Page 1

PART 1

ONE

MAY 1942

Valletta, Malta

Valentina Camilleri fell in love with him on sight, even though he was dead.

Perhaps, she scolded herself, at fifteen she shouldn’t be so dramatic, swooning over a handsome corpse in uniform. But Leni, as her family called her, had once heard her grandmother Agnes say that high emotion should be allowed in the young.

‘Life will surely wear that passion down,’ the older woman had said to Valentina’s mother in a sage tone, while her stout fingers, gnarled by arthritis, deftly smeared the pastizzi dough with butter each time it became a little wider beneath her old rolling pin. She had died at the start of the war, and Valentina was grateful for the mercy of that, because she couldn’t imagine how the old woman would have coped with their new life due to the war, living beneath the city in the network of old tunnels originally dug by the Knights Hospitaller.

Valentina had been looking out from the top-tier bastion in the Upper Barrakka Gardens when she spotted the British Spitfire above the waters of the deep harbour. The park was a place of landscaped beauty where those same Knights had once roamed, seeking quiet contemplation, just as Valentina now did centuries later. The view from up there on the east side of the city was commanding, affording a sweeping view of the Grand Harbour, the Three Cities opposite and the ancient Fort St Elmo. The famed crystalline turquoise of the calm Mediterranean sparkled in the sun; it was the only colour she knew for the sea, but she’d heard foreigners now stationed on the island remarking on its clarity and colour.

The foreigners were predominantly British, whom Valentina had discovered she liked. The pilots especially were full of daring, and they always had barley sugar wrapped in waxed paper in their pockets for the children of Valletta. Valentina’s family enjoyed serving these men at their small bar. Her parents spoke some English, like many in Valletta, which had been under the protection of the Brits in the previous century and had become a Crown colony in 1814, but Valentina had taken a particular interest over the years. She’d had an English-born teacher at school, and her command of the language was confident.

The British, she noticed, liked to drink more than eat, though these days they didn’t have much choice, given the island was now collectively famished, relying on rations or black-market goods when they could get them. Serving meals was no longer feasible at the bar, but the drinkers could graze on whatever her family could offer, from pickled olives to other snacks. The proceeds from the military patronage helped to keep her family fed; if they’d had to depend on locals, the bar would have been deserted and boarded up. Very few native Maltese now lived in the city, which had been ravaged by bombs. Its ancient limestone walls, which once shone golden beneath a benevolent sun, were damaged or collapsed into rubble.

On this day, desperate for some normality, Valentina had wanted to go swimming, knowing the water would be warm, but her mother had looked at her as if she were stupid. No one went swimming any more.

‘What will you do if the siren goes off?’ Stella had asked.

Valentina had shrugged. She wanted to say that she was tired of the war, tired of the sirens and entirely bored of having to dash for the tunnels to shelter, but she held her tongue and let her body language say it instead, leaning into one hip, her mouth set in a pout.

Her mother gave her another wearied look of warning.

‘My schoolwork’s done and I’ve finished my chores,’ Valentina bleated, hoping her mother would not invent more tasks.

‘So come and help me. There’s washing to be done.’

Valentina sighed. It was impossible to get any space to herself now that they lived in such dank and cramped conditions. No daylight, no fresh air, no sounds of the water or the birds flying overhead, no time and space to think. And she had so much to think about, though she couldn’t tell her mother this; she would just laugh at such a remark. Instead, Valentina asked, ‘Can I just go for a quick walk then?’

‘To where?’ her mother demanded, and then added more suspiciously, ‘And who will you go with?’

‘I hadn’t planned to go with anyone.’

Since Gina Gerit had left, Valentina didn’t have many others she considered true friends. Gina’s immediate family had been killed in February. Her parents and older brother had been at the afternoon matinee at the Regent Cinema when a single German bomber had turned inland towards Fort St Elmo and four bombs had been released, striking the casino, the Palace and the cinema where the audience was watching Gary Cooper and Madeleine Carroll in North West Mounted Police. Gina had run underground when the sirens went off, but the terrible news had soon come through. Most of those killed were servicemen on leave, but there were some locals in the audience, including the Gerit family. Traumatised to lose her loved ones and unable to speak for many days, Gina had been sent to the other side of the island to live with her cousins.

Valentina’s mother relented – worn down, no doubt. ‘Ask one of your brothers to go with you.’

‘No,’ Valentina said, frowning. ‘They always fidget. They’re not interested in the gardens or the peace. They’re not even that interested in the planes.’

‘Leni! You’re not going alone,’ Stella scolded. ‘You will not be watching any planes either, do you understand me?’

‘Robertu will be around,’ Valentina said quickly. The younger Falzon son was never too far away; he followed her around like a faithful puppy.

‘If the sirens go, you will run. Right?’

Valentina nodded, hating all the rules in her life but noting her mother’s permission, reluctant as it was, with a soft thrill. Leaving before her mother changed her mind, Valentina wandered up to the gardens, where it was cooler, to nurse her bruised thoughts.

A few other people were taking advantage of the quiet, strolling the battlements and enjoying the fresh air upon which the salt from the sea rode to mix with the fresh, herby bouquets of the hardy lavender and borage that lived there, ignorant of the fighter planes and bombings and the war waged by a mad German. They were simply doing what lavender and borage did – soaking up the sun and giving off their gratitude.

The natural world gave Valentina hope.

Behind her she heard the hooves of horses pulling carts, clip-clopping on the paved streets as they urgently moved people around the city while it was not immediately under threat. It wouldn’t be long, though, she suspected. The attacks were coming daily now, in a blitz on her tiny island that seemed to have spent its entire history standing firm against invaders, all the way back to the Great Siege of Malta, when the enemy were the Ottomans.

But if nature gave her hope, then history comforted her. It was her escape from today’s reality, and she was its most ardent student on the island, she was sure. Five hundred brave Knights of Malta and their foot soldiers had withstood the attack of the Sultan’s forces in the sixteenth century, not once, but twice. And Malta would withstand the enemy again, she was sure of it.