NEGATO, read the handwritten scrawl, in capital letters.
“No,” his father said, hushed.
His mother gasped.
Sandro felt stricken.
His father moved both halves of the paper up and down, trying to realign them, as if it would change the outcome. “No, no, no, no,” he said, over and over.
“Oh no.” His mother put a hand on his father’s knobby shoulder, but his father didn’t seem to notice.
“They would not deny us! They would not do this to us! They would not do this to me!” His father kept rearranging the two halves of the decision. “I’m almost a Fascist of the First Hour! I’ve done everything I can for the party! It would not do this to my family! It would not do this to me!”
“Massimo, please.” His mother patted his father’s back. “We will find a way—”
“Il Duce would not do this to me. My country . . .” His father looked up, shaking his head, his eyes wild and his lips trembling.
Sandro felt alarmed, having never seen his father so frantic. Tears came to his mother’s eyes, and she edged away, as unsettled as he was.
Sandro realized he had to do something. He took his father by the shoulders and turned him so they faced each other. “Papa, we have to reason together, the way we always do. We can figure out what to do.”
“We can’t, we can’t, we’re ruined! I don’t know what to do.”
Sandro felt taken aback, but masked his dismay. “Can we appeal? Is there a provision for appeal of these rulings, like a regular court case?”
“No, no, no, nothing like that’s in the law! The decisions are final!” His father looked at Sandro without really seeing him, or so it seemed to Sandro.
“Papa, let’s think. There has to be some way to deal with this, and we will.”
“I’ve gotten exemptions for so many others, how could they deny mine? Why would they deny mine? Why?”
“Are you sure it’s final, even though it’s just handwritten? It barely looks official. I’m wondering if it’s some sort of notation or—”
“No, no! It’s a final determination, many of them are handwritten denials. They’re mere functionaries who decide these things! They’re not lawyers, they’re bureaucrats! They scribble!” His father started shaking his head again. “Perhaps I was a borderline case, in that I didn’t join the party until 1923, and that’s before 1924, when they opened the rolls again. But why would they rely on such a technicality? How could they turn against one of their own? It’s a Fascist body, deciding against one of the most loyal Fascists in the Community, in all of Rome! They have granted so many other exemptions, ones that I wrote, that were far less deserving! How could they deny us? This is a disaster!”
“So there’s no way out, under the law?”
“No!”
Sandro’s mind raced. “What about outside of the law?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think there’s a way,” Sandro said, taking over.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Beppe
November 1938
Beppe was relieved to show the last of the customers out of the bar. He was ready for bed, always exhausted lately, for he mourned Aldo so deeply. His grief weighed him down, but he bore it privately, a father’s burden. Sometimes he felt as if he would collapse of its weight; other times it reminded him of his time in the Great War. He had served in the Third Division of the Bersaglieri, an infantry unit of elite cyclists who carried not only a rucksack, but also a bicycle, on their backs. He had been on the Isonzo front in the snowy Dolomites and at Caporetto, a brutal defeat that still caused him nightmares. The battle of Caporetto was infamous for its desertions, but Beppe had fought on, day after day, battling the enemy and his own despair. He felt the same way, grieving Aldo.
As he finished cleaning up, he wracked his brain for what he had done wrong with Aldo. How he had missed so many signs. Why his middle son had betrayed his country. Beppe felt as if he hadn’t even known the boy, his own beloved child. He would never have believed that Aldo would resort to violence for any reason, much less against his own government. He had failed Aldo as a father.
Beppe gathered a dirty napkin and took it to the counter. Marco looked up from cleaning the coffee machine, but said nothing. Since the fistfight at Aldo’s funeral, he and Marco spoke only when they had to. Beppe experienced the rift between them as another loss, depressing him further. His wife, Maria, had taken to bed, and neither Emedio nor prayer could console her. The Terrizzis had never been so miserable, and Beppe bore that as his failure, too. The happiness of a man’s family was his responsibility, no less than putting food on the table.