The Secret Messenger by Mandy Robotham

Author:Mandy Robotham [Robotham, Mandy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

21

The City Cauldron

Venice, July 1944

Early July beats down its consistent Mediterranean heat on Venice and the swell in population, sporadic water shortages and increase in squadrons of aircraft over the lagoon create a cauldron in the city, pressed and heated from all sides. Unrest is inevitable. And it comes.

I wake to a hum of noise through my open window, along with a slight breeze. It’s nothing specific, just general unease, but it’s certainly not the light clipping of feet I’m used to hearing below my window as people make their way to work or the market. A slight increase in pace, maybe, and the sound of murmurings designed not to be heard. From my window, the little square looks the same, cut by a shaft of bright sunlight that signals we’re in for another day when the city’s buildings will be baked and the water warmed to ooze its sulphurous smell. But the feeling carried on the air makes me get up and dress earlier than normal. I walk the few steps to Paolo’s for coffee – and gossip.

Paolo knows what’s happening, of course he does, but waits until my coffee is poured and I’m sitting at one of the back tables before he dips his voice to a whisper. There’s been a fascist raid in the Cannaregio, the ghetto district, and five locals have been killed – butchered – as a reprisal for the shooting of an officer and one, maybe two, fascist guards.

My heart stops a second for Vito, but Paolo would know already if he were involved. Instead, my head and heart starts to pound for those sacrificed innocents, possibly someone I’ve had contact with in these past months. It’s likely they had nothing to do with the shootings, merely happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the eyeline of angry fascists with a score to settle. How will their families feel, knowing the victims were not even true casualties of war, but unfortunate bystanders? Your aunt, or brother or mother – real people with love and laughter and a history – classed as collateral damage?

I make my way to work feeling utterly winded and depressed. I wonder how many episodes like this one there will be before we in the Resistance finally make real ground against the evil. True victory. When I arrive, Cristian only glances at me, wearing a slight frown as he rushes by.

It’s a week or so later when the heat of war and summer combines to create a real furnace of the city. I wake that morning to a definite scent in my nose – the acrid smell of burning. I see the plume of smoke above the orange roofs before I reach Paolo and his font of knowledge. The fire is in the Luce Institute, a branch of the fascists’ revered propaganda machine, which churns out endless films of smiling generals strutting alongside bronzed and proud Italians. Visiting dignitaries to Venice are a particular focus for their cameras.

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