He crouched into a racer’s tuck and scrambled into the tunnel, then covered the entrance behind him. He used his flashlight to light the way, and the tunnel was earthen on all sides, connecting to the ancient catacombs of the early Christians, an underground cemetery containing hundreds of thousands of graves, a veritable necropolis, city of the dead. Some of the entrances were known, but some weren’t, which made the catacombs the perfect meeting place.
Aldo scrambled downward in the tunnel, descending lower and lower. He reached the bottom of the crypt and found himself in a narrow hallway with a packed floor. The air was coldest here, chilling his skin in the damp jersey, and he made the Sign of the Cross on his chest, out of respect for this sacred place. The walls on both sides contained loculi, rectangular niches in tiers excavated into the tufo, a grayish-red volcanic rock. They were stacked from floor to ceiling, a hallway lined with the remains of the early Christians, which had been wrapped in sheets, closed behind the loculus, and then sealed inside the tomb with lime. Here and there he spotted the shorter graves of children.
Aldo hurried ahead through a bone-cold maze. He was taking his life in his hands, coming here. At nineteen, he was old enough to follow his heart, even if it led him down a dark tunnel. He had joined a cell of fervent anti-Fascists opposing the regime, and as such, had become an enemy of the state. Informers abounded, and Mussolini’s secret police, OVRA, were known to arrest, torture, and kill anti-Fascists with impunity.
Aldo had tried to be the son his father wanted, a cyclist and a Fascist, but he had doubts about the party from its earliest days. When he was younger, walking with his father on an errand, they had seen a cobbler beaten in the street for making a joke about a Blackshirt. His father had said the man was one of the “thuggish element” in the party, but the crime had made Aldo wonder whether thugs were the exception, or the rule.
He had noticed that the textbooks changed in school, publishing only propaganda, and Mussolini had made radios inexpensive so that his speeches could be heard everywhere. The party exalted ultra-patriotic pride in Rome, Romanità, and in Italy, Italianità, but that troubled Aldo, too. He didn’t believe that one race was superior to others, but rather that all men were children of God, beloved in His eyes. Aldo shared his mother’s deep faith, so he was appalled to see the Fascists follow Mussolini as if he were Christ himself, calling him Il Duce and replacing the Ten Commandments with the ten Decalogues. No mortal could erase God from Aldo’s heart, and soul. He had witnessed Mussolini’s rise, feeling daily more oppressed, his heart had grown heavy, and he felt as if he was living life with his head down, until he realized he had to stand up and fight for the country he loved.
He kept going, and as he got closer to the others, he heard their voices echoing, inflected with a mixture of dialects, for they came from all over Rome and its outskirts. They had been meeting for about six months, but they changed their meeting places in case they were being surveilled.
Aldo’s step quickened, driven by purpose, and he hurried toward the light at the end of the hallway.
CHAPTER SIX
Elisabetta
June 1937
The morning sun peeked through the shutters, but Elisabetta was already awake, cuddling her tabbycat, Rico. His face was perfectly proportional, with not too long a nose, Tiber-green eyes, and a mouth that occasionally revealed a tooth, as evidence of his ferocity. An excellent mouser, Rico would occasionally bite her, albeit without malice. Otherwise he accepted the affection she showered on him, since he regarded himself as the most important thing in her world, and perhaps all of Italy.
Elisabetta got out of bed and slid off her nightgown, pausing to gauge the growth of her breasts, cupping them as if her hands were scales. They felt nice and soft, and they were heavier, which satisfied her. She remembered when they had first appeared on her chest, feeling like olives under her skin, but they had grown to apricots, then lemons, and finally tangerines. Surely they were fruity enough to justify a brassiere.
She dressed in her uniform, then opened the shutters, breathing in the natural perfume of the star jasmine climbing up the wall. Her window overlooked the back of their house, which offered a view of small gardens stuffed with potted plants, flowers, and herbs. She loved flowers and wanted a garden when she grew up, so Rico could chew the parsley plants.
The sky was clear, and the sun rose over the east bank of the river, above the Ghetto. Elisabetta knew Sandro would be waking up, too, and she wondered if he was thinking of her, after that kiss. Oddly, nothing had seemed different between them since then. Marco had been his usual self, too, but showing more interest in Angela than her. Elisabetta wondered if boys were worth the trouble.