The Confessor Page 10

  “I’m close, Francesco. I just need to sort out some personal affairs.”

  “What sort of affairs?”

  “A death in the family.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t ask any more questions, Francesco.”

  “You do whatever you need, Mario. But let me tell you this. If I think the Bellini is in danger of not being finished on schedule, I’ll have no choice but to remove you from the project and give it to Antonio.”

  “Antonio’s not qualified to restore that altarpiece, and you know it.”

  “What else can I do? Restore it myself? You leave me no choice.”

  Tiepolo’s anger quickly evaporated, as it usually did, and he poured more ripasso into his empty glass. Gabriel looked up at the wall behind Tiepolo’s desk. Amid photos of churches and scuolas restored by Tiepolo’s firm was a curious image: Tiepolo himself, strolling through the Vatican Gardens, with none other than Pope Paul VII at his side.

  “You had a private audience with the Pope?”

  “Not an audience really. It was more informal than that.”

  “Would you care to explain?”

  Tiepolo looked down and shuffled his stack of paperwork. It did not take a trained interrogator to conclude that he was reluctant to answer Gabriel’s question. Finally, he said, “It’s not something I discuss frequently, but the Holy Father and I are rather good friends.”

  “Really?”

  “The Holy Father and I worked very closely together here in Venice when he was the patriarch. He’s actually something of an art historian. Oh, we used to have the most terrible battles. Now we get on famously. I go down to Rome to have supper with him at least once a month. He insists on doing the cooking himself. His specialty is tuna and spaghettini, but he puts so much red pepper in it that we spend the rest of the night sweating. He’s a warrior, that man! A culinary sadist.”

  Gabriel smiled and stood up. Tiepolo said, “You won’t let me down, will you, Mario?”

  “A friend of il papa? Of course not. Ciao, Francesco. See you in a couple days.”

  AN AIR of desertion hung over the old ghetto—no children playing in the campo, no old men sitting in the café, and from the tall apartment houses came no sounds of life. In a few of the windows, Gabriel saw lights burning, and for a fleeting instant he smelled meat and onion frying in olive oil, but for the most part he imagined himself a man coming home to a ghost town, a place where homes and shops remained but the inhabitants had long ago vanished.

  The bakery where he had met with Shamron was closed. He walked a few paces to No. 2899. A small sign on the door read COMUNITÀ EBRAICA DI VENEZIA. Gabriel rang the bell, and a moment later came the voice of a woman over an unseen intercom. “Yes, may I help you?”

  “My name is Mario Delvecchio. I have an appointment to see the rabbi.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  Gabriel turned his back to the door and surveyed the square. A moment stretched to two, then three. It was the war in the territories. It had made everyone jittery. Security had been tightened at Jewish sites across Europe. So far, Venice had been spared, but in Rome and in cities across France and Austria, synagogues and cemeteries had been vandalized and Jews attacked on the streets. The newspapers were calling it the worst wave of public anti-Semitism to sweep the continent since the Second World War. At times like these, Gabriel despised the fact that he had to conceal his Jewishness.

  A buzzer finally sounded, followed by the click of an automatic lock giving way. He pushed back the door and found himself in a darkened passageway. At the end was another door. As Gabriel approached, it too was unlocked for him.

  He entered a small, cluttered office. Because of the air of decline hanging over the ghetto, he had prepared himself for an Italian version of Frau Ratzinger—a formidable old woman shrouded in the black cloak of widowhood. Instead, much to his surprise, he was greeted by a tall, striking woman about thirty years old. Her hair was dark and curly and shimmering with highlights of auburn and chestnut. Barely constrained by a clasp at the nape of her neck, it spilled riotously about a pair of athletic shoulders. Her eyes were the color of caramel and flecked with gold. Her lips looked as though they were attempting to suppress a smile. She seemed supremely aware of the effect her appearance was having on him.

  “The rabbi is at the synagogue for Ma’ariv. He asked me to entertain you until he arrives. I’m Chiara. I just made coffee. Care for some?”

  “Thank you.”

  She poured from a stovetop espresso pot, added sugar without asking whether he wanted any, and handed the cup over to Gabriel. When he took it, she noticed the smudges of paint on his fingers. He had come to the ghetto straight from Tiepolo’s office and hadn’t had time to wash properly.

  “You’re a painter?”

  “A restorer, actually.”

  “How fascinating. Where are you working?”

  “The San Zaccaria project.”

  She smiled. “Ah, one of my favorite churches. Which painting? Not the Bellini?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “You must be very good.”

  “You might say that Bellini and I are old friends,” Gabriel said modestly. “How many people show up for Ma’ariv?”

  “A few of the older men, usually. Sometimes more, sometimes fewer. Some nights, the rabbi is alone up there in the synagogue. He believes strongly that the day he stops saying evening prayers is the day this community vanishes.”

  Just then the rabbi entered the room. Once again, Gabriel was surprised by his relative youth. He was just a few years older than Gabriel, fit and vibrant, with a mane of silver hair beneath his black fedora and a trimmed beard. He pumped Gabriel’s hand and appraised him through a pair of steel-rimmed eyeglasses.

  “I’m Rabbi Zolli. I hope my daughter was a gracious host in my absence. I’m afraid she’s spent too much time in Israel the last few years and has lost all her manners as a result.”

  “She was very kind, but she didn’t say she was your daughter.”

  “You see? Always up to mischief.” The rabbi turned to the girl. “Go home now, Chiara. Sit with your mother. We won’t be long. Come, Signor Delvecchio. I think you’ll find my office more comfortable.”

  The woman pulled on her coat and looked at Gabriel. “I’m very interested in art restoration. I’d love to see the Bellini. Would it be all right if I stopped by sometime to watch you work?”

  “There she goes again,” the rabbi said. “So straightforward, so blunt. No manners anymore.”

  “I’d be happy to show you the altarpiece. I’ll call when it’s convenient.”

  “You can reach me here anytime. Ciao.”

  Rabbi Zolli escorted Gabriel into an office lined with sagging bookshelves. His collection of Judaica was impressive, and the stunning array of languages represented in the titles suggested that, like Gabriel, he was a polyglot. They sat in a pair of mismatched armchairs and the rabbi resumed where they had left off.

  “Your message said you were interested in discussing the Jews who took shelter during the war at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Brenzone.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I find it interesting that you should phrase your question in that manner.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I’ve devoted my life to studying and preserving the history of Jews in this part of Italy, and I’ve never seen any evidence to suggest that Jews were provided sanctuary at that particular convent. In fact, the evidence suggests quite the opposite occurred—that Jews requested sanctuary and were turned away.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “As sure as one can be in a situation like this.”

  “A nun at the convent told me that a dozen or so Jews were provided sanctuary there during the war. She even showed me the rooms in a cellar where they hid.”

  “And what is this good woman’s name?”

  “Mother Vincenza.”

  “I’m afraid Mothe
r Vincenza is sadly mistaken. Or, worse, she’s deliberately trying to mislead you, though I would hesitate to level such an accusation against a woman of faith.”

  Gabriel thought of the late-night call to his hotel room in Brenzone: Mother Vincenza is lying to you, the same way she lied to your friend.

  The rabbi leaned forward and laid his hand on Gabriel’s forearm. “Tell me, Signor Delvecchio. What is your interest in this matter? Is it academic?”

  “No, it’s personal.”

  “Then do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Are you Jewish?”

  Gabriel hesitated, then answered the question truthfully.

  “How much do you know about what happened here during the war?” the rabbi asked.

  “I’m ashamed to say that my knowledge is not what it should be, Rabbi Zolli.”

  “Believe me, I’m used to that.” He smiled warmly. “Come with me. There’s something you should see.”

  THEY CROSSED the darkened square and stood before what appeared to be an ordinary apartment house. Through an open shade, Gabriel could see a woman preparing an evening meal in a small, institutional kitchen. In the next room, a trio of old women huddled round a flickering television. Then he noticed the sign over the door: CASA ISRAELITICA DI RIPOSO. The building was a nursing home for Jews.

  “Read the plaque,” the rabbi said, lighting a match. It was a memorial to Venetian Jews arrested by the Germans and deported during the war. The rabbi extinguished the match with a flick of his wrist and gazed through the window at the elderly Jews.

  “In September of 1943, not long after the collapse of the Mussolini regime, the German Army occupied all but the southernmost tip of the Italian Peninsula. Within days, the president of the Jewish community here in Venice received a demand from the SS: hand over a list of all Jews still living in Venice, or face the consequences.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He committed suicide rather than comply. In doing so, he alerted the community that time was running out. Hundreds fled the city. Many took refuge in convents and monasteries throughout the north, or in the homes of ordinary Italians. A few tried to cross the border into Switzerland but were turned away.”

  “But none at Brenzone?”

  “I have no evidence to suggest that any Jews from Venice—or anywhere else, for that matter—were given sanctuary at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. In fact, our archives contain written testimony about a family from this community who requested sanctuary in Brenzone and were turned away.”

  “Who stayed behind in Venice?”

  “The elderly. The sick. The poor who had no means to travel or pay bribes. On the night of December fifth, Italian police and Fascist gangs entered the ghetto on behalf of the Germans. One hundred and sixty-three Jews were arrested. Here, in the Casa di Riposo, they hauled the elderly from their beds and loaded them onto trucks. They were sent first to an internment camp at Fossoli. Then, in February, they were transferred to Auschwitz. There were no survivors.”

  The rabbi took Gabriel by the elbow and together they walked slowly around the edge of the square. “The Jews of Rome were rounded up two months earlier. At five-thirty on the morning of October sixteenth, more than three hundred Germans stormed the ghetto in a driving rainstorm—SS field police along with a Waffen SS Death’s Head unit. They went house to house, dragging Jews from their beds and loading them into troop trucks. They were taken to a temporary detention facility at the barracks of the Collegio Militare, about a half mile from the Vatican. Despite the horrible nature of their work that night, some of the SS men wanted to see the dome of the great Basilica, so the convoy altered its route accordingly. As it moved past St. Peter’s Square, the terrified Jews in the back of the trucks pleaded with the Pope to save them. All evidence suggests he knew full well what was taking place in the ghetto that morning. It was, after all, under his very windows. He did not lift a finger to intervene.”

  “How many?”

  “More than a thousand that night. Two days after the roundup, the Jews of Rome were loaded onto rail cars at the Tiburtina station for the journey east. Five days after that, one thousand and sixty souls perished in the gas chambers at Auschwitz and Birkenau.”

  “But many survived, did they not?”

  “Indeed, remarkably, four-fifths of Italian Jewry survived the war. As soon as the Germans occupied Italy, thousands immediately sought and were provided shelter in convents and monasteries, as well as in Catholic hospitals and schools. Thousands more were given shelter by ordinary Italians. Adolf Eichmann testified at his trial that every Italian Jew who survived the war owed his life to an Italian.”

  “Was it because of an order from the Vatican? Was Sister Vincenza telling me the truth about the papal directive?”

  “That is what the Church wishes us to believe, but I’m afraid there is no evidence to suggest the Vatican issued instructions to Church institutions to offer shelter and comfort to Jews fleeing the roundup. In fact there is evidence to suggest that the Vatican issued no such order.”

  “What sort of evidence?”

  “There are numerous examples of Jews who sought shelter in church properties and were turned away. Others were told they had to convert to Catholicism in order to stay. Had the Pope issued a directive to throw open the doors to Jews, no mere nun or monk would have dared to disobey him. The Italian Catholics who rescued Jews did so out of goodness and compassion—not because they were acting under the orders of their Supreme Pontiff. If they had waited for a papal directive to act, I’m afraid many more Italian Jews would have died at Auschwitz and Birkenau. There was no such directive. Indeed, despite repeated appeals from the Allies and Jewish leaders around the world, Pope Pius never found it in his heart even to speak out against the mass murder of Europe’s Jews.”

  “Why not? Why did he remain silent?”

  The rabbi raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “He claimed that because the Church was universal, he could not be placed in the position of taking sides, even against a force as wicked as Nazi Germany. If he condemned the atrocities of Hitler, Pius said, he would also have to condemn any atrocities committed by the Allies. He claimed that by speaking out, he would only make matters worse for the Jews, though it is hard to imagine what could be worse than the murder of six million. He also saw himself as a statesman and diplomat, an actor in European affairs. He wanted to play a role in bringing about a negotiated settlement that would preserve a strong, anti-Communist Germany in the heart of Europe. I have my own theories as well.”

  “What are they?”

  “Despite public professions of love for the Jewish people, I’m afraid His Holiness did not care much for us. Remember, he was raised in a Catholic Church that preached anti-Semitism as a matter of doctrine. He equated Jews with Bolshevism and bought into all the old hatreds that Jews were interested only in the material. Throughout the nineteen thirties, while he was the Secretary of State, the Vatican’s official newspapers were filled with the same sort of anti-Semitic filth one might have read in Der Stürmer. One article in the Vatican journal La Civiltà Cattolica actually discussed the possibility of eliminating the Jews through annihilation. In my opinion, Pius probably felt the Jews were getting exactly what they deserved. Why should he risk himself, and more importantly his Church, for a people he believed were guilty of history’s greatest crime—the murder of God himself?”

  “Then why did so many Jews thank the Pope after the war?”

  “The Jews who stayed in Italy were more interested in reaching out to Christians than raising uncomfortable questions about the past. In 1945, preventing another Holocaust was more important than learning the truth. For the shattered remnants of the community, it was simply a matter of survival.”

  Gabriel and Rabbi Zolli arrived back at their starting point, the Casa Israelitica di Riposo, and once more stood side by side staring through the window at the elderly Jews sitting before their television.

  “What was it Christ said? ‘Whatso
ever you do to the least of my brothers’? Look at us now: the oldest continuous Jewish community in Europe, reduced to this. A few families, a few old people too sick, too near to death, to ever leave. Most nights I say Ma’ariv alone. Even on Shabbat, we have only a handful who bother to attend. Most are visitors to Venice.”

  He turned and looked carefully at Gabriel’s face, as though he could see the telltale traces of a childhood spent on an agricultural settlement in the Jezreel Valley.

  “What is your interest in this matter, Signor Delvecchio? And before you answer that question, please try to remember you are speaking to a rabbi.”

  “I’m afraid that falls into the category of an uncomfortable question that is better not asked.”

  “I feared you might say that. Just remember one thing. Memories are long in this part of the world, and things are not so good at the moment. The war, the suicide bombers. . . . It might not be best to stir up a hornet’s nest. So tread carefully, my friend. For us.”

  11

  ROME

  L’EAU VIVE WAS ONE of the few places in Rome where Carlo Casagrande felt at ease without a bodyguard. Located on the narrow Via Monterone, near the Pantheon, its entrance was marked only by a pair of hissing gas lamps. As Casagrande stepped inside, he was immediately confronted by a large statue of the Virgin Mary. A woman greeted him warmly by name and took his overcoat and hat. She had skin the color of coffee and wore a bright frock from her native Ivory Coast. Like all the employees of L’Eau Vive, she was a member of the Missionary Workers of the Immaculate Conception, a lay group for women connected to the Carmelites. Most came from Asia and Africa.

  “Your guest has arrived, Signor Casagrande.” Her Italian was heavily accented but fluent. “Follow me, please.”

  The humble entrance suggested a dark, cramped Roman chamber with a handful of tables, but the room into which Casagrande was shown was large and open, with cheerful white walls and a soaring open-beam ceiling. As usual, every seat was filled, though, unlike at other restaurants in Rome, the clientele was all male and almost exclusively Vatican. Casagrande spotted no fewer than four cardinals. Many of the other clerics looked like ordinary priests, but Casagrande’s trained eye easily picked out the gold chains that marked bishops and the purple piping that revealed the monsignori. Besides, no simple priest could afford to eat at L’Eau Vive, not unless he was receiving support from a well-to-do relative back home. Even Casagrande’s modest Vatican salary would be pushed to the breaking point by a meal at L’Eau Vive. Tonight was business, however, and the cost would be covered by his generous operational expense account.