by Amy Harmon
He did a mental count of the refugees inside. The Sonninos had documents. But Mario’s flesh would give him away if the captain saw fit to go that route again. The two sisters who had escaped the October roundup did not have papers, but the nuns had been coaching them. They had habits, and if they had time to don them, they might be safe. The two brothers had papers and military releases, but their accents were problematic, and they faced the same threat Mario did. Their best chance of survival was to hide. The family with the two small boys did not have passes, and the father and his young daughter did not have false documents either. Their passes labeled them Jews. That made eight people inside who would be immediately arrested and taken if they were discovered, and several more who were extremely vulnerable to detection.
“I want you to call out to them, Father. Tell them to open the gate. Reassure them,” von Essen instructed. “Otherwise, we will have to damage their property to gain entrance. We don’t want to do that. We are reasonable men.”
The clanging ceased as Angelo raised his voice and called out to Mother Francesca, his mind separating from his mouth to pray to Saint Cecilia herself that she might protect the innocents within her walls.
“Mother Francesca, it is Father Bianco. I am here with Captain von Essen of the German Police. He is insisting on checking the premises for Jews.” He was almost grateful that he could call out the danger in no uncertain terms but didn’t know how that would help beyond scaring them to death. There wasn’t time to do much of anything.
Mother Francesca approached the gate with measured steps. Normally, Mother Francesca bustled, too busy about God’s work to move slowly. Now she practically dragged her feet, her hands folded piously, her face grim.
“Father Angelo,” she greeted, inclining her head slightly. She then looked at the captain.
“Open the gate,” von Essen commanded, his eyes holding hers.
She tipped her head as if she didn’t understand German. Angelo was quite certain she didn’t, but it was clear what the captain wanted.
“Tell her to open the gate!” von Essen snapped. Angelo did so, and Mother Francesca, with great deliberation, slowly opened the gate. The soldiers pushed past her, almost knocking her to the ground, but she clung to the gate and managed not to fall.
Captain von Essen produced a bullhorn through which he demanded everyone immediately come out into the courtyard or be shot.
Angelo took Mother Francesca by the arm, steadying her. He didn’t dare ask any questions or draw attention by a hushed conversation, but he translated the captain’s command.
“No! We have cloistered nuns here. They cannot come down to the courtyard! They can’t come out of the cloister!” she cried, rushing toward the captain. Angelo relayed her concerns.
“Well, then. By all means. We must go to them.” He spread his hands, bullhorn in one, as if he were being infinitely reasonable.
“No!” The abbess stamped her foot. “Kill me if you must! You will not go into the cloister.”
“You might not be the only one who dies, Mother,” Angelo said softly. “They will kill you, and they will still go into the cloister. Live to fight another day.”
“Listen to the good father. He is wise,” the captain said, smiling. Angelo wanted to spit in his face.
“Go with the sister to the cloister, Schroeder, and take three men with you,” von Essen commanded. “You go too, Father. Offizier Schroeder may need some help getting his instructions across.”
Mother Francesca led the way, her head bowed as if she carried the weight of the world beneath her veil. She prayed vocally to Saint Cecilia for her forgiveness as she inserted the key into the grille that separated the cloister from the rest of the world.
“Can I at least explain to them what is happening?” she pleaded.
“Nein,” the officer said when Angelo translated. “It will only give them time to hide.”
But the nuns were ready, standing in a long line with their hands folded in prayer. They didn’t need any explanations. Angelo’s eyes shot to the middle of the row of bowed heads, black veils, and stiff white wimples. The two sisters were flanked on each side by nuns. Their youth and prettiness drew the eyes, and Angelo could only pray as Officer Schroeder paced in front of the nuns, eyeing each one with equal parts disdain and suspicion. He stopped in front of the youngest sister. She kept her head bowed.
He reached out suddenly and yanked at her wimple, as if to pull it from her head, but the wimple stayed put. The other men snickered, and the officer grew angry.
“Take it off,” he snapped. The officer must know that nuns shaved their heads upon taking their vows and kept it short. A woman with long, flowing hair would be instantly suspect.
The youngest sister glanced at Father Angelo in alarm but immediately turned away, as if she knew looking to him wouldn’t help her cause. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and Angelo did the same. Suddenly, the words that had been so hard for the girl to memorize, the words she’d learned for self-preservation, started to fall from her lips.
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The SS men shifted uncomfortably. She spoke Italian, but it wasn’t hard to understand the Lord’s Prayer in any language. They were in the cloister, a place completely off limits to the outside world. No man, no woman, no soldier, no priest. These were cloistered nuns, and some of the men obviously knew what that meant.
“Take it off,” the officer roared, his face inches from hers, and his spittle flecked her cheeks. She raised her hands and removed her black veil. But she kept praying aloud, and she didn’t remove the wimple.
“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts”—she looked directly in the face of the blue-eyed German—“as we forgive our debtors.”
“All of you. Take them off,” he commanded, waving his gun at all the nuns, then yanking at the girl’s wimple to indicate what he wanted. When they hesitated, he raised the gun to the youngest girl’s head.
“Take them off! Now!”
Angelo tried to control his rage. He was tired of weapons being pulled and aimed at women’s heads. Eva had endured the same treatment and had been brought to Via Tasso for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They raised their guns with such impunity, with such insolence. And he could only pray that God saw and would mete out justice in his time and in his way.
The other officers moved nervously, realizing something had shifted in their leader. With shaking hands, the other nuns began to unfasten their wimples too, joining the girl in the recitation of the prayer. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
“For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen,” the nuns finished, pulling their wimples free and averting their eyes from the men who stood staring at their shorn heads. Angelo swallowed his gasp. The two young sisters had cut their hair close to their scalps, their tufty hair making them indistinguishable from the other women who stood cowering and vulnerable beneath the scrutiny of the German men. In cutting their hair, they had saved their own lives.
The officer’s finger slid down around the trigger. His eyes were a storm and his lips a flat, hard line—a horizon of indecision beneath the tumultuous gaze. He dropped his weapon to his side. He looked like a fool, and he knew it. He holstered his weapon with flaming cheeks and began walking toward the iron grille that had warned him to stay away in the first place. “Let’s go.”
“All is in order,” the German officer reported to von Essen when they reached the courtyard. His face was still ruddy with embarrassment, but the darkness gave him a little cover.
Everyone else from inside the convent was assembled in a long line, von Essen standing before them with his hands clasped behind his back like a strutting professor. One of his men held the official register Mother Francesca had been so concerned about. Angelo’s eyes went directly to the Sonninos—Giulia holding the
baby, little Emilia in her father’s arms, and Lorenzo clinging to Mario’s hand. Poor Lorenzo. He was old enough to know the danger and too young to understand why any of it was happening. It was the second raid his family would have to survive, the second night they would be forced to beat incredible odds. The woman Angelo had found to nurse baby Isaaco was standing with them, strangely blank-faced, like she didn’t care enough about herself to be afraid. None of the paperless Jews were in the courtyard.
The boarders’ rooms and the surrounding buildings had been searched while Angelo and the abbess accompanied the raid in the cloister. So far, no cries had gone up and no shots had rung out. Their papers must have passed inspection, and the rooms must not have yielded any clues. At that moment, three soldiers came jogging out of the church toward the captain, and Angelo could hear them discussing the locked door off the sacristy that led to the excavation below.
In ancient times, when a church or structure fell into disrepair, the Romans simply built over it, using the existing structure or what was left of it. As a result, Rome was a city of layered ruins, one era stacked on top of the other. Roughly fifty years ago, beneath the church of Santa Cecilia, the ruins of two ancient Roman houses—one of them believed to be the young noblewoman Cecilia’s—had been discovered, and excavations had been conducted. A crypt was built in 1899 at the west end of the excavation, but behind the new crypt, directly beneath the choir, was the original crypt. Angelo wondered suddenly if the refugees were hiding among the dead. It was the best place he could think of.
Von Essen must have thought the same thing. “Father Bianco, Mother, come with me,” he demanded, striding after the soldiers who had turned and were loping back toward the church. Sure enough, when they entered the church, the soldiers veered down the left aisle and stopped before the large locked door.
“What is behind the door?”
“It leads to an excavated area below the church. Ruins,” Angelo said. “A part of an old tannery, a small household shrine, or what remains of it. Some mosaics. A crypt.”
“After you,” Captain von Essen said to the abbess. She unlocked the door, and the group proceeded down the stairs that were little more than steps cut into rock. It was dank and smelled of age and earth. It smelled like Rome. Upon reaching the bottom, the soldiers immediately split off and headed in different directions down the crumbling tunnels, unearthed forty years before. With their flashlights out, they searched corners and poked their guns into dark places. There were lights, which Mother Francesca turned on, but they flickered testily, like the disturbance in the primordial space was unwelcome.
“What is back there?” Von Essen pointed with his pistol to a large iron grille that barred the way forward.
“That is the crypt. The tombs of the martyrs Cecilia, Valerian, Tibertius, and Maximus, and Popes Urban I and Lucius.” Mother Francesca answered this time, clearly not needing to understand the captain’s language to interpret what he was asking. Angelo repeated what she said in German.
The captain’s face twisted with distaste but he wasn’t to be deterred. “Open it.”
“I will not have your men desecrating the tombs.” Mother Francesca shook her head and crossed herself. The captain understood she was refusing, and he lost his temper. Clearly, the raid had not produced the desired results.
“Open it!” he roared and pointed his pistol at the defiant abbess. She dug the old key from the sleeve of her robe, and her voice rose in warning.
Von Essen looked at Angelo for translation.
“He who desecrates the tombs of the saints dies the death of the saints,” Angelo repeated, straight-faced. “Saint Cecilia died of ax wounds.”
The old nun was like a witch straight out of Macbeth, casting her spells and portending ominous events. The SS men shifted uncomfortably, but von Essen shook his head and commanded his men to search the space. Mother Francesca hissed and spat like an angry cat circling the tombs and keeping the soldiers on edge. Von Essen’s men were clearly ready to abandon their search, and it wasn’t long before they were all climbing the stone stairs back to the church above. Neither Angelo nor Mother Francesca mentioned that they had only searched the new crypt. Beyond it, accessible only through a hole tunneled in the wall behind Cecilia’s tomb, was the original crypt. It wasn’t large, but it was big enough to hide five adults and three children.
“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it, Mother?” the captain asked, as if the whole thing had simply been an agreeable tour of the grounds. He walked to the line of terrified boarders and clapped his hands at their armed guard. “We’ve wasted enough time here. Let’s go.” His men immediately obeyed him and marched toward the entrance.
“Father? After you.” Von Essen opened his hand in front of him, indicating that Angelo should go first.
“I will walk home, thank you,” Angelo said without inflection. He was not going to get in the car with von Essen unless commanded to do so at gunpoint, and maybe not even then. But the captain had resumed his feigned benevolence, and he inclined his head agreeably, snapping his fingers and shooting instructions. The men ran to the truck, hopping up and disappearing behind the black flaps with their intimidation and their guns.
Von Essen followed them, but just before he reached his waiting car, he turned his head to the side and halted, throwing the words over his shoulder, and Angelo knew they were meant for him as much as for the abbess.
“If we discover there are Jews being hidden here, sheltered here, we will be back. We will be back, Mother.” Von Essen climbed into the back of his Mercedes, and the vehicles rumbled across the cobblestone piazza and disappeared around the corner as if they’d never been there at all.
The night wasn’t over, but Santa Cecilia had survived, and so had her hidden Jews. Now he could only warn others.
“Ring the bells, Mother Francesca,” he demanded. “Five times. Let the neighborhood know that the Germans are out.”
Before long, the bells of Santa Cecilia rang through the night, loud and insistent, a warning to all within earshot. Those who didn’t know about the coded message would simply shrug and hardly notice. Bells in Rome were a daily occurrence. Bells at midnight, not as likely, but not cause for alarm. An answering clanging—five chimes—came a minute later. Then more bells were ringing from farther away, and then more, all in sets of five, coming from different directions. The message was being heard and spread.
18 March, 1944
Confession: Tonight, I faced my dragons. Now I’m sitting all alone in a beautiful hotel room in Rome, filling pages of stationery with my confessions, wondering if those same dragons will, in the end, slay me, or worse, slay Angelo.
Thinking about dragons has reminded me of my fourteenth birthday. Babbo hired a family of circus performers who brought in ponies and clowns and gypsies who performed tricks and read fortunes. It was all very exciting and authentic, especially the fortune-teller. She was young—maybe eighteen or nineteen—and quite beautiful, with big round breasts, a tiny waist, and huge gold loops at her ears. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I think my father was a little alarmed by the lusty gypsy, but it was the best birthday party ever, and my classmates talked about it for months afterward.
The gypsy had tarot cards and a big round ball that she pretended to look into as she foretold the future. I wanted her to tell me my fortune, but got nervous at the last moment and ran and grabbed Angelo by the hand and pulled him into her little striped tent so he could hold my hand while she told me my fate. Angelo was sixteen at that time, and he seemed so much older than the other boys. I had to beg him to come home for the party, and even then, he hung back and watched, eating cake and listening to Uncle Augusto and Babbo argue politics. He wasn’t a child anymore, and I was losing him a little at a time.
The gypsy laughed at me when I told her to proceed. I must have seemed very young and foolish. Her eyes were dark and her lips red, and I could tell she thought Angelo was very handsome. She turned over some cards—I don’t remembe
r which ones—but her eyes kept going back to Angelo. I don’t remember what my fortune was, only that I was disappointed and unimpressed by her predictions. But then she offered to read Angelo’s cards. He started to drag me away, clearly not interested, but she stood and pushed him firmly down into the chair I had just vacated. I clutched his hand, indicating that he belonged to me, and she quirked her eyebrows disdainfully.
She told him he would have the love of a beautiful woman who would bear him many sons. I informed her he was going to be a priest. She predicted he would be a hero to many. I told her he was already a hero to me. “You will slay dragons,” she predicted grandly, ignoring me. But Angelo grew very still, and his hand tightened around mine.
“You will slay dragons, but not before they slay you,” she hissed. And Angelo bolted from his chair, dragging me from the tent.
Eva Rosselli
CHAPTER 19
THE VILLA MEDICI
It took Angelo forty minutes to walk back to the Villa Medici, and every step was rife with dread. He was afraid he would arrive and find Eva gone, that he would walk into the room and see overturned furniture and empty space. He kept imagining her door being knocked down, a squadristi of Jew hunters pulling her out into the night and whisking her away.
He didn’t trust von Essen, and his insistence that she take a room at the hotel rang hollow. By the time Angelo turned the key and let himself into her room, he was beside himself with worry.
But all was well.
Eva was asleep on the large bed, hugging the edge like she’d fallen asleep while waiting for him and simply tipped over. Her legs still hung off the side. He watched her for a moment, lightheaded with relief, before stumbling to the bathroom and gulping down mouthfuls of water to ease the ache in his chest. It was a grateful ache. A humble ache. An ache that felt like love and longing and loss, though he hadn’t lost her at all. But the ache said he could. The ache said he still might. The ache said he’d been a fool.