Tosca is crying and Ada sits with her. Bruno shakes his head, lowering the binoculars. Elio’s face is set hard. Esmond, still looking down over the five bodies, their five murderers, sees Shelley sitting in the same park a hundred and twenty years ago, writing ‘Ode to the West Wind’. Very quietly, to himself, he mouths: ‘O Wind, if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’
24
They spend Christmas at L’Ombrellino. The Professor comes up in the Bianchi with Bruno, the back loaded down with bottles of wine and food. Maria Luigia’s cousins have given them three chickens, there are carrots and potatoes from the garden. Alessandro has been brewing grappa in the caves at Monte Morello. He and Elio arrive on the Moto Guzzi with a rucksack full of alcohol. Maria Luigia turns up on a bicycle, her plump cheeks flushed from the cold, an enormous salami hanging around her neck, the chickens dangling from the handlebars. Gino Bartali and his wife also cycle up, while Antonio and Tosca, in evening dress, come late, as the chickens are being carved. Antonio’s hair has been carefully cut. He is cleanly shaven and smells of rose water.
‘I wouldn’t let him up here until he looked half-decent,’ Tosca says. She is wearing a long red dress and a red carnation in her hair.
Esmond sits next to Alessandro at lunch, immaculate in his oyster-white suit. After they have eaten, they sip orzo coffee, leaning back in their chairs, and Esmond drapes a fraternal arm around his friend’s shoulder. ‘That was smashing,’ he says.
‘I’ve eaten too much.’ Alessandro opens the button at his waist. ‘I wish Pretini were here. It’s the only thing that spoils it, you know?’
‘I’ve been thinking about him, too. What’s the chance he gives us away? Tells Carità the location of the camp, I mean.’
‘Pretini? Never. He may look like a playboy, but he’s a tough fucker.’
‘It’s pretty strange, this foppish hairdresser now a rebel leader. Only in Italy, I guess.’
Alessandro offers Esmond a cigarette. He takes it and bends his head to the flame of his friend’s lighter. Alessandro lets out a stream of smoke with a sigh. ‘Guys like Pretini, they’re exceptional. It’s obvious why I’m fighting.’ He holds his hand up to his face, smiling. ‘If they don’t go after me because I’m half-Jewish, they’ll go after me because I’m half-black. I’m like a Christmas present to those fuckers, tick all the boxes.’ He laughs. ‘But Pretini, it’s all about idealism, honour. He says the Fascists, the Nazis, they offend his sense of decency. And he’s willing to die for that. I think that’s remarkable.’
After lunch, they sit in front of the fire in the drawing room. The Professor raises a glass to Pretini. They have heard from Morandi, the doctor, who has been brought in to treat him at the Villa Triste, the apartment block in the via Bolognese whose upper floors are now the administrative headquarters of the SD. The Germans have been complaining about the screams coming from the basement rooms, so rumour has it. Pretini has refused to give Carità any information. His bright teeth have been ripped out, he has been thrown down a flight of stone stairs, fourteen bones broken in all, but still he will not speak. The Professor has taken Pretini’s wife and daughter — whose existence was kept from all but a handful of friends, bad for business with the assorted Marchesas and Contessas — up to the Marchese Serlupi’s villa.
‘This may be the last time we are all together,’ the Professor says, peering around the room through thick spectacles. ‘The Allies are on the move again. Things will only get closer to the edge from now on. Elio and Alessandro have what you might call a functioning bomb factory in Monte Morello. In January, we will begin a full-scale campaign of terrorism. The Germans will wish they had never set foot in Florence.’
There is a moan of approval, the clinking of glasses. Antonio, who has taken off his tie and untucked his shirt, kisses Tosca.
‘Maria Luigia is taking charge of CoRa, our radio network. Ferruccio Parri has sent us a high-powered portable transmitter from Milan which we will use to co-ordinate the various cells gathering in the hills. The set here at L’Ombrellino isn’t strong enough to reach the mountain passes. Its presence also poses a threat to Esmond and Ada. With the new machinery we will be able to transmit detailed information to the British SOE. They’ve already sent ammunition and supplies. You will all—’ — his voice catches a little here — ‘be remembered in years to come for your bravery, for your dedication to the people of Florence, the cause of freedom.’
The partisans stand, applauding, and their applause grows louder until it hurts the ears. The noise grows and grows until it gives over to the sound of screaming, the sound of gunfire, the sound of the bombs that explode throughout January. It is the sound of the briefcase bomb left by Alessandro in the lobby of the Fascist Federation on the via dei Servi and the childlike shrieks of the Blackshirt guard whose legs are ripped off by the blast. It is the sound of the bomb that Bruno places in the brothel on the via delle Terme, patting the madam on the bottom and whispering a warning as he leaves. Two SS Sturmbannführers are killed in their underwear, waiting for their girls to arrive. It is the sound of bullets tearing through the greatcoats and shirts and underclothes of the two guards on the Ponte della Vittoria, bullets which come from guns fired out of Antonio’s window. He can never go back to the flat, and he and Tosca join the partisans in the caves at Monte Morello. It is the sound of bombs destroying railway lines, Esmond and Ada’s particular speciality: charges placed at strategic positions on the Florence to Rome line, on the tracks at Campo di Marte, just outside Santa Maria Novella station.
One wintry afternoon, they are strapping sticks of dynamite to the Florence — Bologna line, a line which Mussolini calls the masterpiece of his railway network (although even here, contrary to boasts, the trains don’t always run on time). Ada snaps at Esmond as he fumbles with a fuse. She takes the IMCO lighter from his fingers and lights it. They retreat to the cover of rail-side brush and wait. A rush and a suck of air as the bomb detonates, sending a train carrying six hundred Mauser semi-automatic rifles, sixteen hundred rounds of ammunition, eighty Model 24 Stielhandgranate, twenty-four barrels of Bavarian beer, two refrigerated containers of wurst and schnitzel, a dozen rats and a terrified driver careening into the Arno.
They don’t know it until later, but at the very moment that the train sank beneath the river’s roiled waters, Carità was pressing the cold muzzle of his revolver into the warm nape of Alessandro’s neck. Alessandro, a priest who was watching from the steps of the church tells the Professor that evening, dropped to his knees with a dreamy look on his dark face, his oyster-white suit immaculate and angel-like as he keeled over into the dust.
25
The next day, around eight, Esmond wakes. Tatters is standing up at the end of their bed, ears pricked. Esmond remembers Alessandro, the news of whose death had been given to them by Maria Luigia over the radio the night before, and he feels grief settle over him. Tatters begins to growl and Esmond kicks out at the dog, then regrets it. Tatters steps off the bed, sulking, and patters downstairs. Esmond hears the sound of the front door opening. He reaches over and nudges Ada just as Tatters begins to bark.
‘There’s someone downstairs,’ he says. Ada’s eyes open and she sits up as Esmond leans out over the bannisters. The sound of boots on the wooden floor, voices. Tatters barking.