This was the tired expression he toyed with as he headed for Paola, dodging the craters in the road. He wouldn’t use it, but he could take its essence, extrapolating the courage of a single gun crew to the bigger picture of the besieged garrison. Better still, he could give it to young Pemberton to play with. The fellow was itching to flex his literary muscles.
The Cassars lived in a long, squat farmhouse on the hillside above Paola, just off the Luqa road. It was an ugly building, notable only for the large beds of brightly colored flowers that hemmed it in on all sides.
Max heard the wailing before he reached the front door. It was loud enough to justify entering the house without knocking.
A dozen or so women were gathered in the drawing room, dressed entirely in black, some sporting faldettas, the ugly, yawning black headdresses favored by the more elderly. The door on the far side of the room was ajar, and through the crack he could just make out the bare feet, poking from beneath a white robe, of someone laid out on a table.
The urge to spin on his heel was sudden and overwhelming, but he had been spotted.
She caught up with him as he stepped outside into the sunlight.
“Excuse me …”
She was young, twenty or so, and she spoke English with barely any accent.
“May I help you?”
The syntax suggested that she worked in some kind of official capacity—a nurse or a teacher, maybe, or an employee at one of the regional Protection Offices. Her name was Nina and she was Carmela’s cousin.
Max had formulated a story that wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion, and she seemed to fall for it, suggesting that it was probably best right now if he spoke to Carmela’s father. News had just reached them that the coffin intended for Carmela had been destroyed by a wayward bomb while en route from Rabat, along with the cart, the horse, and the driver.
“Victor speaks English, but I am here if you need me.”
Victor Cassar was younger than Max had imagined, although his stooped shoulders suggested a man well into old age. He was at the back of the house, watering the flowers with his son, Joe. They moved mechanically, in silent tandem, Joe charging his father’s watering can with buckets of water hauled from below by hand.
It had been a miserable winter, one of the wettest in memory, but at least the wells were full.
Max introduced himself, explaining that he’d known Carmela from the Blue Parrot and had come to express his condolences at her death. Victor visibly perked up, touched by the gesture, which made Max feel worse for lying. He had no choice. The only other excuse for the visit he’d been able to think of—that it was part of a new policy of following up on civilian casualties—would have rung alarm bells with any Maltese worth their salt.
This story, though, was swallowed whole, even if it didn’t endear Max to Joe, who scrutinized him with a sullen scowl. When Joe was sent in search of refreshments, Victor explained that his son, like his wife, had never approved of Carmela’s line of work. He, on the other hand, knowing she was a good girl who would never have allowed herself to be drawn into bad ways, had sanctioned her decision.
Max offered up the words Victor was seeking.
“She was a great girl, fun and intelligent and very … proper.”
“Proper?”
He evidently didn’t know the word.
“Moral. Not like some of the other girls.”
Victor beamed, his conscience clear, the memory of his dead daughter secure.
Refreshments arrived in the form of two tumblers of ambeet, a winelike drink still in circulation. Max took a small sip of the poisonous liquid and smiled as best he could. When Joe retired, the two men sat themselves down on a sun-bleached plank of wood set in a low stone wall.
In the valley below them, Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery lay spread out like a map, some sprawling city of the dead, with its high perimeter walls and tree-lined avenues, a soaring Gothic cathedral at its heart. The Cassars, Max discovered, were intimately connected with the cemetery. For three generations they had sold flowers at its main gates. Carmela had learned the trade at her father’s knee, excelling at it, effortlessly attracting customers—a gift that, presumably, she had carried over to the Blue Parrot.