“Thank you,” his father shot back, unsmiling.
“How dare you!” Officer Vecchio snorted, and jets of smoke escaped his nostrils. “You should show me some respect, and also my fellow officer Stefano Pretianni.” He gestured to the bearlike officer, who didn’t react. “And by the way, you’re in no position to ask favors for your Jew friends.”
Marco’s father didn’t blink. “It’s not a favor when it’s deserved. Massimo Simone is a loyal Fascist. He served our country in—”
“What do you know about loyalty, Beppe? Your son Aldo was running guns for subversives right under your nose. God knows what Marco is really up to.”
Marco jumped to his feet, on impulse. “I am loyal to this party, and so is Massimo Simone. He deserves that exemption.”
His father rose beside him, more calmly, his gaze on Vecchio. “Carmine, you’re still picking unnecessary fights, and I’m still ignoring you.”
“What fight is unnecessary, Beppe? Was Caporetto? Is that why you ran like a coward?”
“I did no such thing.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
“You Terrizzis don’t fool me. I’ll be watching you every minute. I’m keeping my eye on both of you.”
“Enjoy the view.” His father turned his back and walked out with Marco behind him. They left the office, crossed the anteroom, and strode past the guards. They descended the grand marble staircase, side by side, roughly the same height and build, unmistakably father and son. But after what had just happened, Marco wondered if he knew less about his father than he had thought.
They reached the ground floor, strode through the archway, and left Palazzo Braschi. They stopped in order to part ways in Piazza Navona, crowded with people rushing this way and that.
“I’m going back to work.” His father’s eyes went flinty in the sunshine.
“I’ll stay here,” Marco said, newly awkward. In other circumstances, he would have hugged his father, grateful for the help in getting his job back. But the rift between them made that impossible. “By the way, how do you know Carmine Vecchio?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you think the Simones will get the exemption?”
“They should. I paid plenty.”
“What do you mean?” Marco asked, surprised.
“What did you think was in that envelope, son?”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Massimo
21 November 1938
Massimo sat in his study, his head in his hands. On the desk in front of him was yet another set of Race Laws. By today’s royal decree, he was no longer a member of the Fascist Party. He had been thrown out. He reread the law’s main provision, hoping that the sentences would change. Nevertheless they remained the same, in black-and-white print:
Italian citizens who, according to the laws, are considered as belonging to the Jewish race are excluded from the PNF, the Partito Nazionale Fascista.
Massimo couldn’t comprehend what was before his eyes. He was a lawyer, baffled by a law. The Fascists had betrayed him, even though he and other Jews had helped put Il Duce in power. Massimo had believed in Il Duce, even loved him. But Il Duce had betrayed him, too. The newspapers were calling it a “purge” of Jews.
The door to his study was closed, and Massimo could hear Gemma and Sandro talking in the kitchen. The law had upset them, but hadn’t devasted them the way it did him. He didn’t know who he was if he wasn’t a Fascist. The party was more than politics to him. It was a rubric like the law itself, a system of orderly government that allowed men to achieve their fullest potential.
He thought back to the March on Rome, the beginning of the party’s rise. It was only sixteen years ago. He had ties as old as that. Shoes, even. It was the year Sandro was born, and Massimo had felt so much hope back then, a new father to a new son, witnessing a new father to his beloved country. He had believed that his life and times had converged in a wonderfully auspicious way, especially as a Roman. He had expected the future to shine bright and glorious.
His gaze wandered around his study, with his framed diplomas and bookshelf filled with tax regulations and textbooks. They were artifacts of his past life as a tax lawyer, like a fragment of a marble column at the Roman Forum. He had become a ruin.
He caught sight of his reflection in the window. He looked haunted, and he felt so. He thought again of the exemption he had failed to obtain. If he had succeeded, he would still be a party member, but he had let himself and his family down.