April 1944

CASA DI GOLETTA

VALDOTTAVO

 

The work begins with stripping out: an old wall taken down, its stones reserved for later use. Santino Cicala holds each stone in his hand, memorizing its weight and form. Thoughtful, deliberate, he twists left for large ones, right for smaller ones, laying them in a crescent that forms behind him.

Most wallers strip out like bulls pawing the ground, but when Santino apprenticed, his master taught him patience. “Building a wall is like making love to a woman,” he said. “Take your time. Find her rhythm. Hurry, and you’ll botch the job. Dawdle, and you’ll lose it.”

The toolshed was rebuilt before Christmas. Bad weather delayed work on the barn for two months, but the repairs were finished last week. All that’s left is this sheep pen, and Santino will have it done by Easter. Two faces of stone, hearting between, a one-to-twelve taper. Halfway up, a layer of throughs— large stones that bridge the faces and tie the wall together.

Battista Goletta pauses in his own labors to watch Santino study the wall, then bend to select a stone. Hefting it, the Calabrian twists the rock, considering it from all sides, and turns it over again. Bracing the stone against a leather-aproned thigh, he brings the hammer down sharply.

Wiping her gnarled red hands on a faded flowered apron, Rosa crosses the yard to her husband. On Santino’s third rap, the stone fractures along some hidden fault. Remade, it clicks into place between its neighbors on the wall, neat as you please.

“Magic,” Rosa says.

“Hard work,” Battista counters.

When the snow melted and the path to Goletta’s place was clear, Don Leto hiked up the mountainside to see Santino’s work. “You are an artist!” he cried as Santino swept up stone chips and packed them firmly into the hearting of the wall. “Is that to neaten the job site,” the priest asked, “or do you do it for a reason?”

“Both,” Santino said. “Strength comes from the inside— from the inside, not from what you see.”

“And the same is true of people, as I told your ebrea. It’s what’s inside that counts. Of course, it doesn’t hurt for the outside to be beautiful, ne?”

“You found her?” Santino had almost given up hope. The winter, the Germans…

Don Leto pointed across the valley at a hamlet just below the treeline, visible only because the chestnut branches were still bare. “She’s in Santa Chiara. The contadini call her Claudia Fiori. Come to the rectory after Mass on Palm Sunday. I’ll arrange a meeting, but we must be careful.”

“Because of the rastrellamenti?”

“No, the roundups aren’t so bad as they were last autumn, but we have Waffen-SS in the municipal building. Don’t worry. We can manage them.”

Today, sweating in spring sunshine, Santino lays his hammer down and mops his face with a rag. At this pace, he’ll lift four tons of rock by sunset, for two and a half meters of chest-high mortarless wall, topped with a ridge-cap of triangular copestones.

All around him, mountains cleave the air like mauls. Hazelnuts are dropping. Bees hum. Across the valley in Santa Chiara, chestnut trees are in bud.

Battista says you can still get snowstorms this late in the season, but mare’s tail clouds promise good weather for a day or more to come. Santino brushes stone dust from his hands, sucks sweat and blood and powdery lime from a fresh gash in his palm. Three more days, he thinks. And then I’ll see her again.

RECTORY

CHURCH OF SAN MAURO

Adele Toselli has hoarded ingredients for a month. Two turnips, an onion, a potato, a quarter of cabbage. “Three carrots as wrinkled as I am,” she mutters, but it doesn’t matter. Simmer the vegetables with a handful of chickpeas: minestrone. Don Leto has contributed four fresh eggs from three parishioners, and given his own weekly ration of bread. There’s a tin of anchovies in the pantry. Two days ago, the Sant’Andrese priest Osvaldo Tomitz brought early peas from the coast along with money for the Jews. And there’s still a chunk of Parmesan from Stefano Savoca’s last bad-tempered visit.

With the zuppa simmering, she shells the peas, tears most of the bread into small chunks, beats the eggs, mixes it all in a clay pot. With Parmesan grated over the top, and the oven hot, she shoves the casserole in to bake. Sliced onions, spring dandelion leaves, add a little vinegar to the oil from the anchovies. Ecco! Insalata con acciughe.

She stands back from the worktable to consider the young couple outside, gauging appetites. A big strong boy, a slender girl. There’s enough, Adele decides, and enough is as good as a feast.

Don Leto stumps into the kitchen. “The table is beautiful, Signora Toselli!” He lifts the pot’s lid and breathes in the soup’s aroma. “Do you want some help in here? Hand me a knife— I’ll chop that onion.”

“Get off your foot,” Adele orders, reducing the onion to paper-thin disks. “Men don’t cook.”

“In France, the cooks are all men. Chefs, they’re called.”

“France. Put perfume on Germans. That’s your French.”

Don Leto pulls the window’s curtain aside. Santino’s carbine leans against the cemetery wall. Nearby, the two young people walk decorously. Santino’s hands are clasped chastely behind his back. Claudia’s are filled with flowers. “She looks like an angel, Signora Toselli. And Santino? Well, Santino is—”

“A good boy,” Adele says firmly. “Aren’t you glad I talked Tercilla Lovera into this?” she asks, making sure to get credit. “Baths, clean clothes, a civilized table! A nice young couple should have something special when they’re courting.”

She wipes her hands on her apron and joins Don Leto. For the boy, Adele borrowed a nephew’s suit. The coat won’t close across Santino’s chest and the trousers puddle over his shoes, but the corduroy’s so finely waled it feels like velvet, even though it wears like iron. The Cavaglion company has sold kilometers of that cloth to peasants in the districts around Cuneo. The family is Jewish, underground now, but after the war, they’ve promised there’ll be wedding dresses for the girls of any family that hides a refugee.

Someday Lidia and I will make a wedding dress for Claudia, Adele thinks. But for today, there’s a frock the color of sunflowers, from a bag of donated clothing. When Claudia stoops at the edge of the grave, the skirt fans over freshly turned earth, gold over gray.

“Thin as a broom straw, poor child, but still lovely,” Don Leto says. “If only her papa could see her.”

The inscription carved on the wooden cross reads simply ALBERTO FIORI 1894–1944. “But look,” Claudia says, pressing the dirt away. Low on the base, where the gravelly soil covered it, Santino sees a tiny six-pointed star. “Don Leto put it there, after the funeral.” She pushes the dirt back, to conceal the telltale sign.

Typhus, the padre told Santino. A bite from a flea or louse. City people were more vulnerable. Signor Blum had a weak heart, and the fever carried him off within two days. Santino rubs a palm against his trousers and offers it, to help Claudia stand. The shock of contact makes his breath catch, but she quickly pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” she says, embarrassed. She brushes the dirt from her callused hands and the hem of her dress. “The farmwork…”

Emboldened, he reaches for her hand and turns up the palm. “You should be proud,” he tells her earnestly, holding it next to his own. “Hands like these mean you’re honest, you work hard. No gangster or landlord has hands like mine. No prost— Good women have hands like yours.”

She touches his borrowed tie and jacket lightly, smiling at his scrubbed face and carefully combed hair. He has not changed, but she has. Claudette Blum was a silly, sulky girl who could still believe that hard times were a temporary annoyance. In her place stands a solemn young woman named Claudia Fiori, her prettiness chiseled by loss and illness to marble beauty.

“Would you like to sit down?” he asks.

There’s a stone bench surrounded by small-leafed lilacs and roses pregnant with buds, and embraced by a stone Virgin’s outstretched arms. Santino whisks dust and pollen from the cool, pitted surface and takes off the too tight jacket, laying it on the seat so Claudia won’t get her dress dirty.

He sits beside her. “Don Leto says you like the people you’re staying with.”

She looks toward the mountain across the river. “After Papa died, Zia Tercilla wanted to adopt me. Don Leto knows a lawyer who would do the papers for free. But I still have a mother. I’m not really an orphan.”

“Don Leto found me a job in Sant’Andrea.”

“Is that far from here?”

“It’s on the coast, near Genoa. There’s a train. So I could—” he swallows. “I could visit. You. Sometimes.”

“I’d like that,” she says, but she is looking at her father’s resting place. “When you visit a grave, you’re supposed to put a little stone on it. In a Jewish cemetery, if there are lots of little stones on a grave, it means this was a good person whose memory brings many visitors. I can’t do that while the Germans are around.” Tears well, but do not fall. “So I bring flowers, instead.”

Ready to cry himself, Santino wishes he could make it better somehow. But dead is dead. What can anyone do?

Just like that, the solution comes to him. He selects two pebbles from the garden walk and returns to the grave, squatting beside it. With a short, thick finger, he gouges a hole in the crumbly dirt and holds out one of the pebbles. “Yours first.”

Green eyes swimming, Claudia looks at him as though he is a miracle, a genius. She wipes her eyes, comes to his side, drops her pebble into the hole. He sends his own after it and covers them both, patting the dirt flat.

“That’s good,” he says, holding her as she weeps at last. “He was a good man. He deserves tears, and stones on his grave.”

Reaching into an unfamiliar pocket, he pulls out the clean handkerchief that Signora Toselli provided in anticipation of this very moment. Claudia wipes her eyes with it and blows her nose. “After the war,” he tells her, “there’ll be work for masons in cities, because of all the bombing. Everyone says a man with my skills could make a good living here. I might stay. Up here. In the north. If you would— We— I mean, I’d still like to visit my family back in Calabria, but—” He scowls at the grave, sorry for his presumption. “I meant to ask your father.”

She’s fifteen. She should be studying geometry and grammar and French literature. Memories of Belgium, paved streets, electric lights, and school have faded as dream fragments do, forgotten when the day begins. From her first week in Santa Chiara, she has worked side by side with the other women, harvesting grapes in September, chestnuts in October, olives in November. She knows how to choose unflawed ears of corn and tie them into bunches to hang in the soffitta. Her hands feel empty without a spindle to work while she sits. She has begun to think in dialect.

On the hillsides across the river, mountain orchards are dressed like brides, pink and white with blossom. Water slaps at the mill wheel’s plank blades, softening the eerie moan and creak of wooden gears. In a garden just beyond the cemetery wall, an old man sings as he works.

“Papa taught me a song when I was small,” she says. “Wo man singt, da setze ruhig nieder: Where one sings, take your place without fear.” Claudia lays her callused hand on Santino’s cheek, turning his face toward her. “We’ll live here,” she says simply, “but after the war, we’ll visit your family.”

“Really?” he says, amazed. “Really?” he asks again.

She nods, and his glorious gap-toothed grin appears, utterly transforming the homely face. To make a man so happy! she thinks. To make this man so beautiful… “Yes,” she says. “Really.”

Hand in hand, they sit like an old married couple with everything in their lives already decided, and all life’s sorrows but one behind them. Her hand tightens around his fingers. “Promise me something?”

“Anything,” he says, stunned and stupid with love.

“After the war, we’ll find my mother. We’ll bring her and my brothers here, and you’ll build a house for them.”

He squeezes her hand, then lets it go and approaches her father’s grave as though it is a judge’s table. Kneeling, he puts a hand over the secret place where the pebbles are buried. “I will find your wife and sons, signore,” he swears. “I’ll build them a house with stone floors, and thick walls, and a slate roof. The rafters will be chestnut, and the windows will have real glass. Four rooms. Two up, two down. I’ll teach your sons my trade, and when they marry, we’ll build houses for their wives to be proud of.” He looks across the river, seeing these structures in his mind: measuring out the foundations, estimating the loads. “Your sons and I will build houses so strong no bomb or war can touch the ones inside. Every stone we lay will be in your memory, signore. But the house I build for your daughter will be stronger and larger and more beautiful than any of them.”

Santino Cicala stands and faces the woman who will be his wife. When he speaks, his voice is firm with an authority he has never felt before. “We will name our first son Alberto.”

She smiles, and holds out both her hands.

“Young love!” the German says with supercilious scorn, eyes on the tearful couple in the garden. “Lieber Gott! Isn’t life awful enough?”

Head cocked back on her scrawny neck, Adele Toselli is ready to shut the door in his face. “What do you want?” she asks ungraciously.

He whirls and grasps her spotted hand, kissing its prominent blue veins fervently. “Vat do I vant?” he cries, his accent comical. “I vant your undying devotion, Italian goddess!”

Horrified, Adele snatches her hand away.

“Run avay vit me to ze Black Forest! Ve’ll eat cherries, und ski!” he wheedles. The accent disappears. “Not at the same time, of course.”

“You!” she cries, pointing. “You’re—”

“Ugo Messner, at your service, Frau Toselli.” He clicks his heels and inclines his head sharply. “I am here to pay a call on your employer.”

Grabbing his arm, Adele pulls him inside, amazed by the transformation. Freshly barbered, closely shaved, the former Stefano Savoca is almost unrecognizable. The milkman’s ill-fitting coveralls have been replaced by a well-cut tweed suit. A frayed shirt collar has been expertly turned, and no longer betrays its age where it folds over his beautifully knotted tie. Adele is getting used to men whose names change from month to month, and she has always known that Lidia’s son was only pretending to be a Sicilian, but he even seems… taller, somehow.

“You’re sober!” she says.

“And bearing up bravely,” he says breezily as she leads him down the hall toward Don Leto’s office.

The new heels on his gleaming shoes ring smartly, if arrhythmically, on the stone-tiled floor. “What’s wrong with your legs?” Adele asks over her shoulder. Lidia would never tell her.

“When small airplanes make unscheduled landings, knees and ankles rarely meet aviation standards for shock absorption. My legs, however, have many other fine qualities,” the astounding Herr Messner declares as Adele knocks on the padre’s door. “They are reasonably functional during the summer, and at sea level. They are also complete from hip to toe, which is more than some can say. Ah! Don Leto! The famous Red Priest, about whom one hears so much! We are, of course, alone— I’ve been watching the rectory since dawn. I must inform you that our Sicilian friend Stefano Savoca has died again— this time permanently. I am the late Ugo Messner of Bolzano, freshly resurrected, and ready to assist in the building of a new world! Perhaps you will permit me a few words before I convey your package to Sant’Andrea?”

The office door closes, muffling the cannonade of words. Adele lingers in the hallway. Her ears aren’t what they used to be, but the voices quickly rise. “And I told you before,” she hears Lidia’s son shout. “Keep the women out of it!”

Lips compressed, Adele frowns at his tone, but before she can work up a good bout of indignation, the door opens so suddenly she almost falls into the visitor’s arms.

“If it isn’t Giulietta’s nurse!” he says caustically. “Go tell Romeo it’s time to say good-bye, signora. His train leaves in half an hour.”

Renzo Leoni watches, face hard, until the old lady harrumphs and leaves. “That is exactly what I’m talking about,” he says, slamming the door. “You are all amateurs!”

Leto Girotti neatens his desktop, papers here, pens there. Folds his hands. Looks up. “Amateur,” he says. “From the Latin amator—lover. Thus: one who engages in an enterprise for love, not money. In the case at hand, for love of Italy. For love of liberty. For love of those who flee tyranny, and who resist it.”

“Explain what love had to do with this.”

Leoni snaps open a leather document case and drops the March 24 issue of La Stampa on Leto’s desk. The front page is dense with tiny print. Centered at the top in a fine ascetic font is the headline: THIRTY-TWO GERMAN SOLDIERS, VICTIMS OF BOMB ATTACK IN ROME. In smaller letters beneath, it says, “The Reaction: 1 °Communist-Badogliani Shot for Each German Injured.”

Leto whispers, “Three hundred and twenty…”

“Three hundred and thirty-five. The Germans evidently miscounted. Civilians, machine-gunned in groups of five. It took hours.”

Ashen, Leto Girotti pushes away from his desk and stumps to the open window. Out in the garden, Signora Toselli is telling Claudia it’s time for Santino to leave. “The Resistance didn’t kill those poor wretches,” Leto says. “The Nazis did.”

“A comfort to the corpses, no doubt. My sources say Hitler wants reprisals set at fifty to one from now on. Are you keeping track of the numbers in Valdottavo? The SS is.”

Claudia looks as slender as a willow wand, Santino as solid as one of his own stone walls. Leto Girotti closes his eyes, but it does no good. He can see in his mind the Calabrian’s muscles burst by bullets, Claudia torn to pieces behind the false shelter of that sturdy body. “The Republic of Salò is a puppet government,” he says without facing Renzo. “If we can’t strike at the Nazis, we’ll cut the strings of their marionettes.”

Behind him, there is a bark of stunned laughter. “That’s your solution? Civil war? Italians shooting Italians, for the love of Italy! What kind of priest are you?”

Leto turns. “The kind who’s visited Fascist prisons. The kind who has given the last rites to prisoners with no eyes, no ears, no fingernails! What kind of man are you?”

“We’ve been over this, and over it! I’m doing what I can!”

“It’s not enough! Old women are risking their lives to get weapons for the Resistance!” Leto points out the window toward the Cave of San Mauro. “There are boys up there— kids who should be in school. The only veteran among them stutters so badly, a battle would be over before he could get an order out! They are hungry for a leader. Renzo, the Communists have already made contact.”

“I should think the Red Priest would be delighted.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Leto snaps. “There are sins of omission, my son. If you refuse to oppose those who do harm, you are complicit! You were a military officer, a professional. And I believe you are a patriot. Fewer will die if those boys are well armed and well led.”

A long minute passes. Leoni stands motionless, his expression somewhere between pity and loathing. “Your day is coming,” he warns softly. “God help you when you learn what I know.” He stares until Leto’s eyes drop, and when he speaks again, his voice is tight. “I can get them weapons— but that’s as far as I’ll go. And I have two conditions. One: the brigade goes to ground until I get back from Sant’Andrea next month. No action at all, understand? If I’m setting something up, I don’t need a crackdown before it happens.”

“And the second condition?”

“The women stay out of this.”

“Not even the love of God can keep the ones we love safe. Nevertheless,” Don Leto agrees, “I will do what I can to keep your mother and the rabbi’s wife out of harm’s way.”

More tears, more embraces. With nothing else to seal their promises, Santino hands Claudette his carbine. “Keep this for me,” he says. “I can’t carry it in the city.”

The man who calls himself Ugo Messner grips Santino’s small suitcase in one hand and Santino’s large arm in the other. “I’m sorry, Giulietta. Time, tides, and Mussolini’s trains wait for no man, not even your Romeo.”

Pulled downhill toward the station, Santino looks over his shoulder for a last glimpse of Claudia, and stumbles. “Watch where you’re going, Cicala!” Messner’s German accent has disappeared, a no-nonsense Ligurian one taking its place. “We don’t have much time, so listen carefully. The Germans are worried about an amphibious assault near Genoa. God knows why, considering what a mess the Allies have made of their campaign so far.” Messner waits until they clear a corner and he can speak again without fear of being overheard. “The Wehrmacht is building a seawall with bunkers for heavy machine guns and seventy-five-millimeter cannon, from Savona to Varazze. You’ll be working for a German engineering firm, Lorentz and Company—”

Santino stops a few steps uphill. “I won’t collaborate!”

Messner turns. “Don Leto told you about this job, vero? Would he ask you to collaborate?” Messner waits for Santino to consider this. “A man who knows how to make a good wall also knows how to build a bad one, true?”

Santino squints. “Are they using concrete?”

“Of course.”

Santino catches up. “Enough sand in the mix? It’ll crumble by November.”

“Precisely. Turn here.” The station in sight, Messner speaks quickly. “I’m taking you to meet a man named Fichtner. He thinks I’m a Volksdeutscher—an ethnic German from Bolzano who’s perfectly delighted that the Vaterland has retaken Südtirol. Fichtner’s desperate for skilled workers.” He glances at Santino and adds sourly, “I’ll see if I can get you a better salary. You’ll need the money if you’re going to get married.”

“You’re not so nasty as you pretend,” Santino tells him. “Don Leto said you were a war hero—”

“Don Leto is completely full of shit.”

The locomotive looses a piercing blast. Porters wheel pushcarts stacked with luggage past crates of produce, cages of chickens, sacks of dried corn. Passengers mill nervously, waiting to display their documents to men in long leather coats.

Messner leans against a low granite wall engraved with the names of men from San Mauro who died in the last war. Rubbing his knee with one hand, he reaches into his suit coat with the other. “Here’s your ticket. That’s the queue for third class. Get off at Sant’Andrea.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

Messner’s voice drops. “Ugo Messner, I’ll have you know, is a member of the fucking master race. The fucking master race travels first-class!” He stands and assesses the crowd casually. “Sometimes it’s safest to hide in plain sight,” he says even more quietly. “If anything happens to me, get off in Sant’Andrea and go to Fichtner anyway, but in that case, don’t mention my name. Tell him you heard he was looking for masons.”

Messner starts to leave, but Santino grabs his arm. “Signore, I–I never traveled alone. There was always an officer.”

The hard eyes soften. “Your papers are authentic. You’re doing nothing wrong. Show the man your ticket. Find a seat. And buon viaggio—enjoy the trip.”

EN ROUTE TO PORTO SANT’ANDREA

The train stops repeatedly, taking on passengers until they fill every seat, every corridor, even the linkage platforms between cars. Small children nap on overhead luggage racks, pillowed on bundles. Everyone stinks: unwashed bodies, unwashed clothing. “Soap is cheap,” Santino’s nonna used to say. “There’s no excuse for dirt.” But nothing’s cheap in wartime.

There’s a long stop in Roccabarbena. A lot of people get off, but Santino isn’t sure he’s allowed, so he sits by the window watching the people at the station. A young woman gets on just before the train pulls out again, and sits next to him with a quick smile. The train rolls out, crosses an iron trestle, rounds a wide bend that skirts the last of the mountains.

Abruptly, Piemonte’s high country flattens into a vast plain. Contadini stagger behind oxen. Black ribbons of fertile soil curl away from gleaming plow blades. Santino wishes he’d paid more attention when they’d studied Piemonte’s characteristics in school, but he’d never thought he’d see it himself.

“Tanta bella! The land is so beautiful!” he remarks to the young woman at his side. “In Calabria, it’s all rocks. What do they grow in those fields?”

“Mostly corn, but—” The train slows, and she sighs with exasperation. “This trip used to take four hours! We’ll be lucky to do it in twenty…”

She’s friendly, and her skirt is so short it rides up above her knees. She’s wearing short socks, too; the skin of her legs is bare. They chat awhile, and Santino tries to make up his mind about her. At home he’d be certain she was a prostitute, but the north is different, and he decides to give this young woman the benefit of the doubt.

Moving toward an arc of mountains, the train picks up speed, then slows to a crawl, then stops inside a tunnel. The girl waves a hand at the dense darkness around them. “What’s worse? Getting bombed outside or buried alive in here?”

“Arches are very strong,” he says. “The tunnel won’t collapse, and the bombs can’t reach us in here. So tunnels are safer. Stuffy, but safer.”

She rears back, to get a better look at him in the gloom. “It was a rhetorical question, but I like your answer.”

Prostitutes wouldn’t know a word like that “torical” one. “Are you a student?” he asks.

“I was, until they closed the universities.”

“La mia fidanzata?” He stops to savor the moment: he’s never called Claudia his fiancée before. “She was a good student. Reads any book she can get. Me, I only had the mandatory. Soon as I finished my four years, I was glad to get outside and do something useful.”

“Then your children will be smart like their mamma and practical like you, ne? A good combination.”

The train quivers and begins to roll. Santino closes his eyes. Smart, and practical, he thinks. And maybe good-looking, like their mamma.

Content to let the prophecy linger in his mind, he dozes off, head against the glass. When he awakens, it’s night. The train is stopped, but this time out in the middle of nowhere. He stretches as compactly as he can and rubs at crusty eyelids. Several seats away, a badly dressed boy of about twelve clutches a knapsack, his frightened eyes on the girl at Santino’s side.

The young woman taps her fingers on the armrest, and grips it when two German soldiers board. “Madonna,” she says quietly. No one else speaks.

Beams of light sweep through the car from the soldiers’ flashlight. “Dokumente!” one of them shouts. Many of the passengers moan and reach for their papers, but the girl next to Santino hardly breathes as the Germans work their way down the aisle. Suddenly, she stands and addresses the other passengers. “Dio santo! Why don’t we just paint a target on the roof?”

Startled, the soldiers pause in their task.

“Can’t you people hurry?” she demands, motioning with her hand like a wheel turning faster and faster.

“Yes!” someone else yells. “We’re sitting ducks for Allied bombers!”

In the next instant, half the passengers crowd into the aisle, thrusting papers at the Germans, complaining loudly about the delay. The soldiers shout back, and bash somebody with a club. A woman screams. Men shout. Santino untwists in his seat in time to see the pale boy drop from view. Moments later, there’s a tap on Santino’s boot. He crosses his legs, and does not look down when the fugitive wriggles past him on the floor, moving toward the section of the car the soldiers have already checked.

Eventually the Germans leave. The passengers settle down. The train pulls forward again. “Brava!” Santino whispers when the young woman sits beside him. “Who is that boy?”

“I have no idea.” She takes a shuddery breath to settle her nerves. “Since last September, half of Italy is hiding the other half. If someone looks scared, you do what you can.”

It’s past dawn when the train slows yet again. Outside, forests, hills, villages, and fields have been replaced by bombed factories and wrecked apartment buildings, some still smoldering.

The young woman slides forward on her seat. “This is my stop,” she says, yanking her skirt down. “Sant’Andrea is next.” Santino helps her pick up her bundles. “You shouldn’t talk to strangers,” she warns. She meets his eyes, and adds, “Neither should I.”

PENSIONE USODIMARE

PORTO SANT’ANDREA

“She was probably a staffetta,” Messner says quietly when Santino tells him what happened. “A messenger for the Resistance. Turn here. That’s the house. Naturally, I stay elsewhere. Members of the master race do not share accommodations with treacherous Italian scum,” he whispers as they enter the lobby. “Ah! Signora Usodimare, I have another boarder for you.”

Suspicious, the old woman looks Santino up and down. “Sicilian?”

Santino hands her his papers. “Calabrian, Signora.”

“No better!” she snaps.

“He’s a nice boy,” Messner assures her, “with a job, and a housing voucher from Fichtner at Lorentz.”

Trying to look harmless, Santino waits politely while Messner takes the lady aside for a murmured conversation. Something Messner says makes Signora Usodimare laugh girlishly as she trades a key for a pack of cigarettes.

Messner jerks his head, and Santino follows him down a hall that changes elevations three times for no apparent reason, and then up three flights of stairs. At the end of a corridor Messner unlocks a tiny room, taller than it is wide and stiflingly hot. He pushes the window shutters open to let in some air and sends his hat twirling onto a peg by the door. “Give me ten minutes. I need to thaw out,” he says, sitting in the room’s only chair and massaging his knees after the climb. “Belandi, how I hate the mountains!”

Santino sits on the edge of the bed. “You were going to tell me about staffette.”

Messner pulls a silver cigarette case from the inside pocket of his suit coat and offers it. “You don’t smoke?” he asks when Santino refuses. “Good! Filthy habit.” Messner shakes the flame from a match and coughs on the first puff. “Staffette… Where to begin?” he asks. Rhetorically. “Apart from ordinary gangsters, there are about a hundred bands of anti-Fascist partisans in northwestern Italy. Gruppi di Azione Patriottica in the cities, Squadri di Azione Patriottica in the countryside. Liberals, Christian Democrats, Socialists, Communists. Garibaldi Brigades, Catholic Action Brigades. Bread and Justice Brigades. Liberty and Justice Brigades. Most of them couldn’t organize a bun fight in a bakery.” Messner shifts in the chair and gazes absently out the window. “They all use girls like the one you met on the train as messengers because women travel more freely.”

Thinking of Claudia, Santino says, “Dangerous.”

“You have no idea. When staffete are caught…” Messner lifts his chin, sending a plume of smoke upward. “The Great War killed courage with machine guns, Cicala. This one’s murdering chivalry.”

Santino joins Messner at the window. The boardinghouse sits on high ground, and Sant’Andrea is laid out like a map. At least a third of the buildings are damaged, the streets holed with craters bridged by planks for foot traffic, or boarded over with salvaged doors. Piles of rubble block the ground-floor windows of the buildings still standing. Broken glass glitters in the sunlight. A barber cuts hair in the midst of the wreckage. A skinny housewife has strung a clothesline between two chimneys; clothes flutter above what was her kitchen floor a few days ago. Smoke and dust drift in the soft spring air. The white shirts will be dingy before they are dry.

“Are you from Sant’Andrea?” Santino asks.

“Ugo Messner is from Bolzano.”

“Even for a stranger, it’s a pity to see it like this,” Santino says, playing along.

“The city was never picturesque,” Messner admits quietly. “It’s been an industrial port for five hundred years. Tanneries and weaving in the beginning. Shipbuilding before the forests ran out. Chemicals, iron, steel mills later on— Porca miseria! Look at that!”

“What was it?”

“The Ospedale Incurabili.”

The smoking ruins of the hospital are nearly lost in the haze over the Mediterranean. “Maybe the pilots thought it was a factory.”

Silent, Messner takes a drag, filling his lungs with as much smoke as they can hold before flicking the butt out the window. Taking his hat off the peg, he stands still, as though weighing some decision. “There’s a company of bersaglieri guarding the construction site for the seawall,” he says. “The bersaglieri are—”

“Repubblicani.” Santino nods knowingly. “Old fascisti, with a new name. And corrupt, like mafiosi.”

“Is that what Don Leto says?” Messner asks, his voice light with sudden anger. “Allow me to explain something about city life, my son. We’ve got two armies confiscating trainloads of food from us. Civilian rations are down to one hundred grams of bread a day, two hundred grams of cheese a month! People are starving, and unlike the Red Priest, bersaglieri have families to feed. I know one of them is selling supplies from the seawall project. Cigarettes, food, medicines. And he’s got access to explosives, small arms, and ammunition. So he may be corrupt, but Don Leto’s friends can use what I can buy from him. Do I make myself clear?”

Santino’s eyes remain level.

“You don’t have to approach the man, Cicala. Just find out who he is.”

The wind shifts south, bringing with it the musical tinkling of bricks being tossed into piles.

“You don’t trust me,” Messner replies to Santino’s silence. “I consort with Germans. I could be an informer. Maybe I’m using you to find the black marketeer, so I can denounce him for money. Fair enough. Would you like a hostage?” Messner spreads his hands and presents himself. “Like the inestimable Claudia, I am a Jew. I can drop my pants to prove it, but if you insist.”

Santino crosses his arms. “What’s in the little boxes? The black ones that look like little houses?”

A slow smile of appreciation spreads across Messner’s face. Closing his eyes, he speaks as though reading from a book in his mind. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Teach these words to your children. Speak them when you sit in your home, when you walk, when you lie down and rise up…” One eye opens. “Belandi. What comes next? Bind them for a sign upon your hand… and for frontlets between your eyes, whatever the hell frontlets are.” The other eye opens. “Et cetera. Close enough?”

“I’ll watch for the man who’s selling things.”

“Bravo.” Messner takes a last look out the window. “The Allies are bombing us, the Axis is starving us, and the Communists will grab whatever’s left at the end. Mondo boia! Executioners rule!” he swears softly, shaking his head at the destruction. “I need a bottle, and a whore whose politics can be trusted. Care to join me?”

Santino shifts uneasily. “There are bad diseases. I don’t want to bring anything home. When I’m married.”

Caught between amusement and envy, Messner smiles. “I’ll check back at the end of the week. If you need help before then, go to the basilica. Find a priest named Osvaldo Tomitz. Tell him you heard from a shithead that Don Osvaldo was a decent man. He’ll know what that means.”

“Don Osvaldo,” Santino repeats. “A decent man.”

“Don’t forget the part about the shithead!” Messner calls, disappearing into the hallway.

Santino sits on the bed and bounces a bit. The mattress is better than any he’s slept on. He’s never had a room to himself before. Suddenly lonely, he returns to the window. I’ll save every lira, he thinks. No drinking, no cards. I’ll get work on the side. The moment there’s enough money, we can get married.

Something white catches his eye: snapshots fluttering through the piazza in front of the boardinghouse. A lady wearing mismatched shoes scurries to collect them. German soldiers stand on the corner. Civilians hurry past, impatient, nervous. One photograph keeps tumbling just beyond the lady’s reach. The soldiers laugh. Santino tenses to run outside and help, but before he can put motion to the thought, a gust of wind blows the photograph decisively away.

WAREHOUSE DISTRICT

PORTO SANT’ANDREA

Glissando, a harbor siren hits high A before its brief solo is lost in a chorus of inland Valkyries. German anti-aircraft fire provides percussion. Ears straining to pick out the sound of the approaching aircraft, Iacopo Soncini watches the warehouse rats. They are smart, and their hearing is more acute than his own.

“What do you think?” he asks them. “Yanks or Tommies?”

All winter, B-17s have flown over northwestern Italy, winging toward the Reich. Like wharf rats, many Sant’Andrese have learned to distinguish the engine note of the American bombers from that of the British planes. In mild weather, neighbors come outside to watch squadrons in the starlight. People chat in low voices, sitting together in dark courtyards or leaning out of windows. Then they go back to bed, hoping for a few hours of rest before sirens announce the Americans’ return to Corsica.

When the rats dash for cover, Iacopo does, too. “RAF,” their skittering tells him. “Our turn tonight.”

One of the rats creeps back into sight. A pregnant female, teats prominent, she balances on sturdy little haunches and begins to groom her soft brown fur. “False alarm?” Iacopo asks. He blinks, and she’s vanished.

A thudding explosion a few hundred meters away. Dust sifts from the rafters. Iacopo’s eyes shift from floor to walls to roof, searching for signs of collapse. Ground-floor corners are the safest, left standing when the rest of a building goes down. The next detonation is so close, he feels the concussion in his chest.

There is a mathematical pattern to a raid. No matter how tight the pilots’ formation, bombardiers vary slightly in the release of their cargo. The earliest of the explosions can be heard separately. Soon individual sounds merge into a toneless crescendo.

He could give a lecture on the natural history of terror. Survive your first air raid, and you thank God, laughing and giddy. Survive your tenth, and the element of luck cannot be ignored. If we’d been there, not here; if the breeze had carried that fire a few meters closer… Funerals become a commonplace annoyance as you make your way through the city. The notion of luck begins to turn on you. What worked before may not save you this time. Dash through the street, and you could be crushed by falling masonry. Race to a shelter, and you could suffocate as the fires’ carbon monoxide sinks into the cellar.

Survive your thirty-first raid, and you’ll sit tight for number thirty-two. You’ll waste no energy. You’re too tired, too familiar with the outhouse stench of your own fear to run from it. An abandoned, rat-infested warehouse next to a shipyard is as good a place as any, if your luck runs out.

Hunched on the floor, the cool stone cobbles hard against his hips, Iacopo feels his shoulders rise and his head duck in a pointless involuntary effort to protect himself. He tries to think about his family. The exercise is fruitless. Mirella is no longer pregnant, but he cannot picture her any other way. Angelo exists as the memory of a little boy marching off, stiff-backed, hand in hand with a short, round nun. Rosina will be crawling by now, perhaps saying a few words as well. Changed beyond recognition.

The only face he can picture clearly is a stranger’s. A girl, perhaps sixteen: fast asleep, eyes open, wandering along Via Massini. Sleepwalkers are common in cities under bombardment— no one understands why. Dreaming perhaps of a journey to some safe place, dressed only in a nightgown too short for her, the sleeping girl drifted through shreds of morning fog. She was so young that he could see in her face the infant she once was, the toddler, the schoolgirl. He ached to take her in his arms and kiss her with all the tenderness he still had in him. A delayed detonation shook the ground. In an instant she was transformed from lovely girl to terrified animal. She circled frantically, unable to decide which way to run. When he came toward her, she screamed and screamed, as though he were the embodiment of all that had blighted her childhood.

The air raid’s thunder beats against him like a club. Puddles shiver and gleam in the pale light that pours through holes in the warehouse roof. Pesach’s full moon illuminates tonight’s coastal targets, and his own shaking hands. Coal dust draws black crescents beneath his nails, and makes intaglios of his knuckles. His forearms are muscled like a sailor’s. The back that bent over books now curves around the willow basket he uses to lug his stock-in-trade. The RAF is his business partner, he supposes, and the thought is vaguely funny. If he’s alive and reasonably whole in the morning, he’ll leave this leaky den, assess the pattern of bomb damage, choose a direction. The first hours of the day will be given not to prayer and study but to scavenging charcoal in wrecked buildings. When he’s filled the basket with chunks of fuel, he’ll deliver it to housewives who still have stoves to cook on, and who are sharing the little they have with fugitive Jews.

At last, the explosions slow, become sporadic. Above him, tons lighter, British bombers wheel and begin their flight back to base unburdened by ordnance. One by one, the rats reappear.

He listens to the shouts and secondary explosions outside. The rats make themselves tidy, combing dusty whiskers with delicate, pale paws. The sirens wail the all clear. Once again the angel of death has passed over him. He tries to thank God, but can’t help feeling like a thug’s wife who believes she is loved if a punch goes wide.

Twenty minutes, he thinks. The trembling will stop in twenty minutes.

Running feet pound along the alley beyond the warehouse walls. Iacopo remains where he is. He’s picked up too many clumps of flesh and bone, found too many families cooked in the water from burst boilers, heard too many screams, smelled too much charred meat, seen too many corpses lying doubled up in pools of their own melted fat. Tonight he will sleep. In the morning, he will make his rounds, delivering courage with the charcoal.

“Lo amut, ki echyeh, v’asaper ma’asei Yah,” he whispers with threadbare resolution. “I shall not die but live, and I will declare the works of God.”

IMMACOLATA CONVENT

PORTO SANT’ANDREA

Suora Marta pulls out the handkerchief she keeps tucked into her tight black inner sleeve and hands it to Frieda Brössler. The woman must have been handsome once, but her pale skin has been spoiled by weather, and worry, and grief.

“I told Steffi— don’t talk to anyone! Wait here, and we’ll come back for you. Then—”

A white-veiled novice enters, eyes downcast, carrying a tray. Noiselessly, she sets out two glasses of water, two bowls of diluted milk flavored with roasted cicoria, some rolls that aren’t too moldy. “We can’t offer anything better,” Suora Marta apologizes as the novice backs away. “Dip the bread into the milk,” she suggests. “You won’t notice the mold.”

Frau Brössler shakes her head: I can’t. Sighing, Suora Marta nods permission to the daughter Liesl, who stares at the bread but reaches only for the milk. “Frau Brössler,” Marta says, “if we are to find your other daughter, you must try to tell me as clearly as you can what happened.”

“There was an ultimatum,” Frieda says, gripping the handkerchief. “Anyone caught after the deadline would be shot, and so would the owner of the property they were caught on. How could we put that farmer in danger, after he had been so kind? Duno— my son— he said we shouldn’t do it, but Herrmann was so sure! I don’t know where Duno is. He wanted to join the partisans. He left us the day before we went to San Mauro—”

“One thing at a time,” Suora Marta says. “Please— take a little water. What happened when you reached Borgo San Mauro?”

“At first, Italian soldiers put us in an armory. They were good to us— there was food, and they even let us go into town to shop. Then the SS came. They started beating people. Old people, women, children. They were shouting and pushing people onto freight cars. They had guns and dogs— savage dogs. A little boy started to cry, and a soldier hit him! That child couldn’t have been four! Steffi started screaming. I was afraid the soldiers would hit her, too. I took her to a side street. I told her, ‘Stay right there until we come back.’ My husband thought he might be able to trade his wristwatch for better seats on the train. He went to the Germans to inquire, and— and—”

“The tall one shot him,” Liesl says, dry-eyed.

Frau Brössler seems dazed. “One moment Herrmann was asking a perfectly sensible question, and the next, he was— He was on the ground. He was gone. Just like that. Gone! I couldn’t move. I just stood there. His blood… poured— just poured out over the cobblestones.”

Suora Marta is the only nun whose German is good enough to speak to many of the Hebrews. The weight of these stories, the endless repetition… How does the rabbi stand it? She glances at the wall clock. Half past two, and he is long overdue.

“A lady saw Papa on the ground,” Liesl says. “She pulled us inside.”

“Signora Giovanetti, her name was.” Frieda accepts the glass of water the nun presses on her. “She hid us.” The wonderment almost dries her tears. “She was so kind, so kind! I asked, Perché? Why? She said, ‘Anch’io vedova.’ Something like that. What does that mean, Sister?”

“Dear lady,” Suora Marta says gently, “it means: ‘I, too, am a widow.’ ”

“Mutti looked for Steffi later, with Signora Giovanetti,” Liesl says while her mother sobs. “They couldn’t find the doorway.”

“We were afraid to ask too many questions,” Frau Brössler continues, tears streaming. “The lady hid us for a month in San Mauro. Then she took us to her cousin’s house farther away. He kept us all winter, but in March there were German sweeps. It was too dangerous, so a priest brought us here.”

“Bitte, Frau Brössler,” Suora Marta presses, “what did the doorway look like? Do you remember anything at all about the place you left your daughter?”

The woman’s reddened eyes lose focus. “The door was very short. Even Liesl would have to duck to go through it.”

“Nothing else?”

The daughter speaks. “There was a statue of a little man. He was wearing that kind of hat with the two points.”

“A miter.” San Mauro, most likely, the town’s patron saint. “A short door, near a statue of San Mauro.” It’s not much to go on, but it’s a start. Suora Marta once again pushes the plate of bread toward the Brösslers. “Please— you must eat!”

“We can’t eat that,” the girl says firmly.

“Don’t be fussy, child! I know there’s some mold, but have—”

“It’s almost Easter. So it must be Passover now. We don’t eat bread during Passover.”

“Of course!” Marta says. “The Feast of Unleavened Bread!”

“We’re supposed to eat matzoh,” the girl says.

“They won’t have matzoh, Liesl.” Her mother glances toward the door, then at the bread. “Someone said a rabbi visits? He could tell us what to do.”

Suora Marta looks again at the clock. “He must have been delayed, but I’ve heard him help others when they must make a decision. He always says, ‘Choose life.’ In my village there was a saying, Frau Brössler: ‘Bread is life.’ ”

When the two have eaten, Suora Marta leads them to the novitiate dormitory. There are no rugs on the floors or pictures on the walls, but the room is large and airy, divided into cells by posts and clotheslines, from which hang a series of canvas sheets. The novices themselves have mostly moved to Roccabarbena, their places taken by Jews. Mother and daughter will sleep side by side, in the last bed left. Safe from the Nazis if not from Allied bombs.

Marta climbs the back stairs to the professed sisters’ quarters and opens the first door on the right. Sitting at a small desk, she takes out a piece of white stationery, now half its original size, makes a sharp crease along the top, and carefully strips away another bit of paper. Uncapping a fountain pen, she writes a few words, blows gently to dry the ink, and folds the note twice. Reaching through a slit in the side of her outer gown, she buries the note deep in the black cotton pouch that serves as a pocket.

Suora Marta stops by the linens room for a handkerchief to replace the one she gave Frau Brössler. The refectory next. The kitchen is deserted: dinner long over, supper not begun. A packet of food waits on the scrubbed wooden table, and it joins the note in her pocket. Hands under her scapular, Marta proceeds to the mother superior’s office. The door is open, and Suora Marta sticks her head inside. “Reverend Mother, may I take Suora Ilaria for a walk to the basilica?”

Mother Agata smiles coolly. “Give my best to our friend in the cleaning closet, Suora.”

Suora Ilaria has no idea why she serves as Marta’s companion on such errands, but she asks no questions as they cross the piazza. When Marta tugs the side door open, the elderly nun peeks into the basilica. “I’m going to die soon!” she confides with a girlish grin.

“How wonderful!” Suora Marta replies, propping the door open with her foot. “Watch your step, Suora.”

Ilaria points her head toward the ground and takes a big step over the threshold, as though it were a sleeping dog that might jump up and knock her down. “Soon I’ll be with our Lord, and his Blessed Mother!” she says cheerily. She grips Suora Marta’s arm. “I don’t mean to brag.”

Marta pats the spotted hand. “Pray for me when you see them, Suora.”

In middle age, Suora Ilaria was the convent’s Living Rule— the very embodiment of the order’s customs and laws in all their myriad minutiae. Her meticulous observance was a silent reproach to her less scrupulous sisters in Christ, and earned her the nickname Suora Malaria. For years, the principal result of Suora Marta’s weekly examination of conscience was a tabulation of uncharitable thoughts about the woman at her side. Thirty-four years later, Marta’s a little sad at the thought of losing the old girl.

Not that I’d begrudge her a moment with You, Lord, she thinks with a pious glance toward the crucifix.

The basilica is dressed in Lenten purple, nearly deserted this time of day. Two poorly dressed, thin-faced laywomen kneel in the vaulted silence, lips moving as each prays a solitary rosary. A skinny laborer rests his bony rump against the pew behind him and stares vacantly: too tired to pray but comforted to be in church. Sitting in the back of the basilica, apparently lost in thought, a heavily mustachioed gentleman in an expensive suit strokes a long jaw, blue with the kind of beard that needs shaving twice a day.

Marta supports Suora Ilaria’s creaky genuflection and leads her to the left. When the old nun settles in to pray near the Virgin’s altar, Suora Marta slips away.

Until a few weeks ago, Rina Dolcino brought meals to Giacomo Tura. Sometimes Suora Marta was in the basilica when this happened, and it did not escape her notice that Rina seemed more vivid, somehow, when she emerged from the scribe’s small room. If either of the pair had been under seventy, Suora Marta would have put a stop to the visits at once. Perhaps she should’ve been more suspicious. Giacomo Tura has mourned like a widower since Rina was killed.

Naturally, the old gentleman is lonely. Suora Marta passes some time with him, discussing war news. South of Rome, the front is quiet. The Red Army has taken Odessa. The Allies control the air over western Europe and Germany. By the time Marta returns to the nave, Suora Ilaria has fallen asleep kneeling, forehead on gnarled hands still folded in prayer.

Palming the note concealed in her habit, Marta removes the handkerchief from her sleeve and steps forward as if to dust the base of the Madonna’s statue. She gives the plaster feet a bit of a rub to remove some smudge and slips the piece of paper under a vase of flowers. Turning, she sees the gentleman with the mustache note her attention to the altar’s cleanliness. Suora Marta nods slightly, acknowledging his approval.

Tasks accomplished, she returns to the pew and slides in next to Suora Ilaria, who is snoring peacefully. There, until the basilica bell tolls the hour, Suora Marta prays for the soul of her friend and co-conspirator Rina Dolcino, who may not have been in a state of unblemished grace when she was pulled out of a market crowd last month and shot by Artur Huppenkothen’s Gestapo.

PALAZZO USODIMARE

PORTO SANT’ANDREA

“Reprisals are an effective tactic for encouraging good citizenship,” Erhardt von Thadden admits, knifing into a huge slab of Florentine beefsteak on his plate, “but they can be overused, Artur.”

While the Gruppenführer chews, his toady Helmut Reinecke takes up the theme. “In the Soviet Union, many Russians and Ukrainians were eager to join the Waffen-SS in opposing communism. The same will be true here, Herr Huppenkothen, but reprisals against civilians easily undermine willingness to work with us.”

“The Geneva Convention is clear,” Artur insists. “When civilians take up arms under the banner of a government that has capitulated, they lose their protected status.”

Von Thadden tips the last of the wine down his throat. Crystal flashes as he raises his glass toward the maid. “Artur, you haven’t touched your meal!”

“I neither eat meat nor drink alcohol.”

Reinecke’s mouth twitches, but von Thadden looks stricken. “Like our Führer! Of course! How could I have forgotten? Shall I have the chef prepare something else for you?”

“I didn’t come here to eat, Gruppenführer. I came to discuss a coordinated campaign against terrorists and their supporters. When Italian deserters bring guns home and use them to assassinate German officials, they’ve made their homes subject to attack. When an old man gives vegetables to partisans, he and his garden become military targets. The rosy-cheeked woman who sews dresses for her daughters and mends clothing for bandits puts her own children at risk.”

“Certainly, Herr Huppenkothen,” Reinecke agrees, “but the Führer also instructs us to make our rule more tolerable by dulling the senses of the local population. They must fear us, but they must also believe that they will not be harmed so long as they do as they’re told. One can make use of Alakhine’s defense as well as Steinetz’s offense.”

“The lure, not the cudgel,” von Thadden explains. “Do you play chess, Artur?”

“Games are for children.”

“Chess teaches strategy and tactics for any conflict.” Von Thadden turns his benign gaze on Reinecke. “So: Alakhine’s defense, Helmut… What do you propose?”

“Put German construction crews to work rebuilding damaged churches, sir, as von Treschow did in the Soviet Union. He encouraged Russian Christians to come out of hiding and worship in public again. This tactic gained such goodwill among the clergy that many priests joined anti-Communist fighting units. They make excellent spies—”

“And excellent collaborators!” Artur points out. “They’re conspiring to hide Jews all over this country.”

“Then we must open their eyes,” Reinecke insists. “Jews put their parishioners at risk. Jews are bandits and thieves. Jews are to blame when reprisals fall on Italian Aryans.”

“Italian Aryans.” Artur snorts. “Have you ever looked at Italy’s coastline? These people have been seafarers for millennia. What do you think sailors do when they get into port?”

“Good point, Artur,” von Thadden concedes. “The appeal to race rarely stirs Italians, Helmut. They define blood by direct kinship only.”

“Then remind them that their own gallant sons died fighting Jewish Bolshevism in the Soviet Union. Remind them that if the Communists take over here, they will seize private property, just as they did in Russia.”

“While promising the peasants that we’ll break up large holdings and redistribute the land after the Bolsheviks are defeated,” von Thadden says comfortably. “The Italian is not logical. He won’t even notice the contradiction!”

The room is decorated with exquisite frescoes, beautiful furniture, heavy silver serving pieces. Everything surrounding von Thadden speaks of loot and unearned status. Artur rises to inspect a chess set on a side table. “Sixteenth century,” von Thadden tells him. “Rose quartz, onyx, and white marble. The pieces are sterling, of course. I have a board in every room. I like to keep games going with various opponents.”

Artur’s hand hovers over the board, as though he is considering a move. Putting a finger under one corner, he tips it over, sending stone and silver crashing to the floor. Reinecke is on his feet, but von Thadden raises his hand and shakes his head.

“You, sir, are a venal, self-satisfied thief,” Artur Huppenkothen says with quiet conviction. “You are unworthy of the Reich, and unworthy of our Führer. I will do whatever is necessary to restore order in this city, with or without your cooperation, Gruppenführer.”

The bedroom door is open. Martina von Thadden turns from her dressing table, all pearl-colored satin and pale pink skin. “A new negligee!” Erhardt notes on his way in.

“Do you like it?” she asks, twirling. “It was very expensive, but Ugo told the shop owner, ‘This lady is the Gruppenführer’s wife, you fool!’ You should have seen that man’s face, Lieber. He said he’d send it right over as his gift to the Gruppenführer’s lovely lady. And look at these shoes, and this handbag! Have you ever seen such fine leather?”

Erhardt pretends to admire the latest acquisitions, letting her happy musical voice bubble around him while he undresses. Childless, surrounded by servants, Martina has nothing to do but shop for clothes and prepare for the moment when her man returns.

He holds out his arms. “Come to me, little chatterbox,” he says, and she does, giggling like a girl. His hands float down a satin river, then grip the heavy hips. Martina has put on weight since coming to Italy, and Erhardt is glad of it. He likes the heft of her, the depth of the shapes, the luxurious distance of bone from his touch. She seemed made for babies when they married, but their first died shortly after birth, and she has miscarried ever since. A blood incompatibility the doctors said.

She breaks away and moves backward, pulling him by the hand toward their bed. “You’ll never guess who I saw today!” she says the moment he’s through.

He tries not to sigh. This is her only flaw. She likes to talk, after. “Who?” he asks, eyes closed.

“Erna Huppenkothen! She’s still not married. With a name like that, I’d have run off with the first man named Müller I could find. She told me she has a gentleman friend— guess who!”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Ugo Messner! She says he’s ever so nice to her. She made sure I knew that he’s never touched her even once, except to kiss her hand. She thinks that means he’s respectful, not repulsed. Dry and skinny as a stick, Erna is.”

“Messner’s just polite because of her brother. The rest is her imagination.”

Martina goes still. “Lieber, you don’t think Ugo is…?”

“Paragraph 175?” Erhardt says, using the customary legalism. “No, my sweet, but have you noticed that his gait is somewhat impaired? There’s a rumor of a terrible war wound.” He clears his throat, and adds, “Not unlike Göring’s.”

Her lips form an astonished O. “How awful!” she cries. “I knew there was something about him. I feel so safe with him.”

Erhardt knows what she means. There is something about Messner: a sort of brave melancholy that makes his attention to bored and lonely women seem more a service to their men than a reason for jealousy. “I suppose it’s possible he really is courting her. Of course, Gestapo connections never hurt.”

“Erna told me that she embroiders AH on all of Artur’s personal linen. Poor little man! He tries so hard to be like the Führer—and he fails so gloriously!”

When her husband chuckles, Martina rises on an elbow to kiss him, and makes her eyes warm as she straddles him. “I love to make you laugh,” she murmurs. She leans over, letting her heavy breasts brush the hair of his chest and belly lightly, lightly. He stretches like a cat, almost purring as her lips go to work.

For the good of the race, the doctors told the couple, the Gruppenführer should take another woman, but Martina is damned if she’ll give all this up to some cow who’ll drop one calf a year.

Morale is on the rise, she thinks when he finally stiffens, and hides her relief in renewed determination while his eyes wander the ceiling. There, painted satyrs chase nymphs, who smile over milky shoulders. Diaphanous scarves fall gracefully from legs parted half in flight, half in invitation. Arbors encircle a garden full of pink roses, and plump grapes hang from twisted vines. Foliage does not quite conceal a variety of couplings. Standing, bending, above, behind…

Erhardt raises a languid hand and points. “Let’s do that one now.”

Like many maritime estates, the Palazzo Usodimare is absurdly large. Four great wings surround a central piazza larger than San Giobatta’s. There are stables, storerooms, kitchens, baths, residential quarters, two ballrooms, a dining room for fifty guests, and a seaward gallery of offices, where the prince’s staff once scanned the harbor for incoming ships. The whole is ringed by massive stonework. Four hundred years on, and the Usodimare family is nearly extinct, their palace appropriated by the latest of Italy’s invaders, but the purpose of the palace walls hasn’t changed: to demonstrate raw power while shielding the splendors within from the eyes of the vulgar.

Dry-mouthed, Osvaldo Tomitz hands his papers to a sentry. “I have an appointment with the Gruppenführer.”

The guard studies the priest’s photo minutely and logs a notation while a second sentry frisks him, grinning when he gets to Osvaldo’s crotch.

“You’re expected,” the first man says, handing the identity papers back. “Follow that walkway.”

The garden behind the wall is stunning in its prewar beauty. Almond and lemon trees in enormous terra-cotta pots line paths perfumed by roses and mimosa, clematis and jasmine. Roman and Egyptian statues preside over a view of the water far below, softened by a living frame of cypresses, holm oaks, umbrella pines and palms. Luxuriant foliage breaks the noise of the city into small, distant fragments. All other sound is quiet and close. The rasp of brooms grooming paths. The scraping of rakes. The clank of a wrench as a plumber works on the dry fountain’s pump. The casual chat of SS troopers with submachine guns, overseeing the work.

In a far corner of the garden, filthy and tattered, Iacopo Soncini stacks half-burnt scrap wood and bits of broken furniture around a pile of uprooted plants. Appalled, Osvaldo stops abruptly.

“Wunderbar, ja?” a cultured voice behind him remarks. “In such a garden, one may forget the ugliness of war.”

Osvaldo turns. An officer smiles in greeting, fair skin crinkling around clear blue eyes. “Erhardt von Thadden, at your service,” he says. “Thank you so much for coming! I appreciate your making time for me, Hochwürden.” The traditional form of address for a German priest is “Highly Honored,” but in von Thadden’s mouth the title is mockery, and his smile broadens when Tomitz bristles. “My apologies. I was merely extending a courtesy,” he says smoothly. “What does it say in the Gospels? ‘Call no man Father.’ Sant’Andrea is most assuredly not Rome, but I shall do as the Romans do, if you prefer, Padre.”

“Tomitz will do.”

“Excellent! And you may call me von Thadden, of course. My office is in this wing,” he says, leading the way. “I ordinarily prefer to meet with people in their native habitat, so to speak, but lately it has seemed the better part of valor to invite visitors here. I don’t mind dying for the Vaterland, but there’s no glory in being assassinated by a bandit on a bicycle.”

Von Thadden leads the way past glass cases displaying detailed models of ships, vellum charts of the Mediterranean, brass navigational equipment. Somewhere, typewriters clatter like small-arms fire. Von Thadden stands aside, allowing Osvaldo to precede him into the office. Its walls are dominated by frescoes immortalizing the naval battle of Lepanto, and by a map of the Gruppenführer’s fiefdom.

Von Thadden invites Osvaldo to sit in a chair upholstered in coral damask, but he himself lingers by a small gilt table that supports a simple wooden chess set. “My grandfather carved the pieces,” he says. “He taught me to play when I was eight— Ah! There’s a mate in two.” Chuckling with satisfaction, von Thadden plays the white rook from C1 to C8. “Leisure is so important. You leave the game, and come back to it refreshed. May I offer you something to drink? Coffee perhaps? Tea? It’s a bit early, but I do have some very good French Cognac.”

Osvaldo remains standing. “Nothing, thank you, Gruppenführer.”

“Are you sure?” Von Thadden takes a seat behind a neoclassical table. “Please, Tomitz! Relax!” he urges pleasantly, and waits until Osvaldo perches on a chair. Well-tended hands come to rest upon a thick, unopened file. In red letters, the word Geheim is stamped: Secret. “This isn’t an interrogation,” von Thadden assures him. “I simply like to get to know important people in my district.”

“Then you should make an appointment to visit the archbishop, Gruppenführer. I am merely his secretary.”

Von Thadden chuckles. “Admirable modesty, Tomitz, but I am an academic by training, and any professor will admit that his office and all his affairs are run by his secretary!” Von Thadden opens the file, lifts the top sheet, scans it briefly. The blue eyes rise, and von Thadden smiles happily. “You see? I am correct! His Excellency does indeed speak very highly of you.” He sets the précis of that interview aside, then picks up another report, and another. And another. “Tell me about yourself, Tomitz. Where did you grow up?”

“Trieste.”

“Yes, of course! When it was still part of the Habsburg empire, explaining your flawless German!” von Thadden says brightly. “Interesting city, Trieste. Mittel-europa at its mongrel worst! Austrians, Italians, Slovenes, Greeks! And Jews, of course,” von Thadden says genially. “Your parents were…?”

“My father was in shipping. My mother is a widow.”

“I meant, what is your parents’ race?”

“Italian.”

The expectant smile fades. “Father of Austrian ancestry. Mother, Venetian. A German head, an Italian heart, ja? Mann’s Tonio Kröger, come to life.” Von Thadden smiles encouragingly this time. “Brothers? Sisters?”

“Two of each.”

“My family was the same. Three boys, two girls.” Von Thadden consults the file. “I am the fourth of five, but you were the middle child, I see. Sisters older, brothers younger. One in the army. Karl?”

“Carlino. Yes.”

“Ach! It says here that Karl has been missing for some time. How terrible for your poor mother!” Von Thadden looks up, eyes rich with sympathy. “Would you like me to see if I can ascertain his whereabouts?”

Osvaldo hesitates. “I’m sure my mother would appreciate that.”

“Naturally! She worries about her Karl! It would be my privilege to alleviate such suffering. Unfortunately, my wife and I have no children, but my Martina would be frantic in your mother’s place. Karl’s unit was…?”

“Ninth Army, Third Corps, Venezia Division. He was stationed in Greece.” Osvaldo glances at the file. “Surely you know that already.”

Von Thadden looks hurt. “Your dear mother’s anxiety would only be prolonged were I to waste time making inquiries on the wrong front.” He returns to the file. “You went to the Tortona seminary.”

“Yes.”

“And taught there later… Tell me about your education. I’m not a Catholic. I’ve always been curious about the training of priests.”

“Latin liturgy, theology, philosophy. Are you a Lutheran, Gruppenführer?”

“I’m afraid I am a bit too knowledgable to cling to my natal religion, Hochwürden. My academic field was Near Eastern philology. I know a creation myth when I hear one, even if it’s the myth I grew up with. What do you think of Genesis?” von Thadden asks curiously. “Do you honestly believe your god made mud-pie people, and then became so angry with them for eating a piece of fruit—”

Osvaldo rises. “If you’d like to discuss the Church’s position on natural selection, there’s a Jesuit at the Gregorian who—”

“Sit down.”

Slowly Osvaldo drops back onto the chair.

“Genesis is merely a Jew variation on the Babylonian creation story Enuma elish,” Von Thadden says, scholarly once more. “ ‘Blood I will mass, and cause bones to be! I will establish a savage: man shall be his name.’ Thus spoke Marduk— the first divine sculptor of people. Flood stories were commonplace in Babylon, Sumeria, the Hittite kingdoms. Genesis is simply a degenerate version of earlier myths.” Utterly at ease, he leans back in his chair, crossing one knee over the other. “Christianity, of course, has no validity at all severed from its Jew roots— a persistent logical problem. Having declared Jesus divine, you must mistranslate and misrepresent Hebrew prophecy. The Jew messiah is to be an earthly leader who’ll bring political peace to Jerusalem and, by extension, to the world. The past nineteen hundred years have been very bloody.” Von Thadden smiles cheerfully. “No peace, no messiah.”

“Jesus will come again—”

“Ah, but as a Jew peddler might say: Cash, not credit, mein Herr! Jesus had his chance.” Von Thadden rises to pour coffee from a silver service on a side table. Adding a generous measure of sugar, he stirs thoughtfully with a sterling spoon. “Christians backed the wrong horse, messianically speaking. So you changed the rules to make Jesus the winner of the race. And if a Jew messiah ever does materialize, you’ve taken the precaution of declaring him the Antichrist, and enemy of Christendom! Goebbels could hardly have done better!” He lifts the exquisite porcelain cup toward his nose, breathing in with evident pleasure. “You’re sure you wouldn’t like a coffee?”

The aroma is intoxicating. “No,” Osvaldo says. “Thank you.”

“Let me guess! You’ve given it up for Lent?” Insouciant on damask, von Thadden lets his gaze travel around the office. “Christian mythology, I’m afraid, is also lacking in originality. Zeus visits virgins who give birth to demigods. Mithras was born of a virgin— on December 25, no less! His cult had a communal meal and prayer that went, ‘He who shall not eat of my body and drink of my blood shall not be saved.’ Let me see… A kingdom to come? Zoroaster. Blood sacrifice followed three days later by a resurrection? Attis, who returned from the dead on the spring equinox.”

Osvaldo checks his watch. “I do have other obligations this morning, Gruppenführer.”

“Of course! You are a very busy man.” It seems, almost, a compliment. “My men call me the Schoolmaster— I do tend to fall into old habits! One last thing, with your indulgence.” Von Thadden unfolds a small strip of paper and reads six words. “ ‘The convent is short on charcoal.’ ” He doesn’t bother mentioning where the note was found, or how he knows Osvaldo is connected to it. “You’re certain you wouldn’t like a brandy?” he asks.

Mouth cottony, Osvaldo says, “No. Thank you.”

“Is it normal practice,” von Thadden asks with catlike curiosity, “for an archbishop’s secretary to be concerned with a convent’s charcoal supply?”

“These are not normal times, Gruppenführer. Italy has no coal. German authorities prevent us from importing fuel. So we use charcoal. Church institutions work together on such matters as heating and provisioning.”

“Well, heating shouldn’t be a problem anymore. Lovely weather!”

“Charcoal is also needed for cooking and washing, Gruppenführer.”

“Obviously! Why didn’t I think of that?” Von Thadden all but smacks himself in the forehead. “Charcoal makers figure prominently in Italian history, I understand. The Carbonari of 1849 were rebels who gathered in forests pretending to be charcoal makers while planning attacks on foreign rulers. Karl Marx admired them. He believed guerrilla warfare was the best way for a weak force to confront a stronger and better-organized army.” Seraphic eyes glowing, von Thadden inquires, “Do you admire the Carbonari, Tomitz?”

“I am notoriously obtuse about politics, Gruppenführer.”

“A humble servant of the Prince of Peace!” He taps Osvaldo’s folder with a blunt finger. “And a very… busy… man.”

Von Thadden stands, stepping out onto the small balcony overlooking the garden. “I’m told the botanical collection had five thousand exotic species,” von Thadden says, his voice raised for Tomitz’s benefit. “Plants from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They have no place in Europe. Rip them out, and burn them! That was my order.” He faces Osvaldo. “The laborers are conscripts living in a guarded barracks. I’m inclined to let them go when the work is complete, but if something unfortunate were to happen? I’m afraid I’d have to wash my hands of them.”

Dropping all pretenses, he returns to his desk. “Communist criminals have had their way in Rome, Milan, Turin, Genoa. Not here. Tell your Bolshevik friends, Tomitz: if Germans in this district are harmed, reprisals will be set at twenty to one.”

“Tell Renzo: explain to Angelo,” the rabbi whispers urgently as the priest passes.

Giving no outward sign that he has heard, Osvaldo strides away from the Palazzo Usodimare. Bogus mythology, he thinks, nauseated by anger. What about those magical Nordic runes on his collar? Nazi hymns to Wotan? Numerology, telepathy. Divining rods, phrenology, magnetic cures. Neo-pagan looniness, all of it! The German people have forsaken Jesus for a maniac who believes in cosmic ice and Atlantis, and a Grail filled with Aryan blood.

Arrest is inevitable. Osvaldo knows that now. He feels momentarily safer merging into a market crowd on his way back to San Giobatta, but a broken-nosed stranger falls into step with him. When his arm is seized, Osvaldo is surprised only by how soon his time has come. He opens his mouth to shout.

“I won’t hurt you, Padre,” the thug whispers, “but you have to come with me.”

Oblivious pedestrians stream past, like water around a rock. Everyone has a great deal to do, very little to do it with, and always: the checkpoints, the document inspections, the petty tyrannies to circumvent.

Warily Osvaldo follows the man through unfamiliar alleys. At the entry to a small, ruined apartment building, the thug whistles a few notes of Puccini and is answered by a bit of Donizetti. Stepping over wreckage, he leads Osvaldo to the remains of a corner flat that still has most of its walls and some of its ceiling.

On a smoke-damaged easy chair, an elephantine figure rubs the inside of a fleshy thigh where a shrapnel wound has ached for a quarter of a century. “Signor Brizzolari!” Osvaldo cries, “Grazie a Dio! I should have come directly to you—”

Serafino Brizzolari holds up a clean pink hand in warning. From the inside pocket of his tentlike suit he withdraws a small medicine bottle. “This should help your sister’s little boy, Beppino. Give her my best wishes.”

The thug slips the bottle into a pocket. “Grazie, signore. Padre, I’m sorry I scared you. A blessing, please?”

“Go in peace, figlio mio.” Osvaldo waits until he is alone with the fat man. “Signor Brizzolari, von Thadden has—”

“That’s why you’re here. And no— never come directly to me about anything.” Brizzolari lifts a manicured finger to indicate a pile of not very clean clothing. “Put those on.”

“But why?”

“Huppenkothen has an arrest warrant out for you. The Gestapo knows you and Suora Marta are doing something suspicious, and that others are involved.”

Osvaldo curls his lip at a pair of filthy trousers. “Then why didn’t von Thadden—?” He freezes, one foot in the air. “He told me to warn the partisans that he’d kill his hostages if they took any action in Sant’Andrea.”

“He also had you followed out of the palazzo.” Brizzolari shifts his bulk in the chair. “Beppo’s brother-in-law will have taken care of your tail. And von Thadden won’t move against the partisans yet.”

Osvaldo pulls on a patched shirt that stinks of another man’s sweat. “How can you possibly know that?”

“Renzo Leoni’s made friends with von Thadden’s wife and Huppenkothen’s sister. Lonely women talk.” Brizzolari glares over his belly at a massive gold pocket watch. “Damn the man! He was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. His drinking is—”

“The principal arrow in my quiver!” Renzo stumbles through a gaping hole in the apartment wall and looks back at the rubble behind him, to see what he tripped over. After a puzzled shrug, he makes a sweeping bow. “A man among men,” he declares himself, “and graceful as well!”

“Is this the end of a long night,” Osvaldo asks, “or the beginning of a bad day?”

“Does it matter?” Renzo collapses onto a broken-backed sofa and scrubs at his face. “My apologies, gentlemen. Something came up last night, or this morning… or whenever it was.” The trembling hands fall into his lap. “Don Serafino, what would you take in trade for a cigarette? Would my firstborn son do, or will I have to promise you a daughter?”

Brizzolari growls but tosses him a pack of Macedonias. “You are out of control.”

“Those who are without sin are also without information. I’ve endured an unimaginably tedious evening with Erna Huppenkothen, and God knows, that required a great deal of drinking.”

Aghast, Osvaldo sits on a wobbly, water-stained chair, a dirty sock in one hand. “You didn’t—”

“O Dio! If you could see your face!” Renzo laughs loosely. “No, fornicating for Italy exceeds my patriotic limit, Padre. Even the perpetually virginal Erna might recognize a clipped dick if she saw one. Nevertheless! At the cost of hours of excruciating boredom, I have learned that her brother, Artur, is frustrated as hell. Italian Jews have Catholic friends, Catholic in-laws, Catholic business partners. Nobody’s ratting them out. Local police are tipping neighbors off before every sweep. So poor, dear Artur has decided to concentrate on foreign Jews. There will be a Gestapo raid on Immacolata after midnight tonight.”

“The convent!” Osvaldo says. “But the Concordat! They wouldn’t dare—”

“International borders didn’t stop them,” Brizzolari rumbles. “Did you think a cloister would?”

Shoving his feet into battered work boots, Osvaldo stands. “I should warn the sisters.”

Renzo says, “It’s been taken care of. When Huppenkothen shows up, Immacolata will appear judenfrei, but the convent will be watched from now on.” He shakes a cigarette from the pack and offers it to the priest. “You’re compromised as well, Padre.”

Osvaldo nods, accepting the cigarette as well as the logic. “With me out of the network and the rabbi in custody, who’ll take care of the refugees?”

Renzo’s bloodshot eyes focus sharply. “Wait— Iacopo?”

Brizzolari sighs. “I knew there was a warrant out for him, but I didn’t—”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you!” Osvaldo says. “Von Thadden has him pulling weeds in the garden at Palazzo Usodimare. I don’t think they know who he is. He got raked up for a labor gang, but von Thadden threatened to kill the entire group if the partisans make trouble.”

Swearing steadily, Renzo walks in tight circles. Slows, then stops and looks up. “Don Serafino, can you get custody of von Thadden’s hostages?”

“It depends,” Brizzolari says cautiously.

“Doctors are still allowed to go from house to house, right? Anytime, day or night— same as priests?”

“Priests, midwives, and doctors, yes. Curfews don’t apply.”

“With a doctor’s bag and the right papers… What do you think, Tomitz? We could cut your hair differently, get you some glasses perhaps. You could wear my suit—”

“And pick up Iacopo’s rounds… Yes! Nobody ever remembers me anyway.”

Brizzolari considers Osvaldo’s forgettable face above the ordinary clothing. “It could work, assuming you don’t have to set any bones. You could keep the refugees’ money in a false bottom. Roll bills up and put them into medicine bottles.”

Squinting through smoke, Renzo holds the discarded cassock up to his shoulders. “A little tight across the chest… How does this work? Do you wear it like a dress?”

“It goes over a shirt and trousers. You can use mine.”

“Don Osvaldo, if he’s caught wearing that, every priest in Italy will be suspect!” Brizzolari looks from one man to the other. “Leoni, you can’t be serious!”

“Not often,” Renzo admits, “but I’m sobering up, and the idea still makes sense to me. Don Serafino, if you get the hostages transferred into the municipal jail, I think I can solve a number of problems simultaneously.” He tosses the cassock onto the sofa and slumps beside it. “It’s up to you, Tomitz, but there are places I can’t go as Ugo Messner.”

Osvaldo shrugs assent. “Giacomo Tura can alter my papers for you.”

Brizzolari wipes his sweating crown with a pristine handkerchief. “Tura takes too long. There’s a man in my office who can be trusted.” He motions irritably for his briefcase. “Who’ll take care of these while you two play dress-up?” Opening the case to reveal hundreds of ration cards, Brizzolari recites, “Bless me, Fathers, for I have sinned: I have lied and I have stolen.”

“I was selling them to raise cash for Iacopo to distribute,” Renzo explains.

“I can fence them,” Osvaldo says. Renzo and Brizzolari stare. “Priests, and doctors,” he informs them delicately, “are acquainted with all manner of persons.”

Squaring a straw Borsalino on his large, round head, Brizzolari heaves himself onto his surprisingly dainty feet. “I’ll send Beppino back with the paperwork in a few hours. And I’ll do what I can for Rabbino Soncini and the others. Padre, Dottore,” he says, tipping his hat. “Good day to you both. And God save Italy, if He can.”

Side by side, the younger men watch him pick his way through the wreckage. Slumping onto the sofa again, Renzo says, “When this is over, remember what that fat Fascist bastard has done. He’ll need you to vouch for him, Padre. We’re in for a civil war, the moment the Germans leave.”

“And if the Germans don’t leave?” Osvaldo asks. “Kesselring’s making the Allies look like fools!”

“He’s as good a tactician as Germany’s got,” Renzo agrees. “And the military record of the Allies in Italy remains unsullied by a single well-run battle, but they’ve got time and brute force on their side. Germany’s running out of both.” He levers onto his shoulders and heels to pull a hip flask out of his back pocket. Osvaldo’s eyes narrow. Renzo rolls his. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a drunken priest.”

Osvaldo snatches the flask away and pours its contents onto a waterlogged Turkish carpet that was once some housewife’s pride. “I’ve seen you,” he says. “In the streets. During air raids.” Standing in the darkness. Waiting for a bomb with open arms, a bottle in his hand. Osvaldo waits until Renzo’s eyes shift to change the subject. “There’s a rumor that the Allies are withdrawing troops from Italy.”

Renzo flicks ash off his cigarette. “They’re being redeployed. The Germans’re expecting an attack on Calais. Von Thadden thinks the Allies’ll settle for holding southern Italy, because of the airfields and ports. The rest of the peninsula’s of no strategic value to them.”

“And what will become of us, here, in the north?”

Hands dangling between his knees, Renzo stares at an upstairs toilet leaning crazily on a pile of rubble. Laths and broken joists stick out of its bowl, like dead flowers in a cracked vase. Gathering himself for one last bout of coherent thought, he takes a long drag, and flicks the butt away. “The Reds will hold eastern Europe. The Americans and British could take the west. The Wehrmacht’s best bet is to shoot Hitler and negotiate terms: Germany keeps Mittel-europa from the Baltic to the Arno. The war’s over. Everybody celebrates, and I’ll get hanged instead of Brizzolari. Although, with my luck,” Renzo mutters, stretching out on the sofa, “the damned rope will break.”

The sun has found the gaping hole in the roof. Renzo throws an arm over his eyes. Within moments, he’s asleep, and Osvaldo sits quietly, studying the man. Raids, fires, smoke: the air is often sickly yellow, but it’s not just sour light discoloring Renzo’s skin. Suicidal bravery, or cirrhosis of the liver— he’s killing himself. And he knows it. Osvaldo has been tempted to ask about Renzo’s past, but what might seem normal curiosity in other times could raise suspicion now. His only real clue lies in what Renzo himself said of Schramm, the day they met in San Giobatta. “I’m inclined to respect a soldier who has to get that drunk before confession. He must have an admirable conscience to be so ashamed.”

Twice, Osvaldo has tried to speak to Renzo of the prodigal son, of God’s loving welcome for the penitent. Both times, the words stuck in his throat. Hypocrite, he snarled at himself. Offering absolution to one sinner but not the other. You want to pick and choose who is worthy. And yet— Nothing Renzo did in Abyssinia could possibly rival Werner Schramm’s tally. Not a tenth of 91,867 were killed in the whole of the Abyssinian war!

Lord, how often shall my brother sin, and I forgive him? And Jesus said, I do not say to thee seven times, but seventy times seven… That’s 490, Osvaldo thinks. Is it a matter of scale, then? Is the murder of one human being less heinous than the murder of 91,867?

Yes, he thinks stubbornly. Yes! It is 91,866 times less heinous!

Osvaldo Tomitz has tried and tried, but he cannot make words like guilt and forgiveness, atonement and absolution fit around what Schramm confessed, or around what others like him are doing today, at this very instant. Yes, of course! Forgive as you are forgiven! But Jesus spoke directly: forgive those who sin against you yourself. Surely that can’t mean forgive those who murder by the trainload. Forgive those who willfully commit atrocities. Forgive everything, anything!

Osvaldo knows himself quick to anger. Outrage comes over him like an eagle sinking talons into his chest, tearing at his heart. Is it satanic pride, tempting him to believe that God feels that same outrage? To believe that some sins are so vast, not even Jesus could be willing to forgive them?

Nearby, shockingly loud, the air-raid sirens begin to howl. Osvaldo jumps to his feet. Renzo groans and rolls onto his side, his back to the priest. “Sit down, Tomitz,” he mumbles. “Nothing we can do yet.”

Except pray, Osvaldo thinks.

But pray for what? He used to pray that Sant’Andrea be spared a raid. That seems tantamount now to wishing death on other cities. For survival? Of whom? Who dies, and when and how, is long divorced from any moral dimension Osvaldo can detect. Even so, he prays: for the souls of those who’ll be vaporized by the blast of a direct hit; for those whose bodies will be crushed by falling masonry; for those who’ll suffer; for those who’ll grieve.

Squadrons release their whistling cargo. Each bomb has a task. Two-kilo incendiaries ignite rooftop fires. Fifteen-kilo bombs penetrate deep into structures, setting them ablaze from the inside out. Blockbusters— as massive as small trucks— destroy entire buildings, cratering streets, filling them with rubble to hinder firefighting equipment.

The detonations come closer. Osvaldo begins to wish he hadn’t dumped Renzo’s liquor on the floor. He wonders if it is easy to push a button or pull a lever and cause a hundred deaths you do not see. He asks himself if he could do it.

When he gets his answer, he prays for the pilots and their navigators, for the gunners and the bombardiers. Forgive them, Father, for they cannot see the burns, the crushed heads, the splintered limbs, the shattered lives. And bless them, for they are fighting those who’ve made a charnel house of Europe.

When at last the all clear sounds, Renzo sits up and scrubs at his hangdog face. “On your feet, Padre,” he calls, trudging toward the street. “Work to do.”

Osvaldo hesitates only long enough to pull his rosary from his pocket, to look at the crucifix and bring it to his lips. “The sick require a physician’s help, not the healthy”— that’s what Jesus taught. But gazing at the emaciated figure on the cross, what Osvaldo sees are the cool, clean hands of a doctor touching the warm flesh of a starving Jew. The hands of a physician who touches not to heal or comfort but to push a syringe full of poison into his 91,867th victim’s heart.

If that can be forgiven, Osvaldo thinks, hell is empty.