From Sand and Ash(44)

Eva left the smallest lamp on and curled up on the sofa, determined to get the children to sleep before their father came home. He would need sleep too. It had been the longest night of her life, and Eva longed to close her own eyes and grab a few minutes of rest.

She notched her violin between her shoulder and her chin and channeled a little Duke Ellington, smiling as she thought of Angelo shaking his hips and his head, the first time he’d introduced her to jazz music. It had been during the week at the beach house, the time he’d kissed her for real. The one time he’d loved her. Then he’d donned a cassock and rejected her once and for all.

“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” Those were the only words she could sing, and only because Angelo had told her what they meant. He’d laughed when she’d tried to say them, her mouth tripping over the blunt words. But she wasn’t a singer, and the words weren’t important. The song was fun and fast, but she didn’t want fun and fast, and she changed the tempo, the melody curling from the strings, making the song unrecognizable, haunting even. Angelo said jazz was all about lament. She could hear it now. The dissonance of the song, stripped down and robbed of its tempo, made it sound like a song for Shabbat.

“That’s not happy.” Lorenzo yawned, but his eyes were closed. Emilia was asleep already.

“But it’s beautiful. And beauty is always joyful.”

“It doesn’t sound like American music,” he mumbled. Then he was quiet.

Eva played for a few more minutes, her eyes heavy, her limbs loose, and her head drooped as she slid the violin to her lap. Dawn would come soon, and when Mario returned, she would stumble home. But she would sleep until then.

She came awake and to her feet when screams pierced the night. Pounding feet and a series of gunshots rang out from somewhere outside. Eva scrambled for the window, pushing the curtain aside so she could squint down at the still-darkened streets to make out what was happening below. It was raining, and the darkness was inky and slick. Then she saw them. Germans. SS officers in their gunmetal-gray raincoats and bulbous black helmets, almost blending into the night. They lined the alley, and as she watched, one lifted his weapon and shot at the sky, sending the message that no one should try to get past them. Answering shots came from farther off.

The building came awake with a start, and as Eva watched, one family, then another, staggered into the dark streets, still in their bedclothes, holding children and clutching each other. They were herded immediately into the back of a waiting truck. The Sonninos’ apartment was four floors up, and it was only a matter of time before the Germans were pounding at the door.

Giulia called out from the bedroom beyond, and Eva raced from the window, stepping over the children who had miraculously remained asleep.

“It’s the SS, Giulia. It looks like they have surrounded the building, maybe the whole ghetto. I can’t be sure. But they’re loading people in the back of trucks.”

Giulia rose gingerly, tucking her newborn between two pillows and pulling a robe over her nightgown. She staggered and Eva reached for her, sliding her arm around her narrow back. She was too thin. And now she had a baby to nurse. But at the moment, that was the least of their worries.

“Mario. He isn’t back yet?” she whispered, looking past Eva toward the small sitting room.

“No. But that is good. If he isn’t here, they can’t arrest him.”

Giulia started to shake, and Eva knew with a sick surety that if the Gestapo arrested Giulia, she wouldn’t last a week. Nor would her children.

“We have to hide, Giulia,” she said firmly. “We have to hide somewhere. Think. Where can we hide?”

Giulia shook her head numbly, her eyes wide and unblinking. “There is no place. There is nowhere, Eva.”

Eva left Giulia and ran back to the window. People were filling the streets, soldiers were shouting instructions, and every so often another shot rang out. Eva hoped it was simply a shot into the sky like the first shot had been, warning shots, shots designed to incite fear, and not shots aimed at anyone in particular. If the shooting was to instill fear, it was working. Yet Giulia’s children slept on.

“We will hide here,” Eva said briskly. It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t. But it was something.

“Here?” Giulia squeaked.

“Help me!” Eva started shoving the rectangular table with the thick marble top, the table that had been too heavy for the previous tenants to attempt to take with them. If she could get it in front of the door and turn it on its side it would reinforce the door if the Germans tried to break it down. It was the only thing she could think of.

Giulia was suddenly next to her, pushing with all her meager strength, and they scratched and scraped their way across the wood floor, inching the table toward the door.

When they were two feet away, they tried to ease it over, but the weight was too great and it crashed to its side, as high as the knob and extending several feet on either side of the doorframe.

Eva gave it a final shove, snugging it up under the doorknob. She wondered suddenly if it had been used this way before.

“Is the door locked?” Giulia said feebly, her breath harsh from the exertion. There was blood on her nightgown and drops of it trailing across the bare floor. Eva didn’t know how much bleeding was customary after so recently giving birth, but she pretended she didn’t see it. There was no time for compassion.