With the streets bare, the ride took a quarter of the time, and before long, Eva and Angelo were stepping out onto the dark sidewalk in front of a building Eva didn’t recognize and watching the black Volkswagen pull away.
10 November, 1943
Confession: I never used to pray.
Prayer wasn’t something I ever thought about when I was younger. It wasn’t something that mattered to my father, and so it didn’t matter to me. Then one day it did matter. So I started to listen. And I started to pray.
The prayers of the Jewish people have been passed down, generation after generation, and when I say the prayers, they are like lullabies. In the prayers I feel my parents, and their parents, and their parents before them. I feel them all, singing to me, and they are not gone, but just away. We are apart, but not forever. So I will keep saying the prayers. I will never stop, and because of this, I will always be a Jew.
Angelo does not pray the way I do. He calls his God a different name. But I’m convinced God is not just my God or Angelo’s God. He is God. He wouldn’t be God if he was only God to some of his children . . . would he? Whether or not his children call him by the same name. I call my father “Babbo.” Angelo refers to his father as “Papà.” Does it matter what we call him? Does it matter how we pray, if our devotion is pure, if our love for him leads us to love and serve and forgive and be better?
I guess it does. Sadly, it does. Because my prayers could get me killed.
Eva Rosselli
CHAPTER 13
THE CHURCH OF THE SACRED HEART
“Come with me,” Angelo said softly. He turned, not taking her hand, not holding her arm. He acted as if the buildings had eyes. He walked swiftly, his cane clicking on the cobblestones, and turned up a narrow alley. He walked in the shadows along the back of the building until he reached the rear entrance of a large church surrounded by a high wall. Eva realized belatedly that it was the Church of the Sacred Heart. They’d just approached it from another direction.
Angelo groped beneath his stiff white collar and pulled up a chain that was hanging around his neck. Several keys hung from the links, and he selected one and unlocked a gate. It opened soundlessly, as if the hinges were kept well oiled. He closed it behind them, a careful clang, and led Eva up a little path that ended at the back door of the church. With another key he unlocked the rear entrance, and they slipped inside.
The scent of incense and candle wax assailed her, and beneath that heavy fragrance, the smell of old stone and damp corners. Vespers was over, and the minimal lighting from the wall sconces was mellow and muted. Angelo genuflected before the cross and slid into a pew, indicating that Eva should sit as well.
“Why are we here?” She had known Angelo wasn’t taking her to the convent when he gave the German soldier a strange address. But she’d thought he was taking her to his home.
“I didn’t know where else to take you. There is nowhere else where I can speak freely.”
“You don’t trust Monsignor Luciano and his sister?”
“I trust them. I just don’t want to endanger them. And every time I turn around, there is a new threat.” He clasped his hands and rested them on the back of the pew in front of them. “What happened today, Eva?”
“I saw a man die. A German soldier. He killed himself. Just like Uncle Felix. I was waiting for the streetcar. He held a gun to my head—”
“Mio Dio!” he moaned, and he dropped his head to his forearms.
“He held a gun to my head, Angelo,” she repeated. “And he told me to play my violin. So I did.” The whole bizarre incident felt like a Greek tragedy, acted out by unfamiliar actors on a makeshift stage.
“When I was done, he asked me to forgive him. Then he walked away.”
“How did he die?” Angelo asked.
“He threw himself in front of the streetcar. He knew exactly what he was doing.” Eva pressed her hands into her eyes, wondering how she would ever forget what she’d seen, forget what it had sounded like. “Then there were people screaming, and I just sat there. Before I knew it, I was being taken away. I told the soldiers what happened, but they didn’t believe me.”
“They believed you. You wouldn’t be alive if they hadn’t. You would be swinging from the streetlamp with that poor girl they hung today.” Angelo stared at her gravely, his blue eyes gray in the flickering shadows.
“Who was she?”
“Part of the resistance. A partisan. She was even younger than you, and she was murdered in the street.” He looked away and scrubbed at his face with open palms, and Eva knew she wasn’t the only one scarred by the day.
“How did you know I was there, Angelo?” she asked, her eyes on the blue-robed virgin who looked at them from her corner perch with patient acceptance.
“One of the nuns from Santa Cecilia was in the ration line, and she saw them take you away. She came to the Vatican and found me.” He rubbed his hands over his head once more, and his throat moved convulsively. “I have never been so scared in my life, Eva,” he whispered.
“I have,” she replied softly. “Several times.” He looked up at her, and he didn’t look away for several seconds. He just looked at her, drank her in, and she held his gaze.
“I was offered a job, Angelo.”
“What?” he gasped, the spell between them broken.
“The captain who questioned me. Captain von Essen. He needs a secretary who speaks German.” Eva pointed at herself. “I do.”
“Eva, mio Dio.” Angelo was shaking his head again. “No. You can’t do it.”
“I have to. What possible reason would I have to refuse? The convent needs the money.”
“No! You will hide. When you don’t show up, he will find someone else. He doesn’t know where you live. He won’t be able to find you.”
“But he can find you, Angelo. He knows where you work. He knows who you are.”
“I will be fine,” he snapped.
“No. You won’t. And I am going to take the job. Maybe I can help in some way. I will be in a position to hear if there is going to be a raid—”
“Eva!” Angelo grabbed her shoulders and shook her so hard her teeth rattled. “This is madness!”
“No. It isn’t! It’s war. And I will do my part. I will not sit by while others die. If I can help, I will.”
“Your job is to stay alive,” he cried, still gripping her by the shoulders, his face inches from hers. He was furious, but under the fury was a desperation she recognized. It was the desperation she felt when her father told her he was going to Austria to find her grandfather. But she understood her father now like she never had before. He had been compelled to act. Action was life, even if it ended in death.
“No, Angelo. My job is not to simply stay alive. My job is to live. Not hide. Not wait. Not hope that it will all end. You can’t tell me not to fight, Angelo. I don’t tell you what to do! You can’t tell me not to try to help in some way.”
“Eva—”
“If I can’t fight, then I might as well swallow a bullet like Uncle Felix or throw myself in front of a streetcar like that German soldier. I’m this close to hopeless, Angelo.” She held her fingers an inch apart. “Resistance is all I have left. Don’t you understand?”
He looked down into her face, wanting to comfort her, wanting to comfort himself, needing to save her, needing to save himself.
“Resistance.” He repeated the word like it was his own and dropped his forehead to hers, closing his eyes and willing himself to move away. “Resistance,” he said again. “I do understand,” he said softly. “I understand completely.”
His own resistance was shot, and he released Eva’s shoulders and pushed himself up from the pew.
“I don’t want you to walk in the dark. It’s after curfew, and it’s too far. Can you stay here tonight?” he asked Eva tiredly. He looked at her long enough to see her nod, then he walked away, but he didn’t leave the church. He approached the altar, lit a candle, and used his cane to sink down
to his knees in front of the cross. He buried his face in his hands and for several long minutes he prayed. He didn’t know if Eva watched or if she’d retreated to the little basement room that she’d used once before, leaving him alone. All he knew was that his resistance was failing him, and he had no armor against her any longer.
He started with his face in his hands. It was the way he always prayed, the way he’d been taught to pray. It kept him from sight and distraction, cradling his face that way, as if he covered himself from everything but the words he spoke. But before long, he was overcome, and he found himself prostrate, the way he’d lain during his ordination, his arms extended in front of him toward the wooden cross that hung above the altar.
He was just a man. Young, crippled, scared. But he would give his life for Eva. And he would give his life for the people he was trying to save. That had to count for something, it had to. He’d broken a promise. He’d held Eva in his arms, and he’d knowingly, willingly broken his vow. He’d kissed her. Yes, he’d been vulnerable. Yes, he’d been scared. Yes, it was forgivable, even understandable. But there is a consequence for every broken promise, and he feared the consequence would be an innocent life. Not his life, but someone depending on him.
“Please don’t let my weakness be reason to withdraw from me. Please don’t let my love for Eva endanger her or remove her from thy grace,” he said without sound, his lips moving around the silent words.
That was what he feared most, that his own sin would cause a cessation of blessings, of divine intervention. And he could not risk it. There were too many people counting on him.
When he’d gone to see Monsignor Luciano before he was ordained, the monsignor had read him the account of David and Bathsheba in the Bible, and the name Bathsheba had not escaped him, essentially the same name as Eva’s. At the time, it had struck him how King David hadn’t averted his eyes as Bathsheba bathed. He hadn’t looked away from her beauty, shielded her from his gaze. He hadn’t stayed away, not after he’d discovered she was married. Not after he’d realized who she was married to—loyal Uriah, who had faithfully fought for his king and country. Not after he’d gotten her pregnant and created a mess. Not after he’d had Uriah put in death’s path. He’d persisted in his sins, making them worse every step of the way.
Was Angelo doing the same thing, persisting in his sins by being near Eva? Was he willfully looking at her beauty and not averting his eyes when he should? The problem was, he didn’t know how to stay away from Eva. He didn’t feel like it was a choice. She was not another man’s wife, another man’s responsibility. She was his responsibility. He’d made a vow to God, but he’d made a promise to Camillo. And Eva was his. She had been his from the moment they met.
“Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.”
He recited David’s prayer like it was his own, and when he finally finished and rose to his knees, he raised his head, his eyes seeking the candle he’d lit and the cross above it. A candle and a cross, the only thing that separated him from being hopelessly lost.
But there were several candles now, and Eva sat nearby, her head bowed in her own prayer. He didn’t disturb her but watched as she prayed, her hands outstretched toward the candles she’d lit. When she raised her head and saw him watching her, she curled her fingers and stared down at her palms.
“What are you doing?” he asked softly.
“It’s Shabbat.”
He nodded. She was saying her prayers beneath a cross. If it didn’t bother her, it certainly didn’t bother him. She continued speaking, her eyes on her bent fingers.
“With our hands, we reach for things we shouldn’t have and we grasp what isn’t ours. The way I have always reached for you.” She raised her eyes then and looked at him steadily. The way I have always reached for you. Angelo’s pulse quickened immediately, but he didn’t look away. We reach for things we shouldn’t have and we grasp what isn’t ours.
Her eyes returned to her hands, and she traced one finger over the opposite palm as she spoke, as if she were anointing it the way the bishop had anointed Angelo’s hands at his ordination.
“With our fingers we touch the filth that is all around us. Our fingernails collect dirt, the lines in our palms become stained and soiled, yet when we raise our hands in prayer or supplication, we demonstrate that even that which is sullied by the world can commune with the spirit. That is why during Shabbat, when we hold our hands toward the candle, we curl our fingers away from the flame, allowing the light to be reflected in our fingernails. Even our fingernails, the part of us that is most unclean, can still reflect God’s light. At least, that’s how I understand it.” She smiled ruefully and let her hands drop to her lap, but her eyes stayed fixed on the candlelight.
Angelo raised his hands the way she had done, palms up, curling his fingers toward his chest, so he could see the light reflecting in his nails. He would never have the hands of a scholar, though he supposed he qualified as one. They were large and rough. They looked as if they belonged to a peasant, not a priest. They were his father’s hands, he realized suddenly, the memory rising from somewhere in his past. His papà was wrong. He could have been a blacksmith instead of a priest. He had the hands to prove it.
“Fire purifies,” he said softly, looking at the dirt on his palms. The floor in front of the cross obviously needed a good scrubbing.
Eva nodded. “When we wash our hands and say a blessing in the morning, we pour the water with our right hand over our left, which signifies kindness before might. When we wash we are also remembering the close of Shabbat and the flame or power that purifies.”
He shifted his raised palms so they were no longer tipped toward the candle but tipped toward her.
“I keep reaching for you too, Eva,” he confessed. “I keep trying to grasp what isn’t mine.” He dropped his hands and tried to rise, his bad leg making him awkward and clumsy and his exhaustion making it worse.
Eva rose with him.
“I have always been yours, Angelo,” she said, echoing the very words he’d thought while he prayed. She was his. “But you have never been mine.”
It was true. She had always come second. But now? Now, instead of coming second, he was simply being torn in two. The priest and the man warring with each other. The scripture about serving two masters flitted through his head.
“Angelo?”
“Yes?”
“Life is hard,” Eva whispered, so softly he strained to hear. Then she laughed without mirth, just a quiet huff of disbelief. “Life is hard. What an understatement! Hard is too mild a word for the trouble we’ve seen. Life is hell shot with just enough heaven to make the pains of hope all the sharper. Life is impossible. Ugly. Agonizing. Inexplicable. Torture.” She stopped and he waited, and when she spoke again, her voice was no longer a whisper. She still spoke softly, but there was steel in her words, and he heard her conviction.
“But there are some things that don’t have to be hard, Angelo. Loving me doesn’t have to be hard. Being with me doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t have to long for me and fight thoughts of me. You don’t have to beg God for forgiveness day after day and pray a dozen rosaries because you’re in love with me. It doesn’t have to be hard, Angelo. It can be the easiest thing in the world. It can be the only thing in our lives that isn’t difficult. If you stop being a priest, no one will die. No one will lose his soul. In fact, there is not a single person on this planet who will suffer at all. You can be mine. I can be yours. And it can be easy.”
Her words clanged through his head and his heart like the old parish priest of the Church of the Sacred Heart was ringing in Lauds, seven h
ours early. He shook his head in disbelief. No. It couldn’t possibly be easy.
“What about God?” he asked.
“God forgives.”
“What about my vows?”
“God forgives.”
“You are so sure about the nature of God?” Angelo’s voice was mild, even mocking, but his eyes were troubled, his brow furrowed.
“Angelo, there are only two things I know for sure. The first? I love you. I’ve always loved you. I love you now. I will love you in fifty years. I love you. Second: No one knows the nature of God. Not you, not me, not Monsignor Luciano, not my father, not Rabbi Cassuto. Not even Pope Pius XII. No one.”
Angelo’s lips twitched, and he began to laugh. He laughed soundlessly for several minutes, the pressures and the pain of the day giving the laughter a manic flavor. But still he laughed, and Eva, smiling slightly, waited for him to get control of himself. He did, eventually, sighing and wiping at his eyes.
“And what about the people who are depending on me right now, my beautiful prophetess? The Curia, the parishioners, the Jews I am hiding, the network we’ve created? Do I just take off my robes and run away with you?”
“You continue on. I continue on. Until it’s done. Until the war is over.”
“So you will pretend to be a Catholic, and I will pretend I am still a priest?”
“No. I will pretend I am not Jewish, and you will continue to pretend, at least in public, that you aren’t in love with me. Just as you’ve always done.” Eva smirked at him impishly.
“Ah, Batsheva,” he said tenderly, and leaned toward her and kissed her forehead, hardly trusting himself to do even that. “I don’t know whether you are wise or just devious.”
She stared up at him for a long time as if she were thinking it over. Angelo was too tired to put up any walls. Too raw. Too afraid of losing her to forces that were beyond his control. The world was raging all around them. And he couldn’t stop spinning.
“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.