The Italian Romance (10 page)

I have decided to get the farmhouse ready myself. I'd like to get some food in, a few bottles of good wine for her.

The ticket man says the train is coming subito. I doubt it. In the old days I'd run down the concrete stairway, along the concrete tunnel and up the other stairway whenever a helpful ticket man warned me of the immediacy of departure. Now I put on my social face, say thank you and good morning, and wander off across the almost empty concourse, the fake marble flooring. I check the board. I have ten minutes.

A young thug in tight, dirty jeans lounges against a pillar. He catches my eye. I don't like the look of him. I hope he isn't plotting my downfall. I slip the strap of my shoulder bag right over my head as he watches me. It is as I am engaged in the skirmish that my mobile phone starts up. The ring startles me, and I fluster as I try to reach the zip of the now too awkwardly placed bag. And he, the young rogue, calmly takes his phone from his bulging shirt pocket and says, loudly in the large, empty hall, ‘Ciao.' I hope I wasn't the only one here to make a wild grab for a wrong phone. As I hurry away, I hear him say plaintively, ‘Where are you? I've been here half an hour.' Oh, well.

I'll buy a newspaper in case I get bored on the train. The vendor is a little fellow I have an embarrassing relationship with. We
are jokey with each other here, he safe behind his counter, surrounded by stacks of magazines and dailies, and we are eminently courteous and also eminently repetitive. We have occasionally had the misfortune of bumping into each other on supermarket queues or have even found ourselves sandwiched together on a tram where we can think of nothing to say. I hand him the notes, and he dishes out a few useless coins in return. He shouts as I walk off, urging me to have a pleasant journey and not to work too hard. I wave behind me.

What a pity I never got a car. Roll up the windows, put your foot down until, finally, the country begins to stretch out, the green, the trees, the sky climbing higher.

I sit on a bench on the platform. Souls parade up and down, not moving too far from their luggage, suitcases lined up in a row, rucksacks. Almost all of the dozen or so here are waiting for the train to the airport. I wonder if Francesca knew she could catch the train? Taxis are so expensive.

The railway line is straight here. Something lonely about straight tracks, clusters of signal posts, empty. Nothing coming this way, nothing going that.

I hope to God she comes. I might be sitting in that house for three weeks, waiting, waiting.

I can feel the shape of my writing pad in my shoulder bag, attached to the clipboard Nio once brought back from a conference. It's sharp. I will try to keep up my word count while I'm there, no matter what happens. At least there will be something at the end of all this.

They had wandered down to the waterhole along the south boundary. It was cold that day and she hugged her cardigan around her. Dry, though. The soil was red, hungry. A couple of cattle had strolled over to drink. The others lay under the two or three trees, whiling away the time. She said to him, in the huge privacy, ‘What do you think life is about?' He threw a stick into the water. It was dry as a husk, the stick. It floated uselessly.

‘About enjoying myself,' he said.

She sat down on her haunches, tucked her hem in so that her skirt wouldn't trail in the red dust. She was not expecting him to say that. One of the cattle waddled past them, lifted her tail and the earth spat with hot, yellow urine. The red dirt darkened into a trail of mud.

Lilian said, ‘That's because you're always happy. And because you're good.'

‘I never thought about it before.' He was a bit shy, talking of such things. Of course, it was that stretching of his neck, the peek into a higher place, and the subtle sympathy that was opening up in him for her visits to a shadowed place, that made her a necessary magnet for him whether he wanted it or not.

‘I wish I were like you,' she said.

He'd jammed his hands into his trousers' pockets. She made him feel wonderful sometimes. He said, awkward with the words, ‘What do you think life is all about?'

‘I don't really know. I haven't started figuring it out yet. I think I might know in a few years.'

‘You will,' he said, reassuringly.

She stood up. Her legs had pins and needles. She shook one foot, then the other. ‘Let's go home. It's getting really cold.'

He put his arm around her as they climbed up the land, pulled her close into his hip. He said into her hair, ‘Will you miss me?'

‘I don't want you to go,' she cried. She turned her face into his chest.

The telephone rang through the house. The sound was dimmed by her bedroom door, but Sonia jumped. She was sitting at her dressing table. She had meant to brush her hair, and indeed the silver-backed brush was in her hand. She couldn't interest herself in the procedure somehow. Her reflection in the oval mirror held no fascination either. She stared at her powder box, covered by a gaudy gypsy-girl scene, a red petticoat, a dainty foot lifted in a dance. She'd stared at it for some minutes, yet she saw nothing really. The ringing startled her.

She put her hands on her lap, still holding the brush, waited, listened. Alphonso's deep voice murmured up through the rooms to her, but she couldn't make it out. And then his slow, limping step as he ascended the stairway. She was tired. She leaned her hand on the glass surface of the dressing table, pushed against it and stood up. She went over to the door, opened it. ‘What is it, Alphonso?' she sang out, to save his leg the journey.

‘Your father, Signora. Come quickly.'

She hurried downstairs in her silk dressing gown, her hair loose. She was pale. Alphonso looked at her as she passed him on the bottom step.

Her bare feet were light on the polished wood floor of the drawing room, and they sank into the soft pile of the Persian rug. She walked across the midnight blue of it, a peacock's tail fanned in each of the four corners. Her breath was short as she picked up the receiver, which Alphonso had left lying on the side-table. She put the brush down beside the phone's cradle – she hadn't realised she still held it. ‘Pronto,' she said. ‘Papa?'

‘Sonia, I have bad news. Very bad news.' He was breathless, too.

Sonia sank down into the armchair. ‘Francesco?'

‘No, no, I have no word of him at all. There is nothing I can do about Francesco, I told you that. I am not a magician,' he said.

She closed her eyes, and rested her forehead against the telephone piece.

‘My dear, I am sorry, no, the news is of your brother.' His voice seemed to rattle in his throat, like an old man's. ‘Sonia,' he said. He almost pleaded with her name. ‘Jacob has been arrested.'

She put her hand out and moved the brush, just an inch, on the marble-topped table.

‘Sonia, did you hear me?'

‘What do you mean, Papa?' she said.

He sighed, an angry sigh. ‘What does it mean, Sonia, he has been arrested? Huh? Arrested. In Milan. I sent him up there on business.'

‘But for what?'

‘I don't know, I don't know. I told him not to interest himself in ... those friends of his. Be careful what you say, Sonia, do you understand me?'

Sonia looked at the phone in her hand. She nodded. ‘Yes,' she said, aware suddenly of someone listening, an ear-set over his head.

‘Just in case. Always be careful,' her father said.

‘Yes, I understand.' She hated it, hated it. ‘What is happening, Papa? It's supposed to be over.'

‘They have done it all wrong. Fools, fools. What more can they do to destroy us?'

Sonia felt his anger on her own skin, as she sometimes had as a child. ‘Wasn't it right to sign the Armistice? I thought that meant it was over.'

‘And what? And what? The Germans are going to dust their hands and say never mind?' His voice rose, slowed down. She could imagine his two thick fingers jabbing at the leather inset on his desk. ‘They should have waited till the Allies were in place. Where are the Allies? Have they gone to sleep? The Nazis are pouring in, pouring in. Who will resist them?'

Sonia heard the muffled sound of her mother's voice, and then the movement of his skin as he cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. He came back to her. ‘Listen, we don't know what is going on in the North. The message we received is that Jacob was arrested, or kidnapped, whatever you want to call it, by Germans. Now, don't say anything. I don't know how that happened, who they were, under what authority. I am going up today to try to get him. They have no right. No right whatsoever. Listen, your mother wants ... yes, yes, I'm telling her ... your mother wants you to think about a holiday.'

‘A holiday?'

‘Yes, she says remember how Susanna took a holiday.' He waited, breathing into the telephone.

‘Yes, I ... I know what you're saying. Now? Should we go now? Are you coming down to us?'

‘I can't today. I have to find Jacob. I might be a few days. But listen, if the worst comes to the worst, I want you to go, understand? Somewhere near Susanna, that direction, understand?'

‘No, Papa, please. I'll wait for you.' She was crying. She held her fist to her mouth.

‘Of course, of course. I'll be down to you as soon as I can.
Soon as I can. But, Sonia, listen to me now. It is possible, from what I've heard, that the Germans will move very quickly.'

‘But you said it would be all right. You said nothing would happen.'

He was silent. She held the telephone tight, pressed it against her face as if she could touch him that way, feel the breadth of his arms about her. ‘I know I did, my baby. Listen now, don't let Gianni away from the house for a while. You know Alphonso will help you. I spoke to him earlier. But just in case, just in the unlikely event that they come this far, you go immediately. You must get to the other side. And then it will all be over, very soon. Don't worry, uh? Don't worry, baby.'

She heard the crackle of his hand over the mouthpiece again. Her face was wet with tears. ‘I have to go now, Sonia. Mama has packed my overnight bag. She has it here. Your sister-in-law is coming to stay here for a few days, and the children. All right, my dear?'

‘Yes, Papa. You will find Jacob, I know you will.'

‘Of course I will.'

‘Kiss him for me when you see him.'

‘I will. And kiss Gianni for me. Yes, and for his Grandmama. Goodbye, my dear, goodbye.'

The click of the phone and the empty burr of the disconnected line sank down into the nerves of her hand and her arm, and into her breath. She still held the phone to her ear. Her cream gown had opened and under it, the outline of her knees and the shadow between her legs was covered by the opaque slightness of the cotton nightdress. She poked her toe at the black ring of a nail-head, buried deep in a plank.

She heard Alphonso in the hall. He had probably listened to every word she'd said. She hadn't closed the door. But his footsteps were going away, towards the kitchen.

Sonia turned the handles of the bath taps. The water gushed in and she upended the tin of perfumed salts and shook in the very
last of it. The bathroom began to fill with steam and the smell of lavender. She closed the door behind her as she returned to her bedroom and her open desk. The top of her fountain pen had rolled back into a pigeon-hole. She leaned over the writing pad and carefully blotted the last page she'd written, then tore out the three sheets of her letter. The envelope was already addressed, clearly marked for the prisoner-of-war camp in northern England.

Half an hour later, she arrived in the kitchen, her steps sure and vigorous on the stone floor. Alphonso looked up, surprised. Berta, to whom Alphonso had confided his anxiety only a glass of grappa before, took a sidelong glance at the young mistress while stirring at her soup-stock.

‘Has the mail left yet?'

‘No. He should be here any minute,' Alphonso said.

‘Would you give him this?' She passed the letter to him. He nodded, but he waited till she had walked by him to the sink before he read the address. He raised his brows to Berta, who'd been silently questioning him. She shook her head and returned to her pot.

Sonia drank a full glass of water. She looked out the window to the back terrace. ‘Where's Gianni?' she said.

‘Out there somewhere. I heard him a minute ago.'

‘I'm going down to the village,' she said.

Alphonso folded his newspaper, and she heard his chair move on the stone. ‘No,' she said. ‘I'll drive myself. You stay here, Alphonso. Keep an eye on the place.'

‘Do you need a few things?' he asked. Berta turned to look at her, her metal spoon in her hand.

‘Yes. I want to get a few things,' Sonia said. She ran a little more water into her glass. ‘And I just want to get out.' She drained the glass. The two older people watched the movement of her slender back. ‘Oh, and Alphonso, can we get the BBC here?'

Alphonso stood up. He put the newspaper on his chair. ‘Yes,' he said.

‘Good. We should try and find out what's going on. No one else seems to know. I suppose that means we're on our own.' She faced them, a little taken aback to see the two of them staring at her. She patted her wet mouth. She felt young. She looked at her feet for a moment. ‘Well, I'll go. It's out the front, I suppose.'

‘Yes. Go easy with it. We need to save petrol,' he said.

She nodded. ‘All right. We should be back in about two hours.' She looked Alphonso right in the eye as she walked by him. He almost smiled.

They heard the front door close. ‘Well,' Berta said. ‘What do you think of that?'

‘Pulled herself together,' Alphonso said. He picked up his newspaper and sat down again.

‘Let's hope it lasts,' Berta said.

He shook the paper out. ‘Let's hope,' he said.

Sonia opened the black door of the driver's seat. The tanned leather was mellow in the early September light. The car smelled of it. She leaned on the horn. ‘Gianni,' she yelled.

She waited. It took him half a minute to appear around the side of the house. He was running. He stopped at the corner when he saw her. ‘Are we going somewhere?' he said. His voice rang in the quiet autumn morning. The wisteria was thickly green, climbing near him over the front of the house.

‘Come on,' she said. She sat in the car.

He raced over to her, dragged his door open and sat in heavily. He smelled of boy's sweat. ‘Where are we going?' his said, his voice too big for the small, intimate space.

‘Ssh,' she said. ‘Down to the village.' She turned the ignition. Stones scattered under the wheels as she drove slowly down the avenue. The trees were full; breaths of wind sighed through their
thousands of leaves. She stopped at the gate, and then pulled out on the roadway.

It was a beautiful day, ripe, the sun also heavy, content. She drove in silence for a minute or so. Gianni trailed his hand out the window, playing with the breeze.

‘Gianni,' she said, looking at him. His face was resting on his arm. His hair danced and kicked in the breeze, too. ‘There's something I want to talk to you about.' He was listening, she knew, but he said nothing, and didn't move, except for his hand which he twisted slowly in the warm air. ‘The war is going bad again, Gianni. We have to be careful.'

‘The Americans are here. They'll save us.' He still did not move, or look at her.

‘They're not here yet. So I need your help, all right?'

He sat up, and gazed straight ahead through the window shield.

‘It's important that we stay near the house. You can't go wandering off too far. Alphonso said you must have been ten miles away yesterday when he drove past you.'

‘I don't have anyone to play with.' He turned to her. ‘Can I go back to school?'

‘Soon, I promise. As soon as we know what is happening.' She tooted the horn at Franco Bibiena, who straightened from his clearing of the maize field and raised his hand in salute.

‘What is happening?'

‘I don't know, for sure. But I'm going to find out. I need you to help me, all right?'

He bounced in his seat, getting himself more comfortable. He reached out his sun-browned hand to her arm. She realised she was holding the wheel with a white-knuckled grip. His hand was warm on her skin. ‘Don't worry,' he said. ‘I'll protect you.'