‘Carità raided the salon this morning. Pretini had no chance,’ she says as they follow Esmond into the kitchen. ‘They found the two families in the rooms at the back, handed them over to the Gestapo, hauled Pretini and his assistant, Giacomo, off to the Villa Triste. At least we found out where the leaks have been coming from. There was a priest with Carità, a Father Idelfonso. He’s been hanging around the monasteries and convents, picking up news from the monks. Unworldly bastards don’t know any better and reveal everything. One of them must have told him about Pretini. Now we just have to hope that Pretini’s able to keep his mouth shut about the location of the camp.’
Esmond places a bottle of grappa on the table and Tosca pours herself a drink. ‘He’s tough. There’s nothing to worry about there. And we’re still going to take Gobbi down,’ she says, gulping and pouring another. ‘We need to prove they can’t scare us.’
On Saturday morning, the twenty-seventh, Ada and Esmond stand in the garden with their binoculars trained down on the streets around the synagogue. They see nothing, they hear nothing, and they feel useless and cut off now that Pretini is no longer on hand to keep them up to date with news from the streets. It is only on the Sunday evening, when Gino Bartali pulls up on his bicycle, his peaked cap and racing colours bright even in winter, that they learn.
Bartali tells them that SS Captain Alberti brought specially trained commandos over from Trieste to manage the round-up. Jews were hunted down in all corners of the city: in the convents, in the hospitals, in the empty galleries of the Bargello where several had been hidden by Professor Rossi. Eight Jews in their seventies were taken from a care home in Novoli and rolled in their wheelchairs to the slatted train at Santa Maria Novella station.
Carità had led gangs through the streets of the Jewish quarter breaking windows, entering houses and looting. What they didn’t steal, they destroyed. They found six grubby-faced children hiding in a cellar and Carità led them up to the station himself, waving the train off as it chugged slowly out of Santa Maria Novella station. That train would eventually, after agonising stops on windswept mountain passes, long waits at empty platforms whose lamps swung yellow light into blackness — all of this seen through slats no wider than a finger — end up at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The last man who stepped onto the train at Santa Maria Novella that Sunday morning, holding himself very tall despite the weight he must have felt, was Nathan Cassuto, the city’s youthful Chief Rabbi.
Bartali also gives them a message from Bruno. They are to meet at the side of Santo Spirito at six-thirty the next evening. Esmond should bring his revolver.
22
It is cold as they make their way down into the city. The trees have dropped their leaves on the lanes and there is damp squelching beneath their feet. It had rained earlier in the day and now there is a fine mist. The lights of the town look smudged. Esmond is wearing George Keppel’s ulster, the revolver snug in one pocket.
As they reach the first houses, he hears the drone of aeroplanes overhead. They look up as searchlights slash across the sky. The anti-aircraft guns crackle over Fiesole but the planes surge on, through the air and mist.
The red coal of a solitary Toscano burns in the shadows behind the facade of Santo Spirito. Esmond and Ada walk along to the right of the church where they find Bruno attached to the glowing cigarillo, Elio and Alessandro beside him. ‘We’re waiting for Antonio and Tosca,’ Bruno says. Esmond stands back and looks up at the darkened windows of St Mark’s. He picks out the French windows of his old studio, the rooftop terrace where he’d spent his sweltering days three summers ago. This is his seventh December in Florence, he realises. He asks Bruno for a smoke and lights it, brightening them all for a moment with the flare of his match. Five earnest, eager faces. A few minutes later, Antonio and Tosca arrive. They gather around Bruno.
‘Elio’s going to make the hit,’ Bruno says. Esmond has noticed before that, when they discuss death, they speak like characters in a trashy American novel. He gives a little smile in the darkness. ‘We’ll get him in front of San Frediano, at the Piazza di Castello. I’ll be waiting around the corner. If Elio misses, I’ll go after Gobbi.’
‘I won’t miss,’ Elio says. He looks very young in the dim light, Esmond thinks. His round glasses reflect the Toscano.
‘There are guards on both bridges — the Vittoria and the Carraia. We need to have them covered. Make sure that Elio can escape. If they come near, we shoot them, is that understood? Antonio and Tosca, you take the guards on the Ponte della Vittoria; Esmond and Ada, you’ll be on the Ponte alla Carraia. Alessandro will have the Moto Guzzi to get Elio away afterwards. Listen, Ada, here’s a gun for you.’ He hands her a small Beretta that she places quickly in the pocket of her jacket.
The seven friends look at each other for a moment and then, without speaking, make their way in separate groups up towards the river. Esmond hears the engine of the motorbike start and then fade into the distance. He and Ada wend their way through the streets directly behind the Lungarno until they come to a small passageway leading to the riverfront. They lose themselves in shadows and look over towards the bridge. The two German soldiers are smoking in the mist, waterproof jackets over their uniforms. There is no traffic on the Lungarno. They can hear the river slapping against its banks every now and again, the sound of the Germans talking. Esmond looks at his watch. It is twenty past seven. The revolver is heavy in his pocket.
They hear the bells of Santo Spirito chime seven-thirty, those of San Frediano answering a few moments later. Ada places a swift kiss on his cheek. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she says. They wait. The breeze over the river swirls the mist like a brush through grey paint. They wait for the sound of Elio’s gun. Five minutes pass, now ten. When the bells toll quarter to eight, first Santo Spirito, then San Frediano, Esmond gives Ada’s hand a squeeze.
‘You stay here,’ he says. ‘I’m going to wander along and see if I can see anything.’
‘Be careful.’
He walks in the darkness thrown by the buildings, his hand in his pocket, his fingers wrapped around the cold metal of the gun. He stops for a while at the midpoint of the Lungarno, where he can see both sets of guards. The two on the Ponte della Vittoria are sitting down on the stone wall playing whist, holding their cards inside their jackets to shield them from the rain. He stands there, watching, for another ten minutes. He wonders how long Bruno will wait before giving up. He decides to make his way along to the piazza in front of San Frediano. He keeps himself hidden against the dark bulk of the buildings, stepping out into the street to avoid the cone of light beneath a streetlamp. As he’s there, in the middle of the road, he hears a door slam shut ahead of him.
He scurries further along, pressing against the damp stone of the next building. He sees a man walking towards him, hands in the pockets of an overcoat, stopping for a moment to light a cigarette and then walking on. The bells of Santo Spirito begin to strike eight. Suddenly, appearing through the mist behind the man, a figure, running, a gun glinting in the streetlight. The assailant lets out a high cry, audible over the bells, holds the pistol out straight-armed, and then nothing. Esmond watches with horror as the man turns around to face his pursuer. Elio looks down at his gun, pulls at it and slaps it against his knee in frustration as the man turns again and begins to run lumberingly down the Lungarno away from Elio, towards Esmond.
In the seconds it takes for San Frediano to ring out — a single peal and then eight deep notes — Esmond has drawn the revolver from his pocket and stepped from the shadows. The sprinting Colonel Gobbi doesn’t see him until it’s too late. He stumbles into Esmond’s arms, the cigarette falling from his mouth. Esmond holds him up with his left arm and relief passes across the man’s face.