CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWELVE

Marco

16 October 1943

Marco ran up the Lungotevere Sanzio with his father, having left Gemma at the house with his mother. Covered trucks were driving away from the Ghetto, heading up the Lungotevere de’ Cenci and turning left on the Ponte Mazzini.

Marco and his father caught sight of the Collegio Militare, a massive rectangular edifice with a gray stone façade at its entrance and lower floors, changing to lighter stucco at its second-floor balcony and upper floors. Criss-crossed bars covered its oblong windows, making a grim presence on Piazza della Rovere, only a kilometer away from Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

Marco wondered what was going on behind the Vatican walls. He hoped Emedio and others were trying to help. He prayed the Pope would intervene on behalf of the Jews. Nobody had before, even after the Race Laws. The Jews were forever on their own.

Marco kept running, fighting a sense of dread.