From Sand and Ash(63)
Lieutenant Colonel Kappler, the head of the German SS in Rome, had become fixated on Monsignor O’Flaherty, convinced that he was the director of the underground in Rome. He was right, unfortunately. Lieutenant Colonel Kappler had established checkpoints on every street, and Vatican passports were receiving more and more scrutiny. One of Monsignor O’Flaherty’s helpers—an Italian priest—had recently been arrested under allegations of resistance work. He’d been tortured and executed.
As a result, O’Flaherty had limited his meetings with any of the helpers in his organization to within the Vatican walls so that he wouldn’t, by association, make them targets of the colonel as well. Since then, code names had been given, and O’Flaherty’s foot soldiers were on high alert. O’Flaherty said Angelo was his “foot soldier with one foot,” and as a result, his code name was O’Malley, after a famous Irish pirate.
Eva had met both Monsignor Luciano and Monsignor O’Flaherty when she’d first arrived in Rome and efforts were being made to collect the gold the Germans had squeezed out of the Jews. Monsignor O’Flaherty was rumored to be a bit of a ladies’ man because he attended every party and swanky soiree, but he joked that there was safety in numbers and that if he wanted to know what was going on in the city, he had to rub shoulders with the people who knew. He’d smiled widely and talked with her at length, and she’d liked him immediately, though she struggled a little with his Irish-flavored Italian. Monsignor Luciano had been decidedly less friendly. She had the feeling he didn’t approve of her. When he’d been introduced to Eva, he extended his arms, the way so many priests did, but he never touched her.
It was something Eva had noticed early on in many of the Catholic clergy, this embrace that was never consummated. It left her feeling bereft. Maybe Jews were more demonstrative, more physically affectionate. Or maybe that was just Camillo, just her family. Her father had kissed her cheeks whenever he greeted her, as if he didn’t see her every single day. Every single day until, one day, he was gone. Until he’d boarded the train, waving reassuringly, and he’d never come back.
Deep down, in that part of her soul where Eva kept painful truths tucked away, like grains of sand that chafed and bothered, she knew Camillo wasn’t coming home. And she prayed every day that he wasn’t suffering. That was another grain of sand, rubbing her raw when she allowed herself to think about him at all. If he were gone, she would learn to endure. She had learned to endure. But if he were suffering, that she couldn’t abide. Her loved ones were her Achilles’ heel. She supposed it was good that she had so few loved ones left. If she was going to be a spy, it made her less vulnerable.
In mid-December, charged with the task of emptying garbage cans and finding a crate of office supplies that had been delivered but that no one could account for, Eva stumbled across an out-of-the-way janitorial closet that wasn’t being used for cleaning supplies or paper, envelopes, or typewriter ribbon.
It wasn’t even locked.
Shoved in the corner, behind a small row of empty shelves, was a barrel overflowing with gold. Gold that had once belonged to Rome’s Jewish population, still in the very same container it had been collected in. Eva touched it in horrified disbelief, running her hands over it, sifting through the bracelets and the pins and ropes and chains. There were gold teeth and rare coins and wedding bands. She picked up a dainty ring and realized it was Giulia’s. Giulia had given her ring to keep Rome’s Jews from being slaughtered. But they’d been taken anyway, some of them reduced to ash, and Giulia’s ring sat in a closet at Via Tasso collecting dust—ignored, forgotten, and completely insignificant to the men who had extorted it.
Suddenly, Eva was crying, the tears sliding down her cheeks and falling into the barrel filled with the only remains of so many who were taken. It had all been a charade—a tactic—and the sheer, malevolent gall of the shakedown was almost more than she could bear. They hadn’t even needed the gold. They hadn’t even sent it back to Germany. It was inconsequential, as inconsequential as the Jews themselves.
Filled with fury, Eva shoved Giulia’s ring on her finger, determined to return it. Then she stuck her hands deep into the barrel, and sifted the pieces through her fingers, looking for something, anything, that might have belonged to her family. Augusto had given a gold watch chain, several tie pins, and a gold ring. Bianca had given much more than that. She opened her hands and looked at the treasure, her angry tears making it all run together in a shiny tangle, one piece indistinguishable from the next.
She released the treasure and stepped back, sickened by the sight but unsure of what to do. It might take all day to find Bianca’s jewelry, and Bianca was gone. But the gold didn’t belong here. It didn’t belong to the Germans. Without a plan or a purpose, other than to balance the scales of justice, to take back what was stolen, Eva started filling the pockets in her slim skirt.
Two handfuls in she realized that wouldn’t work. She emptied her pockets and took the little garbage can she’d intended to empty and dumped out its contents. Then she put four handfuls of gold in the bottom and covered it back up with the trash. She paused over a thin, gold-plated nail file and impulsively slid it into her shoe, where it rested between her foot and the left side. It was a pathetic weapon against the danger all around her, but she felt better immediately. She wiped her eyes, straightened her blouse, and smoothed her hair. Then she opened the door and flipped off the light, and with her back straight and her head high, she walked up the stairs and back toward the offices on the third floor, swinging the can from one hand, easy as you please.