The Garden of Letters (42 page)

Portofino, Italy

D
ECEMBER
1943

The next morning, she hears his movements in the kitchen. The withdrawing of the plates from the cupboard. The placement of the cutlery on the table. The sound of water coming from the faucet. It is a familiar melody to her, but now Elodie hears it like a dirge.

When Angelo leaves for his rounds in the village, she starts to pack the rucksack she held so carefully when he picked her out in the port months before. Now she replaces the contents inside it in reverse order. She places Luca’s sweater like a cushion on the bottom. Then she puts her own clothes directly on top of his.

She pauses briefly to open the pages of
The Little Prince
and for a moment, the memory of Luca washes over her so strongly that she finds herself closing the book and resting it for a moment on her belly. She feels the sensation of movement inside her once again. It’s like a trapped wing beating within her, but the music of this fledgling life is like nothing she has ever known.

She picks up Luca’s medal of San Giorgio. She places it on top of the book and the sheets of music she still hopes to one day return to the Wolf. With all of her remaining worldly goods now safe inside her rucksack, she laces it tightly and then silently makes her way out the door.

She has not left the safety of Angelo’s home in the entire time she’s been in Portofino. From the height of the cliff, she can see the port below. The brightly colored fishing boats. The water, the color of a dissolving jewel. As she starts to walk down the steep hill, her legs feel as though she herself has spent too much time at sea as they shake beneath her.

She knows that she is fleeing out of fear and has no clear plan for leaving Portofino. She hopes she can at least find one fisherman willing to take her someplace west. Like to an island as remote as Elba, a place where people go to forget, to live quietly and unnoticed like grains of sand.

The same sense of panic sweeps over her as it had when her cello was taken from her in Genoa. From the very moment the German said “Anna Zorzetto from Venice . . .” she knew she couldn’t go back to her mother and Valentina. She might place both women in danger if the officer decided to pursue her connection to the Wolf. Now, she feels a similar sense of panic wash over her. All she knows is that she needs to get away, to take the first boat leaving the port and protect the people she loved.

She glances at the sky, a dull shade of pewter, and prays the village will now be as empty of Germans as Angelo has told her it is in the off-season.

Midway down the hill, she is stopped by a German officer on patrol. His jacket is green, his jodhpurs the color of bark. Across his chest is a rifle that makes her blood grow cold.

“Where are you going?” His Italian sounds wooden, as if he has learned the language with only half an ear.

“I’m just going into town to buy some bread,” she answers without offering any further detail, as she was taught to do by Luca and Beppe.

“It’s three o’clock. The bakery is now closed.” He glances over her, studying her carefully. “I haven’t seen you before. Do you live here?”

“Yes,” she lies, thinking he would be more inclined to let a local girl move on her way.

“Where?”

“Just up the hill.” She gestures abstractly in that direction.

“Why are you carrying such a big rucksack just to buy bread?”

She does not flinch. Instead she looks straight into his eyes, as if she were aiming a revolver at him.

“You’d better come with me,” he says, grabbing to take her by the arm.

They walk for only a few minutes, down the path then up another hill toward a yellow church. Right before it stands a large red house with a tower, protected by an imposing metal gate.

“Here,” the German says as he momentarily lets go of Elodie’s arm. She pauses as if suddenly stuck by an arrow. On the side of the wall, pressed into the cement pillar, she sees a marble plaque with the words
San Giorgio
etched into the stone. And above the door of the villa there is a marble relief of San Giorgio thrusting his sword into a dragon.

“San Giorgio,” she whispers involuntarily, like a single breath escaping. Inside her rucksack, she can feel the flame of her medal, as if the satchel now contains its own fire.

“Yes,” the German says, as he hears her murmur. “He’s the patron saint of this village. Or didn’t you know that already, living here as you claim to?”

Music is playing inside the red house as they enter. It is a piece Elodie has performed many times in her life, the prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1. It rises off the Victrola like a lullaby from Elodie’s past.

“This way,” the German orders her. They walk through a marble hallway. Large pieces of baroque furniture rest against the walls. When they arrive in the main receiving room, Elodie looks up to see a large tapestry woven in green and gold, the image of San Giorgio emerging through the threads like an apparition.

She suddenly senses Luca all around her. The revelation that the patron saint of Portofino is the same one he had chosen for his own protective talisman makes her feel as though Luca is sending her comforting signs from beyond the grave.

“
Mein kommandant
.” The German salutes. From behind, Elodie makes out the
kommandant
’s thin blonde hair and the thick, pink fingers, which grip his armchair.

“Just a moment,” he says without turning. “It’s almost finished.”

Elodie closes her eyes. The music is unmistakable. She hears the cello strings as though they were strung as tight as twine across her heart. It has been months since she’s heard the instrument played, and the record reminds her of her family, her past, and her cello that was taken from her. The pain is raw and piercing.

“Yes, please . . . let it finish,” Elodie utters, even with the German’s hand still gripping her arm. “I adore the Bach cello suites.”

The
kommandant
turns his head, and suddenly the air changes within the room. He looks at Elodie not as prisoner brought in for questioning, but as something unexpected: a fellow Bach connoisseur.

Neither Elodie nor the
kommandant
speaks until the conclusion of the piece. But the
kommandant
watches Elodie carefully. Her body remains rigid under the other soldier’s grip, but her eyes are alive, her pupils registering every nuance of the music.

When the music ends, the
kommandant
stands up and goes to the Victrola. He lifts the needle off the record with a careful hand.

The soldier comes over and whispers something into the
kommandant
’s ear. The elder man dismisses him from the room and then approaches Elodie. She can see the pores of his skin and the gray of his eyes.

“What a curious girl you are . . . You recognize the Bach Suites?”

“Yes. I, too, love Pablo Casals’s recording of them.”

“Hmm . . . Why?”

She thinks of making a comment about Casals’s well-known anti-Fascist politics, but refrains. “Well, to start . . . he’s a master of the cello.”

She is not sure if she has revealed too much. But the presence of San Giorgio throughout the house has bolstered her confidence.

She knows little about the
kommandant
except for what Angelo has told her. His proclivity for liquor. The diabetes, and their daily arrangement for his late-afternoon insulin injections. But she also recalls that Angelo has mentioned how the
kommandant
often needed strong barbiturates to fall asleep. His need for pills and a diagnosis of diabetes were private matters he didn’t want made known.

“Yes, Casals,” the
kommandant
says. “I can’t say the men in Berlin would approve of my listening to someone who has given their friend General Franco such a hard time. But he is indeed a virtuoso beyond compare.” As he walks closer toward her, she realizes he believes he is more than just a connoisseur of music, but also a master of detection.

Her back stiffens like a cat. Her eyes flash, and suddenly she sees in the corner of the room several shapes that are so familiar to her. The dark case of a violin and the large, almost womanly shape of a cello.

“You are not from Portofino,” he states as he stares at her up and down.