Two
The hills above Florence
September 1941
Livia Moretti came into the hall from the garden, barefoot, wearing a light-blue summer dress. The villa was cool after the intense heat of the terrace. The stone floors felt soft beneath her feet as she padded across to her father’s study. The only sounds were the ticking of the clock, her grandfather Alberto snoring quietly in the sitting room, and the distant chatter of her mother, Luisa, and the housekeeper in the kitchen. In her hand, Livia carried a letter confirming her a place at the University of Florence. It had arrived a few days before, and she was anxious to show it to her father, Giacomo. He had driven up earlier that day from Florence, where he had a legal practice. During the week he lived in a small apartment in the city, only returning to his family at weekends.
Livia was about to knock on his study door, but could hear him talking on the telephone. Reluctant to interrupt his work, she slipped the letter back into her dress pocket, and retreated to the terrace. Giacomo had been enthusiastic about the idea of his eighteen-year-old daughter attending university, but Livia knew that her mother did not see the point of girls receiving an education. She feared there would be an argument, but hoped they could resolve the matter amicably over dinner.
This large airy villa deep in the Tuscan countryside, and a small apartment in Florence were all that was left of the family’s estate, after decades of financial mismanagement. Giacomo was the first generation of his family to work for a living, but he was untouched by the loss of their fortune.
‘Money,’ he often said to Livia, ‘can be a curse as well as a comfort. Better to spend your life making a difference to people’s lives, rather than counting coins in a vault.’
In spite of their reduced circumstances, the family were nevertheless comfortably off. As a young girl, Livia had been educated at home by a German governess, Fräulein Schneider. A strict disciplinarian, she insisted on her charge becoming fluent in German, French and English – something the child had railed against at the time. She had also emphasised the importance of perfect posture, and employed a technique of inserting a board down the back of her pupil’s dress, requiring her to sit bolt upright when working at her lessons, or eating her meals. This torturous training had given Livia a sense of rebellion against figures of authority, but it had also produced the desired effect. She now had a grace and elegance – her head always held high, her neck elongated, her shoulders square – that drew admiring glances from everyone she passed.
At the age of eleven, Livia was sent to boarding school on the southern outskirts of Florence. Here she flourished, excelling at foreign languages and the arts. The pupils rarely went unaccompanied into the city itself; instead access was limited to supervised trips to art galleries, or guided tours of the major sites. Crocodiles of little girls were led around the centre of the city, before being shepherded back onto a bus or the train, and returning to school in time for supper.
Occasionally, at the start or end of term, her mother would venture into the city and take Livia shopping at one of the big department stores such as La Rinascente in the Piazza della Repubblica. After lunch in one of the grander hotels, they would visit the Boboli Gardens to escape the crowds, or if it was raining go to the cinema. The films they usually saw were innocent, light-hearted stories of love and romance. Known colloquially as Telefoni Bianchi or ‘White Telephone films’, they were set in opulent Art Deco surroundings, and featured the glamorous stars of the day – Doris Duranti, Elsa Merlini and Isabella Bellucci – starring opposite tall handsome men like Vittorio De Sica and Osvaldo Valenti. For Livia, who had been brought up in the countryside in a rambling farmhouse filled with ancient furniture and crumbling infrastructure, the sight of these men and women, living in extravagant modern homes, wearing beautiful clothes, was as far removed from her own life as she could imagine.
Clutching her letter of acceptance, Livia waited anxiously on the terrace for her father to emerge from his study. It was his habit to join the family before dinner, where he would sit beneath the vine that rambled over the pergola, a glass of wine in hand, his newspaper placed conveniently on a small side table. Livia placed the letter on top of the paper and sat down expectantly. Meanwhile, her mother was quietly sewing, a glass of Amaretto by her side. As the sun set across the garden, Giacomo, wearing a crumpled linen suit that had seen better days, wandered onto the terrace. He ran his hands through his thinning silver hair and poured himself a glass of white wine.
As he sat down, he noticed the letter. ‘This isn’t for me,’ he said to Livia, ‘it’s addressed to you.’
‘I know,’ she said, blushing slightly. ‘I’ve already read it. I wanted you to see it.’
He ran his eye over the contents. ‘Well done, Livia.’ He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. ‘This is exactly what I had hoped for. English Literature and History of Art – an excellent combination.’
She rushed over to him, and crouched down next to his chair and kissed him. ‘Thank you, Papa.’
‘Well, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea,’ her mother interjected from the other side of the terrace, ‘what with the war and everything. Surely it would be better if she stayed at home with me.’
‘Tied to your apron strings?’ Her husband smiled indulgently. ‘The girl has a fine mind – what on earth would she learn at home?’
‘How to cook, how to be a good wife.’
‘She’s barely eighteen. She needs an education, and she’s a clever girl – an intellectual. Plenty of time to learn how to be a wife.’
‘But is getting “an education” so important? I didn’t get one.’
Giacomo looked up from his newspaper. ‘You use the word “education”, Luisa, as if it’s something to be ashamed of. If not an education, I’d like to know what your definition of “important” is. What, for example, is so important about learning to cook?’
‘Well, you’d be in a fine state if you didn’t have me and Angela to cook for you.’
‘I’d eat in a restaurant,’ he replied loftily. ‘I certainly wouldn’t starve.’
‘Oh, Giacomo!’ Luisa stood up irritably. ‘You’re impossible! The point is – I’m worried about her. How will she get to university each day, for example? We live nearly forty kilometres away. It’s not like when she was at boarding school. She’ll have to take the train or a tram each day, or even drive.’
‘If that’s what you’re worried about, let’s move to the apartment,’ her husband suggested.
‘To your apartment in Florence? How on earth could we all live there? It’s far too small,’ Luisa complained. ‘It’s fine for you to spend the odd night there when you’re working on a case, but not for the whole family day in, day out. Livia won’t even have her own bedroom; where will she sleep?’
‘In my study, of course; I only use it in the evenings when I’m working on a long case. I can work at the dining table instead.’
‘But I don’t like the city,’ Luisa persisted. ‘It’s so crowded. And what about bombs? The government say we should be leaving the cities and moving to the countryside if we can – not moving back into them.’