Eva nodded. Angelo hated giving her assignments like this, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and the bookstore was closer to her than it was to him.
“Trattoria, drop my pocketbook. Leave. I can do that,” she assured him.
“Don’t go to Santa Cecilia. Meet me at the Sacred Heart. If you’re there first, light a candle and pray.”
“It is Shabbat.”
“Yes. I know,” he said with a small smile. “I will try to be there before dark so you can get home. Otherwise, plan on staying there for the night.”
“Why don’t you want me to go to Santa Cecilia?”
“The Sacred Heart is closer to Via Tasso for you and easier for me to access.”
“And if for some reason I am followed or caught, I won’t be endangering anyone else,” Eva added.
That too. But Angelo refused to consider the possibility that she would be followed or caught. She must have seen the concern in his face, because she immediately changed the subject, and they parted minutes later, Eva heading across town to Via Tasso, Angelo heading the opposite direction to Vatican City.
Eva was running late. Von Essen had brought her a report to type at four thirty, telling her it was of “the utmost importance” and asking her to leave it on his desk when she was finished. He continually forgot that he had told her she could leave at four thirty. He was on his way out, taking some new arrivals on some sort of patrol. He enjoyed patrols. It was something she’d noticed before. His SS uniform was crisp, his weapon at the ready, his boots gleaming like a mirror. They wouldn’t stay that way for long. It had been raining all day, making the dreary afternoon seem never-ending, making the hour seem later than it actually was.
She left the headquarters on Via Tasso at five thirty, a half hour later than the prearranged meeting time. She pulled a scarf over her hair to protect it from the rain and ran, hoping it would only appear she was trying to catch a bus or streetcar, rushing to the trattoria, praying Aldo had waited. She slowed to a walk and stood in line for her pastry as instructed, but Aldo didn’t fall in behind her. She bought a sweet roll and stood under the dripping striped canopy, eyes scanning, nibbling at the cinnamon-and-sugar-encrusted luxury that should have been savored. She was too uptight to savor it and ended up eating the whole thing without even tasting it. It was six o’clock—curfew—and she needed to get off the street.
And then she saw him, walking briskly toward her, a folded newspaper clutched in his hands. She dusted the sugar from her hands and threw her napkin away, trying to appear casual. She stuffed her icy fingers in her coat pockets and started moving down Via Regala, away from the trattoria and toward Aldo, when a whistle blew and a shout rang out behind her. It was just barely curfew and she didn’t think the shout was directed at her, so she kept walking, not even turning her head. But Aldo’s eyes jerked toward the source of the ruckus, and she saw him shove the newspaper inside his coat. The document pouch must be inside.
“Keep walking!” he hissed, not glancing at her as he passed. A whistle rang out again. Eva kept walking, just as instructed.
“Buonasera, comandante,” she heard Aldo say, his voice cheerful and slow and far too loud. He sounded drunk. “Care for a drink? I’m buying!”
He would be fine. Aldo would be fine. He was an older man with good papers, papers he’d painstakingly created himself. He would be fine. The commander said something in German and Aldo laughed uproariously. She recognized the voice. It wasn’t a commander. It was Captain von Essen.
Alarm clanged in her skull, and she did as she was told. Her coat was dark and so was the scarf over her hair. She wouldn’t be distinguishable from the back. She kept walking. Her heels clicked against the cobblestones, and she kept her pace steady, her eyes forward. She was at least thirty feet away. Forty feet away. Fifty.
Walk, walk, walk, walk, she commanded, the rhythm of the words and the tapping of her heels urging her to move faster, faster, faster. As she neared the corner she turned, ducking behind a gnarled olive tree and darting a glance back at Aldo, unable to slip away without first knowing how he fared.
Time doesn’t stop or give warning. It simply ticks along, marking time, ignoring humanity. Von Essen stood behind Aldo. He had placed the muzzle of his gun at the base of Aldo’s neck, almost like he was using the weapon to lift the collar of his raincoat.
Then he pulled the trigger.
Aldo Finzi crumpled to the ground like his legs had suddenly ceased to function. There was no protest—not from Aldo, not from the handful of uniformed men who now surrounded him. Not from Eva. No screams, no exclamations. Just the sound of a weapon being discharged.
And time kept its schedule without a thought for the man whose time had just run out. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Right. On. Time.
Von Essen put his gun back in the holster and pulled a silver cigarette case from a breast pocket. The click of the case counted off another second. The crisp strike of a match, another. A flame swelled and retreated, almost like it took a single breath and exhaled, and the captain lit his cigarette and snuffed it out. He dropped the match on the inert form at his feet and a thin wisp of smoke rose up from the dead man, as if his spirit rose and dissipated in the soggy dusk.
Eva stood, staring, as cold and as silent as time itself. She was the only other person out. Nothing cleared the area as effectively as a German patrol.
“Er war ein Jude,” von Essen said simply, his voice carrying down the street. He didn’t even try to moderate his volume. Why would he? Aldo was only a Jew. He’d only killed a Jew.
“How do you know?” One of his companions prodded Aldo with the toe of his boot, as if asking him to verify the captain’s claim.
“I told him to drop his pants,” von Essen said simply.
The soldier used his foot to turn Aldo to his back.
“Can’t hide the circumcised dick.” Laughter. Ha ha ha. Tick tick tock.
“Leave him for now. It is good for the Italians to see what happens when you don’t heed the law. They were warned. All Jews were to report months ago. He didn’t. Now he’s dead.”
They continued back the way they came, unconcerned, their footfalls fading with their voices.
Eva waited until she couldn’t hear them any longer. She was still rooted to the spot where she’d turned for one last look. She walked toward Aldo on legs that shook and wobbled like she was as drunk as Aldo had pretended to be. Forty feet, thirty feet, twenty, then ten. It was almost full dark, and though the rain had stopped, the air was still thick with moisture that threatened to fall. The wet streets shone blackly like Aldo’s blood. But she wouldn’t look at the blood.
Eva kept her eyes on Aldo’s face. His eyes were closed, mercifully so, and his glasses were slightly askew, making him look like a child who had fallen asleep reading. She crouched beside him and felt for the newspaper he’d shoved inside his coat. There. It was fat with documents. And it was still warm.
“Oh, God. Oh, dear God,” she moaned, feeling the bile rise. She wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t. Gritting her teeth, she dropped the pouch down the front of her dress, ignoring the sticky heat against her skin. The tight belt at her waist kept it from falling through to her feet. Then, purely by feel, she pulled the flaps of Aldo’s coat together, wanting to hide his nakedness, wanting to preserve his dignity in death. She straightened his glasses and rose, pulling her coat over the telltale bulge of the pouch. Then she made herself move, one step in front of the other, the cadence of her feet joining the metronome of time marching on and on and on, without relief.
Angelo was waiting. Pacing down the long aisle between the pews, his hands clasped, his head bent. She’d taken too long, and she realized he must have spent the last hours worrying that something had happened to her.
Something had happened to her.
He must have sensed her approach, and his head shot up, his face softening with relief when he saw her standing at the back of the church.
“I’m back, Angelo,” she said woodenly. “I have the . . . provisions.” That was the word they always used to refer to everything and anything. One never knew who was hiding, listening, watching. Provisions were vague. Documents were not.
She turned and made her way to the little door that led to the basement of the church. She needed to get rid of Aldo’s blood. Moments later, she heard Angelo descending the stairs. The pattern of his steps—thud, tap, thud, tap, thud, tap—unmistakable. Her mind drifted back to the retreating footsteps of Aldo’s killer, and she began to shake. She couldn’t unbutton her coat. Her fingers didn’t obey her orders.
“Eva! What happened? What took you so long?” He was growing alarmed. She could hear it in his voice.
He reached out to her, but Eva sidestepped him, unable to meet his gaze. Concentrating, she managed to shove the top button through its hole and then the next. When she reached the fifth button, she reached down the neckline of her dress and pulled the pouch free, tossing it at Angelo. He caught it easily and set it atop the small chest of drawers, his eyes trained on her face. He didn’t even look at it. Eva wondered if there was now blood on his hands.
Her brassiere was stuck to her chest and she was panting, pulling in just enough air to keep her standing, but not enough to feel the nausea that threatened to rise every time she breathed too deeply.
“I had to walk.” Her answer was so delayed it sounded stilted.
“All the way?”
“Yes. All the way.”
“But the curfew! Eva, you could have been arrested.”
“I had to walk. I have blood on my hands, on my clothes. I didn’t dare take a streetcar.”
“Blood? Are you hurt? Eva, dammit! Look at me.”
He grabbed at her hands, and turned them over. Eva’s eyes followed his, unable to avoid it any longer. The blood was minimal, surprisingly. She’d kept her hands in her pockets as she’d walked. There would be bloodstains in her pockets. She pulled her hands from Angelo’s, and shrugged her coat from her shoulders.