Page 51 of Daughter of Genoa
‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Well, it’s everything. All the usual things.’
‘My poor darling,’ he said. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
I looked up into his kind, clever face and wondered just what he’d heard about me when he checked me out all those weeks ago. Of course he’d found out who I was: what I’d married into, all the compromises I’d made. But did he know what I was accused of and know – or guess – that I was innocent? Or did he know only that I’d been dismissed on account of the Racial Laws, and by a man he found thoroughly obnoxious? I suddenly felt that I had to find out. I was trying to formulate some way to approach the question when I realised that he was talking.
‘…you’ll need your real identity papers, of course. I know you lost them in the bombardment. But don’t worry, we can make you a new set. I’ve brought the blank form with me, and my man at the questura will—’
‘My real papers?’ I asked. ‘What do I need those for?’
‘At the Swiss border. That’s the agreement: if you can show your legal identity papers with your status as a Jew, you’ll be accepted as a refugee. And that’s a guaranteed acceptance, thanks to my contacts in the Red Cross. They won’t find some spurious reason to turn you away, like they do to so many others. Of course, the price for all this assurance is that you have to travel while carrying both documents, and that’s a risk in itself. But the lady who’ll be escorting you is completely trustworthy, and she’s done this many times before. That at least should be…’ His brow furrowed. ‘You’re not following me, are you?’
‘I’m not,’ I said, though my mind and heart were racing.Switzerland. It rose up before me like a vision, rich and free and peaceful. ‘It’s a lot to take in – I’m sorry. Please can you tell me again from the beginning?’
‘Of course,’ he said, and he started to explain. Since taking over DELASEM, he’d established a safe escape route between Genoa and Switzerland. A lawyer friend of his had a sympathetic client, a rich lady whose Swiss estate spanned the Italian border. This lady and her maid would come down to Genoa on separate trains, and each would take three or perhaps four people back with her. Then the new arrivals would apply for refuge through Massimo’s contacts, who had been warned of their coming. It was a slow and cautious way of working, and it meant only a handful of people could be moved at one time. But it was better and infinitely safer than taking your chances at the border; or entrusting yourself to some unknown guide, who might extort a large fee only to sell you out, or kill you, or simply abandon you along the way.
‘There’s huge demand,’ Massimo said. ‘You can imagine. We have entire families who need to escape, people coming to Genoa from all over to get on one of these trains. But sometimes…’ He was holding my hands tight. ‘Sometimes, rarely, it happens that a place frees up – that I can fit in an extra person, someone who’s alone. I’ve been waiting to find a place for you, and now I finally have. All being well, you can leave next week.’
‘Next week,’ I echoed. ‘How long have you been…’
‘For weeks now, since I first heard about you. I’m very sorry I didn’t tell you before. It would have been cruel to give you hope unless I was certain that I could make it come about. And I wasn’t at all sure that I could. I could only prepare to seize the chance if it should arise.’
‘That’s why you asked about my papers,’ I said. ‘Back when we first met.’
Massimo nodded. ‘I know this must be strange for you – it’s strange for me, too. I didn’t know you, or what you would mean to me. I just saw a young woman who was surviving alone. If we’d never got to know one another, if I’d never come to feel about you as I do, then I’d still have kept on looking for that spare place and I’d still have offered it to you the instant it came up. I always wanted you to be safe. I hope you know that.’
‘But I am safe,’ I said. Switzerland had already lost its shine. I didn’t want to leave Massimo, to stop the work we’d been doing and abandon the people I could help. In that moment, all I wanted was to stay in Genoa with him. I had my work and I had my love, and in everything else I could take my chances. ‘I’m safe here. You said it yourself, the Waldensians—’
‘No, my darling, you’re not safe, not completely. Perhaps you feel safe, and that isn’t the same at all. In fact, it can be very dangerous.’
‘But—’
‘Please,’ he said, with an intensity that startled me. ‘Please, Anna, I’m giving you a way out. You must take it. I can’t lose someone dear to me, not again, not so soon. Don’t put me through it.’
*
This time, I was the one listening as the story spilled out. ‘Did you ever wonder why I stayed in Genoa?’ Massimo asked, studying my face. ‘Didn’t that strike you as strange?’
‘Of course I did,’ I said. ‘It was the first thing I wondered when I saw you.’
‘But you didn’t ask me.’
‘No. I tried to put it out of my mind.’ I’d tried, but I hadn’t always succeeded. In those first weeks, when I’d loved him without wanting to, I’d sometimes lain awake tormenting myself with the idea that he’d stayed on account of someone else.
‘And you were quite right,’ he said. ‘Need to know, and so on. But I think perhaps I ought to tell you now.’ He took a deep breath. ‘When the synagogue was raided,’ he began, ‘I was alone. My wife had died the year before. I’d sent our daughter—’
‘You have a daughter?’
‘Yes. She went to my in-laws in Rapallo at first – they’re Catholic, and so is she, technically – she’s elsewhere now, but she’s being kept safe. It’s all right,’ he cut across me before I could respond. ‘I live with it. I have to.’
‘I understand,’ I said, but my head was spinning. Massimo,myMassimo, was not just a grieving husband but a father, with a daughter he missed and who must miss him. I couldn’t imagine his pain. I squeezed his fingers and he squeezed mine back.
‘The rest of my family had left town,’ he went on. ‘My mother and father, my sisters and brothers with their own families. They were scattered around in various places. I know this is a lot to take in all at once, when I’ve been so tight-lipped up to now.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. In any other circumstances…’
‘I know. It’s good practice. The less you tell me—’
‘Exactly so. Well, my family were more or less safe up to that point. But now the Germans had their names from the synagogue records, I knew it would be easier to hunt them down – and they would be hunted, there was no question of that. I found a way to write to all of them and tell them to run, to take new names and find new places to hide, places where nobody knew them. And they all did, except one: my little sister Margherita. She and her husband Achille and their children were staying at a hotel in Montecatini. The address was in the records,’ he went on, growing heated. ‘They needed to leave right away. Right away. There wasn’t any time to waste.’
‘You mean they didn’t…’ I had to take a breath myself now. ‘They didn’t leave?’
