The Italian Wife (24 page)

‘Surely it is the job of all of us Italians.’

‘No! No! It is not. You are here to design and draw buildings. Nothing more. Do you hear me?’

‘Yes,
dottore
.’

‘I don’t want to know your thoughts on anything else. You are a woman.’ His eyes blazed with anger behind his spectacles. ‘I took you on. I trusted you. And this…’ his fist slammed again on the desk, ‘is how you repay me. Mussolini could have taken my job from me for hiring such a…’ He pulled himself up short and wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘You are a woman,’ he growled, ‘I should have known better.’

Every voice in her head urged her to protest, to say that she was no less a person because she was a woman, but she forced down her howls of rage and focused on one of the drawings pinned to the wall. It was one of hers.

‘Thank you for employing me, d
ottore
.’ She gestured towards the drawing. ‘I hope you have been satisfied with my work.’

She knew this was the end. She stood there, mortified, and waited for the inevitable. He was going to sack her from her job. She was about to lose everything she’d worked day and night for. On one man’s passing whim.

‘Your work is excellent, damn it,’ Martino snapped. He drew in a slow breath and struggled to calm himself. ‘Signora, there is to be a celebration party tonight for the great honour of having Mussolini staying in our town. It is to be held at seven thirty at the Constantine Hotel. Be there. Il Duce has requested your presence. Your escort will be Signor Francolini.’ He stared at her with a look of disgust. ‘It seems that you have pleased our leader.’

Her jaw dropped open and hope squirmed into life, hot and painful at the base of her stomach.

‘Now get out of here,’ Martino ordered.

‘Yes,
dottore
.’

He didn’t look at her. He looked at the door. ‘When you come in tomorrow morning, I want you to collect your belongings and your pay, and leave.’

Isabella froze.

‘You’re fired, Signora Berotti.’

‘I don’t like it, Isabella.’

‘Papa, I have no choice. I have been ordered to attend.’

‘You could refuse. You have no job to lose.’

‘But Dottore Martino has. I couldn’t do that to him.’

Her father was pacing the room, touching each piece of dark furniture as he passed it, seeking comfort from his dead wife who had spent years polishing it, as if he could find her fingerprints still there.

‘Martino has forfeited any right to your loyalty,
cara
mia
. You owe him nothing.’

‘That’s not true. I owe him much.’

Isabella walked over to the cabinet in the corner, poured them both a glass of red wine and handed one to her father. ‘Don’t fret so, Papa. Nothing will happen.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Her father’s face crumpled in despair. ‘Of course something will happen. Everyone knows that Benito Mussolini cannot keep his hands off a pretty woman. You’re not fool enough to think he invited you to the party because he appreciates the finer points of your architecture, are you?’ He knocked back his wine and hurled the empty glass at the door where it shattered into a thousand pieces that flew through the air in a rainbow of fear.

‘Papa, look at me.’

He dragged his eyes heavily up from the glittering fragments on the floor and looked at her. Sorrowfully at first but then with sudden alertness. He almost smiled.

‘You see, Papa. Who would want me? I am wearing my widow’s weeds. Remember this dress? I wore it for five years after Luigi died. It smells of death.’

The dress was black and old, with full sleeves, a high collar and a long row of jet beads that fastened down the front. Her hair was raked back severely from her face and gathered in a black lace net at the back of her head.

Her father nodded. ‘I remember it.’

‘No jewellery. No painted nails. No lipstick. Mussolini won’t even look at me twice.’ She chuckled at her father to show how groundless his fears were. ‘I’ll just stand in a corner all evening and then come home.’

‘I’ll pick you up from the Constantine Hotel at ten o’clock sharp.’

‘You certainly will not, Papa. Dottore Martino has arranged a car. I’m not a child, I am a grown woman and I don’t need my father to —’

He strode over, crunching the slivers of glass underfoot, and embraced her fiercely, spilling a splash of her wine on her dress. She was unused to such displays of affection from him and she was deeply touched by it.

‘You need your father to look after you,’ he insisted, his voice thick. When he eventually released her, he was calmer. ‘Who is this Signor Francolini anyway?’

‘Just a colleague. No one special.’

‘Tell him I will flay the skin off him strip by strip if he dare let anything happen to my daughter.’

‘I’ll tell him that.’

‘Don’t take it so lightly, Isabella. Il Duce is twenty years older than you and wants —’

‘Papa, I am in mourning for my career. I will stink of decay and despair. No man will touch me because they will be afraid of catching whatever contamination I’m carrying.’ She drank down her wine and let none of the tremors that were churning their way through her show in her hand. ‘Now let me get this mess cleared up.’

But her father took hold of her upper arm, anchoring her to him, and gripped so tight that it hurt. ‘Don’t be so sure, Isabella. Why would a man bother to look at your drab clothes when he can look at your beautiful face?’

21

A corsage. An exquisite orchid. The translucent colour of a full moon, pale and silvery. That’s what Davide Francolini pinned on Isabella. So what was the point of the sombre dress if he transformed it into a velvet night sky with his gift of a sublime flower? She didn’t thank him for it but couldn’t bring herself to reject it.

‘Tonight is a business arrangement,’ she pointed out.

‘Of course.’

He smiled at her, his honey-coloured eyes amused by the boundaries she was laying down, but he passed no comment on her appearance and led her towards the ballroom of the hotel with a gentlemanly courtesy that she had to admit was appealing.

‘You received my note?’ she asked.

‘I did indeed. There was no need for it.’

‘Certainly there was. I wanted to thank you.’

She had not seen hide nor hair of him since Chairman Grassi’s office. She’d wanted to thank him for his help that day but it was almost as if he didn’t want to be seen talking with her, so she had not intruded and had left a note for him with Grassi’s secretary instead.

‘Did the meeting turn out as you’d hoped?’

‘Not exactly.’

She gave a small shrug as though it were unimportant. That was one of the perils of living under a Fascist regime, you never knew whom you could trust. But he had risked Grassi’s displeasure for her and for that she was grateful. She would have liked to ask why, why he had stuck his neck out, but you didn’t ask such questions. In case the answers were too dangerous to know.

She caught his shrewd gaze, so as they entered the ballroom she slid her arm through his and he laughed, pleasantly surprised. Davide Francolini looked good in an evening suit. He possessed the slim build and narrow hips that could wear it effortlessly and look graceful as he escorted her into the crowded room. She was nervous. If Mussolini did turn his greedy eyes her way, she didn’t want him to assume she was easy game.

‘This isn’t my favourite kind of event, Signora Berotti,’ Francolini commented, ‘but let’s do Dottore Architetto Martino proud. You never know, he might even grant us the weekend off, if we’re lucky.’

He had no idea that she’d been fired.

She wanted to shout at him. At Martino. At Mussolini. Shout that it was all wrong. Unfair. Unjust. Shout and tear off her corsage. But she didn’t let her smile slip even a millimetre and asked, ‘What would you do with a weekend off?’

He didn’t hesitate. ‘That’s easy. I’d head straight up into the mountains, where the air is free of this wretched building dust. There are tall green trees and dense undergrowth where wild boar hide, instead of this stark landscape of barren earth.’ Suddenly he turned his head to her and drew her closer. ‘You should come with me. I’ll show you places that —’

Isabella was smiling up at him, astonished by this intimate invitation, when a flashbulb exploded in their faces and she blinked, blinded for a moment. But even in that second of blindness her heart turned over because she knew exactly who would have pressed the trigger on the flash.

Roberto was standing there, unsmiling, wielding his camera. Isabella wanted to snatch her hand from where it lay on Davide Francolini’s arm, but he had wrapped his own around it and was holding it in place. She wanted to step forward to touch Roberto’s lips and tilt their corners into a smile. To laugh with him at the way his broad shoulders sat uneasily in his black dinner jacket which was too stiff for a man who liked to move freely. She wanted to tell him she had searched for him. Banged on his green front door. But all she’d found was the woman in the red dress prowling his street.

Where were you, Roberto? Tell me.
 

‘Good evening, Signor Falco.’ She gave him a wide smile to show she was pleased to see him. ‘You’ve been busy today.’

‘I’ll be busy tonight as well.’

He didn’t step out of their path the way a photographer should. ‘I hope you also had a busy day that was successful.’

‘Thank you. I did.’

He nodded, his gaze intent on hers. ‘Enjoy your evening, signora.’

So polite. But there was something in his eyes, dark and angry, and she didn’t know if it was meant for her or for Grassi or for the evening’s event itself.

‘I’d like a word with you later, if you have a moment,’ she said pleasantly.

‘Of course, Signora Berotti.’

Briefly his eyes skimmed over Francolini, but others were arriving behind them. Roberto stepped aside. Isabella walked past him, her shoulder almost touching him, but his attention was already on his camera and the next guests.

‘Dance?’

‘No, thank you, Davide. I don’t.’ She gestured to her foot.

‘Of course. I’m sorry.’

‘No need to be sorry. It gives me an excuse to avoid the crush on the dance floor and,’ she laughed to cover his moment of awkwardness, ‘to watch others making a fool of themselves up there.’

‘Is that what you think the dancers do?’

‘Make fools of themselves?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course they do. Half of them are like elephants on the floor and the other half can’t keep their hands off each other.’

Davide Francolini regarded her with amusement. ‘No cynicism then?’

Isabella laughed. ‘None at all.’

She sipped her glass of prosecco spumante. It was her third. If she had just one more she reckoned the pain would stop. They were seated at a round table for ten people but the others were off on the dance floor. The ballroom was magnificent, Isabella had to admit that. It was a triumph of modernist design and a bottomless purse. The walls were an exquisite array of handsome white marble from Calacatta with dramatic grey veining, inlaid with black obsidian in bold geometric stripes. At one end a mural had been painted in angular cubist style depicting a group of Maremmana cattle being herded by men on horseback across the freshly drained grassland and in the background Isabella’s own tower soared up towards the sky, pure virgin white.

Over the rim of her glass Isabella stared at the dancers in their finery. Diamonds flashed in the brilliant lights of the chandeliers and beaded gowns shimmered and rippled like sunlight on water. She used to love to dance. She and Luigi used to dance anywhere that there was music – in bars, on table tops, at weddings, even once at a funeral. But not now. The idea appalled her. She was a donkey now and had to stick to what donkeys are good at – work. Leave the dancing to the high-stepping ponies. But it made the soles of her feet itch, just to watch.

She finished her drink and turned to face Davide instead. He was smoking a small cigar, his expression sombre, as though his thoughts were far away. She couldn’t see Roberto in the crowd but knew he must be somewhere in the room because every now and again she saw a camera flash light up a table.

‘Did you fix the crack in the apartment in Via Corelli?’ she asked David suddenly.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Were you able to discover why it occurred?’

‘Poor plaster.’

‘Oh.’

‘It looks good as new now.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ He patted her wrist. Nothing much, nothing for her to object to. A brief touch of skin. ‘Don’t worry.’

But she did worry. It could be poor plaster. Or bad brickwork or sandy cement underneath. Or worse. Far worse. Bad foundations. She had to trust him.

‘I’ll keep an eye on it,’ she commented.

‘No need. It’s been repaired.’

She nodded. ‘Good.’ There was a pause, its awkwardness hidden by the sound of the band striking up ‘
Vieni sul Mar
’. Isabella placed her glass down on the table and said self-consciously, ‘I was grateful for your help. If ever I can repay the favour, just ask.’

He smiled slowly, in no hurry, and stubbed out his cigar. ‘Thank you, Isabella. I will remember that.’ There was a burst of laughter from the next table and he waited for it to subside before he pushed back a lock of his soft brown hair and said casually, ‘Maybe we could drive up into the mountains one Sunday.’

But before Isabella could reply, a man in elaborate uniform suddenly materialised at her elbow. A tightness crept up her throat.

‘Signora Berotti, Il Duce requests the pleasure of your company at his table.’

‘You will dance with me,’ Mussolini announced as soon as Isabella sat down in the chair next to his.

He was looking resplendent in a glaringly white uniform adorned with sash and medals. Like a Roman caesar, she thought, uncompromising in the force of his personality which again condemned the rest of his table companions to the shade. Chairman Grassi was there she noticed and, to her horror, Colonnello Sepe was seated immediately on her right, but it was the three women who stared hard at her, their eyes cold and bright behind their smiles. She was an interloper. Usurping the attention from them during their one moment in the sun.