Deep and Silent Waters

‘Yes, it’s convenient, close to the factory. A rambling old place, I know. It has fourteen bedrooms! The owners fled in ‘thirty-nine to live in Switzerland with their banker son in Geneva. Dirty cowards!’

The contempt in his voice made Vittoria jump.

‘As you’ll see in the morning, most of the houses around here were destroyed in the English bombing raids. This one wasn’t touched. Some people think the English left it alone because the Escali family were spies. It’s a strange coincidence otherwise.’

‘Was much saved from our old home?’ Vittoria asked.

‘Most of the furniture was smashed, but we rescued a few things. We had to move fast to get them out before the looters arrived. As if being bombed out of your home wasn’t bad enough! We had to contend with ghouls searching the ruins for anything worth having. I shot one bastard I caught trying to make off with an armful of Papa’s clothes.’ He gestured at himself. ‘I’m wearing one of the things he was trying to steal.’

‘Did you kill him?’ she whispered.

‘A bullet right through the heart,’ he told her grimly.

‘What did the police do to you?’

‘The police?’ He laughed shortly. ‘They shot looters if they caught them – they had to. Milan was overrun with them then, living in the ruins of houses like rats living in the sewers. They stole, killed, raped. Mostly they were army deserters, armed and dangerous. This was a terrified city in those last months of the war.’

That first evening, Vittoria was low-spirited. She would miss the sound and gleam of water all around her, not to mention her friends, Gina and Olivia, and the nuns at the convent school. That night she dreamt about Venice, and the dark little house off the Frezzeria, and cried in her sleep. It was to be months before she stopped dreaming of Venice, and for days she felt lost in the wandering corridors and high-ceilinged rooms of her new home.

That first evening, Carlo had told her he was about to get married; Vittoria had been brought back to be a bridesmaid.

‘You and I, we’re the only ones left,’ he said heavily, and she nodded. It was so long since she had seen the others that she had nearly forgotten what they had looked like.

His face lifted a little. ‘Rachele is only going to have you as a bridesmaid because, of course, she’s been married before. She doesn’t want the wedding to be too formal, this second time.’

Carlo’s bride was no blushing young virgin. He had chosen the widow of Captain Lensoni, his platoon commander, who had saved his life in Africa only to die later of his own wounds.

Rachele Lensoni, was nearly forty, a sultry creature, charged with frustration and passion, raven-haired, olive-skinned, ripe-breasted and broad-hipped. She was built to be the mother of a large family, but her only child had died during the worst months of the war. Half starved, weak, the little boy had contracted pneumonia in the winter of 1942. There had been no medicines available for the civilian population then; in desperation Rachele had come to Carlo for help, although they had never met. But he had written to offer his condolences after the death of her husband, and Rachele knew that he manufactured drugs. He had given her what she needed, but her son had died anyway. The medicine had come too late for him.

‘That’s how they met,’ Anna told Vittoria next morning, after Carlo had left for the factory and they were eating breakfast together; black coffee and hot rolls with home-made black cherry jam. Food was still scarce, and people ate sparingly even now. ‘Carlo offered her a job in the office and soon he was taking her out to dinner and bringing her home. I could see how the wind was blowing. It was time he married, anyway, and I like her, I must say. She’ll be good for Carlo.’

‘But she’s so old. Could she still have children? I’d have thought Carlo would want them.’

‘Oh, I think she has a few years yet!’ Anna said, laughing. ‘Forty isn’t that old, darling.’

Her bright eyes reminded Vittoria that her mother wasn’t forty yet. Was she going to marry the Englishman? Her stomach lurched.

Thoughtfully, Anna went on, ‘The question mark is over Carlo’s capacity, not Rachele’s. He told me he’s talked to his doctors and they say he could father a child.’ But she looked doubtful. ‘Let’s hope they’re right, for Rachele’s sake. I don’t think Carlo will care much, either way, or he would have married long ago. But Rachele is desperate to have another child.’

Vittoria burst out, ‘Mamma, are you going to marry the Englishman?’

There was a silence. Then Anna said flatly, ‘He’s married already, Vittoria. He got married while he was in England training for the work he is doing.’

Vittoria could scarcely breathe in her relief. She swallowed and cleared her throat before asking, ‘What work is he doing?’

‘Translating, assessing the situation here in Italy …’

‘Spying,’ Vittoria thought aloud. ‘Papa was right. He’s a spy – he was always a spy.’

Mamma looked angry. ‘No, that isn’t true! He wasn’t spying – he isn’t now. You don’t understand. Spying is one thing, intelligence work is another. He knows our country so he can see just how much it has changed since the war started and he can advise on what help we need – we do need help, Vittoria. We’re in a mess, brother fighting brother, Communists fighting Fascists. The hills are full of people who are still at war, hiding out there. Freddy knows so many people, he can find out what Italy needs if it is ever to recover. He’s liaising with the Americans, too. They’re the ones with the money and they will help us far more than the British can. I think Britain will be in a pretty bad way, too, after these terrible years of war.’

Vittoria had lost interest in what her mother was saying. Her mind was working along other lines. ‘Is his wife back home in England?’

Mamma sighed. ‘Of course. Where else would she be? They have a child, a little boy, two years old. His mother worked for the army before he was born. She was driving Freddy while he was working in London – that’s how they met – but she had to give up her job to take care of the baby.’

‘And he will go back to them? To England?’

Her mother nodded without speaking.