The Enemy of Love by Annabelle Thorpe

Author:Annabelle Thorpe [Thorpe, Annabelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803289144
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

13

By the time she is halfway up via Cavour, the ache in Sophia’s arm has become a sharp, burning pain. She sets the suitcase down gently, flexing her fingers, twitching the hood of her cape further over her face. Around her, nothing moves. The medieval walls loom down; dead-eyed windows closed against the autumn chill; shutters drawn across, paint peeling like the skin of a eucalyptus tree. Ahead, one streetlight throws a faint pool of light into the gloom; a cat slinks through the glow, its body shrunken and empty around its bones. The darkness feels unexpectedly hostile, as if this street she has walked her whole life is suddenly unknown to her, its familiar contours clouded and blurred.

She sucks in a breath, squares her shoulders and moves off again, gathering her skirt in her free hand to stop the material rustling against the ground. Every fragment of sound feels like a crack in the silence she is trying to maintain; the creak of the suitcase, the almost imperceptible tap of her heel against the cobbles, the tight compressions in her lungs, sending out puffs of warm breath into the air. She passes the grandiose frontage of the Teatro Cinelli, the crumbling walls of the posta, the boarded-up windows of the Trattoria Mondello, home to Gianluca, who once worked at Casa Maria, and appalled both families by setting up his own restaurant and using as many of Elena’s recipes as he could remember.

‘And where are you now?’ she mutters to herself. ‘Who knows?’ She still finds it shocking, how people seem to just disappear in wartime; no warning, no goodbyes, just a locked door and empty windows and the sense of a story that will never be told.

As she turns into the passageway by the alimentari, the suitcase collides with the corner of the wall, the noise clattering into the darkness. She pauses, waiting for the sound to be absorbed into the silence, limbs frozen, breath halted in her throat. She thinks of Giorgio, suddenly; the unexpected warmth in his kiss has reignited a flicker of hope, a sense there might be a way forward for them after all. ‘Ti amo,’ she whispers, crossing herself, glancing up to the sky. ‘Dio gentile, keep him safe. Matti and Rocco too.’

She moves off again; glancing up at the closed shutters in the buildings she passes, trying to reassure herself with the thought of the people behind them, sleeping now, but still close by. As the passageway opens out, she can just make out the rectangular bulk of the funicular station on the opposite side of the Piazza Garibaldi, the shadowy oak trees and spindles of cypress in the Giardino Nazionale just visible beside it. A wave of relief rolls through her, but just as she is about to step out of the darkness, a noise stops her; a faint, scratching sound somewhere in the shadows behind. Her stomach muscles twist with fear, her knees lock tight.

‘Ciao?’ For a moment, she thinks about

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