The Venice Sketchbook(107)
Things in Italy also seem to be getting worse for the Jews. They are now instructed to wear the yellow star and not to leave the Cannaregio district of the city. The contessa laughed when I asked her whether she was going to wear a star, or make Hanni wear one.
“Dear child, don’t worry so. Everybody knows me. I am the wife of an Italian count,” she said. “We are quite safe.”
But still I began to worry. Maybe she did, too, because the other day she took me into her library and sat me down. “If anything should happen to me, I want you to take the folder in this drawer for safekeeping,” she said. “Even Vittorio does not know about it.” She opened the drawer and untied a plain cardboard folder. “Most of the sketches it contains are not worth a second look, but in the middle I have placed some important works: an early Picasso, a Miró and a couple of others. I would not want them to fall into the wrong hands. You will keep them safe for me, yes?”
“Of course I will,” I said, “but you yourself have told me that nothing will happen to you.”
“One never knows anything in this life, but I shall sleep more soundly knowing that the wrong people will not get their hands on my treasures.” She paused, then looked up. “And if something does happen to me and I don’t return, I have left them to you in my will.”
November 1942
I have kept up my observations and radio communication. It took me a while to realize I had received no updated codebook for too long. Have they decided they no longer need to update codes, or has my radio receiver been discovered and now there is an enemy chuckling at my daily briefs? I fear it is the latter. Will it only be a matter of time before the enemy traces the source to me? I hesitate between ceasing all messages or keeping on, knowing they might soon discover me. What does it matter either way? I thought. I have no Leo, no Angelo. My life has ceased already. Francesca comes to clean occasionally or to bring me produce she has managed to find at the market. Since I eat well at the contessa’s, I don’t need much.
September 1943
A whole year has passed as if in a cloudy dream. In Venice there is finally optimism. Earlier this year the Allies invaded Sicily. And then the south of Italy. More German ships arrived in the lagoon. I kept sending my messages, hoping they were received. Then on September 8 we got the news we had been waiting for. The Italian government surrendered to the Allies. We were no longer enemies! There was celebration in the streets. “Our boys will soon be home” was the word on every street corner. The joy was short-lived, however, as the Germans were swift in their retaliation.
The German army has invaded. We have troops marching through the city. They have taken over several palazzos, including the Palazzo Rossi. I worried about Angelo but heard the family had moved out to the villa in the Veneto. “Please keep him safe,” I pray every night.
Yesterday I overheard two women talking, saying that the Germans were building a holding camp on the Lido for all the Jews. “And good riddance,” one of them said. “Never wanted them in my city in the first place, filthy foreigners.”
I rushed over to the Lido and found the contessa and Hanni sitting in the conservatory. Hanni was reading in Italian to the contessa. I imparted the awful news.
“Yes, my dear, I have heard. I feel so badly that there is nothing I can do. I can’t reason with these men. The only thing is to lie low and wait for your countrymen to come swiftly up through Italy. It can’t be long now, surely. The Germans have built a line of defence just north of Tuscany, but I don’t think they will guard the eastern shore so fiercely. I expect the Allies here very soon, then all will be well.”
“But you are living so close to the camp they are building. Why don’t you come and stay with me for a while in Dorsoduro?” I asked.
“But I like my home.” She waved an elegant hand around the room. “And I have my dear Umberto and my darling little Hanni.”
“You don’t think Hanni is in danger?”
She shrugged. “She is not on any list. She doesn’t exist. If she stays at the villa, I can see no danger.”
I prayed she was right. I observed boatloads of Jews being taken out to the Lido. The Germans have commandeered nearly all the vaporetti, so it has become almost impossible to get around. After a few days I realized I had to get out to the Lido and check on my friends to make sure they were still safe. When a fishing boat docked on the Zattere, I was bold enough to ask the fisherman if he was going back to one of the islands after he had sold his catch. The fishermen all lived out on the barrier islands. I had sketched them and their boats several times. When he told me that was his intention, I asked if he could drop me off at the Lido.
“You want a swim when the place is crawling with Germans?”
“No. I have a dear elderly friend, and I have to make sure she is all right.”
“Va bene,” he said. “Hop on board.”
And so an hour later we were crossing the lagoon. A German patrol boat pulled up beside us.
“You! Where are you going?” a German voice shouted.
“Home. I’m a fisherman. I’ve just sold my catch.”
“Do you have a permit?”
“Of course. What do you take me for?”
“And the woman. Who is she?”
I felt my heart skip. I had no identity card.
“My wife. Who else? She helps me take the money. Makes sure I don’t slip any into my pocket to buy wine.”