The Cipher, page 21
Demonstrations continued on both sides of the border until the AMG banned them all, but when the Yugoslavs broke the ban and entered the Zone, the British didn’t react until violent clashes began.
“Communist lovers!” people yelled at Nino and his unit, the words summoning the squadristi violence of Nino’s childhood, history in a perpetual repetition.
The tension continued, with daily bombings and nighttime disturbances. East against West. British trying to protect the Mediterranean from Soviet encroachment, and Americans hoping for co-operation with the Soviets. Nino had to navigate the treacherous pits of underground organizations, dark networks, weapons depots. He was a target for neofascists and Blackshirts, many of whom daily paraded through the streets with fanfare, carrying Italian flags, often congregating in Piazza della Borsa, the same piazza from which only days before they had been expelled, chanting fascist slogans and singing nationalistic songs of the last regime. They confronted peaceful demonstrations and tore down commemorative flags for the four Basovizza Heroes — Slovenian partisans executed by the fascists in 1930.
In the midst of this chaos, one spring morning, Nino received a letter from Rowan, with whom he’d kept in sporadic touch since the war’s end. Rowan was planning a trip to Italy and would be in Trieste the following week.
Bianca was excited to meet Rowan, a friend from his former life. She sewed herself a new dress, using lining bought at a discount store, and cut a coat from a green wool blanket. Nino was glad that she was making such an effort to please him and Rowan.
He booked them an outdoor table at Cafè degli Specchi in Piazza Unità, from which they could see the Adriatic and ships anchored in the port. To the right, Trieste rose up to the Karst and Opicina. Beyond it, Yugoslavia.
Rowan looked much as he had five years before, only now he’d put on a few pounds, and had a beard. He’d been living in London, and was planning a move to America.
“I saw Claire in Bari,” Rowan said, when they were settled and awaiting their lunch.
“Who is Claire?” Bianca asked, sitting up a little straighter.
“She was working with us,” Nino said, deliberately vague. They were still sworn to secrecy, and couldn’t even divulge the existence of SOE.
“What did she do?” Bianca said.
Rowan smiled. “What people do in wartime,” he said.
Bianca frowned. “That’s all I hear from Nino. Everything is secret. I don’t understand how everything can be secret.” She pretend-pouted.
Rowan laughed. “It’s security more than secret,” he said. “Speaking of which, have you any news of Jay?”
“Jay!” Nino said, recalling that Olivia had gone out with him. “Not a word. Maybe he’s back in London too. A colourful fellow, that’s for sure.” This set them off on the topic of people they’d known in Monopoli and Bari, while Bianca fidgeted with her utensils.
“…and Olivia is working for MI5,” Rowan said, and both Nino and Bianca looked up, startled.
“You said she was dead,” Bianca said, looking at Nino.
“You didn’t know she was alive?” Rowan frowned. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew. One of those miracles,” he said, and went on to tell them that Olivia had been captured and tortured by the Gestapo. She’d had a hot poker branded into her back, and still she refused to give up any information. “Heroic, really,” Rowan said. “Better than some male agents. ” Following this interrogation, she had been sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she managed to survive until the end of the war. “Others did not fare as well,” Rowan said, shaking his head.
Nino was too shocked to speak. Olivia, alive! His heart pounded in his ears, and he felt the blood in his face. Bianca scrutinized him while he tried to recover. “I’m happy to hear that,” he said, in as normal a voice as he could muster. “No one knew what had happened to her…”
“Or they didn’t want to say,” Rowan said. “Possibly she was recruited into MI5, and they wanted to keep it quiet.”
“Secrets! Always secrets,” Bianca said. “We’re not at war any more.”
Nino thought about work, the daily skirmishes along the border, which felt very much like a continuation of war.
“You don’t understand,” Rowan said, and smiled. “We’ve been trained to forget.”
After a pleasant visit, Rowan departed to see his family in Siena and Nino and Bianca walked home in an uneasy silence, Nino’s heart filled with turbulent emotions, his head with Olivia’s face, her smile, her lips.
“You really didn’t know?” Bianca said, when they were back in their apartment.
“Of course not. Why would I have lied about it?”
“I suppose you wouldn’t have married me if you’d known. I always knew you were unfaithful! It’s been my curse to love you.” She sat down heavily, and began to cry.
Nino stood apart, thinking she was right, reluctant to console her with what now would be a lie. He pulled out his daily Police News Digest, which had a summary of police news appearing in the local press, and sat down to scan it.
“What are you going to do?” Bianca said after a few minutes.
He looked up. He wasn’t sure yet. “I don’t know.”
“I suppose you’re going to go to her. That’s what you’ll do!” She burst into new tears.
He sighed and looked back down at the Digest: murders, suicides, stolen arms, drownings, thefts, traffic accidents, political kidnappings — all too predictable and exhausting. Bianca was right. What he really wanted to do was go to London and see Olivia, clear up whatever was or wasn’t still between them.
The following Saturday, he left Bianca sobbing, threatening to leave him, though nothing would change his mind. He flew into London and called Rowan to ask him to arrange a meeting with Olivia. He was afraid if he called her, she wouldn’t come.
He waited with Rowan at the Criterion, and watched her enter as he had all those years before, his heart thumping in his chest. She spotted Rowan and waved, then stopped when she saw Nino, and pressed her hand to her chest. He stood up as she approached, unsure whether to embrace her or shake her hand.
Rowan took her hands, and kissed her on both cheeks. “You remember Nino,” he said, pulling out a chair for her.
“Of course,” she murmured, her cheeks red. “Hello.”
He smiled. “Olivia. You look well. Life is treating you well.” He felt idiotic mouthing a cliché, while the rush of emotions he had felt when he first met her in that dining room in London were now overwhelming him. He wondered if she were feeling the same.
Rowan smoothed the meeting with talk of people they all knew, of his recent trip to Bari and Monopoli. Olivia and Nino both listened and nodded in the right places. Throughout the light lunch, the tension between Nino and Olivia grew. So much unspoken.
Finally, they were done and stood up to leave. Outside the restaurant, Nino turned to Olivia and quickly said, “Walk with me a bit.”
Rowan looked from one to the other, then his watch. “I have to go. So great to see you both.” He shook Nino’s hand and lightly pecked Olivia on the cheek.
Nino watched Rowan go, his chest tight. “So,” he said, when they were alone. They began walking the same route they’d taken all those years before. A déjà vu of suppressed emotions.
She stopped and stared at him, her green eyes intense. “Yes.”
He sighed. “I tried to find you,” he said falteringly, “after the war. No one knew where you were. Or maybe they didn’t want to say.”
She shrugged. “It was difficult,” she said, and continued walking.
“Rowan told me,” Nino said, not wanting to upset her, to bring back terrible memories.
“I’m all right now.” Her voice trembled.
“Olivia, I’ve thought about you constantly—”
“It’s too late,” she said. “I searched for you too. But you had already married.” She brought a hand up to her chest. “It’s too late. I’m married now.”
He reached for her hand and held it, felt the ring on her finger, his stomach knotted. Then he pulled her into an embrace. “I love you,” he said in her hair, “I’ve always loved you.”
She slowly disengaged herself, shaking her head. “It seems we’re always out of synch.” She reached up and kissed him on the lips. He held her tight once more. Then she stepped back. “Goodbye.”
He stood rooted, and watched her walk away, thinking once more how quickly one’s life can detour, with accidental words, unforeseen events, hesitation, reluctance, fear.
When he returned, Bianca was gone. He made no attempt to bring her back. She had returned to her family in Pistoia. Eventually, she enrolled at the university and rented a small apartment. Nino sent her monthly cheques and moved into the barracks, which felt more secure.
Vulnerable, unfairly targeted in his work, and desolate, as time went on, he dreamed himself into a different life in which Olivia would be at his side. Women still gravitated to him, so he embarked on a series of fleeting affairs, but they left him lonelier than before. He immersed himself in sports, in friendships, but these lost their lustre. All he could think of was that Olivia was alive yet beyond him.
All through the next year, he was consumed with work, which had become increasingly hostile and dangerous. The police had to maintain continuous twenty-four-hour service, because of the ongoing crisis regarding Trieste. Was it to be Italian, Yugoslavian or a Free Territory? Daily skirmishes broke out along the border, bombs exploded, shots ricocheted off walls, the police precinct was attacked. In short, a guerilla warfare was in process, a struggle that had crystallized, pitting Italians vs non-Italians, nationalists vs Communists.
Nino began to think of Bianca, the pre-war Bianca, his first love, the Bianca his aunt loved too. Her hands reached for him across the years from the alley behind her house; from the meetings they attended, thighs pressed against each other, her fervour in the cause ignited; from the idealistic dreams of his youth. He blamed himself for ruining their relationship.
He took a week’s leave and drove down to Pistoia, as if to return to that Utopia. He called her on his arrival, and Bianca falteringly told him that she was involved with someone else now, a baron. “Don’t be so surprised,” she said. “What did you expect?”
Indeed, what had he expected? He was surprised, yes, but was mostly disappointed at the dwindling of his youthful expectations. On board the train for Trieste the following day, he thought about their strained relationship, the intrinsic tie between her and Aunt Isabella. Bianca had been the chosen one and he was glad his aunt had not had to witness his defection.
14
London / Trieste, 1951
Olivia had finally resettled into her life when the letter dropped in the mail. For the past three years, Nino, the war and Italy had receded into a Pandora’s box in her mind. She recognized the handwriting as Nino’s, and her heart lurched. She took a deep breath, wondering how she could still feel so strongly about a man she met eight years before, a man who had betrayed her not once, but twice. Their last meeting had shaken her, and his final words, I love you. I’ve always loved you, replayed in her head at the oddest times, set her trembling and weepy. She climbed the stairs to the apartment, where she hung up her coat, and slipped the letter into her skirt pocket. Philip was in the living room reading a newspaper. He looked up when she came in. “Any mail?”
She handed him the bundle, and he smiled fondly. She felt instant guilt, though she tried to push it down. She hadn’t done anything. She hadn’t even read the letter. She came up behind Philip and massaged his shoulders, reassured by his warmth under her hands. He’d been home for the past week, due to a sudden onslaught of severe headaches. It reminded her of Nino’s migraines, of which he’d spoken, though she hadn’t ever witnessed them. Now, she wished she’d listened more carefully to cures Nino may have mentioned. She scrolled through her memory bank to an evening walk in Bari in 1943, before the bombing of the harbour, following her younger self along the Lungomare, past battleships, beyond which sky and sea merged. Marconi therapy, Nino was saying, adding it was some kind of electric wave. She wished now she’d asked questions instead of just listening. She would ask Philip’s doctor if he’d heard of it.
Philip reached up and stroked her hand on his shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Are you feeling a little better?” she asked.
He nodded. “Much better today. I’m anxious to get back to work.”
“I’m sure they miss you,” she said, “but I’d rather you wait till you feel totally well.”
He nodded again, and turned back to the newspaper. She read the headlines over his shoulder: British Submarine Affray Sinks In English Channel, Killing 75; Us Performs Atmospheric Nuclear Test At Enwetak. Apparently, there was no learning from history. She shuddered at the thought of another more deadly war, one to possibly obliterate the entire planet.
She, too, had learned nothing from history, she thought, her love affair with Nino ending as swiftly as it had resumed, plunging her into a deep depression from which she had struggled to surface. In her room in Monopoli those years ago, she had sat in near darkness, replaying their time together, as if to determine where she might have gone wrong. Although Nino had told her about his childhood sweetheart, she was shocked that he had become secretly engaged, while he professed love to her. An insurmountable betrayal. Claire had helped pull her out of that slump, telling her Nino was not worth moping over. Life is too short, she told Olivia, especially during war. If you fell in love once, you can do it again. And I believe —and here Claire had smiled knowingly— you’ve been in love already twice. Isn’t there a young man back home waiting for a wedding? Olivia had blushed and tried to wave Claire away. In her heart, she was convinced she would never love again, not like she loved Nino. However, here she was, married to Philip.
When she’d returned after the war, Philip had listened to her plight, consoled her, filled the gap with his affection. In Ravensbrück, she’d told him, she was forced to stitch German uniforms — which she sabotaged by loosely stitching them so they would fall apart, by stiching the pant legs together, by not adding pockets — and to refurbish artillery shells, which she filled with only half the explosive charge, or dampened it with water. There were few inspections before despatch, so it was difficult to pinpoint a culprit. Her mind reeled to those barracks… how lucky I am to escape the gas chambers… I search for Barbara, but there are 10,000 of us… the medical experiments… the scar branded into my back… forced prostitution… Nino, Nino, Nino. Then into another time, her return to Britain, her debriefing, she had searched for him, and discovered his unintentional engagement had resulted in a very real marriage. She had felt as if the oxygen had been sucked out of her heart… I must forget him. I must forget him… Once done in London, she had gone back to her parents in Musadino and waited for Aldo.
Her mother had tearfully returned the watch. “It should have kept you safe,” she said.
Finally, when they had not heard from Aldo for six months, they’d resigned themselves to the fact that he was most likely dead. In fact, he might be one of the casualties in the Karst caverns and ravines around Trieste. She didn’t want to think of her brother bound with wire and dropped alive into one of the bottomless fissures. Le foibe, the Italians said. To this day, they had no idea what had happened to Aldo. Nor to Mick, who was MIA and presumed dead. Nor to Barbara, for that matter. The missing, the loved ones, were scars on her heart.
She and her parents had returned to London, where her parents had repossessed their house, and Olivia was offered a job at the Home Office. She had gone to Orchard Court, where Miss Adams had confirmed that Barbara had been sent to France, but had not returned. Miss Adams assured Olivia that she would continue to search for information until she could account for all the girls she had sent overseas.
She sighed, and touched the letter in her pocket. Nino was working in Trieste. Maybe he had news. Her fingers massaged Philip’s shoulders absent-mindedly. As soon as she could, she casually went to the washroom, where she eagerly opened the letter and read:
Trieste, September 1951
Dear Olivia,
I’m not even sure you’ll read this letter. I think of you often. Bianca and I separated three years ago, and I am still here, in Trieste.
How are you? Are you still working for the British government? I’ve been promoted to Chief Inspector of the Allied Military Government civilian police. Trieste is a rather lively place, cosmopolitan, filled with entertainment venues to keep the Allied forces happy. I believe talks are ongoing between the British, Americans and Tito, and there will be a solution at some point. Meantime, alongside the cheerful façade, is the threat from the Titini, so we are constantly having to defend the border with Yugoslavia.
You’re wondering why I’m writing, I’m sure. I know you said a final goodbye when we met in London, but I can’t stop thinking about you, and about our time together. I feel I didn’t get a chance to fully explain myself.
I searched for you in every way I could without success. I would never have married Bianca if I’d known you were alive.
I’m not trying to be sentimental, nor to bother you. I hope this finds you well and healthy and happy. I don’t know your current circumstances, but I have a 10-day leave coming up, and I’m wondering if you would consider joining me. We could travel up north closer to the Alps. Have a holiday and catch up on each other’s lives. Is this too presumptuous? Please be frank with me in your reply.For old times’ sake:
