The Secret Messenger. Mandy Robotham
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feel a sense of relief as I hit the cold, fresh air and cross the wide canal towards Giudecca, enjoying the roll of the boat and the slapping of the water against its sides. It’s tempered when a small German patrol boat cuts across us, sailors shouting over the engine’s throaty roar, making my insides swell along with the water. But what words I catch are nothing sinister, general chit-chat only, and I breathe again.
When I arrive, Matteo is at his usual place behind the bar, a few customers in front of him, but as I move to take off my coat he passes me a tied linen package.
‘My wife asks if you can take this to one of the nuns at Santa Eufemia,’ he says. ‘She’s laid up with a bad back.’ His tone is relaxed, as if it’s the most natural of favours to ask.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I won’t be long.’ Since Matteo has never before used me as a general messenger, I guess it’s something to do with my new Resistance task.
The wind whips up a spray as I walk along the waterfront towards the church and I pull the frayed wool of my coat closer. Santa Eufemia is an ancient building with a long history but, compared to some of the more notable churches in Venice, it’s rundown and slightly scruffy. The vast, vaulted space is empty of bodies as I enter through the scratched doorway, but warm compared to outside. I make the sign of the cross, take a seat in a front pew, and wait. When there are no other instructions, you simply wait. There’s lots of meandering and staring into space when you’re a Staffetta.
I consider taking this opportunity to pray – it would please Mama certainly. But I have never been especially religious and the war, with its stories of families being torn apart, severe beatings for no apparent reason than thought crime against fascism, has taken what faith I had left. I wonder if it will ever come back to me.
I barely hear the soft footsteps of someone approaching, only sensing the gentle waft of her habit as a nun approaches. She comes and sits next to me.
‘Evening Sister,’ I say. ‘I have something for you.’ I offer up the parcel, and she smiles and rises.
‘Come,’ she says.
We move behind the altar, through the vestry and beyond into a corridor, the air colder as we step into an open walkway behind the church. On the opposite side of the small garden is an old brick building that looks like a storeroom, with just two blacked-out windows above head height. The nun gets out an old key from under her habit, so big it looks almost theatrical. She unlocks the door, glances left and right, and ushers me in. There’s a glow from a candle in one corner, and from the gloom nearby I hear a single cough. A shifting movement seems to disturb the combination of soap and disinfectant, plus the musty, aged smell all such buildings have.
‘Sister Cara – is that you?’ a voice croaks.
‘I’ve brought you a visitor,’ the nun says, and there’s some more shuffling, although no one approaches.
‘You’ll have to go to him,’ she says to me. ‘He can’t get up.’
She brings another candle and sets it down on an upturned wooden box acting as a table. The cast of light outlines a man, his well-worn, dark clothes peeking out from under a rough woollen blanket. His face is grimy, and in his hairline are crusts of dried blood he hasn’t managed to wash away. Out of the bottom of the blanket sticks a limb, braced with wooden struts and heavily bandaged, a loose old sock unceremoniously stuck over his toes.
‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ the man says in Italian, and there’s a grimace as he tries to haul himself into a sitting position on the old metal bed.
‘No, no don’t move!’ I say in alarm. I pull up a wooden box that looks hardy enough and sit on it. He extends a hand from his half-sitting, half-lying position. Less grimy but not clean.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he says, breathing heavily with the effort. ‘It’s nice to have a visitor. Thank you for coming.’
His Italian is faultless but his accent is strange – foreign perhaps? There’s a small pause during which we simply size each other up. He is handsome under the fresh scratches around his high cheekbones and forehead, dark and with full lips. He looks Italian, but that accent …
A boat horn honks outside and breaks the spell.
‘So, I’ve been told you need some help,’ I say.
He laughs good-naturedly, despite his obvious discomfort. ‘Yes, clearly wasn’t as good a parachutist as I thought.’ And he looks down at his prostrate leg. ‘Well and truly broken.’
He was part of an Allied parachute mission, he explains, designed to drop in radio sets for dispersal across the north of the country, allowing the partisans vital links with the outside world. There are unknown numbers of Allied soldiers still stranded after the Nazi invasion without any contact, as the Germans cleverly suspended all Italian radio communications when they occupied the country in September ’43. Since then, we in Venice have relied heavily on Radio Londra, the BBC’s daily broadcast to Italians, to bring us coded messages about partisan and enemy movements. But Radio Londra is reliant on a good radio signal and we know the fascists have spent millions of lira on jamming equipment to prevent such dispatches reaching us. Even a small network of radios would improve communications between the Allies and the Italian Resistance, but they are of little use lying dormant in this church.
‘Thankfully my radio equipment fared better than me and it’s intact,’ he adds. ‘Would you be willing to transport it across to the main island?’
I think of how big the equipment might be, how I will hide it and look in no way suspicious. A larger bag would almost certainly be searched by a fascist patrol. Even in the gloom, this man sees the working of my mind.
‘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.’
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