Our Darkest Night

by Jennifer Robson

  Nico had brought down the Divine Comedy, and he now began to read the final cantos from Paradiso. The poetry was so beautiful, and his voice was so beguiling, that she didn’t even bother to pick up her knitting as she usually did. Only listened, enchanted, as he read of the poet and his Beatrice and their search for happiness. Finally Nico shut the book and told the others he was off to bed, and she followed him upstairs without remembering to say good night. She closed the door to their room, checking to make sure it had latched properly. And then she turned to face him.

  “We should get ready for bed,” Nico said. “I’ll just turn my back?”

  She nodded, her mouth too dry for words, and changed into her nightgown as quickly as her fumbling fingers would allow. She crossed the room to where he stood, still facing away from her. “I’m here,” she said.

  “Will you let me hold you?” He turned slowly, letting her decide. She stepped into the circle of his arms and took a deep breath. At last.

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a very long time,” he said, his lips soft against her brow.

  “How long?”

  “Almost since the beginning,” he admitted.

  “Why did you wait until now?”

  “I’ve never felt this way before. Ever. I needed to be certain of my feelings.”

  “And?” she prompted, her heart racing.

  “I love you, Antonina, but not as a sister, and not as a friend. As a wife. My wife. And I hope you share those feelings. If not, I’ll—”

  She kissed him before he could say another word, and into that kiss she instilled her regard, her admiration, her delight, her joy, and her love for him. For this man who had so unexpectedly become the hero of her story.

  She pulled away, just a little, for she had to see his face. Had to let him see how she felt, too, for words were not enough. “I do, Nico. With all my heart I do.”

  “My darling,” he whispered, and then he kissed her, and he didn’t break away until they both were breathless and trembling.

  “I wish we were truly married,” he said. “I know that makes me sound old-fashioned.”

  “You’re an honorable man. It’s one of the reasons I love you.”

  “Then you understand why we ought to stop. Only . . .”

  “What is it?”

  “If we were to make promises to one another, exchange vows, would that be enough for you? Only until the war is over, though, and the laws are changed. And if they don’t change the laws here, we’ll go somewhere, anywhere, and—”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

  “Is that something you do in a Jewish wedding? Exchange vows? Forgive me for my ignorance.”

  “We do. There’s a betrothal blessing at the start, and the groom gives the bride a ring. He puts it on her finger and says, ‘ani l’dodi, ve dodi li.’ It’s from the Song of Solomon and it means ‘I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.’ Then there are more blessings. And there are other parts, but nothing, I think, that involves vows. Apart from the marriage contract, I suppose, but the bride and groom sign that before the ceremony.”

  “Christian weddings aren’t so very different. There are prayers and blessings, too, both before and after the vows.”

  “Do you know the words to the vows?”

  “Of course I do. Remember all those cousins? That makes for a lot of weddings.”

  “I would like to say them.”

  He nodded, his expression serious again. “Shall we kneel?”

  They sank to their knees, facing one another, barely a hand’s width apart. Nico slipped the ring from her finger and set it carefully on the floor. Then he took her hands in his.

  “I, Niccolò, take you, Antonina, for my wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death us do part.”

  “I, Antonina, take you, Niccolò, for my husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for . . .”

  “For richer—”

  “For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death us do part.”

  Nico picked up the ring and slipped it back on her finger. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”

  She had no ring to give him, but still she repeated the words. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”

  He embraced her, so tightly she couldn’t tell where his arms stopped and her body began, and then there were more kisses, slow and tender and enchanting. They were both shivering, but she didn’t feel cold at all.

  “We need to stop for a moment,” Nico murmured, his breath fanning sweetly against her lips.

  He got to his feet, went to the bed, and reached across it to grasp the woolen pad that sat atop the mattress. He then dragged the pad, along with the pillows, sheets, and blankets, to the middle of the room. Turning, he caught her eye. “I’ve no wish to waken the entire house, or to answer awkward questions from Carlo tomorrow.”

  He then crouched to unlace his boots, but once he’d toed them off he made no further move to undress. Instead he sat on the makeshift bed and beckoned her over.

  She knelt in front of him, tucking her legs under the skirt of her nightgown, and took his hands in hers.

  He met her questioning gaze directly, though for some reason he was blushing, the color rising high on his cheekbones. “I also need to make a confession.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve never done this before.”

  “Nor have I.”

  “I worry I will disappoint you.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Then yes?” he asked, his voice aglow with love and hope.

  “Yes, my Nico. Yes, my beloved one.”

  THE FLOOR WAS very hard beneath the thin wool pad, and the blankets weren’t quite heavy enough to keep out the drafts whistling through the window and under the door, but she was in the arms of the man who loved her, and she had never felt safer or more content. To lie so close to him, to listen to the soothing beat of his heart, to set aside her fears until the new day, was to welcome her first true, undiluted moment of happiness since the day her father had taken her aside at the casa.

  “Are you asleep?” she asked.

  “No. I’m too happy to fall asleep. I want these hours to last forever.”

  “If only they would. If only we could wake up tomorrow and learn that the war is over. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

  “It won’t last forever. It can’t.”

  “And when it does end?” she asked. “If you could do anything, what would it be?”

  “If anything were possible? I suppose I would like to go to university.”

  “What would you study?”

  “I think . . . I suppose it would be agricultural science. I know it doesn’t sound very exciting, but there’s so much to learn. How to improve the soil, increase crop yields, guard against disease. That sort of thing. I know so little—that one book on the dresser is as far as I’ve got—but I want to learn more.”

  “I don’t think it sounds boring at all,” she said, and she hugged him a little tighter, just to underscore her words. They’d turned down the lamp a while ago, but she wished, now, that she could see his face properly.

  “What would you choose to do?” he asked after a moment.

  “I want to study medicine. To be a doctor like my father.” It was the first time she’d said it aloud to anyone other than her papà. It was the first time she’d allowed herself to think of it since she’d left Venice.

  “You would make a wonderful doctor. You have that way about you. Patient and kind, but strong when you need to be. What sort of medicine, do you think?”

  “I’m not sure. My father’s specialty was nephrology.”

  “I know. Father Bernardi told me they met when he went for help with his kidney stones.”

  “People used to come from all over Europe to see my father, but he had to close his clinic when the racial laws were passed. When he
did see patients after that it was in secret, in their homes. Most of them were poor. I don’t really remember him being paid.”

  “How did you live?”

  “He had some savings. A Gentile friend kept the money for him, otherwise it would have been taken. And we learned to do without. All we wanted was to live in peace. To stay in the city where I was born, and my parents before me, and all our ancestors for as far back as we could remember. For hundreds of years it was our home, and now . . .”

  So much for her moment of happiness.

  “It will be your home again. As soon as the war is over.”

  “By then it will be too late. My parents . . .”

  “Deserve none of this. Nor do you,” he insisted.

  “I used to pray. I used to ask God to protect my family. To keep them safe.”

  “And now?”

  “I haven’t prayed for years. Not since Mamma’s stroke. Not since the laws that turned my family into outcasts. I hope you don’t think that makes me a bad person.”

  “Never,” he whispered, his lips brushing so softly against her brow. “Not least because I have the same doubts and fears.”

  “Don’t you believe in God?”

  “I want to believe. I do. But the things I’ve seen and done have changed me. Marked me. And now I can’t imagine how this war will end. Or where I will be when it is over.”

  “You will be here with me. We will be together,” she promised. “Tell me you can believe in that, if nothing else.”

  “Then I will. For you, Nina, I will believe.”

  Chapter 17

  2 April 1944

  It was Palm Sunday, which meant, to Nina’s secret dismay, that Mass lasted far longer than usual. Normally she tried to appear attentive, if only to avoid hurting Father Bernardi’s feelings, but simply remaining upright and awake had been near to impossible in the crowded and too-warm church. Not that anyone would notice if her attention wandered, for she was in her usual place, right against the wall, and all around her heads were bobbing as people nodded off, startled themselves awake, and drifted again into somnolence.

  Nico had been gone for several weeks, and in his absence she’d found it increasingly difficult to sleep. Last night she’d lain awake for hours, wondering and worrying, and no matter how often she’d told herself to be sensible, to be rational, her mind had refused to obey. She had fallen asleep not far short of dawn, her face pressed against Nico’s pillow, her body bereft of his comforting warmth and weight.

  Instead of listening to the endless and unintelligible Latin of the service, she tried to stay awake by working out, from memory alone, the likely date for the start of Passover. Last year it had begun toward the end of April, but she’d never thought much of how and why the date varied. It might already have passed, for all she knew; there were years, after all, when it had fallen at the end of March.

  Her family hadn’t done much to mark the holy days in recent years, for her mother had always been the one among them who insisted on doing things properly, and after she had been moved to the casa it had felt strange, and a little depressing, to observe the seder without her. But Nina had washed and polished their best china and silver, and she’d ironed the tablecloth and napkins Mamma had always kept for Passover alone, and then she had helped Marta clean the house from top to bottom. Marta had also prepared a simple menu of chicken brodo with polpette di matza, baked mullet with fried artichokes, and a hazelnut torta. Not the abundant feast that was proper, but her father hadn’t complained. They had said the prayers together, and she had answered the four questions Papà had put to her, as if she were still a little girl, and together they had recited the L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim. Next year in Jerusalem. And then, even though it was late already, they had walked over to the casa with a slice of the torta, which was soft enough that Mamma was able to eat a bit of it, and before they had left, Nina had sung her mother to sleep.

  Her wandering gaze swept across the front of the church before it landed on Father Bernardi. Perhaps he might be able to find out when Passover began. She resolved to take him aside, under some pretext or other, and ask; but not on the church steps, where everyone was hovering and listening. It would have to wait until she could contrive an excuse to visit him at the rectory during the week.

  When Mass ended she joined the queue to greet Father Bernardi on the steps of the church, waiting long minutes as he shook hands and kissed the children’s heads and patiently listened to everyone with worries or concerns to share. When it was the Gerardi family’s turn at last, she was surprised when the priest shook her hand before everyone else, his greeting even more voluble than usual.

  “My dear Nina—you’re just the person who can help me.”

  “With what, Father?”

  “Nothing of consequence,” he answered, and then, leaning a little closer, his whisper strangely loud, “it’s my bunions, you see, and I wonder if you might, ah, use your expertise as a nurse . . .”

  His expression was strained, but then he was probably feeling a little embarrassed to be discussing the state of his feet in front of so many witnesses.

  “Of course, Father. I’ll just fetch my things from home, and—”

  “No need, no need. I’ve a well-stocked first-aid kit in the rectory.”

  “You go ahead,” Rosa encouraged, “and I’ll set aside your dinner for later.”

  And that settled the matter. Father Bernardi grasped her elbow and steered her back through the sanctuary, pausing only to shake hands with a few stray departing churchgoers. They continued on through a sort of antechamber between the church and the rectory, but as soon as they were in his modest residence, and the door was closed behind them, he turned to her with a sheepish smile.

  “I apologize for whisking you away like that, but it couldn’t be helped.”

  Understanding dawned, along with a new appreciation for the priest’s skill as an actor. “You don’t have any problems with your bunions,” she stated.

  “I do, but they can wait. It’s something else. Something more serious.”

  “Nico?” She couldn’t breathe for her fear.

  “He is well, but we need your help. One of his, ah, friends has been injured.”

  “How? When?”

  “Nico himself will tell you. They’re just upstairs.”

  Nina flew up the dark, narrow staircase two steps at a time. “Nico? Where are you?”

  “Here.”

  He stood at the end of the hall, the room behind him lost in gloom. He opened his arms wide and she ran to him, forgetting all else but the joy and comfort of his embrace.

  It had been several weeks since he’d left, his first long absence since that terrible night in December, and there had been moments, over the past few days, when she’d wondered if her memories were playing tricks on her. If it truly had been so blissful to stand in the shelter of his arms.

  She ought not to have doubted. Her body had remembered rightly, for her head still fit just so under his chin, and his heartbeat still soothed her when she pressed her ear to his chest. If there was any more comforting sound in the world she could not imagine it.

  Far sooner than she’d have liked, she made herself pull away, for now was not the time for self-indulgence. Not when Nico’s friend lay injured and needed her help.

  “What happened?”

  He caught her hands in his, clasping them tight to his chest, and pressed his lips to her hair. “My darling. How I’ve missed you.”

  “And I you. Now tell me.”

  “We’d caught a ride down from Costalunga with some of the local partisans. It was stupid of us, but we were tired and they insisted the way was clear. So we climbed onto the flatbed of their truck and let them carry us down the mountain. And then, barely a quarter hour later, we came to a checkpoint. Instead of bluffing his way through, the driver swung around and went back up the road—and that’s when the Germans started firing.”

  “Was your friend”—she knew no
t to ask for the other man’s name—“shot?”

  “No, but in the panic to get away the truck went into the ditch. We managed to jump clear, but he hurt his ankle on the way down. He’s some cuts and scratches, too. I don’t think any of them are very deep.”

  “Did you have to walk the rest of the way home? How far is that?”

  “It was only ten kilometers as the crow flies. Maybe a little more.”

  “How did you manage it? Your friend—was he able to walk at all?”

  “Nico carried him,” Father Bernardi called from the end of the hall.

  At this, Nico sighed heavily. “I didn’t mind, and we’re here, aren’t we? The way of it makes no difference.”

  “Were you injured?” Nina remembered to ask.

  “Not so much as a scratch.”

  “Good,” she said, though the single word scarcely captured the depth of her relief. Now she turned to Father Bernardi. “I’ll need your first-aid kit.”

  “Do you still keep it in the kitchen?” Nico asked. “Yes? In that case I’ll fetch it. I’ve already had you running up and down the stairs all night.”

  Nina went into the bedroom, switched on a nearby lamp rather than open the shutters, and sat on the chair next to the bed. Nico’s friend, who looked to be sleeping, was stretched out on top of the counterpane, his boots still in place, his clothes stiff with mud and dried blood. His beard had grown in, and his hair, long enough to touch his collar, was shot through with silver. He was older than Nico, though not by much. Somewhere, perhaps not far, there were people waiting for him. There were people who loved him.

  She blinked hard, struggling to keep her tears at bay. She would not—could not—cry. She had to compose herself. Above all, she had to bury her fear.

  The warm weight of Father Bernardi’s hand settled on her shoulder. “I know,” he said softly. “I know. Few things are harder than fearing for someone you love.”