Tuscan Rose (39 page)

‘A fine mess,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘You were right about that postman. But it was me he was following. The forger managed to escape but I didn’t.’

Rosa took Antonio’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. ‘Let me go to prison. Not you.’

He shook his head and whispered, ‘Normally both of us would be thrown into prison. They are being lenient.’

Rosa’s eyes filled with tears.

‘Don’t cry,’ Antonio said gently. ‘I won’t have to wait long for a trial, and the police sergeant said it is most likely they’ll put me in Le Murate so I’ll still be in Florence. That’s good luck not bad luck, Rosa. Others are being sent to Germany as forced labour—that would be a terrible position for someone with Jewish ancestry.’

‘Why couldn’t they just let you go?’ Rosa asked, glancing at the policeman standing near the door. ‘What you did is not such a great offence.’

Antonio shrugged. ‘It’s just the luck of the draw,’ he said. ‘They have to be seen to be doing
something
if they don’t want to be shipped off to Germany themselves. But they have treated me well. To tell you the truth, they felt sorry that you were imprisoned for “anti-fascist actions” as a young woman. Even many of the fascists themselves are beginning to admit that they put their faith in a madman.’

The day of Antonio’s trial, Rosa went to church and lit a candle not only for Orietta’s and Carlo’s work but also for herself and Antonio.
Please send him home to me,
she prayed. Antonio had told her to go to Switzerland and not come back, but Rosa had refused. She couldn’t abandon him, especially if it meant he would be treated harshly. Her only hope was that God would intervene in some miraculous way.

The room where the trial was held was cramped and Rosa was not allowed to attend. She sat outside in the corridor, sick with anxiety and the heat.

Signora Corvetto arrived to give testimony on Antonio’s behalf because he had been supportive of Rosa’s demanding role with the Red Cross. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, taking Rosa’s hands in her own. ‘If there is anything I can do to help, please come and see me.’

The trial only lasted an hour but Rosa was seeing white spots dancing before her eyes by the time it ended. A group of officials piled out of the room, along with the police sergeant who did not look at her. Rosa stood up and nearly lost her balance when the dizziness rushed to her head.

‘Where’s my husband?’ she asked.

Signora Corvetto moved quickly to Rosa’s side. ‘They were lenient,’ she said. ‘They gave him three years.’

‘Three years!’ Rosa could barely breathe. ‘Three years for wanting to see our children!’

Signora Corvetto put her arm around Rosa’s shoulders when her legs threatened to give way. ‘It
is
lenient,’ she said. ‘The man before him was sent to fight in the Soviet Union.’

Rosa waited in the visitors’ room at Le Murate prison. Being enclosed by prison walls unsettled her but she was determined to be courageous for Antonio. She had brought him two books to read that had been checked over by the guards. She had also brought him some ravioli that she had made herself. She had travelled to the countryside to purchase the vegetables, ricotta and eggs from a farmer because there wasn’t enough of anything any more in Florence. Rosa took out her compact and checked her complexion in the mirror.
Devo fare bella figura,
she reminded herself. It was important that she maintain a brave face.

When Antonio was brought out to her, she was relieved to see that he still had colour in his cheeks and seemed to be keeping his spirits up.

‘Ah, Spinoza,’ he said, looking at the books Rosa had brought him. ‘I’ve always wanted to read philosophy but I’ve never had the time—until now!’

Rosa felt such tenderness for her husband she thought her tired heart would break with it. ‘I’ve put together a collection of books for you,’ she told him. ‘But I’m only allowed to bring you two at a time. You’ll have to make those last for a while.’

‘You’re going to Switzerland tomorrow?’

Rosa nodded and did her best to smile. She was torn between her husband and her children. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Antonio in prison with no-one to visit him, but her children were also fretting. Some days she thought she might go mad with it all.

‘Rosa,’ said Antonio, sensing her anguish, ‘you must be strong. The children haven’t seen you for a year and who knows when you will be able to see them again. For their sake—and ours—go and make them happy.’

After her visit to Antonio, Rosa walked across the Ponte Vecchio to the Convent of Santo Spirito. She sat in a shaded doorway, away from the oppressive heat that bounced off the cobblestones, and listened to the nuns singing. She had been forbidden from seeing Suor Maddalena but that did not stop her feeling the comfort of at least being near a place where she had once experienced maternal love. She was hungry for it. She didn’t receive that sort of reassurance from Nerezza’s notebook or even the silver key, unless she associated it with Ada. She tried to think of Nerezza as her mother, but she felt nothing. Perhaps it was because they’d never had a chance to bond.

On her way home, Rosa saw that posters with anti-Jewish slogans had been plastered on an apartment building and some nearby shops:
The Jews are the Enemies of Italy; Death to the Jews.
People were staring at the posters with horrified expressions on their faces.

‘Who put these up?’ Rosa asked one woman.

The woman shook her head. ‘No-one knows. But my son thinks it was the German consulate. They did the same thing in Turin.’

Rosa wanted to rip the posters down but, with Antonio in prison and with her one chance to see the children in Switzerland, she couldn’t take the risk of being arrested. She went home feeling as ineffectual as she had when Orietta wouldn’t let her join Giustizia e Libertà.

Antonio had predicted correctly when he said that Mussolini would send soldiers to the Russian front whether he was invited to by Germany or not. When Rosa arrived at the station to catch the train to Lugano, she found it swarming with men in uniform. There were women too, crying or staring about them as if in shock. Rosa thought about the books she had given Antonio to read. Spinoza
had said that governments that made having an opinion a crime were the most tyrannical of all because everyone has a right to their own thoughts. Rosa looked about the station and wondered what the people there were thinking. She imagined that she could listen in and hear their regrets, sadness and fears. She noticed a boy with curly hair looking up at his brother who was in uniform and wondered if he was regretting harsh words he had spoken to his sibling now that he may never see him again. She turned her attention to the father and imagined that behind his grim eyes he was puzzled as to his inability to praise his son, although he longed to do so. Was the young woman the soldier’s fiancée? Rosa studied her doleful eyes. Was she wishing that she had shared one night of passion with her lover instead of insisting that they wait until they were married? Only the soldiers themselves and their mothers could be without regret. The mothers had sacrificed all they could for their children; and no matter what happened to the soldiers, they would be heroes in their family’s eyes.

Rosa boarded the train. Her ticket was for a window seat. The luggage racks were overflowing and suitcases were stacked in the aisle. She had to place her luggage around her as best as she could. Once she was settled, she opened the book of poems she had brought to read on the journey. Steam wafted over the platform, sending a ghostly cloud over the people. For a moment they looked like sceptres in a green-grey mist. Rosa squinted at them, then gave a start. ‘It’s impossible,’ she whispered. No, there he was again. A man not in uniform moving amongst the soldiers. The strong shoulders, his height, the erect way he held his chin, were familiar to her. Rosa’s heart raced. Was it Luciano? She pressed her face to the window, straining to see more clearly. The steam dissipated but there was no sight of the man.

No, she told herself, turning away from the window and closing her eyes. The train whistle sounded and the train lurched forward. I must have been dreaming, Rosa thought. Too much time has passed with no word. Luciano is dead. He perished in Spain.

L
ugano was surrounded by mountains. Rosa’s train reached the outskirts of the town a few minutes before ten o’clock. The sky was pure blue and the sun shone on the freshly swept streets. Window boxes brimming with geraniums and crimson begonias decorated the houses. Despite the town being only thirty miles north of Milan, the difference in mood was obvious as soon as she stepped onto the station platform. Even with the growing number of refugees who were fleeing there, Rosa did not sense in Lugano the fear and tension that seemed to be present everywhere in Italy these days. The town’s ambience was as pleasant and light as the mountain air that permeated it.

Rosa looked around for Antonio’s cousins, Renata and Enzo, hoping that she would recognise them. The photograph she had found in Antonio’s album showing an elegant middle-aged couple was nearly ten years old.

‘Mamma!’

Rosa’s eyes darted amongst the people on the platform as she tried to determine from which direction the voice had come. Then she saw her: Sibilla. Her daughter was wearing a neatly pressed dress and standing with a couple who looked like the people in the photograph. In her free arm, she carried the Lenci doll that Rosa
and Antonio had sent for her birthday. Sibilla had grown since Rosa had last seen her and her features were more defined. She was the image of Nerezza. Rosa’s heart was torn in two directions: between her longing for her daughter and her painful alienation from her past.

Sibilla moved towards her and Rosa recovered from her inertia. She squeezed between people, apologising when she bumped or knocked them. Sibilla displayed no such patience. She darted between the passengers and shoved other children aside until she reached her mother and threw herself into her arms.

‘How I’ve missed you,’ said Rosa, embracing her. She relished the warmth of her daughter’s body pressed against her own.

‘Where is Babbo?’ Sibilla asked. ‘Zio Enzo said that he can’t come this time?’

A pain jabbed Rosa’s heart. She had prepared herself for this moment. ‘Babbo is held up by work but will come as soon as he can.’

Sibilla gripped Rosa’s hand and tugged her towards Renata and Enzo.

‘The boys are with Giuseppina at the apartment,’ Renata said, greeting Rosa with kisses. ‘They are well and thriving.’

‘Come,’ said Enzo, welcoming Rosa with a warm embrace and taking her bag. ‘It is not far to our apartment. Everything is close here.’

Renata and Enzo’s apartment building faced an Italianate piazza with cobblestones and a linden tree in the middle with benches surrounding it. Rosa offered to help Enzo with her bag, which was awkward to carry up the narrow stairs, but he chivalrously refused.

Rosa was greeted by the excited voices of Lorenzo and Giorgio. If not for Lorenzo’s resemblance to Antonio and Giorgio’s to her, she would not have recognised them. Despite the scarcities the war in Europe had imposed on the inhabitants of Lugano, the twins had grown rapidly. Their legs poking out from the pants of their sailor suits were sturdy. That Rosa had missed their development
the past year struck her with such force she began to tremble. If not for Renata’s reassuring hand on her back, she might have broken down. She dropped to her knees and clasped the twins to her as if she would never let them go.

‘Come see!’ said Lorenzo, breaking away and urging Rosa towards the table where Giuseppina had been giving them a drawing lesson. He held up a picture of an orange train filled with blue passengers. ‘We drew you and Babbo coming to see us.’

‘Babbo will come later,’ Rosa told him, kissing his golden head. ‘Meanwhile, we have so much to catch up on.’

She hoisted Giorgio onto her hip before kneeling again to pat Ambrosio, who had come to greet her with licks to her fingers, and Allegra, who sauntered over from her sunny spot on the windowsill to rub against Rosa’s leg.

Rosa was so overwhelmed by seeing her children again that she didn’t notice how small the apartment was until she went to the bathroom to wash her hands. Apart from the dining room, which also served as a piano room and sitting area, there was a compact kitchen, two bedrooms and a closet. There wasn’t any room to spare. Rosa guessed that Giuseppina must be sleeping on the sofa in the dining room, and realised how generous Renata and Enzo had been to take in her children, their nursemaid and the family pets. Despite being over-populated, the apartment was spotless, with no dust anywhere and fresh towels arranged on the bath’s edge.

When Rosa returned to the dining room, Giuseppina was making tea. Renata laid out plates and a platter of almond and chocolate biscuits on the table.

‘Sibilla baked these,’ she said. ‘She often makes us treats.’

Rosa smiled at her daughter. ‘I’m so proud of you,’ she said, pressing her cheek to Sibilla’s. Rosa was delighted and saddened at the same time: she had wanted to be the one to teach her daughter to cook.

The morning slipped by quickly while Rosa listened to her children’s chatter about their year in Switzerland and the school they attended, Sibilla’s ballet lessons, and the sojourns Enzo had
taken them on into the mountains. The discussion continued until the lunch of polenta and bean stew Giuseppina had made was served. Afterwards, Enzo suggested that they should take a walk around the lake. Rosa sensed that he and Renata were keen to ask after Antonio.

‘Parco Ciani,’ Enzo explained to Rosa when they arrived at Viale Carlo Cattaneo, ‘is one of the most beautiful parks in Switzerland.’

Rosa agreed that it looked like something from a postcard. The glistening lake with its backdrop of mountains was stunning enough, but the park was also landscaped with flowerbeds of azaleas and roses and shaded by laurels, oleanders and magnolia trees. Sibilla and the twins ran along the paths that crossed the green lawns and wove around statues and pavilions, pulling Giuseppina along with them. Ambrosio bounded after them, much to the dismay of the Swiss who walked their obedient Saint Bernards on leads.

‘I didn’t think they would react so warmly,’ Rosa confided in Renata and Enzo. ‘A year is a long time for children. I was afraid that they would be shy with me.’

Enzo directed the women towards a shaded path. ‘We talk about you and Antonio every day,’ he told Rosa. ‘At dinnertime we take turns at guessing what you might have done that day, and every night before bedtime we say prayers for you. You and Antonio are always in our hearts.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rosa.

Renata linked her arm through Rosa’s and walked in step with her. Rosa was taken with the older woman’s stately beauty. She wore no jewellery, although her ears were pierced, and her dress, while stylishly cut, was not new. It wasn’t artifice that gave Renata her graceful appearance, but something inside her.

‘We’ve kept a diary of what the children have been doing each day,’ she told Rosa. ‘They grow so quickly at that age and we knew you and Antonio wouldn’t want to miss a thing. You can take it back with you. I am sure it will comfort Antonio.’

Rosa was too moved to reply immediately. She was fortunate that her children were in the care of such a kind couple. She had heard of aunts and uncles, grandparents and even nursemaids and governesses trying to win the affection of children they were caring for at the expense of the children’s relationship with their parents. But Renata and Enzo were not like that.

‘I don’t know how we will ever repay your kindness,’ she said, finally able to look at Renata and Enzo without wanting to cry.

‘Kindness doesn’t ask for repayment,’ said Renata.

She led Rosa to a bench to sit with her while Enzo went in search of Giuseppina and the children.

‘But you’ve taken in my children, a nursemaid and a dog and cat,’ said Rosa. ‘You’ve sacrificed so much for us.’

Renata looked genuinely surprised. ‘But I don’t see it as a sacrifice at all,’ she said. ‘I find comfort in their company. And they are good children.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Rosa. ‘They seem to have borne all that has happened well.’

‘As long as their parents look at ease, children seldom worry,’ replied Renata.

Enzo called the children back to the lawn in front of Rosa and Renata, and he and Giuseppina played a chasing game with them. Lorenzo squealed with delight when Enzo caught him, making Rosa and Renata laugh.

‘My son is in the United States,’ said Renata. ‘He is a grown man with a family but I have some idea of what you and Antonio are feeling. Please tell me, how is our favourite cousin?’

The thought that Antonio was in a dank and dismal prison while she was enjoying this beautiful scenery tugged at Rosa’s heart. How she wished that he could be here, sharing her joy in seeing the children again.

‘He puts on a brave face,’ she said. ‘And I try to tell myself that at least he wasn’t sent to the front.’

Renata clucked her tongue. ‘We’ve always been fond of Antonio, although he is some years younger than Enzo and his
father moved the family to Florence when he was only a boy.’ She turned her gentle eyes on Rosa and smiled. ‘And when he married you, we were so pleased. His father had been concerned about Antonio’s happiness for years.’

‘This terrible war,’ Rosa said, thinking of Antonio’s imprisonment again. ‘They say it will be even worse than the last one.’

Renata picked up a leaf and spun it between her fingers. ‘The difference about living in a neutral country…well, we hear things that we never heard in Italy.’

There was something ominous in Renata’s words.

‘You mean what’s happening with the Jews?’ Rosa asked.

‘In Italy they were only rumours, but the newspapers here report that in Poland and Austria Jews are being shot in the thousands.’

Rosa’s stomach turned. In wars people were killed defending and attacking territory. But shooting civilians like that wasn’t war, it was genocide.

‘The Germans have been setting up posts in all the Italian cities,’ she told Renata. ‘We might be allies but it looks to me as though they intend to invade us. I tried to tell Antonio to leave Italy a year ago but he wouldn’t hear of it. Now he is in prison and can’t go anywhere.’

‘When you return to Italy,’ Renata said, looking Rosa in the eye, ‘you must get rid of any evidence that Antonio has Jewish ancestry.’

Rosa saw that Renata understood the danger her husband faced. ‘So you think so too?’ she asked. ‘You think Germany will take over Italy?’

Renata pursed her lips. ‘I’m learning to live with uncertainty,’ she said. ‘Anything is possible. When Mussolini brought in those wretched racial laws, Nino tried to get us visas to go to America but our application was rejected. So we came to Switzerland instead. One can’t forget that we are still next door to Germany.’

‘Luckily Switzerland is neutral and likely to stay so,’ said Rosa. ‘You are much safer here than in Italy.’

Renata shook her head. ‘Look at where this country is on the map. Switzerland is not some island in a faraway ocean. It will be impossible for it to remain neutral and avoid invasion. Germany may save us until last, but they will eventually get to Switzerland as a gourmand eventually gets to dessert—and then they will gobble us up whole.’

‘Is that what the Swiss think?’ Rosa asked. ‘Is that what
you
think?’

Renata looked at her with pitying eyes. ‘All we have on our side is time. Perhaps this attack on Russia has bought us some more.’

Rosa’s month in Switzerland passed quickly. She tried to savour each moment with Sibilla and the twins. On her last night in Lugano, she lay awake agonising over whether she should take the children back with her to Florence. If what Renata had said was true, then Switzerland was in as much danger of invasion as anywhere else. If they had to face danger, wouldn’t it be better that they faced it together?

Rosa turned over and gazed at the sleeping faces of the twins and Sibilla. They were crowded into one bed along with Ambrosio and Allegra. Renata had said that Switzerland had more time than Italy. Rosa brushed a strand of hair from Sibilla’s forehead. Maybe time did count for something now that Hitler had decided to attack Russia. Hadn’t those fearless Slavs repelled Napoleon?

By the next morning, Rosa had made her decision, although leaving the children behind gave her a bitter feeling in her blood. Lorenzo and Giorgio skipped along as the party made its way to the station, confident that their mother would return soon. Only Sibilla guessed the truth and cried floods of tears.

Rosa dried her daughter’s face with her handkerchief. ‘You’ve been so brave,’ she told her. Her voice faltered but she remembered what Renata had said about the fortitude of children: that they would remain composed as long as their parents did. ‘I love you, Sibilla,’ she said, kissing her cheeks. ‘I always have and I always will.’

Sibilla calmed with her mother’s reassurance, but by the time they reached the station Rosa was feeling ill herself.

‘Here, take this,’ said Enzo, squeezing Rosa’s arm and giving her a book of humorous stories. ‘It will help pass the time.’

Time, Rosa thought. It was both a friend and an enemy. Time might save Switzerland from the Germans, but it would also rob her of sharing her children’s most important years.

Before the train departed, Rosa glanced in the direction of the mountains and then at her children standing on the platform with Enzo and Renata.
Dear God, keep them safe
, she prayed.
Keep them safe for me
.

When the train reached the Italian border, the customs officer checked Rosa’s papers and drew red lines over her travel pass before handing it back. ‘No more trips abroad, signora,’ he said. ‘Italy is at war and things are getting worse. You will have to stay in your own country now.’

In Florence, it was apparent that the euphoric anticipation of a quick victory that had pervaded the population at the beginning of the war had dissipated. The tranquil autumn weather was at odds with the gloomy mood of the city.

‘From what you say, it seems to finally be dawning on people that Mussolini’s propaganda overestimated Italy’s ability to wage war,’ Antonio told Rosa when she went to visit him. ‘Unless Il Duce can produce one of these secret weapons he’s been boasting about, Italy is doomed.’