“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it, Mother?” the captain asked, as if the whole thing had simply been an agreeable tour of the grounds. He walked to the line of terrified boarders and clapped his hands at their armed guard. “We’ve wasted enough time here. Let’s go.” His men immediately obeyed him and marched toward the entrance.
“Father? After you.” Von Essen opened his hand in front of him, indicating that Angelo should go first.
“I will walk home, thank you,” Angelo said without inflection. He was not going to get in the car with von Essen unless commanded to do so at gunpoint, and maybe not even then. But the captain had resumed his feigned benevolence, and he inclined his head agreeably, snapping his fingers and shooting instructions. The men ran to the truck, hopping up and disappearing behind the black flaps with their intimidation and their guns.
Von Essen followed them, but just before he reached his waiting car, he turned his head to the side and halted, throwing the words over his shoulder, and Angelo knew they were meant for him as much as for the abbess.
“If we discover there are Jews being hidden here, sheltered here, we will be back. We will be back, Mother.” Von Essen climbed into the back of his Mercedes, and the vehicles rumbled across the cobblestone piazza and disappeared around the corner as if they’d never been there at all.
The night wasn’t over, but Santa Cecilia had survived, and so had her hidden Jews. Now he could only warn others.
“Ring the bells, Mother Francesca,” he demanded. “Five times. Let the neighborhood know that the Germans are out.”
Before long, the bells of Santa Cecilia rang through the night, loud and insistent, a warning to all within earshot. Those who didn’t know about the coded message would simply shrug and hardly notice. Bells in Rome were a daily occurrence. Bells at midnight, not as likely, but not cause for alarm. An answering clanging—five chimes—came a minute later. Then more bells were ringing from farther away, and then more, all in sets of five, coming from different directions. The message was being heard and spread.
18 March, 1944
Confession: Tonight, I faced my dragons. Now I’m sitting all alone in a beautiful hotel room in Rome, filling pages of stationery with my confessions, wondering if those same dragons will, in the end, slay me, or worse, slay Angelo.
Thinking about dragons has reminded me of my fourteenth birthday. Babbo hired a family of circus performers who brought in ponies and clowns and gypsies who performed tricks and read fortunes. It was all very exciting and authentic, especially the fortune-teller. She was young—maybe eighteen or nineteen—and quite beautiful, with big round breasts, a tiny waist, and huge gold loops at her ears. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I think my father was a little alarmed by the lusty gypsy, but it was the best birthday party ever, and my classmates talked about it for months afterward.
The gypsy had tarot cards and a big round ball that she pretended to look into as she foretold the future. I wanted her to tell me my fortune, but got nervous at the last moment and ran and grabbed Angelo by the hand and pulled him into her little striped tent so he could hold my hand while she told me my fate. Angelo was sixteen at that time, and he seemed so much older than the other boys. I had to beg him to come home for the party, and even then, he hung back and watched, eating cake and listening to Uncle Augusto and Babbo argue politics. He wasn’t a child anymore, and I was losing him a little at a time.
The gypsy laughed at me when I told her to proceed. I must have seemed very young and foolish. Her eyes were dark and her lips red, and I could tell she thought Angelo was very handsome. She turned over some cards—I don’t remember which ones—but her eyes kept going back to Angelo. I don’t remember what my fortune was, only that I was disappointed and unimpressed by her predictions. But then she offered to read Angelo’s cards. He started to drag me away, clearly not interested, but she stood and pushed him firmly down into the chair I had just vacated. I clutched his hand, indicating that he belonged to me, and she quirked her eyebrows disdainfully.
She told him he would have the love of a beautiful woman who would bear him many sons. I informed her he was going to be a priest. She predicted he would be a hero to many. I told her he was already a hero to me. “You will slay dragons,” she predicted grandly, ignoring me. But Angelo grew very still, and his hand tightened around mine.
“You will slay dragons, but not before they slay you,” she hissed. And Angelo bolted from his chair, dragging me from the tent.
Eva Rosselli
CHAPTER 19
THE VILLA MEDICI
It took Angelo forty minutes to walk back to the Villa Medici, and every step was rife with dread. He was afraid he would arrive and find Eva gone, that he would walk into the room and see overturned furniture and empty space. He kept imagining her door being knocked down, a squadristi of Jew hunters pulling her out into the night and whisking her away.
He didn’t trust von Essen, and his insistence that she take a room at the hotel rang hollow. By the time Angelo turned the key and let himself into her room, he was beside himself with worry.
But all was well.
Eva was asleep on the large bed, hugging the edge like she’d fallen asleep while waiting for him and simply tipped over. Her legs still hung off the side. He watched her for a moment, lightheaded with relief, before stumbling to the bathroom and gulping down mouthfuls of water to ease the ache in his chest. It was a grateful ache. A humble ache. An ache that felt like love and longing and loss, though he hadn’t lost her at all. But the ache said he could. The ache said he still might. The ache said he’d been a fool.
Eva had made use of the tub. The bathroom still smelled of steam and soap and jasmine, though he didn’t know how she managed to still carry that scent with her. The bathtub had an irresistible lure, he had to admit. He pulled off his cassock and dropped it to the floor, and immediately shed the rest of his clothes. The stench of sweat and fear was heavy on his skin, and he was desperate to remove it.
He climbed into the tub, hoping he wouldn’t wake Eva, and made the water as hot as he could, which wasn’t nearly hot enough. He scrubbed at his skin and washed his hair with the little perfumed bar of soap Eva had used and set to the side. There was a tiny tin of tooth powder and a toothbrush on the vanity, along with a shower cap and a comb, the amenities of a luxury hotel. Angelo rinsed his mouth and scrubbed at his teeth with the brush Eva must have already used, and tried not to dwell on the intimacy of the act or think about her mouth for too long. He pulled his prosthetic and his trousers back on but couldn’t stand to don his shirt or the cassock. He shook them briskly and hung them over the door instead, hoping to air them out a bit. Then he went back to watch Eva sleep.
Her position made her look like she’d collapsed, her legs hanging off the bed the way they were. She lay on her side, facing him, the white sheet draped loosely around her, but her face was turned down, baring her slim throat and shadowing her face, so still and so lovely. It made him think of the sculpture of Cecilia, the martyred saint, and he crossed the distance to the bed and knelt beside it, suddenly lightheaded with an irrational dread. He lifted her legs onto the bed, making her roll to her back. She was so limp and lifeless. Before he could stop himself, he was pressing his face to her chest, listening for her heart and running his fingertips over her mouth, feeling for her breath. For several torturous seconds he couldn’t find any signs of life. Nothing.
Terror roared and his own heart galloped so loudly that he realized it was no wonder he couldn’t hear hers. He was overreacting. He knew he was. He took several deep breaths and exhaled, calming himself. As he did, air whispered past her parted lips and over his fingers, and her heartbeat quickened against his cheek, as if she knew he was there.
Relief washed through him, and he swung her up against his chest, the sheet trailing behind her. He sank into the high wingback chair that sat near the bed, his arms wrapped around her slim frame, and he waited for her to wake up. He didn’t let himself stroke the dark chocolate hair that fell down her back and across her shoulders. He didn’t let himself gaze into her upturned face only inches from his own. Instead, he stared out the bedroom window into the night and waited, pushing down the tumult and the noise, the clamoring in his chest and the clanging in his temples, internal voices that warned him to release her and run from the temptation that kept him rooted to that chair.
He would just hold her, he told himself. But he couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t do it.
“Angelo?” The word was a breath, and he shut his eyes, warring with relief and despair. He was embarrassed. He was desperate. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her, and he was afraid he’d say too much. So he kept his eyes closed and his lips silent.
“Angelo?” Her voice was stronger and the question more pronounced. He tried to pray but found he didn’t want God to help him. He didn’t want divine intervention. With that thought he gave in, opened his eyes, and looked down into her face. Her eyes were so dark that he could see himself reflected in them, twin points, his face pale, swimming in the inky depths.
“You were sleeping so deeply it scared me. You must have been dreaming. Where did you go?” he whispered.
“To find you,” she whispered back.
“And here I am.”
She lifted a hand and laid it against the side of his face, as if testing the veracity of his claim. Her touch—so reverent, so tender—broke him. How could something so gentle cause him to crumble? But shatter he did, and God knows a broken man is a vulnerable man. She didn’t pull him to her with the hand that rested on his cheek, or lift her head from where it lay cradled in the crook of his arm. It was all Angelo. He could not make excuses for the action he was about to take.
He bent his head and found her mouth with his own.
He would have liked to think he didn’t consciously choose to cross the distance between their mouths, but that would have been a lie. He chose. It wasn’t like the kisses in the fisherman’s shack or even the kiss in the alcove on the day of the first raid, the kiss that had been without thought or premeditation, the kiss he could blame on circumstance, on a desperate moment. This was a kiss filled with intention.