From Sand and Ash(66)
“You come down from the stars
Oh, King of Heavens,
And you come in a cave
In the cold, in the frost,
And you come in a cave
In the cold, in the frost.
Oh, my divine baby
I see you trembling here,
Oh, blessed God
Ah, how much it costs you,
Your loving me.
Ah, how much it costs you,
Your loving me.”
“How do you know those songs?” the monsignor asked Eva once they were headed back to the Vatican, bouncing down unpaved roads, huddled together in the cab of the delivery truck. He hummed a couple bars and was immediately wiping his eyes once again with the memory of the sweet Christmas melodies. “You are Jewish.”
“But I am also Italian,” Eva answered easily. “You aren’t Italian if you don’t know ‘Tu scendi dalle stelle.’”
“Ah, forgive me my Irish blunder,” he said in English with a purposeful brogue. “Sing it for me, then, lassie.”
She sang softly, in a voice as clear and lovely as her violin. She knew every verse, but it was one line that made Angelo’s throat close and his eyes smart. Ah, how much it costs you, your loving me. Ah, how much it costs you, your loving me.
Angelo could only cling to the wheel, his eyes on the road and his heart on fire, looking out into the starry darkness and feeling the monsignor’s gaze on his face.
January of 1944 was as gray and wet as December of 1943 had been. Like everyone else in the occupied city, the convents and the clergy listened on pilfered radios as the Americans seemed to make one misstep after another as they climbed Italy’s boot toward Rome. The opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth signaled the nightly reports of the Allied movements from the BBC, and it rarely brought good news. The Germans celebrated and dug in their heels, claiming success at every turn.
But there were small victories. Monsignor O’Flaherty had the inspired idea to let the Jewish population gather for worship services in the excavated church that sat beneath the existing Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano. The basilica was not far from the Colosseum and was under Irish diplomatic protection, providing a measure of safety for the refugees to assemble. The basilica had three tiers, the lowest tier a first-century home that had later grown into the fourth-century church above it, built to provide persecuted Christians with a place to worship. The significance of that history was not lost on the Jews and those who sheltered them. It was dank and the walls continually wept with moisture and echoed with the sound of rushing water from the subterranean river that ran beneath the church, but there was peace and a sense of sanctuary within the space.
Despite the danger, Eva and the Sonnino family, along with other members of their underground community, would meet for worship when circumstances allowed. They assembled on the right-hand aisle of the ancient basilica under a faded fresco of Tobias, an Old Testament figure with whom they could identify, clinging to each other and the very traditions that had exiled them and at the same time made them one.
Eva would sit with Giulia and little Emilia, Lorenzo would sit with his father and the men, and they would sing the songs and recite the prayers of those who had come before, doing the best to keep the roots alive, to remember what it meant to be ebrei—the beauty, the symbolism, the sense of community and family.
Emilia’s sweet voice would rise above the rest, childish and clear, and in that sound was the future and the past. Eva would hold the little girl’s hand, singing with her, and as she sang she thought of her father and Felix, of her mother and her grandparents. She thought of freedom and sunshine, of love and hope, and she longed for the days of sand and sea, when Babbo had made glass and life had been simple.
Sand and ash. The ingredients of glass. Such beauty created from nothing. It had been something Babbo had marveled about and something she’d never understood. From sand and ash, rebirth. From sand and ash, new life. With every song and with every prayer, with every small rebellion, Eva felt reborn, renewed, and she vowed to press on. She vowed to push back, to make glass from the ashes, and that courage was a victory in itself.
Eva kept pilfering gold from Via Tasso, and Angelo—priest turned smuggler—managed to convert it into sustenance. But the biggest triumph by far, achieved through a strange series of events and the curiosity of Greta von Essen, was the new printing press for Aldo Finzi to continue his work.
Greta von Essen, Captain von Essen’s very bored and very lovely wife, had taken a liking to Eva, probably because Eva, with her German language skills, was one of the few people she could talk to. Greta was a striking woman in her late thirties with no children to occupy her time, so she filled her days with hobbies and housekeeping. She also regularly wheedled Eva away from Via Tasso for lunch and shared intimate details of her life with “Wilhelm” that Eva would really rather not hear.
She broke down and cried in her wine at lunch one day, telling Eva she was a disappointment to her husband and a failure to the Reich. “It is our duty to have children for the fatherland. And I can’t seem to have any. Wilhelm is embarrassed of me. He is certain my infertility is the reason he hasn’t risen more quickly up the ranks.”
Eva patted her hand and made soothing clucking noises, but she was more than happy to oblige Greta when she suggested they finish their lunch and take a detour past a new row of shops, shifting her attention and the topic of conversation from Wilhelm and infertility. They found themselves in a fashionable district a few streets over, lined with dress shops, haberdasheries, perfumeries, and a small but distinguished bookstore with ornate gold lettering in the windows. There was a padlock on the door and a stack of newspapers piled in front of the door.