The Garden of Letters (7 page)

The next week, after having successfully distributed their pamphlets, the girls return to Luca’s store.

When they enter, a little chime sounds from above the door. Luca is on his knees, uncrating a box of books. He looks up; his eyes pass over Lena then focus on Elodie.

“The two musicians,” he says.

“The bookseller,” Elodie answers.

Lena shoots her a glance, showing her surprise at Elodie’s answer.

Luca stands up from his crate. He is taller than she remembered. He wears the same brown apron he was wearing the first time they met. There is a small notebook in the center pocket, a pencil behind his ear.

“I’m sorry. We weren’t properly introduced the last time.” He extends his hand to her. “Luca Bianchi.”

“Elodie Bertolotti,” she answers. She feels a tingle in her fingers as he grips her hand in his.

“Elodie?” A quizzical expression washes over him. “I have never heard that name before.”

“Yes, it’s French. My mother chose it.”

“Is your mother French?” He smiles again. “We could use a French speaker. We’re trying to learn as much as we can from the French Resistance.”

Elodie laughs. “No, my mother’s Venetian, and if you met her, you wouldn’t think her a prime candidate for the Resistance.”

“You might be surprised,” he tells her. He raises an eyebrow and his voice betrays a hint of flirtation. “We even have some gondoliers . . .”

Elodie nods, impressed. “I had no idea.”

“Well, regardless, your name is beautiful. It suits you.”

“Thank you,” she says, blushing from his attention.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elodie could see Lena’s eyes rolling.

“Well, this is all very interesting . . .” Lena interrupts, “but we have a lot to report. Are the others here yet?”

“A few are in the back, but we’re still waiting for most of them.”

He smiles at Elodie and she finds herself hesitating as Lena begins to walk into the back room.

“Will you tell me what instrument you play?”

She smiles, touched at his curiosity about her. “The cello.”

“Again, you surprise me.” He lets out a small laugh. “Such a big and serious instrument.”

She feels the touch of his hand, a feather-light sensation at the small of her back, gently ushering her into the back room.

The men seem satisfied by Lena’s reporting of their pamphlet distribution.

“We need to be saturating the university,” someone suggests. “At least there, some are not afraid to fight the Fascists.”

A few people agree, but others argue among themselves about where they can find more support.

Finally Luca stands up and says he has an announcement.

“Our head leadership has told us repeatedly it’s essential we find new and innovative ways to deliver our messages. We have been clever in finding techniques to do that in the past. But the distances we now need to travel are getting longer. A simple bicycle run, with a piece of paper inside a handlebar, is fine for a short distance. But there needs to be something we can use that that can be transported longer distances, between cities . . .”

There is grumbling in the room.

“No need to discuss this between yourselves. You see, I have come up with an idea.”

There are three books stacked in front of him. He takes the first one from the pile and lifts it in his hands.

“We all know what this is.” Luca places his hand reverently on the cover. “For centuries, writers have used books as a way to transport their ideas and thoughts.” He opens the book to its midsection. “But, actually . . . and I know this will surprise many of you, I think there are many other ways to use them for our cause, beyond just the stirring words that have been printed.”

“In this book, I’ve taken a knife and cut out twenty pages from the middle. I then cut new pages, exactly the same size, that contain mock messages, and glued them inside so they merge seamlessly with the original pages.”

He closes the book. “I’m now going to pass it around, and I want you to give me an honest answer if you would have noticed, upon first inspection, the new pages.”

Silence sweeps through the room. Each person who touches the book and leafs through its pages is hard-pressed to identify the new ones that Luca has inserted.

“It’s also possible to use a book as a way to carry a secret code.

In this book, you’ll notice I have added some letters at the base of every tenth page. One could use letters, numbers . . . or even a combination of both, using this seemingly innocent object as a vessel of sending additional information.”

Luca opens up the book and shows everyone how he had threaded the words
Il Gufo
through the book by placing one letter every ten pages. “This is a one-to-ten ratio, but it can be adjusted to one letter on every fiftieth page, or even every seventy-fifth.”

Elodie can feel her entire body shoot with electricity as he speaks. When the first book Luca sends around the room reaches her, she places her hand on the cover just as he had, as if that gesture could somehow connect them.

The others react just as enthusiastically. “That’s brilliant, Luca,” someone shouts. Another person applauds his creativity in finding a solution. Elodie strains her ears to see if anyone isn’t impressed. But everyone seems bolstered by Luca’s ingenuity.

“I’ve saved the best for last,” he finally says to calm the room. A single book now rests on the table before him, as the first two continue to circulate through the crowd.

He picks up a larger book, this one clearly heavier and more substantial. “I took this one from of a series of volumes I have stacked on those shelves back there . . .” He points to a tall wooden bookcase replete with several rows of large books.

He pauses for a moment before parting the center pages with his thumbs. The book opens like a large butterfly. On one side of the book, within the thickness of at least two hundred pages, is an expertly carved niche. And inside is a pistol.

“Clearly, this wouldn’t be used for travel. The controls are too tight, but I think it’s a good way for us to think about storing what guns we have. I can place several of these books side by side on a shelf in this very storeroom.”

The room is now buzzing with excitement. Beppe comes over and pulls the gun from the cut-out pages.

Elodie cannot believe her eyes. She looks at Lena, who sits in her chair, too completely transfixed at what Luca has just shown her.

She turns to Elodie and whispers in her ear, “Well, he’s certainly more than your average bookseller.”

Elodie is speechless. But inside she is thinking the exact same thing.

Verona, Italy

M
AY
1943

After the meeting in Luca’s store, Elodie looked at books in a completely different way. Sometimes she would go to her father’s bookshelves and pull out a book on nautical history or one on ancient Rome, and wonder if this couldn’t be a perfect vessel for a message or a gun.

Luca’s weapon had terrified her. She had never seen a pistol up close before. The most dangerous things in her parents’ house were the kitchen knives. Even those she shied away from, preferring to set the table or stir the polenta.

Her life had been extremely sheltered. She knew it was typical for Italian families to protect their young, especially their daughters. But she had grown up even more isolated because of her musical gifts. Her parents didn’t want her to have any distraction.

But now a strange energy flowed through her. Was it a motivation for revenge for her father, combined with the passion for this new group of people who were so dedicated to winning the country back from the Fascists? Or was it simpler and far less noble on her part? Had it begun the first time Luca had looked at her? When he told her that her name was beautiful? When he had studied her face and told her that she was full of surprises?

She could envision Luca with great precision. She thought of his full bloom of dark hair, the chiseled features, and the amber eyes. She had noticed the tendons in his neck. Little ribbons of muscle, the blue veins, just under the skin—reminiscent of strings in the neck of her cello. What might it feel like to slide a single finger on one and feel the energy between their skin?

She heard the pattern of his voice, like notes inside her head. The gentle rhythm of his words; the escalation of his intonation as he revealed his idea of using the books as part of their tactics.

She had been moved by the way he handled the novels. The respect for these objects that were so clearly precious to him. It gave her comfort to know he appreciated books as much as she loved her cello.

She fell asleep hearing a melody that was new to her. She heard it in a palette of colors. Rich like the varnish on her instrument. Deep red with long streaks of gold.

Verona, Italy

M
AY
1943

There was a stirring in her body like she used to feel when she was first desperate to play her cello. When the music was so strong inside her, it was almost an ache, a hunger. Elodie told Lena that she was excited to attend another meeting, but what she didn’t say was that she also wanted to go again because she couldn’t stop thinking of Luca.

She rose early that morning and withdrew her cello from its case. When she played it, the notes now emerged with a sound that was foreign to her. She had learned from her father how the cello could sigh, weep, and make an audience cry. But this time, Elodie played with an intense longing. She could hear the instrument swelling and expanding as she pulled the notes longer and deeper. For the first time, desire infused her playing, a longing for something that was more than music. And as the music flowed through the apartment, Orsina awakened also hearing the difference in her daughter’s music. It reminded her of the way Pietro performed that evening so many years ago when she first heard him play in Venice’s I Gesuiti. When he played with a beauty that pierced her heart.

That morning, Elodie asked her mother if she could wear one of her dresses. The ones in Elodie’s own closet suddenly felt childish, and she didn’t want Luca to see her wearing her schoolgirl uniform of a white blouse and navy skirt. She wanted to walk into the bookstore in a dress like the one her mother had worn years ago, when Orsina first met Pietro. Pale yellow, the color of sunshine. Spring’s first forsythia, golden and full of light.

Orsina welcomed Elodie’s sudden interest in her wardrobe. She now connected what had caused Elodie’s playing to change and was relieved to know it wasn’t anything dangerous.

She opened her closet, her fingers drifting to touch each dress. Some of them contained memories that were secret to her and Pietro. A stolen kiss beneath St. Mark’s Church, or the dress she wore the night he proposed. She could tell a hundred stories just by gazing into her wardrobe; her mind traveling back to the first time her skin slipped against the fabric. Beneath the fluttering hems was her red suitcase, the one she packed with so many of the same dresses when she left her home in Venice to go to Verona all those years ago.

This moment now with Elodie was a rite of passage, which she savored. It brought her back to her own youth, when she had stood at a threshold that soon brought her into a world of marriage and children.

She had thought that Elodie would enter this world a few years later than her peers. That her cello would distract her from more simple matters of the heart.

She watched as her daughter caressed the fabrics with her hand. The lemon chiffon, the red one with the grosgrain sash, and the one with spring flowers, which was Orsina’s favorite.

“May I wear the yellow one?” Elodie asked. The first threads of maturity were woven into her request. A desire to push the boundaries and be a little less cautious, a bit more bold.

“Yes, of course,” Orsina said, as she slid the dress off the hanger and handed it to Elodie. She smiled at the choice, knowing full well how a beautiful dress had the power to transform the wearer.

That afternoon at school, nearly every male student seemed to turn his head as Elodie walked through the halls. Boys who had never noticed her now craned their necks to get more than just a passing view.

“What’s gotten into you today?” Lena asked her. “You look beautiful, but this isn’t your typical outfit, that’s for certain.”

Elodie stopped in front of one of the tall windows in the hall. The sun behind her illuminated not just the beauty and angles of her face, but her entire being. She looked celestial.

“I just felt like a change today. I was tired of always wearing navy and white.”

Lena nodded. She herself was wearing a very unremarkable gray shirtdress.

“You know, you can’t attend a meeting wearing a yellow chiffon dress. The whole point is to not attract any notice.”

Elodie’s entire face fell. “Of course,” and her voice began to shake as she tried to hide her own sense of failure.

“Well, yellow does become you,” Lena said as she patted her friend’s shoulder. “So next week, just stick to navy or gray.”

That afternoon Elodie did not accompany Lena to Luca’s bookstore. She knew her friend was right. Already, as she paced through the square, she felt eyes upon her as she never had before.

In the glass of the storefronts, Elodie saw her reflection. Her dark hair falling over her shoulders. The dress’s long bow, loosely tied at the neckline, the path of white buttons from the top to the hem. There was a lightness to the material that she loved but that also made her feel vulnerable, and she wondered which was more dangerous—the transparency of a fabric or of a soul? Elodie was certain Lena knew why she had chosen to dress that way. After all, as a fellow musician, Lena would have sensed the escalating tension between her and Luca.

She knew Lena was right, that she couldn’t appear in the bookshop dressed like she was about to go to a tea party. She would stand out, draw attention to herself, and not in the way she hoped, but rather as someone who simply didn’t belong. But still, Elodie couldn’t quite convince herself to walk straight home. Instead, she found herself walking in the direction of Luca’s store.

Her arm ached from carrying her instrument. For the first time, she considered her cello more of a burden than a beloved companion, and wondered if she was making a huge mistake.

Several times she stopped to catch her breath. Her dress became damp from perspiration. With both hands, she lifted the heavy curtain of hair from her shoulders and knotted it above her head.

When she arrived at the store, she stood outside the window and stared at the display of carefully arranged books. She noticed her reflection cast in the glass. It was as if she saw herself as an apparition that could vanish at any second, no one ever noticing she had been there, floating against the display of the more permanent books.

She wondered what was happening inside the store, and whether Luca would ask Lena why Elodie wasn’t there. She imagined Lena looking at him coyly and saying some witty remark about Elodie being overdressed. She tried to push the scene out of her head, embarrassed by her folly. She could always return next week, she convinced herself. She would put the dress back into her mother’s closet and return to her normal uniform. There would be no more walks through town in pale yellow chiffon. “That’s the color of my parents’ love story,” she told herself. “Perhaps gray and blue will be mine.” Elodie picked up her instrument and turned in the direction of home.