The Fallen by Stephen Finucan Page A

the forgery business dried up, Cioffi went, along with so many others, to offer his services to the liberators of Napoli, confident that his knowledge of English would land him an interpreter’s post, perhaps with the Red Cross or maybe even the Rockefeller Institute. That was how he found that his name was on a list. Ten years earlier he had been denounced as a Marxist. The statement against him was still in his police records, and suddenly Cioffi found himself persona non grata . There was no room in the new bureaucracy for a Communist.
    He looked again at the scrap of paper in his hand. It had been more than a week since he’d met with Abruzzi, but the day before, word had come to him by way of Maggio: he was to get another coin, a real one this time, and bring it to an address on Corso Umberto Primo.
    When he found the place, it was a small ristorante . Inside, the cramped dining room was busy, most of the tables occupied by soldiers who looked up as he stood in the open doorway. One, sitting at a nearby table, his eyes glassy and his lips stained with wine, shouted at him: “In or out, ginzo. Make up your mind.”
    Cioffi looked around. He did not see Abruzzi, though Maggio had told him that he would be there. He was about to leave when a heavyset man came from the back of the room. He had hunched shoulders and a slight limp, and his nose was mashed to the side as if it had been broken many times. He paused a moment and glared at the drunken soldier, then said to Cioffi: “Are you the dottore ?”
    “I am, yes,” said Cioffi nervously.
    “Follow me.”
    The man led him past the tables and through a swinging door. They went through a sweating kitchen thick with the stink of sour fish and burnt dough to another door that led into the back alley. Abruzzi was there, sitting at a makeshift table rolling dice with another man, who bore a striking resemblance to the first. He looked up at Cioffi, then he waved a dismissive hand and the other two disappeared back inside without a word.
    Abruzzi motioned to the vacant chair. “Have a seat. Would you like a drink?” He reached for the bottle of wine at his elbow. “But of course you would.”
    Cioffi took the wine. He quickly drank it down and shyly held out the glass for more. Abruzzi pushed the bottle across the table.
    “Help yourself,” he said, and settled back in his chair. “You have something for me, I hope.”
    “I do, yes,” Cioffi aid, and reached into his pocket. He passed the coin to Abruzzi, who turned it over in his hand then ran his thumb along the surface. “It’s real,” said Cioffi.
    “Oh, I have no doubt, dottore . You are too smart a man to pass off a fake to me.” Abruzzi held the coin up between thumb and forefinger. “Now, tell me, who is this?”
    Cioffi swallowed another mouthful of wine. He leaned forward and looked closely at the coin. “It is Vitellius Germanicus,” he said.
    “Vitellius Germanicus, eh?”
    “Yes, that’s right,” said Cioffi. “He reigned for only a short time. In the Year of the Four Emperors. He was cruel and gluttonous, and it is said that he starved his own mother to death. He was defeated by the Flavians and executed in Rome. They cut off his head.”
    Abruzzi nodded. “You know your history.”
    “It is our history. That is what my uncle always told me. The history of Italia is the history of us. He said that we should learnfrom it, so that when we repeated the same mistakes, we would know why.”
    Saying the words, Cioffi could hear his uncle’s voice in his head, and for a moment he imagined again the endless childhood hours spent in the old man’s company, wandering the museum, floor by floor, gallery by gallery, exhibit by exhibit. It had been a convenient arrangement for all involved: It gave his father the freedom to fixate on his business and his mother time to take afternoon lovers. His bachelor uncle took pleasure in having an empty vessel into which he could decant his arcane wisdom. As