Deep and Silent Waters

The baby yawned, pink gums glistening. Outside, church bells rang and the pink apple blossom showered in a soft, spring breeze.

Four years later, the Italians had achieved what they were assured was a great victory: Il Duce had taken the capital of Ethiopia. However, many people hoped secretly that that would be the end of II Duce’s territorial ambitions and that their men could come home. Few had any idea where Ethiopia was, but they had been told that the Italian army had been welcomed there as liberators. They had not been told that their army had occupied only a tiny fraction of that vast country, or that Mussolini had decreed that Ethiopian prisoners-of-war should be executed as rebels.

Vittoria Serrati was unaware of all that as she watched swallows darting in light zigzags around the stable-yard of her home on the Via Marsala in Milan.

It was a bright May morning in 1936, her fourth birthday. She had just been placed on the broad back of her first pony and clutched the edge of the saddle with both hands, staring up at the flickering fork-tailed birds through her straight, dark fringe, paralysed with terror, certain that at any minute she would be thrown off on to the cobbles below. It seemed such a long way down to the ground.

‘Relax, Vittoria, for heaven’s sake! No need to be nervous. The pony’s as good as gold. You’ll see! She loves children.’

Her father was in one of his better moods because it was her birthday and he believed her to be overjoyed at his present – as she might have been, if only she had not been so scared. She had wanted a pony but it was so big and, standing beside it, Vittoria had felt very small.

If only she could have had time to get used to it, but her father never had time. Not a patient man, he was always in a rush to get away to work – or pleasure.

Without warning his strong square hands had seized her round the middle, lifted her up and dumped her on the pony, and now he was irritated because she hadn’t set off around the stable-yard.

‘Off you go! Don’t just sit there!’ he scolded. ‘Giorgio, you’d better lead her.’

The groom clicked his tongue. He was a short man, bow-legged, lined and wrinkled from working in the sun and wind, grey-haired because he was over sixty. These days, you couldn’t get young men for domestic service: they had all been called up. He led the pony a few steps and Vittoria gripped tighter at the saddle, helplessly jogging back and forth.

Leo Serrati shook his head in disgust. ‘Sack of potatoes! Look at her! No give at all. She’ll never ride as well as Carlo.’

He shot a look at the gold watch he wore on his dark-haired wrist. ‘I have to go. We’re having a board meeting this morning. Must get those monthly figures up. We can’t afford to fail to meet our quota.’

His wife, Anna, tall and slender in a white dress made in Milan by one of the top designers, leant over to give his cheek a cool brush of her lips. ‘You won’t. You never fail at anything, you know that.’

His firm had even succeeded in coming up with a rather more effective, less painful cure for venereal diseases, although it was not yet perfected. The army was trying it out on soldiers and the results looked good, not that he had talked about that to his wife. It was not a subject you mentioned to ladies.

But her praise made him puff up like one of the pigeons strutting on the stable roof. He stroked a hand down her back. ‘I’ll tell the works committee you said that. It will put new heart into them. You know, Il Duce is right about the laziness of the people – they just want to have a good time and sit around in the sun. They have no stomach for work or war.’

Anna’s face clouded. ‘You don’t really think he’ll get us into war with the British, do you? Why can’t we just leave it to Germany? What has it got to do with us?’

‘You don’t understand, Anna. We have to show we’re Germany’s friends. Hitler is the sort of man who thinks you’re either with him or against him. Don’t worry too much, the Germans can’t lose. The British won’t fight, nor will the French. Hitler invaded the Rhineland because it’s German territory. And he’s got away with it – nobody stopped him, they don’t dare. They won’t dare attack us because we’re helping Franco, either. They’re old dogs without teeth.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘I must go. Now that Vittoria has a pony she can ride with you every morning, but take Giorgio with you, I don’t like you riding alone.’

She didn’t argue, not that she meant to obey him. ‘Si, certo. Arrivederci. Don’t work too hard, have a good day, caro.’

Vittoria watched them glumly. If only she looked like Mamma, fine-boned and elegant, long legs and narrow, aristocratic feet, beautiful, wide eyes and a mouth like a red rosebud!

Why had she been born so short and dumpy, with a face that always seemed to scowl because of her heavy black eyebrows and round black eyes? Girls were supposed to take after their mothers, weren’t they?

Leo Serrati hurried back into the house without saying another word or even looking at his daughter. Tears pricked at her eyes.

Her mother bit her lip ruefully. ‘Don’t cry, sweetheart. Papa isn’t cross with you. It isn’t your fault if you aren’t a natural rider. I don’t think we can hope for much, do you, Giorgio? Poor baby, she doesn’t have a clue how to sit a horse.’

‘Not like you, Signora,’ the groom said adoringly. Summer and winter alike. Anna Serrati rode every morning for an hour. Her seat on a horse was famous and much admired; she had hunted in the winter when she was younger. Now she rode very early then returned, changed out of her riding clothes and came downstairs to take charge of the house, which she had to run with just a few of the old servants who had been with the family for years. Young women wanted jobs in factories where they could earn far more than they ever had before; they laughed at the idea of domestic service.

Luckily, the old servants knew their jobs inside out and were used to working long hours; especially as they all lived in the house and Anna Serrati had organised a rota, like the one used in her husband’s factory, so that work and rest time were equally divided. So far the house was as spotless as ever, the panelling highly polished, as was the art-nouveau furniture made for Leo Serrati’s father at the turn of the century. The food was as well cooked, the kitchen filling every day with the scent of bread baking and the strong aroma of garlic, wine and herbs.

When this house was first built there had been other medicinal, smells in the air, of herbs, carbolic and tar, eucalyptus, menthol and liquorice, because the factory had originally occupied one wing, but now both it and the laboratory were in a new complex, half a mile away. The old premises had been pulled down to make room for this stable-yard.

Vittoria was unaware that anything had changed, of course: to her, the world had always been the same. She was oblivious of the talk of war, the tensions beneath the apparently smooth skin of daily life here in Milan.

She was just discovering that her family were part of what people called the capuccio, the cream of Milanese society. Leo Serrati’s pharmaceutical firm was important to the country; the drugs he manufactured were needed now more than ever and he grew richer every day. People were eager to be friendly with his family, especially as Anna Serrati was so beautiful.

Sometimes she took her small daughter out shopping with her, or to have coffee with her friends, and Vittoria was petted and made much of by smiling women who kept saying how pretty she was, what a sweetie, wasn’t she a little doll? Their eyes told her that they lied, said that she was plain, not pretty, just as her mirror did.

‘Have you had enough, Toria? Take her off, Giorgio.’ Anna Serrati bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Run in to Nurse, darling. I’m going for a ride.’

Vittoria’s legs felt wobbly now that she was safely down on the ground,