“Who’s the oldest resident in the square?” Costa asked, flashing his card.
The man kept polishing a glass with a spotless cloth, thinking. “You mean the oldest who’s still got half a brain?”
Costa sighed. “Listen. I don’t have the time…”
The cloth came out of the glass and jabbed at a house on the other side of the square. “Sorvino. Number Twenty-one. Ground floor. Don’t say I told you.”
No one liked talking to the police. Not even cafe owners, who’d be the first to start screaming down the phone if someone walked off with an extra sachet of sugar.
“Thanks,” Costa murmured. He threw a couple of coins on the counter, then walked out into the cold morning air.
Number Twenty-one, thanks to the vagaries of house numbering in the ghetto, was four doors down from Thirteen. He pushed the bell marked “Sorvino.” A stiff-limbed little woman in a faded blue floral-pattern dress came to the door and peered at him through round, thick glasses. She was eighty, maybe more, at an age when it was difficult to tell. Short, but proudly erect, as if to say: to hell with the years. She took one look at the badge and nodded him into the living room. It was immaculate: crammed with polished antique furniture, a selection of framed photographs, and what seemed like hundreds of pieces of Jewish memorabilia.
“I was hoping to talk to someone with a memory,” he said urgently. “Someone who’s lived here a long time.”
“Is eighty-seven years long enough for you?”
“More than enough,” he replied, smiling, hoping he didn’t look too impatient.
She picked up a delicate porcelain cup, still half full. “Camomile tea. I recommend it for people of a nervous nature.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
“No you won’t. You’re young. You think you can live through anything. What are you looking for? It must be something important.”
“Very. Facts. Names.” He hesitated. “Names mainly. I’ve been knocking on doors. Getting nowhere.”
“The ghetto’s changing. You don’t see families the way you used to.”
“I want to know about Number Thirteen.”
“Ah.” She nodded and closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. “II Duce had a girl there during the war. German. Ilse, I think she was called. Not that he ever visited, you understand. He wouldn’t dirty his hands coming to meet the likes of us, now would he?”
Jews of her generation had a mixed attitude towards Mussolini. Until the later stage of his career, Il Duce had taken little interest in anti-Semitism. Costa could recall his father telling stories of how some Jews even joined the fascist party. Relatively limited numbers had been transported to the concentration camps. It was the old Roman story: nothing was ever quite black and white.
“What happened to the house after the war?”
She looked at him severely. “I’m not an estate agent.”
“I know that. I just wondered who lived there. You’re a kind woman, Signora, I’m sure. You would want to know your neighbours.”
“No more than they want to be known,” she said primly.
“Of course.”
“Soldiers,” she said with a shrug. “American soldiers, for a while anyway. Nice men. Officers. They had beautiful manners, not like Roman men. They were strangers. I was of assistance to them now and again. I like strangers to go away with fond memories of Rome. As any good citizen would.”
“Of course. And then?”
“You’re asking me who’s lived there for the last fifty years?”
“That would be useful.”
“Huh.”
It was never easy dealing with this generation. They resented something. That the world had changed. That they were getting older within it, powerless.
“Please try to think. A man was attacked there earlier this year. Do you remember?”
“I heard it! Fighting in the street! Here! Not since the war…” She frowned. “The world gets worse. Why don’t you do something about it?”
“I’m trying,” he replied.
“Not hard enough, it seems to me.”
It was a reasonable observation. “Perhaps. But I can’t…” He corrected himself. “None of us in the police can do that on our own. We need your help. Your support. Without that…”
She was a bright-eyed old bird. She didn’t miss a thing. “Yes?”
“Without that we’re just people who enforce the laws made by politicians. Regardless of what anyone thinks. Regardless of what’s right sometimes.”
“Oh my,” she said, smiling, revealing small teeth the colour of old porcelain, a little crooked. “A policeman with a conscience. How they must love you.”
“I don’t do this to be loved, Signora. Please. The house. Whose is it? Who’s lived there over the years?”
“Who owns it? Americans, I imagine. They look like government people to me. Government people who don’t want to say they’re government people. Not that I care. They keep it in good repair. What more can I say? They come. They go. Different ones. Not for long, usually. Just a few weeks, as if it were a hotel. Not long enough to get to know the likes of me. Pleasant men, mind. Always men, too, on their own.”
She was trying to remember something. Costa waited, knowing he couldn’t let this interview run and run, wondering whether there were any other avenues left open to him.
“And?”
“They were solitary creatures,” she said testily. “Not the kind you could talk to easily in the street.”
“All of them?”
“Most.”
“Do you remember any names? It’s possible this man who was attacked was mistaken for someone else.”
“So many,” she said, frowning.
Even the old ones didn’t try much these days. Costa took out his card and gave it to her, pointing out the mobile number.
“If you think of anything. I was probably mistaken in any case. If these men were only here for a short time… I was hoping there was someone who stayed there longer. Some years ago. A man, perhaps, who regarded it as his home.”
The old eyes sparkled. “There was one. Ten, fifteen years ago. I recall now. I think he stayed there for a year. Possibly more.”
“His name?”
“Even less talkative than most of them, from what I remember. Somewhat abrupt I thought, but perhaps that was just his manner.”
“His name?” he insisted.
She shook her head. “How could I possibly know that?”
Teresa had checked. If Number Thirteen was a normal rental property there would be residency records. None existed. It was a bolt-hole for one of the American agencies, surely. They would have a way around all the regulations ordinary citizens had to face.
“I may have a photograph, though,” she added brightly. “Would that help?” She nodded at the gleaming walnut sideboard next to him. It was covered in small, mounted pictures. She passed him one. “You know what time of year that is?”
It was winter. Men, women and children, all in heavy coats, stood in front of the fountain of the tortoises holding lit candles.
“No.”
“Shame on you! Have you never heard of Hanukkah? Why should the Catholics steal all the fun for Christmas?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not a Catholic.”
“How shocking,” she said with a laugh. “Still, I forgive you. We have a little tradition. Every year we take a photograph of ourselves. Just the people living here. By the fountain. Every year. I can show you ones when I was a young girl before the war.” Her eyes twinkled. “You wouldn’t recognize me. I wasn’t the old thing I am now.”