A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
“Tomitz. Osvaldo Tomitz.”
Hurrying down the hall, Iacopo leans past Mirella to welcome the priest with a warmth meant to offset Mirella’s confusion. “Buona sera, Don Osvaldo!”
Mirella presses one hand to her forehead and the other to her belly. “Forgive me, Don Osvaldo. My mind is a sieve these days!”
Making small talk, Mirella ushers their apologetic visitor down the entry hall. No, she tells him, both of us were awake. But, of course! You’re welcome here at any time. Fine, grazie, and you? Yes, very soon now—at the end of the month, most likely . . .
Iacopo smiles when Don Osvaldo looks around the Soncini’s salon. The furniture is lacquer-sleek, the artwork cubist, the chandelier a stark Venini. “You expected something more traditional,” he notes when Mirella goes to the kitchen. “All new, when Mirella and I married. Traditional is good, I told her. Nothing looks more dated—”
“—than whatever was breathlessly fashionable eight years ago!” Mirella says, returning from the kitchen with a bottle of wine and three glasses on a tray. “I wish we had more to offer, but this is a very nice sangiovese.” She frowns. “Don Osvaldo, is something wrong?”
“Mirella’s right,” Iacopo agrees. “You’re white as snow!”
“Rabbino, you must— Something is—” The unremarkable face twists, and Tomitz looks back toward the door. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. There’s nothing I can say!”
“Drink this, Padre,” Mirella urges. “Can I get you something stronger?”
“Mirella.” There is, in Iacopo’s silken voice, a note of soft command. His wife takes one step back. “I have been meaning to invite you to see our synagogue, Don Osvaldo,” Iacopo says lightly. “Perhaps now would be convenient.”
Tumblers rattle. Well-oiled hinges glide. Footsteps echo on marble, but this is not a lonely sound. For both men, there is comfort in the familiar emptiness of a place of worship at night.
“After the Great War, everyone felt it was time to make some visible statement of our place in Italy. The congregation raised the money for a new synagogue in the twenties. Construction began in the thirties. We were able to employ many men during the Depression.” Iacopo opens the etched-glass door to the main sanctuary of Scuola Ner Tamid and switches on the electric chandeliers.
Osvaldo pulls in a little gasp. Carrara walls reflect brilliant light from gleaming silver fixtures. A raised central altar’s lectern shelters under a sort of indoor gazebo fashioned of clean-lined chestnut. As modern as the Soncinis’ home, the sanctuary’s beauty arises from gracious proportions, and fine materials painstakingly polished.
“I am told the style is Italian rationalist,” the rabbi says, turning the lights off. “Personally, I prefer the little chapel.” He leads Don Osvaldo down a dark staircase. “When the congregation moved uptown from Porto Vecchio—watch your step, Padre—they saved the bima and the ark from a synagogue that was dedicated in 1511. We re-created its chapel down here.” He unlocks another door. “Let there be light!”
Illuminated by antique lanterns discreetly electrified, the small square room is as stunningly ornamented as the main sanctuary was serenely unadorned. Heavily carved walnut panels enclose it; their dark riches set off the gleam of precious metals: embossed, chased, engraved. Silver oil lamps on fine gilt chains hang from a vaulted ceiling with a frescoed sky, lapis blue and studded with tiny six-pointed stars leafed in gold.
A stately candelabrum, tall as a man and branched like an espaliered tree, guards what appears to be an ornate wardrobe inlaid with ivory flowers and jade ivy. “That’s the ark,” Iacopo explains, “where the Torah scrolls rest.” He takes a seat on a mid-Renaissance chair opposite the menorah. “We are commanded to beautify the elements of worship. Our ancestors fulfilled that mitzvah admirably, in my opinion.” He motions toward a pew. “Prego, Don Osvaldo. What we say here is heard by God alone.”
The priest’s silence is different now.
“You have been a good friend to our community, Don Osvaldo,” Iacopo says, giving the other man time. “I am aware that since you took up your post at San Giobatta, you have encouraged His Excellency and the good sisters at Immacolata to cooperate with the Jewish relief committee. You yourself have helped us find housing for displaced Hebrews. Naturally, when such a friend comes to me with a grave concern, I am distressed. I wish to know if there is some way I can be of help to you.”
Osvaldo’s lips part, but still no words emerge.
“It must be difficult to hear confessions,” Iacopo remarks, one clergyman to another. “Listening, hour after hour, to the shameful and humiliating secrets of others. It must feel like an assault or the onset of an illness. To accept such a burden, to take it onto one’s own shoulders—”
“But I am not alone in the confessional!” Don Osvaldo cries, his face twisting. “I am in the presence of One who died in agony to redeem the sins of the world!”
“And yet, you weep,” Iacopo observes, offering a handkerchief.
“Rabbino, I have refused a sinner absolution.”
Taken aback, Iacopo asks, “Is that possible?”
“I—I don’t know. It may be a sort of heresy. But what I heard was so terrible that—that . . .”
“You doubt your savior’s ability to forgive it?”
“Or my worthiness to be His priest.” Osvaldo moves from place to place in the little room. “What if a penitent is mad? Or deluded. What if he feels such guilt for what he’s done in war that he believes himself guilty of other unspeakable acts?”
“Don Osvaldo, why have you not gone to the archbishop with these questions?”
“Because—because what I heard is of great importance to you, and to your congregants. To all of us who—” Tomitz stops. “I’m sorry. Even to say this much—”
“May be breaking the seal of the confessional. Perhaps,” Iacopo suggests carefully, “it would be permissible to tell me what you think I might do, were I in possession of the information you cannot convey?”
“You would immediately advise your congregation to—” Don Osvaldo hesitates, but when he speaks again his voice is firm. “To avoid arrest and deportation.”
“I am not aware that we are doing anything to invite arrest, Don Osvaldo. The king himself says Italy has no more exemplary citizens than the Jews.”
“The king himself has fled the Germans—as you should! Tranquillo Loeb was right, Rabbino. You must all leave as soon as possible.”
“And where do you suggest we go, Don Osvaldo?”
“Someplace—anyplace you’re not known. Into the hills, the mountains! You could pass for Catholics. I—I’ll get you baptismal certificates. You wouldn’t have to be baptized, I swear it!”
“A generous offer, Don Osvaldo, and we Italians could conceivably melt into the countryside. But what of the refugees who’ve come to us for shelter? What would become of them?”
Tomitz sags onto a pew and puts his face in his hands.
“I am working with a German refugee,” Iacopo tells him quietly. “He’s almost thirteen, studying to become bar mitzvah—a ceremony rather like confirmation. For nearly two years, he and his family have lived in the basement of a bombed-out building near here. They look Jewish, whatever that means. They speak almost no Italian. They have no money. This boy’s only possession is a stamp album. Every week, he shows it to me before we begin our study. Three hundred stamps, from all over the world. The Philippines, Bolivia, Tunisia. Algeria, America. Switzerland. Mauritius. Spain, Portugal. Shanghai, Hong Kong, Japan, India. Venezuela, Cuba, the West Indies. I asked him once, ‘How did you amass such a collection?’ And he answered, ‘They’re from letters my father received from embassies when we were trying to emigrate from Germany.’ ” The priest looks up, and Iacopo asks, “Can I abandon that boy, when the whole world has rejected him?”
Don Osvaldo exhales raggedly. “No. Of course not, but surely you have heard the rumors of—”
“Precisely! Rumors! Frightening stories co
“Rabbino, what if there were an eyewitness? If I brought someone who will tell you what is happening to Jews who are—”
“Don Osvaldo, what could I do with such testimony?” Iacopo demands, voice rising. “Terrify my congregants? Foment panic? The doors of the world are closed to us! If all you offer is more fear— O Dio! What now?”
“Open up!” someone yells, pounding on the street-level door. “Rabbino, are you in there? Open up!”
The rabbi cringes at the voice, but with anger, not with fear. Muttering apologies, he leaves the chapel, taking the stairs two at a time. Strides across the synagogue lobby. Throws open the door and grabs a man’s arm, snarling, “Quiet, you fool! We have enough trouble without you making a public scene.”
Flung roughly into the vestibule, Renzo Leoni stumbles into the startled priest’s arms. “Don Osvaldo!” he cries. “A pleasure to see you again.” He lowers his voice conspiratorially. “If you’ve decided to convert, you’ve picked a very poor time for it.”
“You’re drunk!” Iacopo accuses.
Convicted by his own helpless laughter, Leoni leans against a wall and slides toward the marble floor. “I am not,” he allows, “at my best. That, however, is not the topic I wish to discuss! Mirella sent me—”
“You went to my home? You spoke to my wife in this condition?”
“My dear Rabbino Soncini,” Leoni says, summoning fluid formality from an unwilling tongue, “as a matter of strict fact, I was looking for you. And permit me to observe that if you’d been at home, with your wife, instead of spending your evening with Don Osvaldo here, Mirella would not have been forced to dispatch a reprobate like me to inform you that she is in labor.”
The rabbi stares. “She can’t be. It’s too soon.”
“I’m inclined to accept the lady’s authority on such matters.”
Osvaldo steps outside in time to see Mirella Soncini’s belly emerge from her doorway, followed a moment later by the part of her that is pulling on a cardigan. “Iacopo!” she calls loudly. “It’s time!”
Her shout galvanizes the neighborhood. Shutters open like windows in an Advent calendar. Heads appear. Words of encouragement sail into the night air. Wearing dressing gowns, Rina Dolcino and Lidia Leoni join Mirella, who motions for her pajama-clad son to come outside. “I’m getting a baby brother,” the little boy announces as the ladies usher him into their apartment building.
Osvaldo waves to let them know the news has reached the signora’s husband. “Rabbino,” he says, “give me the keys. I’ll lock up!”
Drawn by the disturbance, a pair of carabinieri appear, flashlights making cones of brightness that sweep through the neighborhood. Apprised of the impending birth, they quickly agree to accompany the signora and her husband to a city hospital a few blocks away.
Renzo appears in time to watch the departure. “It’s legal for me to be out after curfew,” Osvaldo tells him, “but you should get inside.”
Unconcerned, Renzo rearranges himself into a sitting position and leans against the doorpost of the synagogue. “Beautiful evening,” he says, eyes on the strip of night sky visible above them.
Shrugging, Osvaldo sits beside him. “The rabbino looked so surprised,” he muses, looking at the stars. “I suppose you never get used to it. Every baby is a separate miracle.” He lowers his gaze to his companion. “You’re not drunk.”
“Regrettably: no.” Leoni’s heavy-lidded attention remains fixed on the heavens. “Iacopo works very hard for the Jewish community. Who am I to deprive such a man of the deeply satisfying pleasures of sanctimony? Besides,” he adds, “it was a fair assumption. My intemperance is notorious.”
“The rabbi’s wife is a beautiful young woman. His distress is, perhaps, understandable.”
By degrees, Leoni’s regard drops from the stars to the priest at his side. “Signora Soncini is a lady of unimpeachable moral character,” he declares with starchy dignity before confiding, “She threw me over to marry Iacopo, but some men can’t take yes for an answer.”
“There are,” Osvaldo notes, “certain practical advantages to an unmarried clergy. How long have you been awake?”
“How long does it take for milk to spoil? Two days? Three? We’ve got a river of Jews coming over the Maritimes from France, Padre. They thought the war was finished here.” He stretches his legs out in front of him and works at his knees with hands that tremble slightly. “I was giving people rides in Valdottavo and then the fucking gasogene rig fouled—” He stops. “Forgive my language, Padre.”
“Ego te absolvo,” Osvaldo says, wishing bad language were the worst thing he’d been asked to pardon today.
“The peasants up there are taking people in, but they haven’t got shit to share. If the Germans offer a bounty . . .” Renzo presses his fingers into bloodshot eyes. “Anyway, by the time I got the conduit cleared, I had a shipment of sour cream. My superiors at the dairy were not pleased. I am officially at liberty to seek employment elsewhere.”
“So you wanted to tell the rabbi about the refugees.”
Renzo nods, yawning hugely. “I should get home before Mamma decides I’m dead, rather than merely facedown in a gutter.”
Osvaldo stands. “I want to help.”
“With Mamma? She’s used to this.”
“With the refugees. The ones already in Sant’Andrea. The ones coming over the mountains. I can get your job back—the man who owns the latteria is a parishioner. When Tranquillo Loeb took his family to Switzerland, he entrusted nearly thirty thousand lire to the archbishop’s office for refugees. A milk route will be a good excuse to go from farm to farm. We can distribute the money as we go.”
“We?”
Osvaldo tugs the synagogue door closed, locks it, pockets the key. “There’s a priest up in Valdottavo—an old friend. Leto’s a Catholic Actionist. He’ll help, and there’ll be others. Suora Marta, for one. The sisters can hide people in the convent.”
“Mamma thinks the Communists are the only ones organized enough to oppose the Nazis.” Renzo considers the priest thoughtfully. “Perhaps she’s overlooked a possibility.”
Osvaldo offers Leoni a hand. Even with assistance, Renzo’s rise is an exercise in mechanical engineering, the separate elements of his skeleton carefully arranged on a plumb line between his head and heels, knees unfolding last. Their eyes meet. A pact is made.
“You can live in the basilica,” Osvaldo says. “There’s a storage room we can—”
“Wait. Live in the basilica?”
“Your mother asked me for a room where a man could hide.”
“Ah, but the room is not for me, Padre.” Renzo pulls out an identity card, a pay stub, a half-used ration card. “A friend of mine works for an undertaker. Last week, a Sicilian sailor died of typhus, and Giorgio saved these for me. Had to change the photograph and the occupation, but the rest works. Stefano Savoca’s family lives behind Allied lines down in Sicily, so nobody can check the identity. And I’ve got another set for an ethnic German named Ugo Messner. He died last year. I used to date his sister.”
“Then who . . . ?”
“Giacomo Tura. He’s a sofer—a ritual scribe. Friend of Mamma’s. I suppose I should warn you, Padre. In the absence of male supervision, my mother has become a revolutionary. The Communists say they’ll give women the vote.”
By late Monday afternoon, the cleaning supplies have been removed, leaving a faint chemical smell in the basilica storeroom. Painted shutters have been pried loose, and the single window fitted with a good, heavy blackout curtain. Along one wall, an iron bedstead waits, its mattress covered by pressed white linens, overlain by a blue woolen blanket—patched, but with fine stitches. In a corner: a chipped enamel chamber pot draped with a square bleached rag. A washbasin and pitcher, a worn clean towel folded neatly beside. A table fashioned from two
“It’s spartan, Giacomo,” Lidia Leoni says, “but no one will think to look for you here.”
“The sisters will watch for trouble,” Suora Marta assures him.
“Is there anything else you need, Signor Tura?” Rina Dolcino asks.
The sofer inspects a miniature forest of brushes, quills, and pens rising from glass jars. His gnarled fingers walk in the air above the tools of his trade. Kneaded erasers, cleaning pads, sponges, tapes. Little piles of parchment trimmings that can be turned into glue to restore other documents. Rows of small bottles filled with colored inks. The ladies have smuggled in the entire contents of his studio, including two chunks of Jerusalem limestone that serve as paperweights. He perches on the stool, adjusts the drawing table to a better angle. “I could use more light. My eyes aren’t so good anymore.”
The ladies think. “Mirrors?” Lidia suggests. “To reflect the light from the window.”
“Of course!” says Suora Marta. “We have no mirrors in Immacolata, grazie a Dio, but—”
“I’ll bring one,” Rina Dolcino promises quickly. She’s seen Signor Tura coming and going from the synagogue for years, but they have never spoken, beyond wishing one another ’n giorno. The scribe is a small man, bent from his work, but he has a fine head of white hair and intelligent eyes. The age Rina’s husband would have been, if the sugar disease hadn’t taken him . . . She blinks and pulls a set of documents from her handbag. “These are the newest, Signor Tura. My brother just got them from the office in Genoa. He’ll stay off the street until you’re done.”
Surprisingly nimble, Giacomo hops off the stool and steps to the window. Holding the identity card to the light, he studies the paper, the printing, the signatures. “I’ll have a set of blanks for the engraver by the end of the week. How will you get photos, Lidia?”