Valentina, ‘so we can get back to Florence.’
‘Getting false papers will be hard. I have no contacts, I’m afraid,’ Reverend Mother replied. ‘Is there no one else you can ask for help?’
‘I have a cousin who lives here,’ Valentina went on. ‘But I’ve not seen him for years. I think he would help.’
Valentina’s cousin Mauro was a shy and retiring man who had never married. He came to the convent the following day. He had last seen Valentina when she was a child, and seemed genuinely pleased to see her.
‘I have a spare ration book, and here are a few lire. At least then you can eat in a restaurant.’
‘Thank you Mauro, you’re very kind,’ said Valentina.
‘The thing is,’ Livia interjected, ‘we need to get back to Florence if we can, but we have no papers.’
Mauro mused on the problem. ‘Getting papers in Verona would be risky, because the Germans will be looking for you, and watching the Town Hall. You’ll need to go somewhere else. I have an old college friend called Dario who lives in Milan. We did engineering together. I will buy you two train tickets to Milan, where he will meet you and help you get papers. But you should leave straight away.’
The two girls said their goodbyes to the nuns and the Reverend Mother, and Mauro walked them to the railway station. There were SS men at all the entrances, questioning people at random. But the girls aroused no suspicion. Dressed in new clothes, their hair washed, their faces scrubbed clean, they looked just like two local girls on their way to visit family.
‘You will have to make up a story about why you have no papers,’ Mauro said, as he handed them their tickets. ‘Can you manage that?’
‘Of course,’ said Valentina. ‘We’ll think of something, and thank you, Mauro, we’re in your debt.’
The train journey to Milan would take several hours, passing through Brescia, Parma and Bergamo. At each stop, the train filled up, as more and more people climbed aboard.
As it pulled out of Parma station, Valentina whispered, ‘Bergamo is the next stop, then Milan. With luck, no one will ever check our papers.’
They gazed at the passing countryside, and both began to relax a little.
‘Papers, papers… have your papers ready.’ It was two Fascist policemen, accompanied by the guard. Slowly and meticulously, the men began to work their way down the carriage, checking every set of papers as they went.
‘How are we going to get away with it?’ Livia whispered to Valentina, grabbing her arm nervously. ‘Perhaps we should walk back down the train and try to keep one step ahead of them.’
‘We could,’ agreed Valentina. ‘But they’d find us eventually.’
‘Or we could hide in the toilet?’ Livia suggested.
‘That might work,’ agreed Valentina.
They stood up, smiling at the couple opposite, trying to look nonchalant.
‘Will you save our seats?’ Valentina asked. ‘We just need to go to the ladies’ room.’ The couple nodded.
‘You two,’ shouted one of the policemen, ‘stay where you are!’ He fixed them with a determined stare and marched up the carriage.
‘Damn,’ whispered Livia. ‘Now all we’ve done is draw attention to ourselves.’
‘Keep calm,’ said Valentina. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘Papers,’ the policeman demanded, holding out his hand.
Valentina began to cry theatrically. ‘I’m so sorry, officer, but we have no papers, we were travelling from Florence to Milan when our train was bombed, and we lost everything.’
‘We made our way to Verona,’ Livia continued, ‘where my friend’s cousin bought us some new tickets.’ They held their tickets out for inspection.
The guard, who had now joined the policeman, took the tickets and checked them.
‘So you have no papers,’ said the policeman.
The two girls looked at one another and then at the guard. ‘No,’ said Livia. ‘Oh dear, what can we do?’
At that moment, the train pulled into Bergamo station, lurching violently as the driver applied the brakes. The girls were thrown back against their seats, and the guard and policeman stumbled, just as the doors opened. Men, women and children – many of them refugees, carrying baggage and boxes – rushed onto the train. It was chaos.
‘Oh come on, forget the girls,’ said the guard impatiently to the policeman, ‘it happens a lot – people who’ve lost their papers. We’d better get on, the train is filling up, and I’ve got a lot of tickets to check.’ He moved away and waited at the door to the next carriage for the policeman, who hovered for a moment, before grudgingly moving on.
When they