Page 20 of Daughter of Genoa
‘Here you go.’ He put his own into my hand. A silk handkerchief, altogether too nice to use, but I didn’t have a choice. I pressed it to my mouth, desperately trying to suppress the tickle in my gullet, but it was hopeless. I gave way to a fresh paroxysm of coughing. ‘Oh dear,’ Teglio said.
When the worst had finally died down and I could breathe, I wiped the tears from my face and cautiously lowered the handkerchief. It was a crumpled, damp mess, and I suspect I was, too. ‘Thank you,’ I managed to say.
‘I’m just glad you survived the experience. Keep the handkerchief – I have hundreds. And I shall be replacing this bottle whether Silvia wants me to or not. Medicinal, indeed.’ He picked up his glass and drained it in one.
‘Maybe it’s more like anaesthetic,’ I said.
‘What for, horses? I suppose it’s crudely effective, though,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Not an unpleasant warmth, if you can get it down in the first place.’
I pushed my glass along the table towards him. ‘Please,’ I said as he raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Silvia might forgive us for drinking her brandy, but she can’t abide waste.’
‘Yes, fair point.’ He tipped it back, set the glass down and got to his feet. ‘I’ll go and explain myself to Silvia and get her to wrap these cards up. Fetch me your new card, would you?’
By the time I returned – having checked my reflection, dabbed my face with cold water and run a comb through my hair, which was a fright – Teglio had put his jacket and glasses back on and adjusted his tie. He stood with the cards tucked under one arm, every inch the respectable, debonair Mr X. I felt oddly bereft.
‘Thank you, Marta,’ he said as I handed him my identity card. ‘I’ll have the imprimatur applied and get this back to you as soon as possible. Tomorrow morning, if I can. I know it’s worrying to be without it, but a card without the imprimatur… well, you may as well have your old card back, or none at all. Not very comforting, I’m sure,’ he added. ‘But it’s true.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know it is. I trust you.’
I said it casually enough, but Teglio smiled: a warm, open smile that lit up his whole face. ‘I’m glad.’
I held out my hand, and he shook it. ‘Thank you,’ he said again. And he was off down the corridor, calling for Silvia, before I could respond.
What I felt in that moment is hard to describe. Teglio – he, of all people – was the first person in years who had treated me not as a problem to solve, not as a victim to rescue, not as a resource to exploit but quite simply as a human being, a woman, an equal. And now he had gone outside into that danger-ridden world where I wasn’t brave or foolish enough to go. I didn’t know whether I wanted to run after him and beg him to stay inside, to keep himself safe, or insist that he take me along.
I sat down and tried to read, but I couldn’t focus. I went to my room and threw myself on the bed and tried to sleep, for all my mother’s strictures, but it was impossible. I was agitated, desperate, restless in body and mind. I wanted to leap up and pace, do something to work off my energy, but for all I knew there were customers downstairs; I couldn’t afford to draw their attention. I wanted to scream.
In the end, I did what I so often did during those long, tense, silent days. I took a chair from the kitchen and placed it at my bedroom window, and I put my elbows on the windowsill and my chin in my hands and stared up at the sky outside. I couldn’t bear to stand and look down, to see the wreck of the city I loved. I could only rest my eyes on the never-ending blue and force myself to breathe, in and out, until my heart gradually began to slow and a familiar feeling crept over me: that comforting numbness I’d learned to cultivate when Stefano died and left me alone, quite alone in a world that had already turned against me.
12
The front doorbell rang early the next morning, three times, when the shop was still closed and Silvia and Bernardo and I hadn’t even started breakfast. Bernardo started downstairs to answer it while Silvia and I crept out into the hallway, craning our necks, listening.
‘It’s got to behim,’ Silvia whispered. ‘Hasn’t it?’
I nodded, but I felt thoroughly sick. All I could think about was the remains of my old identity card, that battered scrap of thick paper – the wrong paper – without even a photograph, with nothing about it that might fool anyone. If it wasn’t Teglio at the door…
I acted before I could finish the thought. I ran along the corridor to the bathroom – that quiet, flat-footed run I’d long since learned to perfect – slid the bolt across and went to the window. My hands were slick with sweat, but I managed to unlock it and slide the old wooden frame upwards in a jerky but, thankfully, silent motion. I knelt down, opened the cupboard and pulled out the rope, resting it across my knees. I fixed my eyes on the back door of the house across the courtyard, the one I was to run to, and I waited.
After a far too long a moment, the stairs creaked and I heard footsteps coming up. Heavy, slow, familiar footsteps, just one set of them. It had to be Bernardo, surely; but I didn’t trust my senses and so I kept kneeling there, the rope clutched in my hands, until there was a soft knock at the door and Silvia’s voice said: ‘Marta, dear? You can come out now. You’re quite safe.’
Now I got to my feet, letting the rope fall. I tottered the few shaky steps to the door, pulled back the bolt and walked out into Silvia’s waiting arms. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, patting me on the back. ‘But it doesn’t get any easier, does it? It’s just a whole new fright, every single time.’
‘That’s it,’ I said, and did my best to smile.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Come back through. There’s been a delivery for you.’
Bernardo was hovering by the kitchen table, clutching a small parcel and looking quite pale himself. ‘Something from Mr X,’ he said. ‘It was a girl who brought it. A wee girl in a Red Cross uniform, with a bicycle. She looked about twelve.’
He held the parcel out to me and I took it, untying the string with trembling fingers. I had lain awake all night, disaster scenarios playing out in my head: a night-time air raid, a visit from the Gestapo or the Fascist police. I tore the paper off and found a small hardback copy of Conan Doyle’sThe Lost World, again in Italian translation. Tucked inside was my new identity card, with the Caltanissetta police stamp and the imprimatur in place. I ran my thumb over the embossed surface, scarcely able to believe it was real.
‘Yes, yes, all right,’ Bernardo was saying in response to some protest of Silvia’s. ‘Maybe she was a bit older than that. But she was a funny little lass, anyway. Ever so serious. You wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of her.’
‘Well, Marta?’ Silvia asked. ‘Is that your card?’
‘Yes.’ I stared at it for a moment, and then something in Bernardo’s words rang a belated bell. ‘Did you say she was Red Cross, the woman who brought this? Not very tall, medium-brownish hair? Quite a determined manner?’
‘That’s right.’
