Pier Giorgio changed the subject. “Can someone please tell me why Luciana is weeping?” he asked sitting down beside her.
“Papa is making us move to Germany,” she blurted out amidst her sobs.
“What?” he asked in disbelief.
“Your father has been asked to become the Italian Ambassador to Germany,” his mother clarified. “Prime Minister Giolitti has given his blessing; your father leaves next week and we will join him at the end of this month in Berlin.”
“That … that can’t be. What will … when?”
“Your mother just told you, at the end of this month.”
“But my exams for school are next month.”
“Then you will stay with Aunt Elena until your studies are over,” his father answered nonchalantly. “She will be here at the house while we’re gone.”
“How long will you hold this position, Papa?”
“There’s no way to know. At least a year or two.”
Pier Giorgio fought back tears as he considered this dramatic upheaval of his life and what he would leave behind—the friends, churches, classes, and many causes he was so invested in.
“It will be good for our family to get out of this crazed city for a while, don’t you think, Adelaide?” Alfredo asked his wife.
She didn’t answer, but rather continued to stare out the window into the darkness and sip on her drink.
“I don’t want to leave my friends,” Luciana bemoaned.
“You’ll make new friends, and we’ll be living in the very luxurious Italian Embassy. I promise you will love it, Luciana.”
Her head perked and she wiped at her nose. “How luxurious?”
“Very,” her father answered with a smile.
Pier Giorgio swallowed hard and walked over to his father, extending his hand.
“Congratulations, Papa. You continue to amaze us all with your accomplishments and achievements.”
Alfredo accepted his son’s hand and the two hugged.
The family built a fire and huddled in the den as they discussed the new life awaiting them in Germany. Luciana gradually warmed to the idea of living in a foreign place as Alfredo described the state dinners they would host and the many attractions to see in Berlin. He framed it as an adventure, and all the while Pier Giorgio displayed a sense of happiness to appease his father, but inside his heart ached for the homeland he would leave behind.
17
An Influential Meeting
Pier Giorgio wrapped the striped tie around his neck and looped it within itself, forming a loose knot just beneath his chin. He surveyed his work in the mirror and found it adequate. He grabbed his dark blue sport coat from the bed and threw it over his torso, completing his formal attire for the embassy dinner.
Downstairs he could already hear people arriving for the party as the servants ran recklessly about the house making their final preparations. The noises might have been odd in a normal house, but such sounds had become as constant as the hum of a heater at the Frassati’s new home in Berlin. There was never a shortage of political guests visiting his father, in addition to the hired help who seemed to work round the clock.
He took a deep breath, surveyed his reflection in the mirror again, and headed for his bedroom door. When he opened it, he saw Luciana across the hall in her own room struggling to hook a glittery necklace beneath the long hair layering the back of her neck.
“Oh, Georgie, won’t you help me with this?” She walked across the hall and turned so he could hook the clasp of the diamond necklace. Once completed, she faced him, smiling as brightly as her necklace shone in the light of the hallway chandelier. Her black sequin dress fell to the floor, covering even her feet.
“So, how do I look?”
“Marvelous,” came his reply, though without much effort.
“You could be more convincing.”
“I just cannot help wondering how much that necklace costs.”
“I don’t know, but nothing for me to wear it tonight, so no lectures. It’s a temporary gift from the German government. Who am I to turn them down?”
“It seems they like to shower Papa with gifts each week. They must want to impress something upon him.”
“Perhaps, but mother and I may as well enjoy these doting gifts while we can, no? You could too, if you wanted to. Oh, Georgie,” she said reaching out to fiddle with the knot of his tie. “Why must you always wear your ties so crooked?”
She took his hand and dragged him over to the mirror of his mahogany bureau. She forced him to crouch so she could stand behind him and wrap her arms around his broad shoulders, straightening and tightening the knot. She stood for a moment admiring her brother’s reflection.
He was taller than most boys, but not awkwardly, with robust arms formed and strengthened from all his mountain climbing. His hair was usually unkempt but met his forehead in a harmonious line which curved down at its midpoint. His eyes were dark but full of vitality and were encompassed by long, curly lashes. His skin was darker than hers and his teeth straighter and whiter, but he hid his good looks behind his humility, and for this she could never resent him.
She continued to stare long after the tie knot was pulled tight.
“What?” he asked innocently.
She smiled. “Just thinking how handsome my older brother is.”
“Don’t flatter me with such lies.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there are several beautiful, young women here tonight, Georgie. You should make yourself known and available. Use such a fancy occasion and our father’s good name to introduce yourself.”
“Don’t hold your breath. I’m waiting for the right Italian girl to come along, one I don’t anticipate meeting in Berlin tonight.”
He loosened his tie with a grin. She huffed and rolled her eyes.
Together they descended the stairs with their arms locked. He had hoped she would remain by his side for the remainder of the evening, but within seconds she broke off into a conversation with her mother and several diplomats. Pier Giorgio tried to assimilate into the group but found the exchange about the latest automobile to hit the market rather dull. A joke was offered by a stout man with a white and curly mustache and the group burst into laughter; Pier Giorgio forced a detached chuckle and quietly excused himself from the conversation. No one noticed.
He floated from room to room, picking at some of the food and avoiding any eye contact that would bait him into a discussion with one of his father’s acquaintances. An instrument trio played music from the drawing room and for a while he enjoyed their melodies as he surveyed a large globe in the corner of the room. He placed his finger on the map and spun the sphere with closed eyes, stopping it and imagining a new life in the location his finger determined at random.
After an hour, he noticed the embassy chancellor, Rofi, walking into the kitchen to check on the food. Pier Giorgio followed him and asked for several loaves of bread and some cans of soup.
“What do you need these for?” asked Rofi, pointing to the maid to bring him Pier Giorgio’s requests.
“I want to take them across town to an area I read about in the paper. I have determined they’ll need these items more than our dinner guests.”
“Which area?”
“Alexanderplatz.”
The cooks, maids and butlers glanced at each other with veiled eyes.
“Why on earth would the son of the Italian Ambassador journey into such a place?” Rofi asked.
“To deliver bread and soup. Did my request not make this clear?”
Rofi surveyed the other faces in the room. He grabbed the bag of food from the maid and ushered Pier Giorgio towards the door. He spoke in a whisper, muffling his voice from the hired help behind them.
“Son, you should not go to such a place, at least not at night. This area is nothing but misery.”
“That’s why I should go there,” Pier Giorgio replied, taking the burlap bag full of food from him. He headed toward the back door to
avoid his departure causing a scene. “Tell my Papa I’m upstairs ill with fever if he asks where I am.”
“What if he checks on you?”
“He won’t.” Pier Giorgio paused and grabbed a bouquet of flowers resting in a vase of water by the door, shaking the dripping water over the sink. “Thank you, Rofi, and everyone else. The Lord smiles upon your gifts to the people of Alexanderplatz.”
The night was cold. His breath emerged in a cloud of fog behind his chattering teeth as he wondered how much longer the lingering winter of 1921 would last before spring brought forth warmer weather. The sounds of a Berlin Saturday night clamored about him—car horns honking, buses barreling by, pedestrians filling the streets, and music playing at a nearby bar. He stopped and looked at a map he had slid into his pocket before leaving. Once certain he was traveling in the right direction, he set out toward the slums he sought.
The neighborhood of Alexanderplatz was a collection of ghettos stacked together, overflowing with an assortment of deprived and pitiable souls. The war had rushed its way through Germany and caused the destruction of not just buildings and homes, but hope and faith. Refugees from Russia had migrated west in search of a place outside the curtain of the Communist Revolution, but upon settling in the German capital, work, food, and shelter were as foreign to them as their new city.
Germans themselves were hit hard by the war reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, devaluing their currency to the precipice of irrelevance. A large portion of their population was reduced to poverty as they flocked to boarding houses and fell into trenches of despair.
It was an odd thing, but Pier Giorgio felt at home for the first time in Berlin the moment he stepped into the crumbled streets of Alexanderplatz. It reminded him, in a sort of nostalgic way, of the downtrodden neighborhoods of Turin.
He considered how the wealthy had a myriad of distinctions between them—the style of their mansions, the type of automobiles they drove, where they vacationed, what sort of leisure they enjoyed, and all the like—while the poor had but one focus: survival. This dependence on a will to make it through each day while fending off thirst, hunger, and the natural elements, unified them across the globe into a common cause, and it was this unified feeling and focus on survival upon which Pier Giorgio thrived.
The distractions of the material world were like barnacles clinging to the soul, slowing down one’s journey to God. But the poor, without such diversions of pleasure, kept their focus straight ahead; they had no other option but to place their hope in the Lord. He found the poor, sick, and disabled to be like fallen leaves scattered about the ground in late autumn; while some saw them as a nuisance, he was charmed by their presence.
Pier Giorgio fell into the gutters of Alexanderplatz and bounced from hovel to hovel as if he had resided there all his life, introducing himself with a radiant smile and handing out donations from his bag like ole’ St. Nick himself. Residents emerged from their cold and hollow homes, astounded by the charity waiting for them at their doors. Each visit varied, from those who wanted no part of his company but gladly accepted the food, to those who welcomed him in and hugged him before his departure. The elderly woman he handed the flowers to even kissed him square on the lips.
Once he was out of supplies he continued to navigate the dark ghettos, giving away his socks, shoes and a coat to a homeless man. He may have ultimately returned to the Italian Embassy just as the dinner guests were leaving, naked as the day he was born, if he were not more prudent with his charity.
But before leaving the neighborhood something caught his attention in the distance. A man dressed in black was mirroring Pier Giorgio’s own actions. A priest, it would seem from where Pier Giorgio stood, was also dolling out goods and supplies. Pier Giorgio, drawn to him and his altruistic actions, began to follow the man.
It would have been quite common for Pier Giorgio to walk up to this priest and introduce himself, as his gregarious nature had always allowed him the comfort and privilege to do such things, but something held him back. He enjoyed watching this priest and his interactions with the poor. And so Pier Giorgio continued to shadow him, staying some yards back and hopping from block to block.
It was nearly an hour later when, not realizing his nearing proximity to the one he was spying upon, the priest whipped his body around and took ten aggressive steps toward a dumbfounded Pier Giorgio.
“What is it, boy?” he screamed. “What do you want? You’ll not rob this priest, I assure you!”
Pier Giorgio stumbled back and tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, falling to his backside.
“Signor,” he pleaded from the ground, “I mean, Father, no! I have no intention of robbing you.”
“What do you want, then?”
“To … to meet you, I suppose.”
“What?”
“To make your acquaintance.”
The man waited a moment, as if sizing up the young Italian’s true intentions, then stuck out his hand and helped him to his feet. Pier Giorgio dusted himself off and took in the man’s face for the first time. He was middle-aged, with worn skin and a powerful jaw. His eyes were a rich blue that shone in the streetlamp above them, and his blonde hair hung down beneath the hat atop his head.
“Well, why didn’t you just come say so instead of hovering in the shadows?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
The priest eyed him up and down.
“So then, what’s your name? And where might I ask are your shoes? You’re either insane or an idiot for walking around these streets barefoot on a cold night like this.”
Pier Giorgio smiled with the realization that he was going to love this grumpy priest.
18
Finding Clarity
Father Carl Sonnenschein was a man of action. He was a passionate Catholic, one filled with vigor, and a man who applied a blunt approach to the spreading of the Faith. He reversed the roles in the relationship between the Church and her threats, acting as a predator rather than a prey, attacking and cutting off all heresies and injustices before they could blossom. Around Berlin he was well-respected, even by those outside the Catholic Church. He embraced a life of poverty in order to combat it for others, working tirelessly in the ghettos of Berlin. His actions had earned him the moniker, “the Saint Francis of Berlin.”
Father Carl was born in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1876 and earned an education not only in the priesthood, but also in sociology, a rare combination for his time. His studies took him all the way to Rome, where he had a profound effect on the Italian Catholics establishing the Popular Union in 1906.
Once back in Germany, he held the role of the chief organizer of the German Catholic Movement and went on to establish the General Office of Labor, the Catholic People’s University, the Catholic Artists’ Club, and even found time to act as the editor of Berlin’s Catholic newspaper. He made a concerted effort to promote the foundation of Catholic student clubs in all the universities of Germany, breeding faith into students, teachers, and workers alike.
In short, he was Pier Giorgio’s hero.
The two took to each other quickly, becoming as inseparable as salt and seawater. Pier Giorgio thrived on Father Carl’s example and soaked in his spiritual nourishment like a sponge. They made quite the pair, despite their conflicting personalities. Pier Giorgio could make conversation with a willow tree and bring life to its drooping branches, while Father Carl seemed to shy away from common human interaction. Yet both possessed a pure spirit and a desire to spread the Faith, and it was this inner flame that united them.
After meeting Father Carl, Pier Giorgio settled into his new place in Berlin. He still journeyed back to Turin at times to further his progress for his mining degree, and he took family vacations to Pollone. But for the most part he spent the next year entrenched in his new life amongst the Germans. He grew to love them, cherishing their spirit despite the difficult lot they had been cast from the repercussions of the Great War.
This was
a vital time in his life, a moment where his path came to a fork he could not ignore. Despite continuing on with his university studies in Mining Engineering and serving the poor as a layman, the call of a priestly vocation still lingered within his soul. It was like a mountain in the distance he yearned to climb, but he was unsure of the valley awaiting him on the other side. It was not that he feared what awaited him; rather, he was hesitant if that was what God wanted from him. It was through his experiences with Father Carl that clarity came, though not in the fashion he anticipated such clarity to come.
On a summer night, journeying through the streets of Berlin on their way to deliver several jugs of clean water to a boarding house, the two of them mused about their favorite religious texts.
“Saint Paul is the father of the written word, as far as I’m concerned,” Pier Giorgio said confidently. “I wrote down a copy of his Hymn to Charity and carry it around with me at all times; it’s in my wallet at this very moment. The wisdom from his pen has altered the path of many souls.”
“You’ll get no argument from me there,” Father Carl agreed, “but saying Saint Paul is your favorite religious author is like telling me the sunset over the Adriatic is splendid; such statements are too obvious to be interesting. I was looking for something more original from you, Georgie.”
“But the sunset over the Adriatic is splendid. The truth should not be taken for granted, Father Carl; it is anything but obvious during these troubled times.”
Father Carl chuckled but nodded in agreement.
They turned a corner toward a dark alley which led to the boarding house some blocks over. A rain storm had pushed through the area and the summer moonlight reflected in the many puddles gathered in the dips of the street. Pier Giorgio hopped over each one as if he were playing hopscotch, while Father Carl trudged through them without thought.
To the Heights: A Novel Based on the Life of Pier Giorgio Frassati Page 9