The Garden of Letters Page 16

  The family had wondered if they should prepare Angelo for the sight of the room, which they now called “the Shrine.” But there was no correct way to do it gently. He would have to discover it for himself.

  He was first greeted by his mother, his sisters, and then his brothers, everyone hugging him and whispering words of condolence.

  “It will heal,” and “Yes, I will walk again . . .” became rote replies to the siege of inquiries about his foot, which he handled without emotion, his heart too battered to care.

  After a long family meal, all the others departed, as his mother instructed. She stayed with him alone.

  “I think I need to lie down now, Mamma. I’m so tired . . .”

  “I know, Angelo,” she said sweetly. She took her brown hands and clasped them over his cheeks, and kissed him as if he was her small, sweet child again. “I am so sorry this ever happened.”

  “I know, Mamma. I know.”

  “We did everything to save her and the baby. We did. Marina said it was unforeseen . . . a vasa previa, but I don’t know what that means.” Her eyes were overflowing with tears, and she looked up to the ceiling to try and make them stop.

  Angelo shook his head. “Let’s not talk about this now, Mamma. I can hardly stand it.”

  She nodded. “I will sit in the garden while you sleep.”

  Angelo told her that she should go home.

  “No, I will wait there,” she said. “In case you need me.”

  He watched her as she walked to sit in the garden. Then he made his way to the room where he and Dalia once lay.

  There was nothing that could have prepared Angelo for seeing the room Dalia had created with so much care and love.

  From the moment he stepped through the arched doorway, his mind became a whirlwind of images he could barely comprehend. It wasn’t just the sight of all his letters papered throughout the room, but the realization of what she had undertaken just to be surrounded by his words.

  He stood there for several seconds, his entire body hunched over his crutches. He craned his neck to see the ceiling. He turned in circles to see the letters he had sent to her and written with his own hand. He saw the shapes she had created through her scissors, the careful way she had used her small, nimble hands to paste together what looked like an intricate, flowing puzzle. The pockets of blue and white paint that shimmered in certain places, as though she had added her own magic to the pigment. It was as if Dalia had created her version of heaven before she died.

  Angelo’s mother had remained in the garden, expecting him to call out her name. But it wasn’t “Mamma!” that he called out. It was Dalia’s name chanted over and over, like a begging, a supplication, a hopeless wish for her to return.

  He threw his crutches to the floor and fell to the bed weeping.

  “Dalia. Dalia. Dalia.” He said her name so many times that his own mother had to take her hands to her ears to block out a pain so intense and heart wrenching, it pierced like lightning through the air.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Verona, Italy

  JULY 1943

  On July 25, the newspapers and radio stations report Mussolini’s arrest in Rome. Still everyone in the north knows that even though Mussolini is no longer in power, the threat still exists that Hitler may use this opportunity to invade Italy and restore power to his old ally. Yet even with all the political uncertainty, life within the Liceo Musicale remains unchanged.

  Lena tells Elodie she is considering dropping out of the music program.

  “How can I play when tanks could be invading our streets any minute?”

  Elodie shakes her head. “No one says you can’t be an anti-Fascist and also play your music.”

  She looks at Elodie. “I told Zampieri I will sell my viola to pay for the Morettis’ fake papers. He promises he’ll have them within a few weeks. What’s the point of a piece of wood and strings when it could save three lives? I’d sell it in a minute if it could get them out of here.”

  “Do you really think they’re not safe here? They haven’t rounded anyone up yet. This is Italy. It’s not Germany, and certainly not Poland.”

  “The minute the Germans enter Italy, the Morettis and every Jew here will be on a truck to Poland. You mark my word.”

  “And what about Brigitte? The Lowenthals are Jewish.”

  Lena shakes her head. “Berto clearly knows she’s at risk, but I don’t think she wants to leave him. And her parents trust him. Her father is supportive. After all, Berto is anti-Fascist and against the Nazis. It doesn’t matter to them that he’s not Jewish.”

  Elodie nods. “Perhaps it’s even an advantage in these times.”

  “Exactly,” Lena agrees.

  Elodie knows so little about Brigitte. The woman strikes her as elusive, like a night cat; her movements almost skulking, her dark eyes piercing and suspicious.

  “She seldom speaks to anyone except Berto.”

  “It’s true,” Elodie agrees. “I’ve never even seen her speak with Luca.”

  “Ah, Luca,” Lena teases. She immediately notices that Elodie blushes at the mere mention of his name. “There’s a meeting tomorrow at the bookstore. Will you be coming?”

  It has been a few days since she last saw Luca and she is happy for any excuse to be near him.

  “Yes, count me in,” she tells her friend. But when Elodie returns home, she finds something far worse than she could have imagined.

  Plodding up the stairs to her family’s apartment, Elodie discovers the door ajar. There are two distinct voices: the desperate and tear-filled voice of her mother, and the careful and compassionate voice of Doctor Tommasi.

  She does not hear the voice of her father, a fact that causes Elodie to be seized with alarm.

  “Mamma . . .” She pushes the door open farther and enters the salon. She places her cello down by the desk.

  In the hallway, she sees her mother’s back, her shoulder blades visible through the silk of her dress. She has her palms to her face and her head is turning from side to side, as if insisting she will not believe what the doctor is telling her.

  “Mamma . . .” Elodie approaches the two of them slowly, as if she knows she is entering a place where there is no joy.

  It is not her mother who first turns to her, but Doctor Tommasi. His is a face she has known since she was a child. His white hair. His handlebar mustache. Everything about him is familiar and kind.

  “Elodie, my child.” He extends an arm to touch her shoulder gently, the first gesture in a dance that is informed in grief.

  “It’s your father . . . I’m . . .” He stops for a second. “I’m sorry.”

  She hears her mother’s whimpering, the notes of anguish hanging in the air. Despite the precision of the doctor’s words, she cannot believe what he is telling her.

  “An embolism. Yes, I’m sorry . . . He went in his sleep. It would have taken him in seconds . . . I’m sure it was very peaceful. He felt no pain . . .” All the information is punctuated in staccato.

  Elodie feels the floor fall out from underneath her. Her throat tightens and she can hardly breathe.

  Her mother turns and embraces her violently, her tears soaking through Elodie’s shirt.

  For the first time in her life, Elodie hears no music in her head. The space in her heart and mind that used to be occupied by melody and song, is now replaced with the weight of sorrow. Not the kind of sorrow she is used to channeling into her cello, but a sadness that sweeps through her and takes with it every note.

  Elodie and her mother receive the guests who come to their apartment to pay their respects. Every student and every professor her father knew from his years at the school come to kiss Orsina’s hand and to tell her how sorry they are for her loss.

  Elodie sits in the salon, her hands crossed and her eyes staring straight ahead. She sees her m
other standing like a ghost, the black dress hanging on a frame of bones. She clasps the hands of people whose names she cannot recall and numbly whispers a few words of gratitude.

  On the day of her father’s funeral, when Pietro’s prized violin students serenaded his casket with Bach’s violin solo partitas, the reality of his absence strikes Elodie and Orsina. They can feel Pietro in every note. They can see his smile, his eyes closing as the music rises and swells within the church’s vaulted space. Elodie can sense his hand moving alongside his students’ bows, bringing their music to life. Hearing the music floating through the church, filling the air with both beauty and emotion, the two women are struck by the devotion and talent of his students. But their sorrow is all consuming, and the two women cannot stifle their sobs.

  A week after her father’s funeral, Elodie reluctantly returns to school. She had not seen Lena since the funeral, and she senses immediately that her friend is uncertain how to act around her.

  “I’m sorry,” Lena says embracing her. “Your father was the kindest man. Everyone who had him as a professor adored him.”

  “Thank you, Lena.” It is difficult for her to speak. Elodie grips the handle of her cello case in order to stave off the tears.

  “I have a message from Luca as well.” Lena pauses for a second, as if to weigh whether it was inappropriate to mention his name in the midst of Elodie’s grief. “He wanted to come to your home to pay his respects, but he was concerned you’d think it was an invasion of your privacy. . . . He wanted to make sure I conveyed his condolences.”

  Elodie is relieved to hear the message from Luca. She had been wondering if he had heard the news of her father’s death, and the fact that he had been thinking of her touches her deeply.

  “I’m glad he and the others know . . . I wouldn’t want them to think I had abandoned them. It’s just been too hard to leave my mother and the house until now. We’re still in such shock.”

  “We all know you need to take your time . . . But the Germans are approaching. The word is they will be here by the end of the summer. I’m just grateful Zampieri made good on his word and got fake papers for the Morettis. They will be leaving any day now. He’s even found a smuggler to get them through the mountains, into Switzerland.”

  “It’s nice to hear a bit of good news in all of this,” Elodie says quietly.

  “Yes, that’s probably the only good news any of us will be hearing for some time.” Lena sighed. “It’s going to get a lot worse here once the Allies start bombing . . .”

  “Bombing . . .” Elodie feels the word stick in her throat. “Don’t they know we hate Mussolini as much as they do?”

  “I don’t think the people in charge care what we think. In the meantime, all we can do is get organized and prepared.”

  “I can’t imagine things getting any worse than they already are.” Elodie sighed. “Nothing seems real to me anymore, Lena. It’s like I’m in a hideous dream and I can’t wake up.” She bites her lip. “I can’t even move without thinking of the consequences to my mother . . . I feel trapped.”

  Lena nods her head. “We all live within cages, Elodie. The only way to survive is to find a way to navigate through the wire. You are a resilient girl.” She takes Elodie’s hand and squeezes it.“Are you still in the September concert?”

  “Yes. It’s September third. We’re lucky. We’re getting a chance to perform at the Teatro Bibiena in Mantua . . .”

  “The Bibiena . . .” She smiles at Elodie. “You’re going to be the evening’s star.”

  “I need to practice more,” Elodie says quietly.

  “Luca seemed interested in learning if you’d still be playing at the concert . . .”

  “Yes, very much so . . . but I really have to get my playing back. The fact that Professor Agnelli hasn’t cut me is a small miracle. He must feel indebted to my father.”

  “Everyone’s in shock over your father. Your absence is completely understandable.”

  “Yes,” she answers. “But I still should be practicing.”

  “I’ll tell Luca that we spoke.”

  “Tell him I’ll come to a meeting as soon as I can.”

  The approaching concert forces Elodie to refocus her grief and channel it into her cello. Just opening the case and peeling off the scarf reminds her of her father. She touches the wood, tilts the instrument, and applies the rosin to her bow. All these simple rituals, which she has performed nearly every day for years, are steeped in thoughts of her father. She closes her eyes and begins to play.

  She finds him deep within the notes of the sarabande from the Bach cello Suite No. 6. There, her sorrow, stifled like a sob within her chest, is again released.

  The cello welcomes her mourning. The sorrow it carried from its last owner joins with hers.

  She closes her eyes as she plays, and sees her father. She feels him in her heart and in her cello.

  “You are like me,” he had once told her as he grasped her hand. She remembers the feeling of his fingers wrapped around hers, the way he traced her expansion, and how his palm had enclosed her hand. The pain of his absence softens. He had given her the gift of music, and as Elodie plays her cello, that gift and her connection to him feel eternal.

  The September concert at the Teatro Bibiena is now a week away.

  Elodie meets Luca at the bookstore, where he informs her that the Wolf will be coming to hear her play. “He says it’s too dangerous to have you come play in his apartment now. He fears the neighbors are watching him. He wants you to play someplace public where he will remain unnoticed.”

  Elodie looks at Luca puzzlingly.

  “We have promised him a message. We just received new information and it needs to be transferred to him as soon as possible. It must be delivered in your solo.”

  “That’s impossible,” Elodie tells him. “It’s already been established that I’m playing the Grutzmacher cadenza for the Boccherini cello concerto. They will never let me play one that I wrote on my own. My professor decides what I have to play.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you unless it was critical, Elodie.”

  “I need to think about the consequences of this. It’s one thing to play an atonal code in the privacy of the Wolf’s home. It’s quite another to do it in a public theater.”

  “You will not have to play more than three unscripted chords, I promise you. The information will be transferred so quickly, no one will know but you and the Wolf.”

  “Why can’t we meet in Mantua’s Istituto Musicale? Can’t the Wolf, with his many friends, organize that?”

  Luca looks at her and shakes his head. “I wish I could tell you why. I myself don’t fully know all the details. I’m only telling you what I’ve been told. The Wolf is one of our senior commanders. He knows things that even I don’t. We need to do what we’re asked, Elodie.”

  Elodie cannot sleep. The silence of the apartment is unbearable. She finds herself alone in the living room at night. She sits there with the bow on her lap and the instrument between her knees. She sees shadows on the floor, an impatient, invisible audience stretching before her. But she can’t think of any notes to play.

  She remembers listening to her father playing alone into the night and wonders what anguish had plagued him when he dove into the music like a phantom.

  She goes to bed thinking of her father. She sees him at the kitchen table dressed in his robe, his body weak but his eyes burning into hers. She sees him mouthing the word courage to her.

  And when she sleeps, she feelts her father’s strength flow through her. His voice whispering to her, just as he did when she was beginning her studies of the cello, to reach down and find her fire.

  The next afternoon, Elodie goes to the bookstore.

  She is wearing a red sweater and black trousers. Her hair is pulled back and the angles of her face look as if they’ve been cut with gla
ss.

  “Luca,” she says.

  He is at one of the bookshelves when she approaches. She stands in front of him, before he’s even had a chance to react to her voice.

  “I will do it.”

  Her eyes focus on his.

  She looks at him with conviction, her mind now full of the notes that had evaded her the night before. But it’s the melancholy pull of strings. Rather, it’s the clarion call of brass.

  “I’m glad you’ve changed your mind.” It is as if a layer of skin has been peeled away and now she is burning in front of him like a flame.

  “We can discuss the code the day after tomorrow,” he whispers. “But tomorrow I must leave for Monte Comune.”

  “You’re heading out to the mountains?”

  “Not to stay. It will just be a day trip. I need to get a few things to my brother and his men.”

  “I want to go, too,” she says.

  “Your skills are better served on your cello. I’m not wasting them on a trip to the mountains.”

  “The fresh air will do me good. I’m the only staffetta who hasn’t used her bicycle yet!”

  Luca laughs. “Such a complex girl wrapped up in such a tight package. But don’t you have school?”

  “I only have a morning class. I can meet you straight after.”

  “Well, then, if you’re dead set on going, there is something you can do to help me . . . I need you to pick up a package that we’ll take to the mountains with us. Go to Zampieri’s studio on Via San Guisto first thing in the morning before your class. He’ll give you the package and instructions where to meet me later on.”

  “Okay,” she says.

  The light has changed in the bookstore’s back room. From the small, narrow windows, Elodie remembers the words in French that her mother told her long ago. Entre chien et loup, meaning between a dog and wolf, the fleeting world of twilight. When light surrenders into darkness, or when innocence slips into danger. When one stands at a threshold between the calm and the call of the wild.