The Secret Messenger

‘Don’t worry, it comes apart in multiple pieces,’ he says. I see the white of his teeth in his smile. It’s nice. He looks friendly, genuine.

‘How small?’ I wonder.

‘I can make each package small enough for your handbag, at worst a small shopping bag. But it will mean several trips.’

‘I’m here on Giudecca twice a week, but I can easily manage another trip,’ I say, not daring to think how I will fit it into my life.

‘Well, I’m not going anywhere, not for a while,’ he quips, and taps the brace on his useless leg. I feel sorry for him, trapped in this dank hole. He’s undoubtedly well looked after by the sisters, but he must be bored stiff.

‘Is there anything I can bring you? Books, or a newspaper?’ I offer.

His face lights up. ‘A book would be wonderful, even a cheap thriller would lift my head out of here for a while.’

I get up to go, and hold out my hand to shake his. ‘I can be back in two days. Is that enough time to get the first parcel ready?’

‘Plenty,’ he replies. ‘I look forward to it …’ and he’s clearly hanging out for my name.

I look at him intently – the expression that says no names are safer.

‘Please,’ he says. ‘Listen, I’m a sitting duck here. I don’t think names between us will make much difference. It’s just nice to have contact with the outside world.’

‘Stella,’ I say after a pause, for no other reason than I think I can trust him.

‘Jack,’ he offers back, still holding onto my fingers.

‘Jack? Surely that’s English?’

‘Which I am – sort of. It’s Giovanni, really. But everyone at home calls me Jack. Except my mother, of course.’

The perfect Italian with a foreign accent suddenly fits into place, and the fact that he’s part of an Allied operation.

‘Seemingly, they thought I would be better equipped to blend in, with having Italian parents,’ he adds. ‘Only they didn’t reckon my coming down on some very hard Italian stone. Just my luck.’

I find it difficult to concentrate as I return to the bar and descend into the cellar. Arlo is already starting to lay some pages – I have to work fast to catch up. At the back of my mind, projecting a very distinct image, is this evening’s earlier meeting – both Jack, and the job ahead of me. Every time I make the journey over to Giudecca I’m breaking fascist law, since even owning a wireless tuned into Radio Londra can earn you jail time. Being caught creating anti-fascist propaganda will undoubtedly result in far worse than that. Each paper message I transport is heavily weighted contraband, and yet it has never felt dangerous, or potentially fatal. It’s just what I do. I wonder if adding one more task is pushing my luck? And whether I will live – or die – regretting it?

6

Two Sides of the Coin

Venice, late February 1944

It seems like a lengthy wait until my next visit to Giudecca – to Jack and the task ahead of me in transporting his handmade receivers. Luckily, Mimi is there to distract me.

‘So, come on, tell me all,’ my oldest and best friend says as we nestle into the corner space of a crowded bar in the Santa Croce district. It’s tucked down a side street and not widely known by Nazi or fascist soldiers. Still, we’re careful to keep our voices low, hunkering under a fog of cigarette smoke for cover. Mimi’s big eyes are even wider than normal, her painted red lips pursed in anticipation. With her near-black curls, she often reminds me of the American cartoon character, Betty Boop, though Mimi is infinitely more beautiful.

‘I’ve made contact with an Allied soldier, and I’m to transport some vital packages,’ I tell her. Saying it aloud still makes me fizzle with both nerves and excitement, and I can see Mimi – a seasoned Staffetta herself – is impressed. I tell her why the soldier can’t deliver the radios himself and she’s aghast at the story. Since Mimi also has a reputation as a shameless matchmaker, I brush her off when she asks whether Jack is good-looking, saying simply, ‘He’s very grubby.’

For all her flightiness, Mimi understands the risk I’m taking. ‘Be careful,’ she says, although she knows I will be, as we all are – have been trained to be. We are all too aware of the consequences of being caught; man, woman or child, the Nazi and fascist regimes are uncompromising when it comes to betrayal.

Being with Mimi, full of fun and smiles, and talking about her latest flirtations, is the release I need when I’m holding myself in for days at a time, strapping myself into a straitjacket of a different persona, whether it’s at the Reich office or slipping into another guise as a Resistance messenger. It’s good to feel like the real Stella, even for just a few hours, and we dip into what I’ve come to think of as ‘normal conversation’, events untouched by war – the handsome operator at the telephone exchange where she works by day, and her plans to secure his affections. ‘You’re incorrigible,’ I say to her, although I’m full of admiration for Mimi’s ability to rise above the dense cloud of conflict. She’s not unaffected, but she refuses to let it crush her natural optimism.

‘You never know, my current fancy could well have a nice friend,’ she says with mischief.

‘Stop that, Mimi!’ I chide her. While I’m not averse to having someone in my life, I just can’t fit them into it right now.

The next day passes slowly, and I find myself willing the clock to go faster and release me from the endless tapping and chatter. At lunch, I simply have to escape the stifling Reich office and take a walk along the water towards the Arsenale, drinking in my share of the sun’s glittery reflection on the lagoon. Reluctantly, I cut into the side streets behind, where the sun is spliced with shadows and there’s an instant chill, knowing there are some second-hand bookshops I can trawl through to pick up a few cheap volumes for Jack. My own shelves are full of mostly Italian classics, and I’m not sure he would be in the mood for the classically Italian Boccaccio, amusing though he is. I pick out something light, and then an English copy of Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia, thinking it really will take his mind far from Venice. I treat myself to a cheap, dog-eared Italian translation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, having left my old copy at my parents’ house.

I’m walking back towards the office when I spy someone familiar standing on a small bridge gazing intently into the still canal water, his elbows leant on the brickwork. I make to turn sharply, away from the waterside. Too late – he pulls up his stare and clearly recognises me. His expression means I have no choice but to approach Cristian De Luca like the friendly colleague that I am, the pleasing office girl and follower of our great leader, Il Duce.

‘Have you spotted the answer to the universe in there, or simply some poor unfortunate after a night with too much grappa?’ I say lightly.

He looks up, smiles instead of grimaces, catching my humour. ‘No, I’m just admiring the shapes, the sunlight. It’s beautiful.’

He’s right. The reflection of the houses onto the green channel creates warped lines and colours, like some enticing, modernist painting. Every second, each subtle swirl morphs the scene into something more beautiful.

‘See, even the water is art in Venice,’ he says.

‘Really? Even under the cloak of war?’ I turn my eyes away from the water and upwards, to the drone of aircraft overhead – perhaps Allied bombers determined to lay waste to some poor unsuspecting Italian city, either Turin or Pisa. No one around us scrambles for cover; in among the revered beauty of Venice, we’re generally safe, as it’s those vessels out on the lagoon – fishermen or ferries – that run the risk of being strafed with bullets.

He smiles some understanding, showing white teeth and full lips under his neat moustache. I watch his brown eyes track across my face, trying to read me. I’ve seen that deep, enquiring look before – in Nazi and fascist officers, trying to scan inside you for the dirty truths hidden behind the innocent facade. I’m still unsure what Cristian’s motives are though.

Finally, he lets out a laugh. ‘You Venetians! You’re far more practical than the city itself, clearly.’

‘Perhaps it’s a good thing we don’t wear our rose-tinted glasses all the time, or we wouldn’t have a city to wallow in,’ I shoot back, though with an element of humour. ‘Plus, we would fall in the canal far too often – and that’s never good for anyone’s health.’

He pauses to ponder again, eyes on the water, as if he can’t steal them away. I’m just about to walk on when he raises himself up to his full height alongside me. Now I’m genuinely curious.

‘So tell me, what were you really thinking? Not about to toss yourself in, I hope?’ I add.

‘If you must know, I was wondering how many people – classes, creeds and colours – have travelled under this bridge over the centuries. What they would have worn, talked about, were eating, drinking or reading.’ He looks at me directly, like it’s not a musing or a rhetorical question. It’s the longest conversation we’ve ever had. And the most revealing. ‘Do you ever wonder that, Signorina Jilani?’ he adds.

I have, many times. Despite its familiarity, and the practicalities of living in a place that hovers between reality and fantasy, I spent endless hours of my childhood pondering over the colours and past opulence of my own city, the love stories buried in the mud, alongside the wooden piles on which Venice is suspended. Some of those stories were created in my head, to be crudely drawn on the paper while sitting in the kitchen next to my grandfather, as he smoked and dozed. It’s the war that has halted my imaginings on the past or the future, stone dead. Much like my lack of religious faith, I hope it’s temporary. These days, I dream only in grey – a slate war hue. The Venice of now is all that matters; day by day, it must survive and bring with it some sort of future, so we can bring back the colour and vitality to our city.

Cristian’s brow furrows at my silence, and I bring myself back from a sugary nostalgia. ‘So, do you wonder what it might have been like?’ he presses.

‘A darn sight smellier, I would imagine,’ I reply, and turn abruptly off the bridge, in the direction of the Platzkommandantur. I’m purposely glib because I don’t want him tapping into what’s in my head, either past or present. I hear his footsteps as he follows, several steps behind me. Perhaps he imagines – rightly so – that I wouldn’t want to be seen walking with a badge-toting collaborator. And yet I don’t feel any hatred towards him, only slight pity. There is a heart inside him, clearly – one capable of deep feeling. It’s only a shame about the shell he covers it with.

He catches up with me, the clip of his smart shoes resounding through the alleyways. We pass wordlessly under a covered walkway leading to an open street. There’s an old man under the oncoming archway lighting a cigarette and he looks up as we approach.

‘Good day,’ he says and smiles at us both. ‘Come to express your devotion?’ He’s clearly amused at his own humour.

I know exactly what he’s referring to – the small, reddish heart-shaped stone standing proud above the arch brickwork, a natural relic apparently, and a popular pilgrimage for tourists and lovers alike. I try to satisfy him with a weak smile, but the old man is having none of it.

‘You need to touch it,’ he insists, ‘the both of you.’

Cristian is looking perplexed, and I go to explain swiftly so that we can move on, but the old man is in full flow.

‘It’s an old tale from centuries ago,’ he rambles. ‘If you both touch the stone your love will be sealed forever,’ and he coughs from too many cigarettes, chuckling to himself as he shuffles off.

Cristian looks at me for clarity. ‘It’s true,’ I say. ‘Or at least it’s true that’s what the myth says.’ I duck under the stone sotto before he can ask any more.

He catches up again. ‘What is it, Signorina Jilani – don’t you believe in fairy stories?’

He’s smiling once more and I see he’s looking directly at the volume of Jane Austen clutched in my hand.

‘Oh, this? This isn’t a fairy story,’ I come back, striding ahead to avoid any awkward conversation. ‘It’s literature.’

‘I agree,’ he says. ‘It’s very good literature. But equally, it’s not real life, is it?’

‘All the better in this day and age,’ I snipe, though not meaning to do so quite so sharply. ‘Everyone deserves a place of fantasy and safety.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ he says. But he’s no longer smiling or making light, and we walk the rest of the way in silence.

It gets me thinking, though. Cristian De Luca, as much as I hate to admit it, has touched a nerve. I indulge in past centuries and places away from this war by devouring what books I can, on the occasions I’m able to stay awake after the day’s activities. But I miss the creation; as a journalist, I indulged my free time in writing short stories, one or two of which were published in sister publications of Il Gazzettino. It was a total release to open up my beloved machine and simply lay down sentences and words, fabricate people and conversations, without once glancing at notes or quotes. I felt free.

I realise war has stifled me since then. Unsurprising, given the simple desire and effort to stay alive. All the same, I find myself resenting it. Typing up the news stories for the partisan paper comes easily, almost automatically. But it’s not me – yes, there’s a passion in the aim for freedom, but nothing of my heart in the words, despite Arlo’s teasing about my lyrical language. I resolve to try and write. As me, for me. Just for pleasure. Is that so wrong in the times we live in?

If only I could stay awake at the day’s end and find the time.

7

New Interest

Venice, March 1944

Jack is a little more mobile on my next visit. He’s out of bed when I arrive, although limping with obvious difficulty. The sisters have rigged up a table with an oil lamp for him to work at, and there’s an array of metal pieces strewn across it. His welcome is warm; he’s clearly glad to have anyone visit, and is even more delighted with the books I’ve brought.

‘Amazing!’ he says. ‘I do love a good Agatha Christie. Listen, can I offer you some tea? I had some in my pack as I dropped in, and the lovely sisters have given me a small stove.’

I look at my watch, wondering how much time I have.

‘We Brits are very good at tea,’ he urges. ‘Put it this way, you wouldn’t want my coffee!’

I’ve rushed from work, barely having had time to eat or drink, so I say yes, but I can’t stay too long. Arlo will be thinking I’ve abandoned him.

Jack hobbles to and fro on a makeshift crutch, clearly in pain, but doing his best not to show it. I’m not normally much of a tea drinker, but this is good, stronger than I usually take it. I ask him about his home, and he adopts a sanguine look for a moment, telling me his parents run a delicatessen in central London. ‘We’re surrounded by Italian families – sometimes I’m not really sure which part of the world I really do belong to. But’ – he holds up his mug – ‘I am a bit of a tea lover, so I must have some English in me!’

‘Were you born there?’ I ask.

‘Turin,’ he says. ‘My parents emigrated when I was a baby. Both families are still in Turin, so obviously that’s a worry. Not much news gets out. Which is partly why I volunteered. I know I’m unlikely to find any trace of them in this chaos, but at least I feel I’m doing my bit for the family, for Italy.’

I understand his need, and I warm to him all the more. He asks about my family, and I tell him about Mama and Papa, and a little of my past life. He has a copy of Venezia Liberare on the side and it’s clear he knows who writes the words, telling me: ‘It’s good. Engaging, fighting talk.’ I feel it’s not flattery, but rather his open manner, causing me to trust him almost from the outset. So much so that when he tells me about his brother still missing in action in France, I feel I can open up my concern over Vito’s role in the Resistance, of which I still know little detail, but even the scant gossip in the battalion makes my heart crease at the danger he could be in. I stop short, however, of telling Jack about my day job in the Nazi headquarters. I know my own motivations, my reasons and the work I do, but even so, it feels hard to defend.

We part with my nestling a small parcel in my handbag, little more than the size of an orange and wrapped in an old rag. Its destination is a house not far from my own apartment, and I’m to deliver it early the following morning, before work. The next section will be ready in three days.

‘I’ll see you then,’ I say as I head towards the door.

‘I look forward to it,’ he says, his broad smile apparent in the gloom. And I can’t help feeling I will too.

What odd surprises this war springs upon us.

The journey back to the mainland, with the small but seditious package in my handbag, causes ripples of uncertainty inside me, even though the tide under the boat is oddly calm. As I step onto the cobbles of the main island, each stride heightens my anxiety and I have to stop myself hugging the stone walls of the alleyways to stay out of sight. I’ve made hundreds of journeys across the city with covert messages, but none so risky as this. I can feel my breathing deepen as I try to sidestep one checkpoint, but walk too late into another barrier, only recently set up.

‘Evening, Signorina,’ the fascist patrolman greets me, and I smile widely, affecting a half wink in his direction, while trying my utmost to make it seem genuine. Am I trying too hard? Be natural, Stella, be calm, I chant inside my head. You have nothing to hide. I go to open my handbag as a matter of routine, but as the top flips up, he waves me on, his eyes dressing me down as I go. He doesn’t see my knees almost fail me when I round the corner. I have to stop and take several conscious breaths on the pretence of blowing my nose, then there comes a swift rush of adrenalin which causes me to smile and puts a spring in my step. Still, I’m exhausted by the time I reach my apartment, as well as elated. I realise part of what drives me is the unknown, that cat and mouse with the Nazi regime that Sergio alluded to. I wonder if it’s a good or bad trait for an underground soldier to have.

The package drop to my target destination the next morning is uneventful, thankfully, and strangely I’m relishing some of the dull routine of Breugal’s office. It’s Cristian’s behaviour, however, which proves out of the ordinary. Breugal is away from Venice on war business, and the office is naturally more relaxed. The tall and sombre Captain Klaus takes the opportunity to strut around, attempting to issue orders, but he barely seems more than a boy in a man’s cloak and doesn’t share the bear-like stature of Breugal. I see some of the girls simply titter behind his back and I feel almost sorry for him. In these times, it’s Cristian whom the typists defer to, and some of the German officers too.

I’m struggling with a particularly complex engineering report when he approaches me nearing lunch.

‘Signorina Jilani,’ he begins – in Italian, which makes my head snap up with curiosity. ‘I wonder if I might have a word with you. In private. Perhaps you can join me for lunch?’

I can almost feel the blood drain from my head. I’m not prone to fainting, but for a brief second, I think I might. I take a deep breath and realign my head. He smiles – it seems quite genuine. But then Nazis and fascists alike are good at smiling as they deliver the death knell.

‘Um, yes, of course,’ I stumble. What else can I say?

At 12.15, he puts down his report and tidies his pens, a signal that he’s ready. He approaches the desk.

‘I’ll follow you out in a second,’ I say, before he has the chance for anything else. Nonetheless, I feel several pairs of female eyes dressing me down as I get up and leave – their smirks especially boring into my back. How much more like a collaborator can I feel?

Cristian is waiting in the lobby, and leads me not to the building’s canteen – which I’d hoped for – but out into the bright spring sunshine; he lifts his head automatically to catch the warmth, a look of satisfaction spreading across his face, as if he’s refuelling. For what, I can only imagine. We walk a few minutes to a café in a side street off San Marco, and I’m both thankful and wary that it’s quiet. The waiter knows him well, so it’s obviously a favourite place. We order coffee and sandwiches with whatever bread and filling they have. It’s when the waiter leaves that there’s a void.

‘So, have you had more grand philosophical thoughts on Venice?’ I begin in a tone that says I’m teasing, but only a little. My training has taught me the art of small talk, rather than risk leaving a hole where doubts can breed.

He laughs as he sips at his coffee. ‘No, no it’s all right, the population of Venice is safe from my musings.’ He looks at me fixedly, as if about to reveal something profound, of himself perhaps. Here it is, I think, the interrogation, under the cloak of an innocent lunch date. He’s cornered me out in the open.

‘I was really wondering if you might do me the honour of coming to an evening function with me?’ he says, suddenly taking a deep interest in his near-empty cup. Then, no doubt sensing the look of shock on my face, he adds, ‘I mean it’s fine if you can’t. I just thought I’d ask. General Breugal is away and it’s one of those pompous, military parties and it would be …’

Now he’s not the assured, calm and controlled Cristian De Luca of the Reich office. He’s flushed under his beard and I wonder how many women he has ever asked out, in this life or before.

‘Um, I would be delighted,’ I say, only just remembering that my loyal fascist self would see it as a real honour – ever the compliant typist happy to fraternise with German officers and saviours of the Italian nation. Inside, the dread is already rising at the prospect of being in such close proximity to the grey and black characters of war. But what a gift to the Resistance, what tittle-tattle I might be able to pick up and pass on to my unit command. Even if it saves one life, one uprooted family, it will be worth the indignity. I smile sweetly, my face doing its best to express radiance.

‘I’m so pleased,’ he says, equally unseated. He leans in, as if in some form of schoolboy collusion. ‘If it’s a real bore, at least we can stand in the corner and talk literature.’

Which is a cue for us to do just that now, swapping favourites and stories. The hour passes – I’m ashamed to admit later – quite pleasantly.

‘Oh,’ he says, as we get up to head back to the office. ‘In all this talk I almost forgot this.’ He pulls out a small package from his jacket, wrapped loosely in brown paper. As I peel off the covering, I see it’s a small, beautifully bound Italian edition of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – second-hand but in good condition.

‘Thank you,’ I say. And I mean it. It’s a book I love, and will read again and again. And I’m genuinely taken aback at his thoughtfulness.

‘You probably already have it,’ he adds awkwardly. ‘I mean, it’s her best work. Or at least I think so.’

I look at him directly. ‘Are you referring to the writing or all the hidden meanings?’ I aim to diffuse with a little humour, and I’m smiling as I say it, but it comes out in a different vein. As a challenge almost.

But Cristian De Luca is back to his controlled, assured self. ‘Both,’ he says, as we begin walking. ‘Elizabeth Bennet, she’s one of my favourite characters – smart and knowing. I thought you might like her too.’

And much as we did on our previous encounter, we head back to the dark austerity of the office in silence, drinking in the bright white light of Venice.

I’m forced to relay my frustrations to Mimi as we queue for bread in the market just days later.

‘I mean, what am I to think of a fascist who gives me sensitive literature, after inviting me to a party destined to be full of Nazis?’ I whisper, careful to contain my voice, with ears all about us.