by Herman Wouk
“Well, well. The Italian edition, Il Gesù dun Ebreo,” Jastrow said, as the old man handed him a plain blue-bound volume, one of two he carried. Donning glasses, Jastrow turned the pages of cheap coarse paper. “I no longer have a copy myself. Isn’t this rather a collector’s item? The printing was only a thousand or so, back in 1934.”
“Oh, yes. Very scarce. Very precious. — Ah, thank you, no milk and no sugar.” Natalie was pouring tea at a small portable table. Sacerdote spoke Italian with a pure Tuscan accent, mellifluous and clear. “A prize possession, Dr. Jastrow. A fine book. Your discussion of the Last Supper, for instance, carries such impact for our young people! They see Last Suppers on church walls, and they attend Passover seders — not always willingly — but they don’t connect the two until you do it for them. Your proof that the Romans executed Jesus as a political radical, and that the Jewish common people really loved him, is most important. If only that were better understood! Our mutual friend the archbishop once mentioned that very passage to me.”
Jastrow inclined his head, smiling. He loved praise, however trivial, and these days got little of it. “And the other book?”
Sacerdote extended to Jastrow a scuffed little volume. “Another scarce item. I have been spending much time on it lately.”
“Why, I didn’t know anything like this existed.” He held it out for Natalie to see. “La Lingua Ebraica Contemporanea. Imagine!”
“The Zionist organization in Milan brought it out long ago. A small group, but well funded.” Sacerdote dropped his voice. “Our family may go to Palestine.”
Natalie stopped slicing cake and cleared her throat. “How on earth will you get there?”
“My son-in-law is arranging that. I believe you know him. Doctor Bernardo Castelnuovo, he treats your baby.”
“Of course. He’s your son-in-law?”
With a weary gold-toothed smile at the surprised note, Sacerdote nodded.
“He’s Jewish, then?”
“Nowadays one doesn’t flaunt it, Mrs. Henry.”
“Well, I’m amazed. I had no idea.”
Jastrow handed back the primer, unscrewed the cap of his pen, and started to write on the flyleaf of Il Gesù dun Ebreo.“Don’t you feel secure here? You’re contemplating a very risky journey. We know that from experience.”
“You refer to your time aboard the boat Izmir? My son-in-law and I partly financed the sailing of the Izmir.“ Natalie and Jastrow exchanged astonished glances. “This evening is the Sabbath, Dr. Jastrow. Won’t you and your niece come and dine with us? Bernardo will be there. How long since you’ve had a real Sabbath meal?”
“About forty years. You’re very kind, but I imagine our cook has already started dinner, so —”
Natalie spoke up curtly. “I’d like to go.”
Aaron said, “And Louis?”
“Oh, you must bring the infant!” Sacerdote said. “My granddaughter Miriam will adore him.”
Jastrow completed his scrawl on the flyleaf. “Well, then, we will come. Thank you.”
Sacerdote clasped the book. “Now we have a family treasure.”
Natalie ran a hand over her hair, pulled straight back in a bun. “What happened to the Izmir? What happened to Avram Rabinovitz, do you know? Is he alive?”
“Bernardo will tell you everything.”
The Sacerdotes and the Castelnuovos lived in the modern part of Siena outside the ancient walls, atop an ugly stucco apartment house which Mosé Sacerdote owned, and which he called a “palazzo.” The lift was not working, and they had to climb five flights of musty stairs. Manipulating several keys and locks, he let them into a roomy apartment, full of appetizing dinner fragrances, highly polished heavy furniture, whole walls of books, and elegant silver and china in massive breakfronts.
Dr. Castelnuovo met them in a hallway. Natalie had never thought much of him; a small-town doctor, but the best Siena could offer, and his gallant office manners had rather charmed her. His heavy black hair, liquid brown eyes, and dark long face gave him the wholly Tuscan look one saw in old Siena paintings. It had never crossed Natalie’s mind that this man might be a Jew.
In the dining room the doctor presented them to his wife and mother-in-law, who also looked quite Italian: both stout, both dressed in black silk, with heavy-lidded eyes, large chins, and similar sweet unworldly smiles. The mother was gray and unpainted; the daughter had brown hair and wore a touch of lipstick. In sunset light that reddened the tall windows, they were preparing to light Sabbath candles on a lavishly set table. As they donned black lace caps, a sallow little girl in brown velvet ran lightly into the room. Halting by her mother’s skirt, she smiled at the baby on Natalie’s arm. The candles flared up in four ornate silver candlesticks. The two women covered their eyes and murmured blessings. The girl dropped in a chair, holding out her arms and piping in lucid Italian, “I love him. Let me have him.”
Natalie put the infant in Miriam’s lap. The thin pale arms closed around the baby in a comically competent way. Louis looked her over and nestled against her, hanging on her neck.
Sacerdote spoke hesitantly. “Would you be interested, Dr. Jastrow, to come to the synagogue with us?”
“Ah, yes. The archbishop did tell me, years ago, that a synagogue did exist, somewhere down near the Piazza del Campo.” Jastrow sounded surprised and amused. “Is it architecturally interesting?”
“It’s just an old synagogue,” Castelnuovo said irritably. “We’re not very religious. Father is the president. It’s never easy to assemble ten men, so I go. One sometimes hears news there.”
“Will you forgive me if I don’t go?” Jastrow said, smiling. “It would so startle the Almighty, it might ruin His Sabbath. I shall enjoy looking at your library instead.”
While Natalie and the doctor’s wife fed the children in the kitchen, Anna Castelnuovo chattered away woman-to-woman. She wasn’t a believer at all, she cheerily confessed, but kept up the rituals to please her parents. Her husband’s Zionism left her just as cold. Her passion was reading novels, especially by Americans. Having an American author in the house, even though he wasn’t a novelist, greatly thrilled her. At Natalie’s tale of her marriage to a submarine officer, the doctor’s wife was enchanted. “Why, it’s like a novel,” she said. “A novel by Ernest Hemingway. Romantic.” They fell to laughing as Miriam took over the feeding of Louis, both children being ridiculously solemn about it. Then they put the girl and the baby in Miriam’s toy-crammed room. “She’ll take better care of him than any governess,” said Anna. “I hear Father and Bernardo. Come to dinner.”
Sacerdote and Dr. Castelnuovo looked gloomy on their return. The older man put on a worn white skullcap to make a blessing over wine, then removed it. Natalie gathered from murmurs among the family that somebody was late. “Well, we will eat,” Sacerdote said. “Let us sit down.” One place was vacant.
The food was neither Italian nor in the kosher style Natalie half-expected. There was a spicy fish dish, a fruit soup, a chicken dish, saffron-flavored rice, and eggplants cooked with meat. Conversation lagged. Halfway through the meal a son named Arnoldo came in; lean, short, twenty or so, his grimy sweater, long tousled hair, and open shirt in jarring contrast to the family’s formality. He ate silently and voraciously. Once he arrived the halting talk died. Sacerdote donned his skullcap to lead a little Hebrew song in which the others joined, but not Arnoldo.
Natalie began to regret that she had pushed Aaron to accept this dinner. He was getting through it by emptying his wineglass as fast as the doctor’s wife filled it. Uncomfortable looks kept passing among the family, and a vague dread seemed to compound the gloom. Natalie was dying to ask the doctor about Rabinovitz and the Izmir, but his face wore a forbidding aspect that stopped her.
Jewish ceremonies depressed Natalie anyway, and the Sabbath candles still burning on the table were a special sore point. Watching Miriam tonight, she had felt an old deep forgotten ache. Standing beside her mother in the same way twenty years ago, she ha
d asked why mama was lighting candles in the daytime. The reply, that making fire was forbidden after sunset on the Sabbath, had seemed perfectly reasonable, since life to a little girl was full of arbitrary prohibitions. But then after the heavy Friday night dinner, her father had struck a flaring wooden match to his long cigar. She had said in all innocence, “Papa, that’s not allowed after sunset.” A glance of embarrassment and amusement had passed between her parents. She did not remember what her father had replied as he went on smoking; but the glance she could never forget, for in an instant it had destroyed the Jewish religion for her. Her rowdiness at Sunday school had dated from that night, and soon, though her father was a temple officer, the parents had been unable to make her attend.
Straightening his stained sweater, Arnoldo got up while the others were still eating. In rapid Italian, with a winning white-toothed smile, he said to Jastrow, “Sorry I must leave. I read your book, sir. Quite a book.”
His mother said sadly, “On a Sabbath when we have visitors, Arnoldo, can’t you stay awhile?”
The smiling face turned sullen. A girl’s name whipped out of him in a hostile hiss, “Francesca is waiting for me. Ciao.”
He left behind a heavy silence. Dr. Castelnuovo broke it by turning to Jastrow and Natalie. “Well! Now I have a good report for you. The boat Izmir reached Palestine, and the British didn’t catch the passengers as they went ashore.”
“Ah, my God!” Natalie exclaimed, in a surge of glad relief. “You’re sure?”
“I’m in touch with Avram Rabinovitz. There were bad moments, but on the whole it was a success.”
Jastrow put a small damp hand on Natalie’s. “Great news!”
“That trip cost us a lot of money.” Sacerdote was beaming. “It’s satisfying when the results are good. That doesn’t always happen.”
Natalie said to the doctor, “But the papers and radio said the ship disappeared. I had nightmares that it was the Struma all over again.”
Castelnuovo bitterly grimaced. “Yes, you do hear about the disasters. The world press is not unsympathetic to Jews, once they’re destroyed. It’s best to keep the successes quiet.”
“And Rabinovitz? What about him?”
“He made his way back to Marseilles. That’s his base. He’s there now.”
“What’s your connection with him? May I know?”
Castelnuovo shrugged. “Why not? My father-in-law used to rent his films from that man Herbert Rose who went on the boat. When Rabinovitz ran short of money in Naples — what with delays, and repairs — Rose suggested that we might help him. Avram came up here by train. We gave him a lot of money.”
“But one must be careful about such things,” Sacerdote put in unhappily. “So incredibly careful! Our position here is delicate, very delicate.”
The doctor said, “Well, that’s it. Since then he and I have stayed in touch. He’s a good man to know.”
Castelnuovo talked of the growing danger to Italian Jews. Jews had no future anywhere in Europe, he said. He had decided that long ago, while going to medical school in Siena. That tough uphill fight had made him a Zionist. All of Europe was poisoned by nationalist hatred for the Jews; the Dreyfus case in ultraliberal France had been the warning sign, long ago. Under Mussolini’s anti-Semitic laws, he himself could practice medicine only because the Siena health authorities had declared him essential. His father-in-law was retaining control of his property through tenuous legal fictions, which put him at the mercy of Christian associates. That very evening in the synagogue they had heard that the Fascist regime was preparing concentration camps for Italian Jews, such as already existed for Jewish aliens. The roundup squads would strike on Yom Kippur, four months hence, when the Jews could be caught in their synagogues. Once collected, they would be handed over to the Germans for shipping eastward, where terrible massacres were taking place.
Sacerdote broke in to insist the report was panicky nonsense. The man who had brought it was a rumormonger with no high connections. The stories of secret massacres were all foolishness. The archbishop himself had assured Sacerdote that the Vatican’s intelligence net was the best in Europe; and that if the stories had any truth to them, the Pope would have long since denounced Nazi Germany and excommunicated Hitler.
“I’ve given fortunes to the archbishop’s projects.” Sacerdote turned moist and worried dark eyes to Jastrow. “I’m the chairman of the orphanage, his pride and joy. He would not lead me astray. You know him. Don’t you agree?”
“His Excellency is an Italian gentleman, and a good soul.” Jastrow again emptied his glass. He was very red in the face, but he spoke clearly. “I do agree. Even with a madman as their leader — for it has become my settled view that Hitler is unbalanced — the advanced culture of the Germans, their passion for order, and their legal scrupulosity preclude the truth of these rumors. The Nazis are indeed brutal open anti-Semites, and on such a base of fact, erecting gruesome fantasies becomes all too simple.”
“Dr. Jastrow,” said Castelnuovo, “what about Lidice? The work of an advanced culture?”
“This fellow Heydrich was a leader of the SS. Reprisal is commonplace in war,” Jastrow answered, in a tone of cool academic riposte. “Don’t ask me to defend the calculated military (rightfulness of the Boche. He doesn’t want it defended. He proclaims it. He has proclaimed with great fanfare the annihilation of that poor Czech village.”
Castelnuovo came out with a burst of dry quick Italian. The archbishop didn’t know all the Pope knew. The Pope had his reasons to keep silent, mainly the protection of the Church’s property and influence in German-held lands; also, the old Christian dogma that the Jews must suffer down through history, to prove they had guessed wrong on Christ, and must one day acknowledge him. Miriam could not live much longer within reach of German claws; he and his wife had decided that. He was already communicating with Rabinovitz about ways and means of getting out.
Here again the old man struck in. The decision to leave would be a terrible one for himself and his wife. Siena was their home. Italian was their language. What was worse, Arnoldo was determined to remain; he was in love with a Sienese girl. The family would be torn apart, and the property gathered in a lifetime would be lost.
Louis and Miriam were laughing in a distant room. “Why, it’s incredible that that child’s still awake,” Natalie said. “He’s having the time of his life, but I must get him home and to bed.”
“Mrs. Henry, why didn’t you leave with the other Americans?” The doctor spoke with abrupt sharpness. “Rabinovitz is very puzzled and concerned. He has asked about you repeatedly.”
She looked at her uncle, feeling color come into her cheeks. “We’ve been temporarily detained.”
“But why?”
Jastrow answered, “Again, reprisal. Three German agents in Brazil, posing as Italian journalists, were arrested, and so —”
“German agents in Brazil?” Castelnuovo interrupted, wrinkling his forehead. “What has that got to do with you? You’re Americans.”
His wife said, “That makes no sense.”
“None whatever,” declared Jastrow. “Our State Department is pressing the Italian government through Bern to send us to Switzerland at once. And they’re working on the release of those agents in Brazil, in case this pressure fails. I am not concerned.”
“I am,” said Natalie.
Jastrow said lightly, “My niece finds it hard to accept that our government has one or two other things on its mind besides our release. As, for instance, that it seems to be losing the war on all fronts, at the moment. But we have other protection. Protection of an unusual nature.” He gave Natalie a teasing inebriated smile. “What do you say, my dear? Shall we confide in our pleasant new friends?”
“As you please, Aaron.” Natalie pushed back her chair. His patronizing of these well-to-do but miserable people was annoying her. “The children are strangely quiet, suddenly. I’ll have a look at Louis.”
She found him asleep on Miriam’s b
ed in his favorite slumber pose: face down, knees drawn up, rump in the air, arms sprawled. He looked very uncomfortable. Often she had straightened him out, only to watch him return to the pose, still fast asleep, as though he were a rubber baby rebounding to his manufactured shape. Miriam sat beside him, hands folded in her lap, ankles crossed, swinging both feet.
“How long has he been sleeping, dear?”
“Just a few minutes. Shall I cover him?”
“No, I’ll take him home soon.”
“If only he could stay!”
“Well, come to our house tomorrow and play with him.”
“Oh, may I?” The little girl softly clapped her hands. “Will you please tell my mama that?”
“Of course. You should have a baby brother. I hope you will, one day.”
“I did. He died,” said the girl in a calm way that chilled Natalie.
She returned to the dinner table. Aaron was describing Werner Beck’s intervention to quash the summons from the secret police, at the time when alien Jews had been interned. “We’ve been living in tranquillity ever since,” Jastrow said. “Werner couldn’t be more thoughtful and protective. He even brings us mail from home, illegally transmitted. Imagine! A high-placed German Foreign Service officer, keeping two Jews from being interned by the Fascists, because I once helped an earnest young history student with his doctoral thesis. Bread cast upon the waters!”
The old lady spoke up. “Then why doesn’t he help you, Dr. Jastrow, with all this nonsense about Brazil?”
“He has, he has. He’s been burning up the wires to Berlin. He assures us that this outrage will be corrected, that our release via Switzerland is only a matter of time.”
“Do you believe that?” Castelnuovo addressed Natalie.
She gnawed her lower lip. “Well, we know that a diplomatic fuss is going on, and that he’s taking an interest. I have a friend in the American legation at Bern who’s written me as much.”
“My guess would be,” said the doctor, “that this Dr. Beck is preventing you from leaving Italy.”