Page 87 of Escape to Tuscany

Pierfrancesco ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up even more than usual. ‘I’m sorry, I’m a little distracted today. Remind me what we need to discuss?’

I reminded him about the issue, whatever it was, and we went through the paperwork while Carlo played happily at my feet. It’s extraordinary, really – Pierfrancesco was an important man with endless demands on his time, but somehow I never felt like a nuisance when I had to show up with some minor problem for him to fix. He always contrived to make me feel as if I were the one helping him, even when he was doing me some colossal favour like lending me money (or pretending to lend it). Different as they were, he and don Anselmo were cut from the same kind of cloth.

Once we were done, he had coffee brought in and started asking me all the usual questions: how was Giuseppe, how were my parents, how were things at the bar. But I could tell that there was something else on his mind. Pierfrancesco was very transparent. He listened restlessly, folding and refolding a piece of paper that lay on the desk before him, and then finally he said: ‘Margaret Craye came to see me earlier today. You know, Achille’s young lady.’

Carlo was getting tired and fretful. He raised his arms to me, the little wooden engine still clutched in one fist. I lifted him and settled him in my lap where he leaned, warm and heavy, against me and stuck his other thumb in his mouth. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I saw her on her way out.’

‘Oh, you did? I suppose you were bound to cross paths. Very elegant, isn’t she?’ Pierfrancesco leaned back, attempting to be casual. ‘Of course, she’s suffering terribly, poor soul,’ he said. ‘Not that she’ll talk to me about it. I try and try to draw her out, but… well, she’s soEnglish. She won’t open up at all.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said. Poor Pierfrancesco, he did so hate it when he couldn’t fix people.

‘I thought…’ he went on. ‘Well, maybe she doesn’t want to talk to an old man like me.’ Pierfrancesco was forty-five, fifty at most. ‘Maybe if she had someone her own age to chat to… a woman friend, you know, someone who could really understand…’

I was playing with Carlo’s hair, stroking his fine dark curls away from his forehead. I knew exactly what Pierfrancesco was driving at – he wanted me to befriend this strange woman, to share stories, to listen to her talk – and I didn’t like it. I already had to deal with my parents. I had to live with the grief that seeped from them and poisoned everything. I had to live with Achille the dead hero, picking my way around the gaping rent he’d left in their world.

Pierfrancesco must have seen my hesitation. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know I’m asking a lot of you, and it’s very likely she won’t want to talk anyway. But if you did have a little time, and she did want to meet, just once, and talk for a few minutes… would you consider it? For me?’

Damn him.‘I’ll consider it,’ I said.

*

When a week had gone by without word from either Pierfrancesco or Rita, I began to relax. I’d been dreading that she really would get in touch and be eager, horribly eager, to talk all about Achille and make me dig up every childhood memory I had.

‘Thank God I don’t have to do that,’ I said to Giuseppe as we lay in bed one night – that was the only private time he and I got in those days, between the children, the bar and my parents. ‘The last thing I want is a long in-depth conversation about my dead brother. Can you imagine?’

But Giuseppe was looking at me as if I’d said something… not wrong exactly, but odd. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘Don’t you think it would feel better if you did talk about him?’

‘I talk about him all the time,’ I said. ‘He’s never not the subject of discussion.’

He shook his head. ‘Tesoro, no. I can’t remember the last time you mentioned his name – you or your parents. I’m sure you think about him all the time, but you don’t talk about him. Really.’

‘Oh,’ I said. It was a strange realisation, and painful in a way I didn’t quite understand. Giuseppe gathered me into his arms.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Everyone has to mourn in their own way. Whatever you need to do, you’ll do it in your own time. I’m sure it’s a good thing that this woman has decided to leave you alone.’

But she hadn’t. A couple of evenings later, just as the last stragglers were paying for their aperitivo, Rita came into the bar. She was alone and wearing a gaily patterned dress that looked like it came from Paris. I pretended not to recognise her. What else could I do? For all I knew, she had no idea who I was. For all I knew, she happened on the bar by accident.

‘Good evening,’ I said. ‘What can I get you?’

‘White wine, please.’ Her face was serene, a mask, but her hands were clasped tightly together in front of her. I felt very sorry for her in that moment. I also knew that she hadn’t just wandered in by chance; that she must have come to find me, to speak to me. My heart sank.

‘Sit down and I’ll bring it to you,’ I said. ‘We have a Trebbiano and a Vernaccia. Which would you like?’

‘Just whichever you recommend. Thank you.’ She sat down at a table by the window, pulled out a little red notebook from her handbag and began to flick through it. I poured out an extra-large measure of Vernaccia – if I could do nothing else for the poor girl, I could do that – and brought it over to her with a bowl of olives.

She barely looked up when I set her glass down. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on her notebook. I thought I’d been given a reprieve. I turned away, fully intending to summon Giuseppe from the back room and let him take over while I went upstairs and stayed there until Rita had gone. I’d got almost as far as the counter when she spoke again.

‘Maria?’

I turned back. Rita was looking at me, twisting a ring round and round on her finger. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘but Pierfrancesco told me where to find you. I’ll go away if you prefer. But I thought that maybe, if you like – if it would help you, too – then we could talk. I miss your brother very much.’ She said that last part quietly, with utter simplicity. And that quiet simplicity was like a cry.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘We can talk. If you want, we can talk.’

Historical Note

Florence is real, although it doesn’t always seem like it. But the little town of Romituzzo is entirely invented, located in a fictional valley, the Valdana, that’s shoehorned in somewhere between Florence and Siena. Readers who know the area may spot some references to the city of Poggibonsi, where I was fortunate enough to live for a while. This is a loving tribute, not a direct parallel. Far from it: Poggibonsi’s strategic location meant that it suffered immensely in the course of the war. The city was almost entirely destroyed by the time of its liberation. By comparison, the rural backwater of Romituzzo gets off very lightly.

However, that doesn’t mean that the inhabitants of Romituzzo and the Valdana have a safe or peaceful life. The various partisan groupings who fought in the hills and mountains of Italy drew their support from rural communities, and providing that support in any capacity – however marginal or passive – was a seriously dangerous undertaking. The German and the Italian SS, the Wehrmacht, the Fascist National Republican Guard and Fascist volunteer groups such as the Black Brigades waged an intensely violent campaign against partisans, their allies, and those who engaged in strike action. Many were hanged, shot, imprisoned, tortured, or deported to concentration camps from which only a few returned.

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