The Italian Wife

  ‘You have regular meetings with Chairman Grassi, don’t you?’ she’d said to him over a shot of limoncello at the back of the bar he’d chosen. ‘To keep him up to date. That’s what they say in the office.’

  ‘Yes, it’s true.’

  ‘I need to see him urgently, but I can’t get an appointment.’

  ‘What is it you want to speak to our respected chairman about?’

  ‘It’s a private matter.’ She shook her head apologetically, not wanting to offend him. ‘It’s nothing to do with architecture or buildings. Something personal.’

  He didn’t seem to react, yet she sensed a heightened awareness in him on the other side of the table, a brightness at the back of his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘I see.’

  She liked his quick mind and the fact she didn’t have to say more. He had made a telephone call. It was as simple as that. Now she was here in Grassi’s office, impatient for their meeting to end. Francolini was only halfway through his cigar when he stood up and shook Grassi’s hand across the wide ebony desk.

  ‘Thank you, chairman, for your time. We have clarified a number of problems and I can push ahead. I’ll keep you informed.’

  Grassi prowled forward from behind his desk and clapped a fleshy hand on the narrow bones of Francolini’s shoulder with such vigour that Isabella realised he enjoyed working with this man. Davide Francolini had the knack of keeping things clear and simple. She must do the same. When Francolini headed for the door and opened it, she moved for the first time, her skirt rustling, an incongruously female murmur in the hard-edged male office. But instead of following Francolini out of the office, Isabella stepped smartly in front of Grassi.

  ‘One moment of your time, per favore.’

  The chairman’s shoulders pulled back but his head jutted forward. ‘Get out of my office, signora.’

  ‘I don’t intend to disturb your work. Just a couple of quick questions.’

  There was a darkness to his heavy features as thick as the smoke that he breathed in her face. At this time of day his jaw glinted with the beginnings of a silvery stubble, but his hair was the dense black of paint.

  ‘Leave now!’

  ‘In the name of my husband, Luigi Berotti, who died for your Fascist Party, listen to me for two minutes. Please.’

  Her voice was quiet. Reasonable. Not a trace of the anger that burned in her throat. She had disconnected herself from it and softened the muscles of her face. ‘It won’t take long. Then I will leave you in peace.’

  Whether it was something in her voice or the mention of Luigi’s name, she didn’t know, but Grassi pulled back his head and drew on his cigar till its tip glowed like a warning. She saw something more of the man as he disguised his arrogance behind a long shrewd stare.

  ‘Luigi Berotti was a loyal member of the Fascist Party. Back in the days before Mussolini came to power and needed every supporter he could get.’

  Isabella hid her surprise. She trod warily. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you heard of his death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No one was ever charged with his murder.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here. Ten years ago I was told by the police that my husband’s killer escaped and no one knew who it was. Presumably an insurgent in a random attack.’

  ‘Unfortunate. But it happens sometimes.’

  Unfortunate? What kind of word was ‘unfortunate’ to describe the escape of a killer?

  ‘He shot me in the back,’ she stated.

  ‘That too is unfortunate.’

  If she pushed his cigar down his throat, would that be unfortunate too?

  ‘I have reason to believe the Party knows more about the gun attack that day than it’s telling me.’

  He rolled his eyes impatiently and looked at the door. ‘Young woman, the Party knows nothing about the incident, I assure you. The death of your husband was a sad loss. But it’s over.’

  ‘No. It’s not over. Death is never over.’

  He started to pace back and forth across his office, his gleaming black shoes marking out a line that she knew better than to cross.

  ‘Who has been filling your head with this nonsense?’ he demanded. ‘Not the blasted priest.’

  ‘The priest? No, not him.’ She paused. ‘Allegra Bianchi mentioned it to me.’

  It brought him up short. He drew in a quick breath, expanding his broad chest, snorting out smoke, taking up more of the space in the office.

  ‘That woman was mentally deranged,’ he declared. ‘Don’t waste my time with her unhinged ideas. She was a woman hell-bent on creating trouble and she is now where she belongs.’

  Yet he crossed himself. Old habits die hard.

  ‘What about her daughter? Is Rosa Bianchi where she belongs?’ Isabella asked quietly.

  He blinked at the change of direction and his heavy features became leaden. ‘She has gone,’ he announced.

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Yes, the girl is being looked after elsewhere.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘That, Signora Berotti, is none of your business.’

  ‘Allegra Bianchi made it my business.’

  His reaction was immediate. He strode straight over to her and for a moment she believed he was going to strike her, but instead he grasped the lapel of her jacket. He yanked her to him, so close she could see the small broken veins on the side of his nose pulsing with fresh blood and smell the tobacco on his hot breath.

  ‘Signora Berotti, I am telling you to stay out of this. That girl is as damned as her whore of a mother.’ He released a grunt of anger. ‘As damned as her father will be when I…’

  Instantly he regretted his outburst. She could see it in the hooded caution that now veiled his dark eyes.

  ‘Who is her father?’ Isabella asked at once. ‘I thought he was dead.’

  In answer, Chairman Grassi tightened his grip on her lapel so that it cut into the flesh of her throat.

  ‘Chairman Grassi, I —’

  At that moment a second hand landed lightly on her other shoulder and Davide Francolini’s voice sounded in her ear.

  ‘Come along, signora, don’t delay further. I am tired of standing outside waiting for you.’ His tone was sharp. ‘We need to discuss the points raised in the meeting.’ His hand jerked her shoulder, overstretching its tendons.

  In that second she lost all reason to trust either of them. She ducked from under their hands, tearing a seam of her jacket, and hurried out of the room. Out of the building. Out into the clean smoke-free air of the town. She was surprised to find it was raining, a hissing slippery drizzle that pecked at the back of her neck as she limped across the Piazza del Popolo.

  The facts kept circling in her head as she dodged the raindrops. That the girl had been spirited somewhere beyond her reach. That Grassi’s eyes had rolled away from her when he stated that the Party knew nothing about Luigi’s death. A lie. A blatant brazen lie.

  ‘So what is it, Chairman Grassi, that you are so determined I will not find out from Rosa Bianchi?’ Isabella flicked a glance back over her shoulder at the Party headquarters, a powerful monolithic building that defended its secrets with a blank marble face. The rain fretted at Isabella’s eyelashes. ‘Which one of you,’ she asked aloud, ‘is a murderer?’

  16

  Isabella stood on the step in front of the green door. She stood there in a jacket that was wet and torn and with hair that had turned unruly in the rain. Her feet had brought her to this spot unerringly.

  She needed to tell the photographer to forget about seeing the Reverend Mother. There was no point. Rosa had left the convent. It would be a waste of his time. But that wasn’t the real reason she was here. Not all of it. Not really. Her thoughts were sharp and spiky in her head. The meeting with Grassi had opened up a gaping hole inside her, just as efficiently as the bullet had punched a bleeding hole in her back ten years earlie
r.

  She sheltered against the door and touched her forehead to its slick wet surface as her mind struggled to find something solid to hold on to. Around her, drifts of rain turned the street into a shapeless blur as she rapped her knuckles against the green wood. She heard footsteps on the other side, quick and purposeful, and something stirred inside her at the sound. It did not seem like the footsteps of one of the elderly couple downstairs. The door opened and immediately Roberto drew her into the hallway out of the rain. He studied her face, then touched her cheek, her neck, her hair, brushing off the raindrops.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Tell me first how the Caldarone family got on this morning. Did Alessandro and Gabriele convince the ONC agents that they were farmers?’

  ‘The family left.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In the night. It was safer.’

  ‘Poor Alessandro, he loved the animals. Where did they go?’

  ‘South. Any town far from here, any place where they are not known.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. It will be hard for them.’

  He nodded. That was all.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get you dry.’

  He led the way to his rooms on the first floor. The house was small and cramped, but it was clean, and the smell of someone cooking a spicy Bolognese downstairs gave way to the odour of chemicals as she followed Roberto to the floor above. His long legs bounded up the stairs two at a time and Isabella had a sense of it being not just his wide shoulders that filled the narrow passage but the energy of him that rebounded off the walls and sat like a solid presence on the top step. She was pleased he was ahead of her rather than behind. She wasn’t good with stairs.

  He didn’t hurry her. He removed her sodden jacket and fetched a towel, and for a moment she thought he was going to dry her wet skin for her as if she were a child. But he handed her the towel and set about pouring her a glass of wine. He didn’t pester her with questions but she caught him scrutinising her face once or twice when he thought she wasn’t looking. The table where she’d sat last time was pushed against the wall and he seated her instead in one of the two elderly armchairs that gave a view on to the street. Against the opposite wall stood a single bed covered in a severe black blanket and a deep pile of silky scarlet cushions that transformed it into a sofa. Roberto had told her before that his other room was used as his darkroom, hence the odd chemical smell upstairs.

  He handed her the wine and settled back in the other chair with his own glass and a grunt of satisfaction.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ he said. ‘I have something to show you.’

  She sipped her wine. It was rich and smoky and offered up an aroma of dark fruit that removed the taste of anger from her mouth. She dabbed at long swathes of her hair with the towel but knew the curls would go crazy as they dried.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘This something you have to show me?’

  ‘It can wait a moment.’ His voice was gentle. ‘Enjoy your wine.’

  They sat together savouring the wine, and a delicate silence took root in the room, a companionable silence that neither felt the need to break. Everything grew still and quiet around them, the photographs on the walls watching them both as Isabella slowly relaxed.

  ‘Better?’ Roberto asked after a while.

  She opened her eyes. She hadn’t realised they were shut. ‘Much better,’ she murmured. ‘Thank you.’

  She took another sip. ‘I managed to get in to see Chairman Grassi today. He said things about my husband that upset me.’ She didn’t think her voice changed but he sat forward in his chair and his grey eyes were fixed on her intently. ‘I was foolish,’ she continued before he could comment, ‘to let him rattle me so easily.’

  ‘Is it still so raw? After all these years?’

  ‘It is unfinished, Roberto. How can it heal when it is unfinished? I still wake up in the night in a sweat of panic. Back in that moment. I see it all as if for the first time. The blood, the stalls, the faces bone-white with terror. The embroidered shawl clutched in my hand. My husband’s limp body. Roberto, I am tethered to that moment. When I wake at night I think my heart is going to break out of my chest, it is beating so hard and it is all I can do not to…’

  She stopped. Silenced the words. Appalled at how easily they had all slipped out.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, embarrassed.

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘It’s a long time since I have spoken to anyone about…’ She took a whole mouthful of wine.

  ‘And you have achieved so much since then, Isabella. Look around you in this town.’ He waved a long arm towards the window. ‘You should be proud of what you’ve done out there, the buildings you’ve created.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘But not enough?’

  ‘No, not enough.’

  ‘Still tethered to that day.’

  She nodded, and it occurred to her that Roberto was as good at calming people as he was at calming horses and cattle.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked with a smile of sorts. ‘What brought you here?’

  He laughed softly at her shift of subject. ‘Oh, you know what it’s like for us photographers, we have to scrape a living wherever we can get it. I was offered the job, so I took it.’

  ‘It must be satisfying for you. To be recording the creation of a community, knowing people will study your pictures for generations to come.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  One word. But it did not sit quite right in the room.

  ‘Well, you won’t have to record the convent of Suore di Santa Teresa.’

  His dark straight eyebrows lifted in a query. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Chairman Grassi has removed Rosa from there. He told me so himself but wouldn’t say where she —’

  ‘No, the bastard is lying to you. She is there.’

  Isabella felt a flicker of hope. She had an urge to grasp his hand, to rub her skin against his, like a cat imprinting its smell.

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked.

  ‘Because I went there today to take pictures.’

  ‘So soon? You arranged it very quickly.’

  He smiled, an ironic smile. ‘Reverend Mother was most accommodating.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Rosa’s there.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘No.’ He stretched his rangy legs and rose from his chair. ‘Come and see.’ He held out his hand to her.

  Isabella put aside her glass, brushed back the damp tangle of her hair and accepted his hand. As it closed around hers, her skin committed to memory the feeling of strength in its bones, in the hard pads of muscle wrapped around them. Her skin would remember this piece of him.

  The small darkroom glowed blood-red. It altered Isabella’s perception. The air seemed to pulse with a heartbeat of its own and everyday objects appeared to lose their hard edges, bleeding into each other.

  ‘Over here.’

  Roberto indicated a long table on which a number of photographs were laid out alongside several shallow chemical baths. Every surface in the room, except the sink in the corner, was draped with black and white prints of photographs; each wall and each filing cabinet was covered with them. Some were hung out to dry on lines stretched like spider webs across the room, and the air smelled of chemicals that Isabella couldn’t even begin to name.

  ‘Look at this picture. It’s Rosa’s class.’ Roberto lifted up a photograph and handed it to her.

  She studied it carefully. There were twenty-two children arranged in three rows and a short sturdy nun standing sentinel at their side. Each girl stared straight out at her with a solemn unsmiling face. It occurred to Isabella that they had probably never had their picture taken before, never been frozen in shades of grey. Roberto snapped the switch so that white light flooded the room instead of red, startling her, and he placed a magnifying glass in her hand.

  ‘Can you see her?’

 
Her eye ran along the rows of girls in pinafore dresses, seeking the face with the watchful eyes that looked out at the world from under a mop of wild dark curls. She frowned.

  ‘No, I can’t. Are you sure she’s here?’

  ‘That’s what Gisella —’

  Abruptly Isabella jabbed a finger at a face. ‘There.’ Through the lens the faces jumped out in expanded detail and her heart was saddened at the sight of the fragile melancholy that clung to Rosa’s features. ‘Oh, Rosa, what have they done to you?’