She had so many questions to ask, so much more that she wanted to know. But it would have to wait. First her grandmother had to get better. She would engage a private nurse to stay with Elena while she recovered at home. For as much as she loved her grandmother, as much as she wished she could stay with her for a few weeks while she regained her strength, Nicola felt that she had to get back to Rome. She needed to return to Italy. She had to find a way to learn what had happened to her relatives, and she had to find out more about Cardinal Rostoni—if in fact he was the one responsible for her grandfather’s death, or if his name was just a terrible coincidence.
It was six hours later in Rome than in New York, she calculated. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. She would call Bruno after her grandmother’s test results were in. There was no sense in phoning anyway until she’d had a few hours sleep and could think more clearly. Then she would tell him that she'd just heard some shocking things about her family background that he too would need time to digest, and by then she'd have a good idea of when she’d be returning to Rome.
Just thinking of him was comforting. She realized how much she'd started to depend on him emotionally. He would help her. She could count on it. She knew he would care.
Chapter Two
Nicola had finally relaxed somewhat now that she was en route to Italy again. Only one more hour, and she would be landing at Fiumicino Airport. Bruno would be waiting for her, and she would tell him everything.
She had been remarkably restrained in their phone conversation earlier that day, mentioning only that her grandmother was much better and would probably recover fully, that a private nurse had been engaged, and that Elena had insisted that she return to Rome. Nicola had then added, in as calm a voice as she could manage, that she had something very important to tell him, something that she would prefer not to discuss over the phone, that would require research of a different sort than their current work entailed.
Bruno had tried to convince her to explain, but she'd been adamant. Keeping her tone light, but insistent, she told him that it would be better if she explained in person and that his curiosity would be satisfied shortly, certainly within the next ten hours.
Her head was still spinning from the knowledge that her great grandparents had been direct victims of Fascist oppression and that because her biological grandfather had been Jewish, he'd been murdered through the machinations of a jealous rival, a rival whose religious vows, not to mention his cold personality—assuming he was the same Mauro Rostoni—would have precluded all hope of a favorable response from Elena. Or from any other young woman for that matter.
And as for Grandpa Tom—how was she going to deal with the fact that Grandpa Tom wasn’t even her real grandfather? She had loved him so much and now it was as if she had to divide this love, or should divide this love, with her other grandfather—a grandfather whose face she had never seen, whose photograph didn’t exist, who had died when he was so much younger than she was now.
She found it difficult, in fact, to think of Niccolò as her actual grandfather. He had been too young, barely on the threshold of adulthood. He was more like a younger brother, perhaps, someone with whom she shared a close bond of blood and that she wished she could have protected from pain. Poor, poor Niccolò—to die so brutally, so gratuitously, just to satisfy the unrequited lust and anger of a vindictive neighbor whom Elena had spurned. Nicola felt almost physically ill just thinking about it.
And as ill as she felt thinking about Niccolò, she also felt badly for Grandpa Tom. Nicola had known that her mother, Julia, was an only child, and not because Tom and Elena had wanted it that way. Two years after Julia had been born, Elena had lost a set of twins in her sixth month of pregnancy, and a year and a half after that she'd had a stillbirth in her third trimester. She had been so devastated by these losses, one after the other, that she was afraid to conceive ever again.
Nowadays, of course, there were obstetricians who specialized in dealing with high-risk pregnancies. There were diagnostic tests that could detect almost any kind of anomaly imaginable, whether it was placental insufficiency, gestational diabetes, antibody incompatibility, or some sort of genetic pathology. Premature babies could be sustained outside the womb until they could breathe and eat on their own.
Part of the tragedy in all of this, Nicola realized, was that Tom had never had a biological child of his own, though he had loved Julia as if she were truly his. He had been as crushed as Elena had been when Nicola’s parents had been killed in the car accident.
What great strength her grandmother had had—still had, in fact—to have lost her lover, her parents, her brother, three babies, and then her only surviving child. And yet she'd gone on with her life, pushing the pain aside, and devoting herself to Tom and her only granddaughter. Now Nicola was all that Elena had left, and yet here she was, cheerfully sending her back to Italy despite her own serious illness.
In fact, Elena had insisted that Nicola return to Rome to complete her analysis of the crypt since she would be hospitalized anyway, under observation, for at least another week. Nicola had realized that perhaps it was for the best. Despite her feelings of guilt about leaving her grandmother with a private nurse, she knew that, under the best of circumstances, she was no good at hiding her emotions. That even if she were to avoid discussing Cardinal Rostoni with Elena, there were too many questions about her grandmother’s life in Italy that, were they in fact asked, would upset Elena at this critical time, possibly undoing the delicate equilibrium of her recovery. Moreover, Nicola understood that perhaps Elena had finally disclosed the details of her past precisely because she'd thought it was time to make the equivalent of a deathbed confession while she still could, despite her disclaimers and protests to the contrary.
The surname “Rostoni” was not terribly common in Italy, and in truth, Nicola had never even heard of it before she had been contacted by the Pontifical Commission. Certainly none of her Italian-American acquaintances in Connecticut or New York had last names that even vaguely resembled it. And so Nicola had to consider that it was entirely possible that a young priest, with that surname, who had been affiliated with the Vatican in the 1940’s—especially someone as vicious and manipulative as Niccolò’s murderer must have been—could have risen, over the years, to a position of tremendous power in the Curia. Certainly that Rostoni had been an accomplice to murder, if not an actual murderer in fact.
Nicola hoped desperately that Bruno would be able to help her cut through all the notorious Italian red tape and bureaucracy so that she could find out something definitive about her family. There had to be records somewhere—deportation lists, hospital archives, prison files, parish registers—something that could provide even a slender thread of concrete information about the fate of her relatives.
In the remaining hours before her flight, Nicola had tried as best she could to speak to her grandmother only about the arrangements that would take effect after Elena’s release from Mount Sinai. Nicola had interviewed a young Filipino nurse and arranged for her to stay with Elena at the hospital and then move in with her for at least a month. Elena had objected at first, both to the unnecessary cost and the temporary loss of her privacy, but Nicola had insisted.
“Please, Nonna,” she'd begged. “It’s the only way I can even think of returning to Rome. Please do this for me. Otherwise I’ll have to stay in New York, despite your wishes.”
“Okay, cara,” Elena relented. “But just for a month. And I don’t want you to pay for it. You know that Grandpa Tom left me very well provided for, and I have no plans to take it with me when the time comes,” she added with a spark of her usual wry sense of humor, “however soon that might be.”
Chapter Three
Stretching her legs, Nicola yawned lazily and sat up, pulling the sheet on Bruno’s bed up to her neck. The room was air-conditioned, and she was feeling a bit chilly. Her flight had arrived on time, and Bruno had taken her straight back to his apartment, where she had finally told
him—in an emotional blur of words and tears—what Elena had revealed about her family’s past and Nicola’s own, newly discovered Jewish roots. They had made love twice, with an uncharacteristic passion bordering on desperation—at least on Nicola’s part—and then promptly fallen asleep.
Now, as she nestled back into Bruno’s arms, the mellow afterglow of the past few hours having soothed her raw nerves, she tried to think more clearly about the implications of her grandmother’s confession. There was so much to do, and yet she hardly knew where to begin. First of all, she would wait a day or two before returning to work on the frescoes. And she would definitely not set foot anywhere near the Vatican, or at least try not to, until she had more precise information—if in fact there was any way to obtain it—about Cardinal Rostoni’s personal history.
Unfortunately, her grandmother had provided few details that could help Nicola locate Elena’s old neighborhood, where perhaps parish or local municipal records might yield some useful preliminary evidence. She would also need to find some way to access archival material that could tell her where Rostoni had been ordained and whether there was any other Rostoni who had taken holy orders around that time. But of course she would have to do it far from the Vatican and its Secret Archives.
Her grandmother’s maiden name was far more common than “Rostoni.” But even if she were to find that a Conti family had resided in the same neighborhood as a Rostoni family had, back in the 1940’s, it didn’t necessarily mean that these were the specific people in question. It was possible, once again, that she would have no recourse but to turn to Father Benedetto to see what he could find out about the Cardinal’s background.
This time, however, the secret she would be confiding was far more dangerous than before. This was not merely a matter of a pilfered manuscript that could later be returned, or the discovery of a murdered pope and his possible link to lost, legendary treasures, the historical significance of which could set off shock waves, temporary though they might be, within Catholic and Jewish circles. This was something that had the potential to link one of the most powerful men in the Curia to Fascist activities during World War II and to the murder, or complicity in the murder, of innocent people.
And this might only be the tip of the proverbial iceberg, Nicola reflected. Who knew what else might be uncovered as the deepest layers of Vatican history during the war were excavated down to their most secret foundations? With the issue of Pius XII’s potential canonization under scrutiny, in the shadow of a plethora of uncomfortable details regarding his relationship with Germany during his tenure there as papal nuncio and his later failure to rescue the Jews of Rome, a revelation of this sort could be regarded in some quarters as a threat that would need to be suppressed, forcefully and with utter finality. The damage that could be sustained to Pius’ case, were it to emerge that Cardinal Rostoni—his one-time confidant and assistant—had Fascist links, would be incalculable.
And if it transpired that Rostoni had actually been responsible for the murder of her relatives, who knew what he was capable of doing to protect himself from scandal, what lengths he would go to to silence those who had exposed his carefully buried past? She and Bruno would need to be very cautious indeed.
Another thought troubled her as well, though she had no rational basis for it. Before she had been made privy to the terrible details of her grandmother’s past, the possibility of someone spying on her and Bruno would never have occurred to Nicola, not even in her wildest, most far-fetched fantasies. She would never even have entertained the prospect a week earlier, before Elena had been hospitalized and Nicola’s entire world—her whole identity—had been turned upside down.
But now she remembered her strange sense of uneasiness in the vine-covered café near the Ardeatine Caves, when the German tourist seemed to be observing her and Bruno with perhaps more than casual interest. She remembered Bruno’s remark about the break-in at his campus office. And she recalled the strange motorcyclist who’d parked his Vespa and watched her from the other side of the Via Nomentana as she waited for Bruno to take her to services at the Tempio. She began to wonder if she was becoming as paranoid as a beleaguered heroine in some international thriller, or if, perhaps, her suspicions were actually justified.
Even if the Cardinal were the same Mauro Rostoni who had engineered the murder of Niccolò and destroyed Elena’s family, he couldn’t possibly know who she really was, Nicola kept reminding herself. She herself had only just found out who she really was and what had happened to her relatives during World War II. Surely Rostoni posed no physical threat or danger to her.
And as for the discovery of the ancient manuscript and the shocking implications of its contents, even if it proved necessary to share this aspect of their findings with Rostoni, there could be nothing there to taint him personally, Nicola was convinced—nothing that could possibly push him to discredit her or Bruno.
If the Temple treasures were, by some twist of fate, still in the hands of the Church, it had nothing to do with Rostoni. The artifacts, if indeed they still existed, would have been buried centuries ago in some hidden vault and been long forgotten. There could be no possible connection between them and the Cardinal. She was certain of it.
True, their rediscovery, should it come to that, would have the potential to embarrass the Church, but surely no one could attach blame to anyone currently in a position of power in the Curia. Even Father Benedetto, who had immediately understood the broader ramifications of the narrative in the scroll, had been shocked by the mere possibility of the existence of the treasures. Surely he was simply exercising due caution when he had warned Bruno and Nicola to keep their theories and conjectures to themselves for the time being.
“Bruno,” Nicola whispered gently, nudging him out of his sleep and dotting his face and neck with soft kisses, “we need to talk.”
“Again?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn. “I thought we’d talked enough already.”
“No, silly,” she replied affectionately, as she laid her head on his chest and snuggled closer. “I mean about something else. About how we’re going to figure out everything we need to know about the Cardinal. I’ve been thinking about nothing else since I woke up.”
Bruno yawned again and stretched. “Okay, but first I think we both need a healthy dose of caffeine to get those little gray cells in good working order. At least I do. Why don’t you go into the shower while I make coffee? I’ll join you in a minute.
“And dibs on the sheet,” he added with a wink, yanking it off the bed. He wrapped it around his waist and padded off into the kitchen.
Chapter Four
The clocks struck 3 AM in offices and bedchambers throughout the Apostolic Palace. Antique cuckoo clocks that chirped dissonantly with Swiss precision. Bracket clocks with buhl work, ornately gilded. Tall grandfather clocks, dignified in their dark marquetry cases. But their chimes were unheard by the weary sleepers who rested tranquilly within its walls.
Inside the belfry of the domed basilica of San Pietro, gleaming white in the moonlight, great bells began to chime, ringing out to the heavens and the now drowsy Eternal City. High above, in the black velvet of the nocturnal sky, a few stars glittered and winked indifferently, in apparent disregard for the foibles and sins of mankind.
Outside the heavily fortified ramparts of the Vatican, the very heart of Christendom, a slender figure cloaked in black pushed on a flat metal knob skillfully concealed near St. Anne’s gate and slipped through the narrow doorway that opened at her touch.
Keeping close to the massive brick walls that had for so many centuries protected the Holy See, she skirted the courtyard and made her way cautiously to an obscure side entrance of the Apostolic Palace, an entrance known to only a few. Drawing an old iron key out of the pocket of her cloak, she unlocked the door and passed silently down a narrow, dimly lit corridor to a small room, her heart pounding in her breast, the metallic taste of fear, as always, in her mouth.
Softly sh
e tapped twice on a thick wooden door, which opened a moment later. A strong, but gaunt hand, adorned by a heavy gold ring with a large amethyst stone embellished with a golden cross, pulled her inside.
And her weekly nightmare began.
He had seen her from behind the darkened window of his limousine two months earlier, on a street corner near the convent on the Via Cicerone. She had thought no one could possibly notice as she deftly removed the wallet of an unsuspecting tourist from his backpack.
Her name was Rosaura, and she was one of the many gypsies who roamed the streets of the Eternal City in perpetual search of a livelihood. Some of them stopped cars in the street and washed windshields, hoping for a tip. Others, out of desperation, turned tricks in dark alleyways, when pick pocketing could not secure them enough ready cash.
His driver had immediately stopped the car and insisted that she enter. Terrified that he might call the carabinieri, she had entered the dark vehicle without protest, not knowing what to expect. The back seat was partitioned off from the driver’s area by a smoked glass divider. To her shock, she found herself in the presence of a priest—or was he a bishop, perhaps a cardinal? Not being a practicing Catholic, of course, she had no idea what his position in the Church might be, at least not based on what he wore. He looked dignified and somewhat past the prime of his life. But his eyes were hard and pitiless, devoid of all expression.
After all these weeks, she still had not been told his name and had come to realize that she would never know it. All she knew was that once a week she was expected to appear in this horrid, windowless chamber and perform a wild gypsy dance in a state of almost total undress, covered only from time to time, as the steps of the dance allowed, with a fringed shawl. Her own freedom from arrest and the safety of her family had come at this price of almost unbearable humiliation.
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