Chapter 84 Elena
E LENA
Christian’s gone. It’s time.
Without a backwards glance, Elena hobbles out of the suite and takes the lift to the lobby. She bursts into the kitchen where she finds Sophie at the bench. She wraps her arms around her new friend. ‘I’ll never be able to repay you for what you’ve done for me. Thank you, thank you. Thank the Bianchis for me, will you? I wish I could have said goodbye in person. And Gayle and Mike too.’
‘Go, go.’ Sophie pushes her out the door. ‘This is it now, you’re free!’
‘Pray for me.’
‘You don’t need prayers, you’ll be fine.’
Elena walks out of Hotel Il Cuore with nothing but a small handbag and the clothes she has on.
Outside, the clouds hang low and heavy . The buildings on either side of the alleyways crowd her. She didn’t think about shoe coverings before she left, and she doesn’t want to backtrack, so she has no choice but to walk along the footbridges leading the way to the canal. With her injured ankle, the wooden planks feel as tenuous as balance beams.
She doesn’t let herself look over her shoulder; it’s easier to keep her balance if she looks ahead. Any second now, she expects him to catch up to her. All the while, the sky and the city close in on her.
She finally makes it to the vaporetto stop, where she disappears into the small crowd waiting for the boat to San Marcuola. In her handbag are a handful of tampons, her passport, pen and paper she took from the hotel suite and another hundred euro she stole from Christian, just in case.
The boat arrives mercifully quickly and she climbs on board. There’s a tap on her shoulder and she gasps, but it’s just the conductor wanting to check her ticket. It’s only when the boat pulls out into the canal, without Christian on board, that she exhales.
She checks her watch. It’s eleven am. Christian’s meeting has started. She’s worried for Salvatore when Christian realises she’s gone. Salvatore’s little more than a boy; she hates that he’s been dragged into this mess. She hates that the rest of the family have been too, and the Dawsons, and Sophie. Which one of them will bear the brunt of Christian’s rage? Thinking about it makes her breathe faster.
Now the nun at the Vatican is involved too, and possibly Alessandro. So many people are risking themselves for her. She can’t fuck this up.
The boat trip takes forever. She wants to scream at the people to hurry as they board and disembark in slow motion at every stop, and she has to restrain herself from pushing people out of the way when the boat finally docks at San Marcuola.
Thankfully, Cannaregio isn’t flooded. She runs on solid ground now, ignoring the pain shooting from her ankle all the way up her shin. She doesn’t stop running until she reaches Mamma’s apartment building.
Mamma and Alessandro are waiting for her on the ground floor. She throws herself into Mamma’s arms and they embrace the way they haven’t been able to under Christian’s watchful eye.
Alessandro’s carrying a bundle of clothes. ‘Marina gave me these for you. It’s better if you change into them in case he describes your clothing to the police.’
Elena takes a brown woollen trench coat from him.
‘Put this one on first.’ He holds up a thick sweater. ‘It’ll bulk up your frame.’
She’s sweating from her dash across the Ghetto, but she layers up in the sweater, coat and beanie that Alessandro gives her.
‘They gave me clothes too,’ Mamma says. She’s rugged up in a long coat and woollen hat, which is pulled low over her forehead, hiding her hair.
Alessandro also gives Elena a handbag and gloves. They’ve thought of everything.
‘I paid some boys to smash the CCTV cameras in the neighbourhood,’ he tells Elena as she empties the contents of her handbag into the new one. ‘There’ll be no footage of you arriving or of us leaving. Keep your heads down, just in case. I’ll walk ahead and stand away from you at the station. We’ll board different carriages and meet when we leave the station in Rome. There’ll be a driver waiting for us there. Are you ready?’
Elena nods. ‘Pronta.’
He looks at his phone. ‘The next train leaves in twelve minutes. We don’t have much time. I’ll go first, okay?’
‘Alessandro!’ Elena calls to his back as he walks out. ‘Grazie.’
He gives her a quick smile and leaves.
A minute later, she walks back out onto the street with Mamma. They walk in silence to Santa Lucia Station, looking at the ground. She keeps imagining footsteps behind them, but she doesn’t turn to check.
At the station, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker that the train to Rome is delayed by twenty minutes. The panic rises in Elena’s throat. She looks at Alessandro, who’s standing several metres away. He gestures for her to stay calm.
She mistakes every tall man that walks onto the platform for Christian. She can barely keep standing, her legs are shaking so hard. Mamma pulls white glass rosary beads from her pocket and prays the Apostles’ Creed in a quiet voice. Elena joins her. They pray until the train arrives.
In the crowded carriage, they manage to find seats. The security cameras point down at them from every corner.
‘Keep your head down,’ she whispers to Mamma.
The northern Italian countryside flashes past Elena at high speed, but she sees none of it. She has no coherent thoughts; her brain is whitewashed with fear. Mamma produces a banana from her bag and offers it to her, but Elena’s throat is too constricted to eat. Mamma sleeps on and off throughout the five-hour journey, while Elena stays on high alert. She makes eye contact with none of the other passengers. It’s an eternity before the train finally pulls into their station in Rome.
Alessandro’s waiting when they leave the platform. He ushers them to a black limousine. A short drive later, they reach the gates of Vatican City.
‘I’m leaving, you know,’ Alessandro whispers in Elena’s ear in the back of the car.
‘Leaving what?’
‘Here. The Church. Everything.’
She whips her head around to look at him and he’s smiling.
‘I’ve only come back here to accompany you,’ he says.
‘Why are you quitting?’
‘I love someone.’ He blushes.
‘Is that someone Marina?’ She keeps her voice low so that Mamma can’t hear.
He pulls her in close. ‘That someone is.’
‘I’m happy for you.’ She leans her head on his shoulder.
‘I’m happy for you too, puffetta,’ he says, using the term of endearment he and Paolo had for her when they were young, and it’s all she can do to keep it together.
She looks out the window as they’re taken along paved roads, past manicured gardens, through parts of the Vatican she never saw on school trips to the city. The limousine comes to a halt outside an imposing brown brick building.
‘We’re here,’ Alessandro says. ‘The nuns will look after you well. I’ll come and see you tonight.’
‘Guarda, Elena.’ Mamma points at the sky when they step out of the car.
Elena looks up. The clouds have parted; the sun’s shining.
She and Mamma are bundled into the monastery by two waiting nuns dressed in ankle-length tan dresses. They’re led through a grand ballroom and down wide hallways, whose walls are covered in gilded portraits of popes and saints and Jesus, to a small room furnished sparsely with twin beds and a wooden dresser. A smaller version of the painting of il Papa from Hotel Il Cuore hangs on the wall between their beds.
Elena and Mamma are given fresh clothes to change into and warm soup to eat. They’re provided with toiletries and pyjamas and a Bible each. The nuns are kind and motherly, telling them they can stay as long as they need and that, in the meantime, the Vatican will arrange documents for them with new identities.
‘You’re safe now, Elena.’ An older nun with a strikingly beautiful face, Suora Teresa, touches Elena’s shoulder. ‘The Lord has blessed you.’
Elena lets herself weep.