The Words We Whisper by Mary Ellen Taylor

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ISABELLA

Rome, Italy

Saturday, March 25, 1944, 7:00 a.m.

Riccardo had warned me to stay clear of patrolling German soldiers. Now I understood why. He had known the bombing was imminent. That explained Hauptmann Brenner’s and Aldo’s interest in him.

I hurried to the church and went directly to Padre Pietro’s office. I knocked, and when he told me to enter, I closed the door behind me.

“Isabella, what’s wrong?” Padre Pietro asked.

“What have you heard about the reprisals? With so many Germans killed, there has to be retribution.”

He removed his glasses, and slowly he rubbed the lenses with a linen cloth. “I’ve only heard rumors. The SS is being very quiet. But they have emptied out the prisons and took a busload of men out of the city.”

“They’ve done this before and used them for forced labor.”

“There is talk the men were shot,” he said quietly.

“Shot?”

“For every one German killed in the Via Rasella attack, ten Romans were shot.”

My knees suddenly went weak, and I lowered into a chair. “Have you heard from Riccardo? I know he’s been in contact with you. Could he have left the city?”

“There are whispers that he has been arrested.”

Obviously, the trip to the Via Tasso had not been by chance. “Is he among those that were taken from the prisons?”

The priest put his glasses back on. “I don’t know.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” I begged.

“I fear the Gestapo have him, and if he’s not dead, it’s a matter of time,” he said quietly.

“Because of this bombing?”

“He operated a radio for the Americans,” Padre Pietro said. “He has been passing along information to the Allied troops via radio for almost a year. That’s why he was gone for long periods of time.”

“Hauptmann Brenner was asking me about Riccardo just days ago.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know where he is. Or maybe he’s testing you. Men like him play games.”

“Mia has some influence on the captain. Perhaps she knows where her brother is.”

“Be very careful, Isabella. Asking anyone about Riccardo could get you arrested.”

“She’s also in grave danger.”

“She has been for some time,” he said.

“What game is she playing?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I have to know what happened to Riccardo.”

“No good will come of you getting involved.”

“I don’t care.”

I left the church and went directly to Hauptmann Brenner’s rooms overlooking the Spanish Steps. The doorman regarded me with a mixture of interest and skepticism as I approached.

“I am here to see Mia Ferraro.” I smiled. “She’s a guest of Hauptmann Karl Brenner.”

“The blonde,” he said.

“Yes. I am her cousin, and I’ve come to visit. I am Isabella Mancuso.”

“Your papers?”

Given the recent attack, it was not surprising that the doorman was extra vigilant in protecting his German residents. If harm came to a German here, it would mean a death sentence.

After handing him my identification card, I waited as he studied it and then me. He turned away and scribbled my name and address before returning the card.

“You can see her, but don’t dally. Room 302. The soldiers residing here are particular about who visits since the bombing.”

“Of course.”

I climbed the marble stairs to the third floor and located number 302. After knocking, I stepped back.

“Who is it?” Mia asked.

“It’s me, Isabella. Signora Fontana wanted me to check in on you.”

“I am fine.”

“Can you open the door so I can see with my own eyes?” I glanced side to side and then lowered my voice. “I’m not leaving until you do.”

A chain scraped across the lock, and the door opened. She wore a hunter-green suit that skimmed above her knees and nipped at her waist. Her hair was curled into soft ringlets that framed her face and accentuated her red bow lips. “As you can see, I am fine.”

“May I come in for a visit?” I did my best not to look anxious.

“Karl would rather I not have visitors right now. The city is very tense since the attack.”

“Where is Hauptmann Brenner?”

“He was called away immediately after the bombing. There was an emergency order issued.”

“The Germans are clearing out the prisons, and there are rumors they are shooting the men. Nazis, we all have learned, can be vengeful. Mia, I have not seen Riccardo, and I am worried about him.”

She touched the diamond ring on her finger. “I asked Karl about Riccardo after we returned from the Excelsior. I pressed him for an answer, but he wouldn’t tell me. He has many informants in the city. I told him Riccardo was a nobody, but he wasn’t convinced.”

“I know there was bad blood between you and Riccardo,” I said. “He should have been there for you and the baby.”

Mia raised her chin, as if warding off a blow. “I don’t think about that,” she said softly. “He’s my brother, regardless. Many men have made the same sacrifice for this war.”

“We both know he’s in the Resistance,” I whispered. “He knew about plans for yesterday’s bombing.”

“He would not be so foolish,” she said carefully.

“A man who is driven does not always care about consequences.”

“Why do you care about him?” Mia asked. “He’s of no importance to you.”

“He’s a good man. He’s missing. Someone needs to care.”

“Do you love him?” Mia asked.

“What?”

“Early last year, I was you. I was drawn to the intensity of a man who made me feel so alive. But then he vanished, and I found out I was pregnant. To this day he doesn’t know what he lost while he was gone. And I’m glad our child is with God, for he will be a better father than my former lover.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“This life is turning into a curse for us all. I couldn’t bear to see my child suffer. And thanks to you, she lies in consecrated land, and her soul is at peace.”

I reached for her arm, but she flinched and withdrew. “Did I hurt you?”

She rubbed manicured fingers over her arm. “It’s nothing.”

“Let me see your arm.”

Mia shook her head. “No.”

“He’s hurting you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

For a long moment, I could not speak as unshed tears tightened my throat. “Come away with me now. We will hide you.”

“Karl will find me. It’s safer for us both if I stay right here.”

“Rome is a big city. There are many places to hide.”

“Not nearly enough.”

“Mia, you’re with a very dangerous man. His wife was killed outside the shop.”

“It was an accident,” she said. “It was no one’s fault.”

I thought I knew the girl she had been, but I did not recognize this woman now. “There is nothing stopping him from hurting you.”

“I’m not worried about dying.”

“Mia, please come with me to Signora Fontana’s house.”

She retreated a step and reached for a silver cigarette case. “If I told Karl what you knew about Riccardo, he would have you inside the Via Tasso prison by nightfall.”

“Is Riccardo there?”

“I don’t know. And I have tried to find out.” Her cool expression flickered, and I glimpsed the pain she was hiding. “I would be careful, Isabella. Karl is watching you.”

“Are you coming to Signora Fontana’s home?”

“No. My life is here now.” She regarded me. “Do you love my brother?”

Lovewas too strong a word. What I felt for Riccardo was affection, and I wanted him to be safe. “I didn’t say that.”

A sad smile tipped the edges of her lips. “I hope he does not break your heart. Or give you a child that has no chance of surviving in this world. At least Karl won’t break my heart.”

“You deserve better,” I said.

“I deserve what I have. Now, our paths are taking us in different directions, and it’s wiser if we keep our distance. Have a good day, Isabella.”

She closed the door, leaving me standing alone in the hallway. Gripping my purse, I left the building more worried than ever about Mia and most especially Riccardo.

Two days later, I received word from Padre Pietro that Riccardo’s body had been dumped in a side alley by his church. I left the shop, leaving behind unfinished projects and Sebastian demanding I return. I ran through the noonday streets, past the trams, rubble, and the crowds of soldiers and Romans.

Breathless, I raced in the side door of the church and was immediately intercepted by the priest. “Isabella.”

“Where is he?” I asked. “I want to see him.”

“It’s best you do not,” he said. “I have sent for friends to tend to the body.”

“No, I’ll see to him. He was my responsibility.”

“Isabella, it’s not a pretty sight,” the priest warned.

“I don’t care!” Fear rushed me because I knew what I was going to find would be horrific. But I would not be a coward and turn away from Riccardo’s last suffering.

The priest led me into the dimly lit room in the basement, and before he opened the door, he paused. “Remember, he’s with God now, and his suffering has passed.”

My eyes filled with tears. “Let me see him.”

He opened the door and turned up the gas light to reveal a draped body lying on the table in the center of the room. I walked slowly toward it as I studied the form and prayed it was not Riccardo. Perhaps a terrible mistake had been made, and he was alive and well and living in the mountains with the Resistance fighters. Riccardo was a smart man, a skilled fighter, and he would not have been captured by the SS.

I reached for the bloody cloth covering on his body and slowly pulled it back. When I saw his face, I didn’t recognize it for a moment. It was so swollen and battered it was easy to convince myself that a mistake had been made. But then I looked closer and saw the strong jaw, the curve of Riccardo’s ear, and the scar he had earned on the Albanian front.

I drew the sheet past his torso and saw the red burn marks that looked as if they had been made with a torch. His fingers, his lovely long fingers, were twisted and broken, and several of his fingernails were missing.

“Animals,” I whispered. “Who would do this?”

“The SS. They knew he wasn’t working alone, and they wanted names.”

“How did they find out about him?”

“Someone betrayed him.”

Raising my chin, I ran a finger along a deep burn. “He did not tell them any information, did he?”

“We won’t know for certain, but I have not been arrested. So that is a good sign.”

“You?”

“There are several of us, including you, who have been helping the Allies.”

“I have been helping Italy.”

“Which means you have sided with the Allies,” he said.

Riccardo had endured this pain for his sister’s and my benefit as well as those men he had sworn an allegiance to. “Do you know who the others are?”

“No,” he said. “It’s safest if each of us knows as little as possible about the others’ work.”

“Mia said they had no other family. Is that true?”

“I don’t know.”

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed in the hallway, and the door opened. Mia stood in the entryway, her breathing labored and her face pale. With a cry of anguish, she rushed across the room to Riccardo. For a long moment she was silent as she studied his devastated flesh. She gently traced the line of his brow over his bruised eyes and then leaned forward and kissed him.

“I told him he would die like this,” she said. “I told him so many times. I begged him to be careful.”

“You knew?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Mia.” I moved to put my arm around her, but she jerked away.

“I do not deserve your kindness. I do not deserve anything.”

“This is not your fault,” I said.

“I could not convince him,” she said.

“Let Padre Pietro take you away, and I’ll see to his body,” I asked.

“That is my responsibility. I am his family. I’ll prepare his body for burial.”

“We will do it together,” I said.

Mia looked at me and nodded. “Thank you.”

The priest was silent for several seconds before he cleared his throat. “We cannot linger. It won’t be wise. I’ll bring you water and rags and then clothes for him to wear.”

When he left us alone, I leaned forward and kissed Riccardo on the forehead. I could summon no tears. “I am so sorry.”

Mia and I prepared the body, washing away the dried blood that quickly soaked the muslin cloths and stained the water basin red.

The damage broke my heart, and we forced ourselves to touch each wound and gently clean every one. I thought by washing his body, I could somehow erase the damage, but without the dried blood to obscure the wounds, they looked all the more savage. His screams echoed in my head, and though I begged God to silence them, I was sure they would follow me forever.

We dressed him in a simple dark suit and a white shirt, and I took time to fasten the tie. I removed the small scarf around my neck, arranged it into a triangle, and tucked it in his coat pocket.

Two young men came into the chamber with an empty coffin and set it on the floor. Carefully, they lifted his body and laid it inside the box.

As they reached for the lid, I knelt beside the coffin and said my prayers. Mia kissed him one last time, and I did the same.

I held Mia’s hand, and we rose and watched the men seal the coffin and carry it to the small cemetery behind the church to a hole dug next to the small grave I had covered with dirt myself seven months before.

“We will need to move quickly,” Padre Pietro said. “I don’t know if and when the Nazis will come. Word has surely reached them that Riccardo’s body was taken from the alley.”

Of course they cared about who had the body, because they wanted Riccardo’s pain and suffering to extend beyond his physical remains to the ones he loved. How many times had his interrogator threatened his family? Did they know about me or Mia?

Hauptmann Brenner’s trip to the Via Tasso took on a more ominous meaning. Had Riccardo been there all along? Had we been brought by so Riccardo could see us? The Nazis could have threatened our safety if he did not talk. And yet he did not.

For the first time I regretted being with him, knowing that it could have cost him more pain than he had endured.

Padre Pietro stood at the head of the coffin and said the words of the last sacrament. Mia gripped my fingers tightly.

And then the men tossed the tilled dirt onto the simple wood, slowly covering it bit by bit. Soon the coffin was buried and the hole filled. All traces of Riccardo were gone. When the men were finished, the priest sent them away, and together we stood silent in the growing darkness.

“You must leave now, Isabella and Mia,” Padre Pietro said. “The less you’re seen here, the better.”

Mia pulled her hand from mine and, raising her chin, walked out of the courtyard.

“Mia, stay,” I said.

She stopped but didn’t turn around. “I can’t.”

“Please. He will kill you.”

“My work is not finished,” she whispered.

“What work?”

Shaking her head, she vanished down the darkened corridor.

I did not move. “What work is she doing?”

“I cannot say.”

“Riccardo was helping the Allies.”

“Yes, I know you’re not fond of them,” the priest said.

I lifted my chin. “His work will now be my work.”

“It’s too dangerous,” he said quickly.

“For a woman?” I asked. “The women of Rome are already suffering. I see how they struggle to feed their children and hide from the Allied bombs. It’s not too dangerous for me.” I met his gaze. “And I have nothing to lose now. I am alone in the world. You’ll come to me and let me know what I can do to help.”

“You’ve kept us informed of the gossip in the dress shop. It’s been very helpful.”

“It’s not enough, and you and I both know there will be less requests for dresses if the violence escalates. The women already are more careful with their words, or their husbands tell them less and less thanks to Greta Brenner’s death.”

“Isabella . . .”

“Swear to me that you’ll give me work to do. Swear it to me as we stand by Riccardo’s grave.”

He stood silent, the wind rustling the folds of his black vestments. “I’ll find you when you’re needed. I swear to God that I’ll do whatever is required of me.”

“I understand.”

It would be less than three weeks before the priest asked for my help. And when he informed me of my task, I nearly denied him. And then I remembered the wounds on my lover’s body and the vow I had made to God.