“Emigrate?” Sandro repeated, incredulous. “You mean leave Italy? Leave Rome?”
“See?” His father threw up his arms. “Now you’re getting your brother upset over nothing.”
“This is our home.” Sandro thought of Elisabetta, Marco, La Sapienza, Levi-Civita. His life was here in Rome and always had been.
Rosa looked at him directly. “David believes there’s a real threat to Jews who stay here. He’s not alone in this. Jews are leaving Germany and Poland, immigrating to the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States, even to Palestine. There’s an organization that helps.” Her eyes filmed, and Sandro felt an awful realization dawn on him.
“Are you leaving Rome, Rosa?”
Rosa nodded. “It’s going to take months, maybe even a year to finalize, but David thinks he can get me a job with a relief agency in London. He can get you to London, too, and Mamma and Papa. I’ve been trying to persuade them to go. They have to decide now.”
Sandro realized this had been happening behind his back. “This is crazy. I don’t want to go, and I don’t want you to leave us. We’re your family.”
“I know that, that’s why I’m trying to persuade—”
His father interrupted. “Rosa, your mother and I don’t need our children to tell us what to do. Fascism will not become anti-Semitic. Jewish refugees are fleeing to Italy from everywhere else, seeking safety. Why would they do that if it wasn’t safe here?”
“They’re making the same mistake you are, Papa.”
“No, you’re overreacting. Influenced by David. We live here. We’re Romans, for generations upon generations.”
Rosa shook her head. “You can’t let history hold you back.”
“History doesn’t hold me back. It holds me up. It gives me strength, like my country and my religion. All of these things are of a piece. They’re part of me, of our family, too.”
“Papa, you’re so frustrating.” Rosa turned away, picked up her purse, and headed for the door. “I’m going to David’s. I’ll be back later.”
“Rosa, wait!” Sandro ran to the door, raced out into the hallway, and hurried down the staircase after her. “Can’t we talk about it some more?”
“Later!” Rosa hit the landing and flew out the front door.
Sandro reached the front floor, ran outside, and found himself in Piazza Mattei amid a cadre of drunken Blackshirts, their laughter raucous. They swarmed the lovely turtle fountain, its lighting illuminating their faces from below, exaggerating the shadows on their features like masks at Carnevale.
Sandro searched for Rosa, but an inebriated Blackshirt jostled him, then one of them began urinating into the fountain.
Sandro spun around, reeling. His sister was leaving Rome, his family was breaking up, and his country was losing her mind.
He turned and fled inside the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Elisabetta
January 1938
The dinner shift at Casa Servano was in full swing, and Elisabetta left the kitchen with a carafe of red wine, served the couple at a table against the near wall, and scanned the dining room. Her gaze stopped at a table across the room, where, to her surprise, Sandro was sitting. He spotted her at the same moment, breaking into a smile, and she felt a surge of happiness. She had no idea what he was doing here, but he was unusually dressed up in a nice blue sweater with a jacket, a loose dark scarf, and slacks, like a real university student.
Elisabetta crossed to him. “Sandro, what are you doing here?”
“I’m hungry.” Sandro beamed up at her.
“Really?” Elisabetta asked, feigning suspicion.
“Well, I wanted to see you alone, and since you work so much, I came here.” Sandro took a gift wrapped in silvery paper from his backpack and presented it to her. “I brought you a present.”
“How sweet! What for?”
“To make you happy. Need there be another reason?”
“Oh, Sandro,” Elisabetta said, feeling a little thrill. She unwrapped the paper, delighted to find a copy of the novel Cosima, by Grazia Deledda. “Oh my, it’s just what I wanted!”
“I know, you said so. Now turn to page thirty-seven.”
Elisabetta flipped to the page and wedged inside was a flyer from the Literature Department at La Sapienza, which she read quickly. “What’s this? A notice about a lecture on Deledda?”
“I thought we could go together.”
“Davvero?” Elisabetta asked, her heart soaring. Sandro was asking her on her first real date. “That would be wonderful.”