Serenissima, the most serene city of Venice harbors its secrets. Among its citizens are communists and priests, fascists and resistance fighters, émigrés and patriots, collaborators and those who looked the other way. In war time circumstances make many choices relative; which is the better choice, to save the life of a wounded resistance fighter or a moribund Jew? How about pointing out to the Occupation army those who sell on the black market especially if it will preserve your own family? Today we can consider such questions as philosophical exercises but for thousands they were actual daily decisions. This is the tale of such conundrums and how some chose to answer them.

Postwar Europe is slowly rebuilding and it is not just buildings which lie in ruins but relationships which are broken and damaged. Neighbors remember how the people next door pointed fingers and dropped hints about them to the authorities. Others gave shelter to resistance fighters and now find themselves labeled as “Communists.” Former black marketers count their profits and bewail the changing economies. Many friends and colleagues returned wounded and broken, others never returned at all. So much must be done and so much undone - or forgotten.

Demobilized American Adam Miller, who worked in Army intelligence in Germany gathering information for the Nuremberg trials, goes to Venice where his widowed mother has taken up residence. There, in the little colony of ex-patriots, she holds court and soon finds romance and a nice bank account with a Venetian doctor. At a party in his honor, Adam meets Claudia a young Jewish woman who works at the Academy. Mutually attracted, they have an affair. Caught up in the new relationship, Claudia reveals her reservations about Dr. Gianni Maglione, Adam’s mother’s fiancé. Claudia witnessed him giving up her father to the occupying German officials. It is a dilemma for Adam, who should he believe?

Many of the ex-pat colony survived by keeping low profiles and co-operating with the Germans as little as possible while that army was in charge. Now they simply want to forget about the war years and continue as if it never happened. They certainly don’t want any more “unpleasantness” such as Claudia’s accusations against a revered public figure raise. Why won’t she simply stop, forget the incident and marry the nice young American and welcome the opportunity to go to the United States?

But Claudia can’t forget and soon finds retaliation comes in subtle ways. She loses her job, then her lodgings and has already lost all her family. She turns to Adam for help. He helps but in a manner that plunges them both into the labyrinthine past of war-time Venice when Fascists and Communists, Nazis and resistance were simultaneously enemies and allies.

Alibi makes the reader think about alliances and the question Pilate asked, “What is Truth?” It is easy to be judgmental decades removed from the turmoil of a world war. Is it honorable or even permissible to omit to commit something; for a police officer not to make his usual rounds on patrol and receive illegal goods or scarce commodities in return? How often does the 21st century reader ignore and pretend not to see an injustice that requires only minimal effort? When you witness a traffic accident but really need to get to an appointment do you stay to render first aid or assist the police or do you let someone take the responsibility as you can’t be bothered? Think of this when you read this story of Venice and its secrets.

--Jane Davis