The Villa Triste Read online

  Pallioti frowned. Maria Valacci looked at him and nodded.

  ‘It was horrible,’ she said. ‘Our mother, she called Gio names. Said he was a coward, like his father. We weren’t even allowed to mention Papa. It was as if she wanted to wipe him off the face of the earth, pretend he’d never existed. But she couldn’t because she had us. And Gio looked just like him. Perhaps that’s why Mama hated him, because although we couldn’t speak about Papa, or even use his name, Gio still had his face.’

  She studied her hands for a moment, twisting the big ring. ‘They said some heart ailment killed her,’ she whispered. ‘But really, it was anger. Hate. Hate turned her heart black.’

  She stopped speaking. The clocks ticked like a chorus of crickets.

  ‘After my mother died,’ Maria Valacci said, ‘I got married. I thought Gio was dead.’ She shrugged. ‘Everyone else was. So I just assumed. And I had a new husband, and—’ She shook her head and looked at Pallioti. ‘Everything was so confused just then. You have no idea. Nothing was the way it had been. It was as if the whole world had been taken and shaken and all the pieces broken and put back in the wrong place.’

  Pallioti nodded, waiting for her to go on.

  ‘After we were married,’ she said a moment later, ‘my husband and I came here, to Rome. His family is from here. And, well, I tried to find Gio. I made some calls. Wrote to the Red Cross and the CLN. The Committee of National Liberation. They were supposed to know what had happened to all the partisans. Finally, I was told he was dead. I’d thought so anyway, so why should I guess it wasn’t true?’ She looked at Pallioti, her face pleading, as if she were asking for his forgiveness. ‘It happened,’ she said. ‘To a lot of people. No one knew who was dead or who was alive or who was anywhere.’

  ‘How did you find him again?’

  Maria Valacci shrugged.

  ‘I didn’t. He found us. He came here, one day. Out of the blue. Antonio was just a little boy. It was in the afternoon.’ Her eyes narrowed again as she drifted backwards. ‘It was a long time ago. And as I said, Gio and my husband – they didn’t get on.’ Her thin shoulders jumped under the sweater. ‘We came from Pisa,’ she added. ‘Gio and I were both born there.’

  Pallioti frowned. He realized that in the back of his mind he had somehow assumed that Giovanni Trantemento had been a native Florentine. It was the apartment, of course. Properties like that in buildings like the one Maria Valacci’s brother had lived in were usually passed through generations as carefully as family jewels – which, in fact, they were.

  Maria Valacci’s hands ran across her lap, plucking at the pleats of her black trousers. For a moment Pallioti thought she wasn’t going to go on. Then she said, ‘I didn’t have a reason to go to Florence, after that. And Giovanni – well, he was busy.’ She looked up at Pallioti and nodded. ‘He travelled a lot. Yes, a lot,’ she repeated, as if she liked the sound of this, as if it explained everything – all the years that had slipped away unattended, and left her here, surrounded by clocks and overstuffed sofas and uncomfortable chairs. ‘Building his business,’ she said. ‘He was very successful, you know. An antiques dealer.’

  Pallioti glanced at Antonio. Sunk into the couch, he had given up the coffee cup and was now studying the tips of his fingers. His nails were blunt and close clipped.

  ‘Did he mention any friends at all? Business acquaintances? Someone he came to see when he was here in Rome?’

  Even as Pallioti asked it, he realized that this was pointless. Nothing suggested the earlier answer might have changed. In fact, it all pointed to the contrary. Maria Valacci and her brother might as well have been strangers.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I – as I said, we weren’t close.’

  Pallioti nodded, and decided to change tack.

  ‘Do you by any chance have a picture?’ he asked. ‘A recent photograph of Signor Trantemento that we might be able to borrow?’

  Antonio looked up. He glanced at his mother as if he were wondering whether or not she was going to lie.

  ‘Not more recent than the ceremony,’ Maria Valacci said finally. ‘That’s the last time we saw him. On the day of the celebration, when he got his medal. The ceremony, and everything – it was on TV. Then we were invited to the dinner. At the Quirinale.’

  She got up from her chair, her thin body unfolding like a spindly ladder. Her son began to get to his feet. He reached a hand towards her, but she waved him away.

  ‘I’m not dead yet,’ she muttered.

  Pallioti, who had been about to rise and offer her his arm, sank back onto the lumpen brocade of his own chair.

  ‘He was frightfully angry with me,’ Maria Valacci added. ‘He rang up and shouted.’

  The small black velvet slippers she wore made a soft hissing sound as she shuffled towards the grand piano that sat in front of one of the windows. The top was down, and laden with picture frames.

  ‘Because you came to the Quirinale?’ Pallioti asked. For Giovanni Trantemento to deny his only relative seemed churlish, no matter how distant they might have been.

  ‘No, no.’ Maria Valacci seemed to be having some trouble seeing in the dim light. She was peering at the forest of frames. Finally she found the one she wanted, reached in and plucked it out.

  ‘No, no,’ she said again. ‘When I nominated him, for the decoration.’

  ‘Nominated him?’

  ‘Yes. I heard about it, you see.’ She turned back towards the two men, executing the turn with the care of a dancer. ‘Well, actually,’ she added, ‘Tonio did, heard about it, and told me – that they were going to do something special for the partisans, on the six-lucretia tieth anniversary. So I, I nominated Giovanni. I put his name forward.’

  She moved slowly back across the room and stopped in front of Pallioti, holding the frame, its face pressed against her black cashmere sweater as if she was afraid he might try to snatch it from her.

  ‘I thought it was the least they could do,’ she said. ‘To thank them. All those people who died, throwing stones and firing silly little handguns at Nazi tanks. And he deserved it, Gio. He truly did. He fought so bravely. He saved someone’s life – ran out into the street and helped a woman who had been shot. He was arrested, and beaten, and escaped, finally. But it saved her life, that woman. It was written about,’ she added. ‘In the paper.’ She shook her head. ‘My mother was so horrible about it. Even about that. She would barely talk to him when he came to see us, even when he got her to Switzerland. She never told him he was a hero. I thought someone should.’

  For a moment Pallioti thought she was not going to give up the picture after all. Then she handed him the frame.

  Turning it over, he saw a tall elderly man, his drawn face haunted as he struggled to smile. He wore a dark suit. Even in a photograph it was obvious that it was expensive, well cut. Probably custom made. A medal winked on his lapel. Antonio stood on one side of him, and on the other side, his sister. Giovanni Battiste’s veined hand rested awkwardly on the shoulder of her pale velvet dress.

  Maria Valacci turned around and shuffled back to the piano. She came back and stood in front of Pallioti, holding out a small black presentation case.

  ‘This is his medal.’

  She opened the box. Inside, a gold medallion nestled on a bed of white satin.

  ‘He gave it to me. Afterwards. That night. He said I deserved it more than he did. I told you.’ She looked at Pallioti and blinked.

  ‘My brother was like that. Modest. He was a brave, modest man.’

  Maria Valacci clicked the box closed, placed it on the table beside her chair, and nodded towards the photograph.

  ‘You will be careful with it, won’t you?’ she asked. ‘It’s the only photo I have, of us all together.’

  ‘Very. I will be very careful with it, I promise.’

  Pallioti got to his feet and extended his hand. He was surprised when she took it in both of hers.

  ‘I loved him, you know,’ she said. ‘Even if I didn’t
know him. He was my brother. A hero.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Will you find the person who did this thing?’

  Maria Valacci’s fingers were surprisingly strong. Pallioti could feel the bones, barely covered by her dry papery flesh.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I will.’

  Antonio Valacci, who pointed out that he had already missed half a day of work and really did have to get back to his office, walked Pallioti down to the street.

  ‘I know what he did, you know.’ Antonio glanced at Pallioti as they stepped out of the building, blinking in the bright autumn light. ‘To make his money, I mean,’ he added. ‘Giovanni. I know he dealt in – whatever you want to call it. Not stamps, anyway. More engravings. Specialized. Boys, wasn’t it?’

  Pallioti nodded. ‘Apparently. Eighteenth-century, I gather. Very discerning. Was your mother aware?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ Antonio laughed. ‘No, no. I think my father might have been,’ he added. ‘That might have explained the coolness. Not that dear Uncle Gio was warm himself. On the contrary, a real cold fish. I found out by mistake.’ He glanced at Pallioti. ‘Amazing what the ministry turns up. I kept quiet, of course.’

  They walked in silence for a moment.

  ‘It was a strange comment,’ Pallioti said finally.

  Antonio glanced at him. ‘Which one?’

  ‘About the medal. Your uncle telling your mother she deserved it more than he did. What do you think he meant?’

  ‘That she was the real hero?’ Antonio shook his head. ‘That getting shot at by Nazis was easier than putting up with their mother? Who knows? That he wouldn’t have got the wretched thing if it wasn’t for her nominating him for it?’ He shrugged. ‘It was nice of him anyway, to give it to her. Unexpectedly gracious. It means a lot to her. Particularly after he was such a bastard. To start with, anyway. Although I suppose that was my fault.’

  Pallioti stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

  Standing opposite him in the sunlit street, Antonio Valacci shrugged.

  ‘Well, I was the one who told my mother about the sixtieth anniversary celebrations. That they were planning on giving medals to the partisans. The ones who were still alive.’ He paused for a moment, then he said, ‘You have to understand, Ispettore, she doesn’t have much in her life, my mother. My grandmother, forgive me for saying it, was a rabid Fascist bitch. You know, the kind who thought Mussolini brought “honour” to Italy because he made the trains run on time and liked smart uniforms. I doubt my father’s parents were much better, from what I heard of them. God knows he wasn’t exactly a bargain. And of course, they never knew what Mama was, or I doubt they would have been so kind to her.’

  ‘What she was?’

  ‘Jewish.’

  Pallioti stood for a moment in the sunlight, absorbing what this must have meant, in occupied Italy in 1944.

  ‘Well, half,’ Antonio added. ‘Genetically. Strictly speaking, according to the tenets of the faith, Jewish though – since her mother was Jewish. I think that’s how it works, doesn’t it? I’m not really sure. Not that I’d guess the Nazis cared. Mother, father, grandparents, great-grandparents. I think Buchenwald welcomed all comers.’

  ‘Your grandmother was Jewish?’

  ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’

  Pallioti nodded. He was trying to build a picture in his head. He had heard of it before, Jewish families who were among the most ardent Fascists. And, he supposed, if they considered themselves Italian first and foremost, why not? Plenty of other people had done it. At least until 1938.

  ‘Her family had converted to Catholicism,’ Antonio Valacci said. ‘Years before. They’d abbreviated their name, the whole thing. And of course, my grandmother married my grandfather. They were good party members. But, yes, my grandmother was Jewish. So my mother was, is, half Jewish. I don’t think it mattered much, at first. But after the occupation, certainly by 1944, even in Pisa – well, you can see why Giovanni was desperate to get them to Switzerland.’

  Yes, Pallioti thought. He could.

  Antonio smiled, but the expression that flashed across his face was more of a grimace.

  ‘I doubt my father would have married her, to be honest,’ he said, ‘if he’d known. But in Switzerland, my grandmother was just another refugee war widow with a daughter. To this day, my mother more or less denies it.’ He shrugged. ‘She can’t help it, I suppose. She was brought up denying it – at first because I doubt they ever thought about it. Then because her life, literally, depended on it – on not being what she was. Of course, my grandmother probably would have died before admitting it.’ He let out a bark of laughter. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t intend that to be funny. But you see, it does explain a lot.’

  Pallioti nodded. ‘They were, where?’ he asked. ‘In Pisa?’

  ‘Yes. Both of my grandparents’ families came from there. It wasn’t an issue, really, even after 1938 when the restrictions came in. No one paid close attention, and as I said, my grandparents had become Catholics, and were good party members. But the families were known. After 1943, people began to develop long memories.’

  ‘And your grandfather was dead.’

  ‘Yes,’ Antonio nodded. ‘I suspect that made my grandmother more vulnerable. She wasn’t a very nice woman. She probably had enemies. Giovanni must have looked at the situation and realized she was sitting on a time bomb.’

  ‘No wonder your mother thought he was God.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Antonio agreed. ‘He did the impossible. He got them out. And I heard all about it. Any time my father wasn’t around, my mother went on, and on, and on. How handsome her brother was. How brave he was. How he’d dragged that woman to safety. What a hero he’d been. I grew up thinking my Uncle Gio was a cross between Superman and the Pope. Meeting him was a bit of a let-down, I’ll tell you. Still,’ Antonio shrugged, ‘when I heard about the sixtieth – that the government was issuing a new medal, and trying to dig up as many of the partisans as they could find to pin it on, I told her. Talk about good intentions paving the way to hell.’

  Pallioti frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No,’ Antonio Valacci rolled his eyes. ‘Well, it surprised me too,’ he said. ‘You see, when I told my mother, she was all excited. She wanted me to find out who to give Giovanni’s name to, and make sure he got on a list for a medal. So I did. I made some calls. I told the story about the woman, and how brave he was and blah, blah, blah. My mother wrote a letter, nominating him. It never occurred to me that he wasn’t proud of it – you know how old men are. Their glory days and all that. Certainly, it never occurred to me he’d be upset. But then again, I really didn’t know him.’

  ‘He was upset?’

  Antonio laughed.

  ‘To put it mildly. When Uncle Gio found out – when the Ministry contacted him with the joyous news that he had been put forward for a medal by his loving sister. Well. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. To put it bluntly, he went mental. Rang up and called her names. I happened to be home. I could hear him on the phone, even though I was across the room. He was shouting. Accusing her of ruining his life.’

  ‘Ruining his life?’

  Antonio Valacci nodded.

  ‘That’s what he said. He was hysterical, I tell you. “First Mama and now you – you’ve, both of you, ruined my life!” Those were the words. You should have seen my mother’s face. I thought she was going to have a heart attack. Honestly. She turned grey. I took the phone out of her hand and hung up on him.’

  Antonio shook his head.

  ‘It wasn’t funny, really,’ he said. He looked at Pallioti and smiled. ‘So, you see,’ he added, ‘the least dear Uncle Gio could do was give her the damn medal. To this day, she thinks he just had a change of heart.’

  ‘Didn’t he?’

  Antonio shrugged. He looked up at the buildings behind them as if he expected to see his mother at the window.

  ‘Not exactly. I telephoned him the next day. From my office.�
�� He smiled, looking somewhat sheepish. ‘You may not believe this, Ispettore,’ he said. ‘But I do love my mother, very much. So, I told dear Uncle Gio exactly what I thought of him.’

  ‘And?’

  Antonio sighed.

  ‘Let’s just say that by the end of the conversation – look,’ he added, ‘I’m not particularly proud of this – I don’t generally go around threatening old men – but, well, I may have suggested that some of his transactions, his sales, and his clients might be looked into a little more carefully than they had been in the past if he didn’t, as they so quaintly say in America, Straighten Up and Fly Right.’

  Pallioti could not help smiling. He was beginning to like Antonio Valacci.

  ‘Straighten Up and Fly Right?’

  ‘I had an American girlfriend, what can I say? Anyway,’ Antonio added, ‘Uncle Gio called my mother the next afternoon and apologized. I came home from work that evening and she told me she’d gone to Mass and confession for the first time in ten years and prayed her head off for her dear, darling brother, and lo and behold, a “miracle” had happened. Imagine.’

  ‘Imagine.’

  ‘And, of course, he accepted the medal.’

  ‘And gave it to her.’

  Antonio nodded.

  ‘And gave it to her.’ They began to walk again. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I don’t think it was just that, honestly – my shaming him, heavy-handing him – whatever you want to call it.’

  ‘No?’ Pallioti asked.

  ‘No.’ Antonio Valacci shook his head. Then he stopped again and looked at Pallioti. ‘When I saw him at the dinner, it was almost as if—’

  He stopped talking, his eyes focused back in the past. Pallioti waited. Antonio Valacci gave himself a small shake. ‘I know it sounds strange,’ he said, ‘but before I threatened him – I doubt, incidentally, that I’d have been able to do any of that, get his sales looked into, but it sounded good – before I did that, he was angry. But more angry the way people are when they’re afraid. Like an animal that’s cornered. They fight and scratch because they’re terrified. But at the dinner, at the Quirinale – perhaps it was just time – but it was as if he’d changed.’