Warburg in Rome (36 page)

“We want the eyes of the world on the camps in Germany, Jocko. In Hungary, Romania, Italy. There’s the outrage—Jews still in those camps. Some in the same striped uniforms.”

“Jewish victims. To the world, not so different from Jewish vermin. Meanwhile, the Nazis escape. Speaking of outrage.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s why I returned to Rome. Nazis escaping
here
. Rome is a sewer of Nazis, fat turds washing along its tunnels, spilling out into the sea, away from Europe. Jews can’t leave, Nazi criminals can. So don’t speak to me of outrage.”

Warburg was accustomed to layering over his uneasiness with the business of cigarettes, and he did that now. Lionni declined his offer with a snap of his head. Waving away the match, Warburg said, “How?”

Lionni snorted. “
Afifyor
.”

Warburg waited.

Lionni said, “The Pope.”

“The Pope helps Nazis escape?”

“Of course. He is a Nazi himself.”

“That’s not true, Jocko.”

“A friend of Nazis. There are German criminals on Vatican premises all across Rome. Places exempt from being searched. The Germans approach the Red Cross for displaced person visas with identity papers stamped by the Pontifical Commission.” Lionni produced a sheaf of papers from his coat and spread the sheets on the table, smoothing creases with the same deliberation that had marked his display of the railroad map at their first meeting. Warburg had been brought here, he realized, to be shown this. He leaned forward. Lionni’s nubby fingers poked the papers as he spoke—here, here, here. What Warburg saw was a list:

Jesuit Academy, Via Borgia 6, Slovenian

Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Via Sicilia

Illirici Foundation: Collegium Illiricum, Croatian

Collegium Orientale, Via Carlo Alberto 7, Slovenian

Pontificio Collegio Croato di San Girolamo, Croatian

Santa Maria dell’Anima, Piazza Navona, Austro-German

Another page held a list of names:

Ante Vujovic, Minister of Defense, Croatia

Lazar Socic, Police Chief, Zagreb

Dr. Stefan Pujak, Director, Krajina Institute

Eng Valiljevic, Commerce Minister, Croatia

Marislav Petrovic, SS Formation, Croatia

Dr. Boris Miladic, Chief of Police, Sarajevo

Jusuf Kosovac, Ustashe assassin

Rev. Slobodan Vukas, Sisak

Isa Noljetinac, Chief of Police, Pristina

Dr. Dimitrije Najdanovic, University of Dubrovnik

Dr. Hefer, Deputy to Ante Pavelic

Rev. Krunoslav Draganovic, Director of Resettlement

Warburg looked up at Lionni. “These are Slavic names.”

“Known criminals from Yugoslavia. All at present guests of the Holy See in Rome. Here in Rome. Now.”

“You said Germans.”

“I said Germans receive false identities from the Vatican. We are working on the German identities. They forgo the name Hans.”

“You said the Pontifical Commission. Which commission?”

“Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza.”

Warburg reined in the rhythm of his own breathing: Kevin Deane’s commission. “Why would the Pontifical Commission help Nazi war criminals to escape?”

“They are not war criminals. They are ‘anti-Communist heroes.’ And not all of them seek to escape. Some are waiting to return. Waiting in Rome to be restored, in Croatia, for example. No need as yet for new identities. Proud men. The Pope believes a Catholic regime is coming soon to Zagreb. The Pope makes it come. To defeat the Bolshevik Tito. So Croatian heroes sit quietly, for example”—Lionni poked the page—“here in the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. Headquarters of a new Catholic Croatia.”

“Holy Spirit, on Via Sicilia? Wasn’t that Padre Antonio? Your friend?”

“Yes. It was from him we began to learn what was happening. He was forced out of Holy Spirit. The French nuns were replaced by Croatian friars.” Lionni slapped the table, the pages jumped. “Do you know what happened to Jews in Croatia?”

“I know it was bad. The death camp at Jasenovac. But we see few refugees from Croatia.”

“You know why.”

Warburg did know, although not until that moment.

Lionni coughed brutally. “There were forty-five thousand Jews in Croatia in 1940. Now, none. Forty thousand murdered—by ratio, the worst toll in all of Europe. Why is that? Croatia is the most Catholic nation of them all. That is why. Jasenovac was run by priests. Finished with Jews, they murdered Orthodox. Roma. The Ustashe makes the Nazis seem good. The Pope met personally with Pavelic in the Vatican. Pavelic is to be head of the new Croatian state. The Vatican is protecting him.”

“You know this? You know where Pavelic is?”

“No. But we will learn. He is here in Rome. The Pope protects him. The Pope has convinced the Allies to release Croatian prisoners. The Americans are arming them.”

“How do you know all this?”

Lionni shrugged. “I have a hairdresser on the Via Veneto.”

“You said the Red Cross. The Red Cross is issuing DP visas to war criminals?”

“Yes. The Red Cross does not refuse the Pope.”

“You have a source in the Red Cross?”

Lionni shrugged again. “We have many sources.”

Warburg toyed with his cigarette, tracing the edge of the ashtray with its tip. He thought of the Villa Arezzo on the Aventine Hill, where he had his offices; the crammed corridors, walls marked proudly with the Geneva cross; the once grand stairways now lined with cartons. He thought of the rooms lined with file cabinets into which he himself had plunged, desperate to match names, uncover histories that might qualify this DP or that DP for the prized visa. The Red Cross was a final arbiter of legitimacy—no, of life itself. Until the Red Cross said otherwise, stateless refugees simply did not exist.

For most of the past year, neither had she existed. Yet only weeks ago, Warburg saw her, in her blue uniform, in the canteen. He had not seen her since. “Did she go with you?” he asked now.

When Lionni did not acknowledge the question, Warburg added, “To Galilee.” He gave Lionni a chance to answer. When still he said nothing, Warburg went on, “She disappeared from Rome when you did. Now she is back, same as you. Same schedule.”

“Kibbutz Lavi is for Jews only,” Lionni said with ice in his voice, a match to his dark-hued skeletal body that could have been cold with death already.

So Lionni knew of whom he was speaking, and Lionni’s answer told Warburg more than he had asked. “She converted,” Warburg said, as if testing the outlandish idea by speaking it aloud. “After Fossoli.” Lionni did not respond. It was true. “She became a Jew.”

Warburg’s heart hammered. Still, Lionni said nothing.

“Am I right?” Warburg asked. “How would that work?”

“She was instructed by a rabbi.”

“But to become a Jew out of pity? Is that—”

“She is one of us,” Lionni said. “Becoming one of us saved her.”

Warburg recalled how she had fled from him in the canteen. Was this what she could not talk about? But he realized that the caring woman’s embrace of a devastated people was not unlike his own.

Lionni gave way to another fit of coughing. When he had collected himself, he said again, “The Red Cross cannot refuse the Pope, even if they know the identities presented are false. Identities presented to the Vatican are false, too, of course. But the Vatican Secretariat requires photographs.”

“If the Red Cross required photographs, no one would cross a border in Europe.”

“That is why our source in the Red Cross is insufficient,” Lionni said. “The Vatican has the means of checking photographs, determining who the fugitives are, which no doubt it does. The Vatican only pretends not to know whom they are dealing with. You have an American friend in the Pontifical Commission, no? The sealed signatures below the Latin rescripts we see are Perugino, Filipepi, Bugiardini. We do not see the signature of your friend Deane. What does he know of this? There are dozens of officials on that commission operating all over Europe. Does he know what they are doing in its name? Making documents that certify good German Catholics.”

“And you know that these Germans are not good?” Warburg was off balance, having Deane brought into this.

“If they are good, why are they not dead?”

“But you don’t know who they are.”

“They are SS. They are senior Gestapo. Their real names are on the Allied war criminal lists. They are being hunted. That is why they need Vatican documents in other names. That they have come here, or soon will, proves they are important Nazis. Otherwise they would not be making it as far as Rome. They follow a map drawn for them by Himmler. He called it
Aussenweg
, the Road Out.”

“How do you know that?”

Lionni tossed his head sideways, as if Himmler’s posthumous mischief was obvious. “The map points them to Argentina. But from Vienna to Zagreb to Trieste to Rome, they are using the Croatian underground, based here. The Croatians are protected by the Vatican. The Croatians are creating a Catholic state-in-exile in Buenos Aires, in the event they do not push Tito back to Serbia soon. For now, Rome remains the Croatian foothold. Hence Pavelic here, somewhere, awaiting his chance at Zagreb again. The escaping Germans care nothing for Zagreb. To them the Croatians are the sheep of the Cyclops. German Nazis riding out of Europe clinging to the Croatian underside the way Odysseus and his men rode out under the sheep of Polyphemus. The Croatians are happy to be used in this way, but they are prevented from knowing whom they are dealing with.”

“Only the document providers in the Vatican know that.”

Lionni coughed. Warburg sensed how much less than everything he was being told. If the Jewish fighters knew senior Nazis were at large and making their escape, why not just kill them? But then the escape route would detour away from Rome, to Istanbul or Barcelona. Lionni and his comrades wanted Rome to remain the
Aussenweg
crossroads.

“You said important Nazis. How important?”

“So far—how shall I say?—
Gruppenführer, Oberführer
, not
Reichsführer
. Himmler’s escape route is being tested before the top Nazis try it. We know the most infamous criminals are waiting—in Vienna, in Trieste, in Marseille, in Basel. Waiting to run, waiting until the route is proved safe.”

“Who?”

Lionni raised his hand, ticked his fingers: “Klaus Barbie, Gestapo chief in Lyons; Franz Stangl, commandant of Treblinka; Alois Brunner, commandant of Drancy; Adolf Eichmann, the deportation chief in Hungary; Gustav Wagner, commandant of Sobibor; Hans Stendahl, Stangl’s deputy; Klaus Hillmann, Gestapo chief in Paris—”

Warburg interrupted, indicating the list on the table between them. “But the men on this list—”

“Croatians, Slovenians, resident in Rome. Monasteries, churches, living as priests, monks. We know where they are. We are watching them. The
Germans
are on Himmler’s list, men he promised passage on the
Aussenweg
. For now, most are waiting, but they are expected in Rome. They will be greeted with large automobiles bearing the SCV plates of Vatican City.”

“And when they come—”

“We are waiting also.”

“So the Germans are ushered into the monasteries with the Jesuits and Franciscans, robes ready for them,” Warburg said, understanding. “And you cannot target underlings or mere Croatians, however despicable, because it would set off alarms.”

Lionni nodded.

“Himmler is dead.”

“Yes. His cyanide
Götterdämmerung
. Typical coward’s end.”

“Yet you have the list of those he promised
Aussenweg
? How is that?”

Now Lionni was immobile.

“And no source in the Vatican?”

“Your friend the monsignor will be our source. You.”

Warburg stared at Lionni, having come to a final recognition. “So, Jocko, you have killer teams here in Rome, but for Germans, not the British. The British embassy bombing was a diversion.”

“Such things can have more than one purpose.”

“But the bombing
was
to deceive Stangl and Eichmann.”

“And also the Pope. We want him to bring his German favorites to Rome. Or do you believe the Pope is blind, like Polyphemus?”

The gathering of the scarlet-robed prelates, along with hundreds of violet-cloaked bishops and black-and-red
monsignori
, in the apse of St. Peter’s Basilica was one of the world’s great spectacles. Behind them, the mammoth nave was jammed with tens of thousands of the faithful, and the loggias on both aisles were crowded with diplomats in white tie and tails, sashes and medals. Fur-capped soldiers, pike-bearing Swiss Guards, candle carriers, censer-waving thurifers, ribbon-bedecked members of the black aristocracy, the females covered with lace mantillas—no circus parade more colorful, no menagerie stocked with more exotic creatures. At this consistory, the wartime decline of the College of Cardinals—normally numbering seventy but now down to thirty-seven—was being reversed, the forces of the Vicar of Christ on Earth being rallied. And, with Joseph Stalin clawing at Europe, just in time. The Church militant was on the march!

A roar went up from the far reaches of the basilica as a dozen papal footmen in red, maneuvering their shoulder poles, carried the Pope in on his
sedia gestatoria
. Deane, because of his height, had no trouble seeing. From the gilded, silk-upholstered armchair, His Holiness rhythmically waved the sign of the cross while the throng cried “
Viva il Papa!
” Trumpets blared, massive organ pipes bellowed, and the papal choir intoned the polyphonic Bruckner rendition of
Ecce sacerdos magnus
, but resounding above all else,
Papa! Papa! Papa!

Slowly and somewhat unsteadily, the Pope glided up the center aisle. Light flashed off the lenses of his rimless spectacles. His visage was, as always, organized around a stern, unsmiling mouth. Perhaps he had dallied in his velvet rooms while Hitler stalked Europe, but Deane knew it was not from cowardice. This Pope was showing himself now, grimly determined before what lay ahead: the apocalyptic battle with the one whose name meant steel.