Santino and Fabia jumped in then, trying to soothe Eva, trying to placate Angelo, trying to talk their way out of the threat they didn’t want to face. It was so much easier to hope it was all going to get better. Angelo knew it wouldn’t.
The subject was dropped for the sake of peace, and they all eventually retired to their separate quarters, Angelo back in his old room at the rear of the house—the servants’ quarters, though he’d never been a servant. There were times he had wished his presence in that house were that clearly defined, that simple to explain or justify.
He paced in his room and finally forced himself to kneel before the old cross Nonno had hung on his wall to say his prayers. It was the Hour of Compline, an hour that should be spent filled with praise and gratitude, but Angelo found himself veering away from praise and reciting psalms of entreaty. “Make me know your ways, O Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. For you, I wait all the day.”
Since becoming the pastor of a tiny parish at twenty-two years old, he had been begging God for direction on an hourly basis. It was a never-ending chant in his head. He didn’t see that changing any time soon. When he was finished, he stood and scrubbed at his face, feeling renewed. He washed his hands and calmed his breathing, and then left his room, slipping through the halls and mounting the stairs, determined to resume his campaign. He was not leaving Florence without Eva.
She answered his knock as if she’d been expecting him, and Angelo breathed a silent prayer of relief that she hadn’t changed for bed. He didn’t need to see Eva in a flowing dressing gown, regardless of how much it covered. She immediately retreated to the window overlooking the gardens Santino tended so carefully, the tennis court where she’d regularly trounced Angelo, and the moonlit darkness that was, to Angelo, menacing in its tranquility. It made his stomach feel hollow and his palms itch, as if the Gestapo stood in the shadowed corners of the yard and aimed their guns at the beautiful girl limned in gold and framed perfectly in the window. He walked to her and pulled her back, drawing the heavy drapes. She looked at him with eyebrows raised and didn’t protest. But she immediately left his side, retreating to the opposite side of her room.
“You told me once that you believed in me. Please, believe me now. The things I’ve been told, Eva. The brutality I’ve witnessed. The soldiers who have made it back to Italy have seen the camps. They’ve seen the trains overflowing with Jews. Train after train. And the refugees have stories. None of it is propaganda. People don’t want to believe, Eva, but I need you to listen. I need you to believe me again.”
“When did I say that? 1938? Five years ago I believed in you. Now, I believe in nothing. I will stay in Florence with Fabia and Santino, and I will do my best not to die or be arrested and sent off to a camp. Okay? You can go back to Rome and your church and continue being Padre Bianco with a clear conscience. You tried. I refused. End of story.”
“Madre di Dio!” Angelo cursed beneath his breath and then immediately berated himself, turning the curse into a silent prayer. Madonna, please. Mother of Jesus, help me control my temper and save this girl. He added a plea to his own mother and to Eva’s mother, Adele, on the off chance that Jews and Catholics all went to the same heaven.
The longer he remained on this earth, the more sure he was that mankind had no clue about God or heaven. Not when they used him as an excuse to kill, to punish, to discriminate. He loved God. He felt God’s love in return, but he felt no special claim to that love simply because he’d been raised a Catholic, simply because he was a priest.
“I have work to do here, Angelo. If you know what I’ve been doing, as you claim, then you know I can’t leave.”
“What does your rabbi say?” He had her there. He knew exactly what her rabbi said. Rabbi Cassuto had already hidden his wife and children in a convent. Angelo had helped arrange it. Soon, the rabbi would go into hiding too. The DELASEM offices the rabbi helped run were closed. All the Jewish aid from the organization would go completely underground from this point on.
Eva just looked at him, her throat working.
“I can’t just hide, Angelo,” she whispered.
“I will help you. I will hide you.”
“That’s not what I mean. If I go to Rome, you have to let me do what I can. I want to help . . . I want to do what you’re doing,” she insisted, but he could hear her weakening. He didn’t let the relief he felt show in his face. He really hadn’t thought he would be able to convince her.
“You’re not in a position to do what I’m doing,” he confessed. “But if there is a way for you to help, I promise, I will tell you.”
“Why do you care, Angelo? Really?” she asked quietly.
Angelo blanched and stepped back, as if Eva had walked across her bedroom and slapped his face. His cheeks stung like she had.
Eva’s expression was stony, her eyes black, as she stared him down, her arms folded across her chest.
“That’s a stupid thing to say, Eva.” He sounded like the boy he’d been, and hated that he was Angelo in this house and not Padre Bianco, ever patient and unflappable.
“Is it? You’ve gone out of your way to make me feel invisible. I don’t exist to you, Angelo. I’m a Jew. Hitler doesn’t want me to exist at all. Remember?”
For a moment they both remembered. Too well. But it had absolutely nothing to do with her being Jewish. And she knew it. Angelo’s breath grew labored as the vise that was Eva became impossibly tight around his heart. Eva was the vise . . . and the vice. That’s what she’d become for him, and he couldn’t deny it.
17 September, 1943
Confession: I’m going to Rome with Angelo.
I don’t know what else to do. It’s too quiet and everyone is nervous, waiting. Rabbi Cassuto is urging everyone to leave their homes and hide. He says there are reports of Fascist fanatics—militarized squads—rounding up Jews and antifascists, and no one is stopping them. The Germans have deported thousands of Jews from Nice in France, Jews who had been protected by the Italian army, an army that is now disbanded. Rabbi Cassuto says the Germans won’t leave Italy, and now that we are not on the same side, they won’t respect our laws or citizenship. The Italian government can’t protect us anymore, even if they wanted to. No one can. Uncle Augusto, Aunt Bianca, Claudia, and Levi are in Rome already. Levi is studying law at the Pontificium Institutum Utriusque Iuris—the only university that will allow Jewish students. Uncle Augusto seems to think the Vatican will be able to protect the Jews in Rome. But Uncle Augusto hasn’t been right yet.
Eva Rosselli
CHAPTER 8
ROME
Eva and Angelo boarded the train early, and Santino and Fabia saw them off, their lined faces wreathed in encouraging smiles even as their eyes worried. The platform was crowded with the normal bustle and cluster of people preparing for a journey, people disembarking while others jostled to get aboard. All around them, passengers were hurrying, Germans were watching, and whistles kept blowing, making them rush through their good-byes and raise their voices to be heard over the din. The four of them pressed together, arms linked, heads bent to hear last words and expressions of love.
“Take care of her, Angelo,” Eva heard Nonno say as he patted Angelo’s lean cheeks.
Angelo kissed Santino’s forehead and embraced him tightly. “Remember what I told you, Nonno. No resistance. If the Germans show up at your door, give them what they want. You need only worry about yourselves. Camillo wouldn’t want you and Nonna to be harmed protecting his possessions. The only thing he would care about is Eva, and I will keep her safe. I promise.”
Strangely enough, Fabia didn’t cry. She looked too frightened to cry, and her little hands shook and her smile wobbled, and Eva resisted the urge to tell Angelo she had changed her mind, gripped by a sudden, terrible premonition that this was the last time she would see Santino and Fabia, that they would be whisked into the ether the way her father and Uncle Felix had, never to be seen or heard from again. Her panic must have shown, because Fabia grabbed her hands and the fear in her face was replaced with stern affection.
“We love you, Eva,” she said firmly. “We have lived good lives. We have been happy. Don’t worry about us. We have each other, and we will be fine. Someday the war will be over and we will be together again. And you will play for me, yes?”
“Yes,” Eva whispered, unable to hold back her tears. Fabia hugged her close and spoke into her ear. “God sees you, Eva. He sees Angelo too. And he is a loving God.”
Eva embraced Fabia tightly, but her mind resisted the sentiments. Either God saw everyone or he saw no one. Too many were crying out for him to see them with no response.
Angelo touched her arm and picked up her heavy suitcase, setting his own small bag atop it, gripping it beneath his arm as he leaned into his cane and allowed his tiny nonna one more embrace. Eva clutched her little valise and her violin, and together they boarded the train, promising to send word as soon as they arrived in Rome.
“They will be all right. They have nothing to worry about,” Angelo said softly. He didn’t say, “now that you’re gone,” but Eva heard the words anyway. Those who sheltered Jews would not be safe now that the Germans were in charge.
“This is your pass.” He handed her a document and she took it, confused.
“I have a pass, Angelo.”
“A priest would not be traveling alone with a young woman he is not related to. You are my sister now. See?” He tapped the document she was holding, and she looked down at it. It looked completely authentic—from the different stamps, to the emblem on the front, to the type inside. And Eva would know. She’d been helping Aldo make false papers since her father had gone to Austria and never come home again. But her name was now Eva Bianco, and she was not a Jew.
“How?”
“Aldo,” he said briefly. “I asked him to make it a while back. Just in case.”