A Dark Song of Blood Read online

  Ben Pastor, born in Italy, lived for thirty years in the United States, working as a university professor in Vermont, before returning to her home country. A Dark Song of Blood is the third in the Martin Bora series and follows on from the success of Lumen and Liar Moon, also published by Bitter Lemon Press. Ben Pastor is the author of other novels including the highly acclaimed The Water Thief and The Fire Waker, and is considered one of the most talented writers in the field of historical fiction. In 2008 she won the prestigious Premio Zaragoza for best historical fiction.

  Also available from Bitter Lemon Press

  by Ben Pastor:

  Lumen

  Liar Moon

  BITTER LEMON PRESS

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Bitter Lemon Press, 37 Arundel Gardens, London W11 2LW

  www.bitterlemonpress.com

  Copyright © 2002 by Ben Pastor

  This edition published in agreement with the author through PNLA/Piergiorgio Nicolazzini Literary Agency

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

  The moral rights of Ben Pastor have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-908524-31-7

  Typeset by Tetragon, London

  Printed and bound by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire

  To Aldo Sciaba

  And to all the victims,

  Known and unknown,

  Of the Ardeatine Caves.

  Haec urbs arx omnium gentium.

  This City, bulwark of all peoples.

  CICERO

  Roma caput mundi regit orbis frena rotundi.

  Rome, head of the world, holds the bridle of the globe.

  IMPERIAL SEAL

  Content

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  The Martin Bora Series

  1

  ROME, 8 JANUARY 1944

  Again, the airplane. And again, the animal. Same dream in all details, an obsessive sameness. Russia, last summer. I walk toward the fallen plane making my way through the black stumps of the sunflowers, fearing what I will find there. My brother’s voice is everywhere, but I do not understand one word of what he is saying. I only know it’s the voice of the dead. A blood trail preceding and following me. Then, the rest of the dream, as always.

  I woke up in a cold sweat (this is also becoming frequent), and tried for a long time to stay awake. I only knew I was dreaming again when the sound of the animal behind me filled me with dread. It’s a quick, scraping sound, as of a large hound racing up stone steps. I climb and climb and the stairs wind around corners in a wide spiral; a blinding light comes from deep windows to the right. By inches the animal gains on me, and all I know is that it is female, and I will find no mercy with it. Its claws are like metal on polished stone, marble perhaps. I can’t climb fast enough to avoid it. Looking back into this diary, I can see the first time I dreamt this was the night before the ambush in September.

  Martin Bora’s nightmares had been set aside by the time he walked into the Hotel Flora from the wide street, early in the morning. A tiger sky drifted white behind the city blocks, wrinkling here and there with striped, ribbon-like clouds. Via Veneto was filling with light like a slow river at the bend, on a Saturday which promised to be a cold and clear day. His soul was secure inside, well kept, guarded. Anxiety had no room in his waking hours and, surprisingly, things that had been amusing were amusing still.

  Half an hour later Inspector Sandro Guidi of the Italian police stood before the massive elegance of the same hotel, shielding his eyes. At the entrance he presented his papers to a stolid-faced young soldier. While he waited in the luxurious lobby to be let upstairs, he gave himself credit for not getting lost on his way here, but still wondered why the unexpected summons to the German command.

  In the third-floor office, another wait. Beautiful wallpaper, hangings around luminous windows. Behind the desk, a detailed map of the city, a crowded bulletin board, three moist-looking watercolors of old Roman streets. Paperwork lay on the desk, neatly stacked but obviously being processed. Several maps were folded in transparent sheaths under a notebook. Guidi had seen German aides once or twice. The crimson stripes on their breeches came to mind, and the silver braid draping right shoulder and breast in the ceremonial dazzle of army hierarchy. What could General Westphal’s aide-de-camp possibly want from him? It was likely a formality, or even a mistake. But he could not mistake the voice coming from the door, because its Italian had no accent whatever.

  “Good morning, Guidi. Welcome to Rome.”

  Guidi wheeled around. “Major Bora! I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, not after what happened at Lago last month.”

  Bora smirked, and Guidi was at once familiar again with the good looks, the polite levity and reserve. “Yes,” Bora said, “SS Captain Lasser has his friends.”

  “But here in Rome!”

  “I have my friends, too.”

  Guidi was invited to sit facing the desk, where the framed photo of a woman was the only personal object. Bora did not take a chair. He sat on the desk’s corner, loosely clasping his left wrist where it met the gloved artificial hand. “So, how were you transferred here?” he asked. “I happened to drive past St Mary Major yesterday, and would have recognized you anywhere – sandy-haired, lanky and ever so proper, coming out of church. You put the rest of us to shame.”

  Guidi shrugged. This invitation was now flattering and he wasn’t sure he wanted that. Ostensibly Bora had no reason to have him here other than friendliness. “I was simply reassigned, but never expected to get the capital. Frankly, big cities daunt me.”

  He mentally compared his crumpled civilian looks to the smartness of the man facing him, off-putting were it not for the amicable cast on his youthful face. “I understand. Don’t worry, Guidi, I know Rome well. I’ll show you the sights. So, do you have a case yet?”

  “I don’t know if I can discuss it here.”

  “You must mean the Reiner matter, then. It’s on everybody’s lips, whether or not she was just a German embassy secretary who fell from a fourth-story window. Good, I’m glad it’s you they brought here for it. Where do you stay?”

  “At a house on Via Merulana.”

  “You ought to have taken a place closer in. Is your mother with you?”

  “No.”

  “She’s well, I hope?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Guidi felt Bora’s attention on him. Their association in northern Italy had been circumstantial, due to criminal cases where Germans had figured in one way or another. This was different, and he was not used to relating to Bora without an immediate motive.

  “There’s much about the city to like, you’ll see.” Bora stood, which rightly Guidi took as a sign that time was up. “Let’s meet tomorrow, at 0900 hours sharp.”

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  “Surely you can.” By his brisk stepping to the door, Guidi noticed that – four months after the grenade attack – Bora’s limp was less pronounced. He looked remarkably well, in fact.

  “My driver will take you home.”

  “It’s not necessary, Major.”

  “It is, it is. You walked here. Your ears are red with cold.” Bora’s impatience came through, and this Guidi remembered about him also. “I’ll
see you in the morning.”

  After the meeting, Guidi was angry with himself for letting Bora do the talking, and subtly taking over. It’d happened in Lago often enough to annoy him, but Bora’s concise forcefulness was as irresistible as it was disturbing. Devoid of leniency, an odd contrary image of himself, because Guidi was not willing to take risks as Bora did.

  City life in the fourth year of war was gray, as the German staff car traveled streets where the few passers-by seemed also spare and gray. Guidi was struck by the naked great size of Rome. Far from the northern province – where “Germans” meant Bora and his detachment – here, after the loss of the south, had flowed Wehrmacht and SS, paratroopers and airmen, their commands ensconced in the best hotels, and the most elegant avenues made off limits to civilians. Rome was under siege from within, strangely. Strange, too, seeing Bora wear his medals. Guidi had never before seen them on the severe field tunic, and yet they told at once all there was to know militarily about him. When the German orderly dismounted to open his car door, Guidi felt the eyes of the neighborhood upon him, curious and hostile.

  As for Bora, he did not waste time wondering whether Guidi had been imposed upon by his invitation. Within minutes General Westphal walked in with a slip of paper written in Italian.

  “What does this say?”

  Bora scanned the words. “It says, ‘The women do not love us any more / Because it is a black shirt that we wear / They say we should be carried off in chains / They say we should be carried off to jail.’ It’s a song the Fascists sing up north.”

  “Well, it’s defeatist. Write a note to Foa and the head of PAI and let them know it’s all right for Salò but we don’t want it sung in Rome. If Foa complains, chew his ass.”

  “Sir, General Foa is no Fascist, and he’s a war hero. Harshness may not be advisable.”

  “He’s also half-Jewish. Ream him, and don’t worry about being unpopular. Aides are never left behind for the dogs to tear.”

  As things went, Foa was an untoward old man who wanted no interference from the Germans, and Bora ended up making an enemy over the stupid ditty. After the phone call he prepared a memo for Westphal’s meeting with Field Marshal Kesselring, which he might have to deliver himself, two hours away in the arid massif of Mount Soratte. Allied fighter planes circled the sky in endless vulture rounds all the way there, where the distant mountain cut against the eastern sky a bizarre stone likeness of Mussolini. Westphal was called in by General Maelzer, commander of the city garrison, and Bora was en route to the field marshal’s lair before noon.

  He made it back to the city long after curfew. On his desk, a message from the Vatican was waiting with a note scribbled by Westphal on the margin. Inform the Vatican Secretary of State you’ll visit first thing in the morning to discuss matters in person. If it’s the Italian cardinal, say no; if it’s the German, say that we’ll look into it. In either case give my regards, et cetera. Don’t fall for Hohmann’s philosophical talk. Report to me on Monday on this and the trip.

  9 JANUARY 1944

  At fifteen minutes to seven on Sunday, a cold, rainy day that made the cobblestones along the Vatican Wall slick with ice, Bora arrived to meet whomever the Secretary of State had chosen for the encounter. He secretly hoped it would be Cardinal Borromeo, whom he knew less than Cardinal Hohmann and would be easier to lie to. But it turned out to be Hohmann who would meet him; the same old man who, as a bishop, lectured on ethics when Bora was at the university. A spry octogenarian who notoriously did not take no for an answer, he noticed Bora’s concern and laughed his small squeaky laugh. “What is this, General Westphal sends me a boy from home?”

  Bora leaned over to kiss the cardinal’s ring.

  “Have you been to Mass?”

  “Why, no, Your Eminence.”

  “Then go to Mass first – there’s one about to begin next door.”

  Bora fidgeted through the service in the chapel of the handsome flat just outside the Vatican boundaries, from which all German soldiers were barred. At his return, Hohmann was eating candy next to a small table. “If you haven’t taken Communion,” he said with a merry flicker of his blue eyes, “it means you were ordered to lie to me.”

  “I haven’t taken Communion,” Bora admitted, “but not for that reason. Your Eminence, General Westphal wishes to inform you that we might look into the matter of preventive arrest of civilians by the Italian authorities.”

  “That’s a lie already, because you won’t.”

  “He also sends his respects to Your Eminence.”

  “They’re not worth a fig, Major.” Hohmann handed the dainty plate of candy to Bora, who tensely declined. “What happened to the saucy upperclassman with whom I discussed Glaucon?”

  “Things are different now.”

  “Nonsense. From one Saxon to another, Major Bora, tell your commander that I want more than his word for it. If he doesn’t make himself accountable in writing, the Holy Father may request to see him personally, or to see General Maelzer, or the field marshal.”

  “Even the field marshal has his orders.”

  “What were you to tell Cardinal Borromeo, had he been the one selected to meet you?”

  “I am not at liberty to say.”

  Genially Hohmann slapped his knee. “Then it’s ‘no’. You were told to tell him no, and ‘maybe’ to me. Well, I suppose that counts for something.”

  “I urge Your Eminence to accept General Westphal’s spoken offer of interest. I’m afraid it’s as good as Your Eminence is going to receive.”

  “Our Eminence will accept it if you will apprise him that he is unto us as Plato’s prisoner to his companions.”

  Bora gave him a frustrated look. “With all respect, I cannot tell my commanding officer that he’s ridiculous.”

  The teacher in the cardinal relented enough for him to lead Bora out of the room with a fatherly squeeze of the shoulder. “It’s all right, Major, you don’t have to tell him.”

  “I still need Your Eminence’s answer to the offer.”

  “The answer is no.”

  Later that day, from the baluster of the Janiculum Hill, Rome was hazy with smoke – people were burning cardboard and furniture in their stoves after gas and central heating had been cut off, like most services. The view had the dreamlike hues of a northern place, a Flemish quality of misty perspectives, roof edges suspended, outlines dabbed on. But the cupolas betrayed Rome, and so did the somber heads of the pines, and the white marble slope of Victor Emmanuel’s monument, a throne fit for a giant.

  “How can you know so much about Rome if you arrived only ten days or so ago?”

  Bora was thinking of Hohmann, whose outspokenness had nearly cost him his life in Germany, and slowly turned at Guidi’s question. “My stepfather’s first wife lives here. I spent many summers with her, down that way.” He pointed at an undefined spot in the center of the city, where blocks of venerable brick houses clustered around fat churches.

  During four hours of visiting the sights and breaking for lunch, Bora’s talk had been inquisitive but superficial, with no sign of deepening now. So Guidi decided to prompt him. “Major, what do you know about the Reiner case?”

  “Not much. If there’s foul play, we want it solved.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s about all. Rumors about boyfriends – and about a girlfriend, too.” Bora stood straight, and fastidiously rigid.

  “That’s news to me.”

  “Well, it proves how we can keep our mouths shut.”

  “Three weeks have passed since her death, and not a word in the papers. They told me the body is still here.”

  “Actually, her ashes are. She was cremated upon her family’s request. You understand that after her fall, it was hardly an open coffin matter.”

  “No word about an autopsy, either. And the key to her apartment has not been made available to the Italian authorities.”

  “The building belongs to the German government.”

  G
uidi was vexed by Bora’s reticence. “So, that’s it, Major. They brought me in as a newcomer to sandbag the investigation.”

  “Whatever you mean by they, it isn’t the Germans. And what a low opinion of yourself you have. Perhaps they think you’re the only one who can see through it.”

  For the next few minutes, Bora pointed out monuments through the haze, discussing them. Guidi, still resentful, was not about to settle for the view. He said bluntly, “Frankly, Major, after the matter at Lago, I thought for sure you’d seek headquarters in Germany.”

  Unexpectedly Bora grinned. “For safety, you mean? Because of a jackass like Captain Lasser?” But he didn’t add how close to asking for that very safety he’d come. “War is not over in Italy, by a long shot. I like being involved.”

  “I don’t know why you keep after war when you might not have to.”

  Bora took out a pack of Chesterfields. “Why, you’re not serious!” He offered a cigarette to Guidi, without taking one himself. “Ever since Spain, I’ve had seven years of great fighting. The glory of it, Guidi, the bloody idea of it. It takes more than a lost hand or a jackass colleague! Spain, Poland, Russia – I volunteered for all. Being in war is as much fun as being in love, when the want’s in it.”

  Guidi saw through the bluster. “Is that the only lesson to be gained from it?”

  “No. Spain is where I learned what civil war does to a country, so I don’t mind being here at all. I know what to expect. As for Italy, it was Albert who brought me here.” Bora meant Field Marshal Kesselring, affectionately, though his face grew hard. “I assure you, Guidi, your king made a mistake when he turned on us. We’ll do what we must, but you’ll be out in the cold.”

  “You mean the Italians. I see. Why do you bother with my company, then?”

  Bora looked down at the lighter he had taken in hand without using it. “Must there be a motive? This isn’t police work.”

  “Some higher-up found me an accommodation at Via Paganini, closer in. I was notified of it this morning, and have reason to think you had something to do with it.”