Last Train from Liguria (2010) (48 page)

*

The next morning I go back to Maddalena, as she told me to do, in case she managed to find anything of interest. I tell her about my failed venture on via Romana and she laughs when she hears how I checked every single pillar on the road, then says, ‘Ahh, what a pity but here are other suggestions.’ She hands me a list. ‘
And
we have found something in a newspaper that could be interesting for you. My colleague, he bring it now.’

While we wait I glance at her list: tennis club, bridge club, Anglican church, old people’s home.

‘Thanks, Maddalena, these are good ideas.’

‘Yes,’ she agrees then asks me if I am staying long in Bordighera. I tell her I don’t know. That I’m moving to the Hotel Parigi today for a week or so and then I’ll make up my mind.

‘You don’t have to be back?’

‘No. Not in the least.’

‘Not for work?’

‘No.’

‘Not for nobody?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Well, if you decide to stay, perhaps for a month or two anyway, tell me. I know a very nice apartment near the tennis club. I think you will like it. It’s better than the hotel, I think. And less money.’

‘Yes. I’ll keep that in mind.’

‘You can invite people for coffee.’

‘People?’

‘Me!’ she laughs. ‘And whoever else, of course, you make into friends. We can teach each other, English, Italian. We can help each other - no?’

‘Oh,’ I say, a little surprised by this unexpected friendliness. ‘Yes, why not?’

‘Why not!’ Maddalena says. ‘
Perche non!
‘ she adds, her finger raised like a teacher, as if the lessons have already begun.

A man comes out carrying a large leather-bound book in his arms. One leg moves a little heavily and his head leans slightly to one side. I think he may be disabled. When he reaches the table he holds on to the book and behind his glasses his eyes blink nervously. He begins to speak to Maddalena, and although I can’t understand a word I can sense his awkwardness. Absurdly I feel as if I’m eavesdropping and so look away, down at my list, or over the walls of the library.

After a while Maddalena stops to introduce us. ‘This is my colleague, Emilio,’ and he turns to me for a second and nods before looking away. Maddalena begins to explain, ‘Emilio heard us talk yesterday about the family Lami and when he goes home last night he asks his mamma if she have heard of them. He say that she can remember
her
mamma telling her something.’

‘Really?’ I wait, while Emilio gives another few sentences to Maddalena.

‘His grandmother told to his mother that there was a family living here once called Lami, but his mother she can’t remember where they live exactly. And now his grandmother, she is dead so we cannot ask.’

Maddalena looks back up at Emilio, who has removed his glasses to wipe them clean. He is getting into his stride now, speeding up his little story, and going at it with more confidence.

‘He say that the story is the signora of the family was very beautiful and that she was a Jew and that they…’ She turns back and asks Emilio a question. I cannot believe it takes so many Italian sentences to make up so few English words.

Maddalena comes back to me. ‘They say she die in the concentration camp of Buchenwald like the granddaughter of our Queen Margherita, Princess Mafalda, who also died there, although obviously she was not a Jew. That is all he know but can try to find out more for you.’ Emilio is looking at me now, nodding morosely.

‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘The poor woman. That’s terrible.’

Maddalena frowns. ‘Yes, there are many such terrible stories from the time of the war.’

Emilio begins to speak again as he lays the book down on the table. Maddalena puts her hand on the cover of the book and then pauses. ‘He says, his mother remembers talk of a man. He came after the war, and stayed in the Lami house because he used to work for the family. But the funny thing is he didn’t live in the house, even though it was empty, but in the garage at the end of the garden.’

‘What happened to him?’ I ask.

‘Nobody knows. Maybe went away. Maybe died. His mother only remember that he was a very sick man.’

Maddalena goes back to the book and carefully lifts the cover. ‘Old newspapers,’ she says. ‘This one we find is interesting for you. She lifts and settles the flimsy pages and stops at a newspaper dated August 1936. A photograph.

It’s a group picture of well-dressed people standing in two rows at what seems to be the port. I squint in and attempt to read the caption beneath it. Maddalena helps me. ‘Here a couple, just back out of honeymoon,’ she says. ‘This woman and this man beside her. She is very beautiful - yes?’ Carefully she points with the tip of her little finger as if her index finger might bruise the face.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘She is.’

‘Do you see what her name is?’ Maddalena goes to a drawer at the side of the table and takes out a magnifying glass. ‘Look.’ She draws the glass along the caption. ‘This woman is Signora Lami and she has married in France, this man Signor Tassi.’ Maddalena moves the magnifying glass in and out and the woman’s face grows and shrinks. ‘It is the second marriage for her, I think.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it say here that she is celebrating with her son, family and friends at Villa Lami. This has to be the son here. This boy.’

‘Does it give his name?’

‘No. And there are no other names written down, only the bride and groom. I don’t know why.’

I take the glass in my hand and look at the boy standing to the left of the bride. I watch his face, slightly turned towards his right shoulder, expand in the glass. Like his mother he is good-looking although he doesn’t really resemble her. One by one I go over the rest of the party. Another beautiful woman stands beside the boy; next to her is an older, distinguished-looking man. On the far side of the groom there are three men, one fattish and middle-aged, the others could be his sons. These are all dark, like the groom. On the back row a middle-aged man and a woman smile out like Cheshire cats. Behind the bride is another man and woman although their faces are a little blurred. There is a gap of a few feet in the back row until the last woman who is standing right behind the boy. She is wearing a half-brimmed hat but her face shows well enough beneath it. Her hand is on the boy’s shoulder. It is as if she had moved over and left the gap in the back row so she could place her hand on him. They are the only two in the picture to make any contact. Even the bride and groom stand separate to each other.

‘Does she look familiar?’ Maddalena asks.

‘Who?’ I say.

‘Signora Lami - does she look familiar?’

‘No.’

I put down the magnifying glass and stand up. ‘Maddalena, I’d like to go outside for a few minutes.’

‘You are OK?’

‘Yes, yes. I just want to have a cigarette. Can you leave this here?’

‘
Certo
,’ she says, frowning at the brown flakes that have fallen away from the old newspaper pages, then brushing them under the table.

I go outside into the shaded arcade with its pelmet of thick mauve flowers. I light a cigarette and sit on a stone bench. It is almost lunchtime and the street outside gives few sounds. There is only the occasional drone of a Vespa or the murmur of a passing car. I can hear insects close by, but can’t see any, and I can taste the heavy scent of flowers on the edge of my cigarette smoke.

I think about the group in the picture. The man, slightly blurred, standing behind the bride - could easily be the same man in the picture found in Nonna’s old handbag. The boy could easily be the mis sing boy: Alfredo or Alberto or John. I think about the hand on his shoulder and who it belongs to. I need a few moments’ absence before going back in. But I am almost certain, it has to be Nonna. Her hand stretched out to comfort. It is the only thing that makes sense to me now. Finding her like this, trapped in a moment from the past. A moment that fits perfectly with the rest of her life. A woman with a half-hidden face. A woman in the back of a photograph.