Alibi: A Novel (17 page)

“Joe said you recognized his name.”

“The name, yes. Not his. His brother’s.”

“His brother? Paolo?”

“Yes,” she said, patting the folder. “Him I know well. But the other—” She shook her head, then gently put down the cup. “Then Joe asked me and ha, I thought, another Maglione, maybe that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“The brother, Paolo, was often at Villa Raspelli. They kept a record of the visitors every day, so we only have to look at the sheet to see who was there. And then, I couldn’t understand it, his name was there after he died. How? I thought maybe the records made a mistake, but how do you make that mistake? A ghost signs in? So I look, and the writing
is
different, only the name is the same. G. Maglione.”

“G? Paolo?”

“Gustavo, his first name. That would be the name on any document, so of course the Germans—”

“But I don’t understand. He wasn’t a doctor.”

“Well, Villa Raspelli wasn’t a hospital. It’s—how do you say,
casa di recovero?
”

“I don’t know—rest home? Recuperation center, I guess.”

“So, recuperation. You know, an officer is wounded. Maybe tired of the war. He goes to Villa Raspelli. He looks at Lake Garda, breathes the good air, he eats, he gets better. Maybe he has to practice walking. Maybe the arm is like this.” She made a gesture to indicate a cast. “But no one is dying. It’s
casa di recovero
, not a hospital. A club for butchers,” she said, her voice suddenly bitter.

“But then why did Gianni go there?”

She looked over, almost delighted, pleased with me. “That is an excellent question. A doctor from Venice? From the big hospital? Why not someone in Verona? I have the records. There were no serious illnesses there in this period. And you know, if it was serious they moved them out to a real hospital. This was
der Zauberberg
, a place to rest. But a doctor comes from Venice. So why?”

I said nothing, waiting.

“Of course, it is an excellent excuse. Doctors do go there. Maybe not from Venice, but they go. To make the checkups. How is the cast? You know. No one would think it unusual if he went there.”

“But you did.”

“Because I know what it was like. He wasn’t needed. Still, there he is. Not once, several times.” She pulled out one of the sheets and pointed. “G. Maglione. Not a ghost. As I say, an excellent excuse, if you were meeting someone. No suspicion at all. You meet the SS at Quadri’s, everyone notices. You meet secretly, someone finds out. But at Villa Raspelli no one questions it. You’re a doctor. Maybe someone has asked for you. Take a black bag, all out in the open. Wonderful.”

“Wait a minute. Back up. His brother went there. He wasn’t a doctor.”

“Well, Paolo didn’t need an excuse. They were his friends. You know about him?”

“Only what I read in the papers. A playboy.”

She nodded. “Yes. Racing cars. Then more games. The Order of Rome. You know that?”

I shook my head.

“A club, for boys like him. Young Fascists. Rich, stupid. For the new empire. Ha. Abyssinia. What did they care about Abyssinia? An excuse to get drunk, be stupid together. Harmless, and then not so harmless. The Germans began to use them. Of course, it was the Duce at Salò, but really the Germans.”

“Used them how?”

“To inform. To help fight the Communists. For someone like Paolo, that’s all you had to say. The Communists—that would be the end of everything, wouldn’t it? Better to make a bargain with the devil. So they did.”

“Over drinks at the Villa Raspelli.”

“Yes, many times. He was a favorite there—he must have been good company. Still a playboy. And of course there was the work to discuss. No more Abyssinia. Now he was saving us from the Communists. A hero. For Italy. For the Church. He wasn’t the only one like that, you know. There were lots of heroes. And now they answer for it.” She placed her hand on the folder, as if it were the prosecutor’s case.

“But not him.”

“No, he answered earlier.”

“A car crash.”

She took a sip of tea, calm. “No, he was killed.”

“I thought it went off the road.”

“It did. After.”

I looked at her, surprised. “Do you know that?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

I reached for the coffeepot, something to do while I took this in.

“But Gianni,” I said, “he wasn’t—what was it? Order of Rome?”

“No. I only knew about the brother. That’s why I’m here. To talk to you about this one.”

“Well, he wasn’t that. Like Paolo, I mean. Not a playboy. Not stupid, either. I can’t imagine him joining anything. He likes to keep his hands clean.”

“Not too clean. Isn’t that why you came to us?”

“That was something else. Not the Order of Rome. In his own way, he—” I looked up from my cup. “He told me he did it to save someone else. Who was in the hospital at the same time. A partisan.”

She lifted her head in surprise, then tipped it to one side, thinking. “A partisan,” she said quietly, turning it over another minute. She pushed at her sleeve, an absentminded gesture, moving the heavy cloth back until a splotch of white appeared, new skin, without color. I watched, fascinated, as she rubbed her finger over it, idly scratching. Another souvenir of the Germans? There was more of it, running up under her sleeve. How large had the burn been, the old skin blistering, coming off in peels? “Then he’s lying,” she said finally, startling me. I looked up from her arm. Her eyes were certain, not even a hint of doubt, so that suddenly I had to look away, ashamed somehow of feeling relieved, oddly elated.

“Are you sure?”

“The partisans in the Veneto were Communists. Does he seem to you a man who would help the Communists?”

“But not all—”

“Americans. Why is this so hard for you? Yes, Communists. Or people fighting
with
Communists. It comes to the same. Who else was fighting the Fascists? Not just at the end. And when the Nazis ran, who else was there to chase them? Hunt them down.”

“Were you there?” I said, trying to imagine it.

She nodded. “Of course.”

“A Communist?”

“My parents were. I was named for Rosa Luxemburg—my mother was her friend, in Berlin. So she had to leave, after they killed her, and my father was then in Milano—” She stopped. “Well, my parents, that’s for another day.”

“But not you.”

“Not when I work for the Americans.” She poured another cup of tea, then looked up. “This matters to you?”

“Just curious. So you were a partisan.”

“Yes, like everyone now. Then, not so many. Why do you think I do this work? I don’t forget what it was like, what the others did. The Magliones.”

“Both of them?”

“It’s the logic. Follow the dates,” she said, patting the folder again. “Paolo we know. A bastard. But his brother, no record. Paolo is killed by partisans. And now the brother appears on the guest list.”

“And not before?”

“No, I checked.
After
Paolo’s death. So now there’s another Maglione at Villa Raspelli. Why? The logic is, they appealed to him. ‘Help us avenge your brother.’ Does he say no? Then why go back? Not one visit, several.”

“And you don’t think he was treating anyone.”

“No, but at first I thought it could be. I only knew about the brother. Not this one, what he does, how he feels. That we have to guess. And then you tell us he’s reporting Jews to the SS. A doctor reporting Jews. You know this for a fact?”

“The daughter survived. She saw him do it.”

“Good. She would be willing to testify to this?”

“Yes,” I said, hesitant, wondering where she was going. “But—”

“So we have a link now. He helps the SS with the roundups. What else does he help them with? He’s not at Villa Raspelli to give aspirin, I think. It’s the logic.”

“But not the proof,” I said.

“No, not yet. But I’ll get it,” she said, scratching her arm again, excited.

“Proof of what?”

“After Paolo’s death, of course there were reprisals. This man was nothing to them, not really, but now he’s an excuse. Make an example for the partisans. Show them what happens when they—well, you can imagine. It’s the end, they’re desperate, and they were always
butchers, so now they’re like crazy men. Torture. Terrible things. And it works. They begin to get the partisans, pick them off. Always it’s Communist uprisings they’re putting down, not the resistance. And once it’s very lucky—this time, a whole group. A house. And they burn it, with people inside. An atrocity. And the question is, who betrayed them?”

“But how could Gianni—?”

“No one betrayed them. Not that way. Someone led them to that house. It’s possible not even deliberately, not even knowing. I looked at everyone in that house, I made their files. Who would do it? No one.”

Her voice had gotten stronger, rising toward the end, so that one of the waiters looked over, thinking we were having an argument.

“You were in the house?” I said.

“Yes. Not everyone died. I was burned, but I lived. It’s strange, you know, because now I’m always cold. You would think—” She put both hands on the table, anchoring herself. “So I know who was there. But who did they follow? Who did they know to follow? Someone here,” she said, nodding at the folder. “And now you tell me something very interesting. You pray for them to make a slip. I think maybe he made the slip to you. But I need your help.”

“How?”

“The date. I need the date when he gave them the Jew, when the SS were there. In the autumn, yes, but when? Exactly. Do you know?”

“She would, I guess.”

“Good. When I get the hospital records, I can match the dates to the names.”

I looked at her, puzzled. “Why? What slip?”

She smiled slightly. “A man whose brother is Order of Rome, who visits SS, who reports Jews, this same man tells you he does this to save a partisan. How would he know? How would he know a man was a partisan?”

I said nothing. Not just the lie, the kind of lie.

“The man told him,” I said weakly, taking his side to see how it would fit.

“Who would tell him? Do you know how we lived? Other people’s names, identities—everything was secret. We trusted no one. And then you tell a man like that? With his sympathies?”

“But how would they know his sympathies?”

“Then you would not trust him. Unless you knew. Not with a life. You would not tell him.”

“But somebody must have.”

“Yes,” she said, lowering her head, “someone must. It’s possible, the SS. If they already knew. ‘Help us make the trap. Watch him. Tell us when to follow.’ Of course, it’s possible it was someone else. And
he
tells the SS, his new friends. But in the end they know. Who helps them?”

“If the partisan was there at all. Maybe he just made it up—something to tell me.”

“Such a story to make up,” she said. “A man who wasn’t there. It’s more usual, yes, to take the truth and bend it a little. Easier to answer questions, if you have to. Anyway, no matter. We’ll see if he was there. There were two people in that house from Venice.” She looked up. “And one of them had been wounded. I didn’t know he had been in the hospital, he wouldn’t have said. To protect whoever helped him. But I know when he came to us, so we match the dates. I know what name he used. What name did Maglione tell you?”

“He didn’t remember.”

“Ah,” she said, “a patient without a name. Then I find out, who did Maglione see at Villa Raspelli? I look at them, their files. And somewhere there’s a connection. If we’re lucky, someone alive. A witness. The Germans talk now—they like to tell us what their friends here did. You see? Not just us. It was the war. The Italians were no better.” She nodded. “We’re very close now.” She sat back, pouring more tea. “And for that I have you to thank. It never occurred to me to track the brother, and then one day Joe tells me he was reporting Jews. It’s like a chain, one thing to another, but you were the start.”

I looked out the rainy window, uncomfortable.

“You’ll give testimony, yes? And the daughter?”

“You intend to put him on trial?”

“Intend? Hope. It depends what we can prove.”

“You can prove he gave up Abramo Grassini.”

She shook her head. “Well, you know that was the law, to turn over the Jews. And the proof—whose word? I’m sorry. I don’t say it’s right, I say what is. But the one thing leads to the other, so it’s a help. With you, of course, it’s different. A credibility. For you to testify against him, what he told you—”

“But it’s hearsay. He’ll deny it.”

She leaned forward. “Let me tell you how they work, these trials. The victims are dead. So what do we have? Records, of course.” She held one up, a court exhibit. “Circumstances. Sometimes a witness. It’s difficult. We have to show the chain. The daughter knows something. You know something. A German knows something. Another. We make a chain of circumstance.” She put down the folder. “Sometimes a chain of lies. He lies to the daughter. He lies to you. Why? And then you see the chain and you pull it.” She moved her hands in a tugging gesture. “And you have him.”

“But technically—”

“These are special trials. The technicalities are different. It’s not the cinema, a murder trial.”

“It’s about murder.”

“No. Reputation. Maybe even social justice. There’s always that hope. But not murder.”

“Then they’ll get away with it.”

“They did get away with it,” she said quietly, so that the words hung over the table. “There’s no retribution after you’re dead. But people don’t know. And that they won’t get away with.” She sipped more tea, watching me over the cup. “You’re worried?”

“No,” I lied, suddenly seeing the tribunal table, my mother in the makeshift courtroom, Gianni glaring at me from the stand. “But I don’t like throwing mud in public either. If it’s just mud. I saw it in Germany. Nobody comes out looking good—you get just as dirty.”

She put down her cup. “Yes,” she said, a quick nod of agreement, “but I’ll still need you there.” She looked over at me. “It won’t be just mud.”

“And if you can’t prove it?”

“Well, I think I will. And it’s important, to have these trials. Otherwise—”

“Otherwise what?”