Page 42 of The Lost Story of Sofia Castello

41

LONDON, 1941

About ten minutes later, we pulled up on an unassuming side street. I only know it was ten minutes because I checked my watch, otherwise I would have sworn it was ten hours. For some reason, Trafalgar spent most of the journey weaving from side to side, often quite violently. I wasn’t sure whether he was deliberately trying to unnerve me, but if so, it had worked a charm.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I yelled, getting off the bike and pulling off my helmet.

‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ he replied, taking off his own helmet and looking baffled.

‘Are you so desperate to feel a woman’s arms around you that you have to terrify her into doing it?’ I yelled.

A couple walking by, arm in arm, slowed down and I heard the woman giggle.

‘What are you talking about?’ Trafalgar asked, still looking bewildered.

‘The way you were driving!’ I began waving my arms left and right to demonstrate.

‘I was trying to avoid all of the holes in the road from the bombs and the shrapnel,’ he replied.

‘Oh.’ I was thankful for the dark for hiding my embarrassed blushes.

‘And it’s hard to see them with no headlights. I only see them at the last minute, so I have to swerve. I’m sorry.’

‘No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted. I should have thought. I just got shaken up.’

He looked at me for a moment, then flung his arms around me and hugged me tight. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said in my ear, and my knees seemed to turn to jelly. ‘And I’m not apologising because I want an excuse to throw my arms around you,’ he added, quickly letting go and stepping aside.

‘I know.’

‘I would never, ever want to hurt you,’ he said softly.

‘Thank you.’

‘In fact, right now all I want to do is…’ He paused and my pulse quickened. Was he going to kiss me? ‘Feed you!’ he exclaimed, taking hold of my hand, and as much as I was hungry, I couldn’t help feeling a pang of disappointment. ‘Come on – let’s get our picnic.’

‘Picnic? But I thought we were going to an Italian place.’

‘We are, but we’re not eating there. I have somewhere far more fun to take you.’

I couldn’t help laughing as I ran to keep up with his long-legged stride. He was so boyish and bubbling with energy it was infectious.

‘Please don’t tell me we’re having a picnic under a bridge.’

‘No – the opposite in fact.’

‘On top of a bridge?’ I exclaimed.

‘Shh! All will be revealed.’

We turned a corner and a tiny café came into view. Once again, I felt a burst of gratitude for having met Trafalgar. Ever since the start of my singing career, I’d been taken to fancy restaurants and bars – places I never felt able to be my true self in – but this place – Bruno’s, as the hand-painted sign informed me – was much more my cup of tea, as the Brits like to say. We stepped inside, straight into a steamy fug scented with the rich aroma of tomatoes, onion and garlic, which instantly triggered a ravenous hunger in me. Trafalgar had been right about nerves killing my appetite, but once the performance was over, it always came rushing back with a vengeance.

A large, olive-skinned man with curly black hair was standing behind the counter yelling instructions to people behind him in the kitchen. As soon as he saw Trafalgar, his face lit up.

‘Mister Smith!’ he cried, and I felt a fizz of excitement. Was this Trafalgar’s real name?

‘Good evening, Bruno. I have a very special guest visiting and I wanted to treat her to one of your famous meatball sandwiches.’ He turned to me and smiled. ‘Is that OK? They’re honestly the best thing you’ll eat here in London – thanks to Bruno’s top-secret tomato sauce.’

‘Ah yes, the secret sauce,’ Bruno said, tapping the side of his nose knowingly.

‘Well, now I’m intrigued,’ I replied with a grin.

Bruno wiped his chunky hands on his apron and offered me one to shake. ‘Welcome, signora !’

‘ Grazie ,’ I replied, using the one Italian word I knew.

Bruno seemed to really appreciate this, grinning even more before hollering our order to the kitchen.

We sat at a table by the window to wait, and Bruno immediately plonked a couple of complimentary glasses of wine down in front of us. I wiped a clear patch in the steamy glass and marvelled at all of the people hurrying by – the men in their neatly pressed suits and hats, the women in dresses and heels, all clearly dressed up for a night out.

‘Do you think the Germans will bomb tonight?’ I asked, feeling anxious on their behalf.

Trafalgar nodded. ‘I’d say so. They always like to when the moon is full.’

‘So I heard. I love that people are going out and about anyway – that they haven’t given up on living their lives. It was so inspiring seeing so many people at Queen’s Hall this evening.’

‘We can’t give up living. Then the Germans really will have won.’ He lit us both cigarettes. ‘I know you probably think I’m crazy after the other night, but it’s honestly the only way I’m able to cope – by refusing to let them wear me down. War is just as much about beating your enemy mentally as it is physically, you know.’

I nodded and felt a pang as I thought of Judith and how jittery she’d been at the mere thought of the Gestapo. ‘I totally understand.’

‘You do?’

I nodded. ‘I was friends with a German girl – a Jewish refugee who came to Lisbon. I saw how frightened she was of the Gestapo. She was like a hunted animal. Literally.’

‘What do you mean, literally?’ Trafalgar put his elbows on the table and leaned closer.

‘Those bastards hunted her down and they took her away.’ I took a sip of my wine to try to stop the lump forming in the back of my throat.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said softly.

‘Yes, well, that’s why I’m here.’ I stared at him defiantly. ‘To help defeat those monsters.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ He leaned closer and cupped my hands in his. ‘I’m so glad we met,’ he said earnestly. ‘I don’t know if I’m just trying really hard to find reasons to be hopeful in a terrible situation, but I feel as if we were supposed to meet.’ He let go of my hands and looked out of the window, as if embarrassed, which only endeared him to me more. It was nice to see a more vulnerable side to him – it made me feel less self-conscious about my own.

‘I feel that too,’ I replied, and I felt a strange sensation in my heart, a sense that it was expanding bigger and bigger, and glowing brighter and brighter. ‘Maybe it’s bashert ,’ I added.

He looked back at me with a beautiful, hopeful smile on his face. ‘What’s bashert ?’

I laughed. ‘Oh, you’ll like it with all your talk of fate. It’s a Yiddish term for people who are destined to meet. My Jewish friend told me about it.’ I refrained from telling him the part about soulmates. He might have made me lower my guard, but I hadn’t abandoned all my defences.

Trafalgar’s smile grew. ‘ Bashert ,’ he echoed softly. ‘I love it.’

By the time Bruno appeared with our food, wrapped in foil inside a brown paper bag, I felt a new closeness between Trafalgar and I – a sense that we’d seen beneath each other’s masks, and not only that but we liked what we saw. Or I did at least.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to get back on the bike, and he led me through a rabbit warren of cobbled streets and narrow passageways, made even more atmospheric by the moonlight, finally coming to a standstill in front of a large building. A huge, jagged hole gaped like an open mouth halfway up the wall.

‘Welcome to our picnic venue,’ Trafalgar announced.

‘This is it?’ I’d been picturing an enchanting walled garden or some kind of courtyard, or London’s famous Hyde Park. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a library,’ he said proudly. ‘Or at least it was. It was bombed by the Germans back in December and had to be vacated.’

‘So, we-we’re having a picnic in a bombsite,’ I stammered.

‘No,’ he replied, and I felt a surge of relief.

‘We’re having a moonlit picnic in a bombsite,’ he said proudly.