Confession: I’ve broken my vows and I feel no remorse.
Eva told me once there were two things she knew for sure. One was that no one knows the nature of God. No one. And the other thing she knew for sure was that she loved me. I find I am reduced to those same assurances. I love Eva. I will always love Eva. And as for the rest? I only know that I know nothing at all.
Many will seek to tell me what God’s will is. But nobody knows. Not really. Because God is quiet. Always. He is quiet, and my anguish is so intense, so incredibly loud, that right now I can only do my will and hope that somehow, it aligns with his.
Angelo Bianco
CHAPTER 23
CROSSROADS
The blank pages in Eva’s journal haunted Angelo. She’d been snatched up, whisked away, stolen. She’d been taken from him, and her story wasn’t finished—he wouldn’t let it be—so he would keep writing until she could pick up where she left off.
He recorded his first entry the day he returned to the Vatican on crutches, dressed as a civilian, looking every bit like a man who had narrowly escaped death—multiple times. He’d been hustled into Monsignor O’Flaherty’s office, and Monsignor Luciano was called as well.
“You look like you’ve been through hell,” Monsignor O’Flaherty said, tipping Angelo’s chin up so he could stare into his badly bruised face. “More than three hundred men were pulled from the prisons and off the streets. No one knows what happened to them. Then we got word that you were alive. Beaten but alive. What happened to you? Where did they take you? And where are the other men?”
“Everyone is dead,” Angelo whispered.
“Dear God!” O’Flaherty gasped.
“Where?” Monsignor Luciano cried.
“They took us to the Fosse Ardeatine. They took the men into the cave, five at a time, and killed them with a shot to the back of the head, one after the other. Toward the end, one of the German soldiers sneaked me out through another tunnel. He saved my life. He took other lives, but he saved mine. He didn’t want to kill a priest.” Angelo stopped, the weight of the memory suddenly more than he could carry. “The soldiers didn’t want to do it. Lieutenant Colonel Kappler sent cases of cognac to the caves to loosen them up so they could perform.” His voice was bitter, and the horror continued to rise in him like a tidal wave. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing, focused on the here and now, on Monsignor O’Flaherty’s hand on his shoulder.
“It is a miracle that you are alive,” Monsignor Luciano whispered. “Praise God.”
“I am grateful for my life, Monsignor,” Angelo said softly. “But it is very hard for me to praise God in this moment. I lived. But three hundred thirty-five others did not. I feel more guilt than anything. I lived, hundreds died, and Eva is gone.”
“I have tried to discover where the train was headed, Angelo. All I know is that Eva was on it,” Monsignor O’Flaherty offered after a short silence.
“She is young, and she is strong,” Monsignor Luciano said, trying to comfort him. “She will be all right.”
Angelo bit back a curse. Monsignor Luciano could be incredibly blind and stupid sometimes.
“You can’t come back to the apartment, Angelo. You will stay here at the Vatican until Rome is liberated,” Luciano continued as if the matter were resolved.
“I will continue on until Rome is liberated, until the people I am responsible for no longer have to hide,” he agreed softly.
“And then?” Monsignor O’Flaherty asked, clearly sensing there was more.
“I no longer want to be a priest. I have broken my vows,” he said with finality.
He’d broken them willingly. Intentionally. Angelo had taken a vow of obedience, and he’d been anything but obedient. He’d taken a vow of celibacy, and he’d made love to Eva. The only vow he’d kept was that of poverty. But maybe he’d broken that one too. He’d been greedy for time with Eva. Greedy for her touch, her kisses, her love. She’d offered them time and time again, and he’d resisted her, rejected her. Refused her. Until the day he hadn’t, and he’d taken her love and her kisses and her touch, and she’d made him a wealthy man, rich in love and promise and possibility. And he’d only wanted more. More. More.
That was what haunted him. He could have had a lifetime with her, and he’d squandered it. He didn’t feel remorse that he’d broken his vows. He was remorseful that he hadn’t broken them sooner. He should never have made them in the first place. When he told the monsignors how he felt, Monsignor O’Flaherty quietly listened, but Monsignor Luciano grew angry.
“You have broken your vows, but you have been ordained. Sin can be forgiven. You don’t just stop being a priest because you sin. You have been ordained—indelibly changed—and you can’t be unordained. You know this. You are God’s. You don’t belong to yourself anymore, Angelo. You don’t belong to Eva! You are God’s,” Monsignor Luciano repeated emphatically, thumping his chest as if God himself resided beneath the cloth of his robes.
“I am Eva’s,” Angelo said quietly. “In my heart, I am Eva’s.”
“But she is gone!” Monsignor Luciano shouted.
“She is not gone. She is still here!” Angelo cried, and it was his turn to thump his chest. “She is still here inside me, and I am still hers. I will always be hers.”
“Does loving Eva mean you can’t love God?” Monsignor Luciano said after a long silence. His anger was gone, his voice subdued, his face haggard. But Angelo was committed to answering honestly, even if it hurt his old mentor.
“No. But I would ask you the same thing. Can I only serve him if I’m a priest? If I’m Catholic? I don’t believe that anymore, Monsignor. I’ve seen too much. I want to do the right things for the right reasons. Not because someone will judge or someone else will wonder. Not because of tradition or pressure. Not because I’m afraid or embarrassed to do anything else. And not because it’s what people expect. I want to do his will. But that is what I struggle with most, knowing what his will really is. Not his will according to the Catholic Church, but his will.”
“We need you, Angelo. Rome needs you. The refugees need you. This church . . . needs you,” Monsignor O’Flaherty said.
Angelo could only shake his head. “I have put Eva last for too long. She needs me. She needs me to love her enough not to give up on her.”
“Tell me this. Is it that you don’t want to be a priest, or is it that you want Eva more?” Monsignor O’Flaherty asked.
“I want Eva more,” Angelo said honestly.
“And if Eva . . . doesn’t survive. What then?” Monsignor Luciano asked.
“I can’t think that way, Monsignor. I won’t.”
“I’m not asking you to give up. I’m asking you to continue on in your duties. You are a priest. That has not changed. And if Eva survives, if she returns to you, then we can talk about leaving the clerical life, about laicization,” Monsignor Luciano coaxed.
“I’m not going to wait for her to come back. I’m going to find her,” Angelo said.
“You can’t simply shrug off your ordination, Angelo. You know this. It is permanent,” Monsignor Luciano declared with finality.
Angelo ran shaking hands through his hair, despair and fatigue bowing his back and fraying his nerves.
“Then I am absolved?” he asked wearily.
“You are not repentant,” Monsignor Luciano barked.
Angelo searched his heart. Was he repentant? No. He wasn’t. “I seek your forgiveness—both of you—for disappointing you, for not being who you want me to be. But I am not sorry for the way I feel or for my actions.”
“Then you are not absolved,” Monsignor Luciano shot back.