He was paying his respects now, as best as he could, a lone mourner. He felt the loss of the professor for himself and for the country they loved. No one would ever know what other groundbreaking advances Levi-Civita would have made, had he been allowed to continue working, teaching, and publishing papers. No one could ever say which students Levi-Civita would have mentored, who would have brought advances to follow, as science builds on itself like bricks in a wall. Sandro had hoped to be among those students, but that time had passed.
He thought of the other professors expelled from the University of Rome, as if he were walking through a cemetery, reading tombstones. There was Enrico Fermi, who had won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938. His wife, Laura, had been Jewish, so he had emigrated. There was Leo Pincherle, the grandson of the mathematician Salvatore Pincherle, who founded functional analysis in Italy. Federigo Enriques. Bruno Rossi. Emilio Segre. Sergio De Benedetti. Ugo Fano. Eugenio Fubini. Bruno Pontecorvo. Giulio Racah. Franco Rasetti. And so many others at the other departments at the universities of Rome, as well as Turin, Bologna, Pavia, Padua, Trieste, and Milan.
Sandro wondered if he ever would have accomplished something as brilliant as Tullio Levi-Civita. He doubted it, but he knew for sure that he would have tried. He had wanted to try, from when he was young, from as far back as when Professoressa Longhi had told him about the independent study. He would never forget the day he got the note from Levi-Civita himself.
Sandro looked at the house, one last time. There was a low wall of gray stucco in front, with pillars that flanked an iron gate to its entrance. He walked to the gate with his bicycle, said a silent prayer, and took a small rock from his pocket, then set it on the pillar.
A loving remembrance, from one Jewish mathematician to another.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Elisabetta
May 1943
Elisabetta counted the money and ration cards from the dinner service, pleased that they had broken even again, a success in these difficult days. Food shortages were decimating the restaurant business, but she kept Casa Servano going by making the pasta herself, hiring only a waitress, and getting occasional help from Sofia. Sugar and coffee were impossible to stock, but she made ersatz coffee from chicory and stretched the flour by adding chaff and ground potato peels. She brought in fresh herbs from her rooftop garden, which continued to be a haven for her and the cats, safe from Nedda, Martina, and the children.
Sofia entered the kitchen, taking off her apron. She was a pretty woman, but she had aged since Paolo had gone to war. Her brown eyes looked tired, tilting down at the corners, and gray strands threaded her dark hair. “I’m finished in the dining room. I have to get home.”
“Good news. We made as much as last night.” Elisabetta stuffed the lire into a canvas pouch and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” Sofia reached for her purse and put the money pouch inside, exhaling. “How I loathe our Nazi customers. Every day there’s more of them. They treat me like dirt.”
“Beh, the joke’s on them, since we take their money.” Elisabetta hated the Nazis, too, so she had raised prices. Top Nazi brass had become regulars, even the German Ambassador to the Vatican, Baron Ernst von Weizs?cker.
“I know they’re our allies, but it was a bad marriage from the outset.” Sofia frowned. “Meanwhile Paolo’s letters grow worse. He says it’s a lost cause. I pray every night that the war ends soon. I don’t even care if we lose.”
“I feel the same way. I think we’re getting close to the end, no matter the propaganda in the newspapers.” Elisabetta sensed that the tide was turning against the Fascists, after defeats in Stalingrad and Tunisia. Everyone was whispering that Mussolini had led the country astray. She wondered if Marco’s loyalty to Fascism had wavered, but she dismissed thoughts of him. She never did figure out how her father’s hands had gotten broken.
“I worry about Paolo all the time.”
“I’m sure.” Elisabetta worried about Sandro all the time, too. The Race Laws had ground the Jews of Rome into oppression, and she could only imagine how Sandro and his family were faring. She used to walk through the Ghetto, hoping to catch sight of him, but she had stopped. Still, she never stopped loving him. The Fascists couldn’t police her heart.
“The children miss their father. I leave the radio off or they ask too many questions.”
“I’m sorry.” Elisabetta gave her a brief hug. “If it makes you feel better, I spit in the pasta we serve the Nazis.”
“You do?” Sofia burst into surprised laughter.