Florence
Palermo, Sicily, September 1946
Florence finally stepped foot on Sicilian soil just over a year after the end of the war in the East. She had hoped to leave for Malta far sooner but the chaos following the German unconditional surrender in May 1945 and then the Japanese surrender in August, meant travel had been highly restricted. Florence had wanted to visit her sisters in France and with Jack’s help had contacted the Foreign Office in London to ask about how to get there. She had been sternly warned against attempting it, as only diplomatic and military persons were currently advised to go. Visiting family was not considered vital given the dreadful conditions there.
Hélène had written about those conditions, too.Florence had wept when she first read the letter but had brought it with her on the trip to Sicily, for on the back of it was a tiny line drawing Hélène had made of Élise nursing her baby. Florence took the letter out now to look at the drawing and then read it yet again.
My dear Florence,
It was lovely to hear from you but I have to tell you it would be most unwise to visit us. France is on its knees. People are sick and hungry, two thirds of our children have rickets, and it’s heartbreaking to see many not even surviving childbirth. Everything is completely disrupted and it’s impossible to get around except by bicycle as there are shortages of just about everything, including fuel for cars. We will have to rebuild everything and start from scratch. Despite the end of war, I find it hard not to feel bitter about how France has suffered.
Hundreds of thousands of buildings have been destroyed and we hear that industrial and agricultural production is running at less than half of what it was before the war. The appalling state of ports, railway tracks, roads, and bridges, means even our medical supplies are not reaching us. Doctor Hugo is beside himself with worry, and his wife Marie has still not been repatriated from London. In parts of the countryside the farmers barely know where it is safe to work because of the landmines.
For all these reasons I think it will be some time before you can safely visit us, or us you. Oh, my dear sister, we both miss you terribly as always, and send ourlove. I hope you like the little drawing I made for you. How is Jack? I was surprised to hear that he may be going to Malta with you, and that you stayed on in Devon so long, but Maman writes that by doing so you’ve been able to save enough money for your travels. I wish you luck in your search for Rosalie.
Hélène
Florence folded the letter and put it away, shaking her head, and brushing the tears away. Even though she’d read it several times hoping for something different, of course the words remained the same and she couldn’t help feeling sad and worried for her sisters and for France.
Jack had managed to secure berths on a Royal Navy vessel delivering medicines and other supplies to Rome, Naples and Sicily, though not Malta. For Malta they would need a ferry from Syracuse.
She’d been thrilled to be going at last, but the journey had been slow and uncomfortable. The many metal staircases were narrow and slippery, and the deck always wet from sea spray, which meant it wasn’t easy to get around the winches, coiled ropes and lifeboats lined up ready for use. There had been a smell of metal and tar, as well as the odd whiff you get from thick orange tarpaulin. The sea had seemed vast, and she’d been very seasick until she eventually found her sea legs. But she managed to enjoy the final few days, running her fingers over the salt on the ship’s railings and feeling the wind in her hair. And at last she was making a start with her mother’s request to find Rosalie.
As for Bruce, after he’d kissed her on the evening of VE Day she had realised that, much as she liked him – and she really did like him – she had not fallen in love with him, and knew she never would. She still loved Jack. So, she’d met Bruce to tell him they could only ever be friends and over the past year that’s what they had been. He’d been the first among the people she knew to predict the Labour landslide in July 1945 and Churchill’s failure to retain power.
And now Jack was going to have work in a place called Lipari, which turned out not to be on the Sicilian mainland at all but more remotely on one of Sicily’s tiny Aeolian islands. Although she had longed to see Sicily, Florence had started to fret over how long it would be before she could go to Malta.
After arriving in Sicily and a few moments of gazing back at the sea, they heaved up their bulky canvas bags, walked away from the docks and into the hot, still air of the blazing town itself. Palermo sat in the plain ofConca d’Oro– the golden shell – surrounded by a semi-circle of purple mountains, although nothing much looked golden in the afternoon. Florence stared in shock, taking in the rubble piled up in the narrower streets of Palermo, the collapsed walls, the bullet-pocked plaster, the bombed remains of aristocratic houses the colour of soft pinkish cream.
Deeper into its dark passages the houses were either faded or crumbling and decayed, doors hanging at angles, red-tiled roofs absent. She hadn’t seen London since the Blitz, although Jack had told her about it, but they’d sailedfrom Portsmouth and the bomb damage there had been enough. And, of course, she’d seen first-hand the damage an unexploded bomb could cause. Here in the ruined stony streets she coughed as the wind lifted the ochre dust to swirl in the air.
They reached a garden, where cypress and Judas trees gave way to the green of an orange grove. A few columns and arches stood undamaged, plus a building with the glass blown out from its windows but with intricate old ironwork still intact. From there the tall spires of the cathedral were visible too.
‘It’s awful to see this, Jack. It must have been so frightening.’
‘I know. This was one of the loveliest cities in the world.’
‘Until the war.’
He nodded. ‘The carpet bombing of Palermo was designed to destroy the port, airfields, military bases, railway stations and so on but there’s always civilian damage. And naturally that discouraged resistance when Allied troops finally invaded.’
Florence found herself almost speechless, imagining Malta must be in the same dreadful state. She had seen the horrors of the Nazis close up in France, but somehow seeing the terrible destruction brought home the scale of the world war.
‘Come on,’ Jack said. ‘Give me your bag.’
‘I can carry it.’
‘Fine. But we need to get a move on before it gets dark. I don’t think we’ll get to Lipari tonight. What we need is a hotel, if such a thing still exists.’
They wandered on and he asked a few locals for directions. It seemed that along with his native English, Jack not only spoke French and German, but also had a smattering of Italian too.
‘The trouble is,’ he said as he shook his head, not always understanding the replies. ‘The Sicilians don’t exactly speak Italian. They virtually have their own language.’
Many of the people looked destitute, thin children ran about with no shoes and gaping holes in their ragged clothes and old ladies dressed in black sat with covered heads on stools outside what must have once been their homes. Donkeys roamed freely as did the dogs, all as thin as each other. A pitiful sight. Florence knew Sicily had a weighty history, heavy with the blood, sweat and tears of its people, she just hadn’t expected to see quite so much of it now.
After questioning more locals, Jack found a pension that had once been a private villa.
The owner now was a widow called Margarita and when Jack asked if she had rooms, she laughed bitterly and swept an arm around her. ‘See for yourself. Does it look like I have rooms?’
