The Villa Triste (49 page)
Eleanor Sachs shrugged her jacket off, shedding it onto the back of her chair in one neat gesture. She laced her hands above the thick white plate as Pallioti poured her a glass of wine from the carafe that had been half hurled at them.
‘I should have gone a long time ago,’ she said. ‘In fact, as has been pointed out to me more than once, I should have given this up after the first try.’ She raised her glass and smiled. ‘Then at least I could still fantasize about who I was. Imagine some big romantic story. I’m just glad I didn’t discover all this before my Dad died.’
Pallioti thought again of Caterina’s caution about the war and enquiring minds. He was still not altogether certain he agreed with her. Probably, given a choice, he would side with Signora Grandolo and Professor Cammaccio; insist that, like things that went bump in the night, the truth was best known and faced.
‘Piero Balestro wasn’t your grandfather,’ he said.
The wine was thick and inky, a concoction from the family vineyards near Castellina. She put her glass down and looked at him.
‘Are you certain?’
Pallioti nodded.
‘If you are certain that your father was, in fact, born in Italy,’ he said, ‘then yes. Both of Piero Balestro’s children, a boy and a girl, were born in the United States. In Ann Arbor, Michigan. His wife did remarry. But she didn’t put either child up for adoption. She married again and they took their stepfather’s name. They’ve since married and have families of their own.’
He reached into his pocket and placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
‘Those are their names and addresses. If you care to contact them and double-check, I see no reason why it would be difficult.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. Her small face opened into a smile. ‘I would have lived with it – but I’m glad I don’t have to.’
‘Will you go on looking?’
She looked at him for a moment.
‘For Il Spettro? If he exists? You promised—’ – she smiled – ‘remember? That if you found him you’d tell me?’
Pallioti nodded. Eleanor picked up her glass and chinked it against his.
‘Promise?’ she said.
Pallioti smiled. ‘Cross my heart.’
‘Maybe I won’t.’ Her face grew serious. ‘Not right now, anyway. Maybe I’ll just leave it where it is. Take all this as a cautionary tale and be happy with my fantasies. You know, sort of, “it’s better to journey than arrive”? I don’t know,’ she added. ‘I’ve spent so much time in the last few years, racing around trying to untangle the past, I think I’ve missed the present. I’m not even sure what it was all for any more. I mean, if it matters. Even who your parents are. Much less your grandparents. It doesn’t make us any more or less who we are, knowing that – does it?’
She looked at Pallioti as if she actually expected him to be able to answer this, to give her some kind of absolution that would, once and for all, set her free. He was relieved when the waiter swooped down on them, more pausing than stopping at their table and essentially telling rather than asking them what they were going to have for lunch.
By the time he had gone, Eleanor was distracted enough to begin playing with her knife and fork, arranging and rearranging them across her empty plate.
‘You know,’ she said finally, ‘I watched that stupid video about a million times. I was convinced that if I looked at it long enough, or just one more time, I’d see what I was looking for, just because I wanted to.’
‘And did you?’
She looked up and laughed.
‘Yes! Oh God, yes. I was looking for a man who looked like my father, even a little. I had myself convinced that that was what I would see – it was what I expected, so I saw it. My grandfather was this big partisan hero, so every old man who had been a partisan and was the right height, or smiled a certain way, was going to be him. Isn’t that always the problem?’
She leaned back as the waiter smacked two white bowls of something thick and steaming down in front of them.
‘With eyewitnesses?’ she asked, picking up her spoon. ‘I mean, that they’re either trying to please you, so they see what they think you want them to see. Or they just see what they expect to see, which isn’t necessarily what’s there.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.’
‘Yes.’ The Bollito Misto, if that’s what it was, was delicious. Pallioti thought of Isabella, the bodies, the arms and legs. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
Eleanor shrugged and reached for a piece of bread.
‘Human beings aren’t as inquisitive as they like to think they are,’ she said. ‘We’re basically delusional. We think we’re all smart and energetic, but most of us are bone lazy and kind of dumb. Take my students. No,’ she added, breaking the bread in half, ‘actually, don’t. Anyway’ – she picked up her glass and raised it – ‘I should thank you, for opening my eyes.’
‘I don’t think I did that,’ Pallioti said. ‘But if I did, you’re welcome.’
He took another sip of wine and put his glass down.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Where will you go?’
‘Go?’ She looked up. ‘Oh, right. In the States. Well, my Dad had a house. In Pittsburgh. Don’t laugh,’ she added. ‘Pittsburgh has a lot going for it. Well, maybe not. But I own it. And it’s vacant and there’s a university and the usual assortment of colleges there. So.’
‘So, you’ll keep teaching.’
‘I guess.’ She reached for more bread. ‘I’m not bad at it. I don’t know that I’m that good at it, either,’ she added. ‘To be honest. But I do have a PhD, and there’s such a demand for specialists on Petrarch.’ She smiled. ‘Actually, you know, I wasn’t going to teach when I got to Exeter. We just needed the money. I was going to stay home in my perfect little thatched cottage with perfect little flowers by the door and have three perfect children and a perfect dog.’ She picked up the spoon again. ‘That strikes me as so weird now. I can’t imagine what I was thinking. Crazy, I guess.’
‘Perhaps you were in love?’
She shook her head.
‘I’m afraid not. Not that I don’t think it’s possible,’ she added quickly. ‘I’m not that type, one of those, “there’s no such thing” people. This just wasn’t the right thing. That’s all. What about you?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Have you ever been married?’
Pallioti shook his head. She smiled.
‘Just to your work, right?’
‘Something like that.’
‘But that was your family I saw you with? That afternoon? You do have a family?’
‘Oh yes,’ Pallioti said. ‘A sister, and a nephew, and a brother-in-law.’
‘And all those friends.’ For a moment she looked wistful.
‘I suppose,’ he said, remembering the large noisy table. ‘Yes.’
‘Then you’re lucky.’
Pallioti picked up his glass. He was lucky. And he knew it.
‘The one thing,’ Eleanor said suddenly, ‘you know, that I really miss, is that I never knew my grandmother. My Dad talked about her, a lot. But I never knew her. I always thought, if I had a daughter, I’d name her after her. Catherine.’
Pallioti glanced up from his bowl.
‘I thought you said her name was Maria?’
‘Oh, it was. Catherine Maria. Caterina Maria, actually. She used the Maria. But I prefer Catherine. Or Caterina. Caterina, Catherine. I know it’s not unusual or anything,’ she added. ‘But I think it’s beautiful. Don’t you think it’s a beautiful name?’
Pallioti nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it’s a very beautiful name.’
After they had parted, Eleanor insisting that she was finally going to make the effort and actually go and see the Brancacci chapel, Pallioti took his time walking back towards the river – winding down alleys, turning away once, and then again, from the direct routes. He supposed, in the back of his mind, that he knew perfectly well where he was going, and had, in fact, been meaning to come here for weeks, but for some reason had to tease himself, pretend he was just strolling, just happening to pass, rather than walking directly. Eventually, he turned into what was now a fashionable shopping street lined with clothing boutiques and shoe shops. Then he looked up at the plaque.
Like the one at the house near the Via dei Renai, it was beside the door. On the upper storeys of the building, above the shop’s display, there were ranks of stone-mullioned windows. Some of them might still even be flats. One had been the apartment where, in February 1944, containers of grenades and rifles, of sidearms and Allied ammunition dropped in a snowy field near Greve, had been stored.
He looked up and down the fashionable street. It had been here that the trucks had come. Through this door that Mario Carita’s men had run, weapons drawn, boots pounding, certain of exactly what they would find – because someone had told them. And it was through this door, too, that the precious arms, all stockpiled for the liberation, had been carried, and those arrested had been marched or dragged. This street had been the last thing those people had seen on that February morning. Their last stop before the Villa Triste.
The plaque said simply,
To Those Who Gave Their Lives In the Fight Against Nazi-Fascism
20
February
1944
They Died for Justice and for Liberty
Beside it, just like the Via dei Renai, there was a metal bracket that held a small glass vase. The bouquet in this one was made up of mixed blue and pink blossoms, a handful of each. The flowers were fresh. A crisp blue ribbon fluttered gently in the breeze. The card hung from a raffia cord. Pallioti did not have to turn it over to know that it was embossed with the words, Remember The Fallen.
He stood for a few more moments, studying the ribbon and the flowers. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. There, nestled among the euro notes, was the card from the florist that Signora Grandolo had handed him as they walked back from the monument to Radio Juliet. He noted the address, then turned on his heel and walked quickly away.
The flowers were white. Forced hot-house lilacs. And roses. Even in the generous confines of Pallioti’s new office, their scent was almost overwhelming, a mixture of sweet and sharp perfumes, as if winter and summer had been shaken into a heady cocktail.
‘
Bellissima
. Someone’s lucky.’
Guillermo eyed the large white box whose lid had been removed, as the florist advised, to allow the bouquet to breathe. ‘A dozen blooms,’ Pallioti had said. ‘No, twenty-four.’ It had taken her almost half an hour to select and arrange them, to sprig the centre and edges with the soft dove-green eucalyptus, and bind the stems with a thick satin ribbon. He did not even know how much they had cost. He had handed over his credit card and signed the receipt without looking.
Now he ignored Guillermo’s comment and handed him a piece of paper.
‘I want you to check this,’ he said. ‘Now. Use whatever authorization you need. Don’t tell anyone.’
Guillermo’s eyebrows went up, causing a wrinkle that reached above his forehead and onto the polished dome of his skull.
‘
Si
, Dottore.’
He folded the paper and strode from the room, suddenly all business.
Through the open door, Pallioti could hear the frantic tapping of computer keys. He could have done the search himself, at a pinch. But Guillermo would do it in half the time, and suddenly he felt that time was of the essence. Like Caterina, he sensed it sliding away, grains going faster and faster through an hourglass.
It was dusk. The lights came on, illuminating the palazzo opposite, the loggia, and the fountain. The first snow had begun to fall. Fat, languid flakes drifted from the darkening sky. By the time Guillermo came back into the room they had piled into a small drift on the outside ledge. He handed Pallioti the paper. Pallioti looked down at it, then back at his secretary.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Absolutely certain?’
‘
Si
, Dottore.
Certo
. Absolutely certain.’
Pallioti nodded. He made some notes on the paper, then put it in his pocket and stood up.
‘Call the garage,’ he said. ‘I need a car.’
As he spoke, he lifted the white lid with the gold lettering and fitted it carefully on top of the box.
The journey took no more than twenty minutes, yet seemed timeless, as if they were flying and might land anywhere. When they finally reached the house, climbing up the steep hill and turning in at the gates, the driver glanced over his shoulder.
‘Shall I wait?’ he asked.
Pallioti shook his head as the car came to a halt.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Go home.’ He slid the box across the back seat, gathering it in his arms, and opened the door.
Standing on the gravelled drive, Pallioti watched as the car drew away. The red tail lights flicked and vanished through the gate. Around him, snow carpeted the world in silence. His shoes left dark prints as he climbed the steps and walked across the terrace.
Light glittered through the chinks in the closed shutters, catching the rims of the empty lemon pots that lined up like soldiers, guarding The front of the villa. When he reached the door, Pallioti stood for a moment, breathing in the cold air and the scent of the flowers. He knew that if he turned around, he would see the city below, a carpet of winking lights, punctuated by the rising ark of Santa Croce, the jagged honey-coloured tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the soft swelling mound of the Duomo. Finally, he reached out a gloved hand to pull the bell. It wasn’t necessary. She was waiting for him.
‘My friend!’
The hall Pallioti stepped into was both austere and beautiful. The hand that decorated it, whether that of the ‘small ugly man’ or of Signora Grandolo herself, had had the deft, sure touch that comes not with money, but with the absolute confidence of belonging.
The marble floor had been left bare, the grain of the stone adorned only by polish. A few small tables held lamps that cast warm orbs of light against the plastered walls. The graceful curve of a stone staircase led up to what would once have been the
piano nobile
and was now most likely bedrooms, perhaps a study and personal parlour. It was a pure product of the Renaissance, as Florentine as the woman who stood before him. Like her, it did not need embellishment, but could rest on the hard, perfect beauty of its bones.
He handed her the box. Setting it on a table beside the stairs, she lifted the lid carefully. A cloud of scent escaped and drifted into the hallway. Signora Grandolo let out a small exhalation of pleasure.
‘They’re beautiful.’ She looked at him, her hands hovering above the blooms. ‘But why?’ she asked. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Pallioti said. ‘I wanted to thank you.’
She shook her head.
‘I didn’t do much.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think you did.’
Signora Grandolo regarded him for a moment. Then she reached up. The shawl she was wearing had slipped. She pulled it tighter around her shoulders. The material shimmered in the light. There was a slithering sound. Apparently of its own volition, the satin ribbon spilled out of the white box. Slipping over the ivory petals, it uncoiled itself across the polished wood of the table.
‘Why have you come?’ she asked.
‘Because you asked me to,’ Pallioti replied. ‘When I decided if the story I was chasing was important, or when it was over – you asked me to come and tell you about it.’
‘Ah.’ She nodded. ‘And is it?’
‘Important?’ Pallioti was pulling his gloves off. He folded them and put them into the pocket of his overcoat. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘At least to me. And over?’ He considered this for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said again finally. ‘Yes. I think now that the story is finally over.’
Signora Grandolo smiled. She picked up the heavy satin ribbon, coiled it and placed it next to the box of flowers. ‘In that case,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we had better sit down?’
In less sure hands, the room she led him into might have been intimidating, or worse, merely pretentious. It ran half the length of the front of the villa. There were three groupings of sofas and chairs, one at either end and one in the middle. The floor was scattered with carpets. Piles of books sat on long low tables between the tall shuttered windows whose lines had not been disturbed by curtains. A grand piano sat at the far end of the room, this one open, used as an instrument for music rather than a platform for the display of family photographs.
Those were present as well. Dotted about, most in plain silver frames, many black and white, they showed the Grandolos, and their daughters, and later sons-in-law, and grandchildren. Pallioti noticed several photographs that, by virtue of his height, or lack of it, and the distinctiveness of his features, which indeed were not handsome, had to be Cosimo Grandolo as a young man. There were no corresponding portraits of Signora Grandolo as a girl. The first in which she appeared was an engagement picture. She was sitting, so she would not tower over her husband-to-be. Cosimo Grandolo stood behind her chair, a protective hand on her shoulder. The date engraved on the frame was August 1948.
Pallioti leaned down. Her dark hair was parted on the side, as was fashionable at the time. Curled under, it fell to her shoulders. Her folded hands displayed the small engagement ring. A bracelet of some kind of deep-coloured stones, probably sapphires and doubtless a family piece that was rapidly returned to a safe in the bank, ringed her elegant wrist. She was smiling. But underneath, he thought he detected something else in her face. Sadness. Or perhaps just memory.
He straightened up and turned around. Signora Grandolo was standing beside the hearth, where a fire had been lit. Shadows caught the side of her face.
‘I didn’t realize it at first,’ he said. ‘But this story – it’s about what we see and what we believe we see. They’re two separate things, both real and not, at the same time. Don’t you find?’
When she didn’t answer, he shrugged.
‘It seems contradictory, but it isn’t – it’s something every cheap magician working in the piazzas, pulling rabbits out of hats and doves out of sleeves, understands. All too well. And yet, in the normal course of things we refuse to accept it, again and again. A friend of mine reminded me of that today.’
He had unbuttoned his overcoat. Now he shrugged out of it, folding the soft dark cashmere so the damp shoulders were turned inwards.
‘Please.’ She gestured towards the sofa.
Pallioti folded the coat across the arm. He had already turned down her offer of a drink. For a moment he watched the lick of the flames, the quick dance their shadows threw on the hearthstone. He opened his mouth and closed it, as if he did not know where to begin, or as if he were reluctant to speak the words. Finally, he said, ‘It all began a long time ago.’
Signora Grandolo smiled. ‘Like all the best stories.’
‘Like all the best stories,’ Pallioti agreed. Then he said, ‘Once there were two sisters.’
He waited for her to sit, but she shook her head.
‘I’ve been sitting all day. Desk, reading. But please—’ She gestured to the sofa.
He sat. This time the cushions were reassuringly firm. On the table in front of him a book lay open. The biography of a general. A pair of Signora Grandolo’s glasses were propped beside it.
‘Their names, these sisters,’ he said, ‘were Isabella and Caterina. One was blonde and one was dark, and they lived here, in Florence, with an older brother and their parents. Their father was a university professor.’ He glanced at her. ‘A gentle, literate man who hated the Fascists. Quietly, the way most people did, if they wanted to stay alive and keep their jobs. Their mother,’ he went on, ‘had money, so they were comfortable. By the time the armistice came, the elder sister, Caterina, was a nurse. She was engaged to be married, to a naval officer, a doctor. The other sister was at the university. Their brother, Enrico, was in the army, a junior officer. Rather than be deported to a German labour camp, as so many were’ – he nodded towards a photograph of Cosimo Grandolo that sat on a side table – ‘Enrico and a friend of his, a young man called Carlo, deserted. They made their way back to Florence, where Enrico’s father put them in touch with a group in the university, part of the CLN for Tuscany that was organizing resistance. They went into the mountains. The family had been enthusiastic hikers, especially the youngest daughter, Isabella, and quite quickly she joined them. Before long, she and Carlo were running an escape route, from Fiesole up through the high passes, along the route of the Via degli Dei and down to Bologna. They took mostly POWs, Allied airmen, at first. Then, when the crackdown came, when the occupation started to turn ugly, Jews as well. Whole families sometimes. Children.’
Pallioti paused.
‘I’ve met some of them, the survivors,’ he said. ‘As I’m sure you have. Well, I’ve met at least one. A Signor Cavicalli. Perhaps you know him?’
Pallioti could sense as much as see her eyes on his face.
‘He and his son run a shop called Patria Memorabilia, in Santa Croce,’ he said. ‘I believe the sisters got their family out – the other sister, Caterina, was helping by this time, too, on the ground here in Florence. They saved their lives, the Cavicalli family. Got them to Switzerland. Signor Cavicalli has never forgotten it.’ He shook his head. ‘But then again, people don’t, do they? Not about things like that. Not about the war.’
Signora Grandolo was still standing by the fireplace, her back as straight and strong as a ballerina’s. Pallioti took a breath and went on.
‘By the winter of 1943 to ’44,’ he said, ‘as you know, things got difficult. The family became involved with Radio Juliet. In fact, they were running it. Caterina was still nursing – the influenza was very bad and people were dying. She used information she obtained at the hospital. They managed to keep transmitting, but it was dangerous. Isabella was working with GAP by this time. On Valentine’s Day 1944 she was caught up in an assassination attempt. She was wounded, but got away. The three men with her, whose code names were Il Corvo, Beppe, and Massimo, didn’t. They were arrested and taken to the Villa Triste.’
Pallioti leaned forward.
‘Three nights later,’ he said, ‘they escaped. Or rather, it looked as if they did. In fact, they had done a deal with Mario Carita. Effectively, they’d been “turned”. They were set loose, welcomed back to GAP as heroes for having saved Isabella then escaped themselves – but in fact they were traitors. They’d made a bargain with the devil. If GAP found out what they’d done, they’d have killed them. So they began to pass information. The location of a safe house where weapons were stored. Names of people involved. And finally, The jewel in the crown, the thing Carita really wanted. Radio Juliet. But you know about that.’ He shrugged. ‘Everyone does. How the whole network was grabbed, all at once.’
Signora Grandolo nodded. It was only the faintest movement of her head.
‘That was their final act, the betrayal of Radio Juliet,’ Pallioti said. ‘Beppe, Il Corvo, and Massimo, and they extracted a price for it. They were all paid. Probably well.’
Pallioti smiled, his features suddenly sharp in the shadows from the fire.
‘And not in salt,’ he added. ‘That came later. Then, in June ’44, in addition to money, Beppe got safe passage into Spain. Il Corvo was given papers and travel passes to get his mother and sister, who were Jews, to Switzerland. Those two, I think,’ he said, ‘were probably trapped. Terrified of what GAP would do to them if they found out and more terrified of what Carita would do if they didn’t cooperate. They probably at least had a conscience. Even guilt. I like to think so, anyway. The third, Massimo.’ He looked up at Signora Grandolo. ‘I think he was the ringleader. I suspect the whole thing was his idea.’
Pallioti leaned back on the sofa.
‘As I said the other night,’ he continued, ‘Massimo was the kind of man we fought the war to get rid of. But they don’t go so easily, do they? In the end, they had to hunt Mario Carita down and shoot him like vermin. He was hiding in the Val d’Aosta, more or less in plain sight, unrepentant. Massimo was the same kind. Cruel. Sly. So much so, that he – or perhaps Carita, but I suspect Massimo himself, came up with the perfect alibi for all of them. And he used Isabella to do it. He had particular reason to hate her. He was jealous. I think he’d been in love with her. He made her believe they were all dead, the three traitors. She was shown bodies she expected to be theirs. So that’s what she saw. The men on the top of the pile were her father, and her brother, and Carlo, her lover, whose child she was carrying at the time. It broke her heart.’