The Girl From Venice Page 12

“I’d say it’s competent.”

  “Such a carefully chosen word. Usually when people discuss film they use words like ‘exciting,’ ‘romantic,’ or ‘overwhelming.’ You say ‘competent.’”

  “I’m not a film critic.”

  “Why not? Mussolini is. Hitler is. Stalin is too. Everybody’s a film critic. There is no love lost between you and your brother, is there?” Dante rubbed his face. “It’s important to protect Italy from the kind of scoundrels and mountebanks it’s suffered in the past. Do you agree?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It demands decisive action. Sentiment cannot be allowed to get in the way.”

  Cenzo took a moment to understand. “You want me to kill Giorgio?”

  “And do the world a favor. Your brother is a difficult man to get close to. You can do it.”

  “And put a knife in his back?”

  “Or a bullet in his head.” Dante handed Cenzo a 9mm Beretta. “I won’t pretend it would be a noble act, but it is a necessary one.” Dante looked up as lights passed in the sky, accompanied by antiaircraft fire. “See, the rest of the world is celebrating. Like a parade in hell.”

  Dante discoursed on Russian literature, Japanese prints, American dynamism. He put Cenzo in mind of a record spinning faster and faster as the evening wore on. Every time Cenzo brought up Giulia or Russo, Dante changed the subject.

  Finally, as darkness fell, Dante said, “You know, a month from now, you and I might be strolling in a liberated Venice. It will be like the day after Carnival when all the masks come off and it will become evident who are the heroes, who are the traitors, and who are the innocent victims. I think there will be many surprises, some quite sad. Your friend Russo, for example, may not have been the hero you thought he was.”

  “Who saw him?” Cenzo asked.

  “I can’t say.”

  A more startling idea occurred to Cenzo. “Is he still alive?”

  “I can’t say that either. All I can say is that, for a dead man, he’s been very busy on the black market.”

  17

  A black sedan was waiting when Cenzo returned to his room at the Hotel Golfo. Two Blackshirts leaned against the car’s fender like lizards basking in the sun. One snapped a cigarette butt at Cenzo’s heels.

  Upstairs, Party Leader Orsini didn’t seem to find it unusual at all to be sitting on Cenzo’s bed, looking through the contents of his suitcases. He looked like a man who simply enjoyed gathering information the way a philatelist collected stamps. His uniform was black and trim, his mustache modest yet dapper, and he balanced his cap on his knee.

  “The door was open,” Orsini said.

  “So you came in.”

  “Yes.” He flourished a pink note and envelope. “These were under the door too. I hope you don’t find it obtrusive if I read it?”

  “I think you already have.”

  “‘Dear Cenzo, Where have you been? I will pick you up at six. No excuses. Un beso, Maria.’ So everyone wants to know: Where have you been?”

  “I enjoyed a good walk.”

  Orsini surrendered the note with a smirk. “You were gone all night.”

  “I fell asleep under a tree. I’m a fisherman, I can sleep anywhere. Besides, this room is a little stuffy. How is your room?”

  “Sufficient for its needs.” Orsini looked around. “I have to say your wardrobe is expensive for a fisherman.”

  “On loan from my brother. You went through everything?”

  “I was sure you wouldn’t mind. Sit, please. I wouldn’t want to be accused of making anyone uncomfortable.”

  “I can stand.”

  “Can you?” Orsini had a talent for suggesting that, for half of what he said, there would be mirth down the line. “Anyway, the expensive suitcase . . .”

  “My brother’s. He invited me to visit.”

  “Are you close?”

  “We’re the same size, at least.”

  “And what a surprise to find this delightful sketch.” Orsini pulled out Cenzo’s portrait of Giulia from the older suitcase. “You are the artist?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You shouldn’t be so modest. What is her name?”

  “It’s only for purposes of identification. She happens to be missing from home.”

  “Charming.”

  “A girl from Pellestrina.”

  “A fisherman’s daughter? What’s her name?”

  “Rosa.”

  “Rosa what?”

  “Scarpa.”

  “There you are. Rosa Scarpa,” Orsini said. “That wasn’t difficult. You must be fond of her to bring her picture all the way to Salò.” Orsini held the picture close up and away. “Although I think I may detect a certain Semitic richness to her lips. How old did you say she was?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe fifteen.”

  “Let’s just say a young woman. Rosa Scarpa, an extraordinary girl to have captured your imagination so.” Orsini gave the sketch pad back to Cenzo. “But I’m not interested in her. I am interested in bigger fish.”

  What a stupid mistake to give the girl a false name and try to diminish her age, Cenzo thought. A real artist would have said the girl was a composite of many models. Now Orsini had a bone and he was going to chew it.

  “Catching what?”

  “Your brother, of course. I want to hear about your brother. I want to know what Giorgio Vianello is up to.”

  “He’s a national hero.”

  “Maybe, but he’s made you into a laughingstock. Why are you defending him?”

  “That’s personal.”

  “What any real man would do is defend his honor. Any court would clear you, especially if I informed them of the extenuating circumstances.”

  “Such as?”

  “Cooperation. Information about whom Giorgio sees and what he does. This war is not over. Some would have it so. There are traitors in the ranks. If I had my way, mere utterance of the word ‘surrender’ would be just cause for having their tongue cut out.” That seemed to be a conversation stopper. Orsini’s eyes were wet with emotion. He drew in a deep breath and said, “Now that I have you, things will be different.”

  Cenzo almost felt sorry for Giorgio. As he remembered, his brother had always been the most favored and popular of God’s creatures. Men naturally gravitated to him, women flocked to him, and his political star was on the rise. Now, in the span of a few hours, two powerful enemies had invited Cenzo to murder him.

  “Men like your brother must be dealt with. The time will come when the dagger is in your hand and you must strike, but not quite yet.” He sniffed the envelope for perfume. “I think your lady in the red car is waiting. Don’t be late.”

  • • •

  With the general exodus from Salò, Maria Paz had been able to choose among many villas to be the consulate of Argentina. She had found one with a veranda and flamboyant elephant-ear plants where she and a circle of friends—the film producer Otto Klein, the actress Vera Giardini, the multifaceted Giorgio Vianello—could gather in the evening and play bridge. While they played, Cenzo studied a map of Salò and Lake Garda.

  “Are you all in the film business?” he asked no one in particular.

  Otto Klein thoughtfully blew his nose. “You know, Cenzo, you can’t swim in water without getting a little wet. It’s true. We are who we are, ‘playing our petty parts from day to day,’ or something like that. Maria is always the lovely hostess. Vera is always an ageless ingénue.”

  “You brought my film?” Vera leaned toward Otto.

  “Yes.”

  “We’re having a preview,” Vera whispered huskily to Cenzo. She was a blonde in flux. Today she was Lana Turner.

  “No, no,” Giorgio said. “He’ll be bored.”

  Vera slapped her cards down on the table. “I hate bridge
.”

  “Of course you do,” said Giorgio. “Bridge takes sobriety, like chess.”

  “Chess is even worse. All you do is sit and wait,” said Vera.

  “Chess is antisocial,” Giorgio agreed. “The last time Cenzo and I played, years ago, he threw his pieces across the room.”

  “Actually,” Cenzo said, “you lost and threw the board across the room.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Rook takes queen,” Cenzo said. “I sacrificed my queen and pinned your rook. From there, it was mate in five.”

  “Nonsense,” Giorgio said. “The man is crazy. Are we still playing this game?” He folded his cards. “I guess not. In that case, does anyone want another martini? I promise this one will be dry enough even for my brother, that well-known grandmaster from Pellestrina.”

  “No, thanks,” Cenzo said.

  “Maria?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Who else? Vera?”

  “Please.” Vera couldn’t help herself.

  Neither Otto nor Vera had official status; in fact, they were universally despised, Otto for smuggling gold to Spain in the diplomatic pouch, and Vera for being an actress who gave her best performances in bed. She was shallow but untouchable, because her best friend, Claretta, was Mussolini’s mistress.

  “How is Il Duce?” Giorgio asked.

  “You know,” Vera said. “Defiant one moment, depressed the next.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t be?” Otto lit a cigarette. “You go from darling of the world one day to being measured for a rope the next, it can get you down. This is when steadfast friends are most appreciated.”

  “Which friends might they be?” Giorgio asked.

  “We’ll see who he goes running to: that fat peasant, Rachele, or our lovely Claretta,” Vera said.

  “Rachele is Mussolini’s wife and the mother of his children,” Cenzo said. “That might count for something.”

  Maria changed the subject. “Cenzo, are you a fighter pilot like your brother?”

  “He didn’t have the nerve for it,” Giorgio said.

  “What does that mean?” Maria asked.

  “In Abyssinia I flew a reconnaissance plane,” Cenzo said. “When they ordered me to drop mustard gas on the natives, I refused and haven’t flown since.”

  “You were lucky you weren’t shot for disobeying orders,” Giorgio said.

  “They had me digging graves.”

  “As long as it wasn’t your own. I can tell you’re a sly one.” Otto sipped from his glass. “An excellent martini. I can always depend on the Lion of Tripoli.”

  “I knew a man who taught his pet monkey how to make a perfect martini,” Maria said. “The poor animal ended up a complete dipsomaniac. Otto, you were going to show us Vera’s film. A rough cut.”

  “I’ll get it,” Otto said, and bounced to his feet.

  “It’s not really my film,” Vera said, “but it is a speaking part.”

  “In bed or out?” Giorgio asked.

  “That’s cruel,” said Maria.

  “Claretta saw the film and was very impressed,” said Vera. “I mean, we have to bolster our spirits. We can’t just lie in bed and eat chocolates.”

  “Isn’t that what Nero did while Rome burned?” Giorgio asked. “Popped chocolates and watched movies?”

  “You’re heartless,” Vera said.

  Otto Klein staggered onto the veranda under the weight of a cardboard box stuffed with film reels. “I’m sorry, Vera. Sorry, my sweet. The film is in the can but I don’t think we’ll be able to distribute it in time.”

  “In time for what?” Vera asked.

  “The end of the war, darling, the end of the war. But when the war is over we’ll be first in line with a product in hand.”

  “Are we talking about my film?” Vera asked.

  “There’s a detail here and there we’ll have to change. The swastikas.” Klein set the box down. “Wait just a second, the projector is in the car.”

  He dashed out.

  “It’s interesting how madmen gravitate to film.” Giorgio poured himself a martini. “And, of course, beautiful women. But then, we’re to blame. We push them into it. We insist, ‘You ought to be in pictures.’ Actually, do you want to know the real reason why our friend Otto doesn’t want to go back to Berlin? Because every film producer, Swiss or German, who does return is given a rifle and sent to the front line.”

  “I’ve got it.” Klein returned with a movie projector. “The film runs a little long at three hours.”

  Klein threaded a reel of film onto the projector and found an outlet.

  “Could you turn out the lights? What we’ll see here is a scene of Nietzsche pondering the concept of the Superman.” He flicked a switch and a countdown was projected against a garden wall: 6 . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 0. On the make-do screen was a stairway with a suitcase on the landing.

  “I think you have the wrong film,” Giorgio said.

  “Leave it,” Cenzo said.

  The camera established that the stairway was half in ruins and the ceiling was caved in. Footsteps climbed to the landing and a young woman in a hat and coat appeared. She turned to the camera and said, “It’s here, just where I left it.”

  Her voice was more chirpy than Cenzo remembered, and her face positively glowed in the spotlight. But the director was not happy.

  “No, Gina. No, no, no. This is a climactic moment. You can’t just saunter up the stairs. This bag holds everything in the world that is important to you. When you find it, you have to clutch it to your breast. You want to squeeze tears from the audience. Do you think you can do that, sweetheart? Run up the stairs, hit your mark, turn toward the camera, and say, as if your life depended on it, ‘It’s here, just where I left it.’” She nodded obligingly but Cenzo could see her anxiety. The camera jiggled and dust rose. A bomb hit in the distance. “Not even close, children. Let’s try again. Gina to the bottom of the stairs and . . . Action!”

  Gina stumbled on the first step.

  “My stupid feet.”

  “Relax. A deep breath. Everyone loves you. Go.”

  She ran up the stairs but, as she turned to deliver her line, drew a blank. “I’m hopeless. I’m letting everybody down.”

  “Nonsense, you’re just nervous. Giorgio, I hate to say this, but I think having you here makes Gina a little tense. Would you mind stepping outside for ten minutes? We have to change reels anyway. Then, when we’re done, we’ll have some schnapps and cigarettes for the entire crew. Is that camera still running? Then—”

  The screen went black and a tail of film flipped around the reel until Klein turned off the projector. “I’m sorry, everyone. I had no idea.”

  The rest of the party was silent. Cenzo looked for Giorgio, but Giorgio was gone.

  • • •

  The lakefront was busy with trucks slowly grinding at a blackout pace. Overhead, the nightly stream of bombers poured west toward Verona and Milan.

  Cenzo spotted Giorgio and kept pace with him a block behind. Whether he was being followed or not did not bother ­Giorgio. Whether he was seen did not bother Cenzo. He pulled the Beretta from his jacket pocket.

  When Gina appeared on the screen, she was so three-dimensional, he could have touched her hand. Her voice was high and echoey, but he heard it to his bones and her apology resonated with childish notes unique to her; and for a moment she was alive, as she would be if Giorgio had not played on her fantasies.

  Was it a matter of greed in Giorgio, the capture of Cenzo’s queen? The need to dominate? The impulse to take away his brother’s wife?

  Ministry buildings ran the length of the Corso. Giorgio turned to back streets shadowed by cypresses and pines. The scene offered more pathos than dignity, with Gina reduced to tears over her own poor playactin
g. “It’s here, just where I left it.” The suitcase beckoned. Stars blinked.

  Cenzo expected that after he shot Giorgio, soldiers would shoot him. Well, for once, the brothers would come out even. The overloaded trucks lumbered by. Giorgio turned and faced Cenzo.

  Cenzo held the gun out until his arm began to ache.

  Until Giorgio laughed and walked away.

  18

  Cenzo dreamt that he was a fish in shallow water and someone was trying to skewer him with a spear. There was a great thrashing and much blood and a staccato rapping of a Mustang’s machine guns raking the sea. Hugo swam the wrong way, facing down to escape the bullets, but they swarmed around him like bees. Giorgio dove after and caught Hugo by the heels. No one could swim like Giorgio, but Hugo dragged him deeper as balls of quicksilver poured from his mouth. Cenzo bolted upright and awake.

  Sleep was impossible. He dressed and left the Hotel Golfo to walk the same route Maria had originally taken him on. There were soldiers on every corner and antiaircraft batteries along the waterfront, but he went unchallenged by the curfew. Either he passed as his brother or there was an assumption among the Germans that they were all citizens of the night.

  Socializing with Giorgio’s circle of friends was like taking part in a sinister farce. How had Cenzo been sucked in? At any moment he would be unmasked. Here he was, in a mountain resort that had become the world capital of lunacy.

  He heard a familiar voice. “Is that you, Cenzo?”

  It was Maria Paz, speaking to him from the veranda of the Argentine consulate. She was in a state of dishabille, her hair half-brushed, her bathrobe loosely tied, a woman rather than a fashion plate.

  “I was just taking a walk,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “No good reason. I didn’t realize I was back here already.”

  “That happens. Anyway, I’m up for the day. Come in and have a cup of coffee with me.” She opened the door and led him into the consulate’s reception room.

  “I don’t want to wake your husband.”

  “You couldn’t wake the consul with a cannon.” She turned off her desk lamp and shoved papers into a drawer. “I’m done here.”