by Amy Harmon
She managed to find a place against the wall. They’d designated a corner for waste, and though no one wanted to use it, they all eventually had. The humiliation of the older women especially, crouched in that corner, trying to maintain their modesty while not stepping in the waste of others, tears of mortification streaming down their faces, was something she didn’t think she could ever forgive. It is one thing to kill someone. It is another to degrade and humiliate, to strip away a person’s dignity like stripping away flesh. One made a man a murderer. The other made him a monster. Eva was sure many of the women aboard that train would prefer death, clean and quick, to the slow loss of their humanity.
They were on the train for hours. It stopped once and they could hear dogs and commands, the sounds of more people being loaded into the cattle cars, but the doors were never reopened. Eva thought they were in Florence. It smelled like Florence, like home, and she pressed her palms to her eyes, trying not to weep and call out for Nonna and Nonno like a child. She couldn’t afford to cry. She was too thirsty.
It was the end of March, and the temperatures were moderate. It could have been so much worse, but it was hard to tell yourself how much more terrible a situation could be, when you were already on the outskirts of hell. The hungry children suffered the most, or maybe that wasn’t true. When children suffer, the ones who love them suffer even more, helpless to alleviate their agony.
When the train started to move for the second time, the occupants almost wept in relief, just to be leaving one torture for another, and Eva sank down, pulling her knees to her chest so she wouldn’t take up too much space, and rested her head against the side of the car. She had slept deeply that first night of confinement, waiting for the train that would take her away from her life. From the struggle. From everything that had become so impossibly hard. Now she slept deeply again, an ability she’d always had, and in sleep she escaped for a while.
She recognized the dream immediately. It was the dream she’d had a hundred times before. But confusion welled up inside her chest. Was she dreaming? The press of bodies in the darkness felt real. She remembered being loaded into the car, a German with a submachine gun pushing at her back. This wasn’t a dream. But she’d been here before.
They didn’t veer northeast toward the Brenner Pass, with Austria lying on the other side, but instead hugged the west coast and approached France. They spent a week at a transit camp called Borgo San Dalmazzo in the Piedmont region of Italy, twenty miles from the French border, where they were fed—thin soup and hard bread—and given enough water to wash and quench their thirst. The knowledge that they’d been heading west instead of east was a great relief, though they would be heading due north from that point on, if the reports were true.
“Bergen-Belsen. We’re going to Bergen-Belsen!” a woman cried, a thankful smile on her lips. She even closed her eyes and raised her hands to heaven, offering a prayer of gratitude at the development. They weren’t going to Auschwitz, and many of the woman felt that was cause for celebration.
It was strange how rumors started, trickling down from one mouth to another, crossing great distances to comfort or console, taunt or terrify. Bergen-Belsen wasn’t as bad as Auschwitz. Survival was possible. Families could even live together. Sometimes the prisoners were given a little milk and cheese to eat. That’s what the rumors were; those were the tales some of the women had heard. But Bergen-Belsen was in Germany. Northern Germany, someone else said fearfully, as if Poland were preferable to Germany. Germany meant Hitler.
“They sent the Libyan Jews that were hiding in Italy to Bergen-Belsen last fall,” someone else offered. “Everyone else in Italy has gone to Auschwitz. We are so lucky.”
So lucky. They might die more slowly, suffer longer. She just wanted it to be done. Bergen-Belsen sounded like death by a slow drip, Auschwitz was the six a.m. Rapido to the great beyond. She thought she might prefer that. Eva was distantly alarmed by her readiness to die. But only distantly.
When Angelo woke again, Mario Sonnino sat by his bed reading, the lamp casting odd shadows around the humble space. He’d given Angelo something. Morphine, he guessed. Angelo had been in and out of consciousness, waking only to beg for news of Eva and then falling back into oblivion before he could get any answers. But he knew she was gone. Mario said no one knew for sure, but Monsignor O’Flaherty said a train filled with Jewish women and children had left Tiburtina Station on Saturday.
He wished for oblivion again, but knew those hours were behind him. He was wide awake, and Mario helped him sit up so he could swing his legs—his prosthetic had been removed—over the side and use the chamber pot. Hopping down the hallway was out of the question, and he was too sore for crutches. He finished and managed to eat some cold polenta and brown bread and drink a glass of water before easing himself back down on the pillow. Mario hovered for a moment, clearly wanting to be of assistance.
“I set your finger and bound your ribs. They’re cracked but not broken. You’re black and blue, but the swelling’s gone down. I put your nose back where it belongs. How are your eyes? I worried a little about your sight in the right one.”
“I can see,” Angelo said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Yes. You will. The ribs will take the longest. But no long-term damage done. Your fingernails might not grow back.”
“I’m not worried about my fingernails,” Angelo said, his eyes bleak.
“No,” Mario murmured. “I don’t suppose you are.” He sat down heavily in his chair.
“I have to find her, Mario.”
Mario swallowed, his throat working against the heavy emotion in the room. “How?” he whispered.
“I don’t know.” Angelo’s voice broke, and he put his hands over his face the way he did when he prayed, but there was no solace in his hands. No solace in prayer. Not anymore. “The Americans are coming. We just needed to hold on a little longer. I just needed to keep her safe a little longer. I’ve been such a fool. I should have married her in 1939. I could have taken her away, back to America, like her father suggested.”
“We all had opportunities to escape. We all had those inner voices that said, ‘Flee. Leave.’ Those things have haunted me too, Angelo,” Mario said, rubbing hard at the back of his neck, fighting the old regrets, the guilt that had kept him up many nights.
“Eva told me once that the roots of the Jewish people are in their traditions, in their children, and in their families. She asked me why the Catholic Church wants to take a man and deprive him of his posterity. She told me there would be no more Angelo Biancos. My roots would die with me.” Angelo was so overcome he could hardly speak, but he was desperate to get the words out.
“I am a man who was so impressed by the thought of immortality, of being a martyr or a saint, that I didn’t realize that by becoming a priest I was depriving myself of the very thing I sought. Our immortality comes through our children and their children. Through our roots and our branches. The family is immortality. And Hitler has destroyed not just branches and roots, but entire family trees, forests! All of them, gone. Eva was the only Rosselli left, the only Adler left.”
The terrible reality of his words silenced them momentarily, and they bowed their heads, shoulders hunched against the weight of such heavy truth, such staggering loss, and it took a concerted effort for Mario to respond.
“You have saved and preserved so many branches, Angelo,” he said in a choked whisper. “You saved my family, Eva saved my family, and we will never forget her. We will never forget you. I will tell my children, and they will tell their children. You might not have children who will carry your names, but you will have branches and roots who will honor your names.”
Mario wept, and Angelo reached out a hand, thanking him, even as his heart rejected his sentiments. It wasn’t enough. He didn’t want honor. He didn’t want to be a hero. He just wanted Eva, and she had been taken from him. The thing he had feared most had come to pass.
“She loved you,” Mario said. It w
as not a question, and Angelo wondered if everyone around them could see all along what he’d refused to admit.
“Yes. And I love her.” He refused to put it in past tense. He would never stop loving her.
“Did she know, Angelo? Did she know you loved her?” Mario asked gently.
“Yes.” Angelo wiped at his face, at the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. She’d known. He’d been able to tell her, to show her. It was the one thing he was grateful for, and in his heart he acknowledged the blessing he’d been given.
Mario stood and walked to the small chest of drawers in the corner. There was a pile of books placed neatly on top. Angelo recognized them immediately. Eva’s journals.
“These are hers. There are several of them. They all look the same, but you can see that she’s dated them over the years. You should have them.” He set them on the bed, near Angelo, and quietly left the room.
There were four books, all identical. The only differences were in the slight wear on the covers, the dates at the top of each page, and the handwriting that slowly changed and matured, just like the girl herself. But the last book was only half filled, and Angelo found he couldn’t look at the empty pages. The empty pages hurt worse than seeing the crowded lines filled with Eva’s thoughts, because in the words, she lived. The emptiness mocked him with what could have been, what should have been. He flipped to the last entry and read it just to escape the unfinished chapters.
22 March, 1944
Confession: Kissing Angelo is a mitzvah.
My Jewish grandmother would roll in her grave if I said it out loud. Uncle Augusto would accuse me of sacrilege. But it’s true. In him I have found a slice of the divine, a morsel of peace, and when his lips are on mine, his hands on my skin, there is reason to believe that life is more than pain, more than fear, more than sorrow. I am hopeful for the first time in years. And strangely enough, I find myself convinced that God loves his children—all his children—that he loves me, and that he provides moments of light and transcendence amid the constant trial.
Angelo closed the book and wept.
CHAPTER 22
NOWHERE
When they were loaded aboard the train again, a week after arriving at Borgo San Dalmazzo, the numbers had grown to include men, women, and children from other places, who had all been brought to the transit camp. There were twenty cars, with about one hundred Jews loaded aboard each car. Many of the people were there with members of their families, and they clamored to stay together. Eva was alone, so she just let herself be pushed and pinched, as people far more desperate than she clung to each other and fought for better positions. She found a corner and slid down against the wall like she’d done on the first leg of the trip, letting herself drift up and away to numb blindness. It was too dark to try and see anyway.
She curled into herself, fighting to stay asleep, to stay oblivious, and she caught a whiff of tobacco, a wisp of smoke, and she raised her head, wanting to breathe it in.
He was there next to her, looking exactly as he had the last time she saw him. His pipe glowed in the darkness, and his long legs were stretched out in front of him, like he had all the room in the world. In his hand he had a glass of wine. The wine was dark and it glimmered like an enormous gemstone cradled in the palm of his hand. She was so thirsty.
“Babbo?” Eva asked, her voice high and childlike in her head.
“Batsheva,” her father said, smiling and swirling his wine. But the smile faded quickly. “Eva, why are you sleeping?” he chided.
“What else can I do?”
“You can fight. You can live.”
“I don’t want to fight, Babbo. I want to be with you. I want to be with you and Uncle Felix and Uncle Augusto. I want to be with Claudia and Levi.”
“You want to be with Angelo,” he finished gently. “Most of all, you want to be with Angelo.”
“Yes, I do. Is he there? With you?” She would give anything to see him.
“No.” Babbo shook his head. “He is not with me. He is there, with you.”
“Where? I am on a train! I am being taken away.”
Her father touched her face. She could feel his hand, long-fingered and light against her cheek. “Angelo is inside you. His flesh is now your flesh, his branch is your branch.”
“No, they killed him. They have killed everyone. And they will kill me too.”
“Eva, listen to me. All your life you have had a dream. A dream of this moment. You know that, don’t you? You recognize the dream.”
Eva nodded, and the fear returned like a deluge, flooding her veins and turning her fingers to ice.
“You have to jump, Eva.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. What do you have to do first?”
“I have to climb to the window.” She didn’t think she could fit through that opening. And there were bars, dividing it. She couldn’t remove the bars.
“You climb up to the window. And then what? In the dream, what did you do next?”
“I breathed in the cold air.”
“Yes. You breathe and gather courage. And then what?”
She shook her head stubbornly, resisting. She remembered that wicked relief. That sweet poison of letting go, of giving up. It had released her, temporarily, and she wasn’t ready to care again. “I don’t think I can do it. I don’t want to. I’m so tired, and I’m so alone.”
“But you must do it. You are the last Rosselli. You must jump, Batsheva. Because if you don’t, you will surely die, and Angelo will die too.”
“Angelo is already dead.”
“You must jump, Eva. You must jump. And you must live,” he whispered, his breath a kiss on her wet cheek. He was so real. Just like the dream that was no longer a dream.
When Eva woke, her father was gone, and her brief respite from trying was over.
In the morning, sore, but able to get around, Angelo packed the books in the small valise Eva had brought with her to Rome. He folded her clothes and put them in the bigger suitcase, clearing out the room because he couldn’t stand for anyone else to touch her things. He made her bed, folding the covers neatly, even though he knew one of the sisters would strip them off when he left and wash them. He wanted to take the case that covered the pillow and ended up folding it and tucking it inside the valise, unable to part with the physical reminder of her scent merged with his. He couldn’t manage to summon any guilt for taking something that wasn’t his. He’d already taken something that wasn’t his, and she’d instantly been taken away from him.
He started to shake, the grief and disbelief making him wonder how he was ever going to go on. Movement hurt, thought hurt, breathing hurt. And none of it was because of his battered body. He welcomed that pain, because it distracted him. He made himself walk down the stairs, juggling Eva’s things.
Mother Francesca saw him and rushed to his side, scolding him fiercely and trying to remove the cases from his arms.
“What do you think you are doing? You have to rest. At least for a few more days!” she clucked.
“I’ve been in bed for three days. That’s enough rest,” he answered softly. “I will take these things home.”
“You can’t go home! Monsignor Luciano came here. He delivered some of your things. You’re to stay hidden until the Americans arrive. If everyone thinks you’re dead, they won’t be looking for you. You’ll be safe as long as you stay here and stay out of sight. He said Monsignor O’Flaherty has been conducting all of his meetings on the steps of St. Peter’s to avoid arrest. When he leaves the Vatican he has to wear a disguise! There have been attempts to grab him right off the street. Someone even tried to pull him across the white line the Germans drew on the ground. If they pull him across, he is no longer under Vatican protection and can be arrested. Someone got wind of the plan and turned the tables. The man hired to kidnap the monsignor got a good pounding!”
Mother Francesca’s eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed, and Angelo found himself smiling slightly at he
r obvious excitement over the “pounding.” She’d had more excitement in the last few months than she’d probably ever had in her whole life and would ever have again.
But the news put a wrench in his plans. He couldn’t sit in Eva’s room and wait for the war to be over. If he didn’t keep working, keep moving, he wouldn’t survive. He would be the next casualty of war’s hopelessness. He would be the one walking in front of the streetcar, or throwing himself from a bridge, or inciting a German to shoot him. He felt it in the black despair that coiled in his stomach, threatening to strike, to sink its venomous teeth into his chest and stop his heart.
There was work to be done, and he was going to do it. He would just take a page from O’Flaherty’s playbook.
The best way to hide, Eva had said, was not to hide at all. Angelo pulled on a worn pair of trousers and a work shirt that he still had from his time in the hillside parish. Priests were required to wear a cassock when they left their homes, but there had been plenty of work to do inside the crumbling rectory and the ancient church, and he’d worn out a pair of trousers and several shirts in the process. He removed his prosthetic and pinned up the trouser leg so that it was obvious to anyone looking at him that it was missing. Monsignor Luciano had delivered his crutches with his possessions, and with his sleeves rolled, a cigarette hanging from his lip, three day’s growth on his jaw, and a worn-out black cap, he looked like a young soldier, aged by war and injury, who had paid his dues and asked only to be left alone.
He would draw attention, and it would be met with either sympathy or a quick averting of the eyes. The Germans might ask for his papers, and he had some he could use, but more likely, he would be ignored. He put his cassock and his cross and a change of clothes in his satchel and looped it over his back, stuffing his real pass in one pocket and his fake pass in the other. He’d need the real one to get into the Vatican.
