Venice, late February 1944
It seems like a lengthy wait until my next visit to Giudecca – to Jack and the task ahead of me in transporting his handmade receivers. Luckily, Mimi is there to distract me.
‘So, come on, tell me all,’ my oldest and best friend says as we nestle into the corner space of a crowded bar in the Santa Croce district. It’s tucked down a side street and not widely known by Nazi or fascist soldiers. Still, we’re careful to keep our voices low, hunkering under a fog of cigarette smoke for cover. Mimi’s big eyes are even wider than normal, her painted red lips pursed in anticipation. With her near-black curls, she often reminds me of the American cartoon character, Betty Boop, though Mimi is infinitely more beautiful.
‘I’ve made contact with an Allied soldier, and I’m to transport some vital packages,’ I tell her. Saying it aloud still makes me fizzle with both nerves and excitement, and I can see Mimi – a seasoned Staffetta herself – is impressed. I tell her why the soldier can’t deliver the radios himself and she’s aghast at the story. Since Mimi also has a reputation as a shameless matchmaker, I brush her off when she asks whether Jack is good-looking, saying simply, ‘He’s very grubby.’
For all her flightiness, Mimi understands the risk I’m taking. ‘Be careful,’ she says, although she knows I will be, as we all are – have been trained to be. We are all too aware of the consequences of being caught; man, woman or child, the Nazi and fascist regimes are uncompromising when it comes to betrayal.
Being with Mimi, full of fun and smiles, and talking about her latest flirtations, is the release I need when I’m holding myself in for days at a time, strapping myself into a straitjacket of a different persona, whether it’s at the Reich office or slipping into another guise as a Resistance messenger. It’s good to feel like the real Stella, even for just a few hours, and we dip into what I’ve come to think of as ‘normal conversation’, events untouched by war – the handsome operator at the telephone exchange where she works by day, and her plans to secure his affections. ‘You’re incorrigible,’ I say to her, although I’m full of admiration for Mimi’s ability to rise above the dense cloud of conflict. She’s not unaffected, but she refuses to let it crush her natural optimism.
‘You never know, my current fancy could well have a nice friend,’ she says with mischief.
‘Stop that, Mimi!’ I chide her. While I’m not averse to having someone in my life, I just can’t fit them into it right now.
The next day passes slowly, and I find myself willing the clock to go faster and release me from the endless tapping and chatter. At lunch, I simply have to escape the stifling Reich office and take a walk along the water towards the Arsenale, drinking in my share of the sun’s glittery reflection on the lagoon. Reluctantly, I cut into the side streets behind, where the sun is spliced with shadows and there’s an instant chill, knowing there are some second-hand bookshops I can trawl through to pick up a few cheap volumes for Jack. My own shelves are full of mostly Italian classics, and I’m not sure he would be in the mood for the classically Italian Boccaccio, amusing though he is. I pick out something light, and then an English copy of Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia, thinking it really will take his mind far from Venice. I treat myself to a cheap, dog-eared Italian translation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, having left my old copy at my parents’ house.
I’m walking back towards the office when I spy someone familiar standing on a small bridge gazing intently into the still canal water, his elbows leant on the brickwork. I make to turn sharply, away from the waterside. Too late – he pulls up his stare and clearly recognises me. His expression means I have no choice but to approach Cristian De Luca like the friendly colleague that I am, the pleasing office girl and follower of our great leader, Il Duce.
‘Have you spotted the answer to the universe in there, or simply some poor unfortunate after a night with too much grappa?’ I say lightly.
He looks up, smiles instead of grimaces, catching my humour. ‘No, I’m just admiring the shapes, the sunlight. It’s beautiful.’
He’s right. The reflection of the houses onto the green channel creates warped lines and colours, like some enticing, modernist painting. Every second, each subtle swirl morphs the scene into something more beautiful.
‘See, even the water is art in Venice,’ he says.
‘Really? Even under the cloak of war?’ I turn my eyes away from the water and upwards, to the drone of aircraft overhead – perhaps Allied bombers determined to lay waste to some poor unsuspecting Italian city, either Turin or Pisa. No one around us scrambles for cover; in among the revered beauty of Venice, we’re generally safe, as it’s those vessels out on the lagoon – fishermen or ferries – that run the risk of being strafed with bullets.
He smiles some understanding, showing white teeth and full lips under his neat moustache. I watch his brown eyes track across my face, trying to read me. I’ve seen that deep, enquiring look before – in Nazi and fascist officers, trying to scan inside you for the dirty truths hidden behind the innocent facade. I’m still unsure what Cristian’s motives are though.
Finally, he lets out a laugh. ‘You Venetians! You’re far more practical than the city itself, clearly.’
‘Perhaps it’s a good thing we don’t wear our rose-tinted glasses all the time, or we wouldn’t have a city to wallow in,’ I shoot back, though with an element of humour. ‘Plus, we would fall in the canal far too often – and that’s never good for anyone’s health.’
He pauses to ponder again, eyes on the water, as if he can’t steal them away. I’m just about to walk on when he raises himself up to his full height alongside me. Now I’m genuinely curious.
‘So tell me, what were you really thinking? Not about to toss yourself in, I hope?’ I add.
‘If you must know, I was wondering how many people – classes, creeds and colours – have travelled under this bridge over the centuries. What they would have worn, talked about, were eating, drinking or reading.’ He looks at me directly, like it’s not a musing or a rhetorical question. It’s the longest conversation we’ve ever had. And the most revealing. ‘Do you ever wonder that, Signorina Jilani?’ he adds.
I have, many times. Despite its familiarity, and the practicalities of living in a place that hovers between reality and fantasy, I spent endless hours of my childhood pondering over the colours and past opulence of my own city, the love stories buried in the mud, alongside the wooden piles on which Venice is suspended. Some of those stories were created in my head, to be crudely drawn on the paper while sitting in the kitchen next to my grandfather, as he smoked and dozed. It’s the war that has halted my imaginings on the past or the future, stone dead. Much like my lack of religious faith, I hope it’s temporary. These days, I dream only in grey – a slate war hue. The Venice of now is all that matters; day by day, it must survive and bring with it some sort of future, so we can bring back the colour and vitality to our city.
Cristian’s brow furrows at my silence, and I bring myself back from a sugary nostalgia. ‘So, do you wonder what it might have been like?’ he presses.
‘A darn sight smellier, I would imagine,’ I reply, and turn abruptly off the bridge, in the direction of the Platzkommandantur. I’m