Warburg in Rome (10 page)

“Where did you get this, Jocko?”

“It fell from heaven,” Lionni said. “And here—” he poked the map decisively—“is Fossoli, near Carpi. You know Fossoli?”

The priest nodded. “The POW camp for British soldiers captured in Africa.”

“Yes, but since last year an internment camp for ‘enemies of the Fascist state.’ Police Order Number Five.”

“
Quinto
,” the priest said. The November decree ordering the arrest of all Jews in Italy.

“At first,” Lionni said, “they were prisoners of Italian Fascists, not the Germans. The Fascists insisted that the Jews would be protected from the Nazis. ‘Internment,’ they said, not ‘deportation.’ But then, in February, the Germans took over. The trains began to roll, heading north. Thousands of deportees—who knows how many?—between February and the end of May. Last week.”

Lionni picked up the chef’s knife and stabbed the map with it, a punctuation for the word “Now!”

The priest jumped back. Lionni released the knife and it fluttered, its point stuck near the place marked
Carpi
. Lionni forced a dead calm into his voice. “Now,” he said again, but softly. “German forces in the area are in disarray. Fossoli is still well above the line of Nazi retreat. In the camp, there remain only its last prisoners, the special classifications—Jews in mixed marriages, their children, those of undetermined racial impurity, and the Jews who’ve been forced to do the work of the camp. Jews the Germans chose not to kill until now. About four hundred people.”

“How do you know this?”

“The Italian guards have just been sent away by the Germans. These Italians brought the news to Rome, yesterday, the day before. The Allies have pushed the Germans back from Pisa, and the Wehrmacht prepares for retreat throughout the province of Modena. The Germans intend to hold the line in the west—Torino, Milano—not here. The commandant is ordered to close the camp quickly. The remaining Jews are to be transported. Finally.” Lionni pulled the knife out, then pounded the map with his closed fist. “It has not happened yet. We must stop it.”

The priest said nothing, only stared at the map, its black and gray hash marks.

Lionni moved his hand to a spot away from Fossoli. “Here,” he said, “the rail tracks run to the Po. This bridge across the river. The only railroad bridge to the north in the entire area. Destroy the bridge and the deportation stops.”

“And . . . ?” The priest raised his dramatic eyebrows.

“The Americans.”

“And . . . ?”

“Now that they have their airfield at Ciampino, the bridges of the Po will be in range of their Air Force. They will be bombing the bridges in the west to cut off German supply lines. We must make this bridge to the east an American target.”

“Are you personally acquainted with General Clark, Jocko?”

Lionni drew himself up to his full height and faced the priest. “You, Padre. You. Go to the Holy See. General Clark will listen to the Holy See.”

Father Antonio snorted. “But will the Holy See listen to me? I have been across the Tiber repeatedly, looking for an open defense of our Jews. Nothing.” Set loose, the priest could not stop. “The Vatican is riddled with Fascists. Those who are not Fascists are cowards.”

“But surely, Padre—”

“No, Jocko. Listen. When I asked the monsignors to help with our Delegation, they instructed me to have nothing to do with a Jewish organization. They even ordered me to expel all Jews from
here
, from Spirito Santo. They told me that I . . . I! That
I
would be the cause of the Pope’s being taken prisoner by the Gestapo.”

The priest stopped. Lionni said nothing, letting his silence convey his contempt for the Church. Padre Antonio said quietly, “I was stupid to go to the Vicariate. Once the monsignors were aware of me, they came after Spirito Santo—‘a Vatican dependency,’ they said. They issued a solemn
trasferimento
decree requiring the sisters to abandon their convent and yield the monastery to Vatican authority. But the monsignors did not know Mother Abbess. She simply pretended the order had never come. The Jews were protected again, not just from the Nazis but from the
monsignori
.”

After a moment the priest added, “Expect nothing from across the river!”

The two men were not aware of her—Marguerite standing on the threshold between the rooms, stooped slightly because her height nearly matched the door frame’s.

She had been sleeping on the priest’s cot, collapsed in the exhaustion that broke her in the chapel. Lionni’s arrival had awakened her, and through the closed door she had listened. Now, from her place behind the men, she spoke: “I know an American. An important one.”

Three

Handkerchief

C
OLONEL PETER MATES
came to with a jump. What had startled him awake was the unfamiliar feel of the sheets. After all these months—satin! This was his first morning in the poshest suite of the freshly requisitioned Hotel Barberini on the Via Veneto, and he hadn’t slept alone. The woman he’d picked up on the boulevard was sitting on the edge of the bed adjusting her shoes. Already corseted in a flesh-colored girdle and brassiere, the fasteners of which had slowed him down the night before, she had her back to him. He had no idea now what her face looked like, never mind her name. He did remember the overpowering aroma of her cheap perfume—or was that a present sensation?

Mates threw the splendid sheets back, found his shorts on the floor, and retrieved his wallet from his trousers. He withdrew a handful of lira notes—five bucks—and faced back to her just as she was pulling her dress down from over her head. A tawny-skinned, pretty girl, it turned out, but with bad teeth and much too young—younger, he realized with an efficiently deflected stab of guilt, than his youngest daughter. A pair of rivulets marked her cheeks. Apparently she had been weeping.

He took his silk pocket-square from his uniform jacket on the chair and handed it to her. She dabbed her face, then dropped the cloth on the bed. He gave her the bills, which she took without a word and folded into her dress. When she’d left his room, he heard her stifled yelp of surprise from the next room, followed by a man’s soft voice. Only then did he remember that he’d been assigned a suite-mate—the Jew from Treasury. He began to dress.

Mates was new to Rome that week, like all Americans, but he had lived here before, years ago. All winter and spring, from the OSS base in Brindisi, he had fervently anticipated this return.

Having carefully knotted his uniform tie and put on his tailored field jacket, Mates retrieved the slightly soiled silk square from the bed, whiffed it for a hit of the girl’s perfume, and studied the thing.

Parachute silk. Months before, he had used his survival knife to cut it from the ballooning canopy, iridescent in the moonlight, after his one drop—a souvenir of having lived through the most harrowing six minutes of his life. Mates had been commander of the Special Ops unit supplying Yugoslav Partisans with night drops. Though at fifty he was a decade over the airborne age limit, he’d cut orders for his own mission, a rendezvous with the deputy to Marshal Tito, the guerrilla leader. The meeting wasn’t strictly necessary; what had he been trying to prove? The silk square was his only answer. He’d found a Brindisi seamstress to hem it with cross-stitches—a rakish item now, but also a secret reminder of how scared shitless he’d been that night.

He folded the square back into his left breast pocket, ready to be brought out again for further women of Rome.

“Good morning,” Mates said as he entered the sitting room that separated the suite’s two bedrooms. The Jew did not reply at once, and Mates took in the high ceiling and lavish French doors whose lace curtains billowed in the morning air. The fellow was sitting at the writing desk in the window alcove, his pen poised above a sheaf of papers. “You were asleep when I got here last night,” Mates continued. “I hope I didn’t wake you up. Or
we
, I guess I should say.”

“Actually, Colonel, I was dead to the world.” Warburg stood. “I’m David Warburg.”

“Mates. Peter Mates.”

The men shook hands.

Mates was just tall enough to dislike being the shorter man. He said, “Sorry if the girl disturbed you just now.” He touched his mustache, a hint of male conquest.

“She seemed sad,” Warburg said, suddenly aware of the girl as a third female victim—a quick lesson in war.

Mates grinned. “Not sad last night.”

Warburg said nothing.

“You’re from Treasury, I’m told.”

“Yes. And you are C-A-D, which is why they put us together, I guess.”

“Civil Affairs Division. Not cad.” Mates waited for Warburg to pick up on the crack. He did not. Mates took in Warburg’s white shirt and gray trousers. “We should get you some tans.”

“Not necessary. I’m outside the chain of command.”

“Lucky you.”

“But I will need some help getting what the chain supplies. General Holton, Clark’s exec, told me I could depend on you.”

“Christ, Warburg, I just got here.”

“So did we all, Colonel. Perhaps that’s why you haven’t seen the general’s order yet. I have a copy here somewhere.” Warburg sat, opened a file folder, and picked up a sheet. He handed it to Mates, who read in silence.

After a moment, Warburg said, “I appreciate your help. I’ll be easier to supply than Marshal Tito was.”

“Tito? Never heard of him.”

“General secretary of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia,” Warburg said.

Mates recognized Warburg’s parry, a show of knowledge he should not have had. Mates wondered if this fellow was OSS, deep cover, as he himself was now. But there were no Jews in the OSS, not that he knew of. “What’s Treasury’s brief in Rome?”

“Refugees,” Warburg answered. “Join me for coffee downstairs, I’ll lay it out for you.”

Mates handed Holton’s letter back and made a show of checking his watch.

Warburg dropped the page on the desk and picked up another. “Here’s a list of what I’ll need.”

Mates did not move, pointedly declining to take the page.

Warburg said, “Beginning with a jeep and driver, someone with Italian. Someone who knows Rome.”

Still Mates did not respond.

Warburg said, “Today, Colonel. I need it today. This morning.”

“Forget it, my friend.” Mates produced a pack and withdrew a cigarette.

“Every CAD resource at my disposal, Colonel. So Holton says, and Holton speaks for Clark. You have a jeep and driver. Let’s start there.”

“Whoa!” Mates froze, the cigarette halfway to his mouth. “This
is
deadly. My jeep? My driver? My canoe? My scout? Next you’ll want my squaw.”

“No, Colonel,” Warburg said, annoyed, “not your squaw.” Warburg stood, and now he was the one to look at his watch. “I have to be at the Swedish embassy at ten-thirty. Why don’t you come? It’ll be the most efficient way for you to get the picture.”

After a long moment, Mates lit his cigarette, inhaled, waved the match, then said through the smoke, “Who says I need to get the picture?”

Warburg smiled. “Tito.”

Mates smiled, too.

Warburg clapped the colonel’s shoulder. “Come on. We have time for coffee. I’ll buy.”

They arrived at the embassy as a pair. Warburg was not unhappy that a senior American officer at his elbow, like an aide, enhanced his appearance as a man of status.

The ambassador was a septuagenarian named Urban Sundberg, and Warburg had done the research. Sundberg’s family firm had emerged from a base in Malmö shipbuilding to become a leading manufacturer of marine pumps. When the Swedish Navy appropriated the company early in the war, the Stockholm Admiralty was happy to have Sundberg in Rome—part salesman, part spy—for as long as the Axis had maintained its winning tilt. Now the Fascist-friendly diplomat was a living reminder of Sweden’s misplaced bet. Warburg was here to collect.

Entering the ornate drawing room to greet Warburg and Mates, Sundberg was blinking. He stepped gingerly across the fringed lip of an Oriental carpet, maneuvering a gold-handled walking stick. His long, thick silver hair brushed his collar. In his free hand he carried Warburg’s leather credentials folder and the business card that Warburg had presented at the front desk.

“Mr. Ambassador, I am David Warburg. I am with the United States Treasury Department. This is Colonel Peter Mates.”

“Greetings, gentlemen,” Sundberg said, but uneasily. He fumbled the cane and credentials to free up a hand to shake. Then he gave the leather folder to Warburg, but slid the business card into his coat pocket.

“I have asked for coffee to be brought. If that is agreeable.” He gestured at the bentwood chairs flanking a low rectangular table. Without waiting, he took a seat.

The Americans, too, took chairs. “I’ll come to the point,” Warburg said. “On behalf of my government, I put before the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs a formal request for a diplomatic—”

Sundberg’s hand shot up. “Mr. Warburg, I have no authority—”

“You have authority to send a protected cable to Stockholm. I am not asking you for decisions, Mr. Ambassador. Merely for the transmission of adjuration. The United States respects Sweden’s scrupulous neutrality. As a consequence of that neutrality, Sweden has at times been positioned to act in the middle range of diplomacy, the ill-defined region between the sanctioned and the morally imperative. That is the case today. Knowing Sweden’s record as we do, we are here to press a matter of utmost urgency to my government.”

“But Sir, the Foreign Ministry, surely communication from Washington to Stockholm is the proper—”

Warburg shook his head. He was about to invoke Roosevelt, but Mates cut in: “Mr. Warburg is speaking for Washington.” The colonel’s imperative tone was a fist on the table. When he then added, “I am speaking for General Clark,” a second fist fell, surprising Warburg. Clearly, Mates was a quick study. And, equally clearly, he disdained this quisling.

Sundberg nodded. “Please, then . . .”

“This week,” Warburg resumed, “your Foreign Ministry will receive the nomination of a Swedish businessman to the post of special envoy, representing the monarch of Sweden to the regent of Hungary in Budapest. My government expects the nomination to be approved. My government seconds his nomination. That is what you are to communicate.”