The Detour Read online

  Praise for Andromeda Romano-Lax’s The Detour:

  “As Nazi Germany passes from living memory, novels that allow the reader to travel its ethical landscape are increasingly important. Andromeda Romano-Lax has a fine feel for moments of clarity that are recognized only in hindsight, when chance and personal defects—moral and physical—combine to produce heroism, or mediocrity, or cowardice. A convincing novel, beautifully written.”

  —Mary Doria Russell, bestselling author of The Sparrow and A Thread of Grace

  “A suspenseful tale of artistic ideals, culture and power, complex family bonds, and redemptive love with one of the most finely crafted narratives I’ve ever read. It’s certain to earn Andromeda Romano-Lax a new level of readership. Vivid and heartbreaking, set against a shameful time in world history, Lax celebrates the resilience of the human condition, and its ability to heal against all odds.”

  —Jo-Ann Mapson, author of Solomon’s Oak

  “A wonderfully evocative and lyrical novel—a coming-of-age story woven into an adventure of art-smuggling under the Nazis. Romano-Lax brilliantly depicts a triumph over the seductive dangers of passivity when faced by love, art and the moral choices of life. A gemstone of a book!”

  —Simon Goldhill, author of Jerusalem

  “Both a thriller and a poetic journey of a young art specialist and an ancient statue through the deceits and dangers of the Third Reich. Plunging into crazy adventures in a truck on the back roads of Italy and fleeing long-buried memories, Ernst seeks the safe delivery of the statue and in the process discovers loyalty, love, and his own soul. Andromeda Romano-Lax is a unique and wonderfully gifted writer.”

  —Stephanie Cowell, author of Claude & Camille

  “Swept up in the intrigue and humor, adventure and tragedy of The Detour, a reader might overlook the deep understanding of history and art imparted by author Andromeda Romano-Lax. Set in 1938 Europe during the rise of Nazi Germany, the novel does what only literature can do, allowing us to experience moral complexity and struggle through a single beating heart. As Ernst Vogler travels across Italy to bring a famous marble sculpture home to Hitler, you will ride along with him through small villages and fields of sunflowers, through violence and love, through history in the making. And when you arrive at the end, you—like Ernst—will have been changed by the journey.”

  —Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child

  “With elegance and an eye for the unexpected, Ms. Romano-Lax distills the often overwhelming anguish of World War II into this elegiac tale of an earnest young art curator’s journey into Italy, where he finds himself caught between his reverence for the past and the horrors of the future. An evocative portrait of one man’s passage into maturity and the resiliency of the human spirit, even in midst of the unimaginable.”

  —C.W. Gortner, author of The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

  “A marvelous adventure across landscapes both inner and outer, The Detour is a moving study in art and memory, history and geography, courage and compassion and every kind of love. Beautifully executed, deeply felt, and crammed with what feels for all the world like reality itself, it’s a rare and valuable book indeed.”

  —Jon Clinch, author of Finn and Kings of the Earth

  “A poignant and important historical drama, as well as part road trip and compelling adventure, The Detour defies our expectations on every page. Andromeda Romano-Lax is a powerful and moving storyteller.”

  —Jennifer Gilmore, author of Something Red

  “It’s 1938, and already the Sonderprojekt is at work, bringing the great art of Europe to Germany for the Fuhrer. Young Ernst Vogler, reeling from the news that his mentor has been marched off in the night, is sent to Rome to collect a valuable statue, the Discus Thrower. He expects to head straight for the border, but Italian escorts Cosimo and Enzo have other ideas, taking him on a wild ride that sets quirky and lively humanity against the grinding, impersonal forces of war, history, and power.… The book is no (inappropriately) jolly picaresque; Romano-Lax, author of the well-received The Spanish Bow, keeps the palette just dark enough to remind us of the terror that is there and the terror that’s to come. Nicely paced, brisk with dialogue, and lyric at the right moment, this would be great for book clubs.”

  —Library Journal

  Praise for The Spanish Bow

  “An impressive and richly atmospheric debut.”

  —The New York Times Book Review (a New York Times Editors’ Choice)

  “Time and setting, character and plot come together in this exceptionally appealing first novel about a master cellist and his complicated relationship with the country of his birth and the poisoned times in which he performs. Readers will be captivated by this delightful book, loosely inspired by the life of the great cellist Pablo Casals.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “This riveting historical page-turner moves inexorably toward a heartrending crescendo.”

  —Booklist

  “For sheer scope and ambition, this is a tough debut to beat.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Extraordinary, gripping.… Encounters with actual world players, like Picasso, Adolf Hitler, Franco, Kurt Weill and others, constitute a feature of this many-favored book. Another is the author’s obvious love for Spain and its colorful cities, which are unforgettably detailed.… In the end, The Spanish Bow suggests that fighting the manifest evil in the world can be even more damaging than tilting at windmills. And yet, and yet—there always remains the message and nobility of opposition in itself.”

  ——BookPage

  “Andromeda Romano-Lax’s powerful first novel, The Spanish Bow, is an account of Spain during the years of 1890-1940, as experienced by a Catalan child prodigy who goes on to become court musician and then the country’s most celebrated cellist. Epic in scale it is full of richly detailed tableaux of Catalonian peasant life, bohemian Barcelona, the chaos of the Second Republic, and the rise of Francoist fascism.… [The Spanish Bow] excels as a portrait of a country at a painful moment in its evolution.”

  —Times Literary Supplement (London)

  “Can art save us from ourselves? In her elegant debut, Romano-Lax ponders this timeless question through the ambitious tale of Feliu Delargo, a gifted cellist born in turn-of-the-century Spain.… From the hypocrisies of the courts of Madrid to the terror of Nazi-occupied Paris, Romano-Lax weaves the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century into an elegy to the simultaneous power and impotency of art, and the contradictions of the human spirit.”

  —Historical Novels Review

  “Vivid and absorbing.… Romano-Lax’s passion for music is tangible but not daunting. The characters are convincing (Delargo and Al-Cerraz are based on historical figures) and by using Feliu’s voice along with her own narration, the author can point up the shortcomings in his self-understanding. She exposes the tension among the characters with masterly subtlety.”

  —Times (London)

  “Andromeda Romano-Lax’s ambitious and atmospheric debut examines 50 years of Spanish history through the eyes of a fictional Catalan cellist, Feliu Delargo; en route she has much to say on the relationship between music and politics.”

  —Guardian

  “(A) vast, inventive novel.”

  —Telegraph

  “An inspired portrait of the cello virtuoso’s unique career.”

  —Elle (France)

  “Can music transcend politics or must the musician’s only true response to authoritarianism be principled silence? This question is asked throughout Andromeda Romano-Lax’s ambitious debut, The Spanish Bow, a sweeping memoir of a fictional Spanish cellist, Feliu Delargo. His life, from his improverished upbringing in rural Catalonia, via apprenticeships in Barcelona and Ma
drid, to a glittering career as a European superstar, is the thread that leads us through Spanish political and musical history in the early 20th century.”

  —Observer

  “Expertly woven throughout the book are cameo appearances by Pablo Picasso, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Bertolt Brecht, and others, but it is the fictional Feliu, Justo, and Aviva who will keep you mesmerized to the last page.”

  —Christian Science Monitor

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  The Spanish Bow

  Copyright © 2012 by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  All rights reserved.

  Published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Romano-Lax, Andromeda, 1970–

  The detour / Andromeda Romano-Lax.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-61695-050-7

  1. Germans—Italy—Fiction. 2. Art—Collectors and collecting—Fiction. 3. Italy—History—1922–1945—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.O59D48 2012

  813′.6—dc23

  2011034072

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue: 1948 Piedmont, Northern Italy

  Part I: July 1938 Munich, Germany

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part II

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part III

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16: 1948

  Author’s Note

  To Tziporah, Aryeh, and Brian:

  fellow travelers along old Roman roads,

  with love and gratitude for our time together

  in Italy and Munich

  “We are becoming more Greek, from day to day.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  “The day of individual happiness has passed.”

  Adolf Hitler

  PROLOGUE

  1948

  PIEDMONT, NORTHERN ITALY

  The russet bloom on the vineyards ahead, the yellow-leafed oaks, a hint of truffles fattening in moldy obscurity underfoot—none of it is truly familiar, because I first came here not only in a different season, but as a different man. Yet the smell of autumn anywhere is for me the smell of memory, and I am preoccupied as my feet guide me through the woods and fields up toward the old Piedmontese villa.

  When a salt-and-pepper blur charges out of the grass and stops just in front of me, growling, I stand my ground. I resist retreating; I reach out a hand. Foam drips from the dog’s black gums onto the damp earth. I am in no hurry, and neither is she.

  The sprint seems to have cost the dog most of her remaining energy, though. Her thin ribs heave as she alternately whines and threatens.

  “Tartufa?”

  The teeth retract and the quivering nose comes forward. Her speckled, shorthaired sides move in and out like a bellows.

  “Old hound, is it really you?”

  She sniffs my hand, backs away for one more growl, then surrenders her affection. These have been ten long and lonely years. Take a scratch where you can get it.

  She guides me, as if I have forgotten, up to the old barn. Through a dirty window, I glimpse the iron bed frame, one dresser. But other items I’d once known by look and touch—the red lantern, the phonograph, any trace of woman’s clothing—are gone. A dark stain mars the stone floor, but perhaps it’s only moisture or fungus. In the corner, wedged into the frame of an oval mirror, is an old postcard of the Colosseum. I know what is written on the other side. I wrote it.

  I consider walking up the hill to the villa’s family burial ground to check for any recent additions—but no, even after coming this far, I’m still not ready for that. Tartufa trots ahead toward the side of the main house, toward the figure seated alone at the wooden table, a spiral of blue smoke rising from his thick-knuckled fingers. The door from the terrace into the kitchen hangs crookedly. Everything about the house seems more worn, sloping like the old man’s shoulders.

  He calls out first. “Buongiorno.”

  “Adamo?” I try.

  Now he sits up straighter, squinting as I approach.

  “Zio Adamo?”

  It takes a minute for him to recognize me.

  “The Bavarian? Grüss Gott,” he cackles, using the only German phrase he knows. But still, he doesn’t seem to believe. “You’re coming from the North?”

  “No, from Rome. I took the train most of the way. Then a ride, a bit of a walk …”

  “You are living there?”

  “Just visiting museums.”

  “Holiday?”

  “Repatriation of antiquities.” And I explain what that means as he nods slowly, taking in the names of new agencies, international agreements, the effort of my own homeland to undo what was done—a history already begging to be forgotten. Wonder of wonders, the old man replies, how the world changes and stays the same. Except for some things.

  After he pours me a glass of cloudy plum liqueur, I take a seat at the old oak table and ask him about his sister-in-law, Mamma Digiloramo. He gestures with his chin up to the hill.

  “And Gianni and his wife?”

  They occupy the main house with their four children, Zio Adamo explains. He lives with them, and though this villa has been in the Digiloramo family for three generations and Gianni is not even a blood relative, it doesn’t matter—Adamo himself feels like a houseguest now. Fine, it’s less of a headache for him. Fewer worries about the crops, which haven’t done so well in the last few years. Surely I noticed the shriveled black grapes on the west side of the road, approaching the main house.

  When I empty my glass of liqueur and decline a second, he says, “You haven’t asked about everyone,” with an emphasis on the last word.

  When I don’t reply he volunteers, “She moved to town. During the war, everything here went to pieces. Now she works in a café. She lives with her son.”

  Stunned, I repeat his last word back to him: “Figlio?”

  I must appear tongue-tied because he laughs, clapping me on the shoulder. “That’s about how her mother looked way back when, discovering the happy news. Not a virgin birth, but close. We celebrated without any questions.”

  “È quasi un miracolo.”

  “Your Italian is much better than last time.”

  “I’ve been practicing.”

  “Why?”

  “No particular reason. It’s a beautiful language.”

  He runs his tongue over his teeth, unconvinced. “If you wait, I can find someone to take you into town—if that is where you are going.”

  “Grazie. I’ll walk.”

  “It will take you two, three hours.”

  “Va bene. I could use the time with my thoughts.”

  “I don’t recommend it.”

  “Walking?”

  “No, remembering.” He doesn’t smile.

  Gesturing for me to wait, he pushes to his feet slowly, reaching for the cane leaning against the table’s corner, then escorts me back down the path, past the barn, to the track that leads to the dusty road lined with hazelnut bushes. Something is bothering him. At the end, he straightens his back, lifts his whiskered chin, and brushes his dry lips against my cheek. “That’s as far as I go, or I won’t make it back.”

  The dog has followed us, grateful for her master’s unhurried pace. I reach down to pat her side and mumble a few final endearments, whispering her name a final time.

  “That isn’t the original Tartufa, you know,” Zio Adamo says, looking a little embarrassed
to be correcting me. “It’s her pup—the last one.”

  “This, a pup?”

  “A very old one.”

  “They look the same,” I say, squatting down to scratch her ears again, patting her ribs, puzzling over the pattern of her coat.

  He leans on the cane, face lowered to mine. “Certainly, you remember what happened to Tartufa …”

  “Yes,” I say, standing up to brush my hands on my trousers. “That’s right.”

  “It makes me feel better that I’m not the only one who makes mistakes.” Zio Adamo smiles. “I’m sorry for not recognizing you right away. Even after you sat down, it was hard to believe.”

  “No need for apologies—”

  “It’s not just your Italian.”

  “I couldn’t put two words together back then.”

  “No,” he insists, with sudden vehemence, enough to make me wish I’d accepted that second, courage-bolstering drink. “You were different in other ways.”

  “Weren’t we all?”

  But of course, I know what he means.

  There is a temptation to say that the long-ago past is a fog, that it is nearly impossible to recall the mindset of an earlier time. But that is a lie. The truth is that more recent events, such as the days leading up to the surrender, are a fog. In and out of the army, where they sent me again once it was clear I had made a mess of things on what might have been a relatively simple professional assignment—all that is a fog. I passed through it in a half-numb state, registering few sensations beyond the taste of watery potato soup and the unsticking of dirty, wet wool from frozen, bleeding feet.

  A year or two, or eight, can elapse that way, mercifully, while a fundamental childhood incident or an essential, youthful journey can remain polished by obsessive and dutiful reminiscence. It can remain like marble in one’s mind: five days in Italy—harder, brighter, more fixed and more true than anything that has happened before or since.