‘Partenze, navi,’ she read at a distance. ‘“Departures, ships”.’
Francesca rose and led him to the shelf she was looking at. She reached out and thumbed the spines of the catalogues.
‘You said she left in 1946 . . .’
‘We think. She married Nonno when she arrived. It was late in the year.’
She took the 1946 catalogue to the table and opened it, noting that it was arranged a little differently from the others. There was an index, outlining each departure by passenger. Surname, then Christian name. Date of birth. Port of departure. Intended port of arrival. Ship. Date of departure.
The pair flicked through the index pages, arriving at M.
They scanned down the rows. There were the same Martino names they had found in the 1946 catalogues. But there was no Immacolata Martino in the list.
‘Maybe we have the dates wrong. Let’s check the 1947 one,’ Alessio started. But Francesca had caught his arm and pulled him back to the desk.
Her voice broke. ‘Ale, guarda . . .’
Alessio’s eyes met the name Francesca’s finger indicated and his hands moved to his temples. ‘Ranieri, Immacolata. Data di nascita: 2 febbraio 1925. Porto di partenza: Bari. Porto di arrivo: Melbourne, Australia. Data di partenza: 14 settembre 1946.’ His throat bobbed as he swallowed. ‘What the fuck? Ranieri? But her maiden name was Martino.’
His eyes flicked to Francesca, who was staring into space as she thought.
‘How could this even—?’
In a slow whisper, as if still needing to process the revelation, Francesca said, ‘She lied to you all. They lied to you.’
‘Who?’
Francesca rose suddenly and bolted out the door to the reception desk. Bewildered, Alessio followed.
Alessio watched Francesca rattle off something to Elisa in Italian, the vast majority of which he couldn’t catch. But whatever it was she said, Elisa’s eyebrows rose ever higher as her pen met the corner of her lips.
Eventually Elisa pulled away from her desk and craned her head so she could see into the records room. She gestured that something could be found down low and to the right, and before Alessio knew it, Francesca had bounded back into the room.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
She didn’t turn to look at him but instead tugged out a folder which hit the parquetry floor with a thud. Francesca flinched at her clumsiness. ‘Cazzo!’ she said, scooping it up.
‘Here, let me help you.’ The folder was the largest of all they had looked through and easily four or five times the weight. He took it from her and set it down on the desk. ‘What’s this?’
‘I think the answers to all your questions lie in here,’ she said, and Alessio could see the whites of her eyes redden. ‘Just give me a moment and I’ll explain everything.’
Alessio watched as she opened the folder. It took her a moment to get her bearings, scanning dates and names. ‘It’s not like the other folders. It’s all in one. It’s in order, but not marked or categorised by dates . . .’ She continued to trace her fingers across pages, saying the odd word aloud. ‘1945 . . . Gennaio . . . Cantuccio. Rossi . . . Agosto . . . No. Ah! 1946 . . .’ Then her checking slowed. Page by page she read, turning, scanning, flipping, until finally she exhaled. Swallowing, she turned the page around so she could translate the entry for him. ‘Martino, Immacolata, Impastino, Province of Foggia, Italy. Married Antonio Ranieri, Brunswick, Victoria, Australia, the fifth of May, 1946.’
Alessio stood frozen to the spot, his mouth agape. ‘How is that even possible? She emigrated in September!’
Francesca whispered, ‘Because she was a proxy bride.’
ventisei
‘A proxy bride? What’s a proxy bride?’
‘It was a very common practice here in Italy during the very difficult post-war period. But in the simplest sense, a couple is married. But they are not physically together.’
‘In the same room?’
‘Not even in the same country.’ She pointed to Immacolata’s proxy wedding documentation. ‘Your Nonno Antonio was in Melbourne, and Immacolata was here in Impastino. They said their vows and signed separate papers. Someone usually stood in for the sposo. The groom. A friend of the family, a cousin, a brother. A token of respect and protection for the bride.’
Alessio shook his head. ‘Wait a sec. Did they even know each other before they got married?’
