Tuscan Rose (57 page)

‘You captured them?’

‘Yes.’

Starling looked at her. ‘It’s obvious they are deserters,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘But I suspect it was obvious to them that I was a
staffetta
when I went to Borgo San Lorenzo—and they let me go.’

‘Where the hell are we going to keep two German prisoners?’ he asked her. ‘Who will guard them?’

‘I will,’ said Rosa. ‘Until the Allies come and collect them. We need help getting the grounds into shape. They can assist the sisters in the garden with the heavy work. And there is a field of corn that needs to be harvested.’

‘
Cazzo
!’ Starling said again. ‘Raven, one day you will be the death of me! You and Nightingale!’

‘Nightingale?’ repeated Rosa. ‘What’s she done?’

‘She’s found another sheep that we aren’t allowed to eat,’ replied Starling. ‘She says they are social animals and Speranza needs a friend.’

Rosa looked over to the kitchen garden where Speranza was tied to the fence so she wouldn’t devour all the herbs. There was another lamb with her.

‘Will you talk to her?’ Starling pleaded. ‘There’s a good stock of food in the villa but the men would like some fresh meat.’

‘Of course,’ said Rosa, waving to Fiamma. ‘What’s the new lamb’s name?’ she called out.

‘Pace,’ Fiamma replied.

Rosa turned back to Starling. ‘There,’ she said. ‘His name is Pace—“peace”. Do you really want to slaughter two animals called Hope and Peace?’

The day after the German prisoners came to the villa, Partridge returned from Florence with disturbing news.

‘The Allied command wants to assume power over Florence,’ he said. ‘The Tuscan Committee of National Liberation has only consultative powers and barely those at that.’

‘I’m sure the intention is to hand the government back to Italy when the state of emergency is over,’ Rosa assured him.

‘That may be so,’ said Partridge. ‘But we are expected to surrender our weapons, and war criminals captured by the partisans are being set free.’

‘That can’t be,’ said Starling. ‘They can’t possibly be letting traitors like the Marchesa Scarfiotti go.’

‘It’s chaos in Florence,’ Partridge explained. ‘Some fascists were shot, but other people have taken advantage of the situation for personal vendettas—knocking off people they didn’t like and even members of their own families. But not one person of the Marchesa’s status has been brought to justice. From what I’ve witnessed, they never will be.’

Rosa’s mind travelled back to the time when she had been accused of assisting Maria with an abortion. She was innocent and yet, because of the Marchesa’s powerful connections, she had been wrongly imprisoned as a scapegoat for Vittorio. The war had not changed a thing. The rich and powerful would still get away with their crimes.

Starling’s face twisted. ‘Surely if we hold her until the justice system is reinstated she will be brought to trial.’

‘That’s going to be months, maybe years, away,’ said Partridge. ‘We won’t be able to keep her under arrest all that time. The Allies will take over the villa and she will be free to escape to Brazil or somewhere else.’

Starling gritted his teeth. ‘Then we will execute her ourselves. Now!’

Partridge shook his head. ‘If we shoot her now, without an official tribunal, we are in danger of being charged with unlawful murder ourselves later on.’

‘I’ll hang,’ said Starling, ‘before I see someone like that walk away from what she’s done.’

Rosa’s head was swimming. It was as if she were looking at all the people who had died because of the Marchesa, either directly because of her sadistic ‘hunting’ expeditions or by her willingly allowing the villa to be used as a base for the Nazis. Letting the
Marchesa go unaccountable for her crimes made a mockery of all those people’s deaths.

‘The Marchesa is a criminal,’ she said. ‘Someone who has committed heinous acts. She’s not some petty informer who can be bumped off with a bullet. She is a disgrace to this country and that should be set down on public record. Surely she will stand trial!’

Partridge shook his head. ‘Raven, that’s not going to happen. It hasn’t happened in Naples, Sicily or Rome.’

Starling looked from Rosa to Partridge. ‘If justice won’t be done, then we will carry out a military execution now,’ he said. ‘We’ll backdate it. Everyone here is in agreement about the Marchesa Scarfiotti’s crimes.’

Rosa saw tears in Starling’s eyes and knew he was thinking of Luciano as well as the other partisans who had died.

‘Yes, but to make that decision we need someone of high rank from the National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy,’ said Partridge. ‘And they are still too busy fighting the Germans to be concerned with this.’

‘You are the leaders of the division,’ said Rosa. ‘You are the representatives of the committee here in the mountains. You can make that decision.’

Starling shook his head. ‘Only Luciano was properly appointed, on account of his status from Spain. The rest of us haven’t been officially sworn in. In the heat of the war, we didn’t care about rank. It wasn’t important to us at the time. We played our roles, obeyed Luciano and that was it.’

‘Given the circumstances,’ said Partridge, ‘it looks like we have no choice but to let the Marchesa Scarfiotti go. We don’t have anyone who has official status with the committee.’

‘Yes, you do,’ said Rosa, looking him in the eye. ‘You witnessed Luciano swearing me in as a lieutenant before the raid. I have the power to order the execution of the Marchesa.’

‘Raven,’ said Partridge, ‘think about what you are saying. There could be consequences. The Allies see the war here as over. Our role has finished.’

‘The Marchesa is a war criminal,’ Rosa said. ‘If there is no-one else to oversee her execution, then I must do it. How else will all the innocent people she’s killed ever be at peace?’

It was still uncertain whether what the leaders of the Flock were planning was legal. But as the country was under martial law, they did what they could to document in military terms the crimes of the Marchesa and the reason for their sentence. Rosa, Partridge and Starling met in the schoolroom where Clementina and Rosa had once discussed the great composers and Chinese culture. When Rosa described what she had found in the cellar when the Nazis brought her to the villa, and how Carlo and the other partisans had been tortured, Partridge covered his eyes. I will describe it, thought Rosa, no matter how painful it is for us, because we must bear witness so their deaths are not in vain.

‘We will execute her tomorrow, at dawn,’ Starling said. Then, turning to Rosa, he added, ‘You must officially inform her of the sentence to be carried out.’

Ada did her best to assemble a uniform for Rosa. She found a khaki skirt in one of the cupboards and Rosa combined it with a bomber jacket and beret that one of the farmer’s wives had been wearing. Starling gave her his scarf to tie around her neck and she wore her own ammunition belt and gun holster. Her hands were steady but her throat was dry.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ asked Starling.

Rosa shook her head. ‘I have to face this woman on my own,’ she told him. She might have added that she and the Marchesa had been fighting a duel her entire life, and there could only be one victor.

Rosa climbed the main staircase to the Marchesa’s quarters. She had come a long way since her days as a governess at the villa. The realisation that she been sneaking around a house that was rightfully hers seemed ironic now. The Marchesa had got away with murdering Nerezza and trying to dispose of her child. But things had come full circle now. The ‘little people’ had finally got her.

Woodpecker was guarding the door to the Marchesa’s quarters while Paolina was sitting in the corridor inside. Paolina looked Rosa in the face to give her strength, before moving to the landing to wait with Woodpecker.

The Marchesa was sitting in the room with the portraits. The shutters were open but the curtains were half-drawn, diffusing light over the Peking rug. She was dressed in an ice-blue brocade dress and matching open-toed shoes. Despite the absence of staff and her captive status, the Marchesa’s impeccable grooming had not wavered. Next to her was an ashtray full of half-smoked cigarettes but no books or papers. Rosa was struck by the Marchesa’s stillness. She did not appear to be brooding over the past or fearful of the future. Nor did she give the impression of someone waiting for death. She was simply sitting. Rosa wondered how a person who had committed the horrors the Marchesa had could be so composed.

‘You have been tried for your crimes,’ she told the Marchesa. ‘And I have come to announce your sentence.’

The Marchesa barely glanced at her. ‘Ah, the governess gets her revenge,’ she said, rubbing her forehead with her finger before taking another slow puff of her cigarette.

‘It is not about revenge,’ replied Rosa. ‘It’s about justice. You are a traitor to your country and will be executed as such.’

She read out the Marchesa’s crimes and the sentence of death.

The Marchesa watched Rosa with impassive eyes. Her haughty manner was intolerable under the circumstances. Rosa felt the pent-up hatred she harboured towards the woman rise in her blood. How many people had suffered because of the Marchesa? How many more would continue to suffer? When Rosa, Starling and Partridge had attempted to document the Marchesa’s crimes and the reasons for her execution, they couldn’t name every one of her victims or say where they had all come from.

‘There is something else,’ said Rosa, ‘although we don’t have the authority to try you for it. But if the civil courts were in order you would be charged with the murder of Cristina Lancia,
formerly Cristina Scarfiotti, and affectionately known as Nerezza, as well as the attempted murder of her daughter.’

The Marchesa’s face remained expressionless but something flashed in her eyes at the word ‘attempted’. The faintest outline of a frown creased her forehead. It seemed to Rosa that the Marchesa was watching her in a peculiar way. Of course, she thought, she thinks that Giovanni Taviani killed me and that she has my heart.

The Marchesa slowly stood up and walked to the window. ‘Are you Nerezza’s daughter?’ she asked.

‘Giovanni Taviani never killed me,’ said Rosa, her official manner giving way to her excitement. ‘He took me to the Convent of Santo Spirito. The heart he gave you was from the university’s anatomy department.’

The Marchesa looked out of the window. ‘I should never have trusted that thief,’ she said. ‘I should have strangled you myself.’

Rosa’s heart jolted. It was extraordinary to hear confirmed what she had long suspected.

‘When you are executed tomorrow,’ she told her, ‘take it that it is also the penalty for the murder of Nerezza. My mother.’

The Marchesa turned from the window and this time she looked Rosa in the eye. To Rosa’s surprise, she began to laugh. It’s because she hated Nerezza so much, Rosa thought. And now Nerezza is having her revenge she is in hysterics.

The Marchesa stepped towards Rosa, her eyes ablaze. ‘I didn’t kill Nerezza,’ she said. Her voice was hollow, and Rosa experienced an uneasiness; an attack of the anxiety she had often felt without being able to pinpoint the exact cause. The Marchesa placed her hand on her chest. ‘I am Nerezza. It is Luisa Caleffi who is dead.’

Rosa wondered if she had imagined the moment; if she were asleep and this were all a dream. ‘You killed Luisa Caleffi?’ were the only words she could manage.

‘I didn’t kill Luisa Caleffi,’ said the Marchesa, turning back to the window. ‘My stupid brother did, in a jealous fit on their honeymoon. She had another lover. The harlot! I warned Emilio
about her but he wouldn’t listen. The scandal could have brought down the Scarfiotti family.’

A sickening realisation was falling upon Rosa. She involuntarily looked at the Marchesa’s foot: slim with a longer second toe.

The Marchesa flung the curtains open. ‘You people look but you see nothing,’ she said. The light fell across the paintings and sculptures. ‘Is this woman me?’ she asked. ‘Look closely. It isn’t, but you all saw what you wanted to see! Even that stupid fool Baron Derveaux and his insipid wife! It was lucky for my brother that getting rid of a body in Egypt is not so difficult.’

Rosa was struggling to breathe. ‘The Baron Derveaux is my father.’

‘An indiscretion on my part,’ said the Marchesa. ‘The man is a buffoon.’

Rosa thought she might faint. The Marchesa grabbed her arm. Her touch was cold, like something dead.

‘Do you know what it took to become someone else?’ she said. ‘The mastery to deceive even one’s friends? But I did it. I fooled them all!’

The pieces of the puzzle Rosa had long been trying to solve started to fall rapidly into place but not in the way she had expected. She saw it all before her eyes: the Marchesa’s heavily painted face; the way she starved herself; her reaction when Baron Derveaux had placed his cigarette on the Bösendorfer piano.

‘No! It’s not true!’ she cried out in a final act of resistance to what was becoming obvious. ‘What about Vittorio?’

‘What a stroke of luck that was,’ said the Marchesa, looking amused, ‘that he came back from the war like a zombie. It was only when he started to recover that I had to have him committed. Until then he was the perfect associate.’

‘And the woman who came to visit you and Vittorio at the summerhouse? That was Luisa’s mother?’

‘A wonderfully callous woman of the most mercenary kind. She was happy to be silent on the fate of her daughter in return for
money. All around it was a very successful collaboration with the Caleffi family, I think.’

Rosa looked at the Marchesa, seeing beyond the make-up and starved figure to the woman underneath. Yes, this was Nerezza—disciplined, jealous and vengeful. She knew that from the notebook. But what about the young woman who had played beautiful music and created lovely opera sets? Rosa suddenly understood what Giovanni’s dying words had meant: playing Luisa Caleffi had
poisoned
Nerezza. For Luisa had had no talent, no appreciation of beauty or art. The suppression of her genius had driven Nerezza insane.

‘If you are my mother,’ Rosa asked, ‘why did you get rid of me? The Marchese would have kept me.’