The Girl From Venice Read online

  Compared to other women, Maria was a red rose among sprigs of edelweiss. Meanwhile, Otto Klein sweated like a man on trial and Cenzo and General Kassel discussed fishing. The general was especially interested in spearing octopus in the Greek manner.

  Cenzo explained, “You have to see an octopus blink, otherwise you won’t see it at all.”

  “And the fish called ‘goby.’ I’ve heard so much about that.”

  “But don’t see because it disappears magically in your risotto.”

  “Too bad we don’t have time to fish some of the streams here,” the general said. He was a professional soldier, a blue-eyed warrior with an Iron Cross tied by a ribbon around his neck. “Did you know that the violin was invented in Salò? Remarkable place.”

  A major as round as Goering got to his feet and tapped his glass until everyone hushed.

  “Gentlemen, ladies, let me propose a toast to our beloved Führer on this, his wonderful birthday. Here is a man for the ages who has remade the modern world, led the German people to greatness, and even now is all that stands between civilization and a pit of bestiality. To Adolf Hitler, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!”

  With no ado, Kassel resumed his seat. “Ah, here is our food. Not risotto, perhaps, but good German fare all the same.” A waiter served lake trout and potatoes doused with vinegar. “Soon enough they will have a different clientele. They’ll be serving steak and Coca-Cola. Klein, what are you so nervous about?”

  “He talked to Goebbels,” Giorgio said.

  “What about?” Kassel was immediately wary.

  “The film.”

  “Not that again.”

  “I’m afraid so. He was still filming as of last week.”

  The general’s chin sank onto his chest. “There we were, trying to hold the line against a foe that vastly outnumbered us, and Goebbels insisted on making a movie about the Titanic, as if that would inspire us. He demanded a thousand men as extras and sets to blow up while Hamburg was being leveled for real.”

  “He said it will be the film to end all films,” Klein said. “Of course, all movie producers say that.”

  “We should strip Herr Goebbels,” said Kassel, “paint his ass red, and let him run in front of the American Fifth Army.” The room went quiet. “Of course, I would never suggest such a thing, not as long as I have our friend Klein on guard like a canary in a mine.”

  Giorgio said, “Let us help. Given arms, Italian fighters are willing to fight to the end.”

  “You know I can’t do that. I am fond of you, Giorgio. You are very entertaining, but my troops must move intact as a fighting unit.”

  “Meaning that Italians can’t fight?” Giorgio asked.

  The general shrugged.

  “Italy has the best fighter plane in the war,” Giorgio said. “We shot down 150 Allied airplanes. We would have shot down many more had we been given the planes or parachutes.”

  “Yes, yes, for you it’s a matter of honor. As a soldier, I understand. But for me, it’s a matter of strategy. Brother Cenzo, what is it like under the stars on the Venice Lagoon? What’s the biggest fish you ever saw?”

  “An anchovy. Before it split into ten thousand fish.”

  The general wagged his fork. “Giorgio, your brother is deeper than he first appears.”

  “He fools people,” Giorgio said.

  The general dropped his voice. “I am riding my horse Metropol one last time tomorrow. You understand what I’m saying. Soon I will not be able to guarantee your safety in Salò. Even diplomatic status may not be enough, Maria. As for Metropol, he may soon be on the menu here. So let’s enjoy the moment. Cenzo, you seem a good fellow. Why are you here?”

  “I’m looking for my niece, Giulia Vianello, from Venice. She might be in the hands of the army or the police.”

  “A young girl adrift in the middle of war? Her chances are not good.”

  Cenzo dug in his billfold and showed the general his pencil sketch of Giulia.

  “I’m sorry,” Kassel said. “Frankly, she looks like a lot of other Italian girls. I’ll alert my staff. Who knows? Now, friends, I bid you adieu.”

  Kassel pushed his chair back, and as he stood, every officer stood as well. An aide brought a coat and cap.

  “Be prepared,” the general said. “History does not treat losers kindly.”

  When Kassel was out the door, Maria said, “So there you have it. Our all-powerful general can’t save his army, or his horse, or a girl.”

  Cenzo asked, “When were all those Allied planes shot down?”

  “During the Milan raids six months ago. I was there,” Klein said. “It was brutal.”

  “Did you know my wife, Gina?”

  Perhaps it was bad manners or too early to mention one’s dead wife, Cenzo thought, because the pause that followed was long and awkward.

  “Pardon?” Klein said.

  Cenzo said, “Her name was Angelina but ever since she was a little girl she called herself Gina. Even then, she thought a short name would look better on a theater marquee. Do you remember her?”

  Although Cenzo thought he had asked the question amicably enough, the rest of the table held its breath.

  “I remember, but why do you even mention her?” Maria asked.

  “Cuckold’s rights,” he said. “Curiosity.”

  “I thought you came to find another girl,” Giorgio said.

  “You know how it is: sometimes you find more than one fish on your line.”

  • • •

  They walked along the promenade, Maria Paz keeping the peace between the brothers and Otto Klein behind, practicing his excuses to Goebbels. They passed 20mm gun emplacements manned by soldiers who snapped to attention. Buoy lights floated on the water while the oppressive rock called San Bartolomeo threatened to roll across the lake and snuff out Salò.

  Otto said, “Interior shot. Day. There was a suitcase on the landing of a flight of stairs. Gina was supposed to run up the steps, pick up the suitcase, and run down. Unfortunately, that was when the bomb came through the roof. That was it. Bad luck.”

  “Where were you?” Cenzo asked Giorgio.

  Giorgio sighed. “I was in another room. It was her scene.”

  “Why weren’t you all in the bomb shelter? Didn’t you hear the air raid alarm go off?”

  “The British bombed all night and the Americans all day but not in that part of Milan, and the director decided to go ahead,” Otto said. “The scene shouldn’t have taken more than a minute. It’s ironic. The set was built to resemble a bombed-out house. The bomb came right through the open roof.”

  “Was anyone else injured?” asked Cenzo.

  “The director, cameraman, light man, soundman, and two stage crew were all killed,” Giorgio said.

  “Who survived besides you?”

  “No one,” said Giorgio.

  “What sort of injuries did you have?”

  “A concussion, nothing else. Are you done?”

  “Not yet. What did you mean, ‘the scene should have taken no more than a minute’?”

  “Gina had trouble hitting her marks where she should stop or go. It’s complicated for a newcomer.”

  “How much time did it take her?”

  “Five minutes, maybe ten.”

  “To go up the stairs, pick up a suitcase, and come down?”

  “I could only show her so many times. I think she got discouraged.”

  “You ‘think’? Didn’t you see her?”

  “I stepped away to take the pressure off her.”

  “What was in the suitcase?”

  “This is getting ridiculous. A couple of books, probably. She was playing a girl who was leaving a ruined house. She wasn’t supposed to be taking much.”

  Klein caught up. “It was terribly tragic. The studio was going to
promote her as our new ingénue. This was going to be her screen debut. As it was, the film was never finished.”

  “Are you satisfied?” Maria asked Cenzo.

  Giorgio said, “I don’t want to bruise your feelings, but Gina didn’t love you. I didn’t seduce her. She was ready to leave.”

  Cenzo’s brain searched for a way to deny such an obvious explanation. Thinking about Gina drove him crazy. It was interesting that thinking about Giulia kept him sane. It wasn’t clear whether he was in over his head or “just smart enough to fool the fish,” as his father used to say.

  16

  In the morning, dressed in his work clothes and boots, Cenzo walked along the Salò–Brescia road. German convoys eyed him as they rumbled past, and a carload of the Black Brigade sped by close enough to make him jump off the road. Finally, he left the road and climbed a field of grapes that had shriveled on the vine. A couple hundred meters down was a farm with a tiled roof and pigsty. The day was cool but the hike had left him sweating. Sitting in the shade of an oak tree, he waited.

  A dog came out of the house and nosed around the ground in hopes of scraps. A cat emerged, sneered at the dog, and curled up on a cool spot. Then they went back in the house at the same moment, so somebody was home.

  The drone of flies nearly put Cenzo to sleep. He had brought a cloth cap and a bandana to cool his neck. He watched the long, stiff ears of a hare quiver among the vines. Cenzo didn’t understand Giorgio’s relationship with Maria Paz. They seemed to be friends rather than lovers. And, of course, there was ­Giorgio’s relationship with Gina. Perhaps, Cenzo conceded, that was a relationship that he refused to understand. He pictured Gina on the movie set as she climbed the stairs to the suitcase. A certain exasperation had crept into Giorgio’s voice when he described how she had missed her mark. Well, who was she? A waitress? An heiress? What was her role in the movie? It seemed strange that everyone else on the set had died. Six other people. That was a large bomb. And the death of a promising ingénue? That must have been in the Milan newspaper.

  The hare bolted as a woman emerged from the house with a basket of clothes and pinned them to the line. Cenzo knew he was bait. That was his role.

  Cenzo imagined the bomb hurtling through the open roof. Had Giorgio crawled through the rubble to get to Gina? Was she dead when he reached her or did she die in his arms? Had she said anything?

  A lark’s song drifted across the hill. The bird performed like a virtuoso going up and down the scale. Cenzo ignored an ant tickling his arm. As an oak twig snapped, the lark flew off close to the ground. Cenzo heard another footstep and looked up into the barrel of a shotgun.

  • • •

  Four men in baggy pants, loose shirts, and caps moved across a terrain of pines. All but Cenzo wore red bandanas on their arms.

  A veteran the others called “the Spaniard” walked alongside Cenzo and explained in a Madrileño accent, “Luckily for you, we are the Garibaldi Group. Not bandits but true patriots. Most of us are communists, but not all. We have peasants and professors, intellectuals and workers, and when the war is over we will go our different ways. Until then, we must practice solidarity.”

  “How long have you been at this?”

  “Almost ten years now. Madrid, Barcelona, and Gijón. Our worst enemy has always been infiltrators. We treat them roughly for their sake, because for every one we execute, we discourage that many more.”

  “Cigarette?” Cenzo offered him one.

  “Thank you.” The Spaniard put it in his shirt pocket. “You should save one for yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “For your execution.” The Spaniard studied him. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “I hope they’re worth it.”

  It was a curious thing, Cenzo thought, but he was not afraid. He was living moment to moment, his senses heightened. He wished he had his paints and brushes to capture the partisans as they pushed through the woods.

  So far as he could tell, they were taking him to meet their commander, a man called Dante whom they described as a poet in his own right. Among themselves, they used nicknames; besides the Spaniard, there were Caruso, Peppino, and Piola. Caruso had been in the chorus of an opera company and found it difficult to hike without humming. Peppino and Piola were no more than fifteen years old, runners who took information from one partisan group to another. The boys cast covert glances at Cenzo, obviously anxious about having to pull the trigger on him.

  “They don’t understand that everybody’s nervous,” the Spaniard said. “That’s why in executions they have the prisoner face away. Nobody wants to kill anyone face-to-face. Unless they’re sitting in a chair.”

  “Which do you prefer if you were to be shot?” Cenzo asked.

  The Spaniard shrugged. “It makes no difference to me either way as long as the man is a good shot.”

  “What about the last rites?”

  “I like it. It gives the affair a nice formality. Also, we’re bound to make mistakes, but with a priest you feel you’re putting someone directly into the hands of God. Right now we have more infiltrators all the time, because the war is coming to an end and many Fascists are trying to switch sides. Like snakes from a fire. Dante barely has time to deal with them, so he’s less inclined to give them long trials. Can I give you some advice? Be brief and be quiet. What were you doing sitting out there under a tree anyway?”

  “Trying to attract attention.”

  “It worked.”

  Cenzo did not ask the usual questions to get his bearings, because the usual questions could get a man killed. The party walked for an hour until the pine needles and bracken cleared, and they entered an encampment of men with red bandanas on their arms. They lounged on boxes of hand grenades, packs of plastique explosive, and chickens in a cage. Some of the men cleaned rifles, some played chess, one was immersed in the comic book exploits of Rin Tin Tin: The Wonder Dog.

  The Spaniard handed Cenzo’s papers to a professorial type with rimless glasses who sat by himself against a tree trunk and jotted in a notebook. His hair flew this way and that, like an egret’s, and Cenzo knew without being told this was Dante.

  “We found him at a farm near the road to Salò,” the Spaniard said. “He says he’s searching for his niece and he hopes we will help him find her.”

  “In the middle of a war zone?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  Dante went through Cenzo’s papers, pausing at “Occupation: Fisherman” to look at Cenzo’s hands, and stopped at Cenzo’s family name. “Vianello? Are you related to Vianello the actor?”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “And you dare to come here? Your brother is a Fascist agent. You’re begging to be shot.”

  “I’m looking for a girl named Giulia. She was traveling from Venice with a friend, Eusebio Russo. He might not have made it and she is missing.”

  “Or she turned him in,” said Dante.

  “She’s eighteen years old.”

  “We have fighters younger than that. And traitors too.”

  “She’s Jewish.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you’re not her uncle. You lied about that.”

  “She escaped from the Germans. I took her in.”

  “How did she escape?”

  “She swam across the lagoon.”

  “Nobody swims across the lagoon.”

  “Byron did.”

  Dante’s stare gave way to a smile and he closed his notebook. “So they say.”

  “That’s impossible,” the Spaniard said.

  “Not only impossible, but in iambic tetrameter,” Dante said. “ ‘She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies . . . ’ Perhaps it should have been ‘She swims in beauty .
. . ’”

  “Perhaps,” Cenzo said.

  Dante took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Cenzo got a sense of how exhausted the partisan leader was, not only physically but in spirit.

  “And you say you knew Eusebio Russo?” Dante asked.

  “We served in the army together in Abyssinia.”

  “You knew he might be a partisan or else you wouldn’t have asked us to help you with the girl.”

  “I thought he might be.”

  “Might be a member of the Garibaldi Group?”

  “Yes.”

  “Might be a Red?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you are not.”

  “No.”

  “Then how did you know which farm to stop at and which tree to sit under?”

  “It was a tree you could see like a billboard, and when the woman hung her laundry, that was as good as a sign.”

  “Did you know that the Germans pulled Russo in for interrogation?”

  “I was told that,” Cenzo said.

  “And then released him?”

  “I had heard he was dead.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Dante.

  They were interrupted by a chicken that escaped its cage and comically ran from partisan to partisan, in and out of the radio hut and around the ammo cases, until the boy called Peppino caught it and cut off its head.

  The Spaniard approved. “One stroke. The boy is learning.”

  Dinner was boiled chicken and bread served in American mess kits. The partisans sat close to Dante like dogs around their master.

  “The Americans are generous,” he told Cenzo. “They drop tommy guns, and ammunition, chocolate bars, cigarettes, even explosives wrapped in mattresses. A thoughtful people. I could write about them the way Homer wrote about the ancient Greeks and make a fortune in Hollywood, but I can’t because I’m a communist. Besides, they’ll probably do it themselves. The Russians have agitprop, the Germans have Goebbels, and Mussolini has Giorgio Vianello, the ‘Lion of Tripoli.’ Tell me, seriously, what do you think of your brother’s acting? Family pride aside.”