The wistful introduction to "Last Train from Liguria" is taken from the poem "Echo" by Anna Akhmatova, beginning:
"The paths to the past have long been closed,
And what good is the past to me now?"
Dublin 1924
The story opens in Dublin, in 1924, told in the first person by a man who has just killed his sister. He has to run and to change his identity. All we know from this brief chapter is that he will head for Italy where he is confident to be able to find his old music master, Barzonni, whom he can persuade or blackmail into helping him start a new life.
Italy 1933
Anabelle Stuart, Bella, is the central character in this story, and, strangely, her part is narrated in the third person. Bella is the only daughter of a widowed doctor who sets her up with a "position" in Italy, tutoring the young Alessandro Lami. Bella arrives in Genoa (Liguria) in 1933, joins the Lami family in Sicily, but then has to return to Bordighera, in Liguria, where the boy Alessandro is spending the summer in one of the family's villas. Bella's story contains vivid description of her travel, the places she visits, those Italian habits that strike the foreigner as strange, a wealthy Sicilian home, the Anglo-American community in Bordighera, with their often irritating foibles.
More important, through the chapters regarding Bella, we learn all we come to know about the Lami family. The old and sick Mr Lami dies, leaving a young and beautiful wife, who happens to be a Jew of German origin. The child, Alessandro, is a lonely, psychologically fragile child, probably autistic, who over the years becomes attached to Bella as much as he is to his slightly sinister music teacher, Edward King.
Dublin 1995
The story is interwoven with chapters written in the first person, in Dublin 1995, by Anna, a young Irish teacher who visits her grandmother, Nonna, in a rest-home. Nonna is no longer able to communicate, but Anna has no one else left in the world. Anna's life is on the way down, her last stable relationship has broken down, leaving her disillusioned, disappointed, with low self-esteem; she is about to lose her grandmother and her job; her well-being is at serious risk.
Italy's Racial Laws
Back to Bella's story, we follow her through the years in which Nazism spreads over Europe and Fascism through Italy. Just after Alessandro has finally adapted to a public school, comes news of the Italian Racial Law: all Jewish children, including children with ANY Jewish blood, are expelled from school.
The distant Signora Lami, who meantime has married into a jolly Neapolitan family, eventually begs Bella and Edward to take Alessandro and her new baby daughter to safety in England. Bella's father is also pressing her to return before it becomes too late. All Bordighera's foreign community is going away. We leave one of the Lami's boisterous American cousins, Amelia, to her fate in Fascist Vienna, never knowing if her father will succeed in getting her home. One by one the faithful staff of the Lami family fail to turn up for work.
The Last Train from Liguria
is the one boarded by Bella and Edward, with Alessandro and the baby, travelling under false names towards Nice, bound for England. To tell more would be to spoil the story for the reader.
Anna
And Anna? - The story ends on a note of hope for Anna. We leave her in Bordighera with a new friend, Maddalena, the local librarian, suggesting she should rent an apartment there instead of staying in a hotel. We empathize with Anna and hope she has a fresh start ahead of her.
The book
This novel is to be enjoyed both for the characters, and the delicate interaction between them. Beside the main story, we learn about Bella's problems with her father, her relationship with Edward, at first one of great unease, blossoming into love and attraction, perhaps too late. The delicate, withdrawn Alessandro is a study of a lonely child. We don't really know what to think of Signora Lami, who in the end tries to do her best for her children. There are plenty of little character studies, including the two shocking (for the time and place) American cousins.
The setting moves between Dublin, Italy and London, with ease and conviction. The author knows her way around, and keeps the action moving as well. This is quite a sad story, but that doesn't stop it being thrilling.
Christine Dwyer Hickey
This emerging author lives in Dublin, has won several prizes for short stories, and became successful as a novelist with "Tatty", shortlisted for the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the year award.
Source:
Last Train From Liguria, by Christine Dwyer Hickey, first published 2009 in paperback in Great Britain by Atlantic Books, 2010 edition, ISBN 978 1 84354 988 8.
Valerie Wilson - Valerie Wilson has lived, studied and worked in Scotland, Germany and Italy; mainly employed in multi-national companies in shipping ...
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