Walking the short distance from the confessional to the wooden altar rail, where Enrico was now sitting quietly in the first pew, Paolo felt caught in a swirling cloud. He’d lied to the priest—not once, but twice—about Eleonora. Unforgiveable. Why had he done that? And he’d meant to ask the priest more questions: Why did it have to be Vittoria who took the deserters to the nuns? Why couldn’t the man who was going to take him to Chiusi carry the parcel himself and set it against the tracks? Why couldn’t the tracks be damaged another way, with a pickax, a sledgehammer? And what if someone saw him leaving in the middle of the night, or returning just before dawn? It must truly be his penance. It must be. He’d taken a life, now he must save lives. “DELIVERY US FROM EVIL,” Enrico started shouting at the crucifix above the altar. “DELIVERY FROM EVIL! US FROM EVIL!”
Paolo studied the sculpture of Mary for a moment, imagining what she must have felt, watching her own child be tortured and killed. He winced, sat next to Enrico, put a hand on his arm, said, “Quietly now, Rico. God hears when you whisper.”
Enrico raised his eyebrows and stared at him as if he’d been shouting to block out the priest’s words, his own thoughts, Paolo’s sins. He kept his eyebrows up and said, “Paolo, what if Carlo doesn’t come home?”
Twenty-Five
The mother superior’s office was on the convent’s second floor. Walking slowly, almost shuffling, apparently in pain, an older nun led Vittoria up the steps and along a spotlessly clean tiled corridor, knocked twice on a closed door, and then shuffled away without having spoken a word. Vittoria heard a voice from inside and opened the door into a large room, five meters square, the walls and ceiling painted white. One desk, two hard chairs, one crucifix and a painting of the Virgin Mother on the wall behind the desk. Nothing more. A woman in a white habit rose to greet her and gestured to the other chair, and when Vittoria sat, she felt the contrast between this place and the surroundings she was accustomed to, the upholstered armchairs, the walls hung with framed paintings and colorful fabrics, the vases, picture frames and velvet swags her mother had collected in better times from the markets in Pisa, Milan, and Lucca.
“My feet are soaking wet, I’m sorry,” she said.
The mother superior waved her comment away, white sleeve flapping. “You’re Vittoria SanAntonio. I remember when you visited with your mother, years ago. I’m Sister Gabriella. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“I’m surprised you remember us.”
Sister Gabriella’s tight smile pushed her cheeks into the sides of the wimple, and Vittoria could see fine white hairs there, dusting the woman’s skin. “We don’t have so many visitors. I remember your mother well. She had a lively spirit. And a compassion that is very unusual in her class. In yours, I mean. She was a radical in many ways.”
“She spoke to me only rarely about those things.”
“Perhaps out of modesty. Or perhaps she was waiting for the correct moment. In any case, you seem to have inherited some of her spirit. Sister Tomasina told me what you’ve done. It was very kind. And brave.”
“What will happen to them now?”
“We’ll send them off tonight. We have contacts. Partisan women. Some are laypeople, some are nuns.”
“And Father Costantino? Does he help you?” Vittoria couldn’t be sure, but at the mention of the priest’s name, Sister Gabriella seemed to wince, almost imperceptibly. The nun recovered quickly. Her face settled back into a perfection of calm, a stillness it seemed no emotion could ever trouble. There was a knock on the door, and a nun Vittoria hadn’t seen before brought in a pot of tea and two cups on a tray. She set the tray on the almost bare desktop—an open Bible there, a few sheets of paper, nothing else—poured the tea into both cups as precisely as any trained servant, and left. They must believe it’s sinful to speak, Vittoria thought.
“I’m sorry. No lemon. No sugar. The war has made our simple lives even simpler.”
They each took a cup and sipped.
“Do you have many encounters with Father Costantino?” Sister Gabriella asked, and again, there was the slightest touch of discomfort in the nun’s eyes. So slight Vittoria wondered if she might be imagining it.
“Not really. We go to Mass in Montepulciano, not the village, though since he arrived, he’s been to the house a few times to counsel my father.”
“And you trust him?”
Emerging from the calm face as it did, the question hit Vittoria like a slap. “I barely know him. He visits on occasion, as I said, and he and my father take walks and have long conversations. He never stays for a meal. The workers—Old Paolo, Marcellina and the others—they see him every Sunday. I was under the impression that Paolo had been given . . . I don’t know the right word, instructions from him.”