‘Our friends,’ proposed another one of the aged PoWs, and down went another round of Chianti.
What a piss up, thought Dryden, drinking too. More bottles appeared, and Casartelli swayed, finding himself a chairback to lean on.
Dryden heard more corks being pulled as the audience drew around him. There was only one conversation now, and it was his to take wherever he wished.
‘Did Serafino say why he was going – or where he might go? Did you know he wasn’t coming back?’
‘We did not know why he left when he did, but later, we guessed – perhaps,’ said Casartelli. ‘The police came – the military police – and the officials from the Italian legation after the end of the war in Italy. They said that Serafino was not who he had said he was.’
‘Serafino Amatista does not exist,’ said Dryden. ‘No records at all of the name exist before his capture in Greece 1943.’
Several heads nodded, and wine slurped.
‘So.’ Casartelli bridged his plump-knuckled fingers. ‘They told us he was a deserter. Worse. He had been in Greece, part of the force sent in to provide civilian occupation. The Germans were the military governors, of course, and they told Serafino to guard a village. He was the resident guard there, and the villagers looked after him well as they always did. The name of the village we forget now, but the villagers will never forget his: Serafino Ricci. He betrayed them.’
‘How?’ said Dryden, ploughing on, sensing they wanted him to know.
‘Serafino left. He faked his death – leaving behind the bloodied rifle the Germans had given him. The assumption was clear – the villagers had murdered their guard – or the partisans in the hills had done it for them. There was a proclamation then, notorious even now. Reprisals were part of the justice system – for Serafino’s life they had to take another.’
Dryden felt his throat go dry. ‘So, they just shot someone? Because Serafino was dead?’
‘Yes. A shameful day – yes?’
Dryden nodded. ‘I don’t understand. How did the British authorities know who Serafino was if he had never given them his name?’
Casartelli brushed the sweat on his forehead away with the back of his hand. ‘The witness who had identified Serafino was a German officer – one of the prisoners who had taken his place in the camp. We do not know how this happened, we learned only later. But we think Serafino knew, before his disappearance, that he had been recognized. Perhaps he was trying to get into the camp, Mr Dryden. Blackmail? Murder? Now we will never know.’
‘And he would have known about the tunnel?’
There was a long silence in which Dryden could hear the distant sound of romantic dogs.
‘Yes. He was one of the gardeners.’ There was laughter, and the clink of glasses.
Dryden recalled the snapshot Pepe had shown him: the five men laughing together, sharing a secret, with their compatriot behind the lens.
‘There were six?’ he said, and Casartelli nodded. ‘And they dug the tunnel, and dumped the soil in the garden they tilled between the huts. Of course.’ Dryden felt pleased, knowing the silence said he was right.
Everyone smiled. ‘But why did no one escape?’
Casartelli shrugged. ‘We know only one thing. The gardeners are all dead now. The tunnel – we knew of it, of course. But only the gardeners knew where it was, and only they could use it.’
‘But they never did,’ said Dryden.
There was a cough from the counter and Dryden saw Pepe standing in the shadows, and it struck him for the first time that he was childless in this family-dominated world.
‘No. A mystery,’ said Casartelli, standing. ‘We will never know why. It was 1944 by the time they were under the wire. I think. Perhaps they loved the garden more than the idea of escape!’
Everyone laughed again, but Dryden sensed it was manufactured this time, and the accordion music washed away the atmosphere of confession. A rival conversation broke out at another table, then several more. Casartelli was gone, and one of his compatriots pressed coffee on Dryden, and Italian cigarettes.
Then the grappa bottle appeared. Dryden was led by several reeling Italians to see some pictures on the wall. The association’s members on a trip to Rome, a Christmas celebration at Il Giardino crowded with grandchildren.
‘And this?’ asked Dryden, pausing in front of a small mounted glass case. Inside were five mother-of-pearl buttons, each marked with a silver crest – a lion holding a bell.
There was silence until Casartelli spoke. ‘The gardeners,’ he said. ‘Each had one of these. They wore them as badges. They were proud of what they’d done, perhaps too proud.’
‘But where…?’ Dryden was steered away, back to the grappa bottle. He begged two glasses and took one out for Humph. They sat, the cab doors open, and drank in silence under a heart-stopping sky, the blue thin enough to hint that the stars were just beyond.
Taxis began to pick up the revellers. Casartelli emerged, blinking, and made his way towards a large convertible Honda driven by a young man with Latin good looks. Dryden walked over.
‘Mr Dryden – my grandson, Wayne. Wayne – what kind of name is that!’
The boy laughed at what was clearly an old family joke.
Dryden stepped in close. ‘Names. You haven’t forgotten, have you? The name of the village?’
Casartelli was sober instantly. He straightened his tie, thinking. ‘I’m sure the authorities would tell you. This is something we would rather forget. But your life and our lives have come together, yes?’
