“Take it off,” the officer roared, his face inches from hers, and his spittle flecked her cheeks. She raised her hands and removed her black veil. But she kept praying aloud, and she didn’t remove the wimple.
“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts”—she looked directly in the face of the blue-eyed German—“as we forgive our debtors.”
“All of you. Take them off,” he commanded, waving his gun at all the nuns, then yanking at the girl’s wimple to indicate what he wanted. When they hesitated, he raised the gun to the youngest girl’s head.
“Take them off! Now!”
Angelo tried to control his rage. He was tired of weapons being pulled and aimed at women’s heads. Eva had endured the same treatment and had been brought to Via Tasso for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They raised their guns with such impunity, with such insolence. And he could only pray that God saw and would mete out justice in his time and in his way.
The other officers moved nervously, realizing something had shifted in their leader. With shaking hands, the other nuns began to unfasten their wimples too, joining the girl in the recitation of the prayer. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
“For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen,” the nuns finished, pulling their wimples free and averting their eyes from the men who stood staring at their shorn heads. Angelo swallowed his gasp. The two young sisters had cut their hair close to their scalps, their tufty hair making them indistinguishable from the other women who stood cowering and vulnerable beneath the scrutiny of the German men. In cutting their hair, they had saved their own lives.
The officer’s finger slid down around the trigger. His eyes were a storm and his lips a flat, hard line—a horizon of indecision beneath the tumultuous gaze. He dropped his weapon to his side. He looked like a fool, and he knew it. He holstered his weapon with flaming cheeks and began walking toward the iron grille that had warned him to stay away in the first place. “Let’s go.”
“All is in order,” the German officer reported to von Essen when they reached the courtyard. His face was still ruddy with embarrassment, but the darkness gave him a little cover.
Everyone else from inside the convent was assembled in a long line, von Essen standing before them with his hands clasped behind his back like a strutting professor. One of his men held the official register Mother Francesca had been so concerned about. Angelo’s eyes went directly to the Sonninos—Giulia holding the baby, little Emilia in her father’s arms, and Lorenzo clinging to Mario’s hand. Poor Lorenzo. He was old enough to know the danger and too young to understand why any of it was happening. It was the second raid his family would have to survive, the second night they would be forced to beat incredible odds. The woman Angelo had found to nurse baby Isaaco was standing with them, strangely blank-faced, like she didn’t care enough about herself to be afraid. None of the paperless Jews were in the courtyard.
The boarders’ rooms and the surrounding buildings had been searched while Angelo and the abbess accompanied the raid in the cloister. So far, no cries had gone up and no shots had rung out. Their papers must have passed inspection, and the rooms must not have yielded any clues. At that moment, three soldiers came jogging out of the church toward the captain, and Angelo could hear them discussing the locked door off the sacristy that led to the excavation below.
In ancient times, when a church or structure fell into disrepair, the Romans simply built over it, using the existing structure or what was left of it. As a result, Rome was a city of layered ruins, one era stacked on top of the other. Roughly fifty years ago, beneath the church of Santa Cecilia, the ruins of two ancient Roman houses—one of them believed to be the young noblewoman Cecilia’s—had been discovered, and excavations had been conducted. A crypt was built in 1899 at the west end of the excavation, but behind the new crypt, directly beneath the choir, was the original crypt. Angelo wondered suddenly if the refugees were hiding among the dead. It was the best place he could think of.
Von Essen must have thought the same thing. “Father Bianco, Mother, come with me,” he demanded, striding after the soldiers who had turned and were loping back toward the church. Sure enough, when they entered the church, the soldiers veered down the left aisle and stopped before the large locked door.
“What is behind the door?”
“It leads to an excavated area below the church. Ruins,” Angelo said. “A part of an old tannery, a small household shrine, or what remains of it. Some mosaics. A crypt.”
“After you,” Captain von Essen said to the abbess. She unlocked the door, and the group proceeded down the stairs that were little more than steps cut into rock. It was dank and smelled of age and earth. It smelled like Rome. Upon reaching the bottom, the soldiers immediately split off and headed in different directions down the crumbling tunnels, unearthed forty years before. With their flashlights out, they searched corners and poked their guns into dark places. There were lights, which Mother Francesca turned on, but they flickered testily, like the disturbance in the primordial space was unwelcome.
“What is back there?” Von Essen pointed with his pistol to a large iron grille that barred the way forward.
“That is the crypt. The tombs of the martyrs Cecilia, Valerian, Tibertius, and Maximus, and Popes Urban I and Lucius.” Mother Francesca answered this time, clearly not needing to understand the captain’s language to interpret what he was asking. Angelo repeated what she said in German.
The captain’s face twisted with distaste but he wasn’t to be deterred. “Open it.”
“I will not have your men desecrating the tombs.” Mother Francesca shook her head and crossed herself. The captain understood she was refusing, and he lost his temper. Clearly, the raid had not produced the desired results.
“Open it!” he roared and pointed his pistol at the defiant abbess. She dug the old key from the sleeve of her robe, and her voice rose in warning.
Von Essen looked at Angelo for translation.
“He who desecrates the tombs of the saints dies the death of the saints,” Angelo repeated, straight-faced. “Saint Cecilia died of ax wounds.”
The old nun was like a witch straight out of Macbeth, casting her spells and portending ominous events. The SS men shifted uncomfortably, but von Essen shook his head and commanded his men to search the space. Mother Francesca hissed and spat like an angry cat circling the tombs and keeping the soldiers on edge. Von Essen’s men were clearly ready to abandon their search, and it wasn’t long before they were all climbing the stone stairs back to the church above. Neither Angelo nor Mother Francesca mentioned that they had only searched the new crypt. Beyond it, accessible only through a hole tunneled in the wall behind Cecilia’s tomb, was the original crypt. It wasn’t large, but it was big enough to hide five adults and three children.
“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.