“It’s not safe,” Angelo said quietly. “It’s not safe for any of you, honestly. You need to change apartments, Augusto. Or leave Rome.”
“But Rome is the safest place for Jews! The Germans have been on their best behavior. We’ll be fine here. Your Pope is our best defense. The Germans don’t want an international public relations problem with the Vatican. One in three Germans is Catholic. Did you know that, Angelo? That’s why I brought my family here. ”
“The Pope is in an impossible position. He holds no power over Hitler. He couldn’t save the Jews in Germany; he couldn’t save the Jews in Poland. He couldn’t save the Jews in Austria. He won’t be able to save the Jews in Rome.”
The table went silent and Eva winced. Angelo put down his fork and stared at Augusto soberly.
“If you won’t hide, that is your choice. But Eva won’t be staying here.” He lowered his voice, as if the walls had ears. “At the very least, let me get you false documents that you can use if the Germans do come knocking.”
“Like the documents Camillo used? Documents like that?” Augusto retorted, pushing his chair back from the table in disgust. He didn’t rise, but he leveled a finger at Angelo.
“My brother pretended to be someone he was not. They caught him. And now my brother is gone.”
A week after Camillo Rosselli went to Austria to find Otto Adler, the Italian police had shown up at the Ostrica Glass Factory in Florence, asking questions. The Gestapo had contacted them. Camillo had been recognized in Vienna by someone who knew he was Jewish and knew he was not the person he was claiming to be. He was claiming to be Gino Sotelo, his non-Jewish partner at the glass factory. Camillo would have been far better off with his own papers—an Italian Jew was safer than a man with false papers.
Gino Sotelo had pled ignorance and innocence, and they’d believed him, only because Camillo Rosselli had claimed he’d stolen the pass, unbeknownst to his old partner. It was a lie—Gino had known everything—but it saved Gino from charges, and it saved Camillo from having to tell authorities it was a fake pass, protecting the forging operation that was ongoing at Ostrica.
It didn’t save Gino from having to tell Eva that her father had been arrested. He had arrived at the villa, his hat in his hands, his face gray, and told Eva that her father was not going to be coming home any time soon. The only information police could give Gino Sotelo was that Camillo Rosselli had been sent, along with other Jewish detainees, to a labor camp called Auschwitz.
“Three years.” Augusto held up three fingers, underlining his words. “And we’ve had no word. I won’t do it. I won’t do anything to endanger my family. No fake papers.” He slapped the dinner table, and little Emilia stuck out her lip at the sound, as if she’d been slapped too.
“That’s your choice,” Angelo repeated. “But Eva isn’t staying here.”
Eva bit back her irritation. She didn’t like being discussed as if she weren’t there to speak for herself. But she remained silent. Uncle Augusto had always been too quick to choose optimism. Optimism could get you killed.
They remained an hour longer, but the days were growing shorter and a new curfew had been announced with the arrival of the Germans. Mario Sonnino followed Angelo and Eva to the door and walked with them to the street, chatting amiably, but when they moved to leave he touched Angelo’s arm, halting him.
“I want documents,” he whispered. “For my family. As soon as the baby is born we are leaving Rome. Can you help me?”
Eva and Angelo both nodded, and Eva gripped his hand. “It may take a few weeks. And if Angelo can’t help you, I will.”
Angelo shot Eva a cautionary glare, but he didn’t argue with her. Not there.
Mario nodded gratefully. “Thank you. Thank you both.” He scribbled his number and his address on a scrap of paper and handed it to Angelo.
“Eva?” Mario stopped her as she turned away.
“Yes?”
“Don’t come back here,” he murmured. “The padre is right.”
The distance to the Church of Santa Cecilia was relatively short, and within fifteen minutes, Angelo was leading Eva toward a stately, gated edifice tucked at the far end of a cobbled piazza. There were hundreds of churches in Rome, big and small, ornate and old, famous and obscure, but the arched entrance of the Santa Cecilia was quietly welcoming as Angelo led Eva beyond the tall gate into a courtyard lined with roses and benches.
A rectangular pool with a large vase at the center encouraged quiet conversation and meditation, though the space was completely empty. Rows of windows overlooked the courtyard on each side, several stories that made up the convent on one side and an ancient bathhouse on the other. Angelo said the church was named for Cecilia, a noblewoman who was locked in her bathhouse for three days—a murder attempt—only to come out unscathed and singing. The bathhouse had been turned into a chapel, and Cecilia had since become a patron saint of music. Eva tried to imagine what a bathhouse chapel looked like, and determined that she would sneak inside at some point if the nuns refused to show her.
They walked into the nave, looking for the abbess, and found it as empty and silent as the courtyard. The nave was rather gray and depressing, the arch of the ceiling too low for transcendence, but the statue of a woman beneath the altar made up for it. The sculpture was unlike any Eva had ever seen before. It was lifelike and lovely, yet so forlorn. The woman appeared as if she were sleeping, but her face was turned into the ground, strands of hair obscuring her profile, and the gash on her neck told a different story.
“Is this Saint Cecilia? What happened to her?” Eva asked, her eyes clinging to the slim white column of the woman’s throat.
“After failing to kill her in the bathhouse, they attempted again. They tried to behead her.”
“Tried?”
“The legend is that three blows with an ax did not accomplish the task. She died slowly, converting many in the process,” Angelo answered.
“What was her crime?” Eva asked, unable to look away from the statue.
“It was politics. She was an outspoken woman,” Angelo said wryly, as if he thought Eva could relate. There was a smile in his voice, but Eva couldn’t smile. She could only stare at the martyred saint.
“Oh, Father Bianco! We expected you much sooner,” a woman called out in surprise, distracting Angelo from his response. Eva turned toward the voice and watched as a diminutive woman with sagging jowls and sharp eyes approached them at a speed that belied her age. She’d entered the nave through a door to the left of the apse.
“Mother Francesca, this is Eva,” Angelo said simply, as if he’d already told the ancient nun all about her.
“You’d best be off, Father,” the abbess directed. “There is trouble with the Holy Sisters of Adoration. A pilgrim has died, and there is some disagreement about what should be done.”
“I will check on you tomorrow, Eva,” Angelo said, and with a quick bow toward the abbess, he was striding back toward the entrance, cane tapping, his small suitcase swinging. Eva could only stare after him, wondering again why she’d agreed to come to Rome.
“Come,” Mother Francesca commanded, and without waiting to see if Eva was coming, followed Angelo out of the nave and through the courtyard. Eva grabbed the large suitcase Angelo had carried all day, and juggling her valise and violin in her other hand, struggled to catch up. The nun led her through a small door to the left of the entrance wall. As they ascended a narrow staircase, the nun offered some information.
“The convent is shared between the Benedictine nuns and the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But we are smaller in numbers than we once were, and the convent is past its prime.”