Page 5

Valentina ran.

TWO

Valentina ignored the lift that linked the Barrakka Gardens to Lascaris Wharf. She’d noted earlier that it was out of action and besides, it was notoriously slow; running was surely faster. The slap of her sandals on the pavers echoed off the stone surrounds as she hit speed, barely noticing the glorious arches that she usually took time to admire because they had been built by an Italian knight.

The past did not matter today.

Neither did the future.

All that was in Valentina’s mind was now – this moment, and getting to him, the man who wanted to keep her safe.

Valentina raced past the monolith of the Sacra Infermeria, the old hospital built by the Knights of the Order of St John, which had become something of a secondary town hall. So many of the wounded from the Gallipoli campaign had been brought there; her mother, then a young woman, and her grandmother had both tended to the injured as volunteers. Now it was more of a serviceman’s club offering social activities and recreation to soldiers and seamen. But that was lost on Valentina now as she ran, as was the red flag waving its urgent message of the air raid in progress. It flapped on top of the Auberge of Castille in Castille Square, the vast public area near the city’s main gate that was home to the general headquarters for the Army.

Valentina turned sharply right down St Ursula Street, one of the compact interior arteries that led down the steep city. It had undergone many name changes, but this one she knew was named for the monastery that had housed the Jerosolimitan Nuns of the Order of St John. On any normal day, Valentina might have paused here to consider those nuns, who’d bankrolled corsairing expeditions but demanded a hefty fee from the proceeds of the pirated bounty. Valentina had always enjoyed this notion of women financing men to do their dirty work and exacting their set price, and sometimes daydreamed about being wealthy enough to run her own business and have men stop her in the street to acknowledge her acumen. But today she wanted no one to stop her. As it was, she was dodging rubble. This street had been decimated by the raids, but it was still the fastest way down to the harbour. She didn’t notice the pain of her shins knocking against sharp edges or the blood trickling into her socks.

A few people were emerging from the tunnels, squinting into the bright sunlight that streamed in heavenly shafts between the tall buildings that were still standing. They must have been feeling safer now that the enemy planes had flown through, dropped their loads and veered away. A familiar, acrid smell of burning and aviation fuel lingered on the air, but Valentina couldn’t focus on anything but getting to the water’s edge.

She zig-zagged and weaved her way around the slow movers, letting others use the shallow steps of ancient stone to make their descent down the hill. Glad that her sandals were relatively new and the rubber beneath gave her a good enough grip, she continued at full pelt, even climbing over some of the fallen boulders when she had to. She cut right again into the old Melita Street, now known as Britannia Street, relieved she was already in the heart of the city. Although the buildings were mostly destroyed here, a path had been cleared and she was making good use of it. She turned into Battery Street, using her hand against the wall to slow herself around the corner. And from here she could cover ground even faster now using the deserted broad, shallow steps. The destruction registered in the back of her mind; it was so sad to see her home city in such ruin, but there was no time for melancholy. She hurtled on.

A bright tunnel of light signalled she was nearing the end of her journey, and she leaped towards it, now at the bottom of the city and its round stone gatehouse. Scrambling swiftly across the pale limestone pavers, turned shiny in parts from centuries of use, she passed the lookout of St Barbara Bastion that led her into salubrious streets with tall houses, their picture windows facing the water from pretty, enclosed balconies.

Valentina didn’t envy them today. She didn’t even think about them. She ran onto the harbour walls where she anxiously scanned the waters. There!

Others had clearly witnessed her pilot baling out and had raised the alarm. A tiny rowboat was already well on its urgent way out, two men straining at the oars to reach the fallen airman as fast as they could. Valentina could see his figure slumped, bobbing in the water but facing the sky. Satisfied that he had been spotted, she turned away from the view and began backtracking, picking up her pace once again as she curved around houses that had so far survived the attacks.

She jumped rather than traversed another set of shallow steps, taking the first flight in two eager moves. The second was longer and she jumped again, covering three steps with each leap, determined to hasten her progress to Victoria Gate, the main entrance into the city from the harbour. She skidded into the shadows created by the great double arches built by the British in honour of their Queen on the site of the sixteenth-century Del Monte Gate, named after the Grand Master of the time. Robertu aside, maybe no boys would be interested in her, she thought. All these historical facts filled her head, not pretty dresses or the latest music. Lawrenz had told her as much, and still his dull brain wanted her simply because of how she looked.

Someone yelled her name but she didn’t break her stride or look around. It was rude, but she had more important business as she hurtled headlong towards the Customs House, partly destroyed by an air raid, and past all the storage warehouses.

Valentina shrieked softly as she encountered more fallen debris and doubled back again, moving towards the small passage that she knew led off from Victoria Gate, called the Nix Mangiari Stairs. If any traveller had wondered, Valentina would have been glad to educate them that this meant ‘no food’ or ‘nothing to eat’ and was where, a hundred years ago, the beggars and those with no work had lined up, awaiting any help and food that might be thrown their way. The citizens of Valletta had often steered clear of this passage to avoid being set upon by the hungry horde. Now it was empty, though, and the stairs were so broad and shallow that she didn’t even have to change her pace. If she fell, she knew she would injure herself, but she had lost all sense of reason, focusing only on this curious, driving motivation, as though her very presence might just save the pilot.

She had felt so connected to him when he began the dogfight with the Luftwaffe pilot; she’d almost convinced herself he was aware of her watching in those frantic moments – two allies, one enemy – and together they could overcome him. But she had been wrong. The German had won.

Tears were coursing down her cheeks as she realised she could smell the sea, just a few heartbeats away. Finally she reached the stone wall at the water’s edge.

As she waited anxiously at the sea wall, a few others gathered around, wanting to see what the sudden activity was for. All the Maltese loved the Allied pilots; whenever the men came into town to drink or to see one of the now rare shows put on for the military, they’d be trailed by a line of children, arms outstretched as they pretended to be Spitfires, wheeling around in the sky and firing their guns.

Valentina heard a man nearby whispering about the pilot, wondering if he’d survived. His companion thought he might have already drowned.

He’d have his life vest on, she reassured herself, which she knew was called a Mae West. She’d overheard two pilots talking about their life jackets once and had asked them, as she served them pastizzi, why it was given that name. She knew them quite well as they frequented her family bar often enough.

They had both grinned bright, cocky smiles that all the fighter pilots seemed to possess; she thought maybe they’d taught themselves to always be cheerful, because their next flight could so easily be their last.

‘Do you know Mae West, the actress?’ one man asked her.

She did; when she was eight, she’d seen part of one of her films because she had been asked to deliver a meal to the cinema projectionist where I’m No Angel was showing. She’d arrived right when Mae West’s character had uttered the famous line: ‘When I’m good I’m very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.’

Valentina had repeated the line to the airmen and they had both roared with laughter at her impression. She hadn’t really known what the words meant, but it always seemed to amuse men.

‘And you know how she looked, Leni, don’t you?’

At her nod, one explained. ‘Well, you see, when we put on our life jackets they make us look nice and, er, rounded like Mae West.’

He had used a hand to trace a buxom figure against his own and she laughed.

‘Ah, like a woman.’

Now she hoped with all of her heart that the pilot would have his rounded, fully inflated life jacket too.