The Italian Wife

  She nodded. ‘We will find her. I’ll mingle with the flag-wavers. Rosa won’t be hard to spot. Just look for the nuns, they’ll be obvious enough with their big white headdresses rising up to God like —’

  He took her face between his hands.

  Her breath ceased.

  ‘Leave the searching to me,’ he said gently. ‘It will be safer. You’d be surprised how easily people fail to see the man behind the camera. You’ve already crossed Chairman Grassi today and he doesn’t take kindly to that, so you should —’

  ‘No, Roberto.’

  His sigh reached her lips. ‘I thought you might say that, Isabella, but I want you to keep out of it.’

  ‘No, Roberto.’

  He kissed her mouth. He tasted of strong coffee and good wine and of something she had never known existed, something that made her mind slow down to a crawl but set her heart pounding. She needed to twine her arms around his neck and breathe in the scent of his skin, but before she could even move a muscle he stepped back from her into the black pit of the courtyard as if he’d been bitten by a snake.

  ‘Good night, Isabella. Dormire bene.’

  And he was gone. She stood there on the doorstep in the chill wind and listened for the Fiat’s engine to start. She stood there long after he had driven away, aware of a heat spreading from where his lips had touched hers. It radiated down her chin and unfurled over her throat, trickling down to where her heart seemed to have stopped beating.

  ‘Roberto,’ she said in a murmur that the wind snatched away, ‘what is it you are afraid of?’

  18

  ‘Holy Mother of Jesus! Look at that!’

  ‘It’s the gateway that I told you about, Francesca,’ Isabella laughed. ‘A monstrous gateway, I admit, but one that I suspect will please Mussolini immensely. The new gateway to Bellina. Dottore Martino designed it.’

  ‘I know, but I didn’t realise it was going to be quite so massive.’

  It was hard not to laugh, yet impossible not to be impressed. A vast arrogant letter M straddled the road. M for Mussolini. No one could miss the significance – this was Il Duce’s town. Ten metres high and constructed of huge concrete blocks, the gateway dominated the landscape on this eastern edge of town where traffic from Rome and the Appian Way would enter. Mussolini himself would shortly be speeding through it with his cavalcade and Isabella could just imagine the triumphant grin that would spread across his fleshy face at the sight of it.

  Francesca stuck out her arm in the Fascist salute and shouted, ‘Bravo, Il Duce!’

  Heads turned. Other around them immediately echoed the shout. Isabella nudged her friend in the ribs. ‘Behave, Francesca.’

  ‘I am behaving. I am singing praise to our beloved leader.’

  But Isabella had no wish to draw attention to herself today. She needed to be anonymous, just another patriotic face in the crowd that was gathering to line the roadside. She had chosen to wear a plain scarf over her hair and a dark coat, but she knew that as long as she was linked with Francesca, she wouldn’t go unnoticed because no one could ever pass the baker without turning to admire the sleek river of white-blonde hair that flowed down her back.

  ‘Francesca, wait here for me. I’ve just got to slip away for a few minutes to find someone. I won’t be long.’

  She was sure she had spoken with no hint of urgency but she realised she was wrong. Francesca knew her too well. Her eyes widened and she pursed her mouth around her cigarette.

  ‘Oh? And who exactly is this someone?’

  Isabella smiled innocently, just as a group of men at their elbow, elderly and weighted down with war medals across their chests, suddenly shifted to allow a tall figure to step in between. A familiar camera was slung over his shoulder.

  ‘Buongiorno, a fine morning for the town to turn out in force. I hope you are well.’

  Roberto’s eyes held Isabella’s for a moment, then he inclined his head politely to Francesca and treated her to a smile, and it was all Isabella could do to stop herself seizing his chin and switching the direction of his smile to herself.

  ‘Francesca,’ she said grudgingly, ‘this is Signor Roberto Falco. He is the town’s official photographer.’

  Francesca exhaled a smoke ring. ‘You’re going to be a busy man today, signore, but not too busy to buy us a coffee later, I hope.’

  He laughed outright. ‘Of course not, I’d be delighted. The LUCE cameras are here as well today, so they will be doing much of the donkey work.’

  ‘Good. Come round to Francesca’s Panificio on Via Aristotele when you’re done.’

  ‘I look forward to it, signora.’

  He tipped back his head to inspect the gateway against which long ladders had now been propped. Young boys, between ten and fourteen years old, in the Balilla uniform of black shirts and grey-green shorts, were scampering up them as eager as monkeys to line up at attention on the ledges specially built for them, but the smile grew rigid on his face as he watched them. The Balilla was the youth movement of the Fascist Party and each boy carried a functioning scaled-down rifle on his back.

  Don’t look so sad, Roberto. Not today. When everyone else is smiling. Eyes are watching.

  At intervals along both sides of the road stood the full-size Blackshirts, stiff as toy soldiers, keeping people back, issuing reprimands when the crush threatened to surge forward, and always their eyes darting from face to face. Isabella could feel their suspicion. It blew on the wind and brushed against her skin, as brittle as dry leaves.

  ‘Signora Berotti, have you by any chance seen where the Suore di Santa Teresa are stationed along the route?’

  So formal. As if he didn’t know the taste of her lips.

  ‘No, I haven’t yet. They must be further back towards town.’ She noticed his gaze settling on the scarf that covered her hair and a faint frown drawing his thick eyebrows together.

  ‘Why an interest in the nuns?’ Francesca asked.

  ‘It will create a strong image. To see the Church and the children waving flags for Il Duce. Mussolini relishes pictures of himself with excited young children.’ He laughed but Isabella could hear no pleasure in the sound. ‘They are the future of Italy, sitting there in the palm of his hand.’

  Isabella was tempted to ask, What about Rosa? Whose palm is she sitting in right now? Instead she said, ‘I’ll let you know if I see them.’

  ‘No need. I’ll find them. But thank you, signora.’ She knew he would have said more if Francesca had not been at her side. ‘Enjoy the parade,’ he added, and with a polite nod to them both he started to carve a path through the crowd.

  ‘So, Signora Isabella,’ Francesca said, hands on hips and a broad smile on her lips, ‘that’s the “someone” you were going to sneak off to find.’

  ‘No, Francesca, it isn’t.’

  ‘Ah, but he is the Signor Falco you asked me to find out all I could about for you before, isn’t he? The photographer from Sorrento whose dog was trampled by a bull.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  ‘What’s going on between you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What kind of nothing? You think these eyes of mine are blind, Bella?’ She wrapped an arm around her friend and whispered in her ear, ‘I saw the way he looked at you.’

  ‘He looked at me the same way he looked at you. Polite but friendly.’

  Francesca laughed, released her and lit another cigarette. ‘My sweetest girl, he looked at you as if he were a cat and you were a dish of the finest cream.’

  ‘The trouble with you, Francesca, is that you are an incurable romantic.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘No. I see straight lines. I see realism. I measure and calculate. That’s why I’m an architect.’

  The laughter drained from Francesca’s face and a look of sadness that Isabella did not care for took its place. She had seen that look before. It always heralded a lecture from her friend.

  ‘Bella, cara mia, you can’t go on hiding away y
our heart for ever just because Luigi —’

  Isabella kissed her friend’s cheek briskly. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  She hurried away in search of a tall white headdress.

  The sun had come out for Mussolini. Or was it that he carried it around with him in his pocket? Roberto wouldn’t put it past him. Not even the stars would want to cross Il Duce and his infernal Blackshirts. In the distance the mountains seemed to melt into a golden fiery haze, while here in the town the marble buildings gleamed and glittered in anticipation, and the patterned pavements drew the eye onwards to the rows of flags that declared the town’s allegiance.

  The crowds were pressed behind the barrier of uniforms lining the route that the cavalcade would take, but Roberto strode along the road, his Graflex allowing him that privilege. It meant he could move fast, whereas Isabella would have to struggle through the dense throng of people on the roadside. He tried to keep her out of his mind, but it was like trying to keep the sea back with a child’s bucket. She flowed and ebbed and swirled through his every thought, whether he wanted her there or not.

  His eyes keenly scanned the clusters of hats and caps and brightly coloured headscarves, but could pinpoint no white headdresses towering above the rest.

  ‘Merda!’

  He didn’t have long. Mussolini’s parade would start any moment. He tried asking one of the Blackshirts if he’d seen the nuns anywhere along the route but received only a curt shake of the head. He stopped by a woman at the front of the crowd just because she was wearing a scarf the same blackberry colour as Isabella’s and repeated his question. She nodded readily.

  ‘Back there,’ she pointed. ‘Near the fountain.’

  ‘Grazie, signora.’

  Roberto lengthened his stride. But he couldn’t outpace the question that had plagued him all night and it came spinning into his head yet again. Was Isabella aware that when he kissed her, the second his lips touched hers, her whole body became rigid? She’d uttered a muffled rumble at the back of her throat, the way a hound will when it doesn’t want to be touched. He had been tempted to stroke her glorious mane of hair, to soothe her hackles, but he was afraid to touch her in case she bit his hand off and ran away back into whatever darkness it was that clouded her blue eyes when he came too close.

  So he’d left. Cursing that black-shirted husband of hers to hell, and this morning he’d smiled pleasantly at her and her blonde friend as if he had no memory of that rumble. No memory at all. Of the demon inside her that uttered it.

  If you had a bullet smash your spine, you’d have a demon too, he reminded himself.

  It was why he was here, thrashing around looking for women who hid themselves away behind black robes and the absurd white crown of Christ, and for a child with hair shorn close as a monk’s. Isabella was strong. She was confident. Talented. Beautiful. Ferocious when she chose to be. But still it had her by the throat, that demon.

  That’s why he was here.

  ‘Mother Domenica.’

  ‘You again.’

  ‘Indeed it is.’ Roberto gave the woman in black a smile intended to disarm. ‘A pleasure to see you and the sisters out in force today. The convent must be deserted.’

  The nun narrowed her colourless eyes at him, her lashes as pale as cobwebs, and said very deliberately, ‘The convent of Suore di Santa Teresa is never deserted, young man. God is always there.’

  ‘Just as my camera is always here.’ He patted its smooth wooden flanks affectionately.

  ‘Don’t be facetious, Signor Falco.’

  This time he didn’t smile. ‘I wasn’t. We all cling to what matters to us.’

  She opened her thin lips to rebuke him once more but he didn’t wait to hear it. ‘I am here to take pictures of people welcoming Il Duce to Bellina and I am sure,’ he emphasised the word, ‘he will be particularly pleased to see the children and the convent sisters greeting him so warmly. He cares passionately about the children of Italy.’ He inclined his head in an offer of truce.

  She blinked once at him. ‘Take your pictures, signor fotografo.’

  He slid a new film holder into the camera and immediately started to take a couple from across the road, but then removed the holder without replacing it. He knew he had to save his film for shots of Mussolini himself, but he continued to operate the knobs and shutter, moving further down the line of girls, away from the huddle of nuns. He studied the rows of grey pinafore dresses. Again. And then again. Where was she? Where the hell had they put her? He scanned the thin faces but not one of them matched the sad little picture in his pocket.

  ‘Buongiorno, signore.’

  ‘Gisella.’ The girl who had acted as his assistant was standing at the far end of the back row. It occurred to him to wonder if she had put herself there on purpose to give her a chance to speak to him if he turned up. He grinned at her. ‘Enjoy the biscotti?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was lying.

  ‘I have something for you,’ he said in a low voice.

  Her freckles grew rosy with excitement. ‘What is it?’

  Roberto glanced around to ensure no nuns were looking and a brass band obliged at that moment by marching past, attracting all attention. He slid from his jacket pocket a photograph no larger than a cigarette pack. Easy to hide.

  ‘Here,’ he murmured. ‘It’s the one I took of you.’

  She glanced at it and slipped it smoothly behind the bib of her pinafore with a practised hand. She smiled at him. The tip of her nose was bright pink. ‘Thank you.’

  He waited, letting the silence between them stretch to ten seconds, so that she was turning to him curiously when he asked, ‘Where is Rosa Bianchi?’

  Instantly her eyes dodged away. ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘I can see that,’ he said. ‘Where is she?’

  Gisella cast a quick look at the nuns. ‘She’s been shut up in the convent for the day with Sister Bernadetta, one of the novices.’

  ‘Where in the convent?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t lie, Gisella. You have the picture.’

  Her small hand touched the front of her chest and she held it there tight, as though feeling for her own heartbeat through the photograph.

  ‘In the refectory.’ Scarcely a whisper.

  ‘Thank you, Gisella. I appreciate your help.’

  Her helpless eyes leapt to his and for one daunting second he thought she was going to ask for another kiss. ‘Go now,’ she mouthed at him.

  Yet he lingered. He wasn’t sure why. He wanted to tell the child to be brave, to keep in mind that this hell would not last for ever. Just get through one day at a time. One breath after another. That’s how he had got through five wretched years of solitary in prison. Sometimes he could still smell the stench of it on his skin. On his soul.

  ‘Arrivederci,’ he murmured. ‘Good luck.’

  He walked away. Foolishly believing he would never see her again.

  ‘She’s not there.’

  ‘Rosa?’ Isabella clearly didn’t want to believe it.

  ‘Yes. Rosa’s not there with the nuns.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘Yes. I inspected every single girl.’

  ‘Let me go and look at —’

  ‘I know where she is. One of the girls told me.’

  ‘Where?’

  Isabella’s arm was pressed tight against his, jostled close to him by the crowd that was craning forward to view the Balilla youth brigade that was marching past, legs snapping straight, rifles precisely angled on the shoulder? A shout of ‘Bravo!’ raced through the throng.

  ‘In the refectory of the convent. It seems she is being watched over only by Sister Bernadetta, one of the novices, so —’

  ‘Falco! What the hell have you been doing?’ Chairman Grassi slapped a hand on Roberto’s shoulder. ‘Get down to the Mussolini gateway, damn you.’

  Roberto moved in front of Isabella, his broad shoulders obscuring her from the chairman’s gaz
e.

  ‘Il Duce isn’t due to arrive for another half-hour,’ Roberto pointed out crisply.

  ‘Get down there now, for Christ’s sake.’ The chairman’s heavy features were flushed and Roberto suspected he’d already been busy calming his nerves with a grappa or two. ‘His car could turn up here early.’

  At that, Roberto laughed, a harsh sound. ‘Generalissimo Benito Mussolini always chooses to be late, as everyone knows. He likes to make people wait.’