A Thread of Grace

by Mary Doria Russell

  Renzo leans over the table. “Never underestimate how soothing it is to have someone else to blame. If Jews didn’t exist, someone would have to invent us.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Schramm says judiciously. “There’re always the Jesuits. Or Freemasons.”

  Renzo drinks off his grappa in a single searing swallow and sets the glass gently on the table. “Secret Jews,” he declares, belching. “Every last one of them.”

  Schramm crosses his arms on the table and leans against them to ease the pressure building in his lungs. “I barely made it through the Physicum,” he confesses. “The other students had no fears about their abilities. They made the same mistakes as I did,” he says, “but if a procedure went wrong? The patient was weak—a poor specimen. I was afraid all the time, but I had a wife, children, so I kept on. When half the doctors in Germany were fired for being Jewish, a lot of doors opened to mediocrities like me.”

  Renzo looks at him for a long moment. “At least you’re honest.”

  “Well, my ambitions have diminished. I retain not the slightest desire to improve the world! I just want to live until this fucking war is over,” Schramm says, voice fraying. “I want to see my family before I die.”

  Balancing his chair on its back legs, Renzo retreats into his thoughts, while Schramm’s own mind empties of longing and regret. He closes his eyes, drifting in the lovely twilight liquor bestows. Breathing is easy, he thinks. In. Out. In. Out . . .

  Renzo’s chair levels with a thump. “What would it take?”

  Schramm rouses. “What?”

  “What would you need? To live until you can see your family again.”

  Shocked into near sobriety, Schramm studies the unmoving face, trying to read the bones, the eyes, the mouth. “You’re serious?” Renzo nods, and Schramm tries to think. “A place to stay, someplace quiet. Up in the mountains—cold, dry air. Plain food, but a lot of it. Nursing—if I get too sick to care for myself.”

  “What about contagion? If people’ve already been exposed—?”

  “I can’t do them much more harm. And there was a study last year in Denmark—the bacillus is airborne. Sunlight kills it.” I might not die, he thinks. I might see my boys again . . . “If there are windows, open air, that would be best for all of us.”

  Renzo’s glass rises. “To pretty wives and healthy children,” he declares with drunken decisiveness. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  VALDOTTAVO

  NEAR FRAZIONE SANTA CHIARA

  Bearded and filthy, Albert Blum peers through the gap between Santino’s blanket and the shack’s doorpost. Claudette stirs. “Papa?” she asks drowsily. “Was that a hawk?”

  “Quiet!” he whispers. “Don’t move!”

  Her dream hawk’s high cry resolves into the piercing voice of a young girl. Claudette scrambles to her feet. “Someone’s coming!”

  Outside, the meadow is silvery with frost, autumn wildflowers dead or dying. Thick with bulky skirts and lumpy layered sweaters, the girl is only a few steps ahead of a stocky, scowling woman. “Mamma says you shouldn’t stay here anymore!” the girl calls, waving frantically. “I knew it was wrong, but—”

  “I should cut you in pieces!” the woman shouts. “I should kill you right now!”

  Claudette clutches Albert’s arm. “Papa, that lady’s got a gun!”

  “Claudette! Please! I’m trying to understand!”

  The language is some peasant dialect. He catches words and phrases, but not enough to be sure, and then—

  The woman yanks the blanket aside and lifts the gun stock to her shoulder. Claudette screams. Stubby thumb still tensed on the shotgun’s hammer, the woman’s shrewd brown eyes travel from the outline of Claudette’s small bosom to her tattered trousers and disintegrating shoes. A slow smile appears.

  “That’s not a boy!” Shifting the shotgun to the crook of her arm, the woman reaches out to smack her own daughter in the back of the head. The blow is glancing, but enough to register the mother’s dismay before she offers the same callused hand to Albert. “Lovera, Tercilla. An honor to meet you, signore.”

  Her Italian is slurry but understandable. It’s her disposition that confuses him. “Piacere, signora,” he says uncertainly. “Blum, Alberto. And my daughter, Claudia.”

  “That’s Bettina, signore. My youngest—she’s thirteen.” She nods at her daughter, who is gawping at Claudette with a mixture of awe and disappointment. Tercilla leans toward Albert. “I thought she was sneaking out to meet a boy. At her age, you can’t be too sure, ne? Aren’t you ashamed!” she shouts suddenly, rounding on Bettina. “Leaving these poor people out on the mountainside like animals!”

  Dumbfounded, Albert accepts the shotgun Tercilla thrusts into his hands. Short even for a peasant, she stretches to pull the army blanket down from the door of the shack and glances around the tiny stone shelter. “Bettina, get that mess kit! And put that fire out. Prego, signore, there’ll be hot food waiting.” Draping the blanket over a short-boned arm, Tercilla asks, “Is this all you have?” Albert nods numbly. “Poveretti,” she says, shaking her head.

  Claudette demands translation, and when Albert tells her that they’re invited to dinner, triumph replaces terror. “I told you they wanted to help us! We’re Jews,” she tells the mother. “Siamo ebrei, signora.”

  “Sì, certo,” Tercilla says, unconcerned. “The priest said, ‘Help the Hebrews coming over the mountains, and don’t tell anyone.’ ” Without warning, she spins around and yells, “He meant the Germans, not your mother!” Bettina giggles and ducks, evidently accustomed to maternal Blitzkrieg.

  With a last quick inspection of the shack, Tercilla takes the shotgun back and waves the Blums outside. “If we meet anybody, pretend you’re stupid. You were bombed out, ne?” She taps the side of her forehead: Not right in the mind. “Don’t worry,” she says over her shoulder when Albert hesitates. “The Germans’re looking for Jews, but nobody up here will help those bastardi. To hell with them, and the chancred whores who bore ’em.”

  “What is she saying, Papa?” Claudette asks.

  “They don’t like the Germans,” Albert reports drily.

  Taking Claudette’s hand, Bettina skips ahead chattering while Tercilla guides Albert to a gravelly trail a few hundred meters down the slope.

  “That’s my husband’s cloak you’re wearing,” Tercilla says, helping Albert over a tree trunk that’s fallen over the path. “Domenico was an Alpino during the last war.”

  Winded already, Albert sits on the log to catch his breath. “Signor Lovera fought the Austrians?”

  “Two and a half years on the line,” Tercilla says grimly, watching the girls round the next switchback. “And now? Gone again. My brother Primo, too. They were at the Wednesday market down in San Mauro. Germans came and took all the men! How’re we supposed to farm with no men?”

  Albert is willing to go on, but Tercilla doesn’t notice.

  “All I have now is Pierino,” she says. “Four girls married off, just Bettina left to settle. But only one son.” Cradling the shotgun against her thick little body, Tercilla looks east. “Valdottavo sent thirty-five boys to Russia last year. Two came back. My boy was one of them, grazie a Dio, but . . . The priest—Don Leto—he thought Pierino could be a teacher. No more,” Tercilla says with quiet finality. She turns to meet another parent’s eyes. “This war, signore? It ate my boy alive.”

  A dozen twisting switchbacks down the mountain, Santa Chiara hides snug in a deep ravine. Not big enough to be called a town, it consists of a haphazard collection of gray stone buildings pressed hard against a mule path. At the high end of the path, an artesian fountain burbles from a plain pipe, water caught in an unadorned stone basin. Along the ridges, narrow terraces crammed with kitchen gardens, grapevines, fruit trees slice into thin, stony soil.

  Staircases ax-chipped from tree trunks angle up the outside walls to plank galleries that lead to haylofts or living quarters. Below, there are shelters for a cow or a few goats,
a thick-wheeled wooden wagon, and a mule or ox to pull it. Stone oven-shacks squat near chicken coops, where their warmth can keep the birds laying if the winter’s mild. Flimsy windbreaks surround stand-up latrines: two logs bridging a cesspit.

  Inside each house, polenta bubbles in iron pots that hang on chains from tripods over open fires. Colorful pictures of Madonnas and martyrs brighten walls. Packed dirt floors are freshly swept. Twig brooms lean in corners, ready to whisk away footprints at the last moment. Every now and then, someone steps outside to yell, “Pierino! Any sign?”

  Putting aside the book he’s reading in the hayloft, Pierino stretches to see as far as possible up the mountain. He shakes his head.

  So does his neighbor. The boy speaks so little, you’d think every word cost ten lire, although God knows his mother makes up for Pierino’s silence. This morning, Tercilla caught her daughter sneaking out before dawn, and woke up everyone in Santa Chiara. There were accusations and denials, shouting and weeping. Bettina refused to talk at first, but no one stands up to Tercilla for long. “I was looking for mushrooms last month, and I saw an old gentleman and a boy with—”

  “You snuck out in the dark to see a boy?” Tercilla yelled. “Did he touch you? I’ll kill him!”

  “I never even talked to him, Mamma! He never saw me! Don Leto said to help the ebrei—”

  “Ebrei?” Tercilla wailed. “Dio mio! Those poor people! O la Madonna! How long have you known they were up there? Shame on you! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Her neighbors have been cooking and cleaning ever since.

  No one among them has ever met a Hebrew, but they’ve heard that Jews are educated, and dignified, and live in cities. It’s a good thing the ebrei will stay with Tercilla. She has an oil lamp made of glass, and there are books because of Pierino, who can’t do anything but read. Her windows are not just shuttered but glazed, with overlapping pieces of salvaged glass that Domenico carried up the mountain from a city after a bombing raid. Tercilla’s brother Primo was a loafer, but Domenico was a match for her drive. He could fix anything, and had more ideas than most people.

  Then again, he couldn’t fix Pierino. And big ideas didn’t save him or Primo from the Germans.

  Suddenly one dog after another goes into a frenzy. Barefoot children race to meet the visitors. Hanging faded aprons on pegs, the women of Santa Chiara follow, jamming fists into the pockets of hand-knit cardigans. Old men—ropy with muscle and rank with sweat—arrive last, but in time to see the visitors make the last turn.

  Surprise ripples through the assembly. Tercilla’s guests are not the august, bearded sage and worrisome boy they’ve all expected, but a sickly gentleman—“Poveretto!”—leaning on Tercilla’s arm, and—“Madonna! A girl in trousers!”

  “Alberto Blum, Claudia Blum,” Tercilla says gravely, when they draw even with Santa Chiara’s burbling fountain, “I present to you my neighbors.”

  The Hebrews shake hands, murmuring, “Piacere” over and over as Tercilla introduces fifty-some members of the Brondello, Borgogno, Bruno, Cesano, Chiocchia, and Romano families. Then Pierino steps from the shadow of the barn.

  “Your mother tells me you are a veteran and a scholar, Signor Lovera!” the Hebrew gentleman says.

  Everyone murmurs admiration for the ebreo’s very nice Italian, a language they themselves speak only when dealing with officials. Pierino smiles shyly, and everyone notices with approval that Signor Blum does not offer his hand. Unfortunately, the signorina does, and when she realizes Pierino’s right arm ends in a stump just below the elbow, she stammers an apology, which only makes things worse.

  Covering embarrassment, mothers briskly dispatch girls for the food and wine. Little boys crinkle up and laugh when Tercilla urges the Hebrews to use the cesspit. Slaps are aimed at small heads, and the boys dance out of range.

  When the Hebrews have washed up at the fountain, Tercilla leads the way to her home, stepping aside to allow the guests to pass first under the heavy wooden lintel. Unfamiliar with the smoky, shadowy little house, the Blums stand inside the doorway, letting their eyes adjust to the gloom. Tercilla eases past them and drags chairs toward a long plank table.

  Cloaked from neck to ankle like ancient emperors, peasant patriarchs enter next. They settle on mismatched stools and chairs pulled close around the table. Drab in brown and tan, kerchiefed women follow, perching on the earthen platform that rings the room. Excited children run in and out, adding chicken-cackle giggles to the murmuring of adults.

  Like a hen-shaped ballerina, Tercilla rocks onto the toes of her wooden clogs and reaches for a jug on the top shelf of a painted cupboard. “This will warm you,” she says, pouring a generous measure of violet liquid into the only two glasses in the village. “Hand this to Claudia, Bettina. It’s genzianella, signore. We make it from a flower.”

  The gentleman’s eyes widen above a smile when he tastes the liqueur. Hands folded over her broad middle, Tercilla nods with satisfaction and turns to the signorina, who takes a sip and gasps, and chokes, and coughs.

  “È bello!” Claudia says hoarsely. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Bel-la!” Bettina corrects. “Genzianella è bella!”

  La ebrea repeats the lilting phrase, “Genzianella è bella,” as though it were a poem. Everyone applauds delightedly except Tercilla, who is looking at Bettina when she says, “Thank you for the flowers, Claudia.”

  “Niente, signora. It was nothing,” Claudia replies before taking a more cautious sip of the powerful, sweet brandy. “We are molte grazie for the food.”

  “Another lie!” Tercilla hisses at her shamefaced daughter, but her eyes warm when she looks at Claudia.

  The Chiocchia girls are the first to reappear, shyly placing two bowls of polenta before the ebrei. Everyone smiles when the signorina picks up a wooden spoon eagerly. Thin as a communion wafer, poor little thing. Her father places a hand on hers. “Prego,” he says, looking around the room. “You must be hungry as well.”

  A discussion in dialect, and the eldest among them speaks. “Prego,” Cesare Brondello replies firmly. “We ate enough, before. This is for you.”

  The gentleman surely feels awkward eating with an audience, but hunger takes over, and everyone is pleased by the small moans of appreciation he makes over each new offering. Roasted potatoes and peppers appear, and bowls of tiny white beans called denti del bambino, baby’s teeth. “No, no!” he cries. “This is too much!,” which spurs the women to greater competition. Chestnut bread, eggs fried with mushrooms and onions, followed by a platter of misty-black grapes and petal-thin curls of hard, salty cheese that melt on the tongue.

  At last, satisfied with a job well done, the bustling women move once more to the benches around the room, but they never stop working. Drop spindles are taken from deep pockets. Arms rise and fall rhythmically as locks of wool play out. Tercilla says something to a sparrow-sized woman with wispy white hair, who leans over to nudge Cesare Brondello. The old man draws a folded woolen blanket from beneath his cloak and presents it to Albert. “My grandson is a prisoner in La ’Merica,” he says.

  A tired young woman wearing a man’s padded jacket is next. “My husband served with Pierino. Tomasso’s still in Russia.” She puts a clean, worn shirt in Albert’s hands and pulls a fussy three-year-old onto her hip.

  One by one, representatives of each household come forward with a pair of knitted socks, a skirt for the signorina and a kerchief for her head, neatly mended trousers for her father.

  Over and over, Albert Blum murmurs gratitude. “You are too kind,” he says, stunned by their generosity.

  “We all have boys in the army,” Cesare’s tiny wife explains. “Do unto others, ne? Maybe someone in Russia will be good to my grandson.”

  “Grazie. Grazie tante,” Albert says. “May God bring your soldiers safely home to you.”

  The oil lamps flicker, and Tercilla yanks a homespun blanket across a sapling mounted above the doorway to block the draft. Sitting at last on muscl
es thick from climbing, she looks taller somehow, though her feet don’t touch the floor. “Signor Blum,” she prompts, “Don Leto said the ebrei might be from Poland, but you speak such pretty Italian, like a Roman!”

  “You are too kind, signora—my accent is terrible! We are Belgian. Before the war, I worked for a metal-ore company based in Antwerp. Every year, I traveled to Genoa and Istanbul and Nice to inspect the books of our partners. I was an accountant—”

  “Istanbul!” someone cries.

  “An accountant?” someone else asks.

  The conversation becomes lively and general with questions about the price of firewood and eggs in France, the habits of Saracens, the likelihood that their landlord il maggiore Malcovato is cheating them on a shared chestnut crop. Albert answers as best he can, his voice flat and unmusical as he concentrates on finding words and remembering grammar. Often, his Italian fails him, and brief good-natured charades ensue, but he warms in the attention and dignity he is accorded, and feels as though he has awakened from a long bad dream. This is what I was like before the war, he realizes. A man of the world. Competent, respected.

  Across the room, Tercilla’s eyes meet Albert’s and she lifts her chin toward his daughter. He glances back, and smiles. Huddled together on the fireplace platform, Claudette and the other children look like a litter of sleeping puppies, and the adults’ voices drop.

  When the talk turns to rumors of Mussolini’s return, Albert’s knowledge falters. He knows less than the peasants do, but that doesn’t matter. The story of the mountain crossing is better than politics anyway, and his telling of it takes on the epic cadences of the Odyssey.

  For all the adventure of the trek from Sainte-Gisèle, what concerns Tercilla and her neighbors most is the awful news that Albert’s wife and sons are missing. There are murmurs of approval when he tells them about the carabiniere’s kindness, but when they hear how Paula and the boys were put on an eastbound train, Pierino stands.