From Sand and Ash(91)

“Yes. And I love her.” He refused to put it in past tense. He would never stop loving her.

“Did she know, Angelo? Did she know you loved her?” Mario asked gently.

“Yes.” Angelo wiped at his face, at the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. She’d known. He’d been able to tell her, to show her. It was the one thing he was grateful for, and in his heart he acknowledged the blessing he’d been given.

Mario stood and walked to the small chest of drawers in the corner. There was a pile of books placed neatly on top. Angelo recognized them immediately. Eva’s journals.

“These are hers. There are several of them. They all look the same, but you can see that she’s dated them over the years. You should have them.” He set them on the bed, near Angelo, and quietly left the room.

There were four books, all identical. The only differences were in the slight wear on the covers, the dates at the top of each page, and the handwriting that slowly changed and matured, just like the girl herself. But the last book was only half filled, and Angelo found he couldn’t look at the empty pages. The empty pages hurt worse than seeing the crowded lines filled with Eva’s thoughts, because in the words, she lived. The emptiness mocked him with what could have been, what should have been. He flipped to the last entry and read it just to escape the unfinished chapters.





22 March, 1944


Confession: Kissing Angelo is a mitzvah.

My Jewish grandmother would roll in her grave if I said it out loud. Uncle Augusto would accuse me of sacrilege. But it’s true. In him I have found a slice of the divine, a morsel of peace, and when his lips are on mine, his hands on my skin, there is reason to believe that life is more than pain, more than fear, more than sorrow. I am hopeful for the first time in years. And strangely enough, I find myself convinced that God loves his children—all his children—that he loves me, and that he provides moments of light and transcendence amid the constant trial.

Angelo closed the book and wept.





CHAPTER 22


NOWHERE


When they were loaded aboard the train again, a week after arriving at Borgo San Dalmazzo, the numbers had grown to include men, women, and children from other places, who had all been brought to the transit camp. There were twenty cars, with about one hundred Jews loaded aboard each car. Many of the people were there with members of their families, and they clamored to stay together. Eva was alone, so she just let herself be pushed and pinched, as people far more desperate than she clung to each other and fought for better positions. She found a corner and slid down against the wall like she’d done on the first leg of the trip, letting herself drift up and away to numb blindness. It was too dark to try and see anyway.

She curled into herself, fighting to stay asleep, to stay oblivious, and she caught a whiff of tobacco, a wisp of smoke, and she raised her head, wanting to breathe it in.

He was there next to her, looking exactly as he had the last time she saw him. His pipe glowed in the darkness, and his long legs were stretched out in front of him, like he had all the room in the world. In his hand he had a glass of wine. The wine was dark and it glimmered like an enormous gemstone cradled in the palm of his hand. She was so thirsty.

“Babbo?” Eva asked, her voice high and childlike in her head.

“Batsheva,” her father said, smiling and swirling his wine. But the smile faded quickly. “Eva, why are you sleeping?” he chided.

“What else can I do?”

“You can fight. You can live.”

“I don’t want to fight, Babbo. I want to be with you. I want to be with you and Uncle Felix and Uncle Augusto. I want to be with Claudia and Levi.”

“You want to be with Angelo,” he finished gently. “Most of all, you want to be with Angelo.”

“Yes, I do. Is he there? With you?” She would give anything to see him.

“No.” Babbo shook his head. “He is not with me. He is there, with you.”

“Where? I am on a train! I am being taken away.”

Her father touched her face. She could feel his hand, long-fingered and light against her cheek. “Angelo is inside you. His flesh is now your flesh, his branch is your branch.”

“No, they killed him. They have killed everyone. And they will kill me too.”

“Eva, listen to me. All your life you have had a dream. A dream of this moment. You know that, don’t you? You recognize the dream.”

Eva nodded, and the fear returned like a deluge, flooding her veins and turning her fingers to ice.

“You have to jump, Eva.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. What do you have to do first?”

“I have to climb to the window.” She didn’t think she could fit through that opening. And there were bars, dividing it. She couldn’t remove the bars.

“You climb up to the window. And then what? In the dream, what did you do next?”

“I breathed in the cold air.”

“Yes. You breathe and gather courage. And then what?”

She shook her head stubbornly, resisting. She remembered that wicked relief. That sweet poison of letting go, of giving up. It had released her, temporarily, and she wasn’t ready to care again. “I don’t think I can do it. I don’t want to. I’m so tired, and I’m so alone.”