The Italian Wife (26 page)

‘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 behind 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.

‘For you, Isabella.’

‘
Grazie
.’

It would be her official notice and final pay cheque. Isabella almost didn’t open it there. It was the kind of reading you kept for the privacy of your own room, so that no one else could see the turning of your hopes to ash in your mouth or the way your eyes go dead behind the smile. But Maria started chattering on about how thrilled she was that Mussolini had smiled at her when he came to the office yesterday – ‘A proper smile from Il Duce just for me!’ – and how she couldn’t wait for the big rally at midday today in the field that was being turned into a sports arena.

‘It is a privilege,’ she enthused, her hands dancing through the air, ‘to have our great leader here among us, addressing us at the rally.
Un grande uomo
. A great man in our midst. A man of history. I can’t wait to view him again, so proud and…’

Isabella had stopped listening. Her restless fingers had slit open the envelope. There was no cheque inside. One folded sheet of paper, that was all.

‘I hope Dottore Martino lets us leave early,’ the secretary was saying eagerly, ‘so that we can get there first and choose good places to…’

Isabella could think of nothing worse on earth at this moment than to rush to a propaganda rally to be close to Mussolini when he delivered his speech. She flicked out the sheet of paper, her eyes reluctant to read the words of dismissal. To her surprise she saw that there were only three handwritten lines.

Signora Isabella Berotti,

I am pleased to inform you that I am withdrawing your dismissal.

It seems I need you more than I thought I did.

It was signed
Alberto Martino
in a quick impatient scrawl.

Withdrawing your dismissal.
 

It took an effort to drag air into her lungs. Suddenly everything smelled different. The world smelled alive again, it smelled of busy people and of damp earth and freshly baked bread. Of cement. Of coffee. Of salt and tears. Isabella sensed something cramped unfurl inside her, so that she had to give a cough as she sought to work out exactly what had happened to reverse her employer’s decision.

Who was responsible? Mussolini himself? Hit by remorse or driven by loyalty to Luigi? Or Davide Francolini? Did her escort discover last night that she’d been fired from her job and did he put pressure on Martino?

She had no idea. But her hand was trembling with relief as she carefully put each pen, one by one, back in its place.

The church of St Michael was bare. Unadorned and unpretentious. Isabella liked it at once, the moment she pushed open its heavy door. Its colours were soft and seemed to float on the scent of incense. The pews and the altar were of honey-toned woods and modern design, the kind of place where she could imagine prayers lingering, unwilling to abandon this cool restful space. The exception was the vivid sapphire-blue gown of the Madonna that glowed in the recess of a side chapel where a handful of votive candles flickered, remembering the souls of the departed. Isabella walked over and lit one for Luigi.