Page 6 of Daughter of Genoa (Escape to Tuscany)

Anna

For the first while, I couldn’t get out of bed.

It was as if something had given way, something that had been holding me upright.

I was like a sick child or an elderly invalid, waking only to use the lavatory or to eat the simple meals Silvia brought to me on a tray.

The rest of the time I slept, with Tiberio rolled into a warm ball in the small of my back or the crook of my knee, indignantly rearranging himself whenever I drifted into consciousness for long enough to shift position and ease my stiff shoulders, my aching hips.

‘It’s quite usual,’ Silvia said to me on the first day.

I was finishing my soup while she filled the chest of drawers with freshly washed and ironed clothes – a neighbour, she’d told me, had a daughter who’d moved away and left them behind.

‘You’ve been surviving on your own for so long, you haven’t had a chance to rest.’

‘But I haven’t been doing anything,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been able to.’

‘And that’s the whole problem.’ She shook out a wool skirt, rolled it into a tight cylinder and tucked it in with the others. ‘Forced idleness isn’t restful. Quite the opposite, in fact – it saps all your strength. Have a good rest now, a proper rest, and you’ll soon be back on your feet again.’

‘I don’t feel like I’ll ever be back on my feet,’ I said.

Silvia smiled. ‘You will be.’

And I was. A couple of days later, I woke up ravenously hungry and with the strong desire to be upright and active.

I washed and put on my ‘new’ wool skirt and a jumper in a pretty rose colour, and I went along the corridor to the kitchen.

The door stood ajar and Silvia was sitting at the table, staring at a fat ledger that lay open before her with a stack of papers next to it.

She smiled when I came in, but she looked tired.

‘Good morning, Marta. How nice that pink looks on you. Would you like some breakfast?’

‘Yes, please. But let me make it,’ I said as she pushed back her chair.

‘No,’ Silvia said, so sternly that I didn’t dare object. ‘This is my kitchen. Sit down.’

‘But I really do want to help.’ My eyes were drawn to the ledger that lay open on the table – the need to do something was as urgent as thirst. ‘I can dust my room, if you show me where everything is. I can…’

‘Marta, no.’ Silvia turned to face me, tying an apron around her waist. ‘You mustn’t worry. You’ve had enough worry for a lifetime already. Just rest and concentrate on feeling better. I’m not about to put you to work.’

‘But I want to be put to work,’ I said. ‘I must be put to work, or I shall go mad. What’s this?’ I went on, gesturing to the ledger book, before she could object. ‘I could help with this, I’m sure of it.’

Silvia’s shoulders drooped. She eyed the book as if it were her worst enemy. ‘Oh, that’s just the sales ledger for the shop. Bernardo does his best at keeping it, and I do my best at checking it, but neither of us finds it easy. We used to have a clerk, but…’

‘Let me do it,’ I said. ‘It’s easy for me.’

Silvia looked at me for a moment. She was still wary, but I could see hope breaking through, and that made me hopeful in turn. ‘Really?’

‘Really. This is what I do. Well, what I did before…’ I hesitated, the bleakness of the last years opening out before me.

‘Before things changed,’ Silvia supplied.

‘Yes. I was a sort of secretary-bookkeeper. Honestly, it won’t take me long at all.’

‘Well, if you’re quite sure you must,’ she said, turning back to the stove. ‘But you shall have an egg for your breakfast. This is the kind of work that merits an egg.’

I sat down in her abandoned chair, picked up the pencil and got to work.

Before long I’d found two transposed numbers and a miscalculation, and I was so absorbed in the process that I didn’t realise breakfast was ready until Silvia tapped my shoulder.

There was a plate at my elbow with a fried egg, a beautiful one with a deep-orange yolk.

‘I’ll leave you to it, as you seem to be having fun.

But enjoy the egg, I beg you. It came all the way from Bernardo’s cousin’s village – it deserves to be appreciated.

’ Silvia poured out a bowl of chicory ‘coffee’ and placed it next to the plate along with a slice of bread.

‘If you need me, I’ll be in the back office. ’

I ate quickly, like I used to do before hurrying out to work, though I lingered a little over the rich egg yolk.

Then I gulped down the chicory and went back to my ledger.

My eyes were weaker than they used to be, and at first I found myself triple- and quadruple-checking every calculation, but as I went I picked up speed and confidence until I felt very nearly like my old self again.

I was finishing up the very last page when the kitchen door creaked open.

‘You see,’ I said triumphantly, ‘I told you it wouldn’t take long! Haven’t you any more?’ I looked up with a big grin, expecting to see Silvia. But it was Vittorio.

‘What’s this about?’ he said. ‘Silvia and Bernardo making you earn your keep?’

‘Oh, no, they wouldn’t do that. I wanted to help.’

‘Don’t worry – that’s quite clear.’ Vittorio sat down at the table, a respectable distance away, and looked at me. His eyes were very green; I hadn’t noticed that before. ‘And now – may I call you Marta? Is that all right?’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘Thank you. Anyway, how are you feeling? I imagine you’ve had a bad shock.’

‘I have, yes. I’ve been quite…’ I had to swallow. ‘Silvia’s been very kind. And Bernardo, though I don’t see him so much. I’ve been sleeping, mostly,’ I admitted, and Vittorio nodded.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Well, we know what we need at such moments. But you’re up and at your work now.’

‘Yes, well.’ I tried to smile, and he rewarded me with a smile back.

‘Silvia found me something to do. I know I oughtn’t to be in the way, but I couldn’t stay in bed any longer.

I was just so… I was so bored . I know that’s terrible, but it’s true.

I’ve been bored for years, bored and scared and tired.

And I suppose I’m not so tired now, and I’m a bit less scared, so now I’m mostly bored.

’ My cheeks were hot. Something about Vittorio’s steady gaze, his air of total attention, was rather unnerving.

I wondered if this was what confession felt like.

‘Anyway, I’m afraid I nagged her until she gave me this ledger to look at.

And now I’ve finished it, so I shall have to nag her for something else to do. ’

‘Entirely reasonable. It’s very hard to do nothing if you’re someone who’s always worked. Someone who likes working, dare I say.’

‘That’s exactly it,’ I said. ‘I do like working. I like having a purpose.’

‘I understand that very well. May I see?’ Vittorio gestured to the ledger.

I didn’t know why he should want to, but I obligingly pushed it towards him and he flicked back through the pages. ‘Now look at this,’ he said. ‘You’ve done such a neat job here. It’s like darning a sock.’

I must have given him an odd look, because he went on. ‘I mean that as a compliment – don’t worry. It’s very fine repair work.’ He was studying the page in front of him. ‘I’m imagining that you were some kind of high-powered secretary, before all this.’

‘Secretary-bookkeeper, but nothing high-powered about it. Really, I was just an office girl.’ I smiled, trying to look carefree, as if it were true.

As if there were nothing at all painful or troubling in talking about my old life – nothing that made my heart speed up and my hands clammy.

‘I worked for a very busy man, a shopkeeper down by the port. He had a lot to do, but he liked to keep an eye on everything himself, and so…’

‘And so he needed a skilled helper, someone he could trust to do everything he wanted in exactly the way he wanted it. Trust being a relative term.’ He laughed, a short, wry laugh. ‘I know that type. My father is that type.’

I didn’t know what to say to that. I couldn’t imagine him having a father, much less one he could be wry about.

Vittorio shut the ledger and rested one hand on it, as if he were taking an oath.

His eyes were fixed on the table in front of him.

He was a Jesuit again, the kind you see in the street.

‘Anyway, I’m glad you’ve found something to do.

Silvia and Bernardo are good people and they’ll look after you well.

And if you ever need to talk about anything, you need only ask one of them and they’ll find a way to send for me.

It goes without saying that whatever you tell me is confidential,’ he added.

‘That isn’t just for the confessional. It applies to anything we say to each other here. All right?’

‘All right,’ I said, but I couldn’t imagine pouring my heart out to this rather ascetic-looking priest. I didn’t know how anyone could. ‘Thank you.’

Vittorio nodded and got to his feet. ‘It’s what I am for. Good day, Marta.’

‘Wait.’ I didn’t really know what I was going to say next, but I knew I couldn’t let him go yet. ‘I do need to talk. To ask you something. If you have time, that is.’

He nodded again and sat back down, returned his gaze to the table. ‘I have a few minutes.’

‘Look, I… you don’t have to tell me what exactly you’re doing, or who you’re working with.

It’s enough that I know what you want to do for me.

But you’re helping other people, aren’t you, the three of you?

I know it’s secret,’ I said as his mouth tightened, just a little, at the corner.

‘Believe me, I know all about confidentiality. But I’m in on the secret, too.

I’m in on it simply because I’m here, being helped.

And since I am here, and since I am in on it, and since we all have to trust each other…

I want to contribute. I don’t know exactly what I can do, but if there is something, then I want to do it. ’

Vittorio smiled, but he still didn’t look at me. ‘You are a good person,’ he said. ‘God will bless you for it.’

‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘Just tell me what I can do.’

For a moment, he was silent. His gaze drifted to the ledger and I hoped desperately that he was assessing my skills, lining up some role for me – though I really didn’t know what. ‘Why?’ he asked at last.

‘What do you mean, why?’

‘Why are you asking me this? Even assuming that Silvia and Bernardo and I were doing anything riskier than dispensing simple charity – and that’s quite risky enough on its own – why would you want to involve yourself? Don’t you think you’re in enough danger as it is?’

‘I’m in danger because of who I am. I don’t see how I can make it any worse by what I do. If the Germans find me, they’ll send me away regardless.’

Now Vittorio raised his head. His face was still, but there was something terrible in the way he looked at me. ‘Then you know they’ll send you away,’ he said.

‘Yes. I’ve gathered that much.’

‘And do you know where?’

‘No. If I were a young man, I expect they’d conscript me, send me off somewhere to fight or to die of hard work.

As it is, maybe I’d end up in a factory or a labour camp.

’ I could say it with a certain bravura, because the idea of it had become so horribly familiar.

I’d spent whole days, entire nights thinking about it.

‘A labour camp. I see. I… well.’ He cleared his throat.

‘Marta, I admire your courage. I truly do. But you must know that if the Germans believed you had information that could help them, any information at all, then they would do everything they could to extract it from you. Any sensible person, in your position, would make the greatest effort to stay ignorant.’

‘I know.’

‘And that would be a perfectly reasonable choice. The only reasonable choice, in fact, for you and for anyone who might wait and hope to see you again.’

‘You have to understand that I have nobody waiting or even hoping for me. I’m alone, and that changes everything.

’ I had not consciously chosen the words, but as I said them, I knew that they were true.

‘All I have here and now, Father Vittorio, is myself. I still have my free will, so why shouldn’t I use it? ’

Vittorio cracked a faint smile. ‘Oh, well, if we’re going to start getting in about Maimonides…

’ He shook his head. ‘Look, all this is theoretical. There’s nothing going on here beyond what you’ve seen already, and even that is something you’d be well advised to ignore.

The single most important thing you can do is look after yourself. ’

‘Father Vittorio—’

‘I’ll pass by tomorrow if I can, or someone will. Just remember what I’ve said to you, please, and limit your enquiries to the state of Bernardo’s accounts.’ He stood, tucking the ledger under his arm. ‘I’ll take this to Silvia on my way out. Good day.’