A Thread of Grace Page 21

  “Pazzo! Are you crazy?” Osvaldo cries.

  “It’s the one prayer even a half-assed Jew like me knows: Hear, O Israel! Adonai is God . . .”

  The answer comes back in an adolescent quaver: “Adonoi Echad!”

  “. . . Adonai is One,” Renzo concludes.

  A bedraggled boy appears at the hilltop and plunges toward the road. Sledding down the steepest section on his backside, he arrives possessed of nothing but dirty clothes, a big nose, and greasy brown hair.

  “Juif? Jude?” Renzo asks. The boy hesitates, not sure what to admit. Renzo points to himself. “Ebreo.” The boy considers the Beretta with an expression of profound skepticism. “Behold! A Jew with a gun,” Renzo confirms, and sings a verse of Kaddish to prove it.

  “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Osvaldo asks, wiping rain out of his eyes.

  A sullen resolve appears. “Solo italiano. No more German-speaking!”

  “That should spare us a great deal of superfluous juvenile commentary,” Renzo mutters cheerily. Depositing the pistol in the cab, he reaches for a lunch pail and a can of milk.

  “I am Don Osvaldo,” the priest says. “What are you called?”

  “Duno.”

  “Do you have family near here?”

  “No famiglia!” the boy swears. “Solo io.”

  “And how old are you? Nineteen?” Renzo asks, with every evidence of sincerity. The boy considers the question and nods. “A linguist, and a liar as well,” Renzo remarks admiringly. “Skills much in demand these days.”

  Don Osvaldo points to the lunch pail in Renzo’s hand. “Siete affamato, Duno? Are you hungry?”

  “I Germans want to fight!” the boy says, shivering in the sudden chill.

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Renzo assures him warmly, pouring milk into a tin cup. “Italy has a surplus of Germans at the moment. The Allies are presently being slaughtered at Anzio, so I fear you may soon constitute the totality of the opposition, but lack of manpower enhances opportunities for advancement. A bloodthirsty young savage like you should be a major general by December.”

  Duno takes in perhaps every fifth word, but Renzo is enjoying his own performance. “Eat first. Fight later,” Don Osvaldo suggests, handing the boy a panino.

  The boy drains the cup, then devours the sandwich in three huge gulps, Adam’s apple prominent in his skinny neck. “Partigiano, voi?” he asks, wiping his mouth on a filthy sleeve. “Il prete rosso?”

  “We are not partisans, and I am not the Red Priest,” Osvaldo says slowly. “We’ll take you to him.”

  “Gentlemen,” Renzo says, “may I suggest that we get in out of the rain? And who the hell’s the Red Priest?”

  The three of them climb into the truck, Renzo settling behind the wheel, the boy taking the middle of the bench. Osvaldo slams his door twice before the latch catches, then says, “He means Leto Girotti. Leto’s not a Communist. People call him that because he had a big dispute with a landlord named Malcovato years ago—the factor was keeping two sets of books. Leto got more money for the tenants.”

  “Oh, wonderful!” Renzo shouts over the roar of the engine. “And did Don Leto take out an ad in La Stampa, or just nail flyers on all the trees? Radical priest desires martyrdom! Please arrest at earliest convenience.”

  The racket is deafening: chuffing gassogeno, grinding gears, rain hammering on the roof of the cab. “It’s just a nickname,” Osvaldo yells, “but I think your mother would like him.”

  Fed and warm after weeks of stealing food and living rough, Duno Brössler bicycles to school. Hurrying and late, as usual, he pedals frantically. Then he’s waiting at a train station, and no amount of pushing yields headway through the crowds that block his way. Suddenly he’s on a road, in the middle of a traffic jam—

  The milk van’s engine stops. The priest shakes his shoulder. Duno jerks awake. “Put these on,” Don Osvaldo says, handing him a pair of well-oiled work boots two sizes too big. “Give me yours.”

  “Perché?”

  “Because they’re looking for the Jews who crossed the Alps,” the Jewish milkman says. “They arrest anyone with worn-out street shoes.”

  Don Osvaldo hands Duno a jacket that fits as badly as the shoes. “You’re a mute, understand? Don’t say anything!”

  Duno squirms into the coat. “Nobody will believe this is mine.”

  “It’s not supposed to be yours,” the milkman says. “Shut up!”

  The queue on the main road is a kilometer long: farmers in mule carts, young people walking beside bicycles, peasant women shuffling on foot with bundles balanced on their heads. It takes them nearly an hour to snake across a stone bridge toward a pair of carabinieri inspecting documents.

  Two civilians in brown leather trench coats stand behind the policemen, looking hard at each person who passes. “Germans,” Duno whispers. No one answers. Thinking they haven’t understood, Duno repeats, “Those men—they’re Tedeschi!”

  The milkman cranks his window down, checks on the queue lengthening behind the van, flashes a grin at the priest. “Ready?”

  The priest inclines his head. “Prego.”

  “Listen!” Duno cries. “Those are Germans—”

  “Permit me to explain what shut up means,” Osvaldo says, driving an elbow into Duno’s belly.

  “Bravo!” the milkman murmurs. “See you in Sant’Andrea.” Sticking his head out the window, he begins to pound on the truck horn and yell. “Vaffanculo! I gotta d’ orphans’ milk here! Lemme t’rough, y’ fuckin’ castrati!”

  Snarling people whirl to see not just the maniacal Sicilian in the milk van’s cab waving his arm out the window, but the serene priest and the winded wide-eyed boy. Eyebrows shoot up. The priest nods ever so slightly.

  The queue convulses into a crowd. Horn blaring, the milk van bulls its way forward, its driver screaming, “Milk for’a da innocenti! Lemme t’rough, y’ leccacazzi!” Peasants pump their fists, yelling back just as passionately. Closer to the checkpoint, documents wave in the air, babies squall. A young woman with a bicycle picks a fight with the carabinieri, one of whom studies her papers minutely, while the other serenely assures the Germans that everything is under control.

  “Perfect,” Osvaldo says, flinging open the passenger door. He hops down and hauls Duno out of the truck. “Keep quiet,” he orders, gripping Duno’s arm and dragging him toward the policeman who’s busy with the girl. Leaning toward the policeman’s ear, Osvaldo says, “This boy has no papers, figlio mio. His family was killed by a bomb in Sant’Andrea. He’s a mute, but neighbors said he has relatives around here.”

  “Sì, sì, sì,” the carabiniere says, operatically distracted. “Take him to the rectory. Padre Girotti knows everyone in the parish. Ecco, signorina, this address doesn’t look correct to me.”

  Marching quick-time, Osvaldo starts uphill, the boy in tow. Duno giggles, looking over his shoulder at the chaos behind them. “That was great! Where’s he going?”

  “To an orphanage.” Swiftly changing directions, Osvaldo leads Duno into an alley. Glancing left and right, satisfied that they are alone, Osvaldo shoves the boy against a stucco wall. “If you say one . . . more . . . word,” he promises in a low soft voice, “I will hand you to the Gestapo myself.”

  Five silent minutes later, at the far end of the village, a church comes into view. The blank-walled exterior is as plain as pabulum, but when Duno steps over its threshold, he stifles a gasp. “Sit!” snaps the priest, pointing at a pew. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  Duno obeys, too stunned by the surroundings to argue. No Viennese is a stranger to decorative excess, but this!

  Not so much as a finger’s breadth of wall, floor, or ceiling has been left unadorned. Dancing angels crown a sort of chuppah over the altar. Swags of dusty red fabric trimmed in tarnished gold enclose the bima. Two smaller altars flank the main one. Duno recognizes the Virgin by her blue robe and chastely bowed head. Candles, lit after a Mass, gutter and smoke at her feet. The s
eason’s last few roses scent her air. Above the altar on the right, her unlucky husband, Joseph, stands diffidently, carpenter’s tools in hand, candleless and unpetitioned.

  Halfway down the nave, off to one side, a plaster man is enclosed in a smaller canopy supported by baroque carvings of what might be wiggly trout, or maybe dolphins, or possibly just vines. San Mauro, according to a hand-lettered sign. A bishop, judging from the fish-head hat and shepherd’s crook. The walls of his alcove are completely covered with paintings and drawings that appear to have been done by children, or by untutored adults. One, drawn in colored pencils, shows a train station. A man in a blue conductor’s uniform has fallen from the platform between two cars, saved from wheeled decapitation by the bishop, who floats on a nearby cloud, two fingers raised in blessing. In another, Alpini guard a mountain pass, but there has been an avalanche. Two soldiers tumble tragicomically in the snow, uniformed arms and legs sticking out of whiteness in all directions. The bishop hovers in the corner, blessing the third soldier, who kneels in thanksgiving, palms pressed together.

  Duno snickers. “I guess San Mauro didn’t like those other two.”

  “Perhaps they didn’t ask for his help,” a soft voice replies.

  Don Osvaldo stands in the tall doorway at the back of the church, but it is a second priest who’s spoken. Frail and bony in middle age, but with amused eyes and an unlined face, he holds out both his hands, and something about him draws Duno forward. “Agnus Dei! Another of God’s lambs come down from the mountain!” this priest declares. “Welcome to San Mauro. I’m Leto Girotti.”

  “Piacere, signore. I am called Du—”

  “No names!” Don Leto warns sharply. “If I’m arrested, I can’t reveal what I don’t know.”

  “And yet,” Osvaldo points out, “everyone’s heard of the Red Priest.”

  “The people here know me, and they protect me. I’m in no danger. Ah! Here is Signora Toselli, who makes the best polenta in Piemonte! Signora, a place at the table for this young man,” Leto tells the tiny, wrinkled lady in black. “The other padre and I will come to lunch soon.”

  When he and Osvaldo are alone in the church, Leto stumps down the center aisle like a cinema pirate. Gripping the back of a pew, he genuflects as best he can and slides sideways, lowering himself onto the front seat. Osvaldo brings a kneeler over, and Leto lifts his peg onto it. “All this rain! The ankle that isn’t there aches this time of year! Now tell me the latest, Osvaldo! I haven’t seen a newspaper since All Souls’!”

  “The Soviets have pushed the Germans out of the Caucasus. And they’ve retaken Kiev.”

  “And here? There are rumors of strikes at Fiat.”

  “Yes, but the Germans arrested fifteen hundred hostages and forced the workers back to the factories.”

  “The unions will find a way around that,” Leto says confidently. “And in the south?”

  “Stalemate. The Allies can’t get past Monte Cassino. The British Eighth managed to cross the Sangro, but winter’s closed in and the offensive stalled. Leto, there are terrible reports from the areas occupied by the Allies. It’s chaos. People are starving.”

  Leto grins at Osvaldo’s bulging waistline. “You seem to be eating well.” Osvaldo blinks, then unwraps his cincture. “How much did you bring?” Leto asks, eager as a child on Epiphany to see what La Befana has brought him.

  “Sixteen thousand.” Osvaldo stacks the bundles of bills and rewraps a less impressive waistline. “That’s all that was left after we took care of those hiding in the city. We lost money converting it to occupation lire.”

  “Like the loaves and the fishes, it will be enough.”

  “Leto, the Gestapo is offering a huge bounty for Jews.”

  “Trust in God, and in my parishioners.” Leto smiles. “I knew you’d come, even if you had to disobey.”

  Osvaldo’s face darkens. “You know what the archbishop said? ‘We should do what we can for the Hebrews, but we are shepherds of our own flock.’ Leto, how can he be so cold? These people are innocent!”

  “You were never very clever about politics, Osvaldo. Popes make archbishops into cardinals. Tirassa wants a red hat from Pacelli. Pacelli is a pragmatic pontiff who wishes to protect the Vatican’s neutrality.”

  “Neutrality!” Osvaldo snorts. “When in history has the Vatican ever been neutral? Leto, why hasn’t His Holiness excommunicated Hitler?”

  “Be serious, Osvaldo! Vatican City is surrounded. All that stands between the pope and the Gestapo is the Swiss Guard! If the pope were to speak out, he’d be arrested immediately.”

  “And all Christendom would rise!”

  “Catholics across Europe would be persecuted. Innocent people would pay for his boldness.”

  “Innocent people are already paying—for his silence!”

  “Precisely. Either way, lives are lost.” Leto massages the place where his stump meets its peg. “What we need are deeds, not words! And that,” he says, eyes shining, “is exactly why you’re here.”

  EN ROUTE TO SANTA CHIARA

  “Your leg, she go in la guera?” Duno gasps, trying to keep up.

  “La guerra,” Don Leto corrects, rolling the r’s as vigorously as he climbs. “No, I did not lose my leg in the war. My family are tenant farmers. When I was small, I stepped on an old land mine.” The priest stops to gesture a fountain of rocks and dirt, exploding from the ground. “My mother was a strong-minded woman, and when my brothers carried me home, she took a knife and—”

  He mimes a decisive slash. Duno shudders.

  “It was only hanging by a little bit of skin,” Leto says. “I lived through the night, and then through the day, the week, the month, and the year. Repeat the words! You must learn!”

  “Il giorno, la settimana, la mese . . . l’anno!”

  “Il mese. As in German, month is masculine. Do you need to rest?”

  Duno tries to breathe through his nose, but his mouth drops open again. How does the man do it? he wonders. Don Leto looks like he’d blow off the mountain in a stiff breeze.

  “It’s hard for people born in the lowlands,” the priest says. “I’m used to the altitude. Sit! There’s no hurry.”

  The cloudless sky is aquamarine. Mountaintops sparkle, their snowcaps virginally white. The priest reaches into a battered canvas pack. He pulls out two crusty rolls and hands one to Duno. “So,” he resumes, “I lived, but I was no good for farming. My family held a meeting. All the uncles, the older cousins. What can we do with this boy who can’t work but still eats?”

  Swallowing, Duno flinches at the phrase.

  “It was good luck for me—buona fortuna,” the priest insists, “because they sent me away to school! I learned to read, to write. I was good with numbers. I was fifteen when I left my family,” he says, glancing at Duno.

  “Me, too! Anch’io,” Duno says. “Quindici anni!”

  “Yesterday you were nineteen.”

  Duno’s eyes drop.

  “A proverb for you, my son. Pensa oggi, parla domani: think today, speak tomorrow. You must keep your stories straight.” Leto finishes his roll and brushes the crumbs from his palms. “You have time to learn.” He gestures toward the mountains that surround them. “Hannibal attacked in the winter, but the Germans are more sensible. The fighting will be in the south until spring. Drink some water,” he advises, producing a canteen. “We have a long way to go.”

  Hours later, terraced fields and the hysterical barking of dogs announce the existence of Santa Chiara. Don Leto points to a large rock with a little shrine to the Savior’s nonna nearby and makes sure Duno understands he’s to wait there, all night if necessary. “Stay out of sight, capisce? I’ll send someone to take you the rest of the way.”

  Leaving the boy with the last of their food and water, Don Leto stumps down one last switchback, and is immediately encircled by small children. Old men wave from the fields, but their wives and daughters come close, drawing drop spindles from apron pockets, working even while they greet h
im and chat. Leto speaks to each, calling them by name. Two strangers hang back, despite the reassurances of young Bettina Lovera, who chants, “Don Leto! Don Leto!” while formal introductions are made.

  The Belgian gentleman is not nearly so old as Santino Cicala believed, nor is the green-eyed Claudia quite the goddess of the lovestruck Calabrian’s description. Startlingly tall and slim among the stunted mountain-bred peasants, Claudia is indeed pretty but she looks sturdy as well. And she’s already learned to spin yarn like a Valdottavo girl. Yes, Leto decides, she might make Santino a good wife. Perhaps she and her father will be brought to Jesus that way.

  He accepts Tercilla Lovera’s hospitality, content to be the beggar to whom she can be generous. Bettina is preparing for confirmation, and when she recites the prayers she’s memorized, Leto rewards her with a holy card. Tercilla sends Bettina and Claudia outside. When the adults are alone, the talk turns inevitably to the war. No, there has been no word from Tercilla’s husband or brother. No, the Allies have not invaded Genoa. The planes passing overhead are American, but they’re based in Corsica, not the mainland.

  “The Allies have a difficult job,” Leto says, rising to leave. “They are up against bad weather and bad terrain, but,” he insists cheerfully, “those very conditions favor the partisans here in the north!” He stands and takes Alberto Blum’s hand. “The mountains belong to us, signore. You and your daughter will be safe in Santa Chiara.” Dirt underfoot, Leto thumps to the door but swivels on his peg. “Prego, signore, is there anything you or your daughter need?” The gentleman looks doubtful, and Leto presses, “Anything at all. I can’t work miracles, but . . .”

  Signor Blum steps outside to whisper, “We don’t wish to give offense to such kind people. But . . . a bath? To be clean, after so many weeks!”

  “Sì, sì, sì! I understand. The peasants up here believe that dirt keeps fleas away, but I have a tub in the rectory, and there’s wood for the boiler. We’ll find a way for you to get to San Mauro for a few hours so you can bathe.”