Last Train from Liguria (2010) (36 page)

’
Certamente
,’ the priest assures him, adding that they are all attached to the same convent. He reaches to his inside pocket and asks if the soldier would care to see them.

The man is almost insulted. ‘
No, no, Padre, va bene cosi. Prego
.’ He begins waving them out of the queue while the other soldier clears the path of people.

The priest positions the car partly over the grass verge so he can get it past the queue of traffic.

’
Dica una piccola pregheira per me, Padre
?’ the soldier asks as the car moves away.

The priest replies that he will say a prayer, for him, his comrades and his family. They salute, then he drives the car away at a slant.

Edward, who has been looking straight ahead, now turns towards the sea. Bella notices the colour has drained from his face.

They leave the main road and begin to climb. Miles of nowhere. There are moments when she longs to break the silence, but is reluctant to start, or worse have the responsibility of keeping up, a conversation. She looks out the window where mountains made out of forest have stamped out the sky.

The car twists on. They pass a cone-shaped shepherd’s refuge and, further along, a stubby votive chapel. Green light wraps around the car as it passes in and out of a pine grove. Finally a long straight dirt road leads through the gateway of a monastery.

The sky reappears. Farmland all around. The slow white hides of cattle on the lower fields. Further away, a row of monks, bent to the land like brown moths edging up a wall. She sees an olive mill, a two-bay barn. On a stool surrounded by baskets, an old monk sits in the shade, testing peaches between the twist of his hands.

A young Indian monk rushes out to greet them, hardly more than a boy. He dances about the car, waiting to take it over, barely able to keep the grin off his face. The priest drops the keys into his open hand then walks off without a word, the hem of his cassock slapping his ankles, his feet whipping dust out of the ground. The monk ushers the remaining passengers out, nodding and chuckling silently to himself, then hops in and the car moves off, bouncing and clucking around to the side of the house. Bella feels the slightly chilled air of a higher altitude settle over her face.

Sorella Ursula leads them up several flights of stairs to a large corner room. A row of arched windows cut into two right-angled walls. On the back wall of the room, a large brown crucifix. There is a table, two chairs, a broken lectern pushed to one side. Sorella Ursula says she will send breakfast up.

Somewhere the chanting of monks. Bella goes to a window and looks down. The crescent of a sleeping dog in the centre of a courtyard. Across two rows of chairs, long strands of spaghetti are draped over broom handles, left in the sunshine to dry. A monk appears out of the shadows. The dog stands, stretches and skulks off. The monk begins to test the spaghetti, section by section, lifting it like a long silk fringe onto the back of his hand, settling it back into place, lifting again.

‘What do you say to all this, Edward?’ she asks him.

When he doesn’t answer she turns to look at him. He is sitting on one of the chairs, legs stretched out and feet crossed at the ankles. Hands in pockets, collar up, coat tucked around his legs. He is obviously cold and still a little pale. Whatever he might be feeling, Bella knows she won’t find it written on his face.

She crosses to a window on the other wall. A cemetery below. The graves, stacked over each other, are slotted into a wall, like a great big filing cabinet for the dead, she thinks. On the front panel of each one, a photograph of the occupant, also a votive and a small vase of flowers. A monk, leisurely, plump, pushes a work trolley, which holds a box, a basket of flowers, a large jug. For a while Bella watches him move from grave to grave, and is soothed by his practical method of work. She recalls the first time she saw one of these cemeteries. The night train from Nice, and her first time crossing into Italy. She had no idea what she was looking at but had believed it to be some sort of a message shaped by lit candles on the side of a hill. Half letters of half words that were on the verge of turning into a phrase - she had presumed the wind had blown out the rest of the candles. Desperately, she had wanted to make sense of it, childishly treating it like some sort of an omen, moving from window to window along the corridor, until the train had passed by.

‘Edward, I’m sorry,’ she says to the window. ‘I’m really sorry I’ve been so awful lately, and to you in particular. I don’t know why I have been, but I am really sorry. I don’t want to make excuses but I’m so afraid of everything; of being sent back, of what’s going to happen, to Alec, the Signora. You, I suppose.’

He still doesn’t reply and she turns again.

‘Edward? Won’t you say something?’

‘Such as?’

‘Anything - I don’t care what. But please talk to me.’

‘Woof woof,’ he says and almost smiles.

The young monk brings in a tray rattling with coffee, plates of focaccia and apple fried cake, and they sit politely over it like children in a strange house. They don’t say much about anything; a comment on the saltiness of the focaccia, the overwhelming sweetness of the cake. Sometimes they point out sounds to each other. Voices in a nearby room that for some reason they decide can’t belong to the monks. Bella thinks she hears a cat. Edward says it’s a baby.

‘How would you know?’ she asks him.

‘Where I come from, the one thing you were always certain to hear, day or night, was a baby bawling.’

‘Where was that, Edward?’

‘Oh, in the centre of the city. My father was a publican. I suppose you could say we lived over the shop.’

‘So he wasn’t a music teacher?’

‘No, that was just a story for the Lamis, you know?’

‘Did you have brothers and sisters?’

‘One sister but she died.’

‘Oh, that must have been awful for you.’

‘We didn’t get on. Didn’t like each other much, if at all. I don’t remember her well.’

‘Do you know what I remember most about Dublin?’ she says.

‘What?’

‘Ducks. Ducks and the smell of coffee - a softer coffee smell than you get here. Once a week my father would take me out and we always went to feed the ducks in Stephen’s Green, then into a cafe.’

‘I think of - I don’t know; the markets, I suppose. The smell of fish. The river, the Four Courts, prisoners shouting down to relatives on the street from the Bridewell cells.’

It’s so rare to have a conversation like this, the two of them talking about their respective pasts. Even more unusual for Edward to mention anything of his former life. She would give anything to have it continue, but the monk is back by now, picking up the tray and beckoning them to follow.

In another room there is a fire in the grate, a table laid with linen and silver, and the remnants of what appears to have been a substantial meal is being cleared away by two elderly monks. Sorella Ursula stands to greet them. Through the half-open door of an anteroom come the voices of men. A few seconds later another nun enters, with a baby in her arms. Edward nudges Bella.

‘Is the Signora here?’ she asks.

Sorella Ursula shakes her head. ‘We won’t be seeing the Signora today. Please take a seat.’

‘Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that,’ Bella says. ‘I wish you’d tell us where she is. Can’t you please at least tell us that?’

‘Please, Signora Stuart,’ Sorella Ursula says. ‘Signor Tassi is here now.’

Tassi comes in from the anteroom followed by another, much taller man. He hardly looks like the Tassi they know, the holiday Tassi of bright clothes and beaming demeanour. He’s dressed in a dark business suit and his expression is sombre. He shakes hands with them both, but doesn’t kiss them, and this is unusual too. ‘
Vi presento introdurre un avvocato Inglese - che parlera per me
.’

’
Perche parlera per Lei?
‘ Edward asks him.

The English lawyer answers. ‘I am not speaking
for
him, but instead of him. This is a very complicated business and we don’t want any misunderstandings. I am Signora Tassi’s lawyer and I act solely on her behalf, as I have done since she was Signora Lami. It’s best if I don’t introduce myself fully - beyond how do you do - please do sit down.’

Out of a large attache case the lawyer begins pulling files and brown packets and pressing them down on the table. He pauses to brush a few crumbs from the linen cloth, then begins to arrange his papers.

Bella turns to Sorella Ursula then Tassi, but it’s clear that neither of them intends to look at her. She takes her seat; Edward sits a few feet away from her. ‘No,’ she blurts out then. ‘No. I don’t like this.’ She turns directly to Gino Tassi. ‘
Signor Tassi - Dov’e la signora?
‘ she asks him. ‘
Dov’e la madre di Alessandro?
’

The lawyer sighs through his nose. ‘Miss Stuart, you do better to speak directly to me. I can assure you the Signora is safe. I have instructions from her, for you and your colleague - Mr King - isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Edward confirms.

‘These instructions are to be handed over only if you agree to help her. Do you understand? I will go through everything with you first, then you may decide. If you find yourselves unable to help the Signora, you may go, and she asks only that you keep this meeting to yourselves. If you do agree, then I will take you through the steps in greater detail. Don’t worry, all will be clear soon enough. Now if I may begin - Miss Stuart? Mr King?’

He waits for them to agree.

‘Very well then. As you know the Signora is in a somewhat precarious situation at the moment. Not just here in Italy but also in Germany where she has many business interests. I understand you are already aware that the Signora is not an Italian citizen and is also of the Jewish persuasion. In light of the recent race laws, along with other events, it has become clear to the Signora that she can no longer remain in Italy. She has already been given notice to leave. Measures have also been taken to seize certain assets as well as to prevent her from taking money out of the country. What concerns the Signora is the safety and well-being of her children.

‘You mean the safety and well-being of her money!’ Edward says and Bella is shocked at this unexpected outburst.

‘You are of course entitled to your opinion, Mr King, but without money she can hardly take care of her children, not in this climate for certain. If I may continue—’

‘Yes,’ Bella says. ‘But what about loopholes, you know, all the
Discriminato
business?’

‘There has been talk of loopholes through use of the
Discriminato
clause, and certainly the Vatican is bringing pressure regarding the children of mixed marriages. But by and large these loopholes are all too vague and open to constant change, not to mention corruption and blackmail - something the Signora does not intend to involve herself in. The fact remains she will not be allowed
Discriminato
status in any event, and even if her children are, they will still be regarded as second-class citizens and have very few rights. Besides, as we now know, the situation in Germany regarding Jews makes no exceptions and the Signora is naturally concerned that Italy may well follow Hitler’s example in due course, particularly if there is a war.’

Gino Tassi comes out of his corner and walks to the nun who is holding his baby. He goes to lift the child from her arms, and Bella notes the nun won’t let go until Sorella Ursula nods her permission. Then Tassi lifts the baby and goes back to the corner, the bundle in his arms close to his face.

The lawyer continues. ‘What the Signora would like you to do, that is, both of you to do, is to take the children with you to London.’

‘London!’ Edward asks. ‘Is she mad?’

‘She would like you to take them to your father’s house, Miss Stuart, and keep them there for her, until she is in a position to follow.’

‘Well, I don’t think that sounds like such a bad idea, Edward,’ Bella says. ‘I think we should listen, at least. I’m probably going to be turfed out after the hearing next week at the federal secretary’s office - so?’

Edward ignores her and addresses the lawyer. ‘How are we supposed to do that? I mean, with all these travel restrictions and regulations - how the hell are we supposed to smuggle two Italian children out of Italy?’

‘I’m coming to that, Mr King. The Signora has it all arranged.’

‘Yes, well, she would have!’

The lawyer puts his hand under the first package and raises it slightly. ‘This envelope first. You will travel as a family, husband, wife, son and new baby. There are papers in here for an Italian family of that description taking a holiday in Nice.’

‘Nice?’ Edward says. ‘France is far too risky, I know - we live close to the border, we see people being dragged back every day of the week. Why not just Genoa and sail straight to Southampton?’

‘Even riskier, I’m afraid. You will be travelling on false papers, Mr King. To leave Italy as an Italian family bound for England will cause suspicion. There’s a far better chance of success the other way. And we have looked into all the possibilities on your behalf, you know.’

‘Oh, how kind,’ Edward sneers and Bella says, ‘Edward! Will you please just listen?’

‘Thank you, Miss Stuart,’ the lawyer says and continues. ‘There are two sets of papers. One presenting you as an Italian family going for a holiday to Nice. I repeat, all the visas, documentation, passports, etc. have been taken care of - although we still need to take your photographs, but that’s a small matter which can be organized here. You are booked into an hotel for one week.’