Page 4 of Daughter of Genoa
He raised the countertop and we followed him through a heavy velvet curtain that led to a neat but shabby back room, half-office, half-stockroom. From here, a flight of stairs led up to a warm kitchen, all polished wood and neatly pressed, Alpine-looking embroidered linen. The typographer pulled out two chairs at the round table and said: ‘Sit.’
We sat. He put two cups in front of us and poured out a hot, herby-smelling tisane from a pot that sat on the stove. ‘My wife makes it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s in it, but it’s better than what passes for coffee these days.’
‘Is she…’ Vittorio began.
The typographer nodded. ‘Gone to buy bread. Back any moment.’
‘Good,’ Vittorio said. ‘Good. We’ll talk once she’s here.’
An awkward silence descended. I can almost laugh remembering it now, but back then it wasn’t funny at all. I was as much a stranger to them as they were strangers to me, and each of us had very good cause to fear strangers. Vittorio looked at the floor, I looked into my cup as if I could read my fortune in it, and the typographer bent down and picked up a sleek orange cat, which settled smugly in his lap and began to wash itself.
I remember telling myself: These men must mean well. If they didn’t mean well, they wouldn’t be doggedly waiting for the woman of the house to return. But my hands were trembling and my nerves screamed at me to flee.
And then there was the sound of a door opening and closing, of footsteps on the stairs. Vittorio all but leapt to his feet. The typographer got up with a grunt of satisfaction and decanted the warm cat into my lap, where it lay and blinked up at me with trusting green eyes. The softness of it was almost a shock. I stroked its ears and a low purr started up in its throat.
‘I see you’ve met Tiberio,’ a female voice said. A stout woman, with a rosy complexion and silver hair like her husband’s, but without the accent.
‘No names,’ the typographer said.
The woman turned a look on him: half-loving, half-irritated. ‘I hardly think,’ she said, ‘that it matters if she knows what the cat is called. So what’s happening here? Has our Jesuit friend been out picking up young ladies?’
‘Very funny,’ Vittorio said, sitting down again. ‘Signora,’ he asked me, ‘may I tell my friends what happened?’
I nodded and kept on stroking Tiberio’s ears while Vittorio told the typographer and his wife about the English bomb, and the suspicious neighbour, and how I had nowhere to be.
‘Oh, the poor soul,’ the typographer’s wife said. ‘What a dreadful thing to happen.’ She sat down across from me and leaned forward. ‘Dear, I’m going to have to ask you some questions. Not to be nosy, you understand. I want to be able to help you – we all do. All right?’
‘All right,’ I said.
‘Now, is there something we can call you? A first name? A nickname?’
‘Marta.’
‘Very well. Now, Marta, do you have family here in the city? Relatives, friends? Anyone?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m all alone.’ And I burst into tears.
*
Everyone was splendid. It was as if they worked to a well-rehearsed routine. The two men vanished: Vittorio went to ‘put a few things in order,’ and the typographer, whom I’d come to know as Bernardo, went downstairs to open the shop. The woman, whose name I’d learn was Silvia, sat down beside me and put an arm around me while I cried. And I did cry, like I hadn’t since I was a little girl. I sobbed and sobbed, running my hands compulsively over Tiberio’s fur while he squirmed and purred and butted his head into the crook of my arm.
Once I finally managed to come to a stop, Silvia gave me a handkerchief, a big blue checked one. ‘It’s one of my husband’s,’ she said as I mopped my face and blew my nose. ‘Ladies’ handkerchiefs don’t quite do the job in this kind of situation. Now, I’m going to be very honest with you, Marta, because there’s no point in being otherwise.’
I nodded.
She sighed. ‘I’d like to tell you that you’re safe now, but I can’t promise that. You know that very well yourself. I can only promise that you’ll be much safer here than you were on your own. So if you would like, you can stay here, and we’ll all do our best for you. And if you’re thinking you’ll have to pay your way, you can forget that right now. A few old clothes, an extra place at table – that’s nothing to us, and I shall be very offended if you protest, so don’t you try. Understood?’
‘Understood,’ I said. I was too exhausted, to dazed even to wonder if she meant it or not. She patted my arm.
‘Poor thing, you look like you want a rest. Come on. Let’s get you settled in.’
Silvia stood, and the cat Tiberio jumped down from my lap and wound his way around her legs. I followed her out and along the corridor.
‘Your room is next to the bathroom. That’s important for a few reasons. Ah, thank you,’ she said as Vittorio came hurrying towards us, clutching an enamel jug. ‘Hot water. Good idea. That man should have been a hotelier.’
Silvia led me to the end of the corridor, where two doors stood ajar. She opened the first door: a bathroom with a big white tub and brass fittings, far nicer than anything I’d seen before. ‘My father had all this put in,’ Silvia explained. ‘The business was doing rather better back then. Anyway, you’re welcome to use the bath once a week, as we do. Now, here is the most important feature.’ She opened a small cupboard that stood at floor level next to the window and gestured for me to look inside. A sturdy metal ring had been fixed to the wall behind, and attached to it was a coil of knotted rope: a sort of escape ladder. It was then, I believe, that I tentatively began to trust my new hosts.
‘A friend gave us the idea,’ Silvia said. ‘If the Germans come, or the Fascists, then you must climb out of the window and down into the courtyard.’ She pulled aside the net curtain and pointed across the narrow paved area to the building opposite. ‘See that house? The custodian is a member of our church. You must go straight to the back door and ring three times and he’ll let you in. Understood?’
