From Sand and Ash

by Amy Harmon

  Isaaco Sonnino, a healthy seven-pound baby boy, was born on October 15, 1943. He was delivered by his father but was passed quickly to Eva, who washed him, diapered him, and bundled him in the thin white blanket Giulia had set out in preparation. Eva had never held a baby before, never diapered one either, but she managed with the help of Isabella Donati, an old woman from across the hall who had been a business owner before her shop was closed by the Racial Laws. Her husband was gone, her two sons lost in the Great War, and she claimed there was nothing left for her to do and little left to fear. She was as calm and comforting as a breeze in summertime, and Eva liked her immensely. She made a note to herself to convince the woman to come to the convent at Santa Cecilia. There was room, though Angelo had placed two families there in the last week. Eva would like her company, the nuns would like her soup, and Signora Donati would be safe.

  Eva had come to the apartment late that afternoon with the precious passes in hand. All that needed to be added were the fake names, the signatures, and the fingerprints. But Giulia was already well into her labor, and Eva tucked the passes away and stayed, making herself as useful as possible, playing with the children, timing contractions, and eventually, in the early hours of the morning, watching a baby come into the world.

  Signora Donati went home at midnight, but the curfew made it too dangerous for Eva to walk home, and so she stayed, putting the other children, who had slept in fits and spurts throughout the long night, back to bed. As the hour approached morning, Mario made his way out the front door, bleary-eyed but smiling, claiming he needed to be the first in line for rations with another mouth to feed. Lorenzo and Emilia, bedded down in the living room, were awakened once more, and they were irritable and hungry.

  Eva warmed what was left of the soup and let them fill their bellies in hopes they would sleep again. When they finished, she brought out Mario’s violin and tuned the strings by ear, plucking and tightening until Emilia grew impatient and begged for a song.

  “Can you play the bird song?” Little Emilia started to sing in lisping Yiddish, a song about being a free bird and a loyal little friend, something Eva herself had been taught as a child, and Eva felt her own fear abate.

  “I don’t know that one very well. Sing it a few more times so I can learn it.”

  The little girl kept singing, and before long Eva was moving the bow across the strings, matching Emilia’s sweet voice with the wail of the violin.

  “Something else,” Emilia said suddenly, with the limited attention of the very young.

  “Something happy,” Lorenzo grumbled, unable to resist the lure of distraction.

  “But you need to sleep! We’ve been awake all night! And your mother is sleeping now. I will play something from America. How about that? But you must lie down and close your eyes,” Eva insisted.

  The children climbed under their blankets on the makeshift bed and closed their eyes obediently.

  Eva left the smallest lamp on and curled up on the sofa, determined to get the children to sleep before their father came home. He would need sleep too. It had been the longest night of her life, and Eva longed to close her own eyes and grab a few minutes of rest.

  She notched her violin between her shoulder and her chin and channeled a little Duke Ellington, smiling as she thought of Angelo shaking his hips and his head, the first time he’d introduced her to jazz music. It had been during the week at the beach house, the time he’d kissed her for real. The one time he’d loved her. Then he’d donned a cassock and rejected her once and for all.

  “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” Those were the only words she could sing, and only because Angelo had told her what they meant. He’d laughed when she’d tried to say them, her mouth tripping over the blunt words. But she wasn’t a singer, and the words weren’t important. The song was fun and fast, but she didn’t want fun and fast, and she changed the tempo, the melody curling from the strings, making the song unrecognizable, haunting even. Angelo said jazz was all about lament. She could hear it now. The dissonance of the song, stripped down and robbed of its tempo, made it sound like a song for Shabbat.

  “That’s not happy.” Lorenzo yawned, but his eyes were closed. Emilia was asleep already.

  “But it’s beautiful. And beauty is always joyful.”

  “It doesn’t sound like American music,” he mumbled. Then he was quiet.

  Eva played for a few more minutes, her eyes heavy, her limbs loose, and her head drooped as she slid the violin to her lap. Dawn would come soon, and when Mario returned, she would stumble home. But she would sleep until then.

  She came awake and to her feet when screams pierced the night. Pounding feet and a series of gunshots rang out from somewhere outside. Eva scrambled for the window, pushing the curtain aside so she could squint down at the still-darkened streets to make out what was happening below. It was raining, and the darkness was inky and slick. Then she saw them. Germans. SS officers in their gunmetal-gray raincoats and bulbous black helmets, almost blending into the night. They lined the alley, and as she watched, one lifted his weapon and shot at the sky, sending the message that no one should try to get past them. Answering shots came from farther off.

  The building came awake with a start, and as Eva watched, one family, then another, staggered into the dark streets, still in their bedclothes, holding children and clutching each other. They were herded immediately into the back of a waiting truck. The Sonninos’ apartment was four floors up, and it was only a matter of time before the Germans were pounding at the door.

  Giulia called out from the bedroom beyond, and Eva raced from the window, stepping over the children who had miraculously remained asleep.

  “It’s the SS, Giulia. It looks like they have surrounded the building, maybe the whole ghetto. I can’t be sure. But they’re loading people in the back of trucks.”

  Giulia rose gingerly, tucking her newborn between two pillows and pulling a robe over her nightgown. She staggered and Eva reached for her, sliding her arm around her narrow back. She was too thin. And now she had a baby to nurse. But at the moment, that was the least of their worries.

  “Mario. He isn’t back yet?” she whispered, looking past Eva toward the small sitting room.

  “No. But that is good. If he isn’t here, they can’t arrest him.”

  Giulia started to shake, and Eva knew with a sick surety that if the Gestapo arrested Giulia, she wouldn’t last a week. Nor would her children.

  “We have to hide, Giulia,” she said firmly. “We have to hide somewhere. Think. Where can we hide?”

  Giulia shook her head numbly, her eyes wide and unblinking. “There is no place. There is nowhere, Eva.”

  Eva left Giulia and ran back to the window. People were filling the streets, soldiers were shouting instructions, and every so often another shot rang out. Eva hoped it was simply a shot into the sky like the first shot had been, warning shots, shots designed to incite fear, and not shots aimed at anyone in particular. If the shooting was to instill fear, it was working. Yet Giulia’s children slept on.

  “We will hide here,” Eva said briskly. It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t. But it was something.

  “Here?” Giulia squeaked.

  “Help me!” Eva started shoving the rectangular table with the thick marble top, the table that had been too heavy for the previous tenants to attempt to take with them. If she could get it in front of the door and turn it on its side it would reinforce the door if the Germans tried to break it down. It was the only thing she could think of.

  Giulia was suddenly next to her, pushing with all her meager strength, and they scratched and scraped their way across the wood floor, inching the table toward the door.

  When they were two feet away, they tried to ease it over, but the weight was too great and it crashed to its side, as high as the knob and extending several feet on either side of the doorframe.

  Eva gave it a final shove, snugging it up under the doorknob. She wondered sudden
ly if it had been used this way before.

  “Is the door locked?” Giulia said feebly, her breath harsh from the exertion. There was blood on her nightgown and drops of it trailing across the bare floor. Eva didn’t know how much bleeding was customary after so recently giving birth, but she pretended she didn’t see it. There was no time for compassion.

  “It’s locked. But I want you and the children to go into the bedroom and get in the closet. You have to keep the children quiet. No matter what. I will keep the table pressed against the door. Maybe they will think there is no one here, and they will leave. But we have to be absolutely quiet. If they come in, I will tell them I am the only one here.”

  Eva didn’t wait for Giulia to respond but ran to the sleeping children, scooped up little Emilia, and raced to the narrow closet, tucking her into the corner, her small body propped against the back wall. She curled into it like it was her mother’s breast, and didn’t even let out a whimper. Giulia was rousing Lorenzo, helping him stagger into the bedroom, his eyes still closed. Eva trusted that Giulia could handle her children from there and shut the bedroom door behind them.

  She could hear the clatter of boots on the stairs.

  She ran to the front door and threw herself down, her back against the table, her legs extended to the opposite wall that made up the narrow entryway serving as a divider between the kitchen and the sitting room. She braced her feet and closed her eyes. She found herself reciting some of the words from the Amidah. “Oh, King, you are a helper, a savior, and a shield. You are mighty forever, you are powerful to save.” She couldn’t stand and take three steps back, as was customary, and she left words out, but if God cared about such things at a time like this, he wasn’t a god who would bother to save them. Her lips moved over the words, adding, “Deliver us!” as she repeated them.

  The apartment door shook beneath the pounding of an upraised fist.

  “Öffne die Tür!” a voice demanded in German, and Eva slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the shriek that tried to break loose. There was no sound from the bedroom beyond.

  “Öffne die Tür!”

  “Oh, King, you are a helper, a savior, and a shield. You are mighty forever, you are powerful to save,” she mouthed against trembling fingers.

  “Open the door!” Another voice shouted in badly accented Italian. Fists beat against the door once more. The doorknob rattled and there was an emphatic shove from the other side, but the lock held with the heavy table as reinforcement. Again, a powerful shove. Eva’s legs started to tremble with exertion.

  Two shots rang out above her head, stunning her, and her legs buckled momentarily. German cursing could be heard from the other side of the door. Apparently, the shooter hadn’t warned his comrades to cover their ears. There were two holes in the wall about a foot above Eva’s braced legs. The bullets had easily penetrated the door and buried themselves in the old plaster wall. A cloud of dust lazily floated down around her. Terrified tears ran down Eva’s cheeks, and the prayer died in her throat, but she didn’t move and she didn’t scream.

  “No one lives there!” a voice rang out in the hallway. “It was damaged during the air raids in July. It’s been condemned.”

  “Something is pushed against the door,” the German argued.

  “Debris. The ceiling collapsed in several places. People died.” Eva realized suddenly that the voice belonged to Isabella Donati. The woman’s calm demeanor made her a convincing liar. Her claim that the residents had died should comfort the SS—they wouldn’t need to locate dead Jews. Another shot rang out, right above Eva’s head. Then another, and the table bucked at her back.

  One German barked at the other, and then, miraculously, Eva heard them moving away, retreating down the hall to the next apartment. She waited, breath held, listening for their return. She waited for what felt like hours, until there were no more boots, no more cries, and no more confusion in the hall. The silence felt false, like the silence in a room where death waits behind the door, knife raised, waiting for the unsuspecting victim to turn her back.

  Eva’s legs gave out when she tried to stand. Her muscles ached, and delayed shock stole her equilibrium. She moaned and steadied herself on the wall, looking down at the table that now had a web of cracks extending in every direction. Either the last bullet, the bullet she’d felt at her back, hadn’t penetrated the marble, or it had miraculously missed her.

  She stumbled across the parlor and into the bedroom, crossing the tiny space and flinging the closet door wide, anxious to share the news of their deliverance. Giulia shrieked, one arm extended, clutching her baby, who was latched onto her breast, as if to ward off any would-be attackers. She blinked rapidly at the light, her eyes trying to adjust after an hour spent hiding in the darkness. Apparently, Lorenzo was also temporarily blinded. He barreled out of the closet like a demon freed, and crashed into Eva, fists thrashing, fighting as if his life depended on it.

  “You can’t take us! Leave us alone!” he shouted.

  “Lorenzo! It’s me! It’s Eva. Shhh! They are gone! They are gone!”

  She wrapped her arms around the flailing child as the fight left him, and her eyes found his mother once more. Giulia staggered to the bed and sat weakly upon it, one hand buttoning her gown, the other wrapped tightly around her now squalling infant.

  “They’re gone,” Eva reassured. “But they’ve cleared the building. They’ve taken everyone else.” How many? There were hundreds of Jews living in the ghetto neighborhood. Hundreds.

  “Oh, God. Oh, dear God,” Giulia moaned in horror. “Mario. What if they arrested Mario?”

  Eva could only shake her head helplessly. “Where’s Emilia?” Eva asked suddenly, realizing the little girl was absent.

  “She’s in the closet.” Giulia laughed hollowly. “She slept through it all.”

  The sudden pounding at the front door had Lorenzo crying out and Giulia staggering to her feet, babe in arms.

  “Quiet!” Eva hissed, urging them back toward the closet as she raced for the door, determined to hold it closed once more.

  “Giulia! Giulia!” A desperate voice, barely muffled by the door. A key scraped in the lock and Mario Sonnino pressed his face to the small crack in the now opened door.

  “Giulia!” he cried.

  “It’s Mario!” Eva called, her voice cracking with relief. “Giulia, it’s Mario!”

  “Papà!” Lorenzo shouted, racing from the room, ahead of his mother.

  “Help me move the table!” Eva instructed, shoving at the heavy furniture, and the little boy was at her side, pushing it out of the way.

  Mario fell through the opening, grabbing at his son with one arm, embracing his wife with the other. Eva took the baby from Giulia and held the tiny body against her chest, kissing his downy head and patting his little back. The baby quieted instantly, but Eva’s heart was slower to calm. The stress of the last hour was slowly unraveling her control.

  “They are rounding up all the Jews. Going from house to house. I ran all the way here. I was in the queue when the news hit, and everyone left the line, running in different directions, afraid for their lives. I didn’t get our rations, Giulia,” Mario said sadly, as an afterthought. “I thought I was too late. I thought they’d taken you and the children and left me behind.”

  “You were lucky!” Eva spoke up. “If you’d arrived when they were still here, you would have been taken. And you might have given us away.”

  “How did you manage? How?” Mario was weeping now, relief and joy seeping from his eyes, unchecked. “Is everyone all right? The baby? Emilia?”

  “We hid in the ripostiglio.” Lorenzo puffed out his small chest and placed his hands on his hips. “And we were so quiet they thought no one was home!”

  “You hid in the closet? All of you?” Mario whispered. His gaze lingered on his wife’s face, noting her pallor and the strain that tightened her mouth and lined her eyes.

  “Not Eva! Eva held the door closed,” Lorenzo offered up.
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  All eyes were suddenly on Eva, Mario’s wide with awe.

  “Your neighbor told them no one lived here. I don’t know if they would have moved on if not for her.” Eva’s mouth trembled.

  “Signora Donati is gone,” Mario whispered. “Her door was wide open. All the doors are open. All down the hall. All, except ours. The SS police must have entered each one, making sure no one was left behind. It looks like the phone lines have been cut too.”

  “They didn’t find us!” Lorenzo crowed.

  “Where will they take them, all those people?” Giulia asked quietly.

  “I don’t know.” Mario shook his head in disbelief. “But it won’t stop with the ghetto. I heard someone say they have addresses. Names. Rome is no longer safe for Jews.”

  “My sister and her family!” Giulia cried, suddenly realizing, now that Mario was safe, that she had others to be worried about. The same thing had just occurred to Eva. Uncle Augusto and his family needed to be warned.

  “I have to go.” Eva thrust the baby into Giulia’s arms and turned toward the door, halting as she realized she was shoeless.

  She ran to the lumpy sofa, shoving her feet into her shoes and her arms into the long red coat she had always loved. Now she wished for a coat in the drabbest brown, something that wouldn’t draw attention or admiration. She needed to be invisible. Hadn’t Babbo always said, “Keep your head down and your manners in place”? The thought of him made her stomach clench painfully. She missed him! Oh, God, she missed him so much. Had the SS dragged him away like Isabella Donati? Loaded him up in the back of a truck, never to be seen or heard from again?

  “Oh, Eva. Be careful!” Giulia warned.

  Eva kissed her cheek and embraced Lorenzo before looking up at Mario.

  “Will you be okay without me?” she asked softly. “I will come back when I can, and we will finish your new documents. Giulia needs to be in bed, resting. But you know you can’t stay here. If you have nowhere else, come to the Convent of Santa Cecilia. We will figure something out.”