On the 10th of June, 1940, the same day Italy entered the war and invaded southern France, a fierce knocking at the door of the house awakened Olivia. Her bedside clock read a quarter to three a.m. She scrambled up, wrapped a dressing gown over her pajamas, and followed her father and mother down the stairs.
“Open up!” the voices shouted.
Papa unlocked the door. Two officers stood on the sill. “Carlo Baldini?” one said, flashing his Special Branch identification.
“What’s wrong?” Papa said, alarmed. “What’s happened? Is it my son?”
The officer shook his head impatiently. “You’re under arrest,” he said. “Get dressed quickly and pack one bag.”
Olivia’s mother put her arm around Olivia’s waist and pulled her close.
Papa frowned, bewildered. “But on what charge?” he said.
“Orders. We’re rounding up all Italian-born citizens,” the officer said, looking past Papa. “Where are your sons?” He strode across the room and yanked two photographs in their frames from the wall: one of Vittorio Emmanuele III, the King of Italy, and the other of the Duce, Benito Mussolini. “Fascists!” he hissed. One of the frames slipped from his hand, and glass shattered across the floor.
“But we are British citizens,” Papa said. Olivia and her mother now stood behind him, holding their dressing gowns tight across their bodies. “I’ve been here more than twenty years.” He ran a hand through his hair. “My family,” and here he waved his arm to include the two women, “are all British born. We are not fascists. I am a simple café owner.”
The officer consulted his notebook. “Where are your sons?” he asked again, shifting from foot to foot.
Papa shook his head. “One is in the British Navy and the other is in Italy visiting his grandparents.”
The officer sneered at the word “Italy” as if the word substantiated Papa’s arrest. He scribbled something in the notebook, then waved his hand in front of Papa’s face. “Hurry now. Get dressed and pack a few things. We have no time to lose.”
“Where are you taking my husband? What has he done?” Mamma asked, stepping forward.
The two officers ignored her.
“But when is Papa coming back?” Olivia said, her voice tremulous.
The officers stared her up and down, shook their heads, but said nothing. While Papa and Mamma went upstairs to do the men’s bidding, Olivia cowered by the stairs, wondering why they were detaining her father, who was the gentlest of men. Coming back, coming back. The words began repeating in her head, a mantra, a premonition.
The whole exchange lasted less than twenty minutes. Mamma packed toiletries, a change of clothes and underwear. Papa dressed, and then gathered his heavy winter coat and folded it over his arm. Olivia’s arms encircled his neck, unwilling to let go. He kissed her, then embraced Mamma. “Can you tell me where I’m going?” he said, but the two officers ushered him out without another word.
When the door clicked shut, Mamma collapsed in a kitchen chair, sobbing, while Olivia rubbed her shoulder. “It’s those fascists!” Mamma said. “Their arms can reach even here!” She wiped her tears angrily, got up, and retrieved the Mussolini photograph. She spit on it, before ripping it to shreds. She had never wanted it on the wall, but Papa had insisted they keep it there, lest someone betray their anti-fascist sentiments to the Italian Consulate. He feared Aldo’s fate back in Italy. Mamma switched on the radio and turned the dial, trying in vain to find some explanation. “Clean up that shattered glass,” she said.
Olivia got out the broom and dustpan. She began with the largest shards and made piles of glass according to size. Shattered, she thought, hearing the word rebound in her head. Her own tears began, though she’d been trying to hold them back. “What are we to do now?”
Mamma stopped twisting the radio dials and drew herself up. She took the broom out of Olivia’s hand, and swept all the glass into one large pile, which she pushed into the dustpan. “We will open the café as usual,” she said. “We will hold our heads high.”
~
Two years later, in September, Olivia received a formal letter requesting her to go to the War Office for an interview.
She arrived at Whitehall at the appointed hour and was shown into a small bare room in the War Office basement, where a Mr. Potter asked her a series of innocuous questions meant, she assumed, to help him decide whether or not she would be suitable for a government job. He asked about her nurse training with the Red Cross. “I understand you speak Italian,” he said. “We train people here,” he said, “and we send them to the country of their origin, or if they speak a foreign language well, we send them to that country, where they can use it and be useful to the war effort.”
Olivia nodded.
Mr. Potter shuffled a series of papers on his desk and stopped at one particular page, which he slowly read, then he studied her for a moment. “What can you tell me about April 7, 1939?”
Olivia frowned, startled, but instantly the day appeared before her. “A cool day – 48 degrees F.” In her mind, she scanned her school day, a couple of hours of helping in the coffee shop, aware this government official was looking for something other than her personal life. She continued her fast-forward scan until her family was seated around the radio that night, leaning forward. “Disgraziato!” Papa had said and they all knew he was referring to Mussolini. “It’s the day Italy invaded and annexed Albania,” she said to Mr. Potter. “General Guzzoni attacked all the ports simultaneously, and although the Albanians tried to fend off the attack, they were betrayed by Italian agents who sabotaged the artillery and removed the ammunition,” she said, repeating the exact announcer’s words.
Mr. Potter stared at her, half-frowning, half-smiling. “Good.” He stood up. “Now come with me, and I’ll take you to sign the Official Secrets Act,” he said, without telling her what she was to keep secret. “After this, there will be a background check, and if all goes well, I’ll explain more.”
Before heading home, Olivia took the tube to her old neighbourhood. Much of it had been destroyed and rebuilt. She had not been to their house and coffee shop since her father had been taken away, afraid someone would arrest her, though this was absurd, because she was not guilty of anything.
As she approached the coffee shop, she realized it had become a deli with a different name. She pushed open the door, and a bell rang. Her cousin Alba stood behind a counter, and when Olivia approached, she leaned forward and whispered, “Go away. We don’t want any trouble.” She turned to help a customer.
Olivia stood perfectly still, shocked. This was her family’s property. London. September 14, 1940…“DP,” a girl yells in the hallway at school. Displaced Person. Is this what I am? The girl is with my cousin Alba and must not be aware of her Italian origin. I am no more displaced than she is. I wait for Alba to defend me, but she walks on without looking back …a sound emerges, muffled at first, like a radio left on in another room … men’s agitated voices … a crowd slowly advancing, chanting, throwing stones through windows of other Italian establishments. Alba now came around the counter and pushed a hand into Olivia’s back, propelling her forward out the door. “It’s not safe,” she whispered. “You’ll be the ruin of us all.” Then she shut the door firmly behind her.
An excerpt from The Cipher (Signature Editions 2024).
The Cipher, Genni Gunn’s fourth novel, is based on deep research into The Special Operations Executive – Churchill’s secret sabotage army – and hyperthymesia, Olivia’s special skill, that earns her a place in the SOE, and into the intricacies of being an agent in occupied Europe The Cipher trailer
The Cipher is preceded by Solitaria, also set in wartime Italy, and a long-list nominee for the Giller Prize; by Tracing Iris, which was made into a feature film; and Thrice Upon a Time, nominated for the Commonwealth Prize. Genni Gunn is also the author of three collections of poetry, three collections of short fiction, a nonfiction book of travel essays, an opera libretto, and three collections of poetry translated from Italian. She lives in Vancouver, www.gennigunn.com.
