Beneath a Scarlet Sky

“Down the hall, first door on the right,” she said, and reached for the wine bottle.

Pino went through the living area, and into a carpeted hall dimly lit by two low-wattage bulbs. He opened the first door on the right, turned on the light, and entered a bathroom with a shower-tub, tiled floor, a vanity crowded with cosmetics, and another door. He went to the second door, hesitated, and then gently tried the knob. It turned.

The door swung open into a darkened space that smelled of Leyers and his mistress so strongly that it stopped him for a moment. A warning voice in his head told him not to go on, to return to the kitchen, and to Anna.

He flipped on the light.

In a sweeping glance, Pino saw that the general occupied the far left side of the room, which was neat and precisely arranged. Dolly’s side, which was closer to Pino, resembled an ill-kept theater costume room. There were two racks of fine dresses, skirts, and blouses. Cashmere sweaters bulged from drawers. A mishmash of colorful silk scarves, several corsets, and garter belts hung from the closet doors. Shoes were lined up in rows by the bed, Dolly’s only surrender to order. Beyond them, amid stacks of books and hat boxes, was an occasional table that supported a large, open jewelry box.

Pino went to the neater side of the room first, scanning the top of a set of drawers and seeing cuff links on a tray, a clothes brush, a shoehorn, and a shaving kit. But not what he was looking for. Nothing on the nightstand or in it, either.

Maybe I was wrong, he thought, and then shook his head. I’m not wrong.

But where would someone like Leyers hide it? Pino looked under the mattress, and under the bed, and was about to search the general’s shaving kit when he noticed something in the mirror, something in the chaos of Dolly’s side of the room.

Pino circled the bed, going up on tiptoes to avoid stepping on Dolly’s things and at last reached the jewelry box. Strings of pearls, gold chokers, and many, many other necklaces hung in bunches from hooks on the inside of the lid.

He pushed them aside, looking for something plain, and then . . .

There it was! Pino felt a thrill go through him as he plucked the thin chain with the key to the general’s valise off a hook. He put it in his pants pocket.

“What are you doing?”



Pino spun around, his heart slamming against his chest. Anna stood in the doorway to the bathroom, her arms crossed, a glass of wine in one hand, and her face etched hard in suspicion.

“Just looking around,” Pino said.

“In Dolly’s jewelry box?”

He shrugged. “Just looking.”

“Not just looking,” Anna said angrily. “I saw you put something in your pocket.”

Pino didn’t know what to say or do.

“So you’re a thief,” Anna said, disgusted. “I should have known.”

“I’m not a thief,” Pino said, walking toward her.

“No?” she said, taking a step back. “Then what are you?”

“I . . . I can’t tell you.”

“Tell me, or I’ll tell Dolly where I found you.”

Pino didn’t know what to do. He could hit her and flee, or . . .

“I’m a spy . . . for the Allies.”

Anna laughed dismissively. “A spy? You?”

That made him angry.

“Who better?” Pino asked. “I go everywhere with him.”

Anna fell silent, her expression doubtful. “Tell me how you became a spy.”

Pino hesitated, and then told her quickly about Casa Alpina and what he’d done there, and how his parents feared for his life and made him join the Organization Todt, and the serendipitous path that had taken him from a bombed train station in Modena to a German hospital bed to the front seat of General Leyers’s staff car outside his uncle’s luggage store.

“I don’t care if you believe me or not,” he said at the end. “But I’ve put my life in your hands. If Leyers finds out, I’ll die.”

Anna studied him. “What did you put in your pocket?”

“The key to his valise,” Pino said.

As if he’d used the key on her somehow, Anna changed in the next moment, transformed from suspicious by a slow, soft smile. “Let’s open it!”

Pino breathed a sigh of relief. She believed him, and she wasn’t going to tell Leyers. If she was part of opening his valise and the general found out, Anna would be dead, too.

He said, “I have other plans tonight.”

“What plans?”

“I’ll show you,” he said, and led her back to the kitchen.

The candle still flickered on the table. He picked it up and poured a small puddle of wax on the table.

“Don’t do that,” Anna said.

“It will come right off,” Pino said, fishing in his pocket and coming up with the key and chain.

He freed the key from the chain, waited until the wax had congealed to the consistency of putty, and then softly pressed the key into it. “Now I’ll be able to make a duplicate and get into the valise anytime I want,” he said. “Do you have a toothpick and a spatula?”

Looking at him in reappraisal and some wonder, Anna got him a toothpick from a cabinet. Pino gently pried the key free of the wax and then washed it in hot water. She set a spatula on the table, and he used it to separate the wax from the tabletop. He wrapped the cooling mold in tissue and put it in his shirt pocket.

“Now what?” Anna asked, her eyes flashing. “This is exciting!”

Pino grinned at her. It was exciting. “I’m going to take a look in the valise and then put the key back in Dolly’s jewelry box.”

He thought she’d like that, but instead the maid pouted her lip.

“What’s the matter?” Pino asked.

“Well,” she said, shrugging, “like you said, once you have the key made, you can get into the valise anytime, and I was thinking we would put the key back, and then . . .”

“What?”

“You could kiss me,” Anna said matter-of-factly. “It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Pino was going to deny it, but then said, “More than you can imagine.”



He returned the key and shut the door to Dolly’s bedroom. Anna was waiting for him in the kitchen with a funny smile on her face. She pointed at the chair. Pino sat down, and she set aside her wineglass and sat in his lap. She put her arms on his shoulders and kissed him.

Holding Anna, feeling her lips so soft against his for the first time, and smelling the perfect fragrance of her, Pino felt as if a single violin were playing the first strains of a marvelous melody. The music vibrated so pleasantly through his body that he shivered.

Anna broke the kiss and leaned her forehead against his.

“I thought it would be like that,” she whispered.

“I prayed it would be,” he said breathlessly. “The first time I saw you.”

“Lucky me,” Anna said, and kissed him again.

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