“It is after curfew. We will have a car take you both home. You will report back on Monday.” He waited for her to stow her violin and then handed her her fake identity card. It had held up twice now. She would have to tell Aldo.
He had a soldier escort her to the reception area where two Germans with submachine guns were parked on both sides of the entrance and two more behind a large desk. Angelo sat on a metal chair with his head bowed. His hat had been removed and he held a cross in his hands. When she approached the bottom of the staircase, he raised his head halfheartedly, like he’d been lifting his head all day to disappointment.
He shot to his feet, his eyes on her face, scouring her expression for duress. She tried to smile to put him at ease, but the twist of her lips felt strange, and the effort made her feel like weeping, so she gritted her teeth and let the soldier lead the way.
“There is a car out front,” the young German said to Angelo. “You will both be taken home. Please follow me.” He strode briskly for the door, expecting them to do as he said. Angelo took Eva’s arm, clutching her so tightly she would have bruises. She welcomed his grip, though the irony that she would leave German headquarters bruised only by Angelo was not lost on her.
Their armed escort held open the door of a shiny Volkswagen for them, waiting as they slid into the backseat. He leaned down, his gray turtle-shell helmet pointing toward them.
“Address?”
Angelo answered for both of them, supplying the address that Eva assumed was the apartment he shared with Monsignor Luciano and his sister. The German snapped his heels together and shut the door firmly. He relayed the directions to the driver, and seconds later the car pulled away from the curb.
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.”