Page 44 of Daughter of Genoa
But then I found myself lying awake, imagining him shivering on the terrace in the cold November night while the Germans laid a trap just below, and I realised that I had been very stupid. Of course, Massimo hadn’t just wanted to keep me physically safe. He’d wanted to protect my heart, too, and that informed every choice he made during our time together. I’m still discovering the things he did, both for me and for others. I may never arrive at the end of them.
28
Vittorio
His love doesn’t hurt; well, not like it did. It’s become a quiet, everyday pain, nagging at him now and then, like a bad hip or a questionable knee. He can live with it.
Talking to Fulvio helped, although he ought never to have done it. If he’s learned one thing from hearing confessions – apart from the boundless human capacity for the most banal kind of sin – it’s how easy it is to assemble a coherent picture from details dropped thoughtlessly here and there. But the need was too powerful to resist, and so he’d kept it vague, talking about Marta and Mr X as if they were characters in a cheap play: two-dimensional, clichéd shadow people against a painted backdrop. Even so, he feels uneasy.
‘So this chap she’s taken up with,’ Fulvio had asked, ‘what’s he like? One of those smooth types, I imagine him.’
Vittorio thought of Mr X, his silk ties and his well-cut jackets. ‘He’s certainly elegant,’ he said.
‘Oho!’ Fulvio snorted. ‘I know the sort. But don’t you worry, Father – a clever girl like your Marta won’t be taken in for long.’ He said it as if Marta really were Vittorio’s; as if his love could ever come to anything. It was wrong, of course, but it was shamefully pleasing. ‘No, no, no,’ Fulvio went on, becoming indignant, and then remembered himself and lowered his voice. ‘She’ll get tired of him – you can be certain of that. What did you say he was again? Something in trade?’
‘I believe so,’ Vittorio said, although he had no idea what Mr X had done before DELASEM. Trade had seemed a safe enough choice – it could cover anything from munitions to tinned fish.
‘Well, that just won’t do for the kind of young lady who reads. She’ll want someone she can talk to of an evening. And he’s sure to be a dreadful bounder. Only a matter of time before she sees him for what he is.’
Vittorio’s conscience stung him at that point. ‘I don’t think he is a bounder,’ he said. ‘He seems quite honourable, really. He does good things for the poor,’ he added, ‘and he brings her books.’
‘He brings her books? As presents, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
Fulvio blew out his cheeks, shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Father. You’re done for.’
Thathadhurt at the time; Vittorio had needed to take refuge in his breviary. But in the intervening days, Fulvio’s words have stuck in his mind. He’s found himself repeating them silently, almost like mental prayer.I’m sorry, Father. You’re done for.It’s strangely soothing; above all, it’s true. The more he repeats it, the more it sinks in – and now he isn’t sad or angry or envious any more. He’s mostly worn out, with a dragging tiredness that grows stronger and stronger until one morning he’s too feeble even to shave. He picks up his razor and manages a couple of uneven strokes before he has to put it down again, his arm trembling as if he’s just lifted a tremendous weight.
Vittorio can’t understand it. He’s been sleeping heavily, falling unconscious the moment he gets into bed and waking with difficulty at the morning bell. He ought to be rested, but he isn’t at all. He sits down on the bed – just for a moment, just until he can get his strength back a little – and feels the exhaustion pull at him again. In the back of his mind, a small, clear voice is warning him that all isn’t well; that this could be the coming of the end, the start of his body’s final decline. But there’s no time for the warning to register. He’s already sinking onto his side, eyes closing, and his head doesn’t even touch the thin feather pillow before sleep swallows him whole.
*
He wakes to the sound of a bell: not the community bell that regulates his day, but the big bell, the one in the tower. As he lies there – still, somehow, exhausted – he counts the chimes all the way to eleven.Eleven. He’s missed Mass, and he should have reported to don Francesco three hours ago. Adrenaline surges through him and he pushes himself up and off the bed; resisting the urge to lie straight down again, he clumsily washes and dresses, and stumbles out and down the stairs. He isn’t even sure where he’s going. He usually meets don Francesco in the parlour, but he’s hardly going to be there now; he’s probably out doing his own work, or else with Cardinal Boetto, or Mr X, or God knows who else. But he can’t think of anything better. And so he continues in the direction of the parlour and prays that don Francesco is in there after all, or near there, or somewhere in his path. He has to focus so hard on the simple business of walking, of placing one foot in front of the other, that he nearly cannons into someone coming the other way.
‘Steady on!’ the other man exclaims. He’s wearing sharply creased trousers and distinctly secular shoes, chestnut-shiny wingtips. Mr X. Vittorio can’t look up – he’s paralysed by guilt and embarrassment and a hot, dark jealousy.
‘Father Vittorio,’ Mr X goes on, sounding rather friendlier now. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise you for a moment. Are you quite all right? Don Francesco was worried about you. Has something happened? Are you ill?’
The exhaustion is setting in again. He resents Mr X for being here, for making him talk when talking requires effort. ‘I’m all right, thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m very sorry. I overslept.’
‘That doesn’t sound like you. Look, have you time for a chat? Let’s go in here, shall we?’ There’s no need for Vittorio to answer, because he doesn’t have a choice: Mr X has an iron grip on his arm and is shepherding him towards the open parlour door. ‘Have a seat,’ he says, and Vittorio sits down at the table. He has a fierce urge to rest his head on his arms and sleep, sleep, sleep. He hears the door closing as if it’s very far away, and then Mr X sits down opposite, takes out a cigarette case and offers it to him.
‘I presume we can smoke, since there’s an ashtray here. Go on, Father.’
Vittorio nods his thanks and picks a cigarette from the case. It’s a rather cheap-looking thing in plain metal, as is the lighter he’s offered next. Vittorio is surprised for a moment: he’d expected something else, something heavy and monogrammed. But that’s stupid of him, of course. Mr X would hardly go around carrying a cigarette lighter with his real initials on it.
They sit in silence for a moment. Vittorio takes a deep drag on his cigarette and waits for the nicotine to take effect, but it doesn’t, not today. All he feels is a muted whisper of pleasure, not nearly enough to justify the effort involved in smoking the thing. He stubs it out in the metal ashtray and sits back, trying surreptitiously to brace himself against the edge of the table. Mr X is watching him; Vittorio can’t look him in the eye, so he looks at one of his eyebrows instead. (They do rather command attention.)
‘Your cough really has gone,’ Mr X says, and the eyebrow twitches. ‘It’s stayed away, too.’
Vittorio nods and brings out his lie: ‘Yes. I had a chest infection, but it’s cured now. Amazing how something like that can drain you.’
‘Quite so. But you’re still not well, are you? Forgive me, Father Vittorio, but you look dreadful. If you’re not feeling up to—’
‘I’m perfectly all right.’ He knows he’s answered too fast, that he sounds defensive, and he curses himself for it. ‘It’s just today. There must be something going around, some virus or other… I shall be fine again soon.’
Mr X doesn’t answer, just continues to watch him. Vittorio knows this tactic – he’s employed it himself in the confessional a thousand times. The horrible thing is, it works. He has to fight not to open his mouth and fill the silence, adding on details and justifications that will only undermine his story. But he does manage it, and eventually Mr X says: ‘Well, then you must go back to bed for today, at least. I shall let don Francesco know that you are temporarily laid low, and not to worry.’
