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Osvaldo rises. “If you’d like to discuss the Church’s position on natural selection, there’s a Jesuit at the Gregorian who—”
“Sit down.”
Slowly Osvaldo drops back onto the chair.
“Genesis is merely a Jew variation on the Babylonian creation story Enuma elish,” Von Thadden says, scholarly once more. “ ‘Blood I will mass, and cause bones to be! I will establish a savage: man shall be his name.’ Thus spoke Marduk— the first divine sculptor of people. Flood stories were commonplace in Babylon, Sumeria, the Hittite kingdoms. Genesis is simply a degenerate version of earlier myths.” Utterly at ease, he leans back in his chair, crossing one knee over the other. “Christianity, of course, has no validity at all severed from its Jew roots— a persistent logical problem. Having declared Jesus divine, you must mistranslate and misrepresent Hebrew prophecy. The Jew messiah is to be an earthly leader who’ll bring political peace to Jerusalem and, by extension, to the world. The past nineteen hundred years have been very bloody.” Von Thadden smiles cheerfully. “No peace, no messiah.”
“Jesus will come again—”
“Ah, but as a Jew peddler might say: Cash, not credit, mein Herr! Jesus had his chance.” Von Thadden rises to pour coffee from a silver service on a side table. Adding a generous measure of sugar, he stirs thoughtfully with a sterling spoon. “Christians backed the wrong horse, messianically speaking. So you changed the rules to make Jesus the wi
The aroma is intoxicating. “No,” Osvaldo says. “Thank you.”
“Let me guess! You’ve given it up for Lent?” Insouciant on damask, von Thadden lets his gaze travel around the office. “Christian mythology, I’m afraid, is also lacking in originality. Zeus visits virgins who give birth to demigods. Mithras was born of a virgin— on December 25, no less! His cult had a communal meal and prayer that went, ‘He who shall not eat of my body and drink of my blood shall not be saved.’ Let me see… A kingdom to come? Zoroaster. Blood sacrifice followed three days later by a resurrection? Attis, who returned from the dead on the spring equinox.”
Osvaldo checks his watch. “I do have other obligations this morning, Gruppenführer.”
“Of course! You are a very busy man.” It seems, almost, a compliment. “My men call me the Schoolmaster— I do tend to fall into old habits! One last thing, with your indulgence.” Von Thadden unfolds a small strip of paper and reads six words. “ ‘The convent is short on charcoal.’ ” He doesn’t bother mentioning where the note was found, or how he knows Osvaldo is co
Mouth cottony, Osvaldo says, “No. Thank you.”
“Is it normal practice,” von Thadden asks with catlike curiosity, “for an archbishop’s secretary to be concerned with a convent’s charcoal supply?”
“These are not normal times, Gruppenführer. Italy has no coal. German authorities prevent us from importing fuel. So we use charcoal. Church institutions work together on such matters as heating and provisioning.”
“Well, heating shouldn’t be a problem anymore. Lovely weather!”
“Charcoal is also needed for cooking and washing, Gruppenführer.”
“Obviously! Why didn’t I think of that?” Von Thadden all but smacks himself in the forehead. “Charcoal makers figure prominently in Italian history, I understand. The Carbonari of 1849 were rebels who gathered in forests pretending to be charcoal makers while pla
“I am notoriously obtuse about politics, Gruppenführer.”
“A humble servant of the Prince of Peace!” He taps Osvaldo’s folder with a blunt finger. “And a very… busy… man.”
Von Thadden stands, stepping out onto the small balcony overlooking the garden. “I’m told the botanical collection had five thousand exotic species,” von Thadden says, his voice raised for Tomitz’s benefit. “Plants from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They have no place in Europe. Rip them out, and burn them! That was my order.” He faces Osvaldo. “The laborers are conscripts living in a guarded barracks. I’m inclined to let them go when the work is complete, but if something unfortunate were to happen? I’m afraid I’d have to wash my hands of them.”
Dropping all pretenses, he returns to his desk. “Communist criminals have had their way in Rome, Milan, Turin, Genoa. Not here. Tell your Bolshevik friends, Tomitz: if Germans in this district are harmed, reprisals will be set at twenty to one.”
“Tell Renzo: explain to Angelo,” the rabbi whispers urgently as the priest passes.
Giving no outward sign that he has heard, Osvaldo strides away from the Palazzo Usodimare. Bogus mythology, he thinks, nauseated by anger. What about those magical Nordic runes on his collar? Nazi hymns to Wotan? Numerology, telepathy. Divining rods, phrenology, magnetic cures. Neo-pagan looniness, all of it! The German people have forsaken Jesus for a maniac who believes in cosmic ice and Atlantis, and a Grail filled with Aryan blood.
Arrest is inevitable. Osvaldo knows that now. He feels momentarily safer merging into a market crowd on his way back to San Giobatta, but a broken-nosed stranger falls into step with him. When his arm is seized, Osvaldo is surprised only by how soon his time has come. He opens his mouth to shout.
“I won’t hurt you, Padre,” the thug whispers, “but you have to come with me.”
Oblivious pedestrians stream past, like water around a rock. Everyone has a great deal to do, very little to do it with, and always: the checkpoints, the document inspections, the petty tyra
Warily Osvaldo follows the man through unfamiliar alleys. At the entry to a small, ruined apartment building, the thug whistles a few notes of Puccini and is answered by a bit of Donizetti. Stepping over wreckage, he leads Osvaldo to the remains of a corner flat that still has most of its walls and some of its ceiling.
On a smoke-damaged easy chair, an elephantine figure rubs the inside of a fleshy thigh where a shrapnel wound has ached for a quarter of a century. “Signor Brizzolari!” Osvaldo cries, “Grazie a Dio! I should have come directly to you—”
Serafino Brizzolari holds up a clean pink hand in warning. From the inside pocket of his tentlike suit he withdraws a small medicine bottle. “This should help your sister’s little boy, Beppino. Give her my best wishes.”
The thug slips the bottle into a pocket. “Grazie, signore. Padre, I’m sorry I scared you. A blessing, please?”
“Go in peace, figlio mio.” Osvaldo waits until he is alone with the fat man. “Signor Brizzolari, von Thadden has—”
“That’s why you’re here. And no— never come directly to me about anything.” Brizzolari lifts a manicured finger to indicate a pile of not very clean clothing. “Put those on.”
“But why?”
“Huppenkothen has an arrest warrant out for you. The Gestapo knows you and Suora Marta are doing something suspicious, and that others are involved.”
Osvaldo curls his lip at a pair of filthy trousers. “Then why didn’t von Thadden—?” He freezes, one foot in the air. “He told me to warn the partisans that he’d kill his hostages if they took any action in Sant’Andrea.”
“He also had you followed out of the palazzo.” Brizzolari shifts his bulk in the chair. “Beppo’s brother-in-law will have taken care of your tail. And von Thadden won’t move against the partisans yet.”