Page 57 of Daughter of Genoa

The German glanced briefly at my card and Silvia’s and then thrust them back at us. ‘Fine,’ he said, and he turned on his heel and swept off.

We watched until he was at a safe distance, with his back to us, demanding papers from a young couple with a heap of suitcases and a small child clinging to the woman’s skirt; and then Silvia leaned in and said quietly: ‘Well, that worked rather splendidly. Your man would be proud of me, I dare say.’

I nodded. I could have hugged her, but I didn’t dare, not after the display she’d put on. Bernardo arrived then, thank God, brandishing our tickets; I could have hugged him, too.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s leaving in a few minutes.’

Once we were in our compartment, with Bernardo and Silvia on either side of me and Tiberio’s basket settled across my knees, my heart had slowed just a little and I was beginning to feel that it might be all right after all. The only other person there was a white-haired woman in brick-red, beaded draperies, who sat by the opposite window reading a paperback, a large tapestry bag on the seat next to her. As the train pulled out of the station, she opened the bag and took out an apple wrapped in a damask napkin. Looking apologetically at Bernardo and then at Silvia – I, in my drab, schoolgirlish clothes, evidently didn’t count – she said in rather a reedy, aristocratic voice: ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Whyever should we mind?’ Silvia said, and the woman smiled and thanked her. She took a large bite of the apple and chewed it vigorously, making noises like a horse. Bernardo cleared his throat and buried his nose in the newspaper he’d bought in the station; Silvia, perhaps mindful of her society-lady status – for I knew she had knitting in her bag, and was itching to get on with it – folded her hands in her lap and stared determinedly out of the window.

As for me, I was grateful to the lady in the corner seat. It was amusing to look at her, however surreptitiously, and try to imagine who she was and what she did in life. I decided that she must be something artistic: a painter, a writer, a composer. In fact, on appearances, she would have fit in quite well with my mother’s more bohemian friends. My mother loved to surround herself with unconventional characters, even though she herself never shed her Edinburgh respectability.That’s why they’re drawn to you, of course, my father used to say fondly.You’re so very respectable that it’s downright eccentric.

For a little while I entertained myself by wondering what kind of odd things this lady might create in her studio or at her desk, and whether eating apples loudly in enclosed spaces was her only vice, or whether she went in for anything else; like jumping up from table in the middle of dinner to do Swedish exercises, or bringing her own lavatory seat when she stayed at other people’s houses. (I wouldn’t have thought ill of her for it, not in the slightest. My mother had a very dear friend who used to do both of these things.) But then she closed her book, and I caught a glimpse of the cover: it was a collection of Machiavelli’s verse, for which my father had long ago written the introduction. I felt quite tender towards her then, and couldn’t bring myself to smile even internally when she reached into her bag and brought out a piece of knitting that looked like a bright-blue, ten-armed octopus. And I was pleased when Silvia really did smile at her, but nicely, and took out her own knitting.

‘Thisiscosy,’ the lady said happily, and Silvia agreed. I ran my fingers over the wicker surface of Tiberio’s basket and wished that I could ask her to lend me her book, even for a moment. I urgently wanted to read my father’s words again. But I was a housemaid, I reminded myself: a shy country girl who didn’t speak and perhaps didn’t read, certainly not Machiavelli.

Outside the window, the thick-wooded hills rose up high and jagged. There must be partisans around here, I thought. I knew from Massimo that they were growing bolder and stronger every day, harassing the Germans from all sides, even coming into the city to do so. I looked and tried to see some sign of life, but the trees were too dense and besides, the partisans were surely too clever to build their encampments within sight of the railway line. I simply had to believe that they were there, and that their efforts would come to something. I had to believe that the war would end; that, one way or another, I would get to see those I’d had to leave behind. And I dreamed, in that moment, of seeing Vittorio – my unexpected friend, who loved old books and English slang and tea with honey. I hoped to make it up to him for the hurt I’d caused; I hoped, above all, to see him well and happy and restored to himself.

I would never see him again.

37

Vittorio

As he packs up his few things, Vittorio briefly wonders what would happen if he didn’t go to the leper ward; if he simply got into bed, hid under the covers and stayed there. For a moment he stands with a pair of socks in his hand – they aren’t even his socks; they’re the property of the Society of Jesus – and considers it, but the moment doesn’t last. He has to go; he knows that. Everything he’s done in the last few hours has made it impossible to stay. He has ruined everything: risked Marta’s life, brought danger upon the entire network, and all because he couldn’t control his worst impulses. Who would have thought that twenty-five years of Jesuit discipline would end like this?

He shakes his head and goes on packing: spare shirt, underwear, razor and toiletries, breviary, none of them his; all neatly parcelled up and placed in a leather overnight bag that isn’t his, either. But this will all be squared with his superior, just as his departure will be. Cardinal Boetto will take care of it. The situation he has created is far too urgent for anyone to hang around seeking permission.

When he gets out of the elevator, don Francesco is waiting for him by the back door. ‘Are you ready?’ he asks. ‘Do you have everything you need?’

‘Yes,’ Vittorio says.

‘You’re sure you wouldn’t prefer to change?’ Don Francesco eyes him worriedly. ‘I can certainly find you some civilian clothes.’

‘No.’ Vittorio has worn a cassock almost every day for the whole of his adult life. Now he’s back in good standing with God and the Church, he can’t imagine taking it off. It would be like disavowing who he is. ‘No, thank you. I appreciate it, but I shall take my chances.’

‘If you really insist,’ don Francesco says, ‘I suppose I can’t stop you.’ And then he does something extraordinary. He puts his arms around Vittorio and draws him into a hug.

It’s a shock, a terribly welcome shock. Vittorio turns hot – he mustn’t cry, he mustn’t – a strangled sound erupts from him and don Francesco rubs his back, just as if he were an upset child.

Vittorio can’t fight any more. He leans his head on the other man’s shoulder and cries: for Marta, for himself, for the unfairness of it all. ‘My poor, dear friend,’ don Francesco says, cradling him in his arms; and Vittorio feels such a rush of affection for him that he cries even more.

When he’s finally hiccuped to a stop, don Francesco gives him a firm pat across the shoulders and releases him. Vittorio quickly turns away and reaches for his handkerchief, mops his face and blows his nose. He’s washed out, foolish, grateful.

Don Francesco smiles at him. ‘Courage, Father Vittorio,’ he says, and opens the door onto the bright, warm street. Vittorio picks up his bag from where he dropped it and steps out into the world.

The hospital is a long way away, about three and a half kilometres, beyond Brignole station. As sick and slow as he is, it will take him over an hour to walk there. But the idea of standing on a crowded tram – even assuming they’re running – and rushing to his destination in a series of stops and starts makes him shudder. This is probably the last morning he’ll be free to walk outside in the sunshine; he ought to make use of it. He crosses the road and begins to walk up via di Porta Soprana towards the old city gate that stands at the top of the hill.

But the sun is merciless, the heat already rising. After just a few steps, he’s breathing harder; there’s sweat rolling down his forehead, dripping into his eyes. He stops to wipe it away, and when his vision clears he sees them blocking his path. Two SS men, and a woman: an interpreter.

‘Sie sind Francesco Repetto,’ says one of the men, the bigger one.

Vittorio doesn’t need an interpreter for that, but the woman speaks anyway in a flat, hostile tone: ‘You are Francesco Repetto.’

Not ‘are you’, but ‘you are’. Not a question but a statement. He sees himself as they do: a slim dark-haired priest in a black cassock and round glasses, harassed-looking, guilty. They don’t know the difference between a standard cassock and a Jesuit one. They don’t know that he’s at least ten years older than don Francesco, and probably looks twenty. They know only that he fits the description they’ve been given, and that he’s come from the Gesù. How long have they been watching the back door? He thinks of don Francesco’s quiet despair in the house chapel a few days ago, his feeling of being hunted.Ever since Passo del Turchino, I’ve been uneasy.

The German snorts. ‘Bist du taub?’ he barks. ‘Antworte!’

‘Are you deaf,’ the interpreter repeats in her nasal monotone, stripping away the question mark. ‘Answer me.’

Vittorio knows what he must do. He can make things right, or at least better. He can use his last strength to buy just a little more time: for don Francesco, for Mr X, for DELASEM and all those who depend on it. And then it will all be done, and he won’t have to suffer any more.

‘Yes,’ he says, drawing himself upright as much as he can ‘Yes, I am Francesco Repetto.’