A part from an Allied landing south of Rome, winter and the new year did not bring the partisans good news. Luciano and his men returned from their mission safely and with the information that Ciano and the other members of the Grand Council who had deposed Mussolini had been sentenced and shot.
‘It’s rumoured that the firing squad did a bad job of it too,’ said Partridge, shivering. ‘Somebody had to finish the wounded men off with a bullet to the temple.’
Parts of the mountains were snowed over and daily life, while still dangerous, was full of isolation and boredom. Rosa’s convent upbringing and her earlier poverty and imprisonment had strengthened her for partisan life. Even Starling commented admiringly on her capacity to stay vital on small amounts of food and her ability to remain alert with little sleep. When the men were on their night missions, it was Rosa who kept watch over the camp.
One day when she was mopping down the makeshift hospital, Starling came to see her. ‘Some Allied parachutists have come in,’ he said. ‘They are at a farm over near the ridge. One of them has broken his leg. I want you to come with me. I will teach you to shoot on the way. It’s about time you learned to fire straight.’
Rosa did her best to keep a serious face. Starling was referring to the incident a few days earlier when her pistol had accidentally fired when she threw her kitbag down. The bullet had ricocheted off a rock, narrowly missing Starling’s head. She knew his offer was a sign of how much his respect for her had grown since they’d first met. It was practical too. One of the women at least needed to know how to shoot a rifle if the men were away and the camp needed to be defended.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Rosa told him. ‘But I’m not shooting birds or rabbits. I’ll only shoot targets that deserve it.’
‘Understood,’ said Starling, holding up some rusty cans on a string. He smiled. Rosa thought it was the first time she had ever seen his teeth bared at her without it being hostile.
‘You’re quite charming when you smile,’ she told him, pulling on her coat.
‘And you’re quite charming when you shut up!’ he replied.
The partisans didn’t share much about their lives before they joined the Flock. Most of them had no idea what each other’s real names were. It was a way to protect their families in case one of them was caught and talked under torture. Rosa guessed Starling was about twenty-five years of age. She also presumed, although she wouldn’t say it, that he had been crossed in love. Why else was he so disparaging of women?
They walked into the woods and stopped when Starling found a fallen log. He placed the cans on top of it.
‘Are you sure this is all right?’ asked Rosa. ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to waste ammunition?’
Starling shrugged. ‘Don’t waste it then. Shoot straight.’
He showed Rosa the correct way to hold a gun, focus on her sights and aim at the target. ‘If you keep your elbows tucked in, it will help to keep the gun steady,’ he told her. ‘And squeeze the trigger, don’t pull or jerk it.’
Rosa fired. She hit the tin she was aiming for first go.
‘Not bad,’ said Starling. ‘But you flinched. You have to get over that.’
‘To tell you the truth,’ Rosa confided, ‘I loathe guns. I hate what they stand for.’
She had spoken without thinking and waited for Starling to explode with a diatribe on the weakness of women. Instead, he patted her on the back and said, ‘That’s all right, Raven. Just as long as you learn to hate Germans more.’
There was a faithful stream of supporters in Florence and neighbouring villages who risked their lives to bring the partisans food, clothing and news. The local farmers sheltered Allied soldiers and hid young Italian men avoiding conscription. Some village priests saved Jews from round-ups by slipping them into their congregations. Luciano saw the role of the Flock as being as much about protecting these civilians as it was to fight the German army and assist the Allies.
One day, one of the supporters from Florence, a man by the name of Signor di Risio, arrived on an oxcart. He’d disguised himself as a farmer, successfully Rosa thought, in his patched pants and worn hat.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, greeting Luciano. ‘But the Germans have requisitioned my truck. The journey’s taken me longer than expected.’
The partisans were overjoyed when they saw what Signor di Risio had brought: woollen coats and sweaters, boots and shoes. The Flock had been lining their clothes with newspaper and cutting up rugs to use as insoles to keep warm.
‘Here,’ said Partridge, handing Rosa a magenta coat. She tried it on. The coat was tailored with a belted waist and shawl collar. The partisans whistled and Rosa gave them a twirl.
‘You’ll only be able to wear it at the camp, unfortunately,’ said Starling. ‘You don’t look like a farmer’s wife in it. You look like you’ve walked straight off Via Tornabuoni.’
‘That’s exactly where all this stuff came from,’ said Signor di Risio. ‘Many merchants there decided they’d rather give their goods to you than see them carted off by the Germans. The enemy have been raiding the stores by the lorry-load and sending everything to Germany.’
Partridge adjusted the camel-coloured trench coat he had put on. ‘They aren’t paying for them?’ he asked, looking outraged.
‘Some of the Germans pay, but with notes printed off in the Vienna Mint at an exchange rate that makes it worthless for us. Mind you, for the merchants who fled after the Allies bombed Florence in September, the Germans simply take what they want from their shops, closed up or not.’
Luciano shook his head. ‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘Thanks to Mussolini, the Italians are now the slaves of the Germans.’
Rosa thought of the furniture she’d had to leave stored at Antonio’s shop. She pictured each piece—so lovingly chosen and cherished for its uniqueness—being carted off by barbarians who probably would not understand its true worth. Antonio might have thought that Rosa charming customers with her stories of the history of the piece was good selling, but he had never palmed off an ordinary piece of furniture as something more than what it was to even the most naïve customer, unlike other furniture dealers. Every piece had to be special. Now all that love was being brutalised and pillaged. Rosa shut her eyes. She couldn’t think about Antonio or the shop. Survival for her had become a numbness of mind. She thought only of each task before her and never about the future. There was no knowing if the peasant woman who brought them potatoes, or Signor di Risio, or any of the partisans standing around the cart would be alive the next day. Alive the next minute. Life had become ephemeral. Rosa could not allow herself to become too attached to anything.
The partisans thanked Signor di Risio and watched him on his way before returning to their duties.
‘Raven, come with me,’ Luciano called to Rosa.
She followed him to the storeroom. It was surprisingly cosy, with a blanket curtain across the door and a thick rug on the floor. The shutters were open to let in the weak winter light, but at night they were closed. Sometimes, when Rosa was on night watch, she saw Marisa tramp across the yard and knock on the door. But she didn’t allow herself to think too much about what went on after that either.
Luciano pulled out a chair for Rosa and indicated for her to sit down. The storeroom was much warmer than outside but their breath still made steam in the air. Rosa pulled the tie of her coat closed and Luciano tucked his hands under his arms.
‘Do you remember when we used to tour?’ he asked. ‘It was so warm some nights we couldn’t sleep.’
Rosa recalled the hot night in Lucca when she was worried Sibilla would become dehydrated. She’d taken her to the hotel courtyard where it was cooler. In her memory she saw Luciano stepping out from the shadows, his braces down and his white singlet damp with sweat. The recollection made her warm despite the freezing air. She realised she was blushing.
Luciano smiled. ‘I think of those days when I’m on night watch and my feet are turning to ice,’ he said. ‘I force myself to imagine that I’m standing on the burning cobblestones of one of the piazzas we played in, shimmering light all around me and sweat running down my back.’
Rosa laughed. The memory created a bond between them. Luciano asked her about Sibilla and the twins. He was relieved when she told him the children were in Switzerland.
‘It’s one less thing to worry about regarding reprisals,’ he said grimly.
It was the first time since Rosa had joined the Flock that she and Luciano had spoken of personal matters. Although he had been grateful for what Rosa had done for Carlo, it had created a rift between them. Or perhaps their lack of conversation was simply because the world was upside down and the past didn’t register with anyone any more. Rosa herself could barely remember giving birth to her children, being a mother. Deep down in her heart she loved them, but it was more with the memory of the love of the passionate person she’d once been and not the machine that she had become. Passionate people didn’t survive wars. They lost their nerve and made mistakes. Rosa had striven to master herself. I shall gain mastery over my heart. She winced when she remembered the words she had seen in the Marchesa’s chamber and repeated in Nerezza’s notebook. She looked at Luciano and suddenly understood what it meant. To subdue one’s emotions, one’s hopes and dreams, and focus only on survival—and, hopefully, triumph. As long as there was a war to fight, she and Luciano could not revive old feelings.
Luciano shifted his gaze to the window, lost in thought for a moment. Something was bothering him.
‘What is it?’ Rosa asked.
Luciano lit a cigarette stub and blew out a puff of smoke. ‘There is a staffetta coming to Borgo San Lorenzo,’ he said. ‘One of our best. She raises money from our supporters. I need you to go to the town to meet her and collect the money. You’ll be watched. You have to be careful.’
‘I’m going alone?’ Rosa asked.
Luciano shifted uncomfortably. ‘Woodpecker will take you to the stop before the factory where the other passengers get on. The driver is one of us. He’ll support the story that you are coming from Florence if anyone questions him. But once you are in Borgo San Lorenzo, you’ll have to find your own way. There’s a restaurant there where the staffetta will meet you. It’s a place favoured by Germans and fascist officials.’
Rosa’s eyes widened. Now she understood Luciano’s discomfort. He was sending a lamb amongst wolves. She wondered if this mission was the reason that Starling had insisted on training her not only in rifle shooting but also in firing her pistol at close range. Did he expect that she might need to defend herself?
‘It’s best in this situation to be right under their noses,’ explained Luciano, rubbing his hand over his face. ‘It’s when strangers meet in secret that suspicions are raised. Signor di Risio has obtained you a suitable dress, perfume and so on. You can wear your new coat. There will be a man with the staffetta so it doesn’t seem out of place for two women to be dining unaccompanied. Hopefully that will deter any amorous Germans from imposing on you.’
Rosa sucked in a breath. She was afraid. While she was at the camp she didn’t feel danger for herself, only for the men when they went out on missions. But this was a war and she was part of the freedom army. She had to play her role if that’s what she was asked to do. Obviously Luciano had his reasons for sending her, although she was touched to see that it distressed him to be putting her in danger. Because of that, she did her best to quell the cold fear in her stomach and put on a brave face.
‘How am I going to recognise this staffetta?’ she asked.
Luciano smiled. ‘You’ll recognise her,’ he said. ‘Orietta hasn’t changed so much since you last saw her.’
Borgo San Lorenzo would have been an attractive town in peacetime, located on the left bank of the Sieve River and surrounded by hills. But the bombing by the British airforce the previous Christmas and the cold winter gave the place the melancholy air of a town that had lost two hundred people.
The bus driver struck up a conversation with Rosa, who sat directly behind him to avoid the other passengers seeing her face. He asked her set questions to which Luciano had given her the answers, about where she was coming from and who she was visiting, to throw any spies on the bus off her scent. But when the bus reached the station, the other passengers seemed more interested in hurrying to the safety of their homes than paying attention to the attractive stranger in the expensive coat.
At the bus station there was a dog standing to attention, looking hopefully at each passenger as they passed.
‘Ah, Fido,’ said the bus driver, pulling a piece of cheese from his pocket and giving it to the dog. ‘His master saved him from a dangerous river when he was a stray puppy,’ the driver explained to Rosa. ‘Fido is quite a well-known character in town: he always accompanied his master to the bus station each morning and returned every evening to greet him when he came home from work.’ The bus driver patted the dog on the head. ‘Although poor Signor Soriano won’t be coming home any more, Fido still comes every evening and waits for him.’
‘The bombing?’
The driver nodded grimly. ‘They were aiming for the German fortifications, but they blew up a lot of innocent people instead.’
Rosa cast her eyes down. When was all this killing going to end?
The bus driver nodded towards a long street. ‘Now, if you walk straight ahead you will come to a piazza,’ he told her. ‘The restaurant you want is on the left.’
Rosa thanked the bus driver and patted Fido, who, the driver assured her, was being taken care of by Soriano’s widow and the people of the town, before setting off on her way. The loaded pistol she carried in her bag weighed on her shoulder.
Rosa steadied her breathing when she found the piazza and spotted the restaurant with its canopied door and French windows. She recalled how the partisans had looked at her with envy when they saw her dressed up and being taken to the forest by Woodpecker, guessing she was being sent on an assignment. Their nerves were strained by weeks of inactivity. They preferred risk to waiting. Only Marisa and Genoveffa were fully occupied with preparing food and other domestic chores, and Fiamma with three soldiers suffering from influenza. Rosa recalled Luciano’s expression when she was leaving. He didn’t utter a word but it was there in his eyes. Come back, he was saying. She understood then that what existed between them was only being held back by the catastrophe they found themselves in and by Rosa’s love for Antonio. The image of Fido waiting for a man who would never return came to Rosa. But as quickly as the picture formed she pushed it from her mind. She couldn’t afford to have those thoughts, particularly before a dangerous mission; that’s why she preferred not to think at all.
She handed her coat and scarf to the coat-check girl as well as the overnight bag she had brought with her. She straightened her dress before entering the restaurant. It featured padded shoulders and a wraparound bodice, and it was simple and elegant: the kind of dress she might have worn before the war. Rosa had the sense she was slipping into a snake pit when she saw the number of SS officers and fascist officials seated in the restaurant. She had styled her hair so that a curl hid one side of her face in case she needed to turn away if she saw someone she knew. The women in the restaurant were mostly the diamond-clad German mistresses of the high command, but she did see one Italian woman feeding a German officer a fig. Rosa lifted her chin and did her best to hide her disgust. Not all Germans were bad people; she understood human nature well enough to know that. But all Germans were the enemy, and anyone who took one as a friend or a lover was a traitor as far as Rosa was concerned. Besides this, the SS officers were the worst of the worst. Rosa was surprised a partisan hadn’t finished them off with a bomb thrown in the window one evening. But perhaps the thought of the reprisals the townspeople would suffer deterred them from action.
Orietta was sitting in a booth by the window with a man in a silk suit. She had chosen the most conspicuous spot in the restaurant for anyone passing by, but Rosa guessed that she had her reasons.
‘My darling sister,’ she said, rising to greet Rosa. ‘I hope it wasn’t too arduous for you to travel at night? I was worried the bus would be shot at or bombed if you travelled during the day.’
Rosa returned Orietta’s embrace. ‘Not at all,’ she said, playing her part. ‘I’m so happy to see you.’
‘This is Emanuele,’ said Orietta, introducing the man. ‘He’s been very keen to meet you.’
Emanuele was in his late thirties with a receding hairline and large, wide-set eyes. Rosa’s heart dropped when she saw the fascist insignia on his lapel until she realised it was only for appearance. He rose from his chair to greet her and took her hand.
‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Signorina Gervasi,’ he said, using Rosa’s undercover name.
Rosa, Orietta and Emanuele sat down and made fictional chitchat about mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles who didn’t exist. Orietta introduced Emanuele as a banker. Rosa wondered what he really did. He spoke with a slight lisp. Rosa was intrigued by the gold-and-ruby signet ring on his finger. He had smooth skin and good teeth. He didn’t look like someone who was starving through the war, but perhaps that evening none of them did. Orietta was wearing a silk taffeta dress with a sweetheart neckline and looked the part of a wealthy young woman. Her code name in the Flock was the Canary.
The waiter brought them the dinner menus. Rosa had not seen so much food in years. The prices were black market but the variety was plentiful. She chose the carrot soup and the tortelli di patate, which was the speciality of the town. She thought it was sufficient to look like a healthy, feminine appetite without spending too much of the Flock’s hard-won funds. Orietta also ate elegantly but modestly while Emanuele tucked into the beefsteak, the most outrageously expensive item on the menu, with gusto. Rosa wondered if it was what he thought necessary to keep his cover. Luciano had said that the best resistance work was done right under the enemy’s nose.
When they were ready for dessert, the waiter returned with the menu. Rosa was dismayed when she saw all that was available were peach dishes: baked peaches, peaches in wine, peach cake and peach custard.
‘The chef apologises,’ explained the waiter. ‘But all we have is tinned peaches.’
Before the war, there was nothing Rosa enjoyed more than to eat a peach picked straight from the tree. She loved the bright colour, the fragrant smell, the soft, moist flesh. She even liked tinned peaches in winter. But the standard Allied food drop to the partisans always included tinned peaches and eating the slimy, half-frozen fruit from the can in winter had nearly turned Rosa off them for life. But to maintain appearances she chose the baked peaches.
During dessert, more small talk ensued. Rosa was careful not to look around the room. She didn’t want to catch anybody’s eye and raise interest in herself. She continued to be intrigued by Emanuele. His manner was smooth, yet there was something about him that made her uneasy. But then, Rosa had to allow they were in the midst of the enemy. It would be difficult for even the most levelheaded person to remain completely at ease.
Emanuele paid the bill and excused himself to go to the men’s room. Rosa took out her compact and powdered her nose. Her heart skipped a beat. She saw the Marchesa Scarfiotti in the mirror’s reflection. She was leaving the private dining room with a fascist officer and they were heading towards the coat-check. Rosa was out of their direct view, but then an official car pulled up outside the restaurant and in a moment the Marchesa and her companion would pass by the window to reach it. Rosa dropped her bag as an excuse to hide herself. A comb slid under the table. She fumbled around on the floor, pretending to be searching for it. Her hands were trembling.
‘Can I help you, signorina?’ asked the waiter.
‘It’s all right,’ said Rosa, holding up the comb. ‘I’ve found it.’
She straightened when the car outside the window pulled away. Orietta had sensed something was wrong but Rosa communicated with her eyes that the danger was gone. Yet somehow it wasn’t. The sight of the Marchesa had caused a queasy feeling in Rosa’s stomach that wasn’t the result of over-eating. It was because of what she knew was going on at the Villa Scarfiotti, but was powerless to stop.
It had been arranged for Rosa and Orietta to stay in a hotel overnight and for them to part publicly at the bus station before daybreak the following morning. Emanuele walked them to the hotel, then bade them goodnight before continuing to his own accommodation.
The hotel room wasn’t heated but its floral wallpaper and overstuffed furniture were homely. Orietta checked for listening devices and found nothing. But the walls were thin and the women spoke softly to each other. Despite the chill, Rosa washed herself in the bath with lukewarm water. She had not slept in a proper bed for months and the clean sheets and the soft pillows were luxuries to her. Orietta climbed into the same bed with Rosa; it was the only way to keep warm. The women intertwined their feet together.
‘You’ve got to enjoy comfort when you’ve got it,’ said Orietta, fluffing her pillow and looking up at the ceiling. ‘That’s what I’ve learnt. I seem to do most of my sleeping on crowded trains these days.’
Rosa turned to her. ‘Who is Emanuele? Am I allowed to ask?’
Orietta shook her head. ‘Honestly, the less you know about anyone the better it is for you and the network. He’s been working for the partisans since September and has proved himself to be very clever. His only weakness is that he loves the high life and isn’t good at depriving himself if the occasion calls for it.’
‘I noticed that,’ said Rosa.
‘Now,’ said Orietta, rubbing Rosa’s frozen hands, ‘tell me how Luciano is faring and how things are in the mountains.’
Rosa told Orietta about camp life, and described how Luciano had rescued her and the villagers. The women would have talked all night, but soon the comfort of lying in a bed and the tension of the dinner overtook them and they fell asleep.
In the morning, while they were dressing, Orietta gave Rosa the money for the partisans. It was hidden in a hollowed-out book.
‘Now, I believe you have a fully loaded pistol with you?’ she said. ‘That’s for me.’
Orietta’s job was a dangerous one so Rosa wasn’t surprised that Luciano had used her as a courier to deliver a weapon to his sister. Rosa was going to be met at the bus station by Woodpecker, so she’d have her own armed protection back to the camp and didn’t require the gun. She handed it over carefully, the way Starling had taught her.
‘Thanks,’ said Orietta, tucking the pistol into a scarf and pushing it into her purse. ‘Someone has been befriending Allied soldiers in the forest and telling them that he has a stash of weapons and food in a barn. When they follow him, they find the militia waiting for them. Whoever he is, he’s slippery, but I’ll find him.’
A chill ran down Rosa’s spine. ‘You’re going to kill him? I thought you were only a staffetta?’
‘If I have to, yes,’ said Orietta, straightening her collar in the mirror and slipping on her shoes. ‘This person knows too much about the Allied soldiers and the partisans around Florence. Sometimes a staffetta needs to become an assassin.’
‘Does Luciano know you are doing such a dangerous thing?’ Rosa asked.
Orietta laughed. ‘Luciano has his old-fashioned views of women, but this is a war. Everyone has to fight.’
Rosa was shocked but didn’t say anything. Orietta was right: this was a war and everyone had to do what they were called to do. A series of images of the former Orietta played in her mind: the woman who sewed an exquisite baby dress for Sibilla; played the violin beautifully; and polished Antonio’s antiques to a high shine. This was what war did. It changed people. It had changed Rosa too. She’d almost triggered a grenade when she’d thought Luciano was a Nazi and she and the villagers were going to be shot. Starling had drilled her to be able to pull out and fire her pistol in seconds if she needed to defend herself. But Rosa wasn’t sure that she had changed enough to hunt somebody down and kill him.
‘Rosa,’ Orietta said, as if reading her friend’s thoughts, ‘would it ease your conscience if I told you that this person who is helping the fascists capture Allied soldiers is the same person who denounced Carlo? An insider?’ Orietta’s face remained hard but her voice rose in pitch.
Luciano had informed Orietta about Carlo’s death, but Rosa didn’t know how much he had told her about the nature of his torture and she didn’t want to bring it up.
‘You and Luciano have lost so much,’ she said quietly. ‘Your family has sacrificed a lot to fight for freedom.’
‘You too, Rosa,’ said Orietta, brushing back her hair from her face. ‘You’ve suffered too. What happened to Antonio broke my heart.’
Rosa sighed. ‘Antonio will survive. He’ll come back to me. That’s what I tell myself, although I can hardly bear to think about it. A prisoner of war joined the Flock a week ago. He’d escaped from the camp near Orvieto. The conditions he described were terrible.’
Rosa looked out the window at the still-dark sky. If she was cold in a hotel room, what was Antonio enduring? She turned back to Orietta. Her heart jolted when she saw the expression on her friend’s face. She looked aghast.
‘You don’t know?’ Orietta asked. ‘Luciano didn’t tell you?’
The floor seemed to shift under Rosa’s feet. Despite the chilly air, she felt hot and faint.
‘My God, you don’t know,’ Orietta said, sitting down on the bed.
‘What?’ Rosa asked, struggling to keep her voice low. ‘What don’t I know?’
Orietta wrung her hands and looked at Rosa. ‘Luciano asked me to find out what happened to Antonio after you arrived at the camp. I was to pose as your sister and get him out of prison. But when I went to Le Murate, Antonio and several other political prisoners had been sent to Germany.’
Rosa took a breath. It was what she already knew. But the pained look on Orietta’s face told her that there was more. She dug her nails into her hands. ‘What are you trying to tell me? Was he sent…was he sent to a concentration camp?’
Orietta shook her head. ‘I traced the train he was on. Luciano intended to somehow stop it by blowing up the tracks further up the line. He wanted to rescue Antonio. Starling told him that he was crazy and I had to agree. I was afraid that if they stopped the train, the guards would automatically start shooting the prisoners. But Luciano wanted to try. There were six hundred men on the train: Italian soldiers mostly. Luciano said if they were free, many of them would join the partisans.’
Rosa stared at Orietta. The blood was pounding in her ears.
‘Before we could get anywhere near that train,’ Orietta continued, ‘the Allies…You see, they didn’t know it was a train full of Italians. They thought it was transporting German soldiers. They bombed it as it crossed a bridge. Several carriages tumbled into the river. The passengers couldn’t get out. They were drowned.’
The room turned white. Rosa couldn’t see. When her vision returned she realised she had stopped breathing. Pain ripped at her insides. She choked back a sob. ‘All of them?’ she asked.
Orietta stood up and clasped Rosa’s hands. ‘About one hundred Italians survived the crash. Those who could made a run for the woods. I’ve used all my network contacts to find out if Antonio was one of the men who escaped but his name or description has never come up once in my enquiries. He might have been one of the injured who were then sent on to Germany, but according to our intelligence reports many of those men later died from not receiving proper medical treatment.
Rosa sat down on the bed. The New Zealander she had cared for at the hospital had told her that he hadn’t felt anything in the first moments after losing his legs. He’d simply heard a deafening noise and been blown backwards, landing in a ditch. When he looked down and saw his legs were gone his first thought was, Oh dear, no more cricket. Rosa was feeling that sort of dreamlike shock now.
‘Antonio’s still alive,’ she said. ‘He has to be. We all use false names, don’t we?’
Orietta put her arms around Rosa and looked into her eyes. ‘Most of the Germans were in the carriages that didn’t fall into the river. They fired on the prisoners escaping. Only a few men made it to cover. It is very unlikely that Antonio is alive. If he was, I know he would be doing everything to find you.’
Rosa barely remembered her trip back to the camp. With each mile that passed, her invented hopes turned to dust. Antonio’s train had been bombed and all but one hundred of the passengers had perished. Out of those, only the prisoners without injury had been able to make a run for the woods. Many of them were shot in their flight. What was the chance that Antonio was among the small number that remained alive? Orietta was right when she had said that if Antonio were alive he’d be doing everything possible to find her.
When Woodpecker and Rosa arrived at the camp, the partisans looked at Rosa with questioning faces. Had something gone wrong on her mission? Luciano ushered her to his office. Rosa stood in the corner, tired, cold and numb.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Antonio?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the train was bombed?’
Luciano pursed his lips and stared at his hands. ‘The same reason you didn’t tell me everything about Carlo. What good would it have done? You needed a reason to keep going. I wasn’t going to extinguish your best one.’
Rosa sank to her knees. She felt Luciano’s strong hands on her arms. It was as if she had tripped and was falling, and he had caught her.
‘Have faith,’ he told her. ‘Antonio may still be alive. You’ve got to believe that.’
Rosa shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’m strong enough to deceive myself like that.’
Luciano shook her gently and forced her to look into his eyes. ‘One hundred Italians survived the crash. From what I saw, at least half of those made a run for the forest. The others were sent on to Germany. Yes, many died but others are alive. You mustn’t give up hope that Antonio is one of those who lived.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Rosa asked. She felt like a person who was about to lose consciousness being slapped awake by their rescuer. She wanted to be saved, she wanted to be comforted and to believe, but doubt was enveloping her.
The light caught in Luciano’s eyes when he gazed at her. ‘You thought I had died in Spain, didn’t you? But I came back.’ He didn’t say it but Rosa imagined that she’d heard it: I came back for you.
Starling called from outside. Luciano touched Rosa’s cheek before turning to go. ‘Don’t lose hope. It’s all any of us have.’
The cold air rushing through the door when Luciano stepped outside made Rosa shiver. He was right. Hope was all they did have. The reality was grim. Rosa realised something else too: marrying Antonio, raising children and even thinking that Luciano was dead had not changed the love she felt for him. Luciano had once let Rosa go so that she and Sibilla could have a safe life. He had been prepared to risk himself to raid the train to save Antonio for her. Rosa finally saw the truth: no-one could ever love her like Luciano did. But I’ve seen it too late, she thought. There is nothing that can be done now.