Stefano was being glib, and Angelo ignored him. There was a line you could not cross with the people who had grown up here. Such as his own wife. Chiara was Italian on both sides but had grown up in Bolzano when it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her love for all that was Tyrolean was a thorn in their marriage to this day.
“Seventeen years since we annexed the province,” Stefano suddenly said. “You’d think Italy would feel pretty secure by now.”
“What do you mean?”
Stefano shrugged, looked piqued. “I just heard that anyone who calls it Tyrol or South Tyrol is fined, that’s all.”
“It’s the Alto Adige. Always has been. To us Italians, I mean.” He shrugged. “So that’s what it needs to be called. Alto Adige.”
Stefano grinned apologetically. “I don’t mean to politicise. It’s that half-German in me.” He turned his head to look out the window again, and muttered, “Thank God it’s my mother’s side. Imagine what would have become of me if I carried a German name.”
Angelo shrank away and looked out his window. In truth, he needed Stefano for the very reason that he was half-Tyrolean and spoke German, but he couldn’t say that now. He needed to bring this around. Fast.
“Chiara is very much looking forward to seeing you,” he said. “She could use a lively discussion and an ally, reminisce about the old days and such.”
Mercifully, the taxi stopped. Angelo paid the driver before helping Stefano with his bags. They followed the pedestrian zone the remaining metres to the ministry.
“How is your family?” Stefano asked
“Marco is growing up too fast for his own good. He’s training to be an engineer as well. It’s his second-to-last year. He’ll be doing an apprenticeship during his school breaks. I’m thinking of taking him on at the Easter break.”
“There’s certainly a need for engineers these days. And Mrs Grimani?”
Such a difficult question to answer. “She’s still grieving over her mother’s death.”
Stefano looked sympathetic. “I was sorry to hear about that.”
“You’ll see her tonight. You’re staying with us until you find a new apartment.”
“Thank you for your offer.”
They reached the neo-Baroque building of city hall.
“So where do you want me to begin?” Angelo asked as he held the door open for Stefano.
“Why not with why you’ve called me back here?”
Angelo did not hesitate. As they crossed the arcade and headed up the staircase, he listed who was backing MFE and said that the Colonel’s electrical company was, once again, growing into the most powerful one in northern Italy.
“My father was in Rome the day after the banks crashed in thirty-one,” Angelo explained. “He got access to the committee that established the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, then convinced Mussolini that privatising—not nationalising—would help the recession, create a middle class, and build up companies, which meant more employment opportunities.”
At the second floor, Stefano moved down the hall to where their offices had once been.
“I’ve moved to the top floor,” Angelo called. “A larger space.”
They climbed the next flight of stairs as he continued. “Mussolini not only agreed to that, he also proposed that, at the BIZ, any company relocating or establishing a new branch in the north here can do so tax free for the first ten years. And the state is subsidising the electricity.”
Stefano stopped at the top of the landing. “Thus, MFE finds its legs. They’ll need a lot of power by the look of the BIZ.”
“You could say the Colonel is out of the trenches and back on top of the ridge.” Far away from the firing squad at any rate.
They reached the door to the front room, and Angelo opened it. Miss Medici was busy typing away. He greeted his secretary and introduced her to Stefano before leading him into his office.
Stefano scanned the room, letting out the same low whistle he’d done at the sight of the BIZ. “Well, well. You seem to have quite the vantage point yourself, Minister Grimani.”
Angelo saw his workspace through the chief engineer’s eyes. The mahogany bookshelf took up the entire north wall, up to the ceiling. Angelo had placed an expansive blue-and-red Ottoman carpet beneath the entire desk and sitting area. Behind the desk that had once been his father-in-law’s when he’d been the minister, the windows reached from floor to ceiling and opened onto two narrow balconies. They allowed a view of the Habsburg-influenced rooftops all the way to the cathedral opposite the square. The office was large enough for Angelo’s project models to be placed around him as if in a museum exhibition. On the walls not taken up by the bookshelf were the maps and aerials of lands under development. Different colours marked the roads, bridges, and dams being planned throughout the regions. Despite the outrageous debt the country had accrued since Mussolini had taken control, in Angelo’s office, the region was showing growth and strength. It was all for show with no end in sight: Mussolini was so deeply entrenched, nobody could get him out.
Stefano had drifted over to the enlarged black-and-white photo placed in the middle of Angelo’s enormous bookshelf.
“That’s one of yours,” Angelo said.
“I remember.” Stefano’s tone was flat.
So did Angelo. The Gleno. The breach in the walls. The muddy water snaking over the destroyed villages. The pylons cut down by the force of the water. The Colonel, more irritated than devastated, had dared to complain about Stefano documenting it all. All Angelo had wanted was to push his father off the road and into that water.
This photo—Stefano’s photo—was a scene Angelo had pointed out to him, his heart sawed in two at the sight of it: a mattress on top of a tree, the straw guts dangling out. Beneath, and entangled in the naked winter branches, were the
