She found herself walking to the back door and up the fire escape. She crossed the garden to her chaise longue and lay down, holding the notebook against her chest. She closed her watery eyes, and in the next moment, she heard a loud flapping and fluttering above her, in the sky.
She looked up to see hundreds of starlings flying in front of the moon, their silhouettes twisting, turning, and forming all manner of elegant shapes. She knew that the flock was a murmuration, a natural phenomenon not uncommon this time of year, but it was remarkable just the same. Appearing on this heartbreaking night, it felt like a sign from Sandro, as surely as the note she held against her chest.
She watched the starlings shift and form elongated parabolas and ellipses, the mathematical shapes that he had loved so well. She realized that Sandro was with her still, and would always be, even if he was above and she was below, him in the heavens and her on the ground, among her plants and flowers and animals.
Together they were the land and sky, the world entire.
And it was a world of love, and loss.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN
Marco
19 October 1943
Marco, his mother, and Emedio stood in the aisle of the open-air building that held his father’s vault, at his funeral. Almost two hundred mourners filled the place, flowing outside into the sun, on both sides. Their body heat and the humidity of the afternoon intensified the cloying fragrance of the bouquets lining the wall. It made Marco almost woozy. He hadn’t slept at all last night, experiencing an emotional exhaustion that nevertheless rendered sleep impossible.
His father was to be buried in one of the gray marble vaults that lined the aisle on both sides, stacked five high. Each was a meter square and about three meters deep, containing a coffin. A bronze plaque was affixed to the front, engraved with the name of the deceased and dates of birth and death, which Marco couldn’t read. His father’s plaque wasn’t ready, so Nino had put up a piece of paper with his father’s name. Marco couldn’t help but feel that his father deserved so much more. The vaults reminded him of the file cabinets at Palazzo Venezia.
His mother stood beside him, having cried throughout the funeral Mass, leaning against Emedio. Marco had barely listened to the Mass, though he had knelt and responded when required, then borne his father’s pall and accepted condolences from the mourners. They had included the partisans, veterans of the Great War, his father’s old friends from cycling, their neighbors, bar regulars, vendors, hospital employees, ex-Fascists, and tifosi.
The tifosi referred to his father by his proper name, Giuseppe Terrizzi, having read about him, collected his pictures, and memorized his race times.
He could have been one of the greats, one of them had said.
He was, Marco had blurted out, then had fallen silent for fear of saying the wrong thing. It was all he could do lately, the wrong things. His plan had failed. He had gotten his best friend killed. Elisabetta had come to the funeral today, which he appreciated, but he couldn’t look her in the eye. He didn’t know how to go on. He mourned Sandro, his father, Gemma, and Aldo. His grieving heart heaped one loss on top of the other, and their collective weight buried him.
After the cemetery, there was a family luncheon at Bar GiroSport, during which Marco could barely speak. His presence was in body only, and his actions were mechanical. He ate little, then cleared the tables, and when it was over, he knew what he had to do. He crossed to his mother’s side, placing a hand on her arm.
“Mamma, may I be the one to go tell Rosa?”
* * *
—
Marco walked down the hospital corridor. He had spent so much time in a military uniform that the civilian suit felt strange on him. It occurred to him that a suit was a different sort of uniform, one of a successful man, and if so, he wore it as an actor does a costume. He wasn’t successful at anything. He had failed, and now he would have to tell Rosa that her brother was dead and her father left behind.
He reached the end of the hallway and a closed door, with a glass window. He had already told Dr. Cristabello about Sandro and Massimo, which had saddened him. Dr. Cristabello had told him that the hospital was maintaining its Syndrome K story in case the Nazis came back.
Marco looked through the window and spotted Rosa, resting in a bed near the window. He put his hand on the knob, but stopped when he caught sight of his own reflection in the window. He looked haunted, like a ghost trapped in the glass. How could he tell her that he had gotten Sandro killed? He would have to find the strength, for her. He would tell her about her brother’s bravery, and his sacrifice.