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“I heard that!” the old woman snaps. The carabiniere nods them through, and Renzo takes her by the arm. “A priest should know better! You’re very badly brought up!” she scolds. “Let go of me! I have to find a lady with an older boy and a younger one!”
“Don’t upset yourself, signora.” He steers her toward a crude wooden bench placed beneath a high, barred window of the jail, where he tips his biretta to wives and mothers and sisters waiting their turn to stand on the bench and speak to their menfolk inside. “I’m sure these ladies will let you sit here and rest, signora,” he suggests soothingly. “When I’ve finished my work among these poor prisoners, I’ll come back for you, all right?”
Suddenly cooperative, she allows him to take her bundle. He jams it between the heavy wooden bench support and the wall before addressing the other women. “If this lady wanders away, go with her, my daughters.”
They glance at one another, at the bundle, at the old lady, whose eyes are clear now, and focused.
The earliest part of the jail was solidly built of sturdy sandstone blocks. This new wing was slapped up in a hurry to deal with a glut of wartime prisoners. The women are separated from their men by a poorly mortared wall, post-and-beam construction filled with brick and stone rubble, lightly frosted with stucco.
“Sì, Padre!” the women murmur. “Sì, certo! Whatever you say.”
SANT’ANDREA MUNICIPAL JAIL
4:05 P.M.
Once a week, a priest comes to hear confessions and say Mass. Iacopo Soncini pays little attention when a new one enters the large, open room and moves through the crowd from prisoner to prisoner, speaking quietly. Whenever a priest approaches, the tattered charcoal man is humble. “Nothing to confess,” he always says. “No chance to sin in here, Padre.”
“Now, there’s a shocking failure of imagination!” this one replies. “I found any number of illicit activities to pursue in jail! Bribery, lying, theft, gambling…”
“Renzo!”
“Shut up and listen carefully: the outer wall is going down in about five minutes. There’s a truck waiting at the Cuneo bridge. Mirella and the children are at Mother of Mercy. If we get separated, go there and ask for Suora Corniglia—”
“We have to take him with us,” Iacopo says, pointing. “He’ll be executed tomorrow morning. He’s a Polish Jew, but he speaks German.”
“That’s a Hebe?” Renzo stares. “Belandi! I never would have guessed! All right, he can come, too. Get behind that partition.” He jerks his head at the sandstone, once the exterior of the old prison. “Stay there, and don’t look back!”
Quietly directing prisoners toward safety, Renzo works through the crowd. When he reaches the Pole, the man barely glances at him before saying, “Non sono cattolico. Sono ebreo.”
“How nice! So am I,” Renzo answers in quiet German. “Even with the rabbi over there, we’re seven short of a minyan, but as God told Moses, Don’t just stand there praying, cross the sea! The wall you’re leaning against has three minutes to live.”
A slow, hard smile forms on the Pole’s lips. “I knew the CNL would send someone.”
“There’s an Opel Blitz waiting at the Cuneo bridge— Wait! The Committee for National Liberation? Verdammte Scheisse! Porca Mado
Begi
Inside, a hush falls. Outside, a furor rises.
“I have to find a lady with an older boy and a younger one!” a familiar voice insists. “Don’t push her, you cafone!” a younger woman shouts. “She’s an old lady!” another yells. “How dare you treat women like this?” a third demands.
Renzo begins the chant. “Introibo ad altare Dei.”
“Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meum,” comes the responsum.
“You should be ashamed!” a woman yells. “Would you treat your mother like that?” someone asks. “She can have my son’s clothes for her little boy!”
“Do me justice, O God, and fight my fight against a faithless people. From the deceitful and impious men, rescue me!”
Serafino Brizzolari’s rumbling bass voice joins the soprano chorus, as pla
“Signor Brizzolari! Tell these men they can’t treat us so rudely!”
“Ladies, please! I must insist that you all follow me—”
“…lucem tuam et veritatem tuam: Your light and Your fidelity shall lead me on and bring me to your holy mountain.” How apt, Renzo has time to think.
The high, barred window is replaced by brilliance. The bottom of the wall erupts. The sensation of motion ends almost before he can register it. Slammed backward, blinded by the flash, he lies immobile, his lungs stu
Someone lifts him to his feet. Blinking stone powder and stucco, he puts out a hand to feel his way forward, trips over something soft, stops to wipe blood and dust from his face, and winces at a metallic stinging sensation, like needles thrust into his skin. His left eye clears long enough to see a thin man on the floor, screaming from within a skull, its face flayed by the blast. All the sounds seem far away, as though heard underwater. His right eardrum is probably broken.
“— ome on!” It’s Iacopo, hair singed and pale with dust. Lost again in a red haze, Renzo lets the rabbi guide him toward the breach. His lips and nostrils and eyes burn. Lime in the mortar, he supposes. His left eye clears long enough to see women converging on the mob of men who tumble out of the jail. Everyone is shouting and ru
“Belandi!” Renzo shouts, hilarious with relief that he’s not blind and probably won’t be completely deaf. “We did it!” And everyone seems to have lived through it— apart from that poor faceless bastard who looked back at the wrong moment. There but for the grace of God, and an extra five meters’ distance from the blast—
A brick hits his shoulder. The upper portion of the wall is begi
Iacopo yells something and grips Renzo’s arm. The ground levels beneath them. The stink of explosives and burned hair recedes.
Renzo pulls the cassock skirt up and dabs tentatively at the mess above the Roman collar. He isn’t frightened by the amount of blood soaking into the black serge. No worse than the Libyan crash, he supposes. Head cuts bleed like hosepipes.
Another swipe at his eyes, and he catches a glimpse of his mother standing at the edge of the crowd, waving. He raises a hand to let her know he’s seen her. “My mother’s over there!” he yells, but the rabbi doesn’t seem—
Two more explosions penetrate his muffled ears. Gunfire crackles. Women scream and scatter. Someone clubs his leg out from under him. Dumbfounded, he tries to get up. Hands seize him, the fingers like iron grapples in his armpits, dragging him over the cobbles. Booted feet pound past. He lifts his head, sees his mother coming: a force of nature, determined to reach him.
“Mamma! No!” he screams. “Get down!” Above and behind him, he hears Santino shout something at Iacopo. Iacopo grabs his legs. “Wait!” Renzo screams, bucking and kicking. “Mamma, get down!”
All around them, bullets sing and smack into masonry. Santino scuttles backward, stumbling when the body in his hands goes suddenly slack. The face above the dog collar is white. “Mado
“I don’t think so,” the rabbi gasps, trying to keep a grip on a leg slick with blood. Landau catches up with them. “What happened?” Iacopo yells. “Why did—?”