The carabinieri turned stiffly towards the foyer. Minister Grimani halted.
“That man there?” the policeman asked. He finally looked concerned.
“Yes. That’s him.”
“You there, sir?” The policeman cast her a doubtful glance but addressed Minister Grimani again. “What business do you have with this woman?”
Annamarie did not wait to hear the answer. She rushed out onto the platform just as the conductor blew his whistle and stepped through the doors of the wagon before her. As the train pulled away from the station, Annamarie bent to look out the window, expecting to see Minister Grimani wresting himself away from the policeman. But there was no one there. No one was coming for her.
Chapter 18
Bolzano, March 1938
A s he strolled through Peter Rosegger Park, Angelo alternatively passed through warmer pockets of humid air and the last remains of winter cold. Gardeners in wool caps and vests streaked with dirt were cutting the skeletal balls off the hydrangea bushes. The air reeked of dog shit unlocked from the snow and raked up within the mulch. He turned his head and started for the bridge that would take him to the little coffee bar where he could get an espresso and bite to eat, but he stopped in his tracks when he saw the familiar pedestal.
“There you are, Walther. I was wondering what they’d done with you.”
The statue had been removed from the piazza behind the ministry and replaced here, still headless. Graffiti, alternately in black and red—Tyrolean freedom party slogans and Fascist retorts, or maybe the other way around—were the only literary aspect about the statue now.
Angelo stepped around to the front of the statue and realised the city had allocated a brand-new marble bench right before his friend Walther. A black crow balanced on the far edge, scrutinising the decapitated poet. Angelo looked at the bench, then around him at the passersby to see if anyone else understood how preposterous—insulting, really—it was to allocate a seat right here. Nobody seemed to notice.
He shooed the crow away. It cawed in protest, joined by a second from above, and followed by a whole protest from what must have been the complete murder lurking in the park. Angelo perched on the end of the bench to avoid getting the damp onto his clothing. He pulled his coat around him despite the warming spring sun and gave the statue a courteous acknowledgment.
“It’s ludicrous, really,” he muttered to nobody but Walther in particular. “The state the two of us find ourselves in.”
Angelo considered that he should go on to the café across the river and have his midday meal, but his hunger seemed to fade the longer he sat before the destroyed poet. What if Walther could step out from time now? What would he change? Angelo knew what he would change. He’d get rid of the bench, first of all. Then the crows. And so much more.
The Gleno had not breached. That was where he started. The dam had been built of solid materials. It supplied electricity. It provided jobs. The people in the valleys profited. Their children enjoyed better outlooks. Roads were expanded and extended. The population rebuilt their ramshackle homes. Commerce increased. Tourists came to marvel at the Fascist structure, its Romanesque enormity and solidness. Its stability and presence.
And Angelo had not left Gina Conti alone in the room at the Laurin so that he could count the bodies of the dead, to witness what the water and mud had devastated.
He did not leave Gina Conti in the room. He stayed with her, then carried on with the affair, and he would have let her take care of her husband until he passed away. He would have done it.
Chiara would have thrown him out sooner. Perhaps Marco and he would have been closer because Angelo had not stayed under the same roof with his wife, had not given her reason to buffer Marco against him, seeking some sort of affection Angelo had no longer been able to offer her himself. Since he’d become Minister of Civil Engineering, since being party to the party that had ousted his father-in-law, the infamous Pietro d’Oro, Chiara had never truly trusted him again, never forgiven him. And if the two of them had not been so busy denying that their marriage was over, maybe they’d have been in a better position to keep Marco out of the Colonel’s reach.
Angelo thought about that, how he’d failed his son. Annamarie too. After he had followed her to the train station, he had gone to his office only to find the envelope from Katharina’s letter on his desk. He discovered a second page to the original letter—this one signed with Katharina’s name: If you help me, my husband and I will do everything possible to convince the valley of your cause concerning our lakes.
Angelo had promptly written back to her and let her know that he had found Annamarie and that he’d practically put her on the train heading to the next northern town. She had to be home by now. He assumed she was when Katharina never replied. He had also written that her efforts were appreciated. But, he had added, you never have to ask for help for something in return. Not from me. It had given him great relief to write those words, and he had meant every one.
Over the past four months, he’d also come to a somewhat comforting conclusion that by not catching Annamarie and telling her that he was her father—or worse, that Marco was her half brother—she was better off. At least that was what he believed after his experience with confronting Marco with the facts. His son’s reaction upon discovering that Annamarie was his half sister had been so violent, Marco was still not speaking to him. Their last meeting led to
