Chapter Twenty-Nine

Isabella sat still. If she didn’t move, it didn’t hurt as much. Not just her right hand, which was cradled in her lap, but everything. Everything that ached inside her. She threaded through her mind each of the questions that Colonnello Sepe had asked and thought carefully about each answer she had given, and every time she came up against the same brick wall. Why had he not once mentioned Roberto?

Why?

There were witnesses. Others must have seen him racing her away from the rally. Davide Francolini certainly did. She felt the hairs on her neck rise. Had Davide reported her? Was he the one who’d implied that the cracks in the building were her fault? That was enough to lose her her job. At the very least.

So why?

Her thoughts shredded each other as they chased through her head, and she could feel the pain in her damaged hand throbbing in time with them. But physical pain was an old familiar foe that she’d learned to vanquish years ago; it held no fears for her. At night it could still sink its teeth in and catch her unawares, but at night she was alone and there was no one to see her face or look into her eyes.

Finally she rose to her feet, her eyes unwilling to close because of what they might see in the darkness of her mind. Where once there had been the bright vista of a future and of boundless ambition, now there was nothing. Because there would be no future, no ambitions. It was all over. Here in this wretched cell, it all ended. A faint moan slithered around the tiled walls, and it took her a minute to realize it had come from her own mouth. She stepped up to the hefty metal door and pressed her burning cheek hard against its cold surface.

“Roberto,” she murmured. “What are you doing? Did you put me here?”

The second the words skimmed past her lips, she wanted to snatch them back, to deny them air to breathe. She hated the treacherous whisper and hated herself for the betrayal. Yet she came back to it again and again—why was she the only one arrested?

It was as she stood there against the door that a sudden thought stabbed into her mind, as lethal as an assassin’s blade.

What if he had been arrested too?

Visions of truncheons descending on his broad back or crashing down on his skull flared in her head and she felt her stomach turn. She vomited onto the white tiles of the floor, too late to reach the bucket.

“Roberto,” she whispered.

She heard his laugh. In her head she heard his laugh, clear and enticing.

“Roberto,” she howled.

He had dragged her out of her safe numb state, had cracked her protective shell wide open and brought her gasping into his warm, passionate world, but she had not been prepared for it. For the craving in her body for him. For the violence of it. For the way it could stop her heart.

Colonnello Sepe stood in the cell doorway, the heel of one black boot drumming on the floor. He had thrown open the metal door with such force that it slammed back against the wall, cracking a row of tiles. Isabella had the feeling that he had hoped to catch her behind it.

“Signora Berotti, it has been decided that you can leave.”

“It has been decided by whom?”

“That is not important.”

“It is to me.”

He stared down at the spray of vomit spread out in front of her and wrinkled his nose in disgust. The silver braid on his bicorn hat and the gaudy display of medals on his birdlike chest did not distract Isabella; she could tell how angry he was. Whoever had made this decision, it certainly wasn’t him.

Relief started small, just a trickle through her veins, but within seconds it was a torrent, deafening her.

“Was it my father, Dr. Cantini?” she asked. “Was it his request for my release that—”

“Get out!”

“I knew he would not stand for your—”

“Get out!”

Isabella didn’t hesitate. She strode past him.

Don’t limp. Don’t you dare limp.

The van spilled Isabella onto the pavement outside the apartment block where she lived. She had been bundled like laundry into the black van waiting in the yard at the rear of the police station and then dumped with no explanation or even any attempt at politeness.

She was surprised by the sky. It was a vast swath of lilac, shot through by vivid slashes of gold as the sun slid from the sky into the sea to the west of the plain. Isabella had no idea it was so late in the day. Her jailers had removed her watch and there was no window in the cell, so her only sense of time had been the one that existed in her head. As she walked into the courtyard of the apartment her elongated shadow hobbled ahead of her as though in a hurry to get indoors. When she unlocked the door she found the rooms silent and eerily lit by pools of misty lilac light from outside, but no lamps were on in the apartment.

“Papa?” she said softly.

She didn’t shout. She could hear a distinct clicking sound and knew immediately what it was—a gramophone record had come to the end and was still turning. Quickly she hurried into the living room.

“Papa?” she said again.

Her father was slumped with his head on the table. His spectacles had fallen off his nose and hung crookedly from one ear, and gripped in one hand was the photograph of his wife. Isabella hurried to his side and her fingers felt for his pulse, the way she’d seen him do a thousand times to his patients. His skin was warm, not ice cold. She touched his slack unshaven cheek and was greeted with a contented snore. She laughed. It burst from her in a loud rush of relief, as the tension she’d been holding so tight inside suddenly broke free, and she shook her father’s shoulder. He grunted, startled, and fought to open his eyes a slit.

“Papa!”

Clearly he’d been working at the hospital day and night as he struggled to put bones and body parts back together, but Isabella could not let him sleep now. She needed to thank him. Had to press her cheek to his, had to let him know how grateful she was for the fact that he must have begged Grassi on bended knee to release his daughter.

“Grazie,” she said simply.

He blinked as he came back to life and pushed himself up on his elbows. His face was creased with exhaustion.

“Isabella! Where on earth have you been? I’ve been worried. Don’t you know there’s a curfew?”

“A curfew?”

“Yes, no one’s allowed on the streets after dark.” He put on his spectacles and inspected her with a frown. “You don’t look good. What have you been doing?”

He didn’t know. Her father had been at the hospital for the last twenty-four hours and had no idea that his daughter had been in a prison cell. Quickly she poured him a drink and placed it in front of him without answering his question.

“Papa, you must go to bed. You need sleep.”

He reached for the wine.

“How bad is it at the hospital?” she asked.

“Bad enough.” He drank half the wine.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I thought you might have come back there today to help.”

“I couldn’t, Papa. Not today.”

Something in her voice gave her away. He pushed himself to his feet and examined her with a professional gaze. She saw it dawn on his weary brain that she was still in the same torn green dress as yesterday, but his gaze fixed on her swollen hand.

“What happened, Isabella?”

“I was arrested.”

A groan escaped him, but that was all. He fetched his medical bag, sat her down, and gently examined her hand, then bandaged it with quick efficient care.

“Your forefinger is broken in two places,” he announced. “Several of the metacarpals of your hand could be broken too. I suspect they are, but it’s impossible to be certain without an x-ray because of the swelling.” He gave her a couple of tablets for the pain.

“Thank you, Papa.”

His cheeks were a dangerous crimson but he didn’t raise his voice. “Who did this?”

“I’m sure they’re arresting a lot of people. It was bound to happen.” She gave him a tight smile. “I’m one of the lucky ones—I’ve been released.”

“Did they arrest you because of Rosa?”

“Partly. But you know what they’re like, Papa. They don’t need a reason.”

Dr. Cantini knocked back the last of his wine and gently folded his arms around his daughter, holding her tight. He smelled of medicines and blood and pain. Isabella knew he needed to come home to rest, not to find more pain waiting for him in a torn green dress. She kissed his rough cheek.

“Papa, I am glad you are my father.”

He blinked and pulled his head back to look at her with surprise. His blue eyes were embarrassed.

“Good,” he said gruffly.

“Now go to bed.”

She walked him to his bedroom door and he shook his head in despair. “If someone doesn’t fight back, there’s no hope for Italy. That pilot sacrificed himself and others yesterday, but if he’d succeeded . . . just think of it, Isabella. An Italy without Mussolini.” With a deep sigh he kissed her forehead. “Take care of your hand. Buonanotte. Sleep well.”

“Thank you, Papa. I’m all right.”

As soon as his door closed, Isabella tore off her dress one-handed and pulled on a sweater and skirt. She snatched her coat from the hall and bolted out into the night under the last dregs of the lilac sky.

The green door opened the moment she knocked. Had he been standing there? Hour after hour, waiting for her?

Did he know she would come?

Roberto drew her in and held her close without a word. Held her so close, it was as if he were trying to fuse her body to his, and all she could hear was the violent beating of his heart. She could feel his hand stroking her hair, pushing back its dark tangles from her face. For a long time they stood there in the dimly lit hallway until, bit by bit, the world slowly came back to her. Fragile at first, but growing more solid with each breath she took.

She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Thank you, Roberto,” she whispered.

Reluctantly his arms unwound and he stepped back to look at her. In the shadows it seemed as if his features had shifted, their lines altered in some indefinable way in the last eighteen hours. She wondered whether hers had done the same.

“What did they do to you?” His voice was flat.

“Nothing much. Asked some questions.”

His eyes rested on the bandage on her hand. He said nothing but his mouth tightened and he examined her face intently, watching every flicker of an eyelid. She wanted to stretch her good hand across the short space and touch him again, but he walked over to the door and opened it a crack.

“I’m glad you came,” he said. “Now I’ll drive you home quickly before it is totally dark. There’s a curfew.”

She was appalled by his dismissal of her.

“No, Roberto.”

He hugged her fiercely. Briefly. “We must be quick,” he said and opened the door.

“No, Roberto.” She kicked the door shut. “I will stay.”

The silent rage that he had been holding back suddenly flooded the hall, thickening the air.

“You should not have to pay with your hand for—” he started, but she placed her bandaged fingers over his lips.

“Don’t, Roberto. My hand will heal. Forget these men.”

“Look at you, Isabella. Look at what they’ve done to you.”

“They can’t hurt me, Roberto. Only you can hurt me.”

He lifted her swaddled hand to his lips and kissed it, as though saying good-bye.

“I am staying,” she stated.

Immediately his strong arm encircled her waist and his eyes were full of the hunger she had been waiting for. “Say it again, Isabella.”

“I am staying.”