Tuscan Rose (38 page)

Rosa reflected on the definition. She was experiencing a correlation of events, but she sensed there was something behind them. Something had urged her towards Nerezza’s piano and to try the silver key in the lock of the stool; and something had caused the Marchese’s belongings to be mislaid so that she would see them before Signora Corvetto did. She longed to speak with Ada, who, she now understood, had recognised Rosa as soon as she had seen the key. Hadn’t Ada said something was going on at the villa psychically after Rosa had arrived? But there wasn’t much chance of speaking to Ada. Signora Corvetto had told Rosa that the Marchesa was entertaining fascist high officials at the villa and had even had Mussolini there as a guest. All the staff, and anyone entering the grounds, were checked by the secret police. Rosa
sighed. Approaching Ada would have to wait until after the war. At least, with the way things were going, that wouldn’t be too long away.

‘Why did you ask me to look up “coincidence”?’ asked Antonio, putting the dictionary aside.

Rosa shared everything with Antonio but she wasn’t going to tell him her suspicions about her origins or the Marchesa until she had firm proof.

‘It’s a word that often comes up in my work,’ she replied. ‘I wanted to be sure I understood its true meaning.’

‘Ah,’ said Antonio. ‘Perhaps what you mean then is more like “destiny”: a course of events that leads inevitably to one’s fate.’

Rosa stared at Antonio. She didn’t know why but what he had said chilled her to the bone. Coincidence, destiny, fate: all these things tied her unequivocally to the Villa Scarfiotti. And no matter how she tried to avoid it, fate was leading her back there.

S
ignora Corvetto resigned from her role as the head of the section for the Dead, Wounded and Missing. She had filled her position with grace and compassion, but she was exhausted and if she didn’t rest she was in danger of turning herself into an invalid. She was replaced by a retired army officer, Maggiore Valentini. Despite his brisk manner and military emphasis on efficiency, Maggiore Valentini was a kind man. Even with the increasing workload of the section, he did try to see at least the women in the waiting room whose men had been killed. The only problem was, when faced with an emotional woman, Maggiore Valentini stammered, which turned the breaking of the news into a drawn-out affair.

One afternoon in late June, Rosa, the Bianchis and a dozen of the new volunteers were packing boxes and deciphering lists when Maggiore Valentini told them there was to be an important announcement on the radio in one hour.

The volunteers exchanged nervous glances.

‘What do you think it could be?’ Daria whispered to her husband. She wiped the sweat from her face with a handkerchief. All the desk fans were running but the office remained stifling in the summer heat.

‘Who knows?’ he replied. ‘I only pray it’s not another advance. We can barely deal with our work as it is.’

Rosa pushed a strand of damp hair from her forehead. Unlike the others, she was filled with hope at the thought of an important announcement. She’d heard through Orietta that members of the Fascist Grand Council were plotting to overthrow Mussolini and negotiate with the Allies for Italy’s withdrawal from the war. Of course such a plan was high treason. There were spies all over the city trying to ascertain the chances of a popular revolt. Rosa was suspicious of the new postman who delivered their mail to the shop. He seemed to linger in the doorway longer than necessary, as if he was trying to eavesdrop.

‘He’s shifty,’ Rosa told Antonio. ‘I feel like he’s watching me. Some of the letters from Renata and the children are being opened.’

‘They’re probably being checked by censors,’ said Antonio. ‘As for our
postino,
well, he’s eighteen but for some reason hasn’t been conscripted into the army. He might be slow—or he might only be dazzled by you.’

Rosa smiled when she remembered Antonio’s compliment and brought her attention back to her work. She tidied her desk before tackling the next round of letters from soldiers to their families. What Orietta had heard about was a conspiracy amongst the elite; Rosa was disappointed that it wasn’t the ordinary Italian people who were revolting. Mussolini’s reaction to the bombing raids in the south and the reduced rations everyone was enduring was to say that they would make the Italian people stronger. Rosa didn’t think the people on the streets looked stronger; she thought they looked demoralised.

When the hour had passed, the section’s volunteers and staff gathered around the radio. The fans were turned off in order to hear the announcer. Rivulets of sweat poured down Rosa’s back. She remained hopeful that the news would be of a coup and that Mussolini had been deposed. Her mind drifted to what such an announcement would mean—the children coming home, lives spared, good food on the table again. Her imaginings were so vivid
that she actually
felt
as if all those things had happened. It was a cold shock then when the radio announcer translated a message from Goebbels, the German minister of propaganda: Germany had invaded the Soviet Union.

Everyone looked at each other. No invader had ever captured that vast land and those passionate people. Why had Germany decided to open the war on two fronts? Did they really believe they could win?

‘They haven’t requested Italy to join them,’ said Daria, looking half-puzzled and half-relieved.

‘It’s just as well,’ said Rosa, unafraid to speak her mind. ‘That’s going to be a bloodbath.’

‘What do you think, Maggiore Valentini?’ one of the younger volunteers asked the section’s leader.

Maggiore Valentini frowned. ‘What I think stays in this section, all right? It’s quite likely the Germans didn’t ask Italy to join them because they have come to understand how ill-prepared this country was to leap into a war. We are a liability rather than an asset.’

When Rosa arrived at the shop later in the afternoon, Antonio and Orietta had already heard the news of the German invasion.

‘It looks like the Germans haven’t asked Italy to join them,’ said Rosa. ‘It’s all for the best. Some of the volunteers are saying the Russians will slaughter the Germans. Perhaps Hitler will surrender then.’

Antonio shook his head. ‘I’m afraid Mussolini won’t want to miss out on any spoils. He will send the Italian army, no matter how many men it costs for him to get his hands on something.’

Antonio and Orietta exchanged a glance. Antonio stood up and put on his jacket. ‘I have a buyer to go see,’ he said, kissing Rosa on the cheek and bidding farewell to Orietta with an embrace and kisses before heading out the door.

Rosa shifted uncomfortably. Antonio had departed from Orietta as if he didn’t expect to see her again for some time. She turned to her friend. ‘Orietta?’

‘I’m leaving,’ Orietta told her.

‘What? Why?’ asked Rosa, her heart sinking.

Orietta glanced at her fondly. ‘You know I can’t tell you.’

‘Something to do with Giustizia e Libertà?’ Rosa said, guessing the only reason Orietta would leave was because she had some mission to perform. ‘What?’

Orietta smiled and shook her head.

‘When will you be back?’ Rosa asked the question although she knew from Antonio’s manner of parting that it wouldn’t be for a long time.

Orietta’s eyes misted over. She stepped forward and embraced Rosa. ‘Light a candle for me as well as the others,’ she said.

Rosa held Orietta with all her strength. This was what she hated most about the war—not the rationing, not even the fear, but the separations. She missed her children and now she was losing Orietta too.

‘I will,’ she promised, crying. ‘I will ask God every day to protect you.’

Without Orietta’s friendship to distract her, Rosa missed her children more than ever. She realised how much she had come to rely on her ‘sister’ for comfort. She hated it when, out of habit, she walked into the shop expecting to see Orietta only to find that her desk was empty.

The war was escalating and the food shortages were growing worse. Rosa decided that her aim of trying to earn as much money as possible before joining the children in Switzerland was misguided. Security was nothing more than an illusion. To seek it was as futile as her attempts to keep Sibilla safe by avoiding becoming openly involved with the anti-fascists. If the Italians had got rid of Mussolini years ago, the situation would have been different. Any sane leader would have sided with the Allies.

‘It’s time we went to Switzerland,’ she told Antonio. ‘I’ll take my chances on starting a new life.’

‘I have found a forger to make you a passport,’ Antonio informed Rosa the next day. ‘He’s Austrian. He’s helped many Jews escape from Vienna.’

‘When will the passport be ready?’ she asked.

‘Early next week.’

Rosa let Maggiore Valentini know that she was leaving the section but she didn’t tell him the reason. ‘You’ve served hard and well, Signora Parigi,’ he told her. ‘I hope we will see you again one day.’

Antonio and Rosa busied themselves packing the shop’s remaining furniture and moving it to either the backroom or into the cellar under the shop. It worried Rosa to think that the most valuable piece she and Antonio had invested in—an eighteenth-century walnut and marquetry dining table—was too heavy to be moved. She covered it with a sheet and prayed that no-one would find it and think of chopping it up for firewood. She wrapped a Baroque scagliola panel, stopping a moment to admire the ballet-slipper pink cartouche of a couple riding in a boat drawn by seahorses. It was beautiful and dreamy, but there was no place for beauty or dreams in a war.

Antonio hid the accounts books in a safe concealed behind a cupboard. He was doing his best to be detached and methodical in going about his tasks, but Rosa knew it was breaking his heart. The shop had been his dream as a young man and he had worked hard to bring it to fruition. She remembered the first time she had seen Antonio in the shop, trying to sell the chairs with the swan-shaped armrests. He had not believed in Rosa’s powers to see the source of things then. Even after seven years of marriage, he still didn’t believe in them but he had come to respect that
she
did.

It was the thought of seeing the children again that helped Rosa through the next few days. She and Antonio taped the windows in the apartment and took the paintings off the walls. They did their best to hide things from potential looters, but nothing would save their much-cherished items if a bomb hit the building. They hoped it would never come to that. So far Florence had been spared.

The morning that Antonio was to collect Rosa’s passport from the forger, she woke up with a knot in her stomach. It was understandable to be nervous, but many people were still getting across the border on false documents—and hadn’t Antonio been assured that the forger had helped many Jews? Rosa went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of hot water with a slice of lemon because tea was scarce. Still, the cold fear would not leave her. She and Antonio had agreed to travel in separate compartments on the chance that if something happened to one of them, the other one would be able to reach the children. Rosa had insisted on this; Antonio had relented only after days of resistance. She took a sip of the hot water and shut her eyes, willing herself not to think of the children, afraid that her intense desire to see them might thwart the plan.

After Antonio had left to collect the passport, Rosa stood in the bare drawing room and contemplated how life had turned into a series of hurdles. Suddenly a simple thing like catching a train to Switzerland had to be meticulously planned. The only non-essential item Rosa was taking with her was her flute. She played Mozart to calm herself while waiting for Antonio to return. The ethereal beauty of the music made the disintegration of her life more bearable.

When Antonio had not returned by three o’clock, Rosa began to pace the floor. What could he be doing, she wondered. The train tickets were booked for that evening, they were already packed, and he hadn’t mentioned any last-minute errands to be run. She walked to the window and looked out at the street, half-expecting the postman to be there, spying as she suspected. But the street was empty. ‘Stop it!’ Rosa told herself, trying to ease her mind. She thought about making dinner but then remembered there was no food in the house. They had got rid of it all to prevent rats and had intended to eat something at the station before the train departed.

By six o’clock she knew something was wrong. The train was due to leave at a quarter past seven. Even if Antonio returned now, they would most likely miss it. Rosa’s pulse raced. ‘Stay calm!’ she told herself, scribbling a note to Antonio that she was going to the
police station. Her hand shook so badly the writing was barely legible. She put on her hat, grabbed her bag and rushed out the door. She walked past the shop and looked between the gaps in the mesh shutter that covered the window. Antonio wasn’t there.

The doors to the police station were heavy. They creaked when Rosa opened them, although no one in the waiting area heard—they were too busy arguing. There had been a crackdown on black-market profiteers, and an old woman wearing pince-nez and a wild-haired man in the waiting area were arguing the innocence of someone who had been arrested. Rosa was close to tears. She had never stepped inside a police station before and it brought back memories of the night she was sent to prison over Maria’s death. A policeman, seeing the distress on her face, called her over to the counter. She explained to him that she was looking for her husband.

‘He is not at the bar, signora? Could he not be with friends?’

Rosa shook her head. ‘He never goes to the bar,’ she said. She gave him Antonio’s name and their address.

The policeman went to his file to check something. ‘Come this way, please,’ he said to Rosa, opening the counter and ushering her into a room towards the back of the station.

The policeman was polite but his averted eyes and stiff walk told Rosa something was wrong. They were the same mannerisms Maggiore Valentini exhibited when he was about to tell a relative their loved one had been killed. Rosa was on the verge of fainting. The policeman asked her to sit down then he disappeared, returning a few moments later with the police sergeant, a heavy-set man with a florid complexion. He looked at Rosa gravely.

‘Your husband has been arrested,’ he said. ‘He was caught purchasing a forgery.’

Rosa’s thoughts crowded her all at once. Antonio arrested? That couldn’t be! ‘I should be the one arrested,’ she told the sergeant. ‘He has a legal passport. The illegal one was for me.’

The sergeant held up his finger to silence Rosa. She caught the glimmer of sympathy in his eyes. ‘Yes, he has told me the story,’ the sergeant said. ‘I know that you have children in Switzerland and why
it would be terrible for you if you were sent to prison. I understand. That’s why we have agreed that he will go in your place.’

‘What?’

Rosa had been relieved that Antonio was alive but this was dreadful. She knew prison life and still had nightmares about it. She couldn’t bear Antonio to suffer; as much as she was terrified of prison, she would rather suffer herself. She began to cry. The sergeant was noticeably moved by her distress.

‘Your husband told me the reason your passport was not approved,’ he said. ‘I will give you papers to go to see your children for one month. But you must come back, otherwise I will charge your husband with a more serious offence.’

Rosa pressed her fingers to her temples. How could this have happened? All she and Antonio wanted was to be with their children. They had closed up their shop, given away their lives. And now it was all for nothing.

‘May I see him?’ she asked.

The police sergeant turned and gave instructions to the policeman, who led Rosa to another room. It was not as clean as the previous one and the stench of sweat and vomit pervaded the air. In the middle was a table with chairs on either side of it. Antonio was brought into the room by a policeman and told to sit at the table opposite Rosa. He was still wearing his suit but the jacket was crumpled and the pants had dust on them as if he had been sitting on the floor. He looked shaken but pleased to see Rosa. She could not have loved her husband any more than she did at that moment.