Page 35 of Daughter of Genoa (Escape to Tuscany)

The world outside is full of Germans. It’s not that Vittorio didn’t see them before.

He was always aware of them, always on the lookout for a field-grey object in the margins of his vision.

But he couldn’t afford to stop and look at them, either.

If he’d allowed himself to take in the sheer scale of their presence – if he’d let their brutal display affect him – then he’d never have been able to go outside at all, much less do his work.

But whatever filter was protecting him has gone, washed away by exhaustion.

Now he’s half-walking, half-stumbling across piazza De Ferrari, that day’s list tucked into his inner breast pocket, and Germans are all he can see.

Patrolling in groups and loitering by cars, standing vigilant on corners, conversing in knots.

A few of them look as he passes by. No doubt they always do, but today he notices and it throws him; he trips over his own feet and has to steady himself against a lamppost. The Germans laugh, thinking he’s drunk.

Schaut mal, der ist ja besoffen, der Priester!

Silvia and Bernardo’s seems an unimaginable distance away; it might as well be on the moon, but he’s promised that he is up to going and so he must go.

He strained every sinew keeping himself upright and awake through that morning’s meeting, assuring don Francesco – and he’s both guilty and relieved that it was good, gentle don Francesco he had to lie to – that he was still a little tired, but already much better, thank you.

And he convinced him. For a moment, he even managed to convince himself, so much did he want it to be true.

It isn’t true, though, and his path is lined with temptations.

If he sits down, he knows he won’t get up and go on.

The chairs set out in front of the bars of the Galleria Mazzini call to him.

Reaching piazza Corvetto, he forges on past the benches, refusing to look left or right in case Fulvio happens to be there; his sympathy would be altogether fatal.

As he begins to climb via Assarotti, his muscles sing with pain and his nerves are taut.

The German headquarters loom up on his right and he wishes he’d taken the longer way, the back-streets route he took with Marta, because today it’s like walking past the mouth of Hell.

After that it’s the endless rise, rise, rise of the street and the sun beating down on him, so that by the time the Waldensian temple comes into sight he’s so weak that he fears he might faint.

He turns into via Curtatone and allows himself to rest for just a second, propped against the wall of the temple, in the hope of recuperating a little strength.

But it’s no good, and he arrives at the Tipografia Guichard sweaty and palpitating.

Bernardo greets him with wide eyes and a shake of the head.

‘You’ll sit down, Father,’ he says – it’s very much a command – and he takes Vittorio by the shoulder and steers him into the back office, where he pulls out the big chair at the desk and all but pushes him into it.

Vittorio sinks into the battered old leather chair with its high back and soft, hollowed-out seat. It’s an unbearably sweet feeling.

‘What’s happened, Father? Aren’t you well? I’ll phone Dr Rostan,’ Bernardo says. ‘Ask him to come as soon as he can.’

‘No,’ Vittorio blurts out, panicking. ‘No, please don’t. I’m fine. I’m just a little tired, that’s all.’

Bernardo snorts. ‘You’re more than a little tired. Anyone can see that. If you’d just let me—’

‘No.’ Vittorio tries to look Bernardo in the eye, but he’s so exhausted that his vision keeps blurring and refocusing; he’s blinking up at him like a drunk or a mystic.

‘Please don’t call him. There’s really no need.

Please.’ He knows he sounds desperate. He can’t have Dr Rostan see him like this; he can’t stand to hear what the doctor might have to say.

‘I’m just tired, truly I am. I had some kind of virus. You’d only be wasting his time.’

Bernardo looks at him rather like Mr X did before: assessing, sceptical. ‘If you insist,’ he says after a moment. ‘But you’ll let Silvia have a look at you, at least.’

Oh, thank God. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. But could she come to me here?’ Vittorio asks. ‘I don’t want to worry Marta.’

Bernardo nods. ‘Probably wise,’ he says gruffly. ‘Stay where you are and I’ll fetch Silvia.’

‘Thank you,’ Vittorio says. He lets his head nod for just a moment, barely long enough to blink, and when he looks up again Silvia is already there.

‘Tired, are we?’ She’s studying his face; her mouth is a tight line. Vittorio feels as vulnerable as if he’s stripped off for the doctor.

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘What kind of tiredness? Are you sleeping? Not sleeping?’

‘I’m sleeping.’ Even saying the word makes him crave sleep. ‘I sleep all the time. It’s the only thing I want to do.’

‘And do you wake up feeling rested, or do you just go on being tired?’

‘Yes,’ Vittorio says. ‘I mean to say, I keep being tired. I don’t feel like I slept at all.’

‘Heart skipping a beat? Any mouth ulcers? Sore tongue?’

‘Heartbeat, yes.’ He moves his tongue around his dry mouth. His lower lip sticks unpleasantly to his bottom teeth; probing it, he finds a small raw patch. Another sensation he’d managed to blot out. ‘Ulcer, yes. Ow.’

‘Right. Now, would you pull down your lower eyelid for me? Like this,’ she says, and demonstrates, dragging her eyelid down with her index finger to expose pink shiny flesh.

Vittorio does as he’s told, and Silvia makes a face. ‘Yes, I thought so,’ she says. ‘Looks like anaemia to me.’

‘Anaemia?’ It sounds so innocuous, nothing like this bone-deep, sucking exhaustion.

‘Not enough iron in your blood,’ Silvia explains. ‘It’s quite common – well, for some people. I expect you haven’t had it before. Men don’t, generally,’ she adds. ‘For obvious reasons.’

‘I see,’ Vittorio says, although he doesn’t.

‘But if you’ve been sick with this infection of yours, and fasting, and then when you do get to eat it’s hardly nutritious stuff, the Lord knows… well, it’s not surprising if you’re running a deficit. You probably just need a tonic.’

‘A tonic,’ he repeats. He can’t remember when he last had to take a tonic, not as an adult.

But he can taste, well over thirty years on, the sticky, sickly honey-sweet stuff his nurse used to make him drink – for his lungs, supposedly.

All it ever did was coat his tongue with sugar and make him feel slightly sick. ‘Would that really help?’

‘Of course it would,’ she says. ‘A couple of spoonfuls of iron tonic a day, and you’ll be right as rain. It’s a miracle-worker, that stuff. I have a spare bottle, if you’d like.’

‘Please,’ he says. It’s all he can say.

‘I’ll fetch it,’ Silvia says, and then the shop doorbell rings and Bernardo, on the other side of the curtain, clears his throat and says: ‘Customers. New ones.’

‘On second thoughts, let’s go upstairs. Come on, Father.’ Silvia sets off and Vittorio follows, but he thinks longingly of that forgiving leather chair.

‘Marta knows you’re here, of course,’ she says quietly over her shoulder as they climb the stairs.

‘She heard the doorbell. But don’t you worry.

Marta, dear?’ she calls out, and now Marta herself appears on the landing.

She has on a dress, a blue cotton dress with yellow flowers, and her hair is tucked behind her ears.

Vittorio’s throat is tight and he has to clutch the handrail; the iron is cold against his damp skin.

‘Yes?’ she says, and smiles down at him. ‘Hello, Father Vittorio.’

‘Our friend here hasn’t had a good night,’ Silvia says briskly. ‘He’s going to have a little sit-down before you start work. This way, Father.’ She takes his arm – everybody, he thinks resentfully, feels quite free to manhandle him these days – and guides him along the corridor towards the parlour.

‘What shall I do?’ Marta’s voice sounds behind him. He can’t look around. ‘Can I help at all?’

‘You brew some tea and make a start on the cards, if you like. He’ll be with you shortly.

Have you got the list, Father?’ she asks, and Vittorio reaches into his breast pocket and hands it to her.

It’s crumpled and slightly damp. ‘There you go, dear. Now come with me,’ Silvia continues, lowering her voice as Marta’s footsteps retreat into the kitchen.

‘Sit down and I’ll fetch the tonic. You can have a dose now and a little rest, I think, before you try to do anything. You’re practically cross-eyed.’

Vittorio lowers himself onto the sofa. It’s not especially comfortable, but even sitting down is a profound relief. By the time Silvia returns with the bottle of tonic, a folded blanket tucked under her arm, his eyes are already closing.

‘Drink,’ she commands, and brings a spoon to his lips as if he were a child.

He’s beyond dignity now, beyond discipline, beyond even staying upright.

He meekly swallows the green herbal liquid – it’s urgently refreshing, as necessary as water on a hot day – and lets himself sink again, stretching out on the hard, uneven couch.

The blanket settles over him in a waft of air and wool fibre and then it’s dark.