Page 24 of Daughter of Genoa
‘Hmm.’ Teglio set the glasses back down. ‘That’s a good question.’
‘It’s silly, I know.’
‘No, it’s not silly. Not in the slightest.’ He leaned back in his chair, considering. ‘Well, we wouldn’t have the curfew, would we? So there wouldn’t be any rush to get anywhere in particular. That would be quite restful in itself. I suppose I’d just set out and… walk.’
‘Uphill or down?’
‘Downhill, but not too far. In fact, I think I’d just go to the Spianata dell’Acquasola and watch the sun set from there. I like the idea of having nothing else to do with my time. How about you?’
I imagined the Spianata dell’Acquasola as it was when I last visited: the flat, elegant, tree-lined park carved into the hillside below via Assarotti. Standing at the wall with the city laid out before me, still undamaged and vibrantly alive.I’ll go there, too, I wanted to say.With you.
‘I might walk down to piazza Corvetto,’ I said. ‘Mutter a few insults at the statue of Victor Emmanuel. It’s an old family tradition.’
Teglio laughed, as I hoped he would. ‘Well, that does sound entertaining. I think I shall change my plans and come see that instead. But not tonight, alas.’ He pushed back his chair and stood, reaching for his glasses. ‘Thank you, Marta, for the help. And thank you for the distraction. It’s much appreciated.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I said. But it felt like a victory.
We often built castles in the air, after that. ‘I feel like going to Spianata Castelletto tomorrow,’ he’d say as he bundled up the cards ready for Silvia to pack. ‘Let’s assume the elevator’s working. How about you?’ Or: ‘I think a quick hop over to Rapallo might be in order. We’re going to have the weather for it, so why not?’ And I’d briefly imagine sitting (with him) on a bench at Castelletto, or walking (with him) along the promenade at Rapallo; and then I’d push the image away and make myself come up with a completely different scenario, without him.
*
Much later, Teglio would explain to me that he preferred to move around the city at mealtimes, when most people were indoors and the Germans would be less vigilant. They had a price on his head by then, he said casually. A million lire, more than enough money to lure someone into betraying him – and indeed people in his network, important and well-connected people, had been betrayed by accident or design and had vanished into Marassi prison or the Gestapo cells at the Casa dello Studente. He never told me any of this at the time, though. He never gave me the slightest hint of the dangers he’d braved just to get to the house, or how he lived on the move between different locations. He was simply my refuge, and I did my best to be his.
I told myself that he and I were great comrades. I told myself that there could be no attraction between us; that our new complicity, as strong and surprising as it was, had to be something different. A working friendship, or a friendship rooted in work. I told myself all kinds of things, but the reality is that I was falling in love with him. I couldn’t admit that then, but I know it now. I lived for his visits. I knew every detail of his face, every line of his hands, every fleck of his dark eyes. I could hold desire at bay while we were working, but in those brief moments where we were simply two people alone together, it flooded in and electrified everything; and when I woke in the night, in that liberated half-conscious state, I’d roll over and feel his arms around me, his body against mine.
But if I admitted all this, then it became real, concrete, a fact of my life. I would have to live with it all the time. I would have to let myself hope that he might want me, too, and that would be unbearable. And so I tried to shove my feelings down and be polite and cheerful, a help to everyone and a burden to none, even as I grew more restless by the day; even as pain bit deeper every time he left, and I had to face the long night ahead in that silent little room, alone.
I thought I was doing well, until Vittorio came to the house one morning with a new list of names for us to work through. I hadn’t even picked up my pen before he said, in English:
‘I know it is difficult and painful to stay hidden. But this will change – I beg you, have faith. The war will end,’ he added as I stared at him, my heart racing. ‘I have heard already that the Allies are close to taking Rome.’
Teglio had told me the same thing the previous night; we had sat silently together for a while, neither quite daring to hope. I glanced over at Silvia. She appeared completely focused on her knitting. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said. ‘I do have faith, and I’m quite all right, I promise.’
Vittorio shook his head. ‘Are you? I shouldn’t be. Had I to live so, I should be…’ he waved a hand as if feeling for the words ‘…in the most frightful flap.’
He spoke each word with such absolute gravity. I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Where did you learn that phrase, Father Vittorio?’
‘It isn’t correct?’ He frowned. ‘A colleague at Heythrop used to say this.’
‘It’s correct, as such; it’s just… it’s very charming.’
‘Ah. Well. Anyhow, I understand.’ His ears were pink – I felt for him. ‘Work helps with such things. Shall we continue with ours?’
‘Yes, let’s.’ I reached for my pen and pulled the latest list towards me. Vittorio gave a brief nod, stood and went to the window, where he lit a cigarette and smoked it with his back turned to me.
He didn’t speak again until we had finished all that day’s cards. I had long since concluded that I had offended him, and had given up being mortified by it. But as he was gathering up the forms to take downstairs to Bernardo, he cleared his throat and said: ‘I shall be back already tomorrow. Stiff upper lip, now, Marta.’ And he nodded to Silvia and was gone before I could react.
Silvia looked at me with wide eyes. ‘Whatever did you say to him? And more to the point, what did he say to you?’
‘Oh, it was a sort of spiritual exhortation.’ Laughter was threatening to bubble up: nervous, hysterical laughter. I couldn’t give in to it. ‘Silvia, have you any work for me? Really, anything at all. I need to keep busy.’
I thought she was going to protest, as she always did when I wanted to do something outside of the very few duties she allowed me. But then she nodded and said: ‘Of course. Let me go and ask Bernardo what we have for you to do.’ She got up and went out, giving my shoulder a sympathetic pat on the way. I can only think that I must have looked very bad.
From that day onwards, I had a new routine. The round kitchen table became my makeshift desk, and each afternoon I worked through everything that was brought to me: ledgers and records, bills and receipts, old letters to be filed or destroyed. I worked while Silvia bustled around me cleaning the kitchen, or did her knitting by the stove, or vanished downstairs to help Bernardo in the shop. I worked while Tiberio tried to get my attention, spreading his long orange body across my papers and trying to catch hold of the end of my pencil, mewing at me until I gave in and held him in my lap for a while.
I worked until six, and then I cleared everything away and helped Silvia to make dinner and cover the windows and light the lamps. We would eat our simple, early meal and I would hope, desperately by now, for Teglio to come. If he didn’t, I would read silently while Silvia and Bernardo read aloud. We would put on the radio and listen to the clipped English tones of ‘Colonnello Buonasera’ telling us that all would be well and the war would soon be over, and then I would take myself to bed and make long, senseless lists in my mind until I was finally able to sleep.
The next morning, sometimes Vittorio would come to the house: always early, before the shop was open. I liked his visits, if not quite as much as Teglio’s. I liked our work together; I liked our brief conversations in English while Silvia pretended not to hear. And I liked to observe him. He fascinated me. At first it was strange to look at him when he didn’t often look directly at me, but as we grew easier with one another, I found myself watching him. I noticed how, at idle moments, his fingers went to the rosary at his waist – not fiddling with it, as I first thought, but methodically pressing each bead. He was praying when he did that, just as he was praying when he closed his eyes for a moment before picking up his pen, or stopped work to listen to the bells of the Immacolata. He was praying all the time. I noticed how he paused before applying the signature to each card, as if it were a new task rather than one he’d repeated hundreds of times already. I noticed how he paused to look at each one when it was created.
