Warburg in Rome (16 page)

“Father, may I ask you a direct question?”

“But of course.”

“Does Ambassador von Weizsäcker know of the initiatives Archbishop Graz is taking in this regard?”

“The ambassador knows the war will end.”

“Is he looking for a way to end it on German terms?”

“Not on Stalin’s terms—there’s the point. Von Weizsäcker can say only so much. He and trusted colleagues in Berlin need assurances. Archbishop Spellman and Archbishop Graz can become partners in obtaining them. That begins here, with you and me.”

“You want Archbishop Spellman to intercede with Washington.”

“Yes. Precisely. Calls for the unconditional surrender of Germany must change. There is no point in any German—I dare to say it—moving against Hitler unless there can be some assurance—”

“Of a deal.”

“A new alliance. Aimed at thwarting Stalin. In defense of the Danube Federation. The German high command, set free, would formally recognize Archduke Otto at once.”

“Von Weizsäcker is part of an anti-Hitler cabal? Why would he have been sent here by Hitler just as the Wehrmacht took the city? Wasn’t Weizsäcker the senior German in Rome when the Gestapo arrested Jews across the river in October? What was it, two thousand Jews, counting children?”

“Not that many. Von Weizsäcker disapproved of that. We all did.”

“What does German disapproval sound like? We missed hearing it in New York. And where are they by now, do you suppose? Rome’s Jews?”

“Labor camps. Italian labor camps.”

“Poland, Father. The Roman Jews were shipped in boxcars to Poland.”

“Monsignor, the ambassador has put himself in a delicate position. There are others in this delicate position with him. Surely you do not require the situation to be made explicit. That a figure of the ambassador’s seniority is in Rome now, here in the Vatican, means there is space for maneuver. Neutral space, Monsignor, made available by—and within—the Church. For this moment, His Holiness has been waiting. But nothing happens without some signal of interest from Washington. Spellman could obtain such a signal. We know of his good relations with President Roosevelt.” Lehmann stood. “Tell the archbishop of New York that Maglione’s days are numbered. The time is propitious, given General Clark’s arrival in Rome, for an American at the Holy Father’s side. Spellman could succeed Maglione. The Holy See with an American secretary of state.”

“You’re offering the post to Spellman?” Deane’s contemptuous smile was kind compared to what he felt.

Lehmann shrugged. “I am only saying—it could be arranged.”

“As long as the American helps with a separate peace. Did I get that right?”

“Monsignor . . .” Lehmann eyed Deane coldly. Then he said, “The Holy Father approves of this initiative. He and von Weizsäcker have spoken. The Holy Father cannot ask directly, but he would welcome Archbishop Spellman’s exertion of influence.”

“How long are you ordained, Father?”

Again Lehmann answered only with his stare. For a young priest he seemed to have an unusual capacity not to be intimidated. But something told Deane that was a pose. Deane, too, remained silent.

Finally Lehmann said, “Why do you ask?”

Deane had a regrettably large capacity for being intimidated, but not by a slick popinjay like this. “Who appointed you to the office of . . . what do you call it? The arranger. Is it some element in Berlin? The German national church in Rome? The Holy See? Or perhaps the Holy Ghost?”

“No appointment. My inquiries are informal.”

Deane stood up, ending the meeting. Without fanfare, he opened the door for the German, who strode through it.

That should have been that, but in the cramped anteroom that served as the foyer for his and three adjoining curial offices, Deane glimpsed the gray flannel trousers of a seated man, one leg crossed over the other. A wingtip shoe in need of polish. Though the man’s face was obscured by a protruding file cabinet, Deane thought at once of the fellow in the airplane. Why? Something as simple as the crease in a trouser leg—sharp enough to focus a camera on. But Father Lehmann had also stopped before the visitor, which prompted Deane to follow him out into the anteroom.

Yes, Warburg. But with him was a slender woman in the blue beret of the Red Cross, its distinctive red patch. She and Warburg had come to their feet. Lehmann had taken the woman’s hand, and he was now leaning down to kiss it, like a courtier. A clerical Casanova, he put his lips to the lightly held fingers with such grace that the woman, even averting her gaze, seemed as natural with it as he. Coming back to full height, the German said, in mellifluous Italian, “With gratitude, Signorina, for your tremendous works of mercy.” He held on to her hand presumptuously until, at last, she said, “
Grazie, Padre
.” For an instant more, the German priest held her hand. Then he dropped it, and was gone.

Deane stepped toward them. “Mr. Warburg? My goodness, I didn’t expect to see you here. If you’d called, I’d have arranged to meet you in one of the Pope’s parlors, so you’d be impressed with my importance.” He knew his joviality was coming off as forced, but what the hell. “Instead, you find me out”—he gestured around the cramped space—“a back-office clerk.” Deane and Warburg shook hands, but turned toward Marguerite as they did so.

“Monsignor Deane, this is Signorina d’Erasmo of the Roman Red Cross.”

“Yes, of course,” Deane said. “From the airport. The milk.”

“Yes.”

“The children at the Quirinal, are they . . . ?”

“We’ve begun, Father,” she said.

Deane nodded, then pointed them through the doorway into his small office. “
Prego. Prego
.”

Deane had to bring a second side chair into his room. When the door was closed and the three of them were seated in the space in front of his desk, he turned to Warburg. “What is it, David?”

“Shall I come right to the point?”

What a relief the straight-line question was after the serpentine labyrinth into which the German priest had led him. “Please.”

“Do you know what the Delegation to Assist is?”

“Yes. Delegazione per l’Assistenza degli Emigranti Ebrei. The organization to help Jews.”

“A Rome-based organization
of
Jews, Monsignor. But in the months since the Nazis took Rome, a priest has been its rabbi. Did you know that?”

“No. What priest?”

It was Marguerite who answered. “Père Antoine Dubois, the chaplain of the Cistercian Convent of the Holy Spirit. He has been the record keeper. The only one, during the occupation, who knew . . . everything.”

Warburg said, “For obvious reasons, the Jewish leader of the Delegation was a particular Nazi target. He entrusted his records to Father Anthony. But the Jewish leader has come out of hiding now, with an urgent request. He has identified a concentration camp near the town of Carpi, in Modena. The Germans are in retreat there, pulling back across the Po River. All but a few hundred captive Jews have been transported north, and the rest will follow soon. We need your help in preventing that.”

“My help? What can you possibly mean?”

“An American air wing commander, approached through a friend of mine, agreed this afternoon to bomb the crucial railroad bridge, making the last German transport impossible, but only on one condition.”

“What?”

“That the Holy Father draw attention to the camp. It’s called Fossoli. If His Holiness were, for example, to offer public prayers for those innocents in jeopardy at Fossoli—”

“That’s fantasy. Since when do German guards take signals from the Pope?”

“The Germans are not the point. It’s the American air wing commander who needs assurance that His Holiness is concerned for these people. Apparently he’s a Catholic, and would be . . .”

Into the gap of Warburg’s hesitation, Deane thrust, “A sucker for word from His Holiness.”

“Not ‘sucker.’ A strategic point, in fact. Why should a commander, distracted from his battle order and without authority from his own superiors, seek to help some when so many are in jeopardy? It’s a matter of setting the Fossoli prisoners apart from all the other victims. The Pope could do that. He prays for victims in the abstract every week. This time, he could get specific. Just use the word ‘Fossoli.’ It might save them.”

“You believe that, David?”

“Yes, I do,” he answered, a bit too quickly. He continued his brisk argument. “The American commander needs to think His Holiness will do it. It would have to happen immediately
after
the raid, lest the Wehrmacht be alerted. All I need from you is the promise that it
can
happen.”

Deane shook his head. “So then this particular American Army Air Corps command—what, announces an Allied operation coordinated with the Holy See?”

“This is purely humanitarian, Monsignor.”

Deane stared at Warburg, not speaking. Finally he said, “Carpi is across the Apennines. Clark isn’t taking on those mountains again. He’s headed to Florence, not Modena. And anyway, say the train
is
stopped. What happens on the ground? What about the German guards? Who arrives to unlock the gates at Fossoli?”

Marguerite had been staring at the hand in her lap, as if thinking of the German priest who had kissed her there. But now she raised her head. “I do. The Red Cross does. When a
campo
is abandoned by a mobile combat unit, the Red Cross takes it over, cares for the victims. We have done that since Sicily.”

“Yes, Signorina, Fascist camps, Italian camps,” Deane said. “When the Fascists fled. But these are Germans. Even withdrawn to the far side of the Po, Germans can be expected to control that valley for some time. Carpi can hardly be on Mark Clark’s map yet.”

“The roads everywhere are clogged with refugees,” she countered. “Germans do not want to deal with such desperate ones, especially pushing north. We will have more freedom now than before, for sure. Retreating Germans simply abandoned POW camps in the south. They opened prisons and insane asylums, setting inmates free, just to sow chaos. And, pulling out, they regularly allowed the Red Cross to move in. I have a passport. I have a truck. I have persons.”

“The Delegation to Assist Hebrews.”

“Yes.”

Deane looked at Warburg, who said, “It’s true. The Delegation’s leader is gathering a group of Partisans, remnants of an underground that formerly operated in the area around Modena. They will converge on Fossoli.”

“Partisans?” Deane said. “Or the Haganah?”

“What?”

“Breakaways from the British Army, the Palestine Regiment. Jews. Hasn’t Signorina d’Erasmo explained this to you, David? She will have Jewish fighters in her truck.” The priest looked at her.

Marguerite just shook her head no.

Warburg said, “I thought the Church’s problem with the Partisans was that they are mainly Communists, not Jews.”

Deane knew better than to touch that pairing. He simply stared at Warburg, who said, “And what has you Catholics so exercised about Zionists?”

Deane did not want this, yet he pushed back. “So exercised about protecting the Holy Land, the font of Christian faith?”

“Protecting it from Jews?”

“Suppose,” Deane said, “the Air Corps drops the bridge. And then, before the stymied German guards at Fossoli can kill the prisoners, the famously neutral Red Cross arrives with a force of Jewish commandos.”

Warburg said, “That’s your fantasy, Monsignor. The Modena fighters are a shadow of what they were—old men and boys, probably. If there are Jews among them, that is incidental. The Nazis decimated the Partisan groups in the region months ago. Otherwise, they’d drop that bridge themselves. If there are Palestinian Jews jumping off the Jewish Brigade wagons of the British Army, they are barely out of Rome. They could never get to Carpi. Miss d’Erasmo’s truck will have food and medicine, not fighters.”

Deane shrugged. “The Delegation to Assist Hebrews may have been interrupted in Rome by the Nazi occupation, but it was put in place by the Haganah. Funding. Organizing. Leadership. All from Palestine. Your man—what’s his name?”

Something prevented Warburg from answering.

Deane ignored that. “He
is
a Zionist. The Delegation to Assist Hebrews is Zionist.”

“You have your nerve, Monsignor, saying that so dismissively. The Delegation has been the only defender of Jews.”

Deane did not respond for a moment. Then, “Any Vatican involvement with Zionists would raise a serious problem for us with London, but that would be the least of it. What matters here, whether you see it or not, is where such an enterprise would leave the Holy See’s neutrality.” Deane had to push away a thought of the conniving Lehmann, but it was true—wild events were overtaking every careful plan. “Much as it has made me wince as an American, the Pope’s neutrality may be essential to the war’s endgame.”

“But we are not talking about Zionism. We are talking about a few hundred wretches who may or may not be alive in two days. You are not neutral about them, Monsignor. I know you’re not.”

“We are not talking about me, David. If it were up to me, I’d be in that truck with Miss d’Erasmo. I’d give anything to help those people myself. Like you would. Are you going?”

Warburg answered, simply, “No.”

After a short silence, the American priest said, “So what are you telling me? The whole thing rides on a papal halo hovering over Fossoli? That’s what the Air Corps commander needs?”

“So I’m told.”

“I can’t offer him the Pope, David. Forget it.”

Warburg’s eyes narrowed. “What else is there?”

Deane shifted in his chair to look out into the Vatican gardens below. He steepled his hands at his lips. He said, “
Acta Diurna
.”

“Which is?”

“In
L’Osservatore Romano
, the Vatican newspaper.
Acta Diurna
, ‘Daily Acts.’ It’s the list of public notices, everything from statements of the Holy See’s profound concern, to intentions of the day’s pontifical liturgies, to agenda items of the bureaucracy.” Deane hesitated. Was he really proposing this? But then he thought, what the hell. He said, “Do you think your Catholic air wing commander would be reassured by a monsignor’s guarantee that Fossoli would be featured in the Pope’s own
Acta Diurna
the day after the bridge drops? You could tell him—page one,
L’Osservatore Romano
.” When Warburg did not react, Deane added, “You wouldn’t have to mention it’s in small print, near the bottom.”