Though John inquired—even using the importance of the Ford name to make people talk who wouldn’t to a mere individual, it seemed that the Geigers had somehow vanished. The little house they had chosen was no longer available—had been sold to an Aryan couple with an impeccable pedigree. The brother-in-law butcher, a very recent widower, although the cause of his wife’s sudden demise seemed clouded, insisted the Geigers had simply decided to live somewhere else, possibly in Austria, and though the grocery store postmistress confirmed this, there was no forwarding address.
Weeks, then months passed without a word, then one day its stamp of origin completely obliterated, a smudged, dog-eared postal card arrived, on which Hannah had written in English that they were happy, well and sent regards, signed, “Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fritz Geiger.” Throughout the months that followed such cards kept arriving periodically bearing the identical message written in pencil in Hannah’s recognizable hand. Somehow Jane clung to these cheap cardboard tokens as though they were true. John who in his searching had been in Dachau, that rather quaint Bavarian town full of smiling inhabitants, suspected much but had no proof—allowed Jane her fantasy hoping it would sustain her.
Thumbing its nose at the Treaty of Versailles that forbade its rearmament, by 1937 Germany had reinstated compulsive military service, enforced the racial laws created in Nuremberg that would affect all aspects of Jewish life, and formed its Axis bond with Fascist Italy. Having raped Ethiopia, Mussolini was helping Franco accomplish his of Spain and Billy, eighteen, graduated with honors.
His work in Rumania and Turkey done—now considered a valuable tool for possibly enhancing mass production, John was ordered back to Italy. Still believing that the power of the Ford Company as well as his American citizenship would protect him, he moved his wife and son back to his father’s home in Torino—then faced a situation that no one could have predicted just a few years before.
He was about to learn a disturbing truth that within the psyche of all naturalized immigrants a pervasive uncertainty exists—that being once so accepted does not irrevocably guarantee one’s belonging to the country of one’s choice. This is not as much of a paranoia as it might appear for there are many countries and many governments who are totally convinced that once born within their realm both blood and birth will conform—making them eternally theirs. Regardless of personal choice, once a German, always a German—once an Italian, always an Italian was as prevalent a belief in the twentieth century as it was in those past. That tenacious sense of insecurity in all naturalized Americans is not as completely imaginary as it might seem. In Italy his American nationality ignored, John had resented the assumption that he was a willing Fascist simply on the basis of having been born an Italian. Now while he secretly struggled with a situation he was ill equipped to handle, Jane, confident that his integrity was intact, expected that any day John would probably announce that they would be leaving again to somewhere exotic where he was again needed.
Teresa wrote, once again, in perfect French.
Giovanna Ma Chere,
Have you found what you were searching for?
Jane could imagine her voice, feathered into a smile.
Have you lost your inner fire, Giovanna? Dearest friend, you cannot go through life blaming God for everything. Blame is a coward’s tool for self-evasion. You really think you have the right to judge? To stand in judgment of God is to question faith—to question faith is to lose the very foundation of human hope. Be very careful, Giovanna—to deny God is to deny man. To deny man is to deny life. To deny life—is Death without recourse for salvation as the ultimate peace. The acceptance of unconditional, all-encompassing love.
Remember when we were children and Sister Bertine spoke to us of the Divinity of souls? Remember no harm can come to a soul given to God. You have always had it in your very rejection of what you crave. You believe you have lost first a mother, then your child. Yet they live within you—they are a part of you. Every breath you take they take—every joy you feel, they feel. Every sorrow, they weep with you. To love is to become one with one’s beloved.
Peace, child, I shall pray for you—I always do. We may not ever see each other again … I do not want you to mourn—remember I shall be where I want to be—have hoped to be since we were children—so no mourning—for the tears you will shed will be for yourself if you do—not me.
Remember all I have said. It was not the Church—it was my heart that writes and speaks to you. May the Lord watch over you and yours. You are always in my prayers.
Jane placed Teresa’s letter into her special shoebox next to the others. Through all the many stages of her life there had been one certainty, one purity to hold on to, worth believing in—Teresa, as dependable in her faith as her friendship—she and she alone by simply existing had left the door ajar to Jane’s faith, a chink in her armor against the God she no longer trusted. Oh, Giovanna, what will happen to you now? Jane shook her well-coifed head as though to stop her self-involvement. You really should be thinking of Teresa and her suffering—not what will become of you when she no longer exists for you to lean on.
That summer the Ford Motor Company terminated John’s employment thereby releasing their American-trained Italian-speaking specialist to be available for service to the industrial needs of Fascist Italy. That John should have been informed, even asked, was considered quite unnecessary. He had always been such an exemplary employee, it was assumed he would certainly welcome any and all decisions made by the company he had been loyal to since his youth.
His vehement antifascism not yet fully comprehended by those he now considered his probable enemies—realizing that when they did, his political stance might endanger not only himself but Jane and his son, John began to make furtive plans to ensure their safety. Under an assumed name he booked passage to America for two on the SS Saturnia due to sail from Genova within the month.
“Ninnie!” The urgency in his voice giving his name for her a strange cadence, John closed the door of their bedroom. Expecting the anticipated announcement of yet another move, Jane stood waiting wondering what country they were being sent to this time. “Listen and listen carefully. You and the boy must leave and you must leave now. I have booked passage—you sail on the fifteenth out of Genova. Go home, Ninnie! I beg you—take the boy and go! I’ll follow when they let me.”
“I won’t leave you!”
“Yes—you will!”
“No!”
“Don’t, please. I want you and Billy away from here. Do you understand what I am trying to say? You must leave and now! My passport has been commandeered—but yours …”
“Why? They can’t do that!”
“This is a dictatorship, Ninnie—how many times must I tell you they can do anything they want … anything! There is no one who dares to question Mussolini’s actions.”