Chapter 34
Signora Rossetti's apartment
"HE PHONED ME to say he was going to Paris. He made it sound urgent."
Marco turned quickly from the ornate sideboard. The dusty photographs and the showy ornaments were of little interest anyway. He had been hoping to see a framed photograph of Canon Angelo, perhaps arm in arm with the old lady. "When was this, signora?"
"Oh, I do so like visitors."
Signora Rossetti reminded Marco of an overweight canary as she chirped away, ignoring his question. Maybe she was trying to inject some interest into a life of loneliness in this cage. "You have many friends, Laura. How tragic to hear about Bruno's death. Of course, I never did like that man. Too old for you by a long way." She paused for breath.
"Mamma, you always think of my friends as amanti -- as candidates for marriage."
"Now, now, Laura, you'll be embarrassing young Marco here."
Laura laughed, rather unkindly Marco thought. "He's not my amante. He's a priest!"
"So you said, my dear, but I wonder if perhaps the wheel is going round in a full circle." Signora Rossetti said the words without expression, with no hint of humor.
Marco decided to break the silence that followed. "Laura wants me to help with her work." Was that all he could say? Could it be that Laura felt nothing for him? No, that was impossible. The ready smile, the occasional friendly gestures. Laura was being cautious in front of her mother, although the way she had arranged her skirt as she sat cross-legged in the chair opposite was provocative. He could give up his calling if... He tried not even to think about such a move.
Married to Laura? Signora Rossetti would become his mother-in-law and this apartment would be a second home. He wanted to kick himself for letting his imagination run away with absurd fantasies. No wonder Origen, tormented by passion and sex in the third century, was believed to have taken a knife and castrated himself. He winced at the thought. Such an action was far too extreme. But it was impossible to contemplate a relationship with Laura -- unless they shared a common faith. Her father would have wanted it that way.
"Please clear up a puzzle for me, Laura. Your father was a Catholic, your mother here is obviously Jewish, but you told me you're a Catholic. Is that true?"
Signora Rossetti held her hands up. "Laura my child, what have you been telling this young man? You are as Jewish as your old mother."
Laura seemed ruffled. "I may have said something about being a Catholic, Marco, but does it really matter? I'm not Jewish and I'm not Catholic. My religion says people get what they deserve." She wagged a finger at him. "And I know two people who have already got what they deserve."
Whatever response he gave, Laura would say it was a sermon. He'd be wise to pass for now on her bizarre declaration of faith. "Okay, so I know why you didn't recognize the New Testament quotation in the letter." He looked at Laura and laughed, hoping to restore some order after the sudden outburst.
Laura became defensive. "I told you, Marco: Jewish or Catholic, does it really matter?"
"It doesn't stop us working together." He had to say something more. "But, yes, it matters."
Laura was silent for a moment, then she smiled unexpectedly and came over to stand close. "Marco, I want us to be friends. Don't let's have a silly argument."
"It's not silly to me. One day I'd like to have a sensible talk about what I believe. In the meantime we can still be friends."
"That's good." Laura took hold of his hand, though not very positively.
"Of course you can both be friends," chirped Signora Rossetti. "Our family has always had friends in the Church. My father, Ben-ami Rossetti, was a great friend of Israel Levi. Our two families spent many happy times together … until the Germans came to Rome. After the war I returned alone to this apartment from a Nazi concentration camp in Poland, to find all my family and friends gone. Angelo was the only surviving Levi in Rome. He heard I was back and came from the Vatican to look for me. When he found me we became very close -- as I'm sure you've already guessed, Marco." And she winked.
At last there was an indication of humor, a warmth about the old lady. Life had not taken her sense of mischief away. Whatever storms she had ridden, the past had been unable to keep her down. It amazed Marco that a person could live through such wartime distress yet have the capacity to survive and bounce back into the present world. Laura let go of his hand.
"Signora Rossetti, you said Canon Levi phoned you to say he was going to Paris." Somehow it seemed correct to refer to Angelo Levi formally.
"And so he did. But as soon as he got back to Rome he went to meet someone in Saint Peter's. That's when he was killed. There wasn't any connection of course, or so the carabinieri said. The letters are a very precious part of my life, but there is no point in keeping them private for ever. Laura has already shown you one of them. It was very brief and it told me so little. Just that nonsense about the Living and the dead. I wondered at the time what it could mean. There was a piece of paper. Like old parchment. Angelo thought it proved the authenticity of the relic. Augusto got angry. They argued about it. Augusto said it would be most unhelpful if anyone saw it. He said there had been enough trouble between Christians and Jews in the Church's history."
"Where is the old parchment now?" Marco had to know.
"I've not seen it since the head went missing. Perhaps..."
"The letters, Mamma," interrupted Laura.
Signora Rossetti bent down beside the ornate sideboard and pulled her skirt high, revealing bulging thighs and a network of thick varicose veins. He found himself wondering if Laura's lovely legs would one day end up like this. From the cupboard she removed an old tin decorated with a painting of red and cream roses. She picked up the top letter and handed it to Laura.
Laura turned it in her hands to make sure the writing was on one side only. "I am concerned that there is a Vatican plan to stop me getting the bronze head authenticated. I have therefore decided that if they want it, they will have to look for the Living among the dead." She shrugged. "You've already seen this one, Marco."
"You didn't tell me Canon Levi was in Paris when he wrote it."
"How was I to know it came from Paris?" Laura snapped. "It's very short and there's no address at the top." She started to skim through a few. "I've never been allowed to see all these. They're ... well, they're like love letters."
"Of course they're love letters, Laura my dear. Your father cared for me, as you well know. There's nothing I'm ashamed of in there. Find the first letter from Paris." Signora Rossetti turned to Marco. "My Angelo had gone to Paris to see his friend Claude at the Louvre, but he worried about Augusto trying to put a stop to him."
Marco would have loved to ask about the relationship. "My Angelo" and this pile of letters conveyed considerably more than an overnight affair. "Augusto? Is that Monsignor Augusto Giorgio?"
Signora Rossetti nodded. "That's him. He was plain Father Augusto Giorgio then, but he's a monsignor now so I believe. Laura's father became very friendly with him, but they fell out over something. I know it happened almost as soon as Angelo brought him here to meet me."
Marco waved his hands in an attempt to halt the chatter. "Angelo Levi went to Paris just before he was killed. Yes?"
"Nineteen eighty-two. TV Roma was putting a lot of pressure on Cardinal Amendola -- all to do with a television program on relics -- and in the end the Cardinal dropped everything onto my Angelo and told him to put a stop to TV Roma's interference. So Angelo wrote to TV Roma, and also to a man called Reinhardt who was the Papal Representative in England. They were friends a long time back, and he needed someone to confide in. Then a German phoned Angelo at work and made threats. That upset him. I think everyone wanted to know about the relic -- except your Church." The signora sounded completely out of breath now.
Marco looked up. "Reinhardt? Is that Josef Reinhardt?"
"It was a long time ago. Angelo knew the man." The signora's voice was little more than a gasp.
Marco shook his head. "It can't be my Josef Reinhardt. He's not a Papal Representative."
"You mean the old priest you're so friendly with at the Vatican?" asked Laura. "Sounds like the same man to me -- if he's interested in this relic."
Signora Rossetti was breathing deeply and noisily. "He told Angelo he hoped to come back from England to work here in Rome. Something to do with stopping the fascists."
"Perhaps it is the same man," agreed Marco. He tried to put the details of the Canon's relationship out of his mind. "Where's this other letter?"
"Is this it?" Laura dug deeply into the tin. "There's a French stamp on the envelope."
"Paris has to be important," said Marco. "I wish we'd known the first letter you showed me was sent from Paris."
Again Laura was defensive. "Mamma, it would have helped if I'd known."
"You never asked. You never take any interest in your old mother until you need her for your work. All day long you work and forget your Mamma."
Marco had encountered plenty of old mothers filled with self pity and knew how to deal with this one. "Laura talks about you such a lot, Signora Rossetti. She was so excited to be bringing me here to meet you." Not the exact truth, but Laura had been excited -- perhaps more for the letters than for the opportunity of showing off her Mamma.
The signora obviously saw through this attempt to pour oil on the waters. In an unexpectedly cold voice she said, "Laura will read the letter from Paris, Signor Marco."
Laura studied the page. "It's long. There's some private news, and then Papa says, I am worried that the two Germans may have followed me to Paris. I still cannot understand the real purpose behind their approach in Rome, although they clearly represent the neo-Fascist movement. In the circumstances I am canceling the visit to my old friend Claude at the Louvre. The two Germans who phoned me in Rome have offered good money for the relic. In spite of Augusto being so negative about the provenance, I now believe it to be genuine. My one wish is that I had pursued the quest for authentication many years ago. Imagine my excitement when I came across a bronze bust in the small market near the rue de Rivoli while walking from my hotel today. I am sure that the deceit will be forgiven in the circumstances. It will be marvelous to exchange this bust for the money so badly needed by the Friends of the Poor. I feel an overwhelming burden to help not only the Jews, but the disadvantaged of all faiths who suffered under the heel of the Nazi jackboot in our dear Italy."
"I don't know what to say." Marco waited a suitable time. "But then I don't pretend to understand what you all went through."
Signora Rossetti nodded in approval at his statement. "You are too young, Marco, to know the excessive brutality of that regime. They dragged us from this building and marched us all to the Stazione Centrale. I remember being forced into cattle trucks and taken to Poland, a journey that took days with no food or water. People were crying and children were screaming for hours on end. I was the only Rossetti to return. I am still sad but I feel no bitterness now. I have friends who suffer still. The money from the modern Nazis would have been a small recompense for that suffering. Not that I seek revenge, Marco. Laura's father and I both learned something of forgiveness, even to our enemies. Do you ever nurture thoughts of revenge?"
"I..." He hesitated. "I'm still working on that one."
Signora Rossetti smiled briefly. "Then keep working on it, Marco. There's more in the letter, I believe."
Laura said, "He's going to put flowers on a grave for someone." She looked quickly up at Marco. "The dead!"
"Go on."
Laura's hands were shaking. "I have promised to visit the grave of the Giorgio family for Augusto, and put flowers on it. He is concerned that it has been neglected over the years."
"And?"
Laura blushed and put the letter face down on the tablecloth out of his reach. "That's all. The last bit is too intimate."
"It's not a lot to go on." Marco tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling for inspiration. A large crack ran through the dirty white plaster from wall to wall. This was a dreadful old apartment in a crumbling building. He remembered what he had read of the Jewish persecution in Nazi Rome. Saturday October 16 1943, the day of the big roundup, when these rooms must have been filled with the cries of terrified families. It started in the darkness of the early morning, when Signora Rossetti and all her family would have been asleep. Now the stark walls echoed the memories of the few surviving inhabitants who had been witness to the horror.
"He didn't bring the same bronze head back with him. I know that for a fact."
Both Laura and Marco looked at the signora.
Signora Rossetti nodded. "I think he must have left the original somewhere in Paris."
"You're right," agreed Marco. "He left it in a cemetery. He left it at the Giorgio family grave."
"There must be a lot of graves in Paris." Laura's initial excitement was quickly giving way to disappointment.
"Montmartre."
"How do you know, Mamma?"
"I remember him telling me before he went." Signora Rossetti lifted herself wearily out of the chair and went to the sideboard where she studied the photographs. "My Angelo called round on the day he left and we had a good laugh about it. The Giorgios were called Georges once. That's a French name. He said Augusto Giorgio's family were all buried in Montmartre. I said that Montmartre was where the dancers showed their attributes. We laughed a lot about that."
Marco could see from the light in Signora Rossetti's face that she had a good sense of fun, albeit fairly well hidden until now. The mother glanced across anxiously at her daughter, as though the presence of one had a sobering effect on the other. Then the signora turned, her eyes firmly on him.
"Montmartre. The Moulin Rouge. We laughed so much at the thought of the stodgy priest coming from a family of strippers!"
The mother's sense of the ridiculous had failed to rub off on the daughter. "I'm going to buy a map of Paris," Laura said abruptly. "This isn't the right time to be fooling about. You stay here and keep Mamma happy, Marco. You seem to be as silly as she is. If there's a cemetery shown on the map at Montmartre, that's where we're going to find the relic."
"We've upset her now," said Signora Rossetti with a wink as Laura slammed the door shut. Padding her way over she threw her arms around him in an enormous hug. His instinct was to draw away from the large woman, but she held him too firmly. He could smell alcohol on the old lady's breath, making him turn his head away.
"Oh, Marco, I like you. You're not like Laura's other friends -- you enjoy a little laugh. What a pity you're a priest!" The words made her burst into giggles of laughter, and if she was not clinging to him tightly she would have fallen.
"I'm glad I came. You're fun."
"I like you, young man. How about we have a little drink together?"
Marco felt repulsed yet amused by the old woman. She had lived here since returning after the war. She would have found many of the adjoining apartments filled with Gentile faces, replacing the Jewish families who were never coming back from the terrors of the camps.
He gave the big soft face a kiss. "Just a small drink." Signora Rossetti might enjoy a drink or two, but she was not in need of pity.
"Strippers!" The old signora shook all over with laughter. "That stuck-up Augusto Giorgio came from a family of strippers. Monsignor Augusto Giorgio. Oh, my, my; I wonder if he still carries on the family tradition and entertains the nuns!"
Shout in the Dark Page 51