CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
JOANNA
June 1973
The dog rose barking as I approached Francesca’s house. He looked so menacing that I was reluctant to come any closer. I wasn’t sure how long that chain was. I hoped she would hear the noise and come to see what was happening. Finally, a curtain was drawn back and a face peeked out, and then the front door was opened.
“It is the English signorina,” she said. “You have come for Paola’s basket, no doubt. She will need it. And her bowl, too. The ragu was excellent. Please thank her for her kindness.”
Her accent was so strong that I had trouble understanding her.
“Come in, please.” She motioned me toward the door. The dog didn’t take his eyes off me for a second as I entered the house.
“Will you take some coffee with me?” she asked.
I wasn’t a big fan of the thick black espresso that was drunk here. It seemed that milk was only mixed with the coffee at breakfast. Any time after that it was a sign of weakness to water down the coffee. “Thank you.” At least it would give me an excuse to stay and talk.
She ushered me to the bench at the table. I sat and watched as she poured the liquid into a tiny cup. “Signora,” I began hesitantly. “I wanted to talk to you about my father and the war. I think you know more than you said yesterday in front of Signora Rossini.”
She looked uneasy. “I only know what my husband told me—that he had seen the Germans driving off with a prisoner. He thought that prisoner was an Allied airman. He wore a leather jacket like those who fly aeroplanes.”
“Did your husband say anything about Sofia Bartoli?” I asked.
Now she really did look surprised. “Sofia Bartoli? The one who went with the German officer? What has she to do with this?”
“I think she helped to hide my father,” I said cautiously.
She shook her head. “I know nothing about that.”
On the path up the hill I had weighed whether I would put her in danger if I showed her the contents of the envelope. I decided to take the risk.
“Your husband pushed a letter through the bars of my window on the night he died,” I said. “I have to think it was meant for me.”
I handed her the note. She read it, then half laughed as she shook her head. “The stupid man. I told him he should have left well alone.”
“You know what he was referring to, do you?”
“I know very little,” she said. “I know he used to run messages for the local partisans. He was proud of that. Only a boy and already doing his part to win the war. He said to me once when he was drunk—which he often was, God rest his soul—that if the inhabitants of San Salvatore knew the truth, things would be very different.
“‘What truth?’ I asked him.
“‘About the war,’ he said. He said one day he’d find a way to let the truth out, and when he did, it would change everything.”
She fiddled with the objects on the table, moving the sugar bowl and a spoon around as she talked and not looking at me. She was clearly uncomfortable with talking about this, but I had to press on.
“Do you know what he meant?”
“Not exactly. When he was drunk his conversation wandered. And when he was sober the next day and I asked him what he had been talking about the night before, he struck me across the face and told me to mind my own business about matters that didn’t concern me.” She paused and looked up. “He struck me frequently. He was a violent man as well as a stupid one.”
“I’m very sorry. It must be a relief for you in a way that he is gone.”
“A relief?” She glared at me. “A relief? To be left alone in poverty? How can I carry on the farming alone? At least he was useful in some ways. He made good cheese.”
The absurdity of this almost made me grin. I stifled the smile. “So Gianni had run messages in the war and had seen something that was important, something that other people didn’t know about.”
“That is what I believe,” she said.
I opened my purse and removed the three objects. I put them on the table. “Did he ever show you these? Do you know what they mean?”
She stared at them. “Well, that is the star of the Society of Saint George. It is the order that the respected men of the town belong to.”
“And it was a secret sign of the partisans during the war?” I asked.
“Maybe. I was only a young girl, I didn’t know about such things. But this”—she picked up the banknote—“this is German money, surely. And the cloth? A dirty old piece of cloth? What is that supposed to mean?”
“I think it is stiff with blood,” I said, and watched her drop it hastily. “Maybe Gianni was trying to tell me that someone gave information that resulted in death and was paid for with German money.”
“Oh.” She looked up at me, digesting this. “So that’s what he was hinting—that someone was not the hero he claimed to be and one day Gianni was going to make sure he paid well for his silence.”
“Cosimo?” I asked. “Do you think he meant Cosimo?”
“It’s possible.” She glanced around nervously in case anyone was listening at the window. “We all heard about his bravery during the war. And he certainly profited afterward. But if my husband was foolish enough to have blackmailed him, then he paid for it with his life.” She sighed. “I told him to leave it alone. He never listened to me.”
I was coming to terms with this. I had heard how Cosimo had survived the massacre of partisans. What if he had not survived it but orchestrated it and been well paid? Gianni might have thought this was a good time to tell me about it so that someone outside the village knew. And when I was far away, then he’d blackmail Cosimo. As Francesca had said, foolish man.
“Would you like to keep these things?” I asked.
“No. You take them.” She pushed them back toward me. “Destroy them if you are wise. They can only bring more grief. The past has gone. My husband is gone. And I would like you to go now, too. Go home to your land and forget about this place.”
There wasn’t anything more to say. I got up, thanked her for the coffee, and went out. The dog rose, his fur still bristling, but he didn’t growl as I passed him. I started down the hill but then I turned and headed up toward the woods. I didn’t know what I hoped to find. If my father had erected a little shelter there it would have been found or disintegrated long ago. And local people would have talked about it. Unless . . . I stopped at the edge of the woodland. Unless they all knew what had happened to my father. Unless they were all in on a secret and had agreed to stay silent. In which case I’d go home never knowing.
I entered the leafy coolness of the glade. It was quite pleasant among the trees, broad oaks and chestnuts still flowering. Birdsong rang out around me. A pigeon cooed in a melancholy fashion on a branch above my head. I followed the barest hint of a path through the trees, still trying to get my thoughts in order. Cosimo had become the richest man in the town after the war. Gianni might have been foolish enough to have seized upon the opportunity of my arrival and threatened to blackmail him, which was why Cosimo was so anxious for me to leave before I asked any more questions. And Renzo—Renzo was Cosimo’s son and heir. Surely he must know what had happened in the war and also what had happened to Gianni. I saw how he obeyed his father’s every wish, leaving his studies in London to rush home to his side, helping him around.
The best thing for me to do would be to take Cosimo’s offer and let Renzo drive me to the station as quickly as possible. Whatever had happened to my father, nobody was going to share that information with me. Suddenly I sensed a watchfulness in the woods, as if all the living creatures were alert. I was afraid. What if I was being followed all the time? What if someone had overheard my conversation with Francesca Martinelli and had followed me into the woods? How convenient that my body wouldn’t be found for days . . .
I pushed blindly through undergrowth. Twigs scratched my cheek and brambles caught on my skirt, but I kept going until I came out to the olive groves, breathing heavily and glad to see Paola’s farmhouse on the hillside opposite. I think I must have run all the way home.