The Italian Wife (8 page)

‘Five thousand new farms will be built.’

‘Il Duce! Il Duce!’

‘Five more magnificent towns that show the way to the future will be constructed on these plains. Mussolini has promised.’

‘
Bravissimo
!’

‘Bellina this year, Littoria next year, then…’

Isabella’s gaze slid inexorably back to Colonnello Sepe in his dark uniform and glittering silver braid, and her ears ceased listening. What kind of man was he, this colonel in the
carabinieri
with the face of a hawk? One who could keep a child imprisoned, even after she had lost her mother in such a terrible manner. One who was willing to let a daughter view her mother’s broken body. The convent may be a holy place but it must be a barren prison for Rosa. Grieving and alone in a world of hair shirts she must be confused and frightened. Isabella felt a wave of pity for the lonely child. She remembered only too well what it was like to lose a mother when she was young. She drew a deep breath but her emotions were starting to spiral out of control and she realised that although she needed to learn information from Rosa, it was also important to her to know that the girl wasn’t falling apart in the cold corridors of the convent. With an effort Isabella forced herself to look away from the hard lines of the policeman’s face.

The train was coming. Isabella could see it in the distance, like an iron monster heaving smoke from its lungs as it advanced on Bellina, and the ground shuddered at its approach. The town was new and raw, and somehow she could feel its nervous breath on her neck. Even the sky seemed to lean closer to take a look at the newcomers from Friuli and Veneto.

The band struck up with ‘
Giovinezza
’, and the waiting crowd bustled nearer the edge of the platform, so that when the doors of the train finally flew open and the travellers tumbled from the carriages, they had to fight their way through the townspeople shaking their hands and slapping their backs. They looked dazed, the men in flat caps, the women with flowered headscarves and pale northern cheeks, all of them weighed down by possessions. Cardboard boxes were tucked under their arms, string baskets dangling from their wrists, scuffed suitcases gripped in their anxious fingers as they stared wide-eyed at the new world they were being thrust into.

Isabella stepped forward to one old woman in black who was bent over with a roll of bedding strapped to her back and a pure white chicken struggling under one arm. She had dropped her walking stick, so Isabella picked it up and placed it in her arthritic hand with a smile.

‘Welcome,’ she said. ‘
Benvenuta
.’

‘
Grazie
, signora.’ Tears were rolling down the cobweb lines of the old woman’s face as she raised her powdery eyes to the skies. ‘And thank you, Lord in Heaven, for bringing me to this grand town before I die.’

A group of boys rushed past, excited and boisterous, jostling them, and Isabella eased the burden from the old woman’s back on to her own shoulder.

‘Where are you from?’ she asked.

‘From Veneto, right up north. The cold gets into my old bones sharp as nails in the winter.’

‘I’m glad you’re pleased to be here. I thought people may not want to come to Bellina. It’s a big wrench to uproot like this.’

‘A new start for us all,’ the woman stated proudly and handed over the chicken, sliding her arm through Isabella’s.

‘Now, where’s your family?’ Isabella asked.

The woman nodded towards a wiry, assertive-looking man who was unloading a crate of ducks from the goods van at the back of the train and handing it to his wife and son to carry. Each family had to register at a row of tables set up along the station wall, manned by officials in dark suits, but inside the station itself stood long trestle tables laden with bowls of good rich garlic lamb,
linguini pescadoro
and Francesca’s fresh bread for the new arrivals. The women of the local Fascist party were damned if they weren’t going to show these northern polenta-eaters what proper food was.

Isabella could feel the excitement shiver through the old woman as she scurried along at her side, uttering fervent promises to her chicken and leaning heavily on Isabella’s arm, almost tipping her over on her bad leg. The crush of bodies was intense as more people tumbled on to the platform but Isabella became suddenly aware of a bulky camera pointing straight at her and the old woman. Its big round eye was glaring at them. She heard it click and a head of ruffled chestnut-brown hair lifted above the camera and a pair of eyes the colour of rain focused on her. The stare they gave her would have been too direct, too intrusive, if it hadn’t been for the warm smile of welcome on the photographer’s lips.

‘
Benvenuta
,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll be happy here in this wonderful new town.’ One dark eyebrow shot up in an ironic underlining of the word ‘
wonderful
’. ‘There are even wonderful refreshments for you over in the station waiting room.’

Isabella recognised his voice first and then the broad set of his shoulders in his pale jacket. It was the same man who had been at the police station with Chairman Grassi, the one she’d overheard saying that there had been no sign of anyone else up on the tower with Allegra Bianchi. What, she wondered, was his connection with the tragedy?

‘You must be hungry after your journey,’ he added kindly.

Isabella shook her head. ‘But I’m not a —’

The old woman screeched in her ear with delight. ‘
Andiamo
,’ she shouted above the hubbub of voices, ‘let’s get Alfonso and Maria.’

Isabella was dragged forward and the photographer vanished. She shouldn’t have minded, but she did. A ripple of disappointment pricked her skin. All these people were farmers, a hundred of them with their families to occupy the newly blue-painted farmhouses around Bellina. So the photographer and his ironic eyebrow would naturally assume that she was a farmer’s wife, of course he would. With a hen under one arm, a roll of bedding slung over her shoulder, she looked all ready to move in. She couldn’t blame him. What else was he supposed to think? But she wasn’t a farmer’s wife. She was an architect. She had fought damn hard to become one and had spent long years training to be the best in Rome after she got out of hospital. Yet now, because of this photographer, she would go down in the picture archive of this historic town as a farmer’s wife. She shouldn’t have minded. But she did.

She glanced back over her shoulder and spotted him about ten metres away above the bobbing heads – she hadn’t realised he was so tall. At that exact moment he looked back. Their eyes caught and she lifted the stupid hen and waggled it at him, meaning
It’s not mine
, but he just laughed, misunderstanding. So now she’d go down not only as a farmer’s wife, but as a farmer’s mad wife. She had to laugh also, and their laughter mingled together above the heads that divided them.

A large pack of ragged children suddenly surged forward from the train and the photographer was swept away, so that Isabella lost sight of him in the crowd. But instead she caught a glimpse once more of a dark police uniform and a flash of silver, so she deposited her new companion and chicken with her family, wished her luck, and then headed straight for that silver braid.

‘Colonnello Sepe.’

The policeman’s head snapped around, fast as a rat. ‘What is it, Signora Berotti? I am extremely busy.’ He gestured at the crowd of people on the platform.

At least he remembered her name.

‘Why am I not allowed to see Rosa Bianchi?’ Isabella asked with no preamble. ‘You have shut her away. Why?’

A frown stitched its way across his forehead, the skin so tight she feared the bones would push through from beneath. ‘It is not your business, signora. You have given your statement about what you saw that day, so now forget it and get on with your work here.’ He started to turn away.

‘Colonnello Sepe, I am concerned about the girl. Have you found any of her relatives?’

‘No need for your concern. We haven’t yet traced her relatives but she is being well cared for by the nuns.’

‘Let me see her,’ she said quietly. ‘Just once.’

‘Signora,’ he said impatiently, ‘you were once married to Luigi Berotti, were you not?’

All air seeped out of Isabella’s lungs. He had caught her completely off guard. ‘I was,’ she said.

‘Luigi Berotti was a loyal member of the Fascist Party.’

‘So am I. That’s why I’m here.’

His thin lips spread in what was meant to be a smile but their corners still curled down in tight creases of irritation. ‘I’m glad to hear that, signora. As a loyal member of the Fascist Party, I am ordering you to stay away from the girl.’

Isabella’s hand shot out and seized his arm. She could feel the tension under his sleeve. ‘Whatever it is you want from Rosa Bianchi, you won’t get it with your methods. She’s just a child, for heaven’s sake. If you want information from her, let me speak to her.’

His eyes didn’t change but his stiff stalk of a neck inclined a fraction towards her over the collar of his uniform. ‘What makes you think that she’ll talk to you?’

‘Because she knows her mother put her in my care. Let me try.’

The ash-grey eyes considered her coldly. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

‘Colonnello, you said it yourself. I was Luigi Berotti’s wife. I am a widow to the Fascist cause.’ She smiled at him and released his arm, only just managing to stop herself wiping her palm on her skirt. ‘I am working hard to help build Il Duce’s vision in this corner of Italy. Of course you can trust me.’

He hesitated for a full minute and she thought she had him, but then he shook his head. ‘Stick to your bricks and mortar, signora. Leave policework to me.’

He started to move away, examining the immaculate material of his sleeve as if she might have dirtied it.

‘Colonnello Sepe.’

He paused reluctantly. ‘What is it now, Signora Berotti?’

‘This young girl is alone. She has no one. Except me. I’m asking you to give me some time with her, so that she learns to trust me and then I might discover whatever it is that you want to know from her.’

‘“Might”?’ He regarded her scornfully. ‘Don’t waste my time.’

‘She is a lonely child.’ Isabella observed the colonel carefully. ‘There might be other people out there,’ she waved a hand in the vague direction of Rome, ‘whom she would want me to get in touch with. Or maybe even take a message to.’

She had him hooked. She saw it in the tightening of his mouth as he bit down on the bait.

‘It’s possible,’ he conceded. ‘A message to…’ He broke off and exhaled heavily. ‘That is possible.’

‘So you will arrange it?’

‘Very well.’

‘Today?’

He nodded mutely, as if he had no words left to waste on her. He strode away along the platform and Isabella felt a drop of rain. The grey sheet of sky had sunk lower, swallowing the smoke of the train, and she heard a man with a shovel on his shoulder exclaim, ‘Where’s the sun? We were promised sun.’ Isabella fought her way through the queues at the registration tables to the spot where the architects had been stationed, but no one was left there now, everyone had scattered. It meant she could leave without anyone noticing, so she headed for the open exit-gate.

She had to leave. Because of the children. They were everywhere, their high-pitched voices buzzing like blasted mosquitoes. She was trying to keep her eyeline above the level of their silky heads, in case the soft curve of a rosy cheek or a flicker of mischief in a bright young eye drew forth a smile from her and reminded her what she’d lost ten years ago.

A hundred farmers. A hundred wives. A sprinkling of aunts and uncles and milky-eyed grandparents. But it was the children that covered the platform like wild flowers that had sprung up out of cracks in the concrete, more than six hundred of them. Of course she didn’t count them, but everyone knew that only families with at least six children – some with as many as ten or eleven – had been selected for the honour of coming to Bellina. Italy needed a greater population to increase the workforce and the Fascist Party was making sure it happened. Mussolini had put in place his Battle for Births, alongside his Battle for Grain and Battle for Land, all forming part of the well-orchestrated economic renaissance of Italy.

It worked like this. If a man had six
bambini
, he received tax relief. If he had seven or eight, he received even greater tax relief. And for those macho machines who had produced ten or more infants for the glory of Italy, well, those lucky men paid no tax at all. They just buttoned up their trousers and laughed their way down to the nearest wine shop. Any woman who didn’t stay at home and rear her brood alongside her pigs was frowned upon.

So the exit-gate beckoned but when she reached it a child was blocking her path. He was crouched right in the middle of the open gateway, a short-haired urchin in a cut-down shirt. He was clutching a chunk of bread in one grubby paw and trying to coax an alarmingly large black and white rabbit back into its cardboard box with the other. Isabella stopped. How could she possibly
not
stop to round up a rabbit?

Such a trifling thing to do. To help a child whose small hands were too puny for the job. Isabella hunched down beside him. Together they tried to corral the rabbit, both of them laughing at its bad-tempered antics, and she had just made a grab for one of its long satiny ears when she heard a shout. But she was busy so she was slow to look away from her furry captive, far too slow. When she did look up, her heart kicked a hole right through her ribs and she snatched at the child.

A horse was barging its way across the platform straight at her. All she saw was a furious black mane flying, sweat-soaked flanks heaving, flecks of foam around huge yellow teeth and eyes rolling wildly in panic. It took another heartbeat for her to hear the hooves striking the concrete at speed and voices screaming. The animal had been unloaded from the goods van, seen the open gate and charged for it, just as she had.

Time became slippery. It skidded through her grasp as she threw herself sideways, but the rabbit-boy dug his heels in the ground, acting like an anchor on her, unwilling to desert his pet. Isabella wasn’t frightened of pain – she had looked that sharp-clawed foe in the face too many times before and won – but she
was
terrified. Terrified of losing the life of yet another child. Instinctively she spun her body at the very last second so that her back was towards the charging wall of horseflesh.