Prologue On the night of May 31st 1944, as the German army was retreating, two ancient ships housed in a museum by a lake south of Rome went up in flames. No one knows how. No one knows why. Everything about these ships was remarkable. They were huge floating palaces, lavishly appointed for the Roman emperor Caligula. He took his court upon them to the lakeside temple of Diana, then already centuries old, ferrying them across Lake Nemi, which the ancients called Speculum Dianae (Diana’s Mirror). When Caligula was murdered in 41 A.D., the ships were sunk in the lake to expunge his memory. In 1928, after centuries of dreaming of the treasure at the bottom of the lake, Italian engineers began to recover the ships. A triumphal ceremony, Mussolini attending, was held in 1940 to celebrate the vessels’ release from twenty centuries in a muddy tomb. Rosanna (p.21): Rosanna was afraid. The three German soldiers stood leering at her, the tallest firmly gripping the handlebars of her bicycle. Beneath his cap, his shifty eyes leered. His breath reeked of wine and he was unsteady, but he did not relinquish his grip. Her fear was compounded by her inability to understand a word the soldiers were saying, although their actions needed no translation. “Well, my pretty Italian whore, what nice tits you have.” Rosanna shook her head. She didn’t understand. Her hands trembled with fear. Her mother had asked her to cycle down to her aunt in Velletri to beg half a dozen eggs. She stared at the tedesco; she was very frightened. “Leave the Italian bitch alone, Fritz.” The second German looked up from his haphazard urination into the ditch at the side of the road. “Can’t you see she’s only a kid—you like cradle-snatching?” … He pushed his face alongside hers, his unshaven cheeks abrading her already-bruised skin. Her eyes vainly sought help from the other Germans, who stood watching with leering grins on their faces. She shook her head, trying to escape his rough skin. Suddenly, her eyes fell on his ear. It was big, fleshy. Her teeth seized upon it, biting, biting hard. The German screamed and began to lash blindly at her head, but she hung on, like a dog with a bone, until she could taste the blood that ran out of her lips and dribbled down over the bodice of her dress. “Mein Gott, Jurgen - get her off me!” He struggled to his feet, lifting her with him. In panic, he lashed at her head, again and again, but still she would not let go, her jaws clamped to his ear. Before the others reached him, he was free of her. She fell at his feet, her chest heaving, her face and dress awash with his blood. She looked up at him with the look of a wounded tiger at bay; she spat out the mangled piece of his ear at his feet. “You bitch, you Italian whore, I’ll show you!” He reached to his waist, undid the holster and pulled out his gun. Rosanna knew she was going to die. She covered her eyes with her hands. The pistol shot startled the birds, sending them up from the field. Klaus (p.35): Klaus strode across the piazza, seeking to avoid the few market stalls that appeared on some mornings, although there was little or nothing to sell. He tried to ignore the half-dozen or so old peasants who drifted around the stalls, but he was aware of their sullen looks. The clipping of his heels was an affront to them, an intrusion to the badinage of their market. Their voices became silent, and he felt that every Italian was looking at him as if he, personally, were responsible for the usurpation of their lives. War is always personal, he thought. The hatred, the loathing, the fear demanded some living form on which it can focus, upon which it can wreak vengeance and exact retribution. He wanted to shout at their resentful faces that he didn’t want to be there; that he wanted to be back in Berlin University teaching classics; that he wanted to leave them to their strawberries, their vegetables, and the unhurried beat of their peasant lives. But he did not speak; neither did he look at them. In war, you did not speak what you thought; you did what you were told. It was easier that way. Paolo, Rosanna’s father (p.43): Paolo cursed inwardly. It was not only the bike that was old; his arms were old, his legs were old – to him, every part of his body seemed to creak and groan. Only ten years ago, he would have scorned the bicycle and chosen the path. It was not an easy route. The path dropped swiftly down the hill as it wove its tortuous way among the old oaks, its hidden stones waiting to trip the unwary. But he had always delighted in hearing the birds shrill at his approach, in seeing the summer sun force its way through the leaves to present a dancing mosaic at his feet. Now his body denied him such pleasures; every day, he needed all his strength to propel his bicycle along the upper path before turning down the gentle slope that passed by the side of the ruins of the temple of Diana. Strange how the body betrays you as you get old, he thought, puffing at his exertions as he went through the arch and turned toward the old gate. He looked down at Gianni, trotting alongside him as if out for a stroll. He was like that once, bouncing along as if the world were a balloon. He thought of a sculpture in the Capitoline Museum, a statue of a small boy putting on a mask of an old man. Gianni would pull on the mask one day. Paolo sighed, as if the weight of time were forcing the breath from his body. Dressler (p.101): Klaus looked up at the tall, spare figure framed in the doorway to the chamber. His mouth fell open as he recognized the black uniform contrasted by the red and white swastika armband. Schutzstaffel! Dressler was SS! The shock momentarily paralyzed Klaus. The pale blue eyes beneath the Spartan crop of blond hair seemed to fix him, like a rabbit before a ferret. The fine-lipped mouth beneath the eyes twitched at the edges and the eyebrows lifted slightly. Klaus realized he was still sitting. As his suspended reflexes returned, he leapt to his feet, his heels clicking as he reached for the peak of his cap in salute. Dressler smiled mockingly. “I can see the army has not taught you to salute properly, Hauptman.” The black uniform stiffened to attention, the arm raised rigidly with outstretched palm. “Heil Hitler!” The blue eyes flicked over Klaus as he remained at attention. “You do not return my salute, Schmidt?” The question was softly spoken, but the tone only added to the menace in the voice. “Better.” Dressler’s voice was still low and soft, but he eased his head back and looked patronizingly down his nose at Klaus. “And now, Hauptman Schmidt, we have much to discuss.” Dressler’s extended arm lowered as it pointed an invitation through the large door, like some black vulture arrogantly inviting his prey to dinner. Klaus followed the black uniform as it moved with confident assurance around the large ornately-carved desk. Dressler turned and stood in front of a blazing wood fire burning in the hearth below a huge mirror that reached almost to the high vaulted ceiling. Klaus sat on the chair in front of the desk. Dressler turned to him with a look of mock surprise. “I cannot remember asking you to sit, Hauptman.” Klaus leapt to attention. He knew Dressler’s sort. Probably a clerk before the Nazis arrived, a ticket inspector or bank teller who took shit every day, some non-descript going nowhere. The Nazis thrived on such people and their impotence. Almost overnight, they were big-shots in uniform with the power of life-or-death over their erstwhile betters, a power they exercised with pleasure. The Mirror (p. 51): Paolo gently turned the mirror over. The rim was about nine inches across, and the precious metal had been exquisitely sculpted. A master’s hand had crafted the scene from the myth of Diana and Acteon. Paolo knew the story well. Acteon, out hunting, had had the misfortune to come across Diana in her bath. Diana adored Acteon, but knew that for a mortal to see a goddess unclothed bore the punishment of death. Thus was Diana obliged to turn her beloved Acteon into a stag, to be savaged and killed by his own hounds. The scene on the mirror portrayed the precise moment of the transformation. Acteon, while still in human form, had the vaguest image of a stag appearing behind his head; his dogs, not recognizing their master, were beginning to attack him. Diana, eyes cast down, stood in anguished remorse, sorely regretting her choice of duty over love. Paolo marveled at the masterpiece. He let his fingers lightly trace the outlines of the relief, then hastily withdrew them, as if his touch was an act of sacrilege. The mirror, to him, was a sacred object fraught with significance. It not only told the myth of Diana, it embodied the eternal human conflict – of mind versus heart, of need versus want, of duty versus love. Since the birth of the gods it was ever thus. And how much more so now, at this time of war. Klaus and Rosanna (p. 140): Klaus looked up at the cloudless sky. The moon was well past its first quarter, its clear luminescence washing the land with a cold light. Below, the lake, undisturbed by even the slightest breeze, amplified and returned the light, the crescent reflection a perfect image of the moon hanging in the dark heaven above. “But can you see the third moon, Klaus?” Rosanna’s finger pointed to the west, over the far rim of the lake crater. Her face turned up to his. Klaus looked over the western side of the hills, and he could just discern the coastal plain that ran down to the sea. He picked out the coastline and, beyond it, the Mediterranean Sea; halfway to the horizon, its form changing in the waves, was the third moon. “It’s so wonderful, Rosanna. The war is so far away. I wish I could stay here forever.” “You can stay here forever, Klaus.” Paolo (p. 189): Paolo fiddled uneasily with his cap. “You see, Ernesto, Rosanna is missing. I’m very worried. I’ve called on most of the neighbors, but there’s no news. Have you seen her?” “Missing?” The innkeeper’s voice betrayed unease. “No, Paolo, I’ve not seen her. I saw her this morning, by the fountain, but I’ve not seen her since the shelling started.” He looked down into his glass. “But you know something, don’t you, Ernesto?” Paolo leant across the bar. “What’s going on?” “No, there’s nothing.” He again avoided Paolo’s eyes. “Now, I’ve got things to do.” “There is something, Ernesto.” Paolo hissed into the innkeeper’s face. “Tell me.” Paolo waited patiently as Ernesto refilled his glass and emptied it in one swallow. “Sometimes, we don’t even know our own children, Paolo.” He wiped the drops of wine from his mustache with the back of his hand. “What do you mean, Ernesto?” Paolo moved around the bar to confront the innkeeper. “Well, there’s been a story going around the town for a few days now.” He tipped the bottle into the glass again and drank quickly. “Story? What story?” “That Rosanna has been seen,” he fumbled for his words, “with a German officer.” Dressler and Klaus (p.192): “Enough of this nonsense. Bring him this way.” Dressler snapped his fingers as he turned on his heel and made his way toward a small door set at the back of the hall. Klaus felt the prod of the butt of the guard’s rifle and he staggered through the door. Dressler led the way through a long, dark corridor. Portraits of princes long since dead gazed down on Klaus as he followed the black uniform. He would soon join them, Klaus thought. He tried to control his thoughts, but they were scattered. An image of his mother leapt to his mind, to be replaced in an instant by himself at his graduation, his father shaking his hand. Then there was Rosanna and himself at the temple. His actions were mechanical, as if predetermined. He looked down to see his boots walking along the carpet, thinking they were not his boots. “Right, in here!” Dressler pushed open a door leading off the corridor and stood back as the guards pushed Klaus into the room. It was a small chamber, probably a servant’s room, Klaus thought, but it had been stripped of all furniture and Klaus’s boots echoed off the wooden floor. He looked around, but there was no other exit, only a small curtained window. He turned to face Dressler and his guards, who looked at him with faces that did not show a flicker of emotion. “So, you wanted to see the authority for the order?” The malicious smile returned to Dressler’s lips. “If you look through that window,” he pointed towards the curtain, “you will see all the authorization you could possibly wish!” Klaus knew it was a ploy, a trick to get him to turn his back on the guards so they did not have to look at him as they gunned him down. He turned to the window, his body shaking as he awaited the chatter of the weapons and the thud of bullets tearing into his flesh. The Ships (p.213): From the ships came a groan as the flames consumed them. The centuries-old timbers wailed in their death throes, as if grieving for the memories of time that were also dying. He heard the shouts of the spirits of those who had walked the decks of the ships, the cries of those who had labored to raise the ships from the lake. The voices shrieked their agony into his ears; he raised his hands to cover them, but the cries would not go away.
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