When We Were Enemies: A Novel(57)

“Sounds good. Bye, dear.” She puts her glasses back on and opens her book as Father Patrick follows me to the exit.

“Want me to walk you out?” Father Patrick asks, and I shake my head.

“Nah, I got it. But I’ll see you on Thursday for filming.”

“See you then,” he says, and we part ways at the cafeteria door. He heads toward his car, and I jog across the parking lot to the large SUV in the corner. Marty, Ben, and Lisa are waiting for me inside.

“Sorry to make you guys wait,” I say, climbing into the empty spot in the back. “Wait. Conrad and Mac left already?” I ask, looking around.

“They just left. No worries. We barely finished packing up,” Marty says as he pulls out of the lot and follows the grid-like streets off the base. I apologize again and then stop because everyone in the car is in wind-down mode, looking at phones and returning texts. I’m about to take out my own device when I remember the envelope of pictures in my lap.

I slowly unwind the red string from the top flap. A cluster of black-and-white photographs pours out when I tip the envelope to the side. I arrange them in a neat stack, small ones up front, bigger ones in the back. The first few are blurry pictures of the Chapel in the Meadow during different phases of construction, each with a date on the back. The next few are of men working shirtless or in their PW uniforms with rolled-up sleeves, tools in hand, and big smiles.

When I reach the slightly larger prints, they change from action shots to group photos. The first shows a gathering of POWs in a field facing a man in religious vestments. Next to him stand a woman and a man performing in some way. I look closer, wishing I had a magnifying glass, but after a second of self-doubt, I know I’m right. It’s my nonna. I flip the card over.

On the back is written June 7, 1943—Dedication of the Ground for the Chapel in the Meadow by the Most Reverend Amleto Cicognani. No mention of any other individuals pictured. But it’s her. I’m sure of it. Positive.

The next photo, same size, is of a smaller group of men. On the back I read—chapel construction committee. The next photo shows my grandmother smiling next to the same man she’d stood beside in the picture of the dedication. It’s a version of my grandmother I’m unfamiliar with.

As a child, I knew her as a glamorous woman with rich brown hair, long eyelashes, and perfectly colored lips that always had a compliment for me. She doted on me, her only granddaughter. She would wrap my hair in rags to give me long ringlets, and we’d stay up to watch the late-night shows, and she’d point out her friends or my mom’s friends and tell me stories, and I’d fall asleep in her bed. As she aged, she grew frail but graceful in her frailty. She let her hair go white and her wrinkles set in. I respect that.

Sure, I know the glamour shots of her early career and her days as a pinup girl. But the fresh-faced innocence and unrestrained joy on her face in this photo—these I’ve never seen.

I flip to the next picture. This one is of my grandmother sitting at an outdoor desk, men in a field behind her working, a soft, close-to-seductive smile on her face. The next one is similar, with less of a smile, the background fading away, and I can see the future superstar rippling under the surface.

I turn the pictures over. Both are blank, though I have no doubt they must be from the same time as the other images—1943.

The next photograph is of a young Italian POW in a tidy prison uniform with the letters PW shouting out from his sleeve. He, too, is smiling, like my grandmother, but looking away like he’s embarrassed by the attention, laughing. He’s handsome with thick dark hair and a strong jaw, clean-shaven. And though the other picture is fuzzy, this man could be the same one pictured next to my grandmother at the dedication of the chapel grounds.

I turn this photo over, assuming it, too, will be blank, but it’s not. Written in the same loopy handwriting that I’m starting to think belongs to my grandmother, are a name and a date.

Father Antonio Trombello—1943.

Antonio Trombello. That name—it’s the one I’ve been looking for. Such a common name, and with few other details, my cursory research has found a plethora of Antonio Trombellos. But here he is—the man who purchased my grandfather’s grave and headstone. He was an Italian POW.

Marty pulls into the covered drive outside the Haymark Garden Inn, and everyone piles out. I shuffle the photographs back into a stack and slide them carefully into the envelope again, not sure what to do. I could give them to Mac; that’s what Dottie intended. And I see why—the photos provide a visual timeline to the construction of the Chapel in the Meadow and proof my grandmother was an integral part of that process.

But what about Antonio Trombello—this man who took pictures of my grandmother and made her smile more radiantly than I’ve ever seen? No. Not Antonio Trombello. Father Antonio Trombello, the priest who paid for my grandfather’s grave.

I haven’t forgotten Dottie’s comment about Vivian Snow’s rumored love affair with an Italian priest at the camp. And now it’s clear why that rumor started. The question is, Do I want to spread an unsubstantiated story about my own flesh and blood?

“You getting out?” Marty asks. Back in the driver’s seat after unloading the equipment into the lobby, he’s ready to park the SUV for the night.

“Oh yeah. Sorry.” I slide the envelope into my bag and climb out of the car. My mom will be here in the morning, and then I can get at least some answers. Until then, my grandmother and Father Antonio Trombello, whoever he may be, will have to wait in the darkness of their envelope.