The Girl From Venice Read online

  “Where did he get the names?”

  “From DaCosta, the lawyer. I know it was him. You know why? DaCosta was the only name never called.”

  “I doubt very much that DaCosta is his name now. Today, everybody has at least two names. Do you think you could identify him?”

  “I can’t describe him, but I know I would recognize him.”

  “Could anyone else in the group have escaped?”

  “Everyone was taken away. They’re all gone.” It was the closest that Giulia had come to admitting that her father and mother were dead. “If, during a war, innocent people are taken away and killed, isn’t that a crime?”

  “That’s a war crime, yes, and he knows who you are. That’s why we have to be careful.”

  “But if he was guilty, wouldn’t he want to hide?”

  “He doesn’t have to hide from the dead. It must have been quite a shock for him to discover that you escaped. Your father’s advice for you to work your way to the American army might be a good idea. In fact, if you speak English, it might be smart to pretend to be American, at least at the start, so you’re not just thrown into the crab pot.”

  “What crab pot?”

  “Us. We are the crabs, climbing over each other and shedding our own shells, Fascists one moment, Reds the next.”

  Cenzo heard the sound of oars in the water. He looked out and saw two figures in dark clothes and dark scarves approach the shack. The lead rower lifted his scarf just long enough to show he was Russo. They didn’t tie up, only motioned for Giulia to come down.

  “Wait,” Cenzo said. “I’m coming too.”

  “No. That’s not the agreement,” Russo said. “Hurry up. The gunboat is on patrol.”

  “Wait, I want to say good-bye,” Giulia said.

  “There’s no time,” Russo said.

  “We’re both coming,” Cenzo said.

  Russo said, “The people at the other end are definite. It’s just the girl or no one.”

  “It’s okay,” Giulia said to Cenzo.

  The boat shifted from side to side as she got in. Cenzo had not anticipated such a rush. He didn’t have much of a leave-taking in mind. Nothing sentimental. But . . . something.

  Russo pushed off.

  They rowed standing, fore and aft, with Giulia sitting in the middle. They paused only to hand her a black scarf that rendered her invisible. And as suddenly as that, she disappeared.

  13

  Cenzo stood on the roof of his mother’s house and helped her fold laundry while he watched the lagoon for any sign of Russo. Ten days had passed without any news of Giulia. She seemed to have flitted in and out of his life like a sprite.

  Celestina, by comparison, was large and heavy, full of sighs and anxiety about being violated by American soldiers, a theme that Fascist propagandists pressed mercilessly through posters of lecherous Americans with virginal Italian women. Squadron Leader Farina had posted them on every public building.

  Cenzo took his catch to the fish market and lingered to talk to Russo, but no one had seen him since the day he had disappeared with Giulia.

  Nido didn’t mention Giulia. “A wise man,” he liked to say, “keeps his ignorance to himself.” When the German gunboat patrolled the lagoon, it would flash its searchlight in the direction of Cenzo’s cabin and cruise by. Although the German army should have collapsed, it fought all the more bitterly fending off a day of judgment.

  As time went on, the very atmosphere of Pellestrina changed. Germans no longer paid for the chickens they seized. Women hid their husbands in haylofts and cellars rather than allow them to be snatched off the street and trucked to German factories. Boys with wooden rifles chose to be partisans rather than Sons of the She-Wolf.

  The closer the battle line drew, the more intense Celestina’s attentions to Cenzo became, squeezing past him on the stairs, embellishing his package of food with smoked ham and pastries.

  “You’ll see,” his mother said. “You’ve got a real treasure in that girl. She didn’t deserve to have her husband die in such a terrible storm.”

  “It wasn’t the storm that did Hugo in, it was an American fighter plane. I was there.”

  “And almost drowned, too, that’s why you don’t remember. It’s too bad that Giorgio couldn’t save him.”

  “We were short of heroes that day.” It was true, he thought, little things made such a difference. Take a cowboy from Texas, teach him how to fly, send him to Italy, and make him a little unhappy about a letter from his girlfriend saying she has found somebody else. He sees this little fishing boat bobbing in the water between Venice and the Lido. He swoops down for one blast of his machine guns to relieve his pent-up anger and it feels so good that he swoops down again and again, diving into the chatter of his guns. Hugo died and, hearing the news, his father suffered a stroke and died too. So, if his mother was a little crazy, Cenzo understood.

  As they finished folding the last sheet, a familiar Stork reconnaissance plane approached low over the water, touched down nose up, and taxied to the dock.

  “Giorgio’s here,” Cenzo said.

  “Back and forth, back and forth,” she said, “always asking about you. See, your older brother only wants what’s good for you. You always think the worst. For once, be friendly.”

  This time when Giorgio set down at Pellestrina and tied up to the dock, there was no rush to welcome him. Women concentrated on their lace. Mothers kept their children inside. The greengrocer and sweetshop clerk kept their samples to themselves and retreated to the shadow of their awnings. Giorgio trudged to Nido’s bar and found Cenzo at the booth under the mural of the lagoon.

  “I saw your plane come in. Visiting the family?” Cenzo asked.

  “Visiting you. Do you mind?” Giorgio sat.

  “Do you care?” asked Cenzo.

  Nido stayed behind the counter and wiped glasses. The only other customers on a warm midday were the ancient Albano brothers, Enrico and Salvatore, playing cards under a trellis in the back of the bar. They maintained a steady stream of toothless threats aimed at each other.

  “You were expecting me,” Giorgio said.

  “I heard your plane. Who else would be flying here?”

  “Shouldn’t I get some credit for visiting the family?”

  “I don’t know. You’re like a snake: there’s no end to you. If I see you once, I’m bound to see you again. Nido! Do you remember your story about the snake? Tell it to my brother.”

  “That’s all right,” Giorgio said. “I get the gist.”

  “Nido! Two grappas,” Cenzo called. “We may have something to celebrate soon, like the return of our German friends to the Fatherland.”

  “That would call for prosecco,” Nido said. “And we don’t have any.”

  “No? Too bad. Maybe we’ll just have to declare a national holiday.”

  “You’re enjoying yourself,” Giorgio said.

  “To a degree.”

  “That’s good. You are usually such an angry individual.” Giorgio opened his cigarette lighter and Cenzo eased out of its secret line of fire. “I feel sorry for poor Celestina having to cope with all that anger when you get married. You are going to be married, aren’t you, as soon as the war is over? Let’s drink to that.”

  Cenzo acquiesced. How could he say no? He was momentarily distracted by a tremor in the air, the sound of the gunboat drawing up to the dock, and the feeling of a trap shutting.

  “Cheers!” Giorgio raised a glass. He didn’t look like a man on the losing side of a war. If anything, he looked like Errol Flynn about to step on a soundstage to woo a leading lady. Aviation fuel was a precious commodity, and here he was, flying around the lagoon in his little two-seater airplane as if it were his personal plaything.

  “Where is your photographer?” Cenzo asked. “I thought you never traveled without one.”
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  “Maximo hates to fly. He’s Sicilian. They don’t trust any form of transport but the burro.”

  “You look dressed for a day of shooting grouse.”

  “Whereas you smell like fish. To each his own. I think that’s what finally got to Gina, the smell of fish. Otherwise, in a bad light, you could actually pass for me. If you had a sense of style.”

  The insults had little effect. As long as Cenzo could hold on to the possibility that Giulia had escaped, he was impervious to his brother’s sniping.

  “What do you want?” Cenzo asked.

  “Peace on earth, like everyone else. Well, not everyone. Sheer momentum will carry us to a final bloodbath.”

  “So now you’re anti-Mussolini?”

  “Mussolini doesn’t matter. Hitler is calling the shots now and he is totally mad.”

  “Don’t tell me, tell the Germans.”

  “I have many times.”

  Giorgio stood as a Wehrmacht colonel entered the bar. He was an older man, dignified in profile, even though abrasions scarred the left side of his head. Cenzo remembered that his name was Steiner. He had been the senior officer on the gunboat the night that Cenzo dropped the SS lieutenant Hoff down a well.

  “The fisherman Vianello,” the colonel said, and gave Cenzo a nod.

  “Colonel.”

  Steiner and Giorgio shook hands. It seemed they knew each other.

  “Do you mind?” The colonel pulled up a chair and placed a well-worn leather satchel on the next table. “Do you remember the debate with Lieutenant Hoff over the marine chart? The two of you did not get along as I recall. Cigarette?”

  “Thank you.”

  “A Camel.” The colonel lit it for him. “Nothing but the best for my friends. Nido doesn’t recognize me, but I used to come here as a young man to listen to his stories. He served the most volatile grappa in Italy. Does he still?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, something we can depend on.”

  Cenzo wondered about the scar on Steiner’s face. It was not so much a noble souvenir left by a saber at a military academy as it was the gritty erasure left by a hand grenade, with the hair crisped and the ear a buckshot gray. And when the colonel lit a cigarette for himself, Cenzo detected a stiffness in his arm and torso as if those parts were held together by a leather harness.

  “Vianello is a local name, isn’t it? I remember there were only about four last names in this entire village: Vianello, Boscolo, Scarpa, and Busetto. We played a friendly football match with them and it was impossible to keep the players straight. It’s not totally unlike the war between German soldiers and partisans.”

  So far, neither Colonel Steiner nor Giorgio had mentioned Giulia or Russo, although Cenzo felt a cold worm of fear in his gut.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t see the connection,” Cenzo said.

  “Well, you’re right,” Steiner said. “There’s no reason to dwell on the past. We have to think about the future, and the future is slipping away. Say there were a few sane and sober men on both sides of a conflict. How would they know each other?”

  “I have no idea,” Cenzo said.

  “They’d need a messenger. Sometimes an unlikely messenger is the best. Vittorio Silber was my messenger. He brought me information from the Americans.”

  “Are you a spy?”

  “Let’s say I’m gathering information that would hopefully bring about an early peace.”

  “What’s Giorgio’s part in all this?”

  “Giorgio is just helping me get to you.”

  Cenzo looked at the soldiers standing guard at the door. They were veterans who leaned into the conversation.

  “Who do these men report to?” Cenzo asked.

  “They report only to me.”

  “And who do you report to?”

  “I can’t tell you any more than that. All I can say is that men on either side have to put aside not only their differences and ideologies but personal enmity. Unfortunately, enmity between brothers is sometimes the hardest to give up. Psychologically, hatred between brothers can be more delicious than ending a war.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “I need Giulia Silber. You did the world a great favor in killing Lieutenant Hoff. He was a mad dog. I know that she was on your fishing boat, but I’ve lost her and I need your help to get her back. To do this, I requested the help of your brother Giorgio. He has agreed. You must too.”

  “Why would I?”

  “Because if you won’t, you will end up like your friend Russo.” From his tunic the colonel produced a postcard-size photograph of Eusebio Russo. Cenzo winced in spite of himself. The face in the picture was beaten to a pulp and there was no doubt he was dead. “The penalty for murdering an SS officer is quick and severe.”

  “Did the SS do this?” Cenzo asked.

  “The Italian SS or the German SS. This photograph surfaced in Salò, although that doesn’t mean that the girl is in Salò or even that she is alive. Anyway, the German SS has blamed Hoff’s death on Russo. It’s a tidy way of handling things while making themselves appear competent.”

  “Since when do Germans concern themselves with the fate of a Jewish girl?”

  “It’s in everybody’s interest. Whether she knows it or not, she can help identify the man who betrayed Silber and his wife.”

  “Are they dead?” Cenzo asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. There are Germans and there are Germans, just as there are the sane and the insane. If the war goes on, there will be needless killing on both sides. I, like Silber, would like to see an early peace. The man who betrayed them will do anything to prevent it.”

  “And I should trust you?”

  “We have to trust each other.”

  “Giorgio and I do not have a good history.”

  “So, would you put personal spite ahead of the life of this girl and many others?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what did you say?”

  “I’ll work with anyone else.”

  “No one else has your brother’s entrée into different circles in Salò. German or Italian, he’s popular with them all.”

  “I’m a film star,” Giorgio said.

  “And what am I supposed to be?” Cenzo asked.

  “Your brother’s toady. Don’t worry, there are many superfluous people in the film world,” Steiner said.

  “In Milan?”

  “In Salò. That is where we think the girl is now.”

  Giorgio said, “We will put the net where the fish are. You should understand the concept.”

  “No.”

  “You’re turning us down?” Steiner said.

  “I told you he wouldn’t do it,” Giorgio said.

  “What about the girl?” Steiner asked.

  “If she was with Russo, she’s probably as dead as he is,” Cenzo said. “What makes you think I care?”

  The colonel opened the satchel on the next table and took out one of Cenzo’s sketches of Giulia. Black hair framed a pale face and a subdued light lent life and depth to her eyes.

  Steiner said, “Not the Mona Lisa, but not bad for an amateur. At the very least I would say it was drawn with some intimacy.”

  Cenzo turned to Giorgio. “You took the colonel to my fishing shack?”

  “Blame me,” Steiner said. “I had to learn as much about you as I could.”

  “Actually, you’d be a fish out of water in Salò, if you will pardon the expression,” Giorgio said.

  Steiner said, “There are people Giorgio can introduce you to. Besides, he needs someone he can trust.”

  “Me?”

  “I’d put money on it,” the colonel said. “Will you help us?”

  “You mean lure her out?”

  “That’s another way of putting it. Remem
ber that while we’re looking for the man who betrayed her father, that man will be looking for her.”

  There was a voice at the door of the bar. “I am Squadron Leader Farina. I understand you have the anti-Fascist agitator Innocenzo Vianello inside. I demand an opportunity to denounce him.”

  Steiner looked toward Cenzo for a decision. Yes? No? Finally, Cenzo delivered the faintest of nods.

  At a signal from Colonel Steiner the soldiers allowed Squadron Leader Farina to step in and deliver a stiff salute. “I am denouncing the fisherman Innocenzo Vianello for spreading defeatist propaganda and undermining the fighting spirit of Pellestrina. I also want it noted that I was the first to uncover his treacherous activities.”

  “Too late,” Giorgio said. “I already have.”

  14

  The Stork reconnaissance plane was a lightweight masterpiece of wood, aluminum, and stainless steel, with a high forward canopy and oversized wings. The instrumentation was basic: fuel gauge, airspeed, altimeter, and turn-and-bank indicator. Giorgio was at the controls and the plane rose from thermal to thermal as if climbing stairs.

  Although Cenzo expected a formation of Mustangs to drop from the clouds with cannons blazing, none did. He made out 88mm antiaircraft batteries draped in camouflage netting on the ground. The Stork rose and fell with the contours of the land and he felt like a fly waiting to be slapped. Each mountain village seemed to claim a zigzag road, the stone pile of a castle, a church with a memorial statue of the Great War, when Italy had been on the winning side. Dirt roads ran as rivulets from town to town. Each farm had a roof of red tiles, a cow pen, a pigsty, or a small vineyard framed by lemon groves and oaks and the dusty clime of the Italian Socialist Republic. German Occupied Italy, to be more exact, stretched from Tuscany north to the Swiss border. The black smoke of an armored train slid underneath the plane as it disappeared into the contours of the landscape. Soldiers riding the tops of the first and last cars trained their machine guns on the plane just in case.