The Garden of Letters (31 page)

“It’s too bad about the Morettis, Lena. You were such a good little girl to try and help them . . .”

Lena’s eyes flicker. She feels her spine stiffen. Every hair on her body is standing on end.

“Did you hear what happened to the Morettis? Such a shame . . .”

She closes her eyes. She will not give them any shred of her pain. She will own her own grief.

The Nazi pushes his chair inches away from where Lena sits, her hands still tied behind her back. His face is so close to hers that she can smell the beer on his breath. He ignores her closed eyes, her bowed head. He knows she cannot escape and so, slowly, as if to maximize the pain of his delivery, he begins to detail the Morettis’ fate:

“Thanks to your false papers, Lena, they did manage to get to the Swiss border.”

She continues to keep her eyes closed. She doesn’t want to listen to his words, but still they slice like a blade through the air.

“They traveled all night through the cold and the dark. And when the smuggler got them to the border, he told them to cut a hole in the barbed wire and to climb through. Ahhh, once they took a small step onto the Swiss soil, they’d all be safe.” He walks around her, then begins circling around the room, smirking.

“But those Jews were not so smart, Lena. Not so smart at all. Papa goes first to pull little Luigi through. Then Mamma to follow. But Luigi gets caught in the wire. Oh . . . can you just imagine! You travel through the cold and the dark to get to safe, green Switzerland, with its cows and sweet milk, and at the very end little Luigi gets stuck in the fence.”

Lena is shaking now. The tears are just behind her lids, but she won’t open them. She refuses to let a single tear fall and give them the satisfaction.

“Well, the little boy lets out a little cry, which is almost imperceptible to the human ear, but is heard by one of our big, smart German shepherds. The sounds of those barking dogs running toward Mamma and Papa, and Luigi in the darkness. Can you just imagine the symphony, Lena?”

He begins to conduct in the air as if there is a full orchestra in front of him.

“Come on . . . you’re a musician! Can you imagine the sound of the dogs barking, the boy crying, and the mother begging her husband to pull faster . . . to get the little boy through?”

Lena feels her stomach twisting inside her. She thinks she might vomit all over the table. She squeezes her eyes tighter trying to shut out the pain.

“Well, our dogs got there before the husband could get his son through. He was safely on Swiss soil, while his wife and son remained on Italy’s.” He pauses, contemplating the scene. Then, slowly he smiles revealing his gleaming white teeth.

“Are you shocked, Lena, that when the officer gave Signor Moretti the choice to leave his wife and Luigi and save himself, he crawled back through the hole to be with his family . . . Can you believe the idiocy of that bastard?

“We needed only three bullets to put them all out of their misery.”

He turns to the second Gestapo officer and lets out a laugh. “Can you believe the stupidity of these Jews?”

Lena’s interrogation lasts over three hours. The junior Gestapo officer leaves and soon another agent arrives—this one larger and stronger than the one already in the room. Within minutes of his arrival, he pulls Lena’s hair to try and make her open her eyes and throws water in her face. When her eyes finally open, the senior Gestapo agent pushes photographs of the Morettis with bullets in their skulls under her nose, to prove to her they have told her the truth.

“Tell us the names of every person who attended your meetings and we will spare you the bullet that should end your life.”

He is smiling. “Come on little Fraulein . . .” He pushes a sheet of paper and a pen toward her.

Lena does not flinch.

The two men have all the time in the world. One tears off her blouse, while the other one takes off his belt. When the brass buckle hits her shoulder, Lena falls forward, her head hitting the table from the force of the lash. But her cry is almost imperceptible. She uses every bit of strength to try and mute herself. She will not give them the pleasure of seeing her in pain.

After two hours of being berated and beaten, Lena begins to transcend the pain. After the last whipping, she looks up at her torturers. Her glassy eyes shine with a resistance all her own.

“Those
eyes
of hers,” the senior agent says. “I can’t take the sight of them anymore.”

“Tell us those names!” his cohort screams, pushing his face into hers. “Tell us now and we won’t destroy those beautiful blue eyes of yours.”

Her face is almost unrecognizable. They have slapped her with such force that her cheeks are a patchwork of scarlet and blue. And on her back, where the officer’s belt had left her painful red welts, blood now leaked from the skin.

“Tell us the names!” Again they shout at her and pound their fists on the table.

“You have one more chance to save your eyes!”

Lena looks up at the senior agent and widens her eyes even further, even though her face is swelling larger with each passing moment.

She does not utter a single name as they bind her hands behind her back and bring another Nazi in with a bayonet that had been placed in fire. She fights with every ounce not to scream as they blind her, but the pain is too much, and the cry escapes her and shatters through the air.

When they are done with her, they tie a dirty bandage across the spot in which they gouged out her eyes and throw her into a van. They drive to Via Pelliciai and throw her bloody body in front of her family’s apartment.

“You still have time to save your life, Lena Galvetto! Your parents are upstairs. They can still take care of you. Just tell us those names!”

Lena, now on the street pavement, doesn’t make a sound. Though upstairs, with the windows thrown open, her mother’s screams pierce through the air.

Then, at the officer’s nod, without hesitation, one of the soldiers lowers his rifle and shoots Lena in the head.

Verona, Italy

S
EPTEMBER
1943

The men who have not been arrested or killed are now scattering through the city, trying to hide like hunted animals. Others try to make their way to the mountains. The next day, after the battle at the Piazza delle Poste, Luca’s bookstore is stormed by the Germans. Although all the hidden guns had already been pulled out of the books in the storeroom, the remaining books with the incriminating holes and the anti-Fascist newspapers are discovered in the back, and a warrant is placed for his arrest.

Luca finds Elodie back at her apartment with Orsina. He does not have the heart to tell her that the Gestapo had blinded Lena before shooting her, and that Beppe had died in front of a firing squad.

Instead, he tells her the obvious. “It’s too dangerous for any of us here now. They’re hunting everyone down. It’s time for us to get to the mountains.”

Orsina is shaking her head. “We can’t go to the mountains, Luca. Neither Elodie nor I could ever survive in the wilderness.”

She looks at Elodie. “No, if we go anywhere, it’ll be Venice. We can easily lose ourselves there.”

Luca disagrees. “You two can’t go anywhere now on a train with your own identity cards. Given her friendship with Lena, there’s probably already a warrant out for Elodie’s arrest.”

“Well, what choice do we have?” Elodie says. “We can’t just wait here for the Gestapo to knock on the door.”

“There is someone up with my brother who can make false papers for you. Give me photographs of each of you and I’ll take care of it.”

“You’re more likely to get caught coming back down into the city,” Elodie says. “Let me go with you and get them, and then I will leave for Venice with mother.”

The women exchange silent looks. Orsina does not want Elodie to go into the mountains, and Elodie does not want Luca to risk reentering the city once he’s left.

Orsina is not budging. She is filled with a newfound strength that surprises her daughter.

“Mamma,” Elodie says, her voice soft, yet insistent. “We don’t have time to argue. I will get us the new identity cards. Then, Venice. I promise.”

Outside, the sounds of gunfire still ricochet in the air. Luca walks past Orsina, who is standing rigid as a soldier in her own living room.

He pulls aside the curtain and peeks out to the piazza.

“I am worried about Lena and Beppe being held at the Palazzo dell’INA.”

Luca looks at her and Elodie interprets his eyes.

“No . . . you don’t think they . . .”

He doesn’t answer her, and his silence pierces through her like an arrow.

Luca wants to take her into his arms and soothe her, but Orsina has gotten to her first.

“They will execute us, too, if they find us,” Luca tells Elodie and Orsina. “We need to leave today.”

Luca cannot return to the bookstore, so he plans their escape as the women quickly pack a few things.

He tells Elodie to ride her bicycle to the base of the mountains where they had previously met. “If I’m not there, start hiking up to where we met Rafaelle and the others the last time. Bring photographs of yourselves.”

He looks at Elodie, who is still shaking from the shock of Lena’s and Beppe’s deaths.

“Signora Bertolotti,” he says. “I want to thank you for all you’ve done. You are incredibly brave.”

“I am not brave, Luca. I have lost my husband to the Fascists, and I will not lose my daughter to the Germans.” She looks at him with fierce eyes. “I am entrusting Elodie to you. Guard her with your life.”

Luca nods. “That goes without saying.”

Elodie embraces her mother and whispers in her ear to pack lightly. “We’ll need very little now, so take just a few things. We don’t want to carry too much on the train and draw attention.”

Orsina nods. “Come back quickly,
carissima.
I’ll have our things ready by then.”

She pedals fast toward the gates of Verona, the air in her hair and her skirt lifted above the knees. Once she clears the city, she will still have many miles to go until she reaches the mountains. German soldiers are everywhere. They stand at each corner in their olive-green uniforms, their rifles leveled, and their hard eyes staring from beneath the rim of their steel helmets.

There is a roadblock when she gets to the Porta San Zeno, with several soldiers inspecting the papers of civilians who want to pass through.

She stops pedaling and pushes her feet to the sidewalk to halt the wheels.

“Papers?” a German asks her. He is staring straight into her eyes, and Elodie wonders if he can see the streak marks on her cheeks from her tears.

She doesn’t want to give her identity card over to him, fearing her name might already be on a list from the Gestapo.

She smiles and reaches into her bag to feign a search.

Blushing, she turns to him and says, “It must be here somewhere.”

Her face is flushed from pedaling. The top button of her blouse has come undone, and she can see the soldier trying to peek at her breasts.

She bends over her purse again, lower this time. “I know it’s in here. Silly me. I rushed out so quickly . . .”

Elodie looks up at him and tries to channel Lena’s spirit. She gives him her brightest smile and flutters her eyelashes demurely.

“I live just down the street. Let me go home and get it. I must have left it on the kitchen table.”

She touches the button on her blouse slightly and smiles at him again.

“No need. But don’t go far; you’ll be searched again at every gate. We’ve been alerted to be on the lookout for traitors trying to escape today.”

“Well, that’s clearly not me,” she said, saluting the German. He seemed delighted by her gesture.

“No, clearly not,” he said, waving her through.

She continues riding on the path that leads to the mountains. She passes many Germans on her way there, but none of them bother to stop a young girl on her bicycle, pedaling away happily with the breeze in her hair. She cannot fathom how Luca will get past all of the soldiers. She prays he already has his own set of false papers.

After an hour, she arrives at the same spot she had met Luca nearly a week before. He is not there, so she stashes her bicycle in the bushes and begins the long walk up into the mountains.

All around her, the scent of the juniper and pine trees is invigorating. She had not yet had a moment to detect the scent of autumn in the city, with all the upheaval from the German invasion. But alone in the quiet of the woods, she now walks with the sun’s golden light on her back and savors a moment of not having to be on her guard.

She finds her way without difficulty, using visual landmarks to guide her. She remembers the rock where she had tied her hair back with her handkerchief, and next remembers where she had stopped to gather her breath. She follows each curve of the path, remembering where she had gazed at Luca and he at her. Finally, she mounts the last part, where she has to push away branches and go deep into the brush.

Suddenly from out of the woods, she hears footsteps under the brush.

“Halt!” a voice shoots out at her.

She first sees the rifle. Then the body who holds it. It’s a tall, thin boy no older than seventeen. He is dressed in faded green fatigues, a worn V-neck sweater over his shirt and a bandanna tied around his neck. Elodie looks down and sees that he is wearing a belt studded with ammunition.

“I’m Dragonfly,” Elodie says calmly. “I work with the Dolphin.” She has never called Luca “the Dolphin” before, but she realizes she must use battle names now.

He looks her up and down, acting as he thinks a man, not a boy, would. She is unsure if he’s trying to figure out if she is who she says she is, or if he’s just hungry to look at a woman.

Elodie starts walking toward him. The boy lowers his rifle, turns, and begins walking farther. He says nothing, and she quietly follows.

After walking in silence for several more minutes, he brings her to a makeshift camp. Five men are sitting around a low fire, warming tins of meat.

She sees Rafaelle first; his large body and overalls are easy to identify. He has a long musket over his lap. Before she has a chance to speak, he looks up.

A smile crosses his face. “Dragonfly . . .” he greets her. He lifts his musket and drapes it over his shoulder, then walks over to her.

“Now, you’re a welcome sight . . .”

The other men by the fire look in her direction, each of them smiling with appreciation.

Rafaelle places a hand on her shoulder. “I know my brother will be happy to see you.”

She smiles, relieved that Luca has already arrived safely at the camp.

“He is out patrolling. Should be back in an hour. Did you bring the photographs of your mother and yourself?”

She nods, patting her bag.

“Good, then. Let me introduce you to our expert forger, Giorgio. Also known as the Falcon. He’s in that tent over there.”