CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Marco

November 1938

Marco ran home over the Ponte Fabricio and found his father working in the outside seating area. They weren’t speaking, but this was an emergency. Out of breath, he took his father aside.

“Papa, do you remember a blond customer who came to the bar the day Aldo was killed? She was pretty and sat outside. She met with him that day.”

His father frowned. “No, I don’t remember. Why?”

“What about the photographer, who takes pictures of the tourists, for money? The one you always shoo away?”

“You mean Corrado?”

“Yes, was he here that day?”

“I don’t know. He’s a pest though.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“No, but he works at a camera shop in Trastevere. On Via della Lungaretta.”

Marco took off, running full speed over the Ponte Cestio into Trastevere. He darted past mothers with children and deliverymen pushing barrows, then made a left, hurrying under ivy bowers. He ran until he spotted the camera shop up ahead, with a hand-painted sign and storefront.

He burst through the door, startling the elderly shopkeeper, who was small with flyaway white hair. He had been reading the newspaper with a magnifying glass, and he looked up from behind a display case that held an array of used Leica, Bencini, and Kine Exakta cameras.

Marco had no time for small talk. “Sir, does a man named Corrado work here? I need to speak with him.”

“In the darkroom, in back.” The shopkeeper set down the magnifying glass. “But he’s busy.”

“I can’t wait.” Marco came around the counter, and the shopkeeper edged backward, raising his arthritic hands.

“Don’t hurt me!” he cried out, which caught Marco up short. He forgot that some people were intimidated by his uniform.

“I wouldn’t hurt you, sir. I need to see him without delay. It’s an urgent matter, about my family.”

“Okay, I’ll show you. The darkroom must remain light-tight.” The shopkeeper led Marco behind the counter to a heavy curtain, which he moved aside, then knocked at a door, calling out, “Corrado, there’s a man who needs to see you. He says it’s urgent.”

“Fine,” Corrado called from within.

“Use the double door.” The shopkeeper held aside the curtain, and Marco opened the door, found himself in a dark vestibule with another door, and closed the first door behind him. He opened the next door, entering a room that was completely dark, except for a small orange lamplight that illuminated a shelf of bottles and jugs, and a table with trays of liquid. An acrid chemical odor filled the air. A clothesline held drying prints and long strips of negatives, which curled from the bottom.

When Marco’s eyes adjusted, he crossed to Corrado, who stood at an enlarger, shedding a cone of white light on a sheet of photographic paper. “Corrado, I’m Marco Terrizzi.”

“So?” Corrado flicked off the white light, plunging them both into darkness except for the orange lamp.

“My family owns Bar GiroSport, and you take pictures of the customers in the outside seating area. Were you there Thursday afternoon?”

“I’m usually there, until your father makes me go.”

“I need to see the pictures you took that afternoon.”

“I only developed the negatives. I don’t make prints unless somebody orders them, and nobody did.”

“Then let me see the negatives.”

“It’ll cost you.” Corrado slid the photographic paper from the machine, crossed the darkroom to the trays of chemicals, and slid the paper into the liquid. “If you want any prints, that’ll cost you, too.”

“I’ll pay. But you have to do it right now.”

“You’ll pay for that, too. Rush jobs are extra.”

“Fine.”

Corrado turned away and started riffling through negatives hanging from the ropes. The stiff strips made a crinkling sound as they swung into each other. He stopped at one. “This roll is from that day, I believe.”

“Can I see it?” Marco stepped over, squinting in the darkness, and Corrado unclipped the strip of negatives and handed it to him, holding it by the edges.

“Don’t smudge it, in case I get a call. I give out cards with my number, and sometimes they change their minds.”

“Okay.” Marco took the negative strip, and Corrado handed him a photographer’s loupe.

“Go in the vestibule outside. There’s a lightbox there. You can look for yourself.”

“Thank you.” Marco went to the vestibule, where there was a skinny table with a lightbox on top. He located a switch on the box, and it came to glowing life. He placed the negative strip on the box, which illuminated the images in obverse, with white spaces where there was darkness, and vice versa.

Marco placed the loupe on top of the strip, and the images zoomed into magnified focus. The first few were photos of random women on the street, then couples at sidewalk cafés. He kept going until Tiber Island appeared, then the Piazza San Bartolomeo all’Isola. Toward the end of the strip were images from the seating area in front of Bar GiroSport.

Marco’s heart began to pound. The first image was of an older couple, and the second of a family, smiling at the camera. The third was a shot of a pretty girl passing by, and in the background was an empty table in the seating area. He wondered if it was where the blond anti-Fascist had been sitting before she was in the stockroom with Aldo.

Marco moved the loupe to the next frame. It was a picture of another pretty girl passing the bar, but in the background was a clear photo of the blonde, taken as she was emerging from the bar.

Marco felt a surge of relief. He could prove his loyalty and his innocence. The blonde’s face was fully visible, and the photo of her, once enlarged, could even be used to identify her.

He eyed her through the loupe, and her face stared back at him, spooky in the obverse, as if her head were a skull. He knew that once he identified her, she would be arrested and beaten for information.

Marco paused, reflecting. Aldo would want him to protect the blonde, not turn her in.

But Marco felt a flame of anger, too. The blonde had manipulated Aldo. She had sent him to Orvieto for guns. Aldo would be alive but for her and her ilk.

Marco had to think of himself, too. He needed to clear his name. To get his job back. He had bet his future on the party.

He made a decision.

“Corrado!” he called out, flicking off the lightbox.