Alex Preston - In Love and War

As they are walking back to the house, Bruno drapes an arm around Esmond’s shoulder. ‘You should come over to the base at some point, see the set-up. If nothing else, it’d do you two good to get out of here for a while.’ He pauses. ‘Before the baby comes.’

Esmond gives a weak smile. ‘Do you think we’ll be all right?’ he asks.

Bruno squeezes his shoulder. ‘Of course you will. We’ll all pull around when the time comes.’

When their friends have left, Ada and Esmond potter helplessly around the house until dusk. A sense of dejection comes with night. They sleep restlessly and, in the small hours, Esmond wakes to hear the dying cry that haunted his sleep at the Institute. He pulls Ada closely against him, folding his hands around her belly.

Pretini calls them on the radio just after eight, his voice low and distant.

‘You two should come down to the town,’ he says. ‘Maria Luigia has put together some new documents for you. And we need to talk.’

They walk arm-in-arm, heads down and hurrying past the guards who now stand sentry at either end of the Ponte Santa Trinità. Esmond realises he held his breath the whole length of the bridge. As they come onto the via Tornabuoni, a Kübelwagen with a grey-suited SD officer inside drives slowly past them. He feels Ada’s grip tighten on his arm. They pass the Palazzo Strozzi and hurry through the wood-framed glass door into Pretini’s hot, bright salon.

The master hairdresser is standing behind the cash desk at the back of the room making notes in a small ledger while one of his assistants, a good-looking chap a few years younger than Esmond, sweeps an immaculate floor.

‘Come,’ Pretini beckons, without looking up. Esmond and Ada move forward, stepping out of the way of the broom. Now Pretini puts his pen down. ‘Shall we go through to the back room? It’s quieter there. You can talk in front of Giacomo, though. He’s on-side.’ The boy stops his sweeping and smiles shyly at them for a moment, then continues. ‘I have the Marchesa Origo at eleven, but she won’t mind waiting a few minutes.’

He leads them into a windowless room at the end of a small passageway where there is a desk, a small sofa and an armchair. On the desk is Pretini’s wireless, which is smaller than the W/T up at L’Ombrellino, and older. Pretini sees him looking at it.

‘From the Great War. I was an Alpino, you know. I won the Silver Medal for Military Valour after the Battle of Caporetto, too.’ He shows them his teeth, absurdly white. ‘Now sit, both of you.’ He sighs into the armchair and Ada and Esmond perch on the sofa. ‘Here we go. These documents have you both as key personnel at the psychiatric hospital in via San Salvi. You’ll be in trouble if the Blackshirts get hold of you, but these should at least see you past the Germans.’ He passes Esmond a manila folder. Esmond takes out the documents, inspects them briefly and hands Ada hers.

She looks at them with a smile. ‘Nella Ferrari,’ she says. ‘I like it. Very sportif. ’

Now Pretini settles back. ‘How are you holding up?’ he asks.

‘We’re fine,’ she says quickly, returning Esmond’s glance. ‘We’re ready to do whatever it takes.’

‘Good,’ Pretini smiles at her, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘Good.’ A silence. ‘You know it’s a matter of time. The Allies will get here eventually, we just have to hold out, make sure that as few of us get hurt as possible, help those we can—’ He trails off. ‘They picked up Oreste Ristori in Empoli.’

‘No—’ Ada says.

‘He’s completely crazy. He was singing anti-German songs in the square in front of the station, saying he was going to walk to Salò and rip Mussolini’s head from his neck. He’s lucky they took him for a drunk and not a partisan. He’s in the Murate now, probably driving his fellow prisoners mad with his singing. He’ll be out in a month at the latest. At least he doesn’t know the location of the camp at Monte Morello. He won’t give us away—’ He smiles but with a terrible sadness.

‘What else?’ Esmond asks, watching closely.

The hairdresser sighs and folds his hands in his lap. ‘What else. Other news and I’m afraid it isn’t good.’ Esmond’s mind cycles through the likely disasters. So many of those he’s loved are dead already, he thinks, what could hurt him now?

‘Go on,’ he says.

‘It’s my father,’ Ada says coldly.

Pretini nods. ‘He almost made it. He and Ovazza joined up with a group of Croatian refugees in the Val d’Aosta and tried to bluff their way over the border. They were arrested by Swiss police and put on a train back to Turin. At the first station they reached they were picked up by the SS. I’m so sorry.’

‘Did they send him to a camp?’

Pretini is silent.

‘What happened to him?’

‘They were taken to Verbania. We have a man there who helps get people across the border. It’s typical of Ovazza that he wouldn’t think to contact us. We could have made it so much easier for them both. They were locked up in the girls’ school which is now the SS headquarters. They didn’t come out.’

‘He’s dead?’

Pretini nods. ‘I’m sorry.’

Esmond reaches out for Ada’s hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ Pretini repeats.

Back up at L’Ombrellino, Ada sits silently in the drawing room while Esmond mans the radio. During a brief break that he allows himself, he comes down to see her. It is growing dark, but she hasn’t turned the lights on. She is very still in the shadowy room.

‘Do you want anything?’ he asks. ‘A cup of tea?’

‘No. Thank you.’ Elio’s voice comes over the radio upstairs. As he turns to leave the room, Ada says something he doesn’t catch.

‘What was that, darling?’

‘I keep wondering if he heard me, that last time we spoke. I told him that I loved him as the line went dead. I just hope he heard me.’

He goes to kneel in front of her and takes her hands, breathes on them to warm them. ‘Darling,’ he says, kissing her hands, her wrists, ‘I’m sure he did. And he knew it, anyway. You didn’t have to say it.’

‘I always thought him such a fool, pathetic for cosying up to the Fascists. He knew I looked down on him. But he was a good father, he was such a good father.’ He thinks she is going to cry, but instead she stands and makes her way to the door. ‘I’ll take a turn on the radio,’ she says. ‘You must be tired.’

‘But—’

‘Please. It’ll help.’ He listens to the sound of her footsteps disappear up the stairs, then Elio’s voice, her reply. He walks to the window, draws the curtains and turns on the standard lamp. He reads for an hour and then falls asleep on the divan. Tatters wakes him later, a rough pink tongue on his cheeks and neck. He lies, propped on an elbow, and listens to Ada’s voice, reciting a long list of coded co-ordinates onto the airborne waves.

They are at the window, looking down on the city, whose rooftops are just now being touched by morning. It is the first Saturday of November. Esmond is standing behind Ada with his arms around her. Her hair is twisted in a knot on her head and she is wearing one of Alice Keppel’s caftans. He kisses the white hollow of her neck and she shivers.

She has been quiet since the news of her father’s death, working long hours at the radio. There is a map of Tuscany spread out on the floor of their bedroom on which she has ringed certain hills where partisans are gathering, has marked up German roadblocks, potential routes between the various Resistance encampments. She speaks to Pretini four or five times each day. The Professor came up to offer his condolences the night after they’d heard. Alessandro and Bruno sent their love over the wireless. When she isn’t working, she sits on the bed and stares at the triptych.