From Sand and Ash(54)

Then it was over. Complete. Eva lowered her bow from the strings and raised her eyes to her oppressor. He had dropped the gun to his side and his face was streaked with tears. He carefully re-holstered his pistol and turned away. He hesitated, his back to her, and Eva wondered if she would be asked for an encore. Her chest burned and she realized she needed to breathe. Without turning around he said softly but distinctly, “Vergib mir.” Forgive me.

He walked several steps, his spine stiff, his arms clasped behind his back. Then he resumed walking with a brisk determination, like he knew exactly where he was going. The streetcar was coming, the screech of the wheels on the track music to Eva’s ears. The German officer headed toward it, as if he thought he could brandish his gun and make it stop, the way he’d pointed his gun and made her play. As it neared, he quickened his step, and with a composure that struck Eva as instantly familiar and terrifyingly predictable, he threw himself in front of the streetcar. The sound was hell unleashed, a shrieking, tearing, grinding groan, and the car bucked on the track, attempting to swallow the man whole and spewing him out again.

People were screaming and pointing, and within seconds—minutes?—a siren blared, then another, a cacophony of banshees in the bright-blue day.

Eva walked on wooden legs to the case that lay thrown open on the ground. She carefully placed her violin inside, closed it, and sat heavily on the bench. She resumed waiting for a streetcar that was already there, a streetcar that wouldn’t be taking her anywhere. Her hands shook and her stomach revolted, and every horrified breath felt like fire in her throat. Yet still she sat, composed, her terror held inside the bony cage that sheltered her war-torn heart and her shrapnel-riddled lungs.

Then there were Germans with whistles and clubs, pushing onlookers into a cluster, yelling in a language no one seemed to understand. But Eva understood.

“Someone pushed him!” an officer shouted. “Who pushed him?”

The terrified crowd looked around, as if to find the culprit, and one woman pointed toward Eva, as if to say, “Her!”

“She was with him,” the woman said in Italian. “That woman with the violin. She was with him.”

Several of the officers and a handful of horrified onlookers followed the woman’s pointing finger to the bench where Eva sat. The Germans may not have understood what the woman said, but they understood her gesture.

Eva rose from the bench, shaking her head.

“Nein,” she said. “No! He was not pushed. He walked right in front of the streetcar. I watched him.” Her voice rang out in German, and two of the officers broke away and came toward her.

“What is your name?” one barked, his hand on his gun.

“Eva,” she answered numbly. She couldn’t remember her last name for a moment. Then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to say it and was grateful for the shock that had stalled her tongue.

“Documents?” He waited with an outstretched hand.

She fumbled in her pocketbook and rushed to set her fake pass in his hand. He looked at it for several seconds and handed it back.

“You will come with me.”

“Wh-what? Why?” She realized she asked in Italian and repeated the question in German.

“Ten civilians for every German. That is the Führer’s rule. You saw what happened. Who should we take instead?”

“But he killed himself,” Eva shot back.

“So you say. Come with me.”

“He walked in front of the streetcar!” Eva cried out, this time in Italian, her eyes on the onlookers, knowing someone had to have witnessed the suicide. The people stood huddled, frozen, eyes wide, mouths closed, and no one said a word.

“No one was even close to him!” Eva pressed. “He just stepped in front of it. Someone had to have seen the same thing I did!”

Then one woman nodded. Then another took courage, and before long, several people were agreeing, adding their voices to Eva’s claims. The German officer either didn’t understand or he didn’t care to, but he took Eva’s arm and marched her toward a jeep parked haphazardly in the middle of the street. He snapped at two of the officers and shouted orders at several more, and Eva was shoved into the back of the army vehicle and taken away. Whisked off the street, easy as you please, and there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.



The German police had converted a row of buildings on Via Tasso into their headquarters. It was an odd choice, just a modest thoroughfare of apartments and schools that was bracketed on one end by a crumbling arch and the Sanctuary of the Scala on the other. Red banners with large swastikas hung down the front of the largest structure, looking official and garish against the dull yellow exterior.

Inside, it was a construction zone guarded by soldiers with machine guns. The Germans had been in Rome for less than six weeks, and by the looks of it, they were anticipating a long occupation. Walls had been torn down and reconfigured, offices sectioned off, and a long row of dark cells, rooms without toilets or beds, stretched down one corridor, and many of the cells were filled. Eva was deposited in a room that looked more like a closet and locked in. It was so dark it took her eyes several minutes to adjust. She could hear an occasional cry or barked command, and she put her hands over her ears to block it all out. Then she focused on what she would say if given the opportunity. Her mind kept tripping back to the melancholy German in his last moments.