The Italian Romance (13 page)

The doctor stopped occasionally to make a point to Mr Finch, who nodded, and then they moved off again.

Lilian tried to smile at the infirm men, one here, one there. She could barely raise her eyes to theirs. The party seemed to squeeze her to the side, and eventually she popped out of formation altogether. She was close enough to the beds now to touch the iron bars. Case notes were clipped to the railings. She tried to make one out, as she wandered very slowly, on her own now. She saw the last name. The rank was captain. She did not want to linger, to intrude, but she bent her head to try to read more.

And then a voice said, ‘Ulcer.'

She looked at the man. He lay propped up on a pillow, which he'd doubled to raise himself higher. Dark hair hung over his forehead. His eyebrows were fascinating, black, straight, and then tapered down.

‘Ulcer?' she said. She put her hand on her stomach, like a child.

‘No,' he said. ‘Different kind. Leg. From the desert. If you hit yourself, even a little, you can get an ulcer. I bumped into the fender of a truck. And here I lie.' He opened his arms. In his white singlet, his shoulders were strong, his arms sculpted, muscles, dips. Her eyes followed the line of an arm down to the long hand. His hand was perfectly olive on the outside, pinkened on the palm. The fingers were long.

‘In the desert,' she said.

He nodded to her. His eyes were hooded. Or perhaps he was very tired.

It felt very quiet. She said, ‘My husband's in North Africa.'

He said nothing for a while. He looked at her hand on the rail of his bed. Then he said, ‘It's rather beautiful in the mornings.'

‘Is it?' she said. She had forgotten herself, forgotten where she was. She looked directly at him.

‘Oh, yes. The sun is huge, and red. It rises very quickly in the sky, a dark blue sky. Blue as a black-blue iris. Do you know iris, the flower?'

She nodded. ‘I think so,' she said. The wings of the pillow were white at the sides of his brown neck.

‘He thinks of you in the mornings,' he said to her.

At the side of her vision, she saw the white of the doctor's coat, flapping open over his uniform. She looked away from the man in the bed. Mr Finch and the doctor came towards her. ‘Are you ready, Mrs Malone?' Mr Finch said.

‘Yes, thank you,' she said.

The doctor gestured to her, as if he wanted to sweep her away. She tried to look at the man again, to say goodbye to him, or get well. Or whatever you say to prisoners-of-war. But she was
already being herded and, when she turned her head, she saw only the doctor's white shoulder.

‘Very educated man,' Mr Finch was saying, for her journalistic benefit no doubt.

‘Oh, yes,' the doctor agreed. ‘Capitano da Lucca is a man of literature, I think you say.'

‘Of letters,' Lilian said, almost without thinking.

‘Thank you, Signora. Yes, a man of letters.' The doctor slightly bowed to her as they walked to the door.

As Mr Finch opened it, a rush of heat barrelled in. She stepped out into the sunshine, looking down at the grass to avoid the glare.

A man in Australian uniform walked quickly up the pathway. She watched him as he saluted, leaning his head towards Mr Finch who listened quietly. Lilian heard a currawong cry as it dipped overhead.

‘This way,' Mr Finch said near her shoulder, making her jump.

The party was quiet now. The heat, probably. She let them walk ahead. The sun heated her calves and ankles. She pushed her straw hat further down on her hair; her white gloves, at least, kept her hands from being burned. As she wandered behind the others, she fanned the skirt of her dress unobtrusively. It created no breeze at all.

They had stopped in the middle of what was called the lawn. They were grouped around Mr Finch, who was talking in a low voice. ‘We'll continue the inspection, gentlemen. You'll be interested in the work side of things. But we will keep the news I'm going to give you to ourselves, if you don't mind. I've just had word that Singapore has fallen. The British garrison has surrendered to the Japanese.'

The Mayor stood right in front of her. He whistled under his breath. Hidden as she was, smaller than them all, she covered her eyes with her gloved hand.

The Mayor said in a low voice, ‘They could be down here in a month.'

Mr Finch said, ‘Won't happen. Won't happen. At least the Yanks are in on it now.'

‘Are you absolutely sure about this?' the clergyman said. She could hear his voice coming from somewhere near her.

‘Sure,' Mr Finch said. ‘Sorry to bring you the bad news.'

‘The British said they could hold it,' the Reverend said.

Another said, ‘That's not a lot of use to us. It's gone. Just have to face it and fight like demons from now on.'

The government man said, ‘With our men all over there in North Africa and Europe! Sneaking, rotten bastards.'

They had completely forgotten about her. A month, the Mayor had said.

I presume I did this on purpose. I hope Francesca isn't too familiar with the unconscious. She might be annoyed, furious even, but please don't let her realise that I probably did this on purpose. I could kick myself.

Vanna has left. They took my clothes off me. Vanna's longnailed fingers even unclipped my bra. Jesus.

After they'd tucked me in like a baby, or Vanna had while Francesca stood at the door and watched, I asked for my workbag to be brought in. Vanna wouldn't do it. So I turned back the white sheets, swung my legs out of the bed and stood up on the tiled floor. I actually felt quite dizzy but I didn't let on that I did, of course. Thankfully, Vanna shouted at me and stomped off to get it. I felt a bit stupid standing there in my nightie, a bold child. I couldn't think of a word to say to Francesca. She pretended to be interested in a print on the wall. I got back into bed. At least I can work now.

My daughter is cooking my dinner. I can almost hear her teeth grating. She was courteous to the doctor. Bless him, he didn't bat an eyelid when she told him, on his questioning her about staying with me for a few days, that she is my daughter. I've known Roberto since he was a boy. He didn't bat an eyelid. He gave her a prescription for painkillers, I think he said. He mentioned
something about blood pressure but I don't believe in paying much attention to what doctors say. It just makes you sick. I'll give up something, and take more walks. When my ankle mends.

They were going to put me in the main bedroom which I'd got ready for her. I absolutely refused to go in there, hopping around on one foot, Vanna's warm, strong body holding me up, Francesca with her fingers pinched at the back of my dress as if I were a wet dishrag. This little room is off the beaten track so to speak, beside the stairs. I might not trouble her too much. Though how could my presence not leak into the atmosphere? I didn't want to do that to her, to make her uncomfortable. I really could kick myself.

If I lean right back and hoist myself, I can see out the window, or I could if it were daytime. The roadway is hidden, but it's just behind our orchard, winding its way up the rise. I see lights. Someone is driving home, slowly – probably our neighbour's daughter. She works in the hospital in town, a radiologist or something. They're blow-ins – only been here five or six years. From Genoa, as far as I remember. She sits on that damned gear. And oh God, hear that, there she is changing it now. The box will give up and jump right out one day. It's a wonder the poor car moves at all.

‘Are you all right?'

I sit back hard on the mattress. ‘Oh,' I say. ‘I was just looking ... I thought I heard something.'

She is quite stern, this Francesca. She walks over to my window. I pull the sheet up over my lap. She's peering out. It's a dark night, no moon at all. She couldn't possibly see beyond the pebbled courtyard, the wheelbarrow, the wood stack beside the kitchen wall.

‘What kind of sound?' she said.

‘Oh, a car going by, that's all. I think.'

‘Ah.' She looks down at me. I am looking up at her like a child. She is going to say something. She licks her lip. But she's thought better of it.

As she walks over to the door, she says, ‘May I use the phone?'

‘Of course,' I exclaim. ‘Anything you want, you just do. If you need a phone book, it's on the bottom shelf of the cupboard next to the fridge.'

She doesn't even turn. ‘I don't need a phone book,' she says. Her footsteps clatter on the tiles. I hear her going down the stairs, her sandals clicking on one step, then the next.

I lie back against the two pillows. I am rather tired. I feel that I have lost control. It is no longer up to me, what happens next. It's not the first time in my life, but I have to say I don't like it. It's painful, if I'm honest. The mass of multitudes of stars in the galaxy and the effrontery of their replica a thousand thousand times over is a secret we did well to keep from ourselves for so long. This inadequate life force, tucked up in a back bedroom of an Italian farmhouse, loses her footing when she gazes up at it all. I have no idea what the whole damn thing has been about.

She leaves me alone for about an hour. I don't have a clock, so I don't know. I don't think I'd be able to ask her for one.

She's returning. The sandals click, one step, two. I wonder if she has to steel herself outside my door before she enters the room.

‘Dinner,' she says.

I lean from the bed and try to pull a chair towards me. My writing pad falls to the floor. ‘Damn,' I say.

‘Leave it. I'll pick it up in a minute.'

I sit hastily back. She hooks a foot around a rung of the chair and its feet scream along the tiles. When it's beside the bed, she puts the tray down. ‘I heated your chicken again. I think it's all right. I didn't bring up a glass of wine. I wasn't sure, with how you're feeling.'

‘That looks lovely, thanks. I'm so sorry to put you to this trouble. I really do feel such a fool,' I say. In my middle years, I discovered the trick of castigating myself first before any one else gets the chance.

‘Oh, well,' she says.

She doesn't play the game, my Francesca. No cheek-splitting smiles, no niceties. She simply reaches in and plucks at a heart chord, a deep-down one.

I look at the meal. A hunk of bread, a sizeable triangle of soft cheese, a glass of water, steaming mug of coffee. And an abundant plateful of pasta and chicken and apricot sauce. I can't help smiling at my plate.

‘I rang Jim,' she says. ‘I told him what had happened. He said he'd drive up tomorrow. If that's all right.'

‘How kind of him,' I say. He must be rubbing his hands with glee. Perhaps he thinks I flung myself down the steps out of solidarity with his aspirations. Perhaps I did, who knows?

‘Can I get you anything else?' She folds her arms across her chest as she says this.

‘No, thank you. I have everything I need. Really lovely, thank you.'

‘What about the bathroom?' She is broaching a truly horrifying prospect, more even for herself than for me, much more.

‘I'm sure I can manage with Nio's stick,' I say, and as soon as I say it I feel the punch of a cold, wild wind. Why didn't I say
the
stick,
the
stick. Or simply, I can manage with this walking stick here that Vanna just happened to find in the laundry.

Too late now. She has turned her back. It has been breached again.

‘Right,' she says, her voice hard. ‘I'll say goodnight.'

‘Goodnight,' I say feebly as she disappears.

Oh, Nio. My Christ, how I miss you. How I need you. I'd tear the sky apart. Tear the sky apart.

Sonia traced her mouth with red lipstick, and leaned forward to examine it in the dressing-table mirror. Her hands were shaking. She had flattened out the bow of her lips. She spat on the corner of her handkerchief and wiped hard at the dip, then she picked up her comb and dragged its wide teeth through her greasy hair. Her heart thumped. She patted at her sallow cheeks.

She could hear their voices downstairs. Alphonso was bringing them into the drawing room. She stood back and half-turned, smoothing her dress over her hips and thighs. Her feet were uncomfortable in the tight high heels. She had no stockings that didn't have holes in them but she decided it better to pretend heat and a casual air, than admit to lack.

She wanted only to lock the bedroom door from inside, get into bed and fall instantly asleep. She sat down heavily on her dressing stool, and put her face into hands. Her breath was broken, almost painful in her chest.

‘Almighty Lord, protect us,' she murmured, her eyes tight shut. ‘Protect my son.'

The time had come. She sat up, breathed slowly. She wanted to cry, but she stood and walked to the door. Her bedroom was in late afternoon shade, still warm from the barrage of sun earlier in the day. She leaned her forehead against the coolness of the white-painted door-jamb, and then she turned the ceramic handle.

Her ankle gave as she stepped down. She held tight to the polished banister, regained her footing.

When she appeared in the doorway, the three soldiers stood, senior officer first, the two others following. He came towards her. Alphonso was standing by the empty grate of the fireplace, pouring red wine into four glasses; he didn't look at her. She looked to the German.

He approached her, his hand out. She raised hers, from habit, without thinking. He bent over it and barely breathed on her shaking fingers. She heard his heels click. ‘Signora da Fogliano, thank you for your hospitality,' he said. He stepped back and gestured her across the room.

The youngest officer, fair, red-cheeked, watched his commander with calf-eyes. At a signal she did not see, the young man offered her the armchair from which he had just risen. ‘Signora,' he said.

She sat down quietly. She tugged secretly at her dress, to cover her knees and her bare legs. She crossed her feet in their high heels, deliberately. The senior officer sat down opposite her. ‘Signora,' he said. ‘We of course apologise for this intrusion. You will understand our need, naturally.'

‘Naturally,' she said. ‘I hope you'll be comfortable here this evening. Please let us know if there is anything you need.'

Alphonso appeared at her left arm. He handed her a glass, bowing slightly. She could barely lift her hand to it. He held it for a few seconds longer than necessary as she gripped her fingers around it. His thumb lightly touched hers. She rested the glass on her lap. She could feel her legs shaking.

Alphonso carried the silver tray to the officer, bowed his head and said, ‘Signore Major.'

Sonia looked quickly at the old man. His free hand was in a solid fist at his side. The officer easily lifted a glass, nodded, and Alphonso stepped away. Now she knew the rank, and how to address the man. She warmed. Alphonso was also involved in this drama, feeding her lines, calming her. Not alone, then.

The eldest of the officers, who hadn't spoken, accepted his glass and thanked Alphonso in adequate Italian. As Alphonso walked behind the quiet officer's chair he glanced over to her. She nodded slightly. Yes, she realised the danger. This man, too, understood their language.

The youngest took the last glass from the tray, and said nothing. He sat now on a hard-backed chair, holding the glass in both hands, between his knees. The major raised his glass. He said, without looking at her, ‘Prost.' The two others sipped quickly. The major settled back in his armchair as he drank. ‘Ah,' he said. ‘Good wine. Full-bodied. Your own?'

She looked quickly to Alphonso who stood guard by the doorway. He shook his head. ‘No,' she said, ‘Herr Major, I am afraid not. But I'm glad it's to your liking.'

He crossed one leg over the other. His boots were shone to a high gloss; they frightened her. He affected to look as if he belonged in Sonia's drawing room, drinking her wine, sitting in her favoured chair. Her back ached from its rigidity, her knees tight together. She struggled to keep her shoulders straight, her head high. She frantically avoided certain social niceties – ‘Where have you come from?', ‘Where are you going?' One did not ask such things in these circumstances. But what could she say?

She opened her mouth and said, ‘Where–', but he was speaking, too. He was saying, ‘Your villa is–', when he stopped, smiled and said, ‘No, please, you were saying?'

She wanted to swallow. To cover the show of nerves, she sipped
at her wine, swallowed it down and continued, ‘I was wondering where you learned Italian. You speak it very well.'

‘Thank you.' He nodded in acknowledgement. ‘I studied Dante and Petrarch, Boccaccio. It became necessary to come to the source, the bella lingua itself.'

Sonia felt a glimmer of hope ignite in her. ‘How charming,' she said.

‘Not meant to charm, Signora. Merely my history. I was a romantic youth.' He rested his head back on the antimacassar and settled his eyes on her. They were the colour of pale sky.

She gripped the glass tighter, and glanced at Alphonso. He was leaning a shoulder against the wall, his bad leg relieved of the weight. He should have left her, to rest himself. She should have told him to go. But she was deeply glad he stayed where he was, solid, smelling of warm, sweet sweat, his cream shirt open at the collar, greying hair matted near his throat. She sipped at the wine again.

‘My husband is an aficionado of Dante, Herr Major. I regret he is not here to discuss literature with you.'

The major smiled. He tipped his glass to her.

She flushed. She looked away from him. The other, older man seemed to be overly concerned with his boots, which he had thrust straight out in front of him like Pinocchio. Beside her, the young man drained his glass. He gazed around the room at the fireplace, the window, behind him to the walnut desk. His knee was restless. He worked his heel up and down, up and down.

‘Leutnant,' the major said. He fired a string of words in rapid German. His voice was harsher in his native language. Or maybe he was annoyed with the boy.

The boy got to his feet as if he'd just sat on a piece of broken glass. ‘Jawohl, Herr Major,' he said, too loudly. He raised his arm in a Nazi salute. Sonia looked to the side of the major, where the last of the afternoon sun slanted light across the floorboards. The senior officer half-heartedly lifted his forearm in response, his
elbow still on the armrest. He shot out another order, or perhaps he was telling the boy to hurry.

The boy almost marched across the room. When he reached the door, he thrust his glass at Alphonso, who slowly put his hand out for it. The boy marched out into the hallway and she heard him open the front door. He closed it so that the noise rang through the house. The major muttered something to the other man, who seemed to be agreeing with him.

Sonia felt anxious when they spoke in their language. She strained to decipher meaning. What was the word for ‘son'? She had learned German for three years in school. Surely she could remember that word.

The major said, ‘The young have romantic notions, even today. But he is a good soldier, Leutnant Kruger, brave.'

‘He has no fear,' the older man agreed.

No fear. What could he mean? Were they warning her?

‘Whereas,' the major said, ‘Hauptmann Nitschke prefers to stay in bed when we are engaged. He slept most of our way through France, is that not so, Kurt?'

‘Somebody has to dream the dreams,' the man called Kurt said. ‘How could we fight without dreams?'

‘You see,' the major said to her. ‘I have a philosopher to contend with. The French were light relief compared to him. I plead with the General Staff to send us into very noisy battle so I don't have to listen to him.'

They were entertaining her, as men do. It was a dynamic she knew so well, two men sparring, joking, demeaning each other, enjoying an almost sensual comradeship while the female sits and watches and perhaps decides. It was so much a part of her young woman's life that she did not register the incongruity of it. She did though, in her bones, realise that her power had been returned to her. If only by the moment.

She said, ‘We all dream. It is too cruel, this world. We need to dream.'

‘Ah, yes,' Kurt said. He breathed a deep sigh and his body seemed to collapse back into the soft cushions of the chair.

‘Of home, perhaps,' she continued. She gazed at him.

Kurt crossed his legs, too, his ankle resting on the other knee. ‘Home,' he said, raising his glass. Sonia saw that it was almost empty. He drained it.

She nodded to Alphonso, who limped quietly to the side-table. His hip looks very bad today, she thought.

The major adjusted himself, put both feet down squarely on the rug. He sat up, and even inclined slightly towards her. The huge marble fireplace was between them. A cast of sunlight arrowed on to the pale, almost transparent hearthstone; its blue veins showed themselves. He said, ‘And your home, Signora, is glorious. You live in paradise. Painters painted this landscape and we didn't believe them.'

Kurt said, from the depths of his chair, ‘Yes, I was saying precisely that this morning as we drove down.' He closed his eyes, or pretended to. His jaw was dark. Sonia, unthinking, gazed for a moment at that shadow. It drew her.

The major stood up. He walked slowly to the window, placed his hand high on the frame and stared out. He was not a man to ignore. He moved like a large, silent cat. Sonia's gaze shifted, followed him. She waited.

He turned and she pulled back in her seat. He leaned against the sill. ‘So,' he said. The western sky threw him into shade. Her heart began to trouble her again, the blood beating in her ears.

She wondered if he knew how much he frightened her. She tried to calm herself. Alphonso, who had just filled Kurt's glass, walked over to him. The major held his glass out at full arm's length, but he kept his eyes on her. She pressed the nail of her thumb into her finger.

‘Your husband, Signora. He is away?' he said.

Of course he would have established that earlier, in the village perhaps.

‘He is a prisoner-of-war, Herr Major. He is being held in England.' She spoke quietly.

‘My sympathies, Signora,' he said, also quietly. He walked back to them, glancing at Kurt who raised sleepy eyes over the rim of his wine glass. The major sat on the edge of his chair. ‘This war should have been over months ago, a year, two years ago. And for you here, in this country of antiquity! The British, and the Americans, what game are they playing?'

‘Yes,' she said. She bit her lip. In her glass, a square of light moved about on the surface of red wine. She tipped it up to her mouth and imagined that she could swallow it. It was a reserva wine. Alphonso had played the game, too.

‘Don't worry, Signora,' Kurt said. ‘We're here to save you.'

The major turned his head and stared at his companion. Kurt shrugged. He raised his glass. ‘Let us drink to the salvation of Rome. As we rush from the North to save it, and they rush from the South, may the best man win.'

While Kurt polished off his second glass, the major rolled his between his hands. He said, ‘Forgive my comrade, Signora. This is his hour for growing maudlin. The loss of the sun is a personal insult to him.'

Kurt laughed a small, unhappy laugh. He struggled out of the warmth of his chair. He flexed his right leg as he stood. ‘Damn knee,' he said. He looked down at her. ‘Excuse me, Signora, my apologies.'

She nodded.

‘I'll see to the men, Franz,' he said.

The major looked into the empty grate. ‘All right,' he said.

Kurt brought his heels together, bowed slightly to her. He was sober, cool. ‘Till later, Signora,' he said. ‘Many thanks for the excellent reserva. Most generous of you to share it with us.'

He put his weight on his right leg, kicked out the knee once more and then walked over to the side-table, putting his glass down almost silently. He tapped the headrest of the major's chair as he passed.

‘Yes,' the major said in response, and Kurt went out, giving, to Sonia's surprise, a slight nod of the head to Alphonso.

There was an awkwardness in the room. The major finished his wine.

Sonia stood up. ‘May I pour you another glass?'

‘No.' He looked at his boots. Sonia looked down at them, too. For all the shine, she could now see that the toes on both were badly scuffed, almost white. He breathed deeply. Sonia, puzzled by the change of mood, did not know whether to relieve him of his empty glass, or to sit back down. Or to leave him to his reflections. Perhaps he wanted her to go?

She said, ‘You must be tired, Major.' She folded her arms across her stomach.

‘No,' he said. He looked up at her. His pale eyes were bleared. The wine, maybe. ‘No, not at all. I am eager to...' He looked around the wing of the chair. Alphonso stared back at him. ‘I have a job to do, Signora. I am eager to have it done. I hope I will not be unpleasant company for you tonight.'

He is shy, she realised. Now that he was on his own, just a man. Something in her softened. She said, ‘For tonight, we'll forget all about the war, Herr Major. You'll tell me your thoughts on Dante. It will be like old times for me.'

He smiled, and dropped his head, as Gianni would do. ‘Thank you,' he said.

She took a step towards him. She didn't know what she might do, take his glass, stroke his head, pat his shoulder. But she glanced at Alphonso, who looked straight at her and shook his head. She stopped. The smell of the man's uniform, of rain and sweat and French forests, the illumination of the flash on his shoulder, brought her to her senses.