Page 14 of Daughter of Genoa
‘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 intomoretrouble, 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.
9
Vittorio
If he sleeps on his side, it’s all right. If he sleeps on his side, and doesn’t walk too fast, and sits down just as often as he can, then he can manage perfectly well. The cough doesn’t even bother him too much, so long as he does all those things and drinks plenty of water. So what’s the point in going to the infirmary, really? Why interrupt his work, why cause trouble, why abandon all the people who depend on him when he’s certainly not getting worse, and may even be getting better?
That’s how he reasons, and on the whole it makes sense. He has his moments of weakness, of course. Like earlier this morning, when he rolled over in his sleep and woke up gasping for breath, as if some malign force were trying to crush the air out of him. As he lay there with his heart pounding and strange patterns shimmering before his eyes, he was horribly afraid that something was wrong after all. But once he’d washed, shaved and dressed, and settled down to his morning meditation, the fear had subsided and his breathing was beginning to slow. He could see the episode for what it was: a passing panic, a nervous fit, a shameful slackening of resolve. And he can’t give in to that, he knows, or else he won’t be much use to anyone.
By the time he reports to don Francesco, he’s feeling quite as usual and has even managed some breakfast. He finds the young priest seated at his desk in the frescoed antechamber of Cardinal Boetto’s office, deep in discussion with Mr X. They both look up as Vittorio enters.
‘Am I interrupting?’ he asks. ‘Shall I come back?’
‘No, no,’ don Francesco says, and waves him into the chair next to Mr X. ‘You’re just the man we want to see. How do you feel about doing some forgery?’
‘Forgery? You mean making cards again?’
‘That’s right,’ Mr X says, turning to Vittorio as he takes his seat. ‘I haven’t forgotten how much you helped me before, and now I thought you might help Marta for a while. I’m glad you alerted me to her, I must say.’
His tone is polite, friendly but detached as it always is. Vittorio doesn’t actually know very much about Mr X. He knows that he’s a layman, of course, and that he’s Jewish; that he’s a friend of DELASEM’s previous leader, a lawyer called Valobra, who had to flee to Switzerland when the Germans invaded. Beyond the extraordinary fact of Mr X having chosen to stay, the rest is a mystery. And that’s as it should be. The less he knows, the less there is to give away should the worst happen.
‘I thought it might be a good idea, too,’ don Francesco adds. ‘A nice quiet task while you get over that lingering cold of yours. Give you a break from running here and there all over the city.’
