The Lost Catacomb (37 page)

My God!
 
Her own
mother could have been ripped out of Elena
’
s arms shortly after birth and delivered to the Nazis had
Elena not left Italy when she did.
  
She herself might never have been born.
 
And her grandmother would probably have
been deported and killed simply for having loved a Jew, for having borne his
child.
 
It was too horrible to
contemplate, and yet the thought obsessed her with relentless ferocity.

In fact, she realized now that she had even more in common
with Bruno than she
’
d previously thought.
 
They had a whole shared history
—
not merely that of the sufferings of all ordinary Italians
during the war, but of the Jewish population specifically.
 
She was part of a long history of
persecution and had never known it.

For some reason, she found herself thinking about a passage
from the
Haggadah,
the book read at the Passover
Seder
she
’
d been
invited to at her college roommate
’
s house years ago, a passage whose stark reality had
apparently lain dormant in her memory until now
—“
Had he
been there, he would not have been redeemed.
”

While the passage had referred to the apocryphal evil son,
who refused to recognize the hand of God in the redemption of the Israelites
from Egypt and hence would not have been saved, her girlfriend had said that it
always made her think about the Holocaust and whether or not she would have
survived had she lived during those terrible times.

Nicola recalled that her friend had even mused aloud at the
Seder
table, to the embarrassment of her parents
—
given
the presence of several gentile guests
—
that she wondered if anyone would have hidden her in an
attic or basement.
 
If anyone would
have risked his life to save hers had she been born in Europe sixty years
earlier.
 
Nicola had considered this
somewhat paranoid and far-fetched at the time, but now that evening haunted
her.
 
It wasn
’
t so
implausible or irrelevant a notion after all.

Her thoughts now turned to Grandpa Tom.
 
My God, she even felt disloyal to
Grandpa Tom!
 
He'd been her
grandfather.
 
He
’
d raised
her after her parents had died.
 
He
’
d loved
her so much, and she had loved him.
 
And yet she
’
d had another grandfather
—
whose name
she bore, whom she
’
d never known, whom she
’
d never
guessed had even existed, and whom she would have loved dearly
—
the
grandfather who would forever be younger than she was now.
 
The grandfather who would always be a
young man in his prime, a young man in love.
 
The grandfather who didn
’
t even
have a grave she could visit and weep over.

A grandfather of whom nothing remained but her.

And yes, despite earlier rationalizations of her
grandmother
’
s behavior, part of her still didn
’
t
understand why Elena had never told her any of this before.
 
She was an adult, not a ten-year-old
child.
 
She too had been an orphan,
just like Elena.
 
That too had been
an unspoken bond between them that could have been strengthened even further if
only Elena had shared the truth about her past.

But then, Nicola was forced to admit, she
’
d read
somewhere that keeping secrets of this sort was normal behavior for Holocaust
survivors or people like Elena, who weren
’
t actual Holocaust survivors but part of the so-called
collateral damage of the war.
 
They
kept these things inside, repressed them, and didn
’
t confide,
even in their own children, because it was just too wrenching to relive the
pain of their losses.
 
She guessed
that in all fairness to her grandmother she should be happy, not angry, that
Elena was finally sharing this with her.

Now, of course, she understood why Elena had seemed taken
aback almost irrationally
—
or so it had seemed at the time
—
by
the invitation from the Vatican.
 
Had Elena thought that
“
Cardinal M. Rostoni,
”
whose
signature appeared on the letter, might actually be the same Rostoni she had
known?
 
The Mauro Rostoni who had
denounced her lover during the war?
 
Or was it simply that the surname itself had stunned her momentarily,
reminding her of the tragedy of her past?

Why hadn
’
t she said anything?

Nicola was amazed at her grandmother
’
s strength
in encouraging her to leave under such circumstances of suspicion and
doubt.
  
Or was it, more
correctly, irresponsibility, perhaps recklessness on Elena
’
s
part?
 
Until now, she had never
thought of Elena as being anything but circumspect and careful.
 
So why hadn
’
t she
disclosed her reservations
—
or fears
—
about the trip to Nicola?

Could Elena have thought that Nicola would refuse the
commission outright had she known the facts of her grandmother
’
s
past?
 
Had she had felt that it was
unfair to deny Nicola this wonderful opportunity on the basis of a similarity
of names that was probably pure happenstance?
 
Or had she worried that if Nicola had
accepted the offer in the face of all these uncertainties, she would have
difficulty hiding her feelings and been unable to function in her usual
professional manner?
 
How typical of
Elena to have put her granddaughter
’
s interests first, before her own.

Yes, in all fairness to her grandmother, she could only
assume that Elena must have felt that she deserved this career opportunity,
untainted by possibly irrelevant concerns.
 
And now that she thought of it, how could she have expected Elena to
share with her the secret of an out-of-wedlock birth
—
the
fact that her very own mother, Julia, had been illegitimate?

Yet despite these rationalizations and repeated attempts to
understand her grandmother
’
s motives, the truth was that Nicola was actually furious
that Elena had not chosen to confide in her sooner.
 
Didn
’
t she
trust her own granddaughter with even part of the story?
 
Or at the very least want to warn her
about Cardinal Rostoni, assuming that he could conceivably be the same individual?

Of course there was no way that he could ever know that she
was Elena
’
s granddaughter.
  
No way for him to harm her, physically or otherwise.
 
But still, shouldn
’
t she have
been told?

And if it turned out that he were the same Rostoni her
grandmother had spoken of, Nicola realized, how could she continue to work for
him, knowing all this?
 
How could
she possibly mask her anger and hatred?
  
And how could she help but
fantasize about avenging Niccol
ò’
s death?
  
Thinking of her black belt in karate and carefully honed self-defense
skills, she hoped she would never be tempted to do something rash.

Her thoughts now raced on to other related issues, things
that she would need to face squarely when she had the emotional strength to do
so.
 
Though she was not an observant
Catholic, she didn
’
t know how she could ever come to terms with the fact that
the Church had been neutral, as it were, during World War II.
 
That according to so many historians,
Pope Pius had remained silent on the subject of the Jews of Rome, even as they
were being dragged out of their beds before dawn, trucked off to the Collegio
Militare, and then entrained within a matter of days to Auschwitz and a most
hideous death.

Dio
!
 
She remembered reading that when the
Pope had been asked to help the Jews of Rome gather fifty kilograms of gold
that the Nazis had said would ransom them from death, before the deportations
in October 1943, the Vatican had offered a loan only reluctantly, embarrassed
and under duress, when it was approached by desperate representatives of the
Jewish community.

It had turned out that good Catholics throughout Rome,
ordinary citizens, hearing of the plight of the Jews and the thirty-six hour
deadline the Nazis had imposed, had selflessly donated their own precious
jewelry and gold coins, expecting nothing in return, eager to help save
innocent lives.
 
A loan from the
Vatican had not been necessary after all.

She remembered that Bruno had told her that the Pope had
been informed of the imminent execution of Italian citizens, some of them Jews,
after the partisan attack on SS
soldiers on the Via Rassella and that he
had refrained from comment, fearful of jeopardizing the Vatican
’
s status
as a protected city.
 
For all she
knew, given the timing, her great grandfather and great uncle
—
Elena
’
s father
and brother
—
might have been among the victims of the Ardeatine Cave
massacre.
  
Thirteen of the
bodies had never been identified, even after all these years.

No, she would never know.

The bottom line, however, was that although Nicola was a
lapsed Catholic, the religion to which she subscribed, at least formally, had
in effect played a part
—
even
 
if it had
been only a passive one
—
in the death of many Italian Jews, some of whom had been
her own relatives.

She began to speculate about all those priests she
’
d met at
the Vatican, many of whom had been young adults during the war.
 
Had any of them had a hand in
collaborating with the Nazis or Fascists?
 
Had any of them simply shrugged their shoulders, saying that what was
happening outside the Apostolic Palace was none of their business?
 
That it was safer not to get involved?

No wonder her grandmother had never made an issue of
religion when Nicola was growing up.
 
Yet Nicola had to acknowledge
—
with deep gratitude and admiration for their courage
—
the
help that so many convents and monasteries, so many compassionate nuns and
priests, had given to Jews and others during the war.
 
Had this not been the case, Elena might
not have survived.

Nicola glanced at her watch and was surprised to see that
her ruminations had taken her into the wee hours of the morning.
 
It was now almost five o
’
clock,
nearly dawn, and she hadn
’
t slept a wink, couldn
’
t sleep a wink, though she was totally exhausted.
 
In a few hours her grandmother would be
taken for more tests, and she would know just how soon Elena could be released
from the hospital, just how much lasting damage, if any, had resulted from the
stroke.

She had so many questions to ask, so much more that she
wanted to know.
 
But it would have
to wait.
 
First her grandmother had
to get better.
 
She would engage a
private nurse to stay with Elena while she recovered at home.
 
For as much as she loved her
grandmother, as much as she wished she could stay with her for a few weeks
while she regained her strength, Nicola felt that she had to get back to
Rome.
 
She needed to return to
Italy.
 
She had to find a way to
learn what had happened to her relatives, and she had to find out more about
Cardinal Rostoni
—
if in fact he was the one responsible for her grandfather
’
s death,
or if his name was just a terrible coincidence.

It was six hours later in Rome than in New York, she
calculated.
 
She rubbed her eyes and
yawned.
 
She would call Bruno after
her grandmother
’
s test results were in.
 
There was no sense in phoning anyway
until she
’
d had a few hours sleep and could think more clearly.
 
Then she would tell him that she'd just
heard some shocking things about her family background that he too would need
time to digest, and by then she'd have a good idea of when she
’
d be
returning to Rome.