The Girl From Venice

  She shot him a sideways look. “That’s not very helpful.”

  “I think he’s trying to keep his honor intact, which is not easy for a German officer these days.”

  They sailed in silence for a while. She brushed hair out of her eyes and he impulsively kissed her.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked.

  “You looked available.”

  She kept her eye on him and laughed. The truth was that he felt that soon she would not be available and he found himself starting to store memories.

  Out of nowhere, Giulia asked, “Where do you think Giorgio is?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “And you don’t care.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you always hate him?”

  “We used to be best friends. But that changed.”

  “You don’t seem so upset with him now.”

  Cenzo realized it was true. He was like a man who awakes and finds his fever had broken.

  “I’m not jealous now,” said Cenzo. “But we have always been competitive.”

  “In what way?”

  Cenzo thought for a minute. “Do you remember the amusement park on the Lido? It had a Ferris wheel and a roller coaster, but its main attraction was a metal cage that a motorcycle daredevil would ride inside of, wearing a white scarf. He went round and round and reached a vertical orbit, a true 360 degrees. At the end, he would climb down and dare anyone in the audience to match his feat. No one was expected to step forward. Giorgio not only accepted the dare but rode the machine like a pro, wearing the white scarf and all. When he stepped off the bike, he passed the challenge to me and personally tied the scarf around my neck. I didn’t have a choice. ‘What have you got to lose?’ Giorgio asked. I did fairly well, but on the top of my third spin the scarf got caught in the front wheel and about screwed my head off. I learned a valuable lesson. You always have something to lose.”

  36

  Giorgio must have known he would be arrested or worse by the partisans in Salò. The only place that the Lion of Tripoli was welcome was Pellestrina, the fishing village he had left years ago.

  Cenzo watched him take long walks along the seawall. They had been solitary strolls to begin with, then accompanied by Umberto, the former Son of the She-Wolf. The boy walked beside Giorgio and whipped the air with sea grass.

  “Umberto won’t talk to me,” Farina told Cenzo. “He blames everything on Mussolini.”

  “A lot of people do,” Cenzo said.

  “He and his friends do nothing but hang out at the plane in Nido’s garden.”

  “Well, it’s not going anywhere,” Cenzo said.

  But within days Cenzo and Giorgio began to work on the Stork. The war had littered Italy with the husks of plane crashes and the Americans were especially profligate with their postwar refuse. To begin with, the two of them plus Giulia and Umberto rolled the plane back. They had to turn the plane around to face the road in a space that seemed impossibly tight. To do this, they unlocked the wings at their roots, slid them back like insect wings, and rolled the plane through the vegetable garden, then spread the wings again and locked them into place.

  Giorgio hoisted himself up through the pilot’s side flap to examine the instrument panel. “It could be worse. The turn-and-bank indicator, the altimeter, attitude, compass, and airspeed gauges, are busted. But the fuel looks good and I don’t smell any leaking gasoline, and that’s a definite plus.”

  Cenzo inspected the plane’s body. “We have at least six holes in the fuselage, a twisted aileron, a snapped tail skid, and a hole in the windshield.”

  Giorgio flicked the on/off switch and the airplane’s engine hiccupped. “Also I’d say we’re close to empty.”

  “Look!” Umberto pointed up in the sky to a floatplane towing a red and white banner that said Coca-Cola. It circled over them. Somehow it didn’t look friendly.

  “Americans.” Giorgio followed the plane with his eyes. “They don’t miss a trick. Umberto, a quiz: What do you think was the last German plane to see combat? Would you say a big, powerful bomber?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Giorgio connected wires to gauges. “Wrong. Would you say a fighter plane?”

  “I guess so.”

  “No, not even a Messerschmitt would have dared in the last days. The last German plane in the sky was undoubtedly a Stork just like this, sent on a rescue mission to hell.”

  “How are you going to fix all the bullet holes?” Umberto asked.

  “Patch and paint,” said Cenzo. “That will be your job. It’s not difficult. Pretend it’s a sail.”

  Umberto could have been knighted for the honor he felt.

  The work went swimmingly until a plume of dust approached from the road.

  “Maybe you should go inside for a while,” Cenzo said to ­Giorgio.

  “Police?” Giorgio asked.

  “Worse. Partisans.” Unsaid was the knowledge that police arrested, partisans shot.

  A black Fiat came to a stop and the Spaniard and his protégé Peppino emerged. The war was barely over and the Spaniard already looked as if he missed it. His beret was beaten and dusty and his eyes looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. Peppino let a tommy gun hang casually around his neck. They walked around the plane as if visiting a pair of harmless lunatics.

  “We heard about this,” the Spaniard said. “Peppino didn’t believe me, but I said that crazy man Cenzo Vianello will try anything. I saw him fly away like a saint ascending into heaven with much more than fish in his hold. Now here you are with your brother Giorgio, working on that same plane. But why? Why would two brothers, who by all accounts hate each other, put so much effort into a plane that cannot fly? Where do they want to go? Incidentally, where is the girl who was with you at the airstrip in Salò?”

  “I don’t know,” Cenzo said. “She went off on her bicycle.”

  “Then it’s up to you. Where is the gold?”

  “There is no gold. We threw it out of the plane. It was too heavy.”

  “It was too heavy! Jesu! Those should be the words on your tombstone.” The Spaniard rubbed his face. “That isn’t the answer I need. Not at all.” He noticed Umberto standing on the fuselage with patches of fabric in one hand and glue in the other. “And who is this?”

  “This is our master mechanic,” Giorgio said.

  “He looks more like a house painter. Come on down, chico, where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “Stay where you are,” Cenzo said.

  “Why are you making this difficult?” the Spaniard asked. He kicked a rutabaga. “This garden really is a mess.”

  “When people start landing planes on your vegetable garden, everything is turned upside down, rutabagas be damned,” said Cenzo.

  The Spaniard laughed and turned to Giorgio. “And you’re just going to fly away in this wreck?”

  “It’s going to fly like a bird,” Umberto said.

  “I’m sure it will someday,” the Spaniard said. “And someday we all will be angels in heaven. I used to be a partisan, now I’m an undertaker. So!” A pistol dropped from the Spaniard’s sleeve into his hand. “Come on, Giorgio, let’s take a walk, you and I. A last stroll for two old warriors. I have no orders concerning Cenzo. He and Peppino can stay here with the kid. And as a matter of professional courtesy, I can offer you different manners of execution. With or without a blindfold. Guillotine, garrote, bullet, blade, poison, or suffocation. Standing, sitting, or on your knees.”

  “That sounds like a menu,” Giorgio said. “How about a plane crash? I could die in the crash of my own plane. I don’t mean a skid, I mean a real catastrophe.”

  “Unfortunately, I have orders.”

  “Aren’t you tired?” Cenzo asked.

  The Spaniard slumped. “You have no idea.”

  “I know
you would never accept a bribe,” Giorgio said. “I wouldn’t ask you to. A donation is different.”

  “How is that?”

  “With a bribe, money goes from one hand to another. With a donation, money goes to heaven.”

  “You mean the Church? Too bad, I’m an atheist.”

  “All the better. You can claim a miracle anytime you want.”

  “How big a miracle?”

  “That’s up to you,” Cenzo said.

  “I want the gold I came for. Tell me how many bars you and your girlfriend flew off with.”

  “I have no idea how many we left with,” Cenzo said. “But as I told you, we had to throw them out of the plane.”

  “Just tell me how many you ended up with!”

  “None.”

  “One bar,” Umberto corrected Cenzo. “It fell under a seat on the plane.”

  Amused, the Spaniard asked, “And where is that one?”

  “Follow me,” Umberto said. He led the way to Our Lady of Fatima and opened the door of the shrine. The interior was lit by a single votive candle and a bar of gold that shone like the sun.

  37

  “I’m not sure I’d be so easy to defend in court,” Giorgio said. “I’m not a war criminal, but I couldn’t exactly call myself a war innocent.”

  “He was sent to execute Giorgio,” Cenzo said. “Among other things.”

  “I had the impression that the Spaniard was someone who rarely left empty-handed,” Giulia said. “How did you get rid of him?”

  “We gave him a bar of gold,” Giorgio said.

  “Where did you get that?” Giulia asked.

  “Umberto found it under a seat in our plane,” Cenzo said. “He found it the first night. It turns out that he’s more religious than any of us knew.”

  Umberto nodded vigorously, taking it as a compliment.

  “So there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Not quite,” Giorgio said. “The Spaniard says there are more men on their way. I’m going to be snatched. Not arrested but snatched off the street as a radio war criminal like Lord Haw-Haw or Axis Sally.”

  “They can’t do that,” Giulia said.

  “They’re the power now,” Cenzo said. He noticed that the basket on her bike was empty. He thought she had been shopping. Had she met an American officer who happened to be an expert on Byron? There were any number of possibilities, but it seemed ungrateful to question her when here she was, standing by his side.

  As if reading his mind, she said, “I went to see my old house. It was too sad.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cenzo said. “We’ll go back together and find out what’s happened to it.”

  She wiped her eyes and blew on the pinwheel Cenzo was holding.

  “This is our makeshift aerometer,” Cenzo said.

  “You don’t mean to take off today?” she asked Giorgio.

  “Why not? I have a good headwind. And it sounds as if I’ll have company pretty soon.” He smacked the fuselage. “I just need ten seconds to clear the houses.”

  “Why only ten seconds?”

  “The lighter the plane, the easier it is to get airborne. We’ve stripped it down to nothing.”

  “Will the propeller stay on?” Giulia asked. “Seriously. Half your instruments are broken.”

  “You know, at this point, they’re pretty much advisory,” Giorgio said. “If I just reach the sea I’ll be fine.”

  “Which sea?”

  “Whatever comes first.”

  “When will you go?” she asked Giorgio.

  The brothers looked at each other.

  “I think now is an excellent time,” Giorgio said.

  “Will it fly?” Giulia asked.

  “Theoretically.” Giorgio climbed into the pilot’s seat.

  Cenzo performed a walk-around inspection even as they traded thumbs-up. He wound the propeller two times counterclockwise while Giulia removed the chocks and ran out of the path of the plane. Giorgio hit the ignition switch and the engine came alive, wheezing smoke. Umberto saluted and the plane rolled.

  At ten seconds, the plane bumped over rough ground and potholes. At eighteen, Cenzo watched his brother pull back on the stick, too soon for an ordinary plane. The Stork climbed straight up, nearly tipping backwards, and seemed to balance on its tail. Heads peered out bedroom windows and ducked inside as the plane skimmed rooftops, then straightened out and aimed for the blue horizon.

  38

  Cenzo rowed the dinghy to Pellestrina and what loomed like a moon on the horizon was Celestina waiting to claim her due. He wondered what he would say to her, now that he understood the painting of the three brothers, of the youngest trying to drown the oldest. Hugo had idolized Giorgio. In a way, Giorgio had not been able to resist his own charm. Women took pride in flirting with a famous actor and Celestina was no different. She telegraphed her sensuality, which was no small weapon. Hugo would still be sailing the Fatima and joking on deck but for Celestina.

  What a fool Hugo must have felt, as had Cenzo before. At least between Giorgio and Gina there had been genuine emotion, small solace for the cuckold. With Celestina, Giorgio had been playing with a toy.

  There had been no official celebration of the liberation. Days had built up to a spontaneous joy. Now boats lined up along the dock and as good as breathed to the same rhythm. Cenzo didn’t want Giulia to suffer more questions from his mother, so once they reached the dock he dropped her off at Nido’s and went on to his mother’s house. Sofia and Celestina met him on the doorstep.

  “Tell him,” Sofia said.

  “Tell me what?” Cenzo asked.

  “Celestina doesn’t want Giulia at the wedding.”

  “It’s not as if she’s family,” Celestina said. “She’s just going to raise questions, don’t you think?”

  “I think you’re right,” Cenzo said. “There’s bound to be curiosity.”

  “And it will be a small wedding because it is my second and it’s wartime.” Celestina made it sound patriotic. “We don’t want to make too much of a fuss.”

  “Let’s take a walk,” Cenzo said.

  “You just got home. Where are you two lovebirds going?” Sofia asked.

  “Just for a stroll,” he said.

  “That’s romantic,” Sofia said. “Don’t stay out late.”

  The waterfront almost had a carnival air. The Germans had decamped and taken their detested blackout with them. Someone set an old gramophone on a chair and cranked out music on 78s. “Baciami! Baciami!” Children celebrated by staying up late and running up and down the dock with paper cones of shaved ice and cherry syrup.

  “Would you mind if I got an ice?” Celestina asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  “So warm, like summer.” She returned with the ice and gave him a coquettish look over her shoulder.

  Cenzo brushed off a bench for Celestina to sit on.

  “This must be serious,” she said.

  “It is.”

  “I’ve never heard you be serious.” She giggled. Her lips were a bright red from the cherry ice.

  “Do you think Giorgio should be at the wedding?” he asked.

  “Why shouldn’t he be?”

  “Because he slept with the bride.”

  Celestina was thrown into confusion. She half stood and craned to look in the direction of Sofia’s house. “That’s not funny,” she said finally.

  “I didn’t think so either.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Who could?”

  “Giorgio? He lied.”

  “The Lion of Tripoli lied?”

  “There’s a misunderstanding.”

  “Well, he’ll be arriving any day now. We can ask him together.”

  “It was a long time ago,” she said.

  “Whi
le you were married to Hugo.”

  She sank back against the bench. “Giorgio wanted to give me a screen test.”

  “Did he?”

  “We started out that way. Hugo caught us.”

  “So you didn’t make a screen test for Giorgio,” Cenzo said.

  “Not a real one.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Pictures. Completely innocent, most of them.”

  “You’re dripping.” Cherry syrup spotted the front of her dress.

  There was no denying that Celestina was deflated. One minute she was a desirable widow, the next she was a woman scorned.

  “It’s that girl, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Giulia? She’s after the fact.”

  “What do I say to your mother?”

  “Tell her the wedding is off. The rest I leave up to your imagination.” He was starting to feel sorry for Celestina. “Look, I’m already a scandal. You can do better. Scarpa, for example. I bet you can snare him before the night is out.”

  “He’s always hanging around,” she admitted.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  39

  Ordinarily the bar was exclusively male. On this night of all nights whole families crowded into Nido’s establishment to celebrate. The old fishermen, Salvatore and Enrico, cadged drinks and sang a toothless “Baciami! Baciami!”

  “You look happy,” Cenzo said to Nido.

  “Why shouldn’t I be? The bar is crowded and there’s money in the till.” Nido put a glass in Cenzo’s hand. “And soon I will have fuel for my beautiful motorboat. Do you know what Americans like to do? They like to race back and forth on the lagoon. How would you like American whiskey for a change?”

  “Why not? Have you seen Giulia? We were supposed to meet here.”

  “I saw her a few minutes ago but she left.” Nido lifted his glass. “To Giulia, your will-o’-the-wisp.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, don’t let your heart get broken again. I’m speaking as a friend.”

  Scarpa of the Barking Dog elbowed his way to the bar. “Let me tell you, Cenzo, I’ve never seen a prettier deckhand than yours. Aren’t you still engaged to Celestina?”