as something like a lost hope.

Now, I may be rather more cynical, and I’m certain that you are.

But the fact remains that these people are sympathetic to me because they know that I was, in some small way, once valued by him.

They are even willing to help me, although I am not a Fascist – although I am a Jew, and their German masters dictate that I should be rounded up and deported.

But if I were a communist, or even a member of some social democratic party, then I don’t think I’d find much goodwill in those particular quarters. ’

‘But—’

‘We all compromise, signora Ricci,’ he cut across me. ‘We all deal with people we would rather avoid, especially when it means helping ourselves and others. You ought to understand that – you, of all people.’

The reproach landed like a blow. I lifted my chin, determined not to show him that he’d got to me. ‘And how, exactly, do these powerful men help you? Can you tell me something about that?’

‘Better yet, I can show you. Perhaps you’d be so good as to fetch me your identity card? I mean to say, the one you’ve been carrying?’

Still smarting, I went to my room and got my false identity card out of my bag. When I returned, Teglio waved me back into my seat and held out his hand for the card. I gave it to him and he opened it.

‘Oh, dear, I thought so.’ He shook his head.

‘Yes, this is a classic case. The wrong paper, the hastily re-stuck photograph – though whoever made this did a nice job of trimming off the old stamps – and this new stamp here, the one from Troia. What a good thing we found you before anyone else could. Now, compare it to this example.’

He reached into an inner pocket and brought out another identity card, which he handed to me.

A real-looking card, nothing like my poor, shabby forged one.

It belonged to a man called Giovanni Episcopo who was born in 1910 in Caltanissetta, in free Sicily.

It seemed in every respect authentic, and it even had a stamp on it from Caltanissetta questura.

‘I can get hold of the right paper,’ Teglio said as I inspected it.

‘I can get the forms printed. I can get stamps cut, I can even manage new photographs if those are needed, but what I cannot do is apply the imprimatur.’ His finger traced the round, embossed police stamp that covered part of Giovanni Episcopo’s photograph.

‘That can only be done by somebody with access to the right equipment.’

I looked at him. ‘Is it real ?’

Teglio smiled. ‘The partisans fight on their front, signora Ricci, and I fight on mine.’

‘Then I want to help you,’ I said.

His smile grew wider, warmer. ‘Does that mean you’re no longer horrified by my past choice of flying mates?’

‘No, I am. I’ll never understand that. But this… this is wonderful.’ I reluctantly closed the card and handed it back to him; he tucked it safely away again. ‘Do you make many of these?’

‘As many as I can manage, and as quickly as I can. There’s a great demand for them, and not only in Genoa.

I get requests from all over North Italy – and each and every one is urgent, because the situation is urgent.

So an extra pair of skilled hands can be of significant use; if you’re prepared to take up forgery, that is. ’

Take up forgery . The words thrilled me. Finally, someone was offering me a real task to do: something new and skilful, something worthwhile. ‘There’s nothing I’d rather do,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’m the thankful one. Here.’ Teglio slid the book-shaped parcel towards me. I’d quite forgotten about it, and now it tantalised me again.

‘May I?’ I was already undoing the string.

‘Please do.’

I pulled away the brown-paper wrapping and found a battered paperback: an Italian edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes , published in 1898 in Rome.

And although I knew that everything Silvia had said was true – that Teglio was a habitual flirt, that his charm was all part of the game he had to play – I couldn’t help but feel touched.

He had remembered that I liked Conan Doyle, and he had brought me this.

‘Thank you,’ I said again. ‘Thank you so much. I love these stories.’

‘I do, too. I read them over and over as a boy – that was my father’s copy, in fact. But we’re getting away from the point,’ he said. ‘Turn to The Speckled Band , if you would.’

I did as instructed and found a folded piece of paper tucked in between the pages. It contained a list of names, each with the standard information – marital status, date of birth, distinguishing features – and an address in Caltanissetta.

‘I thought you might start off by filling this batch in by hand,’ Teglio explained, ‘since your work on Bernardo’s ledger was so beautifully done.

Silvia and Bernardo will print the cards tonight, and I shall ask Father Vittorio to come around tomorrow and show you the ropes.

He’s rather a good forger – I’ve had occasion to call on him before.

I haven’t told any of them what I found out about you, by the way, and I shan’t tell them.

Need-to-know applies here, too. It works rather well in this case, because the three of them are truly decent people, but we all inhabit quite different worlds.

In other circumstances, our paths would most likely never have crossed.

I don’t even know Father Vittorio’s last name. ’

‘But didn’t you check him out, too?’

‘I didn’t have to. He came to me from an absolutely unimpeachable source.

If I don’t have to know, then there’s no sense in asking.

So I go on calling him Father Vittorio, as if we’ve known one another for years, and he goes on calling me Mr X.

It’s extraordinary how the social niceties are thrown into disorder at a time like this. ’

‘I suppose it’s more like having code names,’ I said, and he nodded.

‘Yes, that’s exactly what it is. I end up on the most informal terms with intensely respectable people, simply because we must deal with one another and keep it all as quiet as possible.’

‘Then you really ought to call me Marta, since we’re going to be working together now. Father Vittorio calls me Marta,’ I added.

‘Oh, well. If he can, then I most certainly can, too.’ He stood, and on impulse I held out my hand for him to shake. His grasp was firm, his skin warm and dry. ‘Marta, thank you for helping me.’

‘It’s my pleasure, Mr X. I’m glad to do it.’

‘Then we are of one mind, at least on this. Out of interest,’ he said, ‘do you happen to have your original papers, in your legal name? I mean to say, have you managed to keep them?’

‘Oh.’ I thought of my real identity card, which I’d kept taped into a secret place in my beloved roll-top desk. ‘No. They were in the old house when… Is it a problem?’

‘Not at all,’ Teglio said. ‘Mere curiosity. Forget I asked.’ He opened the door to the hallway, knocking smartly on the doorframe, before I could ask any further questions. ‘Silvia, we’re ready for you now.’

‘On my way!’ There were hurried footsteps and then Silvia appeared. She looked expectantly from me to Teglio and then back again. ‘Well?’

‘Marta will be helping us from now on,’ Teglio said.

‘I’ve given her the list, and you should expect Father Vittorio in the morning, assuming he can be spared.

And may I please give you this to hold?’ He reached into his pocket and took out a small object bundled up in a handkerchief.

‘I hadn’t planned to bring it, but the place I’ve been keeping it isn’t safe any more.

If you could possibly hang on to it overnight… ’

‘Nonsense,’ Silvia said. ‘You’ll leave it here with us, and for as long as you need to. It’s not as if we could get into more trouble, is it?’

Teglio hesitated. ‘If you’re quite sure,’ he said at last. ‘It would certainly get me out of a bind. But only for a short while. I’ll find it another home as soon as I can.’

‘Fine, if you absolutely insist. But I mean what I say.’ Silvia held out her hand and he obediently placed the object into it.

‘Thank you,’ Teglio said. ‘Thank you both very much indeed. Good evening Silvia, Marta.’

‘Good evening, Mr X,’ we chorused.

When he’d gone, Silvia put the object into the pocket of her skirt. ‘It’s probably a stamp. He keeps pieces of kit all over the city. That way, if the Germans raid one hiding place, they won’t get everything at once.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘Yes, that’s very sensible.’

Silvia looked at me, and for a moment I thought that she, too, was going to warn me about what the Germans would do if they caught me.

But she merely gave me a warm pat on the arm and said: ‘I’m glad to have you on board.

And now I must get on and make some tea, or Bernardo will be all out of sorts. ’

*

Somehow, the rest of the evening proceeded as normal.

We covered the windows and lit the lamps, and then took our usual seats by the still-warm stove.

Silvia and Bernardo read aloud to each other from the Bible, while I allowed myself a couple more chapters of a novel from the small stash Silvia had got from her neighbour, the one who had donated her daughter’s old clothes.

I expect the novels had been left by the daughter, too: they were decidedly young women’s books, romances and school stories and translations of Woolf and Sayers.

It occurred to me briefly to wonder whether Bernardo and Silvia had any children; whether they, too, had grown up and left.

But I immediately suppressed the thought.

As Teglio himself would say, if I didn’t need to know, then there was no sense in asking.

When the reading hour was over, we listened to Radio Londra for a while: that strange mix of bolstering speeches, news updates, and coded messages to partisan brigades.

(‘The chicken has hatched three eggs. The sacristan’s daughter is lonely.

’) Then Silvia got to her feet and said: ‘Goodnight, Marta.’ And then, putting her hand on Bernardo’s shoulder: ‘Let’s get started on those papers, shall we? ’

Bernardo hauled himself to his feet. ‘Yes, let’s.’

‘Isn’t there anything I can do?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, you must leave it to us. This part is our job. But you can get a good night’s sleep,’ he said. ‘You’ll need a clear eye and a steady hand tomorrow. We can’t afford any waste.’

‘Have a bath if you like,’ Silvia added. ‘That might help.’

They went downstairs, and I went along the corridor to the bathroom to do as I was told.

I sat on the lidded lavatory in the weak lamplight, the cat Tiberio in my lap – he had insisted on coming in, yowling and scratching his discontent until I yielded and opened the door – and waited as the pipes creaked and rattled and the wide-mouthed brass tap spat gouts of water into the tub.

Then I undressed and lay down in the warm water, trying to still my mind.

I was conscious that I had been allowed a very great luxury, but I couldn’t enjoy it.

Now that I was alone, all I could do was rehearse the conversation with Teglio in my mind, wondering at it over and over.

And as for Vittorio… Vittorio, who had listened to me after all.

He hadn’t rejected my offer of help any more than Silvia had.

He had absorbed it in his quiet way, and then had gone and found me something to do.

For the first time, I didn’t see him just as someone who had saved me, who had acted out of duty or even charity. Even though he was a Jesuit – even though I was primed to dislike him, and distrust his motives – in that moment, strange as it was, I could almost imagine him as a friend.

I stayed there thinking until the water was cold.

Then I washed and dried myself and went to try and sleep.

I didn’t sleep, of course. I lay in bed and listened to the sounds below me, the whirr and clank of the press and the indistinct voices of Silvia and Bernardo, while Tiberio slept curled up in the crook of my knee, as if nothing, as if nothing at all were strange.