The Moon Tunnel

Marco Roma had fought death all that summer of 1983, but now the winter had come and his body embraced the failing light of a new year, even as he fought to stay alive. He’d had the bed raised on bricks and could turn and see out from the window of Il Giardino, across the high bank, towards the distant cathedral. In the foreground his garden wilted, nipped black by the frost. Ice held the reeds on the river, and snow lay untouched across the lifeless landscape of the Black Fen. Increasingly now, perhaps every minute, perhaps every hour – he had lost the ability to judge time – he thought of home, of Italy, and the sun on the whitewashed wall of the schoolroom in Mestre. A childhood memory, preparing him for death.

Alone, he watched his breath fog the window, obscuring the winter scene, only for the cold outside to wipe it clean before he could breathe again.

His life ticked away, measured by the snowflakes which fell occasionally from a sky the colour of steel.

Then he heard voices below, the griddle hissing and finally the slow, reluctant footsteps on the stairs. He turned away from the light and considered his three sons.

It had been the same question now for eight months, since a string of hospital visits had ended in the surgeon’s consulting room. He remembered the X-rays, and the long medical lecture. His patience had finally snapped and he had extracted his death sentence in language unencumbered by euphemism. Then he had come home to tell his wife and his sons: Pepe had cried, and he’d loved him more for it than the stoic courage of his brothers. And he’d cried too, later, when he knew that Mamma was glad it would not take long.

The same question: ‘Is there nothing left?’

It was Jerome. It was always Jerome. Footloose Jerome, keen to leave his family and strut in the world beyond the fen.

‘Little,’ Marco said, coughing in his throat and bringing up bitter blood.

‘Some silver, jewellery. Pearls. I’m not sure, but we thought they were fake. We wrapped them in a canvas – one we tore from the frames.’

‘They’re from the hall – where the man died?’ It was Azeglio this time, always turning the knife. ‘We shouldn’t touch it. If they can trace them back, it’s murder.’

Marco was not ashamed of what he’d done. None of them had been burdened by guilt – except, perhaps, for that one night when the fool Serafino had panicked. Sometimes Marco slept badly, the pool of blood from the servant’s head spreading across the polished floor of his dream. But that had been Serafino. For the rest they had simply robbed the indolent rich, the rich too powerful to fight for their own country.

They had enjoyed their joke, slipping back in along the tunnel at night while the police, depleted by conscription and stretched by the bombing raids on the ports and rail yards, had been powerless to gather the necessary evidence. Besides, they had the perfect alibi. Prisoners, every one, behind the barbed wire of the camp.

For most of the gardeners the good times had been brief. They’d salted their shares onto the black market and spent the proceeds. But Marco had been cleverer. He knew the prices would rise and the risks would fall if he waited. So he found the perfect hiding place, and bided his time until he could spend the money on the family he longed for. His sons. He sometimes wondered where they imagined he’d hidden the stuff all these years. They knew he went out at night, with the van, and they knew he set off for the city on the horizon. Had they ever followed? He doubted it now, now that he could see the greed, and the disappointment.

The snow fell in a sudden flurry and the cathedral disappeared.

‘We shouldn’t touch it,’ said Pepe, standing at the window. ‘We can get through.’ He stood, wringing a cloth between his hands. He looked at his brothers, making a decision. He knew too much already, the rest he would leave to them.

‘There’s work to do,’ he said, and they listened to the weary steps descending and then the violent hiss of the scalding urn below.

‘We can get through,’ said Marco, echoing his youngest son.

Jerome tossed the solicitor’s letters on the bed. ‘That’s not what they say. We owe £56,000 – we can only just afford the interest payments. We should sell.’ His father lifted a leg, dislodging the papers, letting them slip to the floor.

It was brutal – even for Jerome – but he knew it would work, for Il Giardino was his father’s monument, his memorial.

Marco considered the two eldest boys and thought how much they were alike: the voice, the profile, the natural arrogance their educations had given them. He felt he liked them less as death approached, felt them to be strangers in his house. ‘One of you will have to go down,’ he said, elbowing himself up on the pillows.

It was the first clue he’d ever given them and he could see Azeglio and Jerome computing: ‘Down?’

The boys edged their seats to the bedside. ‘I need paper. You’ll need a torch, clothes, it’ll be dirty. Mamma knows where my stuff is. I hope you’re brave.’

They fetched some paper, and a tray to lean on.

‘It’s a tunnel,’ he said. ‘We called it the moon tunnel.’