“Do you like it?”

He frowned. “It has a certain appeal,” he admitted. “A pleasing use of colour. Another of your Jewish refugees?”

“No, my darling house guest.” She took my hand. “She has talent, don’t you think?”

It was one small moment of satisfaction in a long line of darkness.

Leo has not returned. I have to accept what Bianca thought: that he is missing, either dead or captured. I pray the latter. If he is in British hands, he would be treated fairly. But then why hasn’t he been able to write a letter home?

September 1942

The Biennale came and went, mostly populated by Mussolini’s henchmen or German officers, strutting around. This year, of course, there were no Russians since Hitler had turned on his former best friend, Stalin. And the occasional snippet of good news has been that the Allies were making progress since the Americans came into the war. Battles were being won in North Africa. England was no longer subject to daily bombing. I found myself wondering and worrying more and more about my mother. Since I had become a mother myself, I realized what a wrench it must have been to let her children go so far away. She must be worrying about me every day, and I could do nothing to alleviate that worry.

The contessa’s steady stream of Jewish refugees has ceased. We hear dire news from Germany. Jews have been rounded up and shipped off to work camps in Eastern Europe. There are now no Jews left in Germany’s cities, or in Austria either. We fear the worst for Hanni’s parents but wisely keep our worries to ourselves. And she no longer asks us about them. Let her be happy and enjoy childhood while she can. I have made sure she kept up with her schooling. She practices her piano and loves to go to the beach with me during the hot weather. We swim together in the warm Adriatic, floating on the calm surface as if we hadn’t a care in the world for those few moments. Then she splashes me, I chase her and she screams in delight like any normal girl. I’m afraid I am coming to love her, and it will break my heart for a second time when I have to go.

Things in Italy also seem to be getting worse for the Jews. They are now instructed to wear the yellow star and not to leave the Cannaregio district of the city. The contessa laughed when I asked her whether she was going to wear a star, or make Hanni wear one.

“Dear child, don’t worry so. Everybody knows me. I am the wife of an Italian count,” she said. “We are quite safe.”