The Italian Romance (28 page)

Sonia lay on her side in the bunk, awake, eyes closed. If she opened them she saw all around her, in huddled concentration up and down the large room, the frenetic organising that women were capable of, lifting folded underwear, woollens, from one suitcase, piling them neatly into another. She knew that a man was sitting on his mattress, too close to her, not watching his own wife either, his dark grey jacket tight across his back. When she'd gazed at him through the mist of her black eyelashes, she felt the wariness in his body that had become immobility. He sniffed it in the air, the unnameable, unimaginable. She couldn't bear that he smelled it, too. Her eyelashes sank again.

Her cheek ached, her head. Her hand had touched wet blood on her mattress. It had got into her hair.

Children ran up and down between the bunks, giggling. A girl screeched a high-pitched, hysterical laugh. Sonia tried not to listen. The children were the worst.

She listened only to her breath, experienced only the bellows
of her lungs, collapsing, sighing out, the elasticity of her rib-cage, the rhythmic sacred word of expelled air as it tunnelled through her passages, warmed her fingers lying at her lips. When her mind wandered off on its own, brought an image into existence, she breathed harder, more diligently, till it fell back.

The Germans had taken over the collection camp. When the truck had begun its approach to Rome, she saw familiar arrangements of buildings, a road she had driven on before. She had lifted herself from the floor, sat up, peered out beneath the canvas. Here was hope. Here were the materials to make sense of the hours of that day. Surely Gianni and Jack were in the back of another truck, also rattling over rutted roads, and Jack's hand held up the canvas cover just a crack, and he watched the gardens, the open arms of cedar trees, the ochre villas, and now the sturdy apartment blocks, wet shirts and underpants and petticoats flapping like flags from window washing lines. Jack would be thinking of her, know that she was safe. He would understand things. And when their trucks pulled up on a Roman street, he'd climb out, his arm around Gianni's shoulders and they'd walk over to her. He'd take her in his other arm, pull her close, kiss her neck, and she'd smell him again, and Gianni would say, ‘Mama, where were you?'

She hadn't been able to find them. When they'd slowed, turned in through a gateway, finally come to a stop, she'd spilled out into a large, cobbled courtyard. And one after another, there was a German guard, here a German officer, orders shouted from one side of the compound to the other. All German.

When one officer, whose back was to her, heard her call, ‘Signore, please may I speak to you? Do you understand Italian?', he looked around, stared at her. He said something to a younger officer, and turned away.

She said, ‘Do you speak English, sir?' Her voice carried. It was only recently familiar to her, this strength.

‘Nein,' the man said, and then perhaps embarrassed at his responding to her, he shouted an order to their guard who was
pulling the older woman, his hands under her arms, from the floor of the truck. The guard, surprised, glanced at Sonia. He tugged at the other woman. Her feet thudded to the ground, and he left her there as she folded over onto her backside. He walked up to Sonia and pushed at her shoulder. She stumbled.

‘I'm looking for my son,' she said to him.

He gestured to her, batting his hand against her, sending her forward. He walked one step behind her until she arrived at an open doorway. He seemed to give responsibility for her to another man, who marched across the tiled floor. She followed him.

It was the main hall. Two wings of the staircase circled up to the mezzanine. And between them was set up a row of three or four tables; there were hard-backed chairs pushed in behind them. She looked about her. The Germans, many of them in black uniforms, different from the others she'd seen before, barely noticed her. They stood about, talking in twos, in groups. One came running down the long staircase, two at a time, his boots shining like mirrors. The man guarding her pointed to a table and she stepped in front of it. Someone called him from a side door. He marched away.

There was no one seated behind any of the tables. She looked around behind her, out through the doorway, where pale light fell on the cobbles. They glistened. It must have rained here, not long ago. She considered walking over to the door. Perhaps she could step outside, one foot, then the other. And when she reached the open-gated entrance, wander into the street. She looked back at the table. A clipboard, a fountain pen, gilded at the ring of the cap and at its tip. She bent her neck, tried to read the neat handwriting. The top page was divided into columns. Names. A central section, three or four lines of information. And finally a number. She squinted; she couldn't make sense of the shapes. It was then she realised that her left eye was filmed with blood.

She looked to the side. A German officer leaned his elbow on the bees-waxed banister, two others facing him. They talked
quietly. She put her fingers on the table, and very slowly arced the clipboard around.

Footsteps came close behind her and she withdrew her hand. The man had to slide in sideways between the first table and the staircase. He pulled down on his uniform jacket, dragged a chair out, pinched at one leg of his jodhpured trousers, and sat.

‘Ihre name?' he said. He picked up the pen, unscrewed the cap and fixed it on to the other end. And then he tapped his hand down on the half-turned clipboard. She listened to it slide around to him, slowly. He stared up at her. His cheeks and jaw were freshly shaved; he looked like a small boy scrubbed before bed. Again, he tapped at the recalcitrant board. She looked down at it as he stared at her, chastening her. Then he said, in Italian this time, ‘Your name, Signora?'

‘Sonia da Fogliano,' she said.

‘Da Fogliano?' He seemed puzzled.

‘Yes, sir.'

He looked into her face, studying her. ‘Ah,' he said, pleased with the outcome. ‘You're Jewish.'

She stared into his pale blue eyes. If she had walked through the doorway one minute ago, this absurdly correct fellow would not have asked her that one question. Gates closed behind her. She knew it. Her mouth was dry.

‘I can always tell,' he said.

Her brow rose. She suspected he wanted her admiration. ‘Yes, sir,' she said. ‘Excuse me, sir, may I ask you something?'

He twiddled the pen between two fingers. He lifted his jaw high, waited, as if to give his permission.

Sonia said, ‘My son, Gianni. He was with me, but ... we became separated.'

‘Ah,' he said. He gazed down at the sheet of paper. ‘He may arrive later, Signora.'

Her heart leaped. ‘Thank you, sir,' she said. ‘And one more thing, if I may?'

He nodded, though he did not look up.

‘My parents and my brother, his family. I wonder if they are here?'

‘Are they living in Rome?'

‘No, sir, above Florence.'

‘Ah, yes, well they would be processed in Milan.'

Sonia put her hand against her stomach. ‘Processed for what, sir?'

He wrote her name down, carefully, very neatly. Bored with her, or at least giving that impression, he said, ‘For work. Your address and your husband's name?'

She felt a weight fall against her and she stumbled forward into the table. The older Jewish woman had grabbed at Sonia's elbows to save herself when their guard shoved her with the barrel of his rifle. Sonia turned her face. She could smell the woman's breath. The woman looked right at her and said softly, ‘Excuse me.' Sonia nodded. The guard wiped his mouth with his sleeve. His nose was red from the cold air that had been blowing on him along the road to Rome.

Sonia leaned across the desk. ‘Please, sir,' she said. ‘This man knows where my son is. He doesn't speak Italian.'

The scrubbed-faced officer glanced at the soldier. ‘Of course not,' he said. He lifted his jaw again and spoke rapidly to the man, who stepped towards the table. He answered him. It seemed a long answer. When he had finished, the officer nodded. The soldier stepped back.

The officer said, ‘He won't be coming. Your address?'

Sonia looked around at the soldier. ‘Where is he?' she said.

‘Your address!' the officer shouted at her. The three men talking by the staircase each glanced over at them, and away.

‘Please,' she said. ‘Please tell me where he is.'

‘He is not here, that's all I can tell you. He will not be coming here. Give me your address.'

She felt the cold hands of the Jewish woman touch the curves of her waist. They settled there like small birds.

I hear the doorknob turning. The hinges are like my hips, need a bit of oiling. I raise my head from the pillow, watch the white door open slowly. And I rest back, close my eyes.

She creeps in. Her breath is like a child's. She is a child, of course. I oblige her with a waking scene. I open my eyes again, wiggle my shoulders, stretch up an arm. ‘Oh, my goodness,' I say. ‘What time is it?'

She stands beside the bed, looking down at me. She is wearing her little pyjamas. Her brown arms are smooth, rounded, the hands well shaped and delicate. She has nails that poets used to call pearls. She will be a beautiful woman for a few years. She will allure with her pale fineness. She won't notice the effect she has, that's the thing. Not till it's all over.

She is holding a coffee cup and saucer in her hands. She hasn't brushed her bright hair, yet it gleams in the light from my bedroom window. ‘About half past eight,' she says softly. ‘Are you all right?' She is leaning slightly down to me, the barely-to-bedisturbed invalid.

I raise myself, my knuckles firm on the mattress. And the penny drops. Last night, and the farewell scene with Francesca. I know how I look to her, owl eyes, ringed white as paint, peering blindly from my perch in the boudoir. I should put my glasses on.
I say, ‘I'm fine, Jane, thank you, dear. Did you make coffee?'

‘I'm getting really good at it now,' she says.

‘You certainly are. I can smell it.' She offers it to me, formally, and I take it in my hands. ‘Mmm. Lovely. Nothing like good, strong coffee in the mornings.'

She sticks her little bottom out and swings it toward the bed, plumping herself down. I hold the cup tight. She says, her eyes wide, ‘Was that Francesca? The one Dad likes?'

I bend my head to sip. ‘Mmm,' I answer.

‘Why was she being so horrible to you?'

‘It's a long story,' I say. That is supposed to put her off.

‘Yeah? Tell me.' She is a bloodhound, I see. She bounces back on the bed an inch or two.

The coffee is muddy. It's my bet that she forgot to shake out all the dregs from last night's pot. ‘You wouldn't be interested, Jane. It really is a long story.'

‘I'm a good listener. All my friends at school reckon that. I love long stories.'

She's holding her hands pressed together between her knees. I laugh into the coffee. I take another mouthful and I wince. I lean against my pillow. It isn't high enough.

‘Sweetheart,' I say. ‘Will you put that second pillow there behind my back, like a good girl.'

She stretches backwards, so that she's lying across the mattress. Her feet flail in the air. She grabs the unused pillow on the other side of the bed. I almost get it in my face. I put my hand protectively over the cup. She throws herself forward again, jumps up and leans in behind me. She punches the pillow, once, twice, three times. My forehead is against her straining abdomen, which has revealed itself through the gap of her buttoned pyjama top.

And now she takes me firmly by the shoulders and eases me into the nest she's made for me. ‘That's better,' she tells me.

She bounces on the side of the bed, squirms, and settles
herself. She really is irresistible. ‘She's your daughter, right?' she says. ‘I hate my mother, too.'

Her chin goes in to her chest, her eyes widen at me. She has realised her mistake. ‘But I don't really,' she says.

‘I know you don't,' I say.

‘But she won't let me do anything. She says I'll end up like Dad.'

‘Oh,' I say. One black mark for mother.

‘So did Francesca like your husband better than you?'

‘Oh, dear,' I say. I am afraid I wrinkle my nose as I drink to the dregs of the cup. It's vile.

‘Does that mean yes?'

I lean back, look at her. She is not going to give up. ‘My husband, who owned some of those books you were looking at ... he's not her father.'

‘Oh, right,' she says. She accepts this with an equanimity her generation shares about such things, so complex, so outrageous for my own.

‘Well, I was married to her father.'

‘You divorced him and married the new guy.'

‘Yeah. That's what happened.'

‘And didn't she like the new guy, or what?'

‘She never met the new guy.'

‘Oh, Lilian,' she wails. ‘Tell me. I can't just ask questions, questions all the time!'

I laugh. Her face is worried. I turn to the bedside table, reach the cup and saucer over to it. ‘All right,' I say. ‘I met the new guy, Antonio, oh, fifty, more, years ago, during the war. Later, my husband came back from overseas. I fell pregnant–'

‘To him,' she says. She is wagging her finger to herself, to line all the characters up in the correct column.

‘That's right. And then I left, and came to Italy.'

‘And what happened to the baby?' Her eyes could not get any wider.

‘I left her with her father. I haven't seen her since then.'

‘Oh, my God. That's really terrible, Lilian,' she says without compunction.

‘Yes, I know,' I say.

‘And what about the other man? Did he have a wife and everything, and kids?'

‘He had a son. His wife died in the war. We could never find out what happened to his son. But he died, obviously.' The storage room flashes into my mind, the invisible man. I forgot to mention him to the young Roberto last night.

‘But you're not sure.'

‘My husband tried for years. He went to displaced person's camps, he even went to Israel. He read everything he could lay his hands on, wrote to anyone who might help him. But,' I shook my head, ‘he died during the war. My husband just found it very hard to accept.'

‘Well, they say sometimes people just know.' She closes her eyes tight, raises her right hand and presses her fingers and thumb together. I am intrigued. She says slowly, ‘They just know.'

Her eyes spring open. ‘My friend Holly, well her brother got lost in the bush and everyone said he was dead. But Holly's mum, she just knew he wasn't. And they found him.'

‘That's wonderful.'

‘Yeah, but he wasn't dead. So maybe your husband
knew
that his son wasn't dead either. Did he ever go to a psycho about it?'

I put my head to one side and look at her. ‘A psycho?' I say.

‘Yeah, you know they take hold of a ring or a sock or something, and they can see the person in their heads.'

‘A psychic.'

‘Oh, yeah.' She is embarrassed. She buries her face in her hands. ‘Sorry,' she says when she pops out again. ‘What's his full name?'

‘Gianni da Lucca,' I say. I am changed when I say the name. It sends an intense arrow of sadness to my heart. Gianni haunted us for perhaps two decades. And Antonio till the day he died.

‘And he just disappeared? This is in Italy, right?'

I nod.

‘I tell you what. You write down his name, his address, when he went missing, all those things. Parents' names. Date of birth. No, but keep something back, so you can be sure.' She is staring at the wall above my head.

I am almost a trifle disturbed. What does she see up there? I am tempted to turn my head and look up on the wall myself.

‘Why?' I say.

She looks straight at me. ‘For the Internet, you know. I'll do a trawl, and see if I can find him.'

‘Oh,' I say. I look at her little face. ‘Do you know what culture clash is?' I say.

‘No,' she says. Her mouth opens.

‘I think we just had one,' I say.

‘God, really!'

I reach for her tiny wrist. ‘There is something you could do. Our Irish friend on the terrace told me about a man who used to sleep in the storage room across the hall, a homeless man. He died a few months ago. Will you ask Roberto if there's any way I can find out about him.'

‘Oh, sure. He'd know. He knows all that kind of thing. But,' and she wags the finger at me now, ‘don't you forget to write down about Janny.'

‘Okay,' I say.

‘Good girl.' She bounces to her feet and takes the cup and saucer. ‘I hope Dad doesn't come yet. I got loads to do.' And she walks off as if she's forgotten about me.

‘Thank you, Jane,' I call after her.

‘Yeah, okay,' I hear her say. And I hear the crockery crash as she drops it into the sink.