From Sand and Ash

by Amy Harmon

“I am neither wise nor devious. I just don’t have the time or luxury for a moral dilemma. There is truth, and there is self-deception. I suppose we all have need of both. Good night, Angelo.” She turned and walked toward the little door to the left of the apse that led to the basement room.

  He could only watch her go.

  25 November, 1943

  Confession: I am a spy.

  Not all grape growers want to make their own wine. Many sell their grapes to wineries, and the wineries then produce the wine under their own label. My father made a fortune providing bottles to wineries—bottles they got to hand select. He had molds for bottles of all shapes and sizes, so the bottle was as unique as the wine. It was a great selling point, and Babbo always insisted that wine tasted better in Ostrica bottles. “The shape is important,” he would say. “Many do not know this. But trust me. Shape is everything.”

  Each day that I go to work, I am reminded of my father’s glass molds at Ostrica. It’s been two weeks since I started working at Via Tasso, and I have been careful to mold myself into the perfect secretary, to do all that is required of me quietly and efficiently, so I don’t bring attention to myself. Angelo worried that like Ostrica’s bottles, I was hand selected for my shape and my beauty, but so far, it seems as if my German language skills are all Captain von Essen truly wanted. Angelo stops by the convent almost every night before going home to make sure I’ve survived the day.

  The Romans won’t even refer to Via Tasso as German headquarters. It is regarded with such loathing and fear that it is simply called laggiù—down there. They whisper, “So and so was taken down there.”

  I rarely venture beyond my little desk outside the captain’s office and the small kitchen and lavatory down the hall. I run errands, relay messages, type endless reports, make coffee, and do whatever the captain asks. But I hear things, and I feel them. It is a grim place to be, though the offices are separated from the prison that haunts my dreams. I’ve seen the cells of the prison, I’ve been inside one, and though I was never tortured, I am sure many are. So I listen and I watch and I pay attention, hoping something I learn will be of use.

  Eva Rosselli

  CHAPTER 14

  FLORENCE

  Angelo stepped off the train in Florence and was met by a frantic Aldo Finzi wearing the robes of a priest, robes that Angelo had made sure he had, just in case. It was November 27, 1943, and the time had come for disguises in Florence.

  Ostrica had been raided, Aldo’s home had been ransacked, his printing press destroyed. They were looking for him, but not just him. The SS, Italian and German, were looking for all of Florence’s Jews, and they weren’t doing it quietly. “Rabbi Cassuto has been arrested,” Aldo cried, his eyes wild as they walked from the train station, unsure of where to go now that hell had descended on the city. “He was arrested with a priest and several other members of the underground. I was afraid it was you, Angelo. That’s why I’m here. I thought it was you.”

  Angelo had come to Florence for that very purpose—to meet with Rabbi Cassuto and deliver the last of Camillo’s money. He had been delayed at a checkpoint and missed his train that morning, and that delay may have saved his life. Angelo put his arm around Aldo’s shoulders, reassuring him, but he was leveled by the news. He had come to know Nathan Cassuto through DELASEM. Camillo Rosselli had introduced them after Felix’s death and made sure that the young rabbi knew how to contact Angelo when he needed funds.

  The rabbi was a tall, handsome man with kind eyes and a gentle demeanor. He’d been a doctor before the Racial Laws had made it impossible for him to practice. Fate, opportunity, and a rare, second rabbinical degree made him a candidate for a different vocation, and what a terrible, tragic time to be a rabbi. Yet he hadn’t wilted under the pressure or succumbed to the temptation of the “wait and see” attitude that so many Jewish leaders and their congregations couldn’t resist. He’d warned his people tirelessly, telling them to hide, to get out, and he’d stayed behind with those who couldn’t. Now he’d been taken.

  The streets were absolute chaos. Germans with bullhorns rode up and down the neighborhoods demanding that residents—all residents—come out of their homes. They were to bring no possessions, no weapons—guns were illegal to all but the police—and they had three minutes to be outside. If the Germans found them hiding in their homes, they were shot.

  It was the Roman razzia all over again, but there was nothing stealthy about this raid. It took place on the streets in broad daylight, in full, garish colors and surreal pageantry.

  Three blocks from the train station a family was being lined up against the wall, their hands in the air. The father was trying to reason with the soldiers, talking wildly with his hands, pointing and gesturing. A soldier knocked him in the side of the head with the butt of his rifle and the man dropped, his animated hands coming to final rest at his sides. His hysterical family was executed against the wall, and the man was left in the street, lying in a growing pool of blood. A soldier put a bullet in his head to make sure the family wouldn’t be separated in death.

  Angelo and Aldo saw Jewish children being torn from their mother’s arms and loaded into trucks while their sobbing parents were loaded into another. On the corner, mere feet from the seminary where Angelo had obtained his degree, a teenaged boy was shot in the back as he tried to flee from a member of the Italian SS. Angelo had to walk around his body to escort Aldo inside the gates. Father Sebastiano and several other monks had gathered the seminarians together, and their heads were bowed in prayer. The Germans had been and gone, and no one had been harmed or discovered, though Angelo knew for certain there were a few Jewish boys hidden among the seminarians.

  “Wait for me here,” Angelo instructed Aldo. “You will come back with me to Rome. But I have to make sure my grandparents are safe, and I need you off the streets.”

  “I have the type for the documents. I break it up after every session, but I was able to grab it, all my samples, and my province stamps. I also have a stack of finished documents and a hundred more that need pictures and names. Everything is in a suitcase in a locker at the train station. If you can find me a printing press in Rome, I can continue with my work.”

  Angelo didn’t know how he would manage it, but they would find a press, even if they had to put one in a cloister. He kissed the little man’s cheeks and promised not to be long, striding down the street, his heart galloping sickly, his sights set on the villa.

  The SS beat him there.

  When he arrived, several soldiers were overturning beds, opening closets, tapping walls, and peering into dark corners. A captain stood in the courtyard with Santino and Fabia, a clipboard in his hands. A member of OVRA, recognizable by his black uniform, had taken the lead in the questioning, though his translation skills left a great deal to be desired. Angelo’s grandparents had obviously been ordered from the house and were now being questioned about the whereabouts of Camillo and Eva Rosselli. As he approached, a weapon was leveled at him, but he was greeted civilly.

  “You are Angelo Bianco?” the SS officer asked. Angelo’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t lived in Florence for four years. But they knew who he was. They knew his connection to the residence.

  “Yes,” he answered in German. He wouldn’t mind leaving the Italian Blackshirt guessing about the conversation. He looked familiar to Angelo, and familiarity with your enemy is often portentous of bad things.

  “Can you tell me where Batsheva Rosselli is?” The Italian jumped in immediately.

  “No.” Santino was shaking his head. “We haven’t seen her in months.”

  “I find that hard to believe. You are her family. Surely, she would tell you where she was going.” The OVRA official said this with such certainty that Angelo was sure the man must know Eva personally.

  Angelo realized suddenly who the man was. He’d courted Eva, years before. Eva had said she liked him because he looked good in a uniform and he was a great dancer. It had made Angelo jealous, though he’d ne
ver admitted it, even to himself. His robes were hardly masculine, and his inability to dance was well established. It had rubbed at him, Eva’s enthusiasm for things he couldn’t do with her.

  The policeman had even dated her a few times after the Racial Laws were passed. And now he was here, looking for her, asking after her whereabouts, so he could assist the German occupiers in arresting and deporting her. The name came to his mind instantly. Georgio. His name was Georgio De Luca.

  “Georgio! It is you! I didn’t recognize you at first.” Angelo greeted him with forced levity and clasped his hand, patting it affectionately as if he and the Italian thug were dear old friends. Then he turned to the SS man and, in German, clued him in on the Blackshirt’s romantic interest in the woman they now searched for.

  “I thought maybe Georgio and little Eva would marry. They were quite taken with each other!” he lied effusively. The German’s eyebrows rose dramatically.

  “So you don’t know where Eva is?” the Italian shot back instantly, his eyes hardening. He didn’t like Angelo undermining his credibility with the Germans.

  “We have it on good authority that she is engaged to be married and living in Naples,” Angelo lied. “But with the difficulties in communication between the north and the south, you understand, we have not heard from her in months.”

  The German didn’t like being left out of the loop, and he cleared his throat expectantly. Angelo instantly translated.

  “Interesting. I could have sworn I saw her with you in September, Padre. You were at the station boarding a train to Rome.”

  Angelo did not translate this. He just shook his head and shrugged, adopting the old Italian response to anything sticky or uncomfortable. Shrug and shrug some more. I don’t know. Don’t ask me.

  The German SS officer seemed a little unsure of himself. His men had returned to the courtyard. He waved them back to the truck and turned to Angelo.

  “It is against the law to hide or harbor Jews, Father. I hope you aren’t hiding Miss Rosselli. It would not go well for you or your grandparents. Think of them.”

  Angelo nodded immediately. “Of course. You can rest assured, sir. I want only to do the right thing.” He bowed subserviently and turned to Georgio De Luca. “And Georgio. So nice to see you again. If we do hear from Eva at some point, I will tell her you came by.”

  Georgio flushed angrily and stomped to the jeep. The German officer clicked his boots and followed him, a deep groove between his brows. They rolled out of the courtyard, through the gate, and Angelo, Santino, and Fabia stood in silence and watched them go, badly shaken.

  The house had been searched from top to bottom, various valuables removed for the “support of the Reich,” but his grandparents were unharmed, and the house had not been commandeered. But had Eva stayed in Florence, she would have been arrested. They had known exactly where to find her.

  “It’s time for you to leave Florence, Nonno,” Angelo told his grandfather. “Go stay with your brother.” He had a feeling the Gestapo would be back.

  “Where do you live, Fräulein Bianco?” Captain von Essen asked Eva out of the blue one morning. She had delivered his coffee and the stack of reports that he’d had her type.

  The question surprised her. She’d had to list her address for her employment file when she’d begun work at Via Tasso. He could look in her file for the information. She was guessing he already had.

  “I board in the guest quarters at the convent of the Church of Santa Cecilia.” There was no reason to lie. It was easy enough to verify, and boarding at a convent made sense, especially if it had been arranged by her brother, the priest. Still, she didn’t like shining any attention on the convent. She wasn’t the only one boarding there, or hiding there.

  Something flickered across the captain’s face, as if he was a little surprised she’d answered truthfully.

  “I thought you would live with your brother.”

  “No. He is the assistant to Monsignor Luciano of the Curia. Monsignor Luciano and his sister are natives of the city, and they still own the family apartment they were raised in. Angelo would have lived in a religious college with other assistants and priests who work at the Vatican, but he wanted to be more accessible to Monsignor Luciano. Monsignor has had some health issues in recent years.” Her answer was very logical. Very smooth. Very reasonable. But her stomach twisted anxiously.

  “I see.” The captain smiled and nodded amiably. “Where is that church, exactly? I am not terribly familiar with the city.”

  “Just west of the Tiber, in Trastevere. Are you familiar at all with Trastevere?” So forthcoming. So conversational. No secrets from the boss.

  “Ah, yes. Trastevere,” he said as if it were all making sense. “Isn’t that a Jewish neighborhood?”

  Eva stared at him blankly, having anticipated his question. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a Jew. How would I know if I had? Everyone at the convent is Catholic.” She sounded simple. Stupid, even, and the captain laughed and patted her hand.

  “That is a long way to work each day. Now that it is growing dark so early, I must remember and let you leave earlier so that you will arrive home before curfew.”

  Angelo had said the very same thing the day before, worrying that she was not getting home before dark.

  “That would be very generous of you. I have worried about getting detained.”

  “Then that is what we will do. You may leave at four thirty today. That will be all.” She turned to leave, and he called out after her.

  “Oh, Eva?” It was the first time he’d called her Eva and not Fräulein Bianco, and she stiffened at his familiarity but turned with a smile.

  “If you are to see a Jew or hear of Jews in your neighborhood . . . you will tell me.” It wasn’t a request. “We will reward you, of course.”

  Eva nodded, feeling bile rising in her throat. She left his office quickly. Just the day before she’d overheard soldiers talking about a Jewish girl in Rome who had reported dozens of her fellow Jews. Her favorite thing to do was walk through the marketplace at the busiest times of day or walk by ration lines and wave and call out to friends and community members, revealing their identities, only to have the SS men who followed her around swoop in and arrest the unfortunate people who’d been outed by one of their own. She was of great help to the SS, and they rewarded her with lire and freedom.

  Eva wondered if the girl ever considered what would happen when she was the last Jew left, when she was of no more use to the Gestapo. Eva promised herself that if she ever discovered the girl’s identity, she would find a way to kill her. She’d told Angelo what she’d heard, and he could only shake his head in disgust, but he’d cautioned her to forgive, just like a good priest should.

  “Your hate will only harm you,” he said.

  “Just as long as I can harm her too. I would very much like to harm her.”

  Angelo laughed at her fire and tweaked a lock of her hair, like they were children again.

  “What if someone pointed me out on the street, and just that quickly I was gone? What then, Angelo? Would it be so easy for you to forgive?” she wondered aloud.

  He had looked at her soberly, his smile fading.

  “Remember when I told you not to come to the seminary anymore to visit me with Nonna?”

  “Yes. You said I was not your sister or your cousin and you were too attached to me. You were very rude about it.” She was teasing him, but he had hurt her feelings.

  “I was trying to protect you, Eva.”

  “What does this have to do with forgiveness?”

  “I told you not to come anymore because some of the boys had taken notice of you. They had started asking questions. They wanted to meet you. I refused. They thought you were my cousin and couldn’t understand why I was so protective.”

  Eva laughed a little, but Angelo didn’t.

  “I hit one of them. One of the boys. I split his lip and gave him a black eye because he said if he had a cousin like you, he w
ould make sure he was alone with you as much as possible.”

  Eva’s eyebrows rose faintly.

  “Father Sebastiano thought they were taunting me about my leg. I let him believe it, but I recognized then that my feelings for you weren’t very brotherly. And that’s when I knew I would have to protect you . . . from me. My instincts, where you’re concerned, are to go to war. I don’t know that I could forgive someone who hurt you. But most of all, I would never forgive myself for not protecting you.”

  Angelo was protective. There was no doubt about that, and Eva spent the rest of the day worrying over how she would tell him that the captain had been curious about her address and whether or not she had seen or heard of any Jews in the area. Angelo was already worried about her association with him. As a priest, Angelo was immediately suspect, and by association, so was she.

  Lieutenant Colonel Kappler, the head of the German SS in Rome, had become fixated on Monsignor O’Flaherty, convinced that he was the director of the underground in Rome. He was right, unfortunately. Lieutenant Colonel Kappler had established checkpoints on every street, and Vatican passports were receiving more and more scrutiny. One of Monsignor O’Flaherty’s helpers—an Italian priest—had recently been arrested under allegations of resistance work. He’d been tortured and executed.

  As a result, O’Flaherty had limited his meetings with any of the helpers in his organization to within the Vatican walls so that he wouldn’t, by association, make them targets of the colonel as well. Since then, code names had been given, and O’Flaherty’s foot soldiers were on high alert. O’Flaherty said Angelo was his “foot soldier with one foot,” and as a result, his code name was O’Malley, after a famous Irish pirate.

  Eva had met both Monsignor Luciano and Monsignor O’Flaherty when she’d first arrived in Rome and efforts were being made to collect the gold the Germans had squeezed out of the Jews. Monsignor O’Flaherty was rumored to be a bit of a ladies’ man because he attended every party and swanky soiree, but he joked that there was safety in numbers and that if he wanted to know what was going on in the city, he had to rub shoulders with the people who knew. He’d smiled widely and talked with her at length, and she’d liked him immediately, though she struggled a little with his Irish-flavored Italian. Monsignor Luciano had been decidedly less friendly. She had the feeling he didn’t approve of her. When he’d been introduced to Eva, he extended his arms, the way so many priests did, but he never touched her.