“Pronto. Father Rostoni speaking,” he said distractedly into the receiver, which he finally picked up.
“Please hold for Field Marshal Kesselring, sir,” replied a crisp female voice in German-accented Italian.
Rostoni was instantly alert, wondering why he was receiving a phone call from the Field Marshal so early in the morning and so soon after last night’s cocktail reception. While this might prove to be interesting, he was afraid that it was more likely to prove problematic. Surely Kesselring was not calling to compliment him on the fine selection of wines or tempting desserts that had graced the buffet tables last night.
“Guten Morgen,” Kesselring said. “Are you able to speak unhindered?” he asked.
“Certainly,” replied Rostoni briskly, hoping to assert an adversarial advantage. “How may I help you?”
“I’ll get right to the point,” Kesselring said. “Two of my officers had a rather enlightening conversation last night with one of the priests who works in the archives of your Museum. One Father Barrio. Perhaps you are acquainted with him?”
“Yes,” Rostoni replied, making a conscious effort to sound bored and indifferent. “A rather colorless, pallid individual who makes himself useful to us on occasion. What of it?”
“Well, my dear Father Rostoni, it seems that he took some of my men on a private tour of a rather special section of your Museum holdings last night. Very special indeed, I might add. I wonder if you have been privileged to see it for yourself.”
He paused for dramatic effect and then continued. “As a matter of fact, Father Barrio was so drunk that I doubt he remembers anything about it this morning—or about any of his other, shall we say, nocturnal activities last night,” he added with a lewd chuckle.
“I thought you were getting to the point,” Rostoni replied impatiently.
“Indeed, I am, mein lieber freund, indeed I am. My officers were not too drunk to notice the importance of what they were shown. And your Father Barrio, it appears, has not only compromised his own position at the Vatican in view of his behavior last night, but he has also enabled us to guarantee the cooperation of the Holy Father.
“By the way, I’m surprised that your Pastor Angelicus countenances such degenerate behavior in his flock,” Kesselring remarked dryly. “I’m sure that our Führer will be most interested to hear of it.”
He waited for a response from Rostoni, and when none came, he continued, with no small degree of satisfaction.
“Are we on a secure line, Father Rostoni? Yes? Good. For now in fact I do come to the point. We are now aware that the Vatican has in its possession antique treasures of inestimable value. Treasures whose existence has never been disclosed. Not even hinted at. And one doesn’t need to be a Biblical scholar—and of course I apologize for the unavoidable reference to the non-Aryan Old Testament—to know just what these treasures are and who else would be interested in knowing about them.
“You are finally beginning to grasp my point, are you not?” There was no immediate, audible response, and Kesselring continued, in acid tones. “I am so happy to hear it. Yes, you will meet with the Holy Father this morning, as planned. As you always do, my friend. And you will make sure that you obtain his commitment. His full and uncompromising commitment to silence on the subject of the Jews of Rome.
“You need not know, just at this point, precisely what we have planned and when we intend to do it. You will merely do your job, or you have my personal assurance you will live to regret the consequences. I am sure I don’t really have to spell them out, but I will, just in case there is something you haven’t quite understood.
“We will provide protected status to Vatican City only if you and the Holy Father cooperate with us. We will keep your interesting little secret only if you comply. And in the meantime, we will keep our own hands off your little cache of goodies, despite the fact that they would make a unique addition to the Museum of Dead Nations that our Führer has planned.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Kesselring added. “In the event that the Allies are victorious some day, though that is highly unlikely, in my professional estimate, your secret will be safe only if we Nazis are safe. Your imagination and widely reputed intelligence will no doubt suggest some appropriate venues and measures. I suggest that you plan ahead, my dear friend. Just in case.”
The line went dead, and Rostoni hung up the telephone receiver angrily. And then he noticed that his hands were shaking, which made him even angrier, this time at himself. He glanced at his pocket watch and saw that he had only a few minutes left before his meeting with the Pope. He made an effort to compose himself.
All would be well. He now knew what he had to do with the copy of the ring that had so conveniently, so fatefully, fallen into his hands.
Chapter Eleven
Rostoni quickly left the Apostolic Palace after his meeting with the Pope. The meeting had been successful—successful, in fact, beyond his most optimistic expectations. Without going into unnecessary detail that might sidetrack the Holy Father, Rostoni had, with great economy and skill, explained the need for cooperation with the Reich, the necessity of ensuring the Vatican’s continued, special status as a neutral territory and fully autonomous city-state, and how all that need be done was—absolutely nothing. Passiveness, neutrality, inaction. Those would be the watchwords. Those would be the order of the day.
He now crossed the courtyard behind the Pope’s residence and headed towards a smaller building near the Vatican’s parking lot, which was occupied by row upon neatly arranged row of nearly identical, shiny black limousines, all of which bore Vatican license plates. It was an undistinguished building, architecturally speaking, given its proximity to the splendor of the Apostolic Palace and the grandeur of San Pietro with its surrounding concourse and classical Bernini pillars. The building housed the barracks of the Swiss Guards, but more importantly, for Rostoni’s purposes, it also contained several small apartments designated for use by priests who worked for the Vatican in various capacities.
Among those fortunate priests who had convenient lodgings at the Vatican, unlike those occupying apartments on Church properties located in Rome itself, was the aforementioned Father Barrio, the nondescript archivist who had so unwittingly allowed him to be victimized by the flattery of well-rehearsed German officers and a newly discovered predilection for alcohol.
Assuming that the element of surprise would work in his favor, Rostoni knocked on Barrio’s door, and after waiting several seconds for a response, he turned the handle and walked in. The priest was still lying in bed, in what appeared to be the last vestiges of a drunken stupor, the bedclothes in total disarray, a discarded champagne flute resting on its side on the nightstand, a recognizable musky odor pervading the air.
In disgust, Rostoni walked over to the bedroom window and opened it. The sunlight and gust of fresh air seemed to rouse the drowsy priest, who now looked up in surprise at Rostoni and tried, somewhat ineffectually, to cover his nakedness with the sheet that had half fallen off the narrow bed.
“Get out of that bed,” Rostoni commanded in harsh tones. “Now! And get dressed immediately. You're going to show me what you so stupidly showed those German lovers of yours last night.”
The priest blanched visibly and began to tremble uncontrollably. As he sniveled and shrank back into the bed, Rostoni threw him a look of undisguised repugnance.
“Oh, yes. Don’t attempt to deny it. I have my sources, and they are unimpeachable. You're going to show and tell me everything. And then perhaps I'll consider what the Holy Father should be told about your loyalties and whether or not you'll continue to be employed here at the Vatican,” he added roughly.
“You have five minutes to get that disgusting smell off of you and to put on some decent clothes. I’ll be waiting right outside the door. Don’t make me repeat myself and don’t make me drag you out of here,” he said with menace in his voice.
Rostoni now stormed out angrily and waited in the hallway. Within th
e allotted five minutes, an embarrassed Father Barrio emerged from the apartment and mumbled some contrite, awkward apologies, which Rostoni deliberately ignored. Hanging his head and avoiding all eye contact, the humiliated Barrio led the way to a side entrance to the papal residence, where he produced a large, rusty looking key from his pocket. Unlocking the door, he proceeded down one of the corridors and entered a small vestibule that contained two wooden bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling. A pair of straight-backed chairs flanked a small table laden with a leather-bound New Testament, Paulo Orano’s biography of Mussolini, and an outdated copy of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s in-house daily newspaper.
Rostoni glanced around the room, and seeing nothing worthy of his attention, said edgily to Barrio, “Well, where is it? Don’t try my patience.”
Barrio hastily removed a few volumes of the Catholic Encyclopedia from the shelf of the bookcase closest to the door, revealing a lock into which he now inserted another key. As he turned it counterclockwise, the lock clicked open audibly and the bookcase swung away to reveal a narrow recess. Rostoni hid his surprise and with a guarded expression on his face shoved the priest into the passageway.
“Wait,” Father Barrio objected, for the first time showing some display of self-confidence. “We need some light.” He went over to the other bookcase and retrieved a flashlight hidden on one of the shelves.
“Who told you about this place?” Rostoni asked peremptorily. “How did you find out about it?”
Barrio allowed himself to smirk cryptically, enjoying a momentary sense of importance, which quickly faded when he remembered that he was essentially powerless in the face of Rostoni’s threats. He quickly described how he had discovered the existence of the key and the passageway after stumbling upon some mention of them in crumbling old documents he had been asked to file away in the Apostolic Library the previous year. One afternoon, with nothing much to do in the Archives, he had decided to follow the clues and had located both the key and the hidden doorway. No one else knew of this, he hastily assured Rostoni, no one but those nasty Germans who had managed to trick him last night. What could he say, but that he was truly sorry.
“So you’re not quite as dull and unexciting as I’ve always thought,” Rostoni reflected aloud. “Perhaps you can be of some use after all. And not merely to the Germans,” he added with deliberate emphasis.
He paused and waited for a response. Father Barrio looked wary and unsure of himself. “And now, my dear Father Barrio,” Rostoni continued coldly, taking him painfully by the elbow, “you are going to show me just what lies at the end of this secret little passageway.”
Chapter Twelve
Outside the Rossi family’s apartment, not far from the ghetto, six men dressed in dark uniforms waited in the gloomy street, half-hidden behind the knotted old larch trees that dotted the unevenly paved road and the narrow buildings fronting it. The foliage and branches of the trees cast long shadows, like ghostly fingers, onto the pavement, interspersed with the pale glow of the nearby wrought-iron streetlights. Since the time of the German occupation, blackouts were not as rigorously observed as before, though the evening curfew continued to be strictly enforced.
Humidity hung in the air like a mist, and the few errant stars that had peeked out between the shifting clouds now hid themselves behind the nearly opaque curtain of the sky. It was ten o’clock on that unusually heat-oppressed August night, a time when most of the population of Rome was already in bed. Few indeed were those who risked ignoring the German-imposed restrictions on movements outside the home during the evening hours.
But for those watchers in the dark, there was no danger of arrest.
“Are you sure this is the right place, Giovanni?” one of them asked.
“Of course,” he replied sharply. “Stella’s information is always accurate. Why do you think we pay her for it?”
“All right,” whispered yet another, grinding the remains of his cigarette into the pavement with the heel of his heavy jackboot. “I think it’s time.”
No longer bothering to remain silent, the six men moved quickly towards the main entrance of the building and ran up the stairs to the second floor, not caring whom they woke with their heavy footsteps. They rapped loudly, and then viciously kicked in the door of the Rossi apartment, their rifles cocked and ready to fire. One of the men remained in the hallway, prepared to shoot any neighbor who might try to interfere, though the chances of that were small. No one interfered with the Blackshirt squadisti when they were carrying out an arrest, not if they valued their own lives.
Niccolò’s parents, who had gone to bed early and had been in a deep sleep for the better part of the evening, now cowered together in terror under their light blanket, caught in the harsh beam of a flashlight as three men trained their weapons on them. In another room, two other Blackshirts yanked the startled Niccolò out of bed and began to pummel him with their rifle butts.
“So, Jew boy,” one of them taunted, punching him in the stomach. “Thought you could mix with the Aryans, huh? Thought you could have a little Catholic pussy on the side, didn’t you?” he said with an ugly smirk, throwing Niccolò to the floor. “Well, you’re never going to be able to fuck again. Not after we get through with you.”
Giovanni now kicked him repeatedly in the groin and stomach as his companion smashed a rifle butt into Niccolò’s face over and over again. By now barely conscious, his nose and cheekbones smashed, most of his teeth broken or knocked out, he began to choke on his own blood and gasped feebly for air.
The darkness beckoned him. It called out to him seductively, in dulcet tones. Come to me, it whispered gently. Come. Its soothing embrace promised the comfort of oblivion, of release from pain. But still he held back, resisting, and fought for breath.
Then a shot rang out, piercing the silence of the street below. And the darkness reached out and enfolded him in its arms.
Chapter Thirteen
It had been two weeks since Niccolò had been murdered and his parents taken away by the Blackshirts. Two weeks since Elena had learned of his brutal death at the hands of Mauro Rostoni’s cohorts. A gentile neighbor of the Rossi family, a childless old widow who lived in an adjacent building and had known Niccolò since he was a baby, had made her way to the Conti home at some risk, in the early hours of the morning after the Blackshirt raid, to bring them the tragic news.
Niccolò’s mother had always regarded her as a sort of surrogate relation and had recently confided her suspicions that her son was in love with the young girl he was tutoring and her hope that it would not compromise the safety of either family. Fortunately she had provided enough detail for old Signora Carelli to locate the family in question.
Weeping bitterly as she described what had happened, the old woman had refrained from mentioning what she knew of Elena and Niccolò’s relationship. Why frighten the poor Conti family more than necessary? Why embarrass the young girl, in the event that Signora Rossi had been mistaken? Surely the matter was closed now, and the Contis, at least, would be left alone. She left the apartment, assuring them that as soon as she could find out where Niccolò’s parents had been taken, she would let them know.
Elena had collapsed upon hearing the news. Her parents and Giulio, shocked and brought to tears by what had happened, had attributed Elena’s reaction to her extreme youth and sensitivity. It was only natural, they assumed, for a young girl, barely on the brink of adulthood, to feel so passionately about the murder of a young man she had spent so much time with, even if he was, more precisely, her older brother’s friend rather than her own.
Elena had grieved for Niccolò with a depth of desolation and despair that was almost unendurable. It was not merely an emptiness, a feeling that her life was over, that the future held no hope. It was an ache that was palpably physical, an unrelenting pain that throbbed in her chest, that was with her day and night. And just when she thought she could weep no more, that there were no more tears left to shed, the ha
rsh, racking sobs would come yet again, unbidden and uncontrollable.
She found herself thinking of lines from poetry long forgotten, understanding them as she had never done before. Once, they had merely been beautiful words with lofty and touching sentiments behind them, elegantly crafted, bringing with them an intellectual pleasure that moved her profoundly, though never to the point of tears. Formal elegies for the dead, with rhetorical flourishes culled from long-gone traditions of shepherds and nymphs herding their flocks along green pastures and fertile hillsides. Poetic remembrances of loved ones who had died well before their time. The young, at the height of their powers, their hopes, their loves. The young, whose rosy lips and cheeks had come within the compass of death’s bending sickle, gathered up in the inexorable harvest of an inscrutable eternity.
For some strange reason, Elena found herself thinking, more than once, not of Italian elegiac verse, but of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” his famous tribute to Arthur Henry Hallam, a friend who had drowned while on a visit to the Continent. She had studied some of his poetry in her English classes and had enjoyed it so much that she had purchased a volume of his complete works, a fine leather-bound copy that she’d discovered at a used book store and sometimes read at bedtime.
Tennyson had appealed to her aesthetic sense and love of language not only because of the lilting flow of his verse, but because his poetry reflected a keen interest in the science of his day, in the conflict between belief in God and the doubts in His existence raised by Darwin and the theory of evolution. For a devout Catholic such as she, who hoped to study medicine and the sciences at university, these were issues of almost personal significance to her, issues that she needed to engage and resolve for herself.
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