A Dark Song of Blood (44 page)

“Watch it, friend. It’s not worth it.”

Bora nodded and drove away.

For reasons so obscure he couldn’t bring himself to look at them, Guidi left his apartment late that same evening and returned to his office on Via Del Boccaccio. There he parked the car and walked up the sad climb of Via Rasella to the opposite end, Via Quattro Fontane. A stenciled quarter moon allowed him to judge that Bora’s Mercedes was not by the curb, but he paced the length of the street to make sure. PAI guards and German soldiers stopped him, in both cases satisfied with his papers. Nowhere was Bora’s license plate – WH 1377445 – to be seen. He had not yet come to the hotel. Guidi stood by the corner, waiting and wondering what he waited for, other than for Bora to arrive and walk out of the car. He had nothing to tell him. Why should he wait for Bora? His mouth felt bitter.

It was Bora, somehow. It was Bora’s fault. Guidi stood there with a lunatic, befuddled want to hurt him, this obstacle to his hate for the Germans. It was all because of what Bora had done, whatever he had done. Whatever. He was angry with him, resentful of the offer of friendship and – tonight – angry enough to hurt him.

Scattered echoes from the Anzio front seemed palpable, as if sounds and lights flashing could be reached for and somehow held in hand. Guidi waited, his soul numb and motionless like a hub in the reel of his thoughts.

The telephone rang in the dark. How Dollmann found him at Donna Maria’s was a mystery. His voice came over the wires, unmistakable in the prudence of his approach.

“Are you alone, Bora?”

“Why, yes.”

“I just wanted to make sure I didn’t interrupt anything. Knowing your interest in anti-partisan warfare, I wanted to pass on the following item to you. Leaflets were printed overnight and circulated by a group that calls itself
Unione e Libertà.
I quote, ‘Once more the hideous game of barbarism has been played out in our city. On the twenty-eighth of the current month a woman comrade was without provocation gunned down by a German assassin in the Lateran Square. We who knew her hold firm the belief that love of freedom will not be extinguished with her death. Meanwhile we call on the Roman people to rise against murder and abuse,’ et cetera. I thought you’d be interested in knowing. It’s amazing where one has to find good news any more. Have you had dinner yet?”

Bora glanced at the fluorescent dial of his watch. “It’s nearly midnight!”

“No matter, I know a place where we can still dine.”

Two cars had arrived since Guidi’s coming, neither of them disgorging Bora onto the sidewalk. Guidi leaned against the wall and wondered whether he’d be here at all, had he heard from Francesca tonight. Facing him, the hefty garden gate of the Barberini Palace reminded him of the awful Thursday in March. Any closeness to Bora had ended that day, in spite of the fact that he’d survived. The others had died. Being here with his anger was part of reclaiming his place with the others. The creeping of the stars above seemed to come through an effort of the celestial vault, marred by the glare of war at the horizon.

What did ‘hurting Bora’ mean? How do you hurt a soldier? The only way, of course – Guidi shifted his weight on his feet, back and forth. Bora was sometimes unaware. He might be, coming back to the hotel. Slowly, slowly, the stars crept above, seeking the eaves of the roofs to disappear. It surely could be done, if someone had shot a woman at midday in the public square and got away. Guidi needed to be here with his anger
and fear and grief. He needed to believe that a massacre and the outrage of barely living through it brought him here, not something else.

No chink of light, nor outside activity revealed that the restaurant was open. Dollmann must have called in advance, because there was a waiter standing at the door to let them in. A few privileged guests sat at the tables, some of them well-dressed women. Dollmann watched Bora watch the women, and daintily picked up the napkin from the glass where it sat, spreading it on his knees. “I have my problems, too,” he ambiguously confided. “No intellectual should be burdened by the misery of our lapsed state, but here we are. You should have made provisions for – shall we say – your human frailty.” And because Bora testily avoided an answer, Dollmann answered, “Your flaw is that you need friends. You should settle for lovers, relatives and colleagues. Your quest is useless.”

Bora sighed. “You surmise that lovers, relatives and colleagues cannot be friends.”

“Correct. Even I am not your friend. Only your ally.”

“Well, I have had friends, Colonel.”

“Ha. And what happened to them?”

“Some died.”

“And the rest?”

“We’re no longer friends.”

Dollmann smiled a clever smile. “Cigarette?”

“No, thank you. I quit about ten days ago.”

The menu came, they chose food and wine, and then the SS said, “You quit, why?”

Bora relaxed eventually, seemingly amused at his own words. “I’m cleansing myself for the pan like a snail. I should probably eat sawdust, too.”

“You’re superstitious!”

“And scared.” Bora poured wine into Dollmann’s glass and his own. “I like to call it concern, but it’s fear. I haven’t had
the full benefit of it in a while – it feels cozy to get it again. My best risk-taking comes from it.”

Guidi closed his eyes so as not to see who came out of the car that had just pulled in by the curb. Then he looked, and it wasn’t Bora. He stepped back behind the corner. His mouth was dry.

He had to leave. As suddenly and erratically as he had come, he had to leave now. Bora would not return tonight. And if he did return, he didn’t want to be here waiting. The stars ran between roofs when he hastened back to his car, where he sat as if hiding from them.

There were many reasons for him to stay, yet one among them chased him from here. It was true: his anger had started on that day in late March, but when his own men had fired at Bora from the windows of the police command, he had not stopped them.

How could he stay? Out of guilt, out of that guilt, he was not ready to kill.

Hours later, on the bleakest spring morning he’d seen, Guidi walked out of the morgue with a loud hum in his ears. His hands shook so badly, he could not search his pocket for the car keys, and he had to sit down in the hallway to regain control.

It was no comfort that he had lied to himself from the start about her death. For two days, he had said no. Now he felt as if part of him were sick and rotting, and although it was not love – it might never have been – he felt he should cry. His face twisted, but the tears did not come.

“Does she have relatives?” the morgue attendant asked. “Somebody has to bury her. I read the leaflet and the papers, and I don’t want no problems with the Germans. If there are relatives, you tell ’em to bury her.”

Guidi said he’d take care of things. How his hands shook. Looking at them made him aware of this weakness that he loathed about himself. His anger was tainted by it, and produced
only a stunted, malicious want to find and destroy the man who had killed her: but out of revenge, spite, something less noble and fierce than hatred. If he could only steady his hands.

From the morgue he drove to St John of the Hollyhocks, a church with three altars and six famous burials, near Ponte Sisto, because its parish priest had been in the square when Francesca had been killed.

The priest, who needed a shave and a bath, shrugged at the questions. “It’s not like I really saw anything, Inspector. Just the body after it had already fallen. So did everybody else in the square. There were two men standing by her, and soon there were several, some in uniform, some not. All Germans. They might have shot her from a window. I didn’t see her get shot.”

“She was shot at fairly close range, and from the square.”

“Well, the SS asked every soldier to take out his gun, so they must have been satisfied none of them had fired.”

“Are you trying to defend the Germans?”

The priest shrugged again. “I’m simply telling you what I saw. If you want to put words in my mouth, it’s your words, not mine. I felt badly when they didn’t let me come near to say a prayer over her, but now that we read she was a communist – well, it’d have been a wasted prayer. This is all I saw, and you can stay here all day; there’s nothing I can add. No, I didn’t pay attention to the uniforms. They’re all SS to me. Why don’t you ask the orderlies at the San Giovanni Hospital? Maybe they paid attention.”

Guidi did. In the square, had he wanted to look for it, no sign remained of where Francesca had been killed, and under an immense blue sky, German patrols stood at all street corners. In a quiet room of the hospital he met the orderly, a white-capped fellow with a brutal face, whose split eyebrows suggested he probably boxed in his spare time. Unlike the priest, he told Guidi he’d seen it all. “All, I’ve seen. Just ask me.”

“Where were you when the shot was fired?”

“I was wheeling a patient out of surgery.”

“So you were not at the window.”

“No, but I ran to it right away. There was a German standing by the body.”

“In uniform?”

“Sure. How else would I know he was a German?”

“What was he doing? Did you see his face?”

“No, he had his back to me. He was just standing there. Tall man, an officer. Then a civilian came and they talked to each other. The civilian started going through the woman’s clothing, looking for documents, maybe. Then other Germans came and there was some kind of argument going on.”

Guidi was disappointed. “But you didn’t see anyone with gun in hand.”

“No. By this time the Germans started aiming their rifles at the windows, so I backed up and tried to look through the slats of the shutters. There wasn’t much else to see, though. They were all gone in half an hour’s time.”

“In conclusion, you did not see the murder.”

“No, but...”

“You did not see the murder,” Guidi repeated in disgust, and walked away.

In his office, Bora had just heard the latest alarming news from Velletri and Valmontone, the last obstacles on the Allies’ way to Rome. Time was pitilessly short. For days he had been trying to reach by telephone the transit prison camp at Servigliano, to no avail. Now, with the Reiner folder open in front of him, he tried – and failed – again.

That Captain Sutor should show up unannounced at his doorstep did not surprise him. He’d dreaded it. Still, calmly putting down the receiver, he said, “I was not expecting you, Captain. I’m due out, so can we meet sometime tomorrow?”

“Not likely. I’m here to discuss the incident on Sunday.”

“I see.” Bora unlatched his holster, ignoring Sutor’s startled reaction. “Would you like to examine my side arm?”

“After giving you ample time to clean it? No.”

“It’s a serious statement you’re making, captain. I hope you can corroborate it.”

Sutor looked around, again self-assured. “Actually, the woman’s death is secondary. What I want to know is who else was in the square. Priests, housewives and privates can get away with telling me they didn’t see anything. But you’re not one not to pay attention.”

“There are times when I am distracted.”

“Colonel Dollmann was there with you.”

Bora closed the Reiner folder and put it in his briefcase. “Well, have you asked him?”

“Some things I cannot do. We understand you were the first to come by the body.”

“That’s true.” Having locked the briefcase, Bora stood. “But altogether it’s curious that you care. She was a partisan. A communist. Whoever got rid of her did us all a favor.”

Sutor’s face was unmoved, like a tracking dog’s. “Who shot her, Bora?”

“I do not know.”

“The shot came from an army P38.”

Bora came around his desk, leisurely. “Pity. There are thousands of those around.”

“Who shot her?”

“I don’t know. And I resent being cornered this way.”

“Come, Major, don’t lie to me. Who shot the woman?”

Aware he could not yet safely leave, Bora faced the SS. “I told you, I don’t know.”

“Somebody shot her. You were there. Either you saw it or you did it. If you didn’t do it, you’re protecting someone.”

For an instant, the anxiety of his dream-state flight from a flesh-eating animal risked to undo him. Still, Bora moderately reached for the briefcase, and took a step toward the door as if
his patience were being tried by a rude guest. “Captain Sutor, I greatly resent your words, your tone and your intrusion. This concern with the death of an enemy of the Reich is suspicious to me, and I intend to bring it up with General Wolff. I want to hear what unrevealed interest the SS and Gestapo had in this woman, and why one of yours searched her body before my eyes.”

“That’s none of your business.” Sutor tried to keep the pressure on, but was not as forward. It was like a narrow breach of energy into which Bora slipped and found his way.

“Am I to understand that your command might have done business with the member of a communist group, possibly the same that caused the massacre at Via Rasella?”

Sutor’s thick neck turned red, as if someone were choking him. “You’re speaking nonsense to protect yourself.”