The streets were quiet, Romans hiding obediently in their homes waiting for sunrise when they could start the process all over again. She and Angelo didn’t converse. The German at the wheel shot them a curious look in the rearview mirror, his eyes lingering on Eva and then flitting to Angelo before looking away. Angelo had released her arm when she’d climbed into the vehicle, and he didn’t take it up again.
“There was a woman hung from a streetlight today. A partisan,” the driver said conversationally, in German. Neither Angelo nor Eva responded. “She asked for last rites. Were you aware, Father?” he pressed.
Angelo nodded once, but his hands balled into fists.
“When you said your sister had been brought in, Father, there was talk going around that the partisan was your sister. We don’t have many women at headquarters. Not yet. Fortunately, I was wrong.” He commenced whistling like it was truly a happy occurrence.
With the streets bare, the ride took a quarter of the time, and before long, Eva and Angelo were stepping out onto the dark sidewalk in front of a building Eva didn’t recognize and watching the black Volkswagen pull away.
10 November, 1943
Confession: I never used to pray.
Prayer wasn’t something I ever thought about when I was younger. It wasn’t something that mattered to my father, and so it didn’t matter to me. Then one day it did matter. So I started to listen. And I started to pray.
The prayers of the Jewish people have been passed down, generation after generation, and when I say the prayers, they are like lullabies. In the prayers I feel my parents, and their parents, and their parents before them. I feel them all, singing to me, and they are not gone, but just away. We are apart, but not forever. So I will keep saying the prayers. I will never stop, and because of this, I will always be a Jew.
Angelo does not pray the way I do. He calls his God a different name. But I’m convinced God is not just my God or Angelo’s God. He is God. He wouldn’t be God if he was only God to some of his children . . . would he? Whether or not his children call him by the same name. I call my father “Babbo.” Angelo refers to his father as “Papà.” Does it matter what we call him? Does it matter how we pray, if our devotion is pure, if our love for him leads us to love and serve and forgive and be better?
I guess it does. Sadly, it does. Because my prayers could get me killed.
Eva Rosselli
CHAPTER 13
THE CHURCH OF THE SACRED HEART
“Come with me,” Angelo said softly. He turned, not taking her hand, not holding her arm. He acted as if the buildings had eyes. He walked swiftly, his cane clicking on the cobblestones, and turned up a narrow alley. He walked in the shadows along the back of the building until he reached the rear entrance of a large church surrounded by a high wall. Eva realized belatedly that it was the Church of the Sacred Heart. They’d just approached it from another direction.
Angelo groped beneath his stiff white collar and pulled up a chain that was hanging around his neck. Several keys hung from the links, and he selected one and unlocked a gate. It opened soundlessly, as if the hinges were kept well oiled. He closed it behind them, a careful clang, and led Eva up a little path that ended at the back door of the church. With another key he unlocked the rear entrance, and they slipped inside.
The scent of incense and candle wax assailed her, and beneath that heavy fragrance, the smell of old stone and damp corners. Vespers was over, and the minimal lighting from the wall sconces was mellow and muted. Angelo genuflected before the cross and slid into a pew, indicating that Eva should sit as well.
“Why are we here?” She had known Angelo wasn’t taking her to the convent when he gave the German soldier a strange address. But she’d thought he was taking her to his home.
“I didn’t know where else to take you. There is nowhere else where I can speak freely.”
“You don’t trust Monsignor Luciano and his sister?”
“I trust them. I just don’t want to endanger them. And every time I turn around, there is a new threat.” He clasped his hands and rested them on the back of the pew in front of them. “What happened today, Eva?”
“I saw a man die. A German soldier. He killed himself. Just like Uncle Felix. I was waiting for the streetcar. He held a gun to my head—”
“Mio Dio!” he moaned, and he dropped his head to his forearms.
“He held a gun to my head, Angelo,” she repeated. “And he told me to play my violin. So I did.” The whole bizarre incident felt like a Greek tragedy, acted out by unfamiliar actors on a makeshift stage.
“When I was done, he asked me to forgive him. Then he walked away.”
“How did he die?” Angelo asked.
“He threw himself in front of the streetcar. He knew exactly what he was doing.” Eva pressed her hands into her eyes, wondering how she would ever forget what she’d seen, forget what it had sounded like. “Then there were people screaming, and I just sat there. Before I knew it, I was being taken away. I told the soldiers what happened, but they didn’t believe me.”
“They believed you. You wouldn’t be alive if they hadn’t. You would be swinging from the streetlamp with that poor girl they hung today.” Angelo stared at her gravely, his blue eyes gray in the flickering shadows.
“Who was she?”
“Part of the resistance. A partisan. She was even younger than you, and she was murdered in the street.” He looked away and scrubbed at his face with open palms, and Eva knew she wasn’t the only one scarred by the day.
“How did you know I was there, Angelo?” she asked, her eyes on the blue-robed virgin who looked at them from her corner perch with patient acceptance.
“One of the nuns from Santa Cecilia was in the ration line, and she saw them take you away. She came to the Vatican and found me.” He rubbed his hands over his head once more, and his throat moved convulsively. “I have never been so scared in my life, Eva,” he whispered.
“I have,” she replied softly. “Several times.” He looked up at her, and he didn’t look away for several seconds. He just looked at her, drank her in, and she held his gaze.
“I was offered a job, Angelo.”
“What?” he gasped, the spell between them broken.
“The captain who questioned me. Captain von Essen. He needs a secretary who speaks German.” Eva pointed at herself. “I do.”
“Eva, mio Dio.” Angelo was shaking his head again. “No. You can’t do it.”
“I have to. What possible reason would I have to refuse? The convent needs the money.”
“No! You will hide. When you don’t show up, he will find someone else. He doesn’t know where you live. He won’t be able to find you.”
“But he can find you, Angelo. He knows where you work. He knows who you are.”
“I will be fine,” he snapped.
“No. You won’t. And I am going to take the job. Maybe I can help in some way. I will be in a position to hear if there is going to be a raid—”
“Eva!” Angelo grabbed her shoulders and shook her so hard her teeth rattled. “This is madness!”
“No. It isn’t! It’s war. And I will do my part. I will not sit by while others die. If I can help, I will.”
“Your job is to stay alive,” he cried, still gripping her by the shoulders, his face inches from hers. He was furious, but under the fury was a desperation she recognized. It was the desperation she felt when her father told her he was going to Austria to find her grandfather. But she understood her father now like she never had before. He had been compelled to act. Action was life, even if it ended in death.
“No, Angelo. My job is not to simply stay alive. My job is to live. Not hide. Not wait. Not hope that it will all end. You can’t tell me not to fight, Angelo. I don’t tell you what to do! You can’t tell me not to try to help in some way.”
“Eva—”
“If I can’t fight, then I might as well swallow a bullet like Uncle Felix or throw myself in front of a streetcar like that German soldier. I’m this close to hopeless, Angelo.” She held her fingers an inch apart. “Resistance is all I have left. Don’t you understand?”
He looked down into her face, wanting to comfort her, wanting to comfort himself, needing to save her, needing to save himself.
“Resistance.” He repeated the word like it was his own and dropped his forehead to hers, closing his eyes and willing himself to move away. “Resistance,” he said again. “I do understand,” he said softly. “I understand completely.”
His own resistance was shot, and he released Eva’s shoulders and pushed himself up from the pew.
“I don’t want you to walk in the dark. It’s after curfew, and it’s too far. Can you stay here tonight?” he asked Eva tiredly. He looked at her long enough to see her nod, then he walked away, but he didn’t leave the church. He approached the altar, lit a candle, and used his cane to sink down to his knees in front of the cross. He buried his face in his hands and for several long minutes he prayed. He didn’t know if Eva watched or if she’d retreated to the little basement room that she’d used once before, leaving him alone. All he knew was that his resistance was failing him, and he had no armor against her any longer.
He started with his face in his hands. It was the way he always prayed, the way he’d been taught to pray. It kept him from sight and distraction, cradling his face that way, as if he covered himself from everything but the words he spoke. But before long, he was overcome, and he found himself prostrate, the way he’d lain during his ordination, his arms extended in front of him toward the wooden cross that hung above the altar.
He was just a man. Young, crippled, scared. But he would give his life for Eva. And he would give his life for the people he was trying to save. That had to count for something, it had to. He’d broken a promise. He’d held Eva in his arms, and he’d knowingly, willingly broken his vow. He’d kissed her. Yes, he’d been vulnerable. Yes, he’d been scared. Yes, it was forgivable, even understandable. But there is a consequence for every broken promise, and he feared the consequence would be an innocent life. Not his life, but someone depending on him.