Chiara cleared her throat and smoothed the napkin on her lap. “If you insist.”
“That’s Filipa Conti’s father,” Marco said. “He was a war hero.”
Angelo turned to him. “General Conti fought in Caporetto. How do you know Filipa?”
“Filipa just became leader of the pioneers here.”
“Ah yes, Filipa,” Chiara muttered. “The good Fascist daughter, rising in the youth-group ranks. Her mother is a real piece of work. The model Italian woman a lá Duce.”
Angelo gave her a warning look, and she looked up as if in prayer. Her distaste for the woman stemmed solely from their political differences. He’d made sure of that.
Marco was smouldering. “I just made captain too, Madre.”
Chiara appraised him. “Thanks to the Colonel.”
“Grandfather didn’t help me,” Marco protested. “I rose on my own merit.”
Chiara shot Angelo a look. It was a rare request for his support. Her distaste for the Colonel was quite possibly the only thing that drove her to Angelo. He took her hand and squeezed it.
“Either way,” Angelo said, “we shall all pay our respects to the Contis on Friday. Together.”
***
T he nave of St. George’s was filled with so many people that Angelo’s first thought was that the hordes had come for Gina, not for General Conti. Since Angelo had first encountered the Contis, he’d had the impression that Gina’s husband had disappeared within himself. He’d never heard the man utter a single word. Retired with medals and honours from the Great War, the general seemed to have suffocated under the weight of all that brass. So when Angelo overheard a group of four war veterans speaking about General Conti as a spirited man, a kind man, as someone who had continued to work for causes from, as one said, behind the lines, Angelo thought they were attending the wrong funeral. Then a veteran with sergeant’s insignia nodded solemnly.
“The general sent Signora Conti to the front when he no longer could go himself.”
Angelo smirked at that and at how all four turned reverently to where Gina must have been receiving the funeral guests up front. The crowd was, however, thick, and Angelo could not see her.
Gina Conti on the front lines. That was an appropriate description. With her tenacity and her spunk, he did give her credit for singlehandedly increasing the number of women backing the Fascist party, for aligning them against the Socialists and suffragettes, which meant Gina Conti’s forces were pitted against the likes of Chiara’s old crowd of liberal elitists. A little regretfully, Angelo realised that Chiara was now far removed from her causes due to his own undertaking. It had become too dangerous to oppose the Fascists. But she would have been a fierce opponent against Gina.
Perhaps the greatest difference between them was exactly that: Signora Conti had had her husband’s support, if not his empowerment, as those veterans suggested. Since he had come to know her, Angelo had been baffled by the devotion Gina had shown her obscure husband, though that had not extended to matters regarding intimacy. Angelo was not stupid enough to believe that he had been the only one to have had an affair with the woman. Gina’s power had been bolstered in the arms and on the chests of mighty men; his own single tryst with her all the more unusual because he’d had nothing to offer her at the time, had wanted nothing from her other than to satiate his lust for her.
Angelo led his wife and son to somewhere near the middle of the church to the right of the altar. From this angle, Gina Conti was hard to miss. She stood to the left of the lily-draped casket, shaking hands with dignitaries and officers. He’d missed her, had not known how much until this very moment. This was a different kettle of fish compared to his recent encounter with Katharina Steinhauser.
He sidled into a half-empty pew, and Marco pulled on Angelo’s coat sleeve.
“Aren’t we going up there to share our condolences?” his son asked.
Angelo checked the time. “They’ll be starting the service soon. We can talk to the family afterwards.”
Chiara frowned a little but moved into the pew next to Marco. “Your parents are up there,” she said to Angelo. “We could step in with them.”
He wasn’t ready for this. Angelo shook his head in response and picked up a printed programme. A full Mass followed by the burial rites at the cemetery. They’d have to wait until after that.
Chiara knelt to pray as Marco grumbled something, and she reached out with a gloved hand to pat their son’s thigh. When Angelo caught Marco staring at the front, he followed his son’s line of vision and recognised Filipa, the Contis’ youngest, standing at Gina’s side. She had Gina’s thick, dark wavy hair, but otherwise she had the general’s thin and tall frame. She was dressed in all black save for a scarlet red ribbon tied around the waist. It reminded Angelo of the time he’d followed Gina to the flower seller’s. He’d been brash and bought her a rose, and she had been wearing a crimson dress, like a pomegranate.
Today, Gina was dressed in a black skirt and fitted black blazer that closed with a single large button. The jacket rested just below her rounded hips, accentuating her hourglass figure. Along the hem and up its length, the blazer was embellished by an elaborate white-and-gold scrollwork, which made Gina look as if she were wearing a military uniform. The side cap on her head added to the appearance, whilst the short veil was standard issue for a grieving widow.
Angelo watched her come in and go out of view behind the flow of guests and shook his head in quiet amazement. If ever a woman was cut out for politics, it was Gina Conti. She took
