Mandy Robotham - The Secret Messenger

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.