He exhaled fiercely. He bunched the fist that had been mauling her buttons and for one sick moment Isabella believed he was going to knock her to the floor. Maybe he was intending to do that, but at the last second when the decision was balanced on a knife-edge, he thumped his fist against his thigh instead with a great bark of laughter.
‘You bargain well, Isabella Berotti. I like your clever tongue, so I will admit you are right. I do remember things others forget and it serves me well. You want his name?’
‘I do.’
He touched a finger to her lips and traced their full outline. She didn’t open her mouth and bite his finger off but she did raise her hand and remove it.
‘So what is his name?’
‘It is Pietro Luciani.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘In Rome. At the Ministry of the Interior.’
‘Grazie.’
‘Enough questions.’
She stepped back nimbly before he could wrap a possessive arm around her. Her pulse was pounding.
‘Duce,’ she said softly, ‘leave me alone. I am honoured by your attention but you have fifty women out there who would gladly beg for your kisses. You don’t need mine. In memory of my husband, out of respect for his death, let me walk out of here to —’
‘Isabella!’ His arm snapped out and encircled her waist. ‘I don’t want one of those fifty women, I want you.’ He pulled her tight against him and she could feel the hardness of him in his white uniform, but she jabbed an elbow into his bulky ribs just as his lips sought her neck.
‘No, don’t…’
His heavy grip shifted to her throat, forcing back her head.
‘You have your answers,’ he said roughly.
‘Duce, you and I want the same thing.’
He smiled, his black eyes triumphant, a sheen of sweat on his bald scalp, and started to ease the pressure of his fingers on her throat. She kept her eyes fixed on his, not letting her fear settle on her face.
‘You and I both want this town constructed well and constructed fast. I am part of the team of architects.’ She squeezed the words out past his fingers. ‘They will not like it if they think I am being singled out for attention by our Duce. It will cause jealousies and disrupt the efficiency of —’
‘That,’ he said, dragging her face close to his by her neck, ‘is not true. However’ – abruptly he released her and she staggered, whooping air down her sore throat – ‘I choose not to take the risk.’ He jutted his broad chin at her with a sly smile on his lips. ‘You would make a good politician. I like your cleverness, Signora Berotti. I’m sure Dottore Martino does too. I begin to see why he hired you.’ He laughed, a dull anger hovering around his eyes like purple shadows. ‘You’ve got what you came for.’
‘And the business of my husband’s death? I would be grateful if you would let me know what —’
‘Enough! Your gratitude is worth nothing to me. Get out of here, girl.’
‘Girl’. She had been demoted from Signora Berotti to ‘girl’. She wanted to think he had a conscience about the death of the man he had captivated with his eloquence and indomitable will, she wanted to believe the shadows on his face were sorrow. But she wasn’t fooled. Mussolini was a man without scruple. Or remorse.
She didn’t wait there for an apology. She left the room in a hurry and only when she was outside in the marbled corridor did she see how much she was shaking.
‘Isabella?’
Isabella found Roberto. Or to be more accurate, he found her. In a place she never thought to see him. She had slipped quickly to the hotel’s ladies’ powder room to tidy herself and to avoid gossiping tongues and eyes that would cast sideways glances at her and her buttons. She knew what she had done. She knew her lips were soured and her skin dirtied, but there was no need for others to know. Especially Roberto.
She scoured her hands and her face, washed her lips and even her teeth and tongue with scalding water. But the sourness wouldn’t wash off. The dirt remained, sticking to her worse than a plague of leeches. She did up her dress buttons, ignoring the one that was missing, and plaited her hair in a thick braid that hung down her back. Maybe people wouldn’t remember the lace hairnet. Maybe. Maybe they wouldn’t remember that she used to be clean.
She refused to look in the mirror. Couldn’t bear to see the person who might look out at her. Instead she turned her back on it and locked herself in one of the cubicles, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. But on the inside of her eyelids the images crawled – of arrogant greedy hands and a mouth that would devour her, teeth that would crunch on her bones. Big sad blue eyes, that’s what Il Duce had said, but whose eyes in Italy were not sad now?
‘Isabella?’
Roberto’s voice. His fist banged on the cubicle door. ‘Are you in there?’
Isabella flexed her fingers to make sure they were no longer trembling and unlocked the door.
‘Isabella, are you all right?’
He stood in front of her, incongruous in his dark masculine jacket in the powder-puff pink room, his heavy brows drawn together. She wanted to touch the cleanness of him.
‘Of course I’m all right,’ she said and gave a smile. It was meant to be a smile but by the look of his face maybe it didn’t come out right.
‘Isabella.’ This time he said her name in a soft crooning voice that made her want to cry. ‘Was it worth it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean…’ But he stopped and stared at her neck. An angry flush seeped up into his cheeks.
For the first time she looked in the mirror above the washbasins and the face framed within it made her shudder. She saw wide blue eyes that were flat and secretive under thick black lashes, and skin that was bone white. Stiff and frozen. That’s not me, she wanted to say, those aren’t my eyes, Roberto. The mirror is lying. Then she noticed the marks on this other person’s long neck, a purple discolouration each side of her throat. She lifted a finger to them in disbelief. They were hot. Pulsing. She covered them with her hand and the stranger in the mirror did the same.
Before she could speak, Roberto stepped forward and folded her into his arms, and the warmth of them sent a tremor escaping from her chill bones. She buried her face into the lapel of his jacket and breathed in the mothball smell of it.
‘I’m all right,’ she mumbled.
‘I know.’ He kissed her hair, not once but twice. ‘I know.’
And that was when she pressed her forehead hard against his chest, so hard it hurt, and said, ‘I’ve lost my job.’
He drove her home in his Fiat, his wool scarf wrapped tight around her neck. She told him about Rosa at the convent and about Mussolini’s visit to her office, but she made no mention of what went on with Mussolini in the smoking room. Roberto didn’t question her except to ask who her escort was.
‘That was Davide Francolini, a colleague. We were both ordered to attend by Dottore Martino. Nothing more.’ She wanted him to be clear on that. Nothing more.
She had returned to her table just to say a polite goodbye to Davide and found him deep in conversation with Grassi who had regarded her with suspicion.
‘I trust you enjoyed your evening, signora.’ His mouth narrowed into a thin line. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’
‘What I want is information, Chairman Grassi, as you well know. Il Duce himself said it is what I deserve.’
He had inspected her coldly. ‘Signora, I’m sure Il Duce gave you exactly what you deserve.’
‘Grassi, no need for that.’ Davide Francolini bristled with annoyance and rose to his feet. ‘Let me escort you home, Isabella.’
‘Thank you, but no, I have a car waiting for me.’ She’d smiled gratefully but did not risk looking again at Grassi in case she caused another scene and got herself fired a second time by Martino.
Roberto parked the car outside her apartment block and shut off the engine but neither of them made any move to climb out. Moonlight etched a silver
filigree on the tall iron gates that let into the courtyard but didn’t quite find its way inside the car. Isabella liked it that way; she didn’t want Roberto seeing that thin woman in the mirror with the haunted eyes.
‘So,’ Roberto swivelled in the driving seat so that he was facing her in the darkness, ‘you’ve had an eventful day.’
The simplicity of the comment made her laugh. It came from a place that felt dry and empty. ‘That’s true.’
‘I’m sorry about your job, Isabella.’
‘I’ll find another one.’
‘Not like this one.’
‘No. You’re right. Not like this one. It is a unique project to work on and I’ve been honoured to do so, though at the moment I’m worried that something is going wrong.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not sure. But cracks are appearing in buildings. Drainpipes are coming adrift. Stones are breaking. Accidents happening. Inferior materials are being used. Someone is cutting corners.’
‘Have you reported this?’
‘Not officially, no. But,’ she shrugged as though indifferent, ‘it’s not my business any more, is it?’
‘How can Bellina not be your business, Isabella? When you love it so much.’
‘Well, I must learn to live without it. There must be someone else out there willing to take on a female architect.’
‘But it would have to be in some other town in Italy.’
‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘In some other town.’
The enormity of that statement sat in the car with them. Isabella could feel its cold breath on her cheek.
‘Isabella, what was it about your husband that made someone want to kill him?’
It was as if Roberto had reached into her chest with no warning and squeezed her heart.
‘Why him?’ he persisted. ‘Out of all the people who marched on Rome that day ten years ago, why Luigi Berotti?’
‘I don’t know.’ Isabella shook her head, sending her dark plait leaping on to her shoulder. ‘I don’t know, and that’s what gnaws at me when I close my eyes. Was it random? Was he just someone in a black shirt? Or was he targeted? And why me? Why shoot me? I’ve been through every single reason I can think of year after year and still I don’t know.’ She drew a quick breath to silence her words. ‘I don’t know, Roberto.’
‘Then it’s time we found out.’
She lightly touched the side of his thigh in the darkness. ‘I’m going to Rome.’
She felt the shock ripple through him, a small jolt under her fingers.
‘I found out tonight,’ she explained, ‘that the man who was the leader of my husband’s Blackshirt unit is now working in Rome. In the Ministry of the Interior.’
He wrapped his hand around her fingers. For a while he said nothing, just rubbed his thumb gently over her knuckles, his eyes hidden in the shadows.
‘So,’ he murmured, ‘tonight was worth it to you after all.’
‘Stop it, Roberto,’ she said. ‘Stop it.’
She leaned forward and kissed his mouth. A firm angry kiss that lasted no more than a second, but when she tried to pull away, his hand cradled the back of her head and his lips came down on hers with an intensity that stopped her heart. He kissed her again and again, rapid and fierce, as though seeking to eradicate the memory of any kisses that had taken place behind the closed door of the hotel’s smoking room. Heat coursed through her body, pumping her blood through her veins, hot and strident.
She had a longing to slip her fingers inside his stiff jacket, to undo the studs of his shirt and slide the palms of her hands over the hard muscles of his chest, to mingle her skin with his. She wanted to inhale the warm scent of him deep into her lungs. She’d existed through ten years of need denied. Ten years of wanting no one, of touching no man. Wanting no man to touch her. And now Roberto had turned her world upside down so that she felt empty and cold when she was away from him, as if there was a hole in her that she’d never noticed before.
So when he drew back his head and murmured something, she didn’t hear because she had turned sick at the thought of leaving him, abandoning Bellina to work and live elsewhere. She buried her face in his neck, feeling the pulse there like the kick of a horse, aware of his breath dragging in and out of his throat.
‘I could always work in Francesca’s bakery instead,’ she whispered, and he laughed. She loved that about him, the way he laughed at the things she said. She twisted her head, tracing in the darkness the strong line of his jaw with her hand, as though the weight of it was something she could carry away with her to consider later. ‘What did you say earlier?’
He pressed his lips to her forehead, trailed kisses along the fine arch of her eyebrow. ‘I said I’d come with you.’
‘Where?’
She thought he meant to her apartment door in the courtyard, like before.
‘To Rome,’ he said.
‘No, Roberto!’
What good was love, if it came to this? To pushing him away because she couldn’t bear him to get hurt.
‘What happened, Isabella?’
‘Nothing, Papa.’
‘You spoke to Mussolini?’
‘Yes.’
‘And…?’
‘I told you. Nothing happened.’
Isabella started to head towards her bedroom but her father stepped into her path. He was tall and intimidating in his floor-length wine-stained robe and his spectacles were pushed up into his ruffled grey hair as if he’d been raking his hands through it. It was past midnight and she could imagine him pacing back and forth behind the door for the past hour, waiting for her return. She was careful to keep Roberto’s scarf in place around her neck and had an excuse ready for losing her mother’s lace hairnet.
‘Isabella, don’t lie to me. You’re no good at it.’
‘I’m not lying, Papa.’
‘Did you dance with him?’
‘No, of course not. I don’t dance and anyway I was at a different table with the other architects. Mussolini had much more glamorous women to amuse him, ones with painted nails and laughs that could crack a wine glass.’
He didn’t smile. He came closer, looming over her, and lifted her chin so that he could peer short-sightedly into her eyes.
‘Something happened,’ he said gravely.
Isabella could feel a flush staining her cheeks and her lips still burning with the taste of Roberto.
‘I met someone, a man I like.’
It was as though she’d flicked a switch in him. He beamed at her, seized her by the shoulders and kissed both her cheeks flamboyantly.
‘Ah, my Isabella, at last! You have unearthed that heart of yours that you buried with that no-good husband of yours. Come,’ he drew her into the living room, ‘let us drink to this new friend who has the power to raise Lazarus.’ His chuckle of delight boomed through the apartment.
‘It’s late, Papa, I’m tired.’
‘No, cara mia, today is a special day. We must celebrate it.’
‘Papa, I lost my job today.’
‘Merda, that is nothing compared to this joy in my heart.’ He poured them both a full glass of wine and thrust one at Isabella. ‘Salute! Your mother would be happy.’
Tear sprang to Isabella’s eyes at the mention of her mother. It was just one step too far today.
‘Salute, Papa.’
‘What’s his name, this man who makes my daughter’s eyes shine?’
‘Roberto. He’s a photographer.’
‘A photographer? Hah! I suppose it will have to do. Not a Blackshirt this time, thank God.’ He smiled at her, his moustache twitching with delight, and raised his glass. ‘To Roberto!’
Isabella touched her glass to his. ‘To Roberto.’
23
The office was silent. It was Saturday morning, early. The day had dawned with an empty blue sky, so clear and brittle it looked as if it would crack if anyone dared touch it. Isabella kept her mind fixed on what lay ahead, not on what skulked beh
ind her. Sometimes the past seemed to her to be a giant mantrap with iron teeth that could snap your bones if you didn’t watch where you put your feet.
She had brushed her hair till it shone, pulled on her brightest dress and brightest smile and strode into the office with a cheerful ‘Buongiorno’ for the receptionist. Only a handful of the draughtsmen were yet at their boards, so she nodded a cheery good morning and was gathering up her personal belongings, throwing the ruler, sharpener and her favourite drawing pens into her shoulder bag, when Dottore Martino’s secretary, Maria, strolled across the room with an envelope in her hand. Her face was shiny, she was excited about something.