Warburg in Rome (21 page)

Since the outbreak of the war, the American seminarians’ sojourn in Rome had been suspended, and the place had essentially been empty for three years. But it had been maintained by its faithful Roman staff as if the boys were coming back tomorrow. The broad playing field nestled between the two wings of the building was a carpet of closely mowed grass, and to one side was a paved basketball court—a tip-off to the American character of the institution, since that sport was played almost nowhere else in Rome. But now, on that court, a pair of grown men in undershirts were engaged in a fierce competition, the one-on-one adaptation that distilled team basketball into a kind of hand-to-hand combat.

Deane and Warburg had not come up to the Janiculum intending to play ball. Little more than an hour before, Deane had shown up at Warburg’s office. “I want to show you something, David,” he said. “That I
am
serious about refugees. Will you come?”

Warburg did not answer at first. Then he said, “Yes.”

Deane led the way out to his car. It had the same papal flags on the bumper and the same black-uniformed driver beyond the glass screen. Deane started to explain, but Warburg interrupted him. “I saw this morning’s
L’Osservatore Romano
. I don’t read Latin, and my Italian, as you know, leaves something to be desired, but I didn’t see any mention of Fossoli. The bridge was dropped yesterday. You said the notice would run the day after.”

“It will run. I told you. One of the Holy See’s ‘Daily Acts.’ Patience, David. You must wait and trust.”

Warburg ignored the hint of condescension. The Vatican newspaper ploy was aimed at the Army Air Corps commander, who had already done his part. Warburg wasn’t sure what else to make of it.

“Fossoli is why I wanted to see you, in fact,” Deane said. “Hoping those people make it, I want to show you where they can go.” As the car purred through the bustling streets of the city, he told Warburg about the unused North American College—its dozens of outfitted bedrooms, spacious halls, fully equipped dining facilities. “A true refuge,” he said, “for the Fossoli survivors.”

Warburg was surprised. “But it’s been vacant all this time?” he asked. “Why would the Pope let refugees use the college now?”

“First of all, David, don’t believe what you hear about His Holiness. He cares for beleaguered Jews.” Deane stifled the contradicting
converso
memory of the cellars beneath the Santa Marta hospice. “Second, the Holy See credentials the college, but it’s owned by the organization of American bishops. That means Spellman, which means me. I control it.”

“Really?”

“You’ll see,” he said. “The college is the perfect place. And the first guests can be the Jews from Fossoli.”

“We haven’t heard yet—”

“I mean, with any luck,” Deane said.

“But what about Budapest, Father? I told you what’s happening in Budapest.”

“That’s five hundred miles from here. What did you think I could do there?”

“You were going to see about the Vatican’s nuncio in Budapest.”

“His name is Archbishop Angelo Rotta. I know that he has sent descriptions of the impositions on Budapest Jews to the Holy See. I’ve asked to read his dispatches, but so far—”

“You don’t need to read dispatches. We know what’s happening.”

“Nuncio reports are closely held, David.” In fact, His Most Reverend Monsignor Tardini had taken offense even at Deane’s inquiries. Tardini’s assistant, that Dominican nun, had simply walked away from him without speaking. “I’m working on it,” he said now.

“Last week,” Warburg said, “the Germans ordered parish priests throughout Hungary to open baptismal records, to establish who is and isn’t Jewish. Four thousand mother churches. Four hundred dependent churches. Two hundred abbeys. Twenty-one cathedral chapters. That’s a lot of baptismal registers.”

“Abbeys don’t baptize. Otherwise, you are well informed.”

“I’m told the priests are doing it, helping the Gestapo compile lists. Couldn’t the Pope forbid that?”

“Forbid the Germans?”

“No. The Hungarian priests. Couldn’t he order them to refuse to cooperate? Couldn’t the Pope command them to destroy all baptismal records? Just burn the damn stuff. That way, no one could be identified as anything. Apparently the civil birth registries depend on the Church.”

“For Catholics.”

“Right. And the Protestant and Orthodox have their records, too.”

“And they cooperate.”

“So far. But they couldn’t possibly continue if the Pope spoke. This isn’t about neutrality. Helping with Nazi identification according to race makes the Church actively complicit. Don’t you see that?”

Deane had no answer.

Warburg pressed, “If you shut down all the birth records, two hundred thousand Jews are safe. Like that.”

“Don’t kid yourself, David.”

Large wrought-iron double gates suddenly loomed before them. Hung from a pair of Tuscan pillars, the gates opened at their approach, an invisible pulley handled by an equally unseen attendant. The two men fell silent, the air between them curdled. A long serpentine driveway took the car up the hill, winding among perfectly trimmed hedges and sprawling lawns.

Finally, in the voice of a man revealing himself, Deane spoke. “I loved being a student here, a one-toilet Irish boy from the Bronx. A long way from the cracked sidewalks of the Grand Concourse. Opened my eyes, wide.” Almost self-mockingly, Deane shot the French cuff out of his jacket sleeve, tugged on the gold cufflink. “Never looked back.”

When the car pulled up at the entrance, Warburg got out while Deane gave instructions to the driver in Italian. As the two Americans ascended the grand entrance staircase, the car drove away.

“Janiculum,” Deane said as they turned to take in the view. “For Janus.”

“The two-faced god,” Warburg said.

Deane stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and laughed.

A few minutes later, having crossed through the echoing marble of the palatial public rooms of the first floor, they found themselves on the rear terrace overlooking the park-like expanse of lawn. But it was the basketball court toward which they both looked. The one-on-one began as a passing joke, then became a dare, a pair of aging hotshots egging each other on. The gardener had come up with the basketball. They had stripped to their undershirts—Deane laying aside his red-marked rabat and collarless white shirt with the sleeves folded back to protect the cufflinks, Warburg taking off his shirt and tie. In street shoes, they gave themselves less to pivots and lay-ups than to long set shots and hooks. Neither man had lost the touch, and they immediately recognized it in each other.

Warburg was junior by fifteen years, and Deane was heftier; he could be seen to carry a bit of a paunch. But Deane had clearly kept up his game, one advantage of being a member of a sports-obsessed and sublimating fraternity of celibates. In New York, he’d been out to the gym at Dunwoodie every week for pickup games with younger priests and seminarians, who’d dubbed him Antiquus, the old one. Behind his back, they’d called him Auntie.

Here, the game shifted when Warburg faked going up for a shot, and Deane was fooled. Warburg put the ball down hard, just past Deane’s hip. He protected the ball with his body and with abrupt quickness took a first long step toward the hoop. Deane responded with quickness of his own and slapped at the ball, nicking it, but not enough. Warburg drove past, into the open, and scored easily.

Deane’s ball. He smiled thinly. Warburg’s eyes were locked on his. What a relief to be channeling all thought and feeling into bodily movement. Adrenaline and a peak of concentration moved the pair into the zone for which, long before, each had lived. But now Warburg was lulled into overplaying to his right, and at Deane’s next jab step, Warburg bit. Deane took the long cross to the outside of Warburg’s left foot, then—bang! He swung the ball away, showing for the first time that he could dribble equally well with either hand. He drilled past the flat-footed Warburg and made his lay-up.

They traded basket for basket—and elbow for elbow. On defense, Warburg took to making himself bigger, spreading his feet wider than his shoulders, flaring his elbows, hands up. Deane began to bump, using his weight. Sweat dripped from their faces. What began as a low-key exercise in nostalgia had become a true contest.

“Foul!” called Deane as the ball bounced off the rim.

“Says who?” Warburg challenged.

“You pushed into me as I was shooting. My points!”

“You’re kidding yourself, Father,” Warburg said, and waited for Deane’s signal that he heard the rebuke. Deane’s already red face reddened more. Then Warburg said, “You were charging. My feet were planted.”

“What rules do you Elis play by?”

Warburg froze. “‘You Elis’?”

For a long second, the two men stared at each other. Sweat fell in droplets from each man’s chin. “Elis?” Warburg repeated. As in Eli, the Israelite judge? As in Eli, the Hebrew name for God? As in Hebe? What was he being called?

“Eli,” Deane said, with a hint of perplexity, “from Elihu.”

“Elihu?” Warburg was flummoxed.

“Elihu Yale. Didn’t you play at Yale?”

“Yale?” Warburg was still confused, then it hit him. Undergraduates at Yale went by that nickname, tied to, yes, the seventeenth-century founder. “No. No. I played ball at Middlebury. Went to Yale for law school. No Elis at the law school.”

“I played at Fordham. Different league.”

“Fordham. No wonder.”

“No wonder what?” Was Deane, too, set to take offense?

“Fordham’s Division One,” Warburg said. “No wonder you’re good.” Warburg flipped the ball to Deane. “Take it out.”

They resumed play, but something unfriendly had seeped into the game. Deane showed himself to be the better player, but Warburg’s edge in speed and agility was enough to let him begin to dominate. And yes, Warburg’s aggressiveness was lashed by his vexation at the priest’s double game with Mates. Janus indeed.

If fate—or street shoes—required one of them to get hurt, it was going to be Antiquus, and so it happened. Fighting hard for a rebound, Deane went up at an impossibly twisted angle, which was aggravated by a bump from Warburg’s hip. Deane snagged the ball but landed hard and off balance on the side of his right foot, which snapped under, crushing all his weight onto the lower end of the tibia where the long leg bone joined his ankle. “Oh, Jesus!” he gasped, and went down clutching his leg. The pain, nested in adrenaline, prompted him to move, and he bounced up off the pavement. Before Warburg could stoop to him, Deane had drawn himself up onto his good knee—the posture of prayer. He left the injured leg loose and to the side, dropping his head into his right hand. “Jesus,” he said again.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” Warburg said. “Are you all right?”

“Give me a minute.”

“Your ankle?”

“My shin, my lower shin. Jeesuss!”

“I am so sorry, Father.”

Deane let the younger man hoist him up, draw his arm across his shoulders, and take most of his weight. Their sweaty upper bodies fit together. Each had an athlete’s unselfconsciousness. “Can you hop?” was Warburg’s only question, and Deane answered with several one-legged leaps, across the basketball court to where their clothing was folded. Warburg helped Deane into his shirt and put on his own, making a bundle of their two jackets, the rabat and collar, and his necktie. With Warburg taking Deane’s weight again, they slowly made their way to the circular driveway in front. There was no sign of the priest’s car, nor of any other vehicle they might commandeer. They zeroed in on a stone bench, and Warburg eased Deane down. Acute pain was showing in his face. Blood had drained away, leaving him pale.

Once seated, Deane reached for the rabat. “I’d better get this damn thing on if I’m going into a Roman emergency room.”

Warburg helped him fasten his cufflinks and put his arms into the garment’s slings. “Like a shoulder holster,” Warburg offered, thinking of the firearms instruction he’d received in the weeks before leaving Washington. He’d protested at first:
I’m not that kind of Treasury man
. But he was headed for the war zone. He’d been issued a pistol with shoulder holster, which, ever since, he kept under his bed. At that, he thought of the Red Cross woman, her frigid declaration:
And I killed him
.

After Deane was dressed, Warburg tucked in his own clammy shirt and put on his tie and coat.

Deane pulled his wristwatch out of his coat pocket and, fastening the strap, said, “Oh, brother. I’m supposed to hear confessions at St. Peter’s.”

“You can forget that.”

“No. I have to get there.”

“Why? With all the priests in Rome?” Warburg eyed Deane carefully, knowing he’d used the confessional as a rendezvous.

“English-speaking priests—at a premium,” Deane said, “because of GIs streaming in.”

Warburg felt that they were back on the basketball court, with Deane faking him. Warburg’s counterfake consisted in letting it go. He knelt before Deane to check his leg. He untied the priest’s shoe. “Your foot is swelling, and above your ankle the skin is already purple. You may have bleeding in there. No protrusion, though. That’s good. But I think you’re better off without this.” He slipped the shoe off.

The long black car appeared then, swiftly rounding the corner from behind a string of tall poplar trees. The tires squealed when it stopped. The driver hopped out, saluting. He quickly got the picture and joined Warburg in helping Deane up, across to the car, and into the back seat. “
Buon Pastore
,” the driver said. Behind the wheel, he popped the gear and headed off, all at once a man of authority.

“Good Shepherd Hospital,” Deane announced. “The good sisters. Good God. Oh, Jesus, give me a smoke, will you.”

Cupping his hands against the in-draft from the open windows, Warburg lit cigarettes for both of them, then handed one over. Only then did Deane notice, between them on the seat, the folded
L’Osservatore Romano
—an early copy of the next day’s edition.

“I sent the driver to fetch this,” he said, picking the paper up. Clipped to it was a brown envelope about six inches square. Deane put the envelope aside, unfolded the newspaper, and scanned it. “Front page,” he said. “As promised. Patience pays off.
Acta Diurna
.” He held it for Warburg, who saw, near the bottom, the one word “Fossoli” leap out of the small print.