Page 8 of Daughter of Genoa
‘A labour camp. I see. I… well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Marta, I admire your courage. I truly do. But you must know that if the Germans believed you had information that could help them, any information at all, then they would do everything they could to extract it from you. Any sensible person, in your position, would make the greatest effort to stay ignorant.’
‘I know.’
‘And that would be a perfectly reasonable choice. The only reasonable choice, in fact, for you and for anyone who might wait and hope to see you again.’
‘You have to understand that I have nobody waiting or even hoping for me. I’m alone, and that changes everything.’ I had not consciously chosen the words, but as I said them, I knew that they were true. ‘All I have here and now, Father Vittorio, is myself. I still have my free will, so why shouldn’t I use it?’
Vittorio cracked a faint smile. ‘Oh, well, if we’re going to start getting in about Maimonides…’ He shook his head. ‘Look, all this is theoretical. There’s nothing going on here beyond what you’ve seen already, and even that is something you’d be well advised to ignore. The single most important thing you can do is look after yourself.’
‘Father Vittorio—’
‘I’ll pass by tomorrow if I can, or someone will. Just remember what I’ve said to you, please, and limit your enquiries to the state of Bernardo’s accounts.’ He stood, tucking the ledger under his arm. ‘I’ll take this to Silvia on my way out. Good day.’
6
Work has always been important to me. I think you knew that, Commendatore. I think you took it for granted, assumed that I was simply delighted to help you in your own supremely important work. But I don’t think you really understood. I didn’t come to work for you every day because I respected you as a man or cared about your business, although you clearly believed both to be true and, for expediency’s sake, I let you continue believing. Working for you was a necessary compromise – or so I let myself believe until harsh reality taught me otherwise.
Let me tell you just how big that compromise was.
I come from a family where people do not compromise. My mother had left her comfortable schoolteacher job in her well-to-do, insular Edinburgh suburb to marry a man she had met while on holiday with her parents in Rapallo. And her parents, who had been happy enough for their daughter to talk to this man when he was merely a charming foreigner and a free tour guide – and not, emphatically, a prospective member of their family – now threatened to cut her off unless she abandoned him and came home. I don’t know whether they were more upset that he was an Italian or that he was a Jew. I don’t know to this day whether my mother’s parents are alive or dead. My mother wasn’t prepared to put up with anyone who would not love my father as warmly and unconditionally as she did. She made her choice.
My father’s secular, socialist family adored his staunchly principled new bride; there was no question of a rift on their side. His turn to choose came in 1931, when I was seventeen years old and my brother Filippo was twelve. That was the year the Fascist regime required all university professors to sign a loyalty oath in order to keep their jobs. My father was a professor of literature at the University of Genoa. He loved his work – it is not too much to say that he lived for it, for Machiavelli and Dante and all his beloved souls. He loved teaching, and he loved his students. But he hadn’t risked his life in the Great War to end up swearing fealty to a man like Mussolini: a brute and a demagogue, an enemy of liberty, a man whose entire claim to power was founded on violence. That was unthinkable to him. And so my father did not sign the oath, although a great number of good, principled men held their noses and did precisely that. He made his choice and resigned instead. Only twelve other professors in the whole of Italy did the same.
Our family was now cast adrift. My father had not only lost his salary, but he had also lost all chance of finding a job again – at least, so long as the Fascists were still in power. The only sensible thing was to leave. My parents decided to go to New York, where my father’s brother and his wife lived. My uncle and aunt had even written to them, years before, to say that they must come if Italy became too dangerous. Of course, without my father’s income, going to America was much easier said than done. We needed to raise money, but we also had to stay afloat. We sold everything we could afford to spare: clothes, books, furniture. My mother gave English lessons from morning to night, while I did my bookkeeping course and took in typing for the students at the university and the naval academy.
It was through this work that I met Stefano, who was then a first-year student in naval architecture. By the time my parents had got the money they needed and had gone through the gruelling process of getting all the necessary paperwork and securing guarantees from their New York relatives and enduring the long wait for visas, he and I were married.
Now came my turn to choose. Would I – would we – leave now along with my parents and brother, or stay in Genoa until Stefano had finished his degree? There were so many practical reasons to stay. Once he was qualified, Stefano would be able to get a far better job in America. We wouldn’t have to burden my parents, but could support them as they grew older; we could start a family of our own. And I thought that I could afford to stay for a while, because Stefano was so very respectable: a well-connected Catholic, the youngest son of a Genoese seafaring dynasty. His parents weren’t warm and affectionate like mine, but they were unfailingly polite to me and, in my innocence, I thought that was their version of love. When Stefano assured me that they’d support us whatever we chose to do, I believed him. After all, his father had earned his fortune working abroad. How could he object to Stefano leaving to do the same?
And so we worked out a plan, Stefano and I. He would continue his studies, and I would take a job that would support us both. We’d put aside every spare bit of money we could, and when the time came, he’d look for an employer in New York. It was so logical, so beautifully simple that I actually thought it might work. And when Stefano’s first cautious enquiries threw up a job for me – a good job, even a little better than we’d hoped – it seemed like a sign from that benign, universal force I didn’t really believe in.
That’s how I came to you in the summer of 1934, Commendatore: not as the daughter of a known antifascist, but as the wife of a bright young shipbuilder-in-training and the daughter-in-law of a renowned sea captain. Had you looked into my family background even a little, I’m sure you wouldn’t have hired me at all. But I had my husband’s name and my father-in-law’s recommendation, and you hoped to employ one and charm the other, so you didn’t enquire any further. You made your choice based on partial information, as I had made mine.
7
I ignored Vittorio’s strictures, of course. I repeated my offer to Silvia when she came in, a little after he had gone, to make a fresh pot of tisane. She shook her head.
‘We haven’t anything for you to do, Bernardo and I. We don’t really do anything ourselves.’
‘But—’
‘What you see is all there is,’ Silvia cut across me. ‘Someone from our church asked if we would offer our spare room to people like you, people who needed somewhere safe to stay, and we said yes. It was perfectly obvious that we must. But that’s it, I’m afraid.’
I think I knew even then that this wasn’t the whole truth. But Silvia’s manner brooked no argument, so I just nodded and let her pour me a cup of herbal tea.
‘Did you ask Father Vittorio if you could help?’ she asked, sitting down opposite me with her own cup.
‘Yes.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘That I am a good person and that God will bless me for it.’
Silvia snorted. ‘Yes, well. I dare saytheyprefer to do things their own way.’
I didn’t ask her what she meant by that, for I knew exactly. Of course, I was grateful to Vittorio for finding me and bringing me to my safe haven. I was prepared to believe that he was a decent man who happened to belong to a wicked institution. But I was also quite ready to assume that he had acted, at best, out of high-handed Christian charity; that he didn’t see me as an equal at all.
‘I’m sorry,’ Silvia went on. ‘It must be very frustrating for you – but just hold on. Some day, hopefully soon, this will all be over and we can go back to our usual lives.’
