After Mass, they roasted the chestnuts the monks had been hoarding for months in an attempt to provide a Christmas treat. The smell was deep and rich, but the flavor was even better. The chestnuts were continually moistened with a brush as they cooked, then piled into a basket and tossed into the air repeatedly until the burned outer shell flaked off and revealed the white delicacy beneath. Eva proclaimed it the best thing she had ever eaten, and Angelo had to agree. As privileged as Eva’s upbringing had been—and by association, his own upbringing—there were some things that privilege could not buy. The scent of chestnuts roasted on a fire, the sound of childish voices laughing, and the sense of oneness and purpose shared among the impoverished group gave the evening a burnished glow that Angelo knew he would never forget. A child of maybe three or four, a little boy so small Angelo was afraid to hold him too tightly, found his way to Angelo’s lap, his newly shorn curls resting against Angelo’s chest. His parents had been killed in the San Lorenzo air raid in July. The seminaries and schools run by monks and nuns were becoming orphanages for the lost and hiding.
Eva had brought her violin and played “Adeste Fidelis” and “Tu scendi dalle stelle” at every stop, and she did so again before they left the humble school, making the monsignor weep, the monks bow their heads in worship, and the children sing softly. Even the Jewish children sang, feeling a oneness with the holy child born to poverty. For a few hours they had been released from fear and deprivation, caught up in the festivity and the spirit of the occasion.
“You come down from the stars
Oh, King of Heavens,
And you come in a cave
In the cold, in the frost,
And you come in a cave
In the cold, in the frost.
Oh, my divine baby
I see you trembling here,
Oh, blessed God
Ah, how much it costs you,
Your loving me.
Ah, how much it costs you,
Your loving me.”
“How do you know those songs?” the monsignor asked Eva once they were headed back to the Vatican, bouncing down unpaved roads, huddled together in the cab of the delivery truck. He hummed a couple bars and was immediately wiping his eyes once again with the memory of the sweet Christmas melodies. “You are Jewish.”
“But I am also Italian,” Eva answered easily. “You aren’t Italian if you don’t know ‘Tu scendi dalle stelle.’”
“Ah, forgive me my Irish blunder,” he said in English with a purposeful brogue. “Sing it for me, then, lassie.”
She sang softly, in a voice as clear and lovely as her violin. She knew every verse, but it was one line that made Angelo’s throat close and his eyes smart. Ah, how much it costs you, your loving me. Ah, how much it costs you, your loving me.
Angelo could only cling to the wheel, his eyes on the road and his heart on fire, looking out into the starry darkness and feeling the monsignor’s gaze on his face.
January of 1944 was as gray and wet as December of 1943 had been. Like everyone else in the occupied city, the convents and the clergy listened on pilfered radios as the Americans seemed to make one misstep after another as they climbed Italy’s boot toward Rome. The opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth signaled the nightly reports of the Allied movements from the BBC, and it rarely brought good news. The Germans celebrated and dug in their heels, claiming success at every turn.
But there were small victories. Monsignor O’Flaherty had the inspired idea to let the Jewish population gather for worship services in the excavated church that sat beneath the existing Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano. The basilica was not far from the Colosseum and was under Irish diplomatic protection, providing a measure of safety for the refugees to assemble. The basilica had three tiers, the lowest tier a first-century home that had later grown into the fourth-century church above it, built to provide persecuted Christians with a place to worship. The significance of that history was not lost on the Jews and those who sheltered them. It was dank and the walls continually wept with moisture and echoed with the sound of rushing water from the subterranean river that ran beneath the church, but there was peace and a sense of sanctuary within the space.
Despite the danger, Eva and the Sonnino family, along with other members of their underground community, would meet for worship when circumstances allowed. They assembled on the right-hand aisle of the ancient basilica under a faded fresco of Tobias, an Old Testament figure with whom they could identify, clinging to each other and the very traditions that had exiled them and at the same time made them one.
Eva would sit with Giulia and little Emilia, Lorenzo would sit with his father and the men, and they would sing the songs and recite the prayers of those who had come before, doing the best to keep the roots alive, to remember what it meant to be ebrei—the beauty, the symbolism, the sense of community and family.
Emilia’s sweet voice would rise above the rest, childish and clear, and in that sound was the future and the past. Eva would hold the little girl’s hand, singing with her, and as she sang she thought of her father and Felix, of her mother and her grandparents. She thought of freedom and sunshine, of love and hope, and she longed for the days of sand and sea, when Babbo had made glass and life had been simple.
Sand and ash. The ingredients of glass. Such beauty created from nothing. It had been something Babbo had marveled about and something she’d never understood. From sand and ash, rebirth. From sand and ash, new life. With every song and with every prayer, with every small rebellion, Eva felt reborn, renewed, and she vowed to press on. She vowed to push back, to make glass from the ashes, and that courage was a victory in itself.
Eva kept pilfering gold from Via Tasso, and Angelo—priest turned smuggler—managed to convert it into sustenance. But the biggest triumph by far, achieved through a strange series of events and the curiosity of Greta von Essen, was the new printing press for Aldo Finzi to continue his work.
Greta von Essen, Captain von Essen’s very bored and very lovely wife, had taken a liking to Eva, probably because Eva, with her German language skills, was one of the few people she could talk to. Greta was a striking woman in her late thirties with no children to occupy her time, so she filled her days with hobbies and housekeeping. She also regularly wheedled Eva away from Via Tasso for lunch and shared intimate details of her life with “Wilhelm” that Eva would really rather not hear.
She broke down and cried in her wine at lunch one day, telling Eva she was a disappointment to her husband and a failure to the Reich. “It is our duty to have children for the fatherland. And I can’t seem to have any. Wilhelm is embarrassed of me. He is certain my infertility is the reason he hasn’t risen more quickly up the ranks.”
Eva patted her hand and made soothing clucking noises, but she was more than happy to oblige Greta when she suggested they finish their lunch and take a detour past a new row of shops, shifting her attention and the topic of conversation from Wilhelm and infertility. They found themselves in a fashionable district a few streets over, lined with dress shops, haberdasheries, perfumeries, and a small but distinguished bookstore with ornate gold lettering in the windows. There was a padlock on the door and a stack of newspapers piled in front of the door.
Greta, an avid collector of everything old or valuable, peeked brazenly through the windows, trying to see what remained inside. It was obvious that none of the inventory had been removed, yet the shop was not open for business.
“What does that say?” Greta asked, pointing at the words on the window.
“Libri nuovi e rari—New and rare books,” Eva translated quietly. It said, “Luzzatto e Luzzatto” in bigger letters just above it. Eva felt the same old nausea rise in her throat. She was certain the Luzzattos were never coming back. Luzzatto was a Jewish-Italian name, and the bookstore had probably been sitting empty since the October roundup. The Germans had put the padlock on the door as if they now owned the place, but Greta was certain she could coax a key and a chance to explore out of her husband.
“There might be books worth thousands of dollars on those shelves. You know how Hitler loves his art and his precious things. Think of what I might find! Wilhelm could present the Führer with a one-of-a-kind gift!”
Eva would rather rot than watch Greta find a stolen treasure for Captain Wilhelm von Essen to present to the Führer, but she held her tongue, and her self-control was rewarded.
Three days later, Eva accompanied Greta and a German soldier—who seemed relieved to be out of Via Tasso for a while—back to the bookstore. Mrs. von Essen was decked out in a fur coat and a flirty little netted hat shading her big blue eyes, but when they walked inside the dusty establishment, she shed both and dug into her treasure hunt with a gusto that had Eva eager to stay out of her way. The German soldier must have had a similar response. He stepped out on the sidewalk and pulled a lighter from his pocket, more interested in a cigarette break than rows of old books.
She was browsing the titles when she discovered a little door tucked behind a tall row of the dustiest shelves. The door led down a flight of stairs that resembled the excavated sacristy at the Santa Cecilia, but she descended them carefully and found her own treasure at the bottom. Luzzatto hadn’t just been a bookseller. He’d been a publisher, and there, in a basement that looked more like a grotto, was a printing press with all the bells and whistles, cranks and trays, to make Aldo Finzi a very happy and productive man.
Best of all, there was a separate entrance leading up to the alley behind the shop and a set of keys hanging from a nail by the door. She tested the keys on the outside entrance, verifying they worked. Then she silently thanked Signore Luzzatto and dropped the keys into the pocket of her coat before climbing the old stairs and locking the little door securely behind her. They were back in business.
CHAPTER 16
FEBRUARY
“Aldo has another batch of documents ready to go,” Angelo said. “After you finish work today, he will meet you at the trattoria near the streetcar stop. Order a pastry. He will stand behind you in line. Drop your pocketbook, and he will hand it to you with the pouch of documents. Take your pastry. Leave. Don’t talk to him; don’t interact with him at all. He is a stranger.”