From Sand and Ash(50)

He jerked in surprise when he heard his name being called from the sitting room. Monsignor Luciano was sitting in pajamas and a dressing gown next to an unnecessary fire, a closed Bible in his hands as if he were comforted by its heft but too tired to open the cover.

“Monsignor! Are you just waking up or have you been awake all night?”

“A little of both,” Monsignor Luciano said with a smile in his voice. “It was a terrible day. My sleep was troubled.”

Angelo didn’t want to sit, he needed to sleep, but he sensed his mentor had waited there for him, and he fell heavily into a chair opposite the monsignor and closed his eyes.

“Where have you been, Angelo?” The tone was kind, not accusatory, but still Angelo weighed his words.

“Eva’s uncle, aunt, and cousins were arrested today in the roundup. After I spent all day trying, I had to tell her I could not obtain their release,” he said. It was the truth, but the simplicity of the truth was in itself a lie. Words did not exist that could fully express the horror of the day, the desperation, and the gut-sickening realization that he was almost powerless to save anyone.

“I am worried for you, my young friend,” Monsignor Luciano admitted quietly.

“Why?” Angelo was worried too, but he doubted his concerns were the same as the monsignor’s.

“This is the girl who made you question your decision to become a priest. This is Eva.” Monsignor Luciano clearly hadn’t forgotten Angelo’s agonized confession or his counsel to Angelo after that terrible, wonderful trip in August of 1939.

“Yes, it is.” Angelo nodded, his eyes on his mentor.

“You love her.”

“Yes. I do. But love in itself isn’t sinful,” Angelo said simply, another truth that skirted a lie.

“True. But it is distracting. And you’ve promised your heart to another.”

“God’s heart is big enough for all of mankind, yet mine can’t be big enough for two?”

“Not when you’re a priest. You know this, Angelo.” The monsignor sighed. “You know the dangers.”

“I have loved her since I was a child. It isn’t something new, something I haven’t grown accustomed to. My heart is God’s.” Truth. Truth. Truth. And still, a lie.

“We are at war. War has a way of stripping us of perspective. War is about life and death, and it paints everything in shades of now or never. We do things we otherwise wouldn’t because never is so frightening and now, so comforting. ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we may die.’”

“You are quoting Isaiah. You must be worried.”

Luciano laughed ruefully. “Do not change the subject.”

“You may think I’m rationalizing. And I probably am. But I know one thing. She makes me serve him better. In fact, she is the very reason I serve.”

Monsignor Luciano raised his eyebrows and folded his hands, ever the patient father, listening as his child tried to talk his way out of hell.

“In every Jewish face, I see her. I think it would be easier to ignore their plight and say, as some have done, it was foretold. They crucified our Lord. Some say that, Monsignor. You know they do.”

Monsignor Luciano nodded his head once, slowly, and Angelo knew with a flash of intuition that the monsignor had said the very same thing himself at one time or another.

“But Eva didn’t crucify our Lord. Her father didn’t either. Not a single Jew living on this earth crucified our Lord.” Angelo felt his neck getting hot and his temper building in his chest. He paused and took a deep breath, reminding himself that the monsignor was not the one persecuting the Jews.

“They are just people. And many of them, most of them, are good people. Camillo and Eva loved me and gave me a home; they are my home. Signore Rosselli would never admit it, but I know that he gave a great deal of money to the church so that I would be allowed to attend seminary. I believe he donated again so that I would have a position waiting for me when I became a priest. I never waited in line, Monsignor. Unlike so many others, after ordination I was immediately assigned a parish. It was that money and your influence, not anything I did.

“Camillo gave my grandparents a home, and when the laws were passed—those ridiculous laws—Camillo Rosselli signed his possessions and all his property over to them. He asked that they would return a portion if the laws were ever revoked. And if they weren’t, he asked that they look after Eva and give her a home when he was gone, should she need it.

“When I see a family running for their lives, no home, no country, no one to protect them—hunted—I see Eva, and it makes me try harder. It makes me pray harder. It gives me purpose, Monsignor. I see Eva.”

“Try instead to picture our Lord. Instead of seeing Eva, you should see our Lord. Our Lord was a Jew too, Angelo.” The monsignor’s voice was pleading, trying to redirect his focus to a safer place.

“Yes. He was. And if he were on earth today, the Germans would arrest him too. They would arrest his mother. They would arrest the apostles. They would load them all aboard a northbound train, traveling for days without a place to sit. They would make them stand in their waste, no water, no food. And when they finally arrived at their destination, they would work them to death or gas them immediately.”

“Angelo!” The monsignor was aghast at Angelo’s crass response. Angelo almost laughed out loud at his horrified expression. But he didn’t laugh. He didn’t cover his head and cry either, which was what he wanted to do. It was crass. But it was true. Funny how that worked.