WAKE THE DEAD
By Robert Legleitner

CHAPTER ONE

Italy
February 1946

Death was in his hand. The man calling himself Signor Dicosta held an amber capsule, easily swallowed, and then blessed release and freedom. Many people, if not most, believed or hoped that death was only the gateway to a better life. He was fortunate. He knew it.

Dicosta beckoned the waiter and ordered steamed shellfish. His command of Italian was not good, he had to repeat himself, and that annoyed him.

The elderly quartet rattled sheet music. Three white-haired men and a fragile old woman no larger than her cello began playing “Musette’s Waltz.” None of the patrons seemed to notice them. Dicosta lit a cigarette as the waiter served the wine. A man and woman came in and took a table near him. The smell of rain and wet wool came with them mingling with the aroma of food and cigarette smoke.

Outside, the street was shiny but the rain had stopped. Here in the village, the houses and the apartments above the shops were curtained and shuttered against the bitter February day. Beyond the piazza, beyond the church, the houses were farther apart, the trees thicker. Farther out, between dark umbrella pines and spears of black cypresses, stood the clinic.

He wondered if they’d take his body back to the clinic. No, the mortuary.

He put the capsule in his mouth and washed it down with the pale wine just as the plate of steaming mussels was put in front of him. Thirty minutes left in this life, a life that had gone awry. He took his watch from his pocket.

The seal his father had given him was gone from the chain. The tiny gold ring which held it was still on the chain but the solid gold disk with an embossed Roman eagle was missing. He had not meant to take this last journey without it. It must be in his room at the clinic. Too late now to go after it.

Later, when he sagged against the table, fell sideways off his chair, and heard alarmed voices that dimmed at last to silence, it didn’t seem to matter.

Ida Gentili held a parcel tight as she hurried along the street. Her aunt knew someone in the black market, and tea and sugar were always wanted. Ida would brew a pot for her English employer when she got to the house.

As Ida passed the restaurant, she glanced through the steamy windows. She saw Signor Dicosta alone at a table. He had been pointed out to her at the clinic, but she never expected to see him in Santa Maria a Mare where her two surviving relatives felt safe. She must tell them.

She was startled when he fell to the floor. The people around him turned to see and some rose to bend over his prone body. Another man she recognized, the local doctor, gestured for the others to stand back as he knelt by Dicosta. Ida saw the doctor feel for a pulse, saw him touch Dicosta’s neck, before he shook his head and got to his feet. A woman near the fallen man screamed.

Two people came out into the street saying, “He’s dead, did you see?” and Ida answered, “Yes,” as if they’d spoken to her. She hugged herself. The parcel pressed against her chest and reminded her that she must go.

At the house, Ida hung her coat on a peg in the closet near the kitchen door. She drew water for the kettle. Signora Parmenter was busy writing in her study but she would want a cup of hot strong tea. Dinner must be prepared and served.

Ida wondered if she should tell anyone that Signor Dicosta was dead. But by now everyone in the village must know. The man died in a crowd and the word must be in every house. Lina Monti, her aunt, and her cousin Rosa would hear the news and be comforted. The matter was settled. Ida set out the cup and saucer, filled the sugar bowl, and laid the tea tray. The matter was settled and she hadn’t lifted a hand against the man.

In Rome, Kydon Schmidt looked at the envelope of a telegram and slid a finger under the flap. Thinking, it has to be from Robin on his way with my father and my life can begin again, he read the message. “Jesus Christ!”

The words echoed in the high-ceilinged room. A woman of fifty, in black relieved by a white piquet collar, turned. “Signore?”

“Nothing, Isabella,” Kydon said. “I’m sorry I startled you.”

The housekeeper closed the door behind her. Kydon burned the message in the fireplace then straightened his six-foot three inch frame. He leaned on the cold marble mantelpiece and stared at the wisp of smoke curling up from the ashes.

There was a rap on the door and it opened. “Kydon, am I disturbing you?” Elena, Contessa Avezzano, stepped into the library. “You haven’t turned on a light and it’s growing dark.”

Kydon went to the marquetry inlaid olive-wood desk. “I had a wire.” He lit the green-shaded lamp.

“From your father or Robin?”

“From Landgren.” Kydon frowned as he mentioned the name of his contact at MI-6.

“Oh damn it, not now.” Elena pulled her lacy shawl closer. “Will Landgren insist with your father on his way—?”

Kydon stared past her. “Landgren’s here in Rome.”

“Oh God. If he’s here, whatever he has in mind….”

Kydon thought of Robin and what they wanted to do, of his father and making a home, of the work he wanted to do. “An easy walk. I’m to be there in ten minutes. The bridge to the Castel San Angelo.”

The late February day was gray and chilly when Kydon walked toward the Tiber and the bridge to the ancient monument.

Once the tomb of the Emperor Hadrian, the squat thick tower of the Castel San Angelo appeared unassailable and menacing behind its outer walls above the Tiber River. The stream was as steely as the darkening gray sky. Kydon’s blond hair glinted as he lounged against the balustrade of the Ponte San Angelo at the foot of one of the pale stone winged sentinels which guarded the bridge.

A man in a trench coat walked onto the bridge. “From tomb to fortress to a museum,” he said. “Is it open?”

“You’ll have to come back tomorrow,” Ky said.

The man slid back his cuff to consult his watch. “I saw a bar in a little street off the via Guilia.”

“Salty Joe’s American Bar?”

“That’s it. Will you join me, Apollo?”

“I’ll be delighted, Landgren, as long as you’re buying.”

They left the fortress and crossed the Lungotevere. There were few people on the streets as they walked the via Paolo to the via Guilia. Salty Joe’s bar was in the vaulted cellar of an old building. Once down narrow worn steps, the bar was along the front wall. The interior, divided into three areas by brick and stone arches, was furnished with simple wooden tables and chairs. In the dim lighting, the jukebox stood out garishly.

“Two brandies please,” Landgren said to the bartender.

The burly American behind the bar looked at the Englishman with a grin and set out tumblers and a soda siphon. Both men added a splash to their drinks. When they were seated at a table by the wall, Landgren said, “Good of you to see me on short notice.” In the low light he had the lean ascetic look of a monk.

“You had a reason to come to Rome, Landgren, what is it?”

“Hyacinth’s flight is on schedule. He and your father will be in Rome the day after tomorrow.”

“Does this involve both Robin and me?” Kydon asked.

“It may be easier for two. Merely surveillance.” As Kydon opened his mouth, Landgren held up a hand. “I know, I said that the last time.”

“When we were caught in a damned web of deceptions, and I was accused of being a traitor. We were almost shot there in France,” Kydon said, “so this time I’d like to know who’s following us.”

“No one,” Landgren answered. “I want you on this affair because they may have spotted our men and I need fresh faces.”

“So you picked Robin’s face and mine.”

“You’re here and Hyacinth soon will be.”

“I want time with my father.” Kydon drank the last of his brandy and waved for more. “What’s the rest of it?”

“Highly placed Nazis slipping out of Europe and we’re doing our bit to stop them, to turn them over to the authorities.”

“Who are they? How do we know where to look?”

“You’re headed in the right direction. You’re looking for a place at Santa Maria a Mare, I believe.” Landgren’s expression was as bland as a baby’s. “One of our men will put you in the picture tomorrow night at Mrs. Parmenter’s.”

“The dinner party? How did you—who?” Kydon asked.

“Walter Sharpe,” Landgren replied. “He’s with our Branch now. I’ve put him in the way of someone with entry into the local social scene.” Landgren glanced around. “I rather like this place. I fancy we’ll see each other here again.”

When Kydon left Salty Joe’s Bar, night had come down over Rome.

Night’s edge moved westward and the shining steel sky of morning lighted the hills and sea. In Santa Maria, people opened their shops and stalls. On the southeast edge of the small town, Ida Gentili slipped through the garden gate into the cemetery. She crossed it at a fast pace and left the tended grounds to enter the wilder grounds of the Castel Murata. She had a basket on her arm and a short-bladed knife in one hand, on the hunt for mushrooms and greens. Beneath arching evergreen oaks she found more than enough mushrooms and watercress by a spring. She had extra to sell to one of the produce stalls in the piazza. She hurried into Santa Maria.

In the morning light, her fears from the night seemed nonsense when, on her way to the market square, she saw the local funeral parlor. He was there, but Signor Dicosta was dead, one of the wicked men who sowed death wherever they went. And she hadn’t lifted a hand against him, thank God. She had seen enough violence during the war and afterward and she didn’t think of herself as a violent woman.

Signora Frescini was arranging new carrots and radishes in neat rows. Beside the stall, an old woman was setting out small bundles of rosemary, bay, and thyme. While it seemed an extension of the greengrocer’s goods, the old woman had, by long custom, her own area just under the end of the red and white striped awning over the Frescini tables. The Frescinis sold no herbs.

“A fine lot of mushrooms,” the older woman said. “Too bad you found no early jasmine blooms. I would like a spray for myself.”

“I didn’t think to look for flowers.”

“We have no time for flowers,”Signora Frescini said. “It’s enough to put food on the table. A pity the dead stranger has no one to mourn him and no flowers.”

“They said at the clinic he wasn’t a very nice man,” Ida said.

“It’s all one now,” the old woman muttered. She grinned, she had no teeth. “You’re the niece of Lina Monti. You’d know what happens at the clinic.”

“My aunt thought he was a German or so she told me.”

Signora Frescini shook water from lettuces. “He was a Jew. The housekeeper of the funeral director told me so only this morning. He is to be buried today in one of the empty mausoleums.”

“I never heard of Jews hidden at the clinic,” the old woman said.

Ida looked puzzled. “Dicosta is to be buried today?”

“The housekeeper says they must be buried within a day.” Signora Frescini looked pleased with her newfound knowledge.

“Buried here in Santa Maria?” Ida grasped the handle of her basket.

“What is it?” Signora Frescini asked. “You’ve lost your color.”

“But did he—the dead man—have the money to pay?”

The old woman laughed. “The doctor from the clinic paid, isn’t that what you said, Mama Frescini?”

“Doctor Saldini paid for the funeral?”

“Not him,” Signora Frescini replied. “The foreign doctor, the one who uses the brilliantine on his hair.”

“I must go,” Ida said, gripping her basket. “It’s much later than I thought.”

“Let me pay you for these mushrooms.” Signora Frescini dug in the pocket of her apron.

Ida put the money in a pocket without looking at it. She hurried across the square to the street leading to Jenny Parmenter’s house. Only after she had passed under one of the arches that spanned the narrow street did she slow her pace and take a deep breath. The salt smell of the nearby sea was in the air.

At the house, she went straight through to the garden. The world brightened as the morning drew on and she glanced up at the sky. There were few clouds. She slipped through the gate into the cemetery grounds.

By a monument with three angels, the workmen were busy with mortar and the marble slab that would close the mausoleum niche. He would be buried with their dead.

That evening, after tying his black tie for the third time, Kydon checked his shirt studs, cufflinks, and put on the black jacket of his dinner suit. He thought of how Robin liked dressing for dinner, the formality which was neither as rigid nor severe as many people thought. He remembered Robin saying, “The hard part is not spilling anything on my shirt.” Kydon checked his own tailored shirt front, and went down to the drawing room to see if Elena was ready for the dinner party.

Luck had brought Kydon and Elena, La Contessa Avezzano, together. During the war, Elena kept a “safe” house on Mallorca where the partisans took Kydon when he was wounded escaping the Germans at the Spanish frontier. They became close friends. She persuaded him to make Rome his base of operations when the war ended. If he wished to go on with his archeological work, she argued, Rome had the Vatican Library with all its resources for research, and her uncle was assigned to that library. An argument as impossible to resist as her connections.

The Princess Olimpia Rondelli, Elena’s sister, was in the drawing room having a cocktail. The princess seemed to know, or know of, everyone in Rome and other major European cities. She would have been, Elena said, a good agent but “she hasn’t the patience to sit down and write letters or reports.” The princess was useful as she was aware of Elena’s work for the British, which, Kydon learned, was an open secret in the family.

Princess Olimpia indicated the cart with the glasses and cocktail shaker. She drew her red fox stole to one end of the sofa in an invitation. “You needn’t look so glum, Kydon. The people tonight won’t be that dull.”

“I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else.”

“It isn’t Robin is it?” Prince Antonio asked. “He is still coming to Rome?”

Prince Antonio, Olimpia’s only child, a teenager with adolescent yearnings for excitement, had attached himself to Kydon. At first, Ky thought the boy was in search of a man to act as a father, the elder Prince Rondelli died in a car crash. It was soon clear that Prince Antonio thought Ky to be a spy and adventurer, and that the prince and Ky shared other, personal, traits. Prince Antonio developed a deep infatuation for Robin. Ky felt it was amusing. For the most part.

“He should be here soon.”

“May I please go with you? Mrs. Parmenter won’t mind an extra guest.”

“Absolutely not,” Princess Olimpia replied.

“The voice of authority,” Ky said. “I’m afraid there’s no appeal.”

“Then tell me, what day is Robin coming back to Rome?”

Princess Olimpia adjusted her red fox fur. “That’s all he speaks of as if he has no other friends. When Robin is in Rome again they will go here, they will go there.”

Elena came into the room. “Robin will be back soon enough,” she said. “Get your coat, Tony, your driver’s waiting.”

Prince Antonio Rondelli sighed heavily, offered to be the driver, promised once again not to speak unless spoken to, and to behave as a gentleman. The lanky six-foot adolescent was sent home in the Rondelli Bentley with the chauffeur.

Princess Olimpia, settling her furs around her shoulders, paused in front of a mirror to inspect her hair. “Elena, I simply don’t know what I shall do with him in another year.”

“You wouldn’t have it when I suggested school in Switzerland.” Elena picked up her own black sable trimmed coat. “Now he’s sixteen, Olimpia, it may be too late.”

“He threatened to run away and join the Resistance. He was thirteen, a child.”

“How do you know he didn’t?” Kydon asked. “He was big enough and there were younger children who fought. I remember a twelve year old—”

Princess Olimpia stopped him with a wave of a gloved hand. “He was at class every day. His tutor verified it. Come, Elena, we mustn’t be too late.”

Kydon drove, the Princess Rondelli gave him both directions and information on their destination.

“It’s a small coastal town which pleases Jenny, she has the quiet in which to work at her writing. Count Sebastiano Tondi lives nearby, has done for eighty years, his family have been there for the last three hundred years and more. The Heavenly Twins have had their house since the 1929 Market Crash, you know.”

“The Heavenly Twins?” Kydon asked.

“Count Tondi’s name for Violet Trefussis and Millicent Westover,” Elena said from the back.

Olimpia quickly took over again. “Two English women older than Elena and I, middle fifties I should think, don’t you, Elena? They went to Egypt for the duration of the war and aren’t back long. Their house, the Villa Refugio, escaped any damage, but Millicent says there is a burned German truck by the drive.”

“And Jenny Parmenter?”

“A novelist who writes books about Eleanor of Aquitane and the Crusades, queens and lovers, romances of that sort.”

“She’s almost six feet tall,” Elena said. “A very pleasant woman but not pretty, wouldn’t you agree, Olimpia? Her husband is dead.”

“Dead in the war,” Olimpia added. “Dreadful for her.”

“Is this party all women?” Kydon asked.

“I shouldn’t think so,” Elena replied. “Jenny always has Count Tondi.”

“And the Huberts,” Olimpia added. “Morris is back.”

“Where was he?” Kydon asked.

“North Africa, Egypt. Intelligence work for the BTE,” Elena said. “He’s the local land agent and he and Leah have lived here for years.”

“He was with the British Troops in Egypt?” Kydon looked at Elena in the mirror. “What did he do in Intelligence, do you know?”

“He says he tracked down stolen military stores sold to the Egyptian black market.” Elena tapped Olimpia’s shoulder. “Please put up the window, darling.”

“Elena, we’re here. There, Kydon, on the left.”

It was a large square house at the eastern edge of Santa Maria. It had a classic portico flanked by a pair of weathered stone lions. The door was opened by a tall woman in a long green gown, and the women embraced. Jenny airily waved Elena and Princess Olimpia into the drawing room and took Kydon’s arm. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am you’re here, Doctor Schmidt. I’ve read your father’s books on the Greek cities in Turkey. Have you published?”

“Not much recently.”

“The ruddy war’s upset everything.” Jenny Parmenter lowered her voice as the two entered the drawing room. “You must meet the Heavenly Twins.”

Violet Trefussis was tall and angular with a handshake as firm as her gaze was steady. Her graying brown hair was cut short and combed back and, with the plain, high-necked dark woolen dress with a white collar, she looked like an aged choirboy. Millicent Westover, shorter and plumper, had curly ginger-colored hair in a loose knot held by a tortoise shell comb. She wore flowered chiffon, faceted crystal beads, and pale rose lipstick. There was a comfortable, old-fashioned look about the two women.

Jenny introduced a short man to Kydon. “Doctor Saldini is in charge of the Clinico Colima. Doctor Sered recently joined the clinic staff,” she added, indicating a second man. Doctor Sered, tall, thin, and pale, shook hands without strength. He looked like a man who hadn’t seen the sun for a long time.

“The clinic is becoming famous.” Jenny Parmenter offered cigarettes. “They have patients from all of Europe trying their new therapy. It’s quite the latest thing.”

“Explain the new therapy, Doctor Saldini.” Elena sat by him on the sofa.

“We use sleep to reduce anxiety and neurotic stress,” Doctor Saldini replied. He was pink to his receding gray hairline as he cautiously leaned away from Elena, and the flesh of his neck oozed over his collar. “We’re one of the few facilities outside of Switzerland to use it.”

“It is experimental and quite unusual now;” Doctor Sered added with genuine enthusiasm, “but soon, I’m sure, everyone will embrace it,”.

“Sleep for anxiety and stress?” Violet Trefussis looked displeased. “Nothing’s better than good, hard physical exercise to put one right.”

“There are uses for that too, signora,” Doctor Sered replied.

“But, doctor,” Jenny said, “I thought your specialty was anesthetics.”

“It is that,” Doctor Sered answered with a quick smile.

“The Huberts are bringing Count Sebastiano Tondi.” Jenny served cocktails. “Morris is bringing another friend so we’re an even twelve for dinner.” She handed a martini to Kydon. “The count managed to stick it out through the Occupation and German retreat even when his beautiful house was hit by a shell.”

The Huberts arrived with the Conte Sebastiano Tondi and another man.

The thin old count kissed the women’s hands and complimented them on their appearance. His dinner jacket, brushed and pressed with care, had seen long use. He wore patent leather opera pumps and a slightly faded red watered silk cummerbund.

Morris Hubert and his wife Leah both had a healthy look, Morris more than a hint of the military, Leah a fair-skinned Englishwoman. They shook hands and then Hubert presented his friend, Walter Sharpe. The dark-haired man put out his hand.

“Happy to meet you, Schmidt,” he said.

There was no hint that Kydon already knew Walter as they spoke politely to one another. Ida brought canapés and a bucket of ice. Kydon watched her, a handsome woman in her mid-forties, as she unobtrusively checked the ashtrays, the glasses, and the guests, before she left the room.

Morris Hubert accepted a drink as his wife spoke to the doctors. Leah greeted Violet and Milly but her eyes went back to Kydon and he thought he saw a question in them. He smiled at her as Jenny handed Walter a drink.

How much did Neville Landgren know about these people? When could he and Walter meet? “You’re headed in the right direction.” Landgren’s words were on his mind as Kydon chatted with the guests. Landgren, spinning his web, had an interest in one or more of these people. Someone here was playing a game.

Kydon thought of Robin somewhere in France on a train speeding through the night. He thought of his father and Robin going to the dining car, thought of another gathering when Robin said, “Did Sherlock Holmes really say, the game’s afoot? This one sure seems to be.”

Robin had been correct at that other gathering, and he would be correct now.

The evening seemed empty even with the dinner party. The game was afoot and Kydon wanted Robin with him.

CHAPTER TWO

France: The countryside showed the ravages of winter as well as those of the recent war. After leaving Calais, Joseph Schmidt surveyed the bombed, burned out villages, the cratered fields, the blasted orchards, and ruined vineyards. He said, “You were here then, Robin,” more to himself than to his companion. His tone was a mixture of sadness and regret. The young man on the seat opposite lifted a dark-eyed gaze from a book and closed it, marking his place with a finger.

“Yes sir.” Robin Wyngate paused and then said, “A lot of us were here.”

Joseph rested his graying head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes. “Kydon carries a gunshot scar to prove it.”

“We were lucky,” Robin said. “We came through it.”

“You stayed here in Europe when you could have gone home to America.”

“There’s work for me.”

Joseph suspected what it was, Kydon had told him a little, and he could guess the rest. His son and his son’s friend—more than friend—were agents. Joseph’s final doubts were swept away in London where a colorless man in a nondescript dark suit took the attache case from Robin with a slightly deferential “thank you, sir.” A car took them to the boat train. Clearly, his son and Robin were involved in some kind of undercover work.

“Not your work, Robin, surely; you’re American, you can go home.”

“I want the world to be better, Doctor Schmidt.” Robin stared through the window. In the twilight, a burned farm flashed by with workmen gathered by a damaged house as if holding a meeting. “A plowed field,” Robin said. “A good sign. They’ll plant soon, wheat probably, to make bread.” The light faded as the wheels clicked over the joints and the car swayed. “There was a damaged church. They’ll repair it first, then their houses.”

“Do you believe in God?” Joseph asked.

“How else did I get through the war?”

“After the evil you’ve seen?”

“Not everyone is evil, Doctor Schmidt.”

Joseph closed his eyes again. Faith. It was all that was asked. Whosoever believeth in Me shall have everlasting life. This young man believes, does Kydon? He must do so and yet they go against the faith in other ways. Or is it me? Odd what comes to mind from my youth. Judge not lest ye yourself be judged. Have faith.

How does a man live his life? The best way he can. How does he rear his children? The best way he can. Right from wrong taught early. Compassion, a concept as difficult to master as understanding and tolerance. I have compassion, understanding, and tolerance; I’ve felt pity, empathy, and shown tolerance for those who have not agreed with me. Wait, there’s a blurred area here. I’ve tolerated many things but have I understood them? There’s a difference.

“Do you know the young man who came to Europe with Kydon?”

Robin turned from the window. “I know of him.”

Joseph started to speak but stopped. Robin and the other young man would be rivals, and not friends, not under present circumstances. And yet Kydon had spoken to this young man about the other. “I believe he lives in Spain now,” Joseph said. “Kydon thought him to be dead for a time.”

“Ky told me about him.” Robin gave Joseph a direct, clear-eyed look. “I’m glad he made it.”

Joseph took out his pipe and tobacco, knocked the dottle from the pipe and refilled it. “You almost died in England,” he said. “I was astonished to think the two of you were involved in a murder case. An attempt was made on your life.”

“We didn’t expect that,” Robin answered. “It was a statue we’d gone to see at Old Priory and Ky authenticated it. It was Greek. We found Roman things too.”

“I should liked to have seen them.” Joseph tamped his pipe.

Robin’s use of the pronoun “we” held an interesting significance that presumed a particular knowledge. We: a pair, a team, a couple. Common knowledge as to who was meant for those who knew them.

“When we change trains, Doctor Schmidt,” Robin said, “I’ll call Rome.”

“Of course you’ll want Kydon to know you’re coming.”

“To say we’re on our way.” Robin closed his book and took out a cigarette. It was dark outside and Joseph saw their reflections in the window as Robin said, “He’s been so anxious to have you with him. So have I although I’ve been a little afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of you.”

Joseph had not considered Robin’s feelings, only Kydon’s. And, he thought, my own if I’m to be honest. “Why would you be afraid of me?” He was annoyed that anyone should fear him. It put a barrier between them.

“I haven’t been to college.” Robin lit his cigarette. “Kydon says I’ll learn but I don’t know. I can help him and you, I’m a good typist, about a hundred words a minute. I take shorthand even faster. I don’t know anything about archeology and history, though.”

“You’ll have no trouble learning if you want to learn.”

“My grandfather always said that,” Robin replied.

“Has no one guided your reading?”

“Not really,” Robin murmured. “At least not so far.”

It was an invitation. Joseph Schmidt wanted to be fair to his son and to Robin, to begin their lives together smoothly no matter what he felt. “You mustn’t constantly refer to me as Doctor Schmidt, it sounds too formal. Call me Joseph.” For a moment he savored his favorite mixture of aromatic tobaccos. “Shall we go to the dining car for our last meal aboard? I take it we shall have breakfast at the countess’s home.”

“I’m ready. I’ll be so glad to get to Rome where we can all enjoy ourselves.”

Italy, the next morning. Jenny was in her study. Ida laid the tray and checked the spoons again before taking the morning tea to the writer. Ida put the tray on an uncluttered corner of the worktable. “The writing, it goes well?”

“Rather well. The scones smell wonderful, Ida.”

They should, Ida thought. You taught me your way to bake them.

Jenny helped herself to tea. “The salad you prepared last night was delicious. Can you do it again? I’ve asked the Misses Westover and Trefussis to lunch.”

“Of course, signora, but I will have to go out for the greens again.”

“Then leave the tidying up till later.” Jenny returned to her manuscript and it absorbed her attention at once.

Ida went to the kitchen for her coat, basket, and knife.

The air was clear and sky transparent blue with a few trailing wispy clouds as Ida let herself through the old oak gate into the grounds of the cemetery. She looked toward the monument with its three marble angels. She couldn’t remember the name of the family, but the three angels were a point of reference in the wilderness of cold stone memorials, tiny mausoleums and large, which made up the burying ground.

She made a wide circuit, looking, against her will, toward the low mausoleum where the late Signor Dicosta lay in his eternal rest. The narrow paths were lined with photographs behind glass, most of it so fogged in the morning air that it was difficult to see the features of the deceased. The newer pictures of those dying during the war were clear and fresh. Ida thought of her own loved ones lying in a distant cemetery in the hills north of Rome.

Ida was one of few survivors of her home village. She was away when the Nazis came looking for partisans, but she heard the story later. Everyone was forced into the streets to be interrogated. The commandant, swaggering and cruel, ordered the executions. Of the five hundred people in the small rural community, two hundred were shot for harboring partisans. Ida’s family died that day, all but her aunt Lina Monti, and Lina’s daughter Rosa. Rosa’s son escaped too, they hoped.

Ida was away when the massacre occurred, trying to cross the Austrian border to retrieve her cousin’s child because Rosa was lying ill with a fever and could not go. Her Austrian husband, afraid of being shot as a deserter, fled north. Ida failed in her mission. There was not enough money for bribes, she didn’t know the “right” people, so many reasons why she couldn’t get to Vienna.

The memories engulfed her as Ida made her way through the city of the dead. She couldn’t shake the dread even when she came to the edge of the cemetery where the land was clear and the sea sparkled to her right. The overgrown grounds of Castel Murata were ahead and she found her way to the glade where the delicious green sprouts and watercress grew along the edge of a stream. She made herself think of the salad she would serve la Signora Parmenter and the guests. It must be done just right for la Signorina Trefussis, for Violet, despite a cold sharp manner, was a good friend.

As Ida went around the sea end of the stone boundary wall, she saw a movement ahead, a glimpse of dark brown like a man’s suit. She wondered who it was on the path to La Murata. The people employed at the clinic beyond the castle ruins were at work, it was already mid-morning. She hurried for a few steps so she could see who it was. And then she saw him clearly.

She felt like she was struck hard in the chest. She gasped for air as the man she knew as Signor Dicosta turned to look out to sea. His right hand was elongated, skeletal, and bloody in the morning light. Ida dropped to her knees and crossed herself. “Jesus, my Savior. Mary, Mother of God, save me.” She dropped the basket and knife and fumbled for them. Her hands shook, she felt ill.

When she looked up again despite her terror and mumbling an incoherent prayer, Signor Dicosta, or his ghost, was gone.

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