“Yes, Holy Father.”

  “Because of you, those prisoners are to have no further visits.”

  I felt that he was about to strike me across the face.

  “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is, to have a thankless child,” he said, bitterly. “King Lear. Act One. Scene four.”

  With that, he swept from the office. The Rector said nothing. His silence, his very decency blazed me like a furnace, as he looked at his hands and the floor. He was merciful enough not to say that I had brought shame on the Collegio as he murmured that our meeting had concluded.

  I went at once to my room and tried to sit with the shock of what had happened, as well as the grave sin of my disobedience. The Holy Father’s words had scalded away my egotism, and I prayed that his indomitability would be rewarded. It came to me that what we find convenient to call charity is often vanity in camouflage, merely a way of floating up smoke signals of superiority about ourselves, or to ourselves, so that the smoke will conceal our ugliness.

  Weeping, I pictured the men in the camps, their worn faces and wounded hands as they had reached to me in supplication or simple friendship. I prayed hard for all prisoners, as hard as I could, for the circumscribed of the world, this wretched sinner included.

  Q

  For six months I remained in Vatican City. In time the Rector took pity and mitigated my sentence. Following the commencement of aerial bombing in July this year, I was permitted to attend the Irish Legation fortnightly, then weekly, there to offer pastoral support to the young Irish Religious and their hosts, if solemnly I undertook not to speak with anyone else and not to come to the attention of the authorities.

  I can say with honesty that I gave the latter undertaking every effort I could. On the former point, I need now to confess that, while en route to or from the Legation, I would sometimes permit myself to converse with individuals whom I knew were in small ways aiding escaped prisoners and other fugitives to make their way to the coast. It was at that time a matter of a few lire here and there, sometimes a change of clothing. I knew I was in contravention and nevertheless continued. I ask prayers for the forgiveness of my disobedience.

  On 13th September, a couple of days after the Nazi invasion of Rome, an urgent note came to this house that many of the Dominican friars at San Clemente had fallen gravely ill with the consumptive flu, which of late seems rampant around Italy. There being a contingent of pilgrims trapped in the city at that time, an English-speaking helper was needed to hear confessions. A pass to leave the Vatican and enter Rome for two hours would be arranged for the acceptor of the message.

  That Monday was on the roster as a day of rest for me. I had intended to study and pray, for I was very afraid of what the German incursion might mean, but I decided that I would instead offer to volunteer at San Clemente. At the back of it, I think, was the hope of perhaps encountering someone from home. Perhaps, too, I wished to test if I had been forgiven by now, if the sentence of internal exile imposed by the Holy Father might receive official parole. I telephoned the Papal Curia and explained the pressing need of the Dominican Brothers. An hour passed before my call was returned. Permission was given for me to accept, but I was to speak with absolutely no one outside of San Clemente. Would I promise before God not to do so? I did.

  Setting out on my motorcycle, I saw many German soldiers in the streets around the Vatican, dishevelled and unshaven, a rabble. Some were manhandling women or roaring for drink at the proprietors of cafés. Others were older than me, gaunt men in their fifties, or were boys in ill-fitting grey drabs. At one point I saw a man I know, John May, on the street, and our eyes met in greeting but neither of us made to stop and engage the other in talk. He looked fearful and exhausted, and this pained me to see, for usually he is a cheerful, bright Londoner.

  Chillingly, as I passed one alleyway, I heard an abrupt burst of machine-gun fire.

  Arriving at the church, I went directly into the sacristy. Often, I think of San Clemente as my most beloved Roman place of worship. It is far from the most beautiful, the largest, the most ornate, but always seems cooler and airier than it is, an atmosphere that raises the exhausted spirit, like a ladling of cold water after a banquet. There were indeed many people coming in and out, praying quietly, some admiring the frescoes or waiting in lines at the confessionals, but none of the monks was about, so I entered the first available confession box I saw and began to minister.

  For an hour, all was normal enough. It felt a blessing to offer the mercy of the confessional. There arose the unearthly beauty of the choir and organist practising a piece I have loved since boyhood, Perosi’s Missa Eucharistica, beautiful baritone timbres thickening the sound. And then, a thing occurred that was so frightening that I must commit report of it to paper. Should anything happen to me in the coming times, this event may explain it.

  I opened the small, grilled hatch separating priest from penitent. As is the best custom, I did not look through, but continued facing ahead of myself, eyes closed. There was silence for some moments, an occurrence not all that unusual. People can be troubled before confession.

  “Friend,” I said, at length. “Leave anxieties beyond. Know you speak to the Unending Compassion, not to me.”

  The voice, a man’s, commenced reciting the introductory prayer monotonously, as though reading it out from a card.

  In the usual way, I asked how long it had been since the person’s last confession.

  “I am not here to answer questions,” came the reply.

  “My brother,” I responded. “You are a long way from home.”

  “So are you.”

  “Come with openness. Our sins are a tomb. Roll back the stone.”

  He said nothing.

  It was so quiet that I could hear the ticking of his wristwatch from the other side of the hatch. To my astonishment, I now saw, when I glanced through the grille, the livery of a Gestapo commander.

  “My name is Paul Hauptmann,” he said in English.

  I made no response.

  “We have not met,” he continued.

  “This is a place of worship.”

  “The door was open. I entered.”

  “How dare you.”

  I went to slam closed the grille, but his gloved hand stopped it.

  “I have not finished speaking, Monsignor.”

  “I want nothing to do with you.”

  “I should like you to know something. A fact that is important. When two years ago you were selected as Vatican Envoy to our prisoner-of-war camps, it was I as Gestapo Officer overseeing Lazio who made the appointment, from a list of suggested persons.”

  “You?”

  “I wanted an Irishman leading the delegation. For reasons that are obvious.”

  “Such as?”

  “Unlikelihood of undue sympathy with the enemy.”

  “Leave this holy place.”

  “I misjudged you. You were weak. I had forgotten that an intelligent man can also be—in fact, usually is—naive.”

  “I have nothing to discuss with you.”

  “Nor I with you, Monsignor. But I will offer a piece of advice. I run this city now. You would be wise to remember it. In future do not go making trouble, for yourself and others.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we must have responsibility, cool heads. Respect for realities. Your addiction to belittling Wehrmacht commanders of the prison camps in front of their soldiers made you feel better, perhaps. I am aware that you did this often. Know, the commandant who succeeded Müller when your report recommended his dismissal is the most brutal thug ever to don a uniform. All your stunts ever accomplished was the worsening of conditions for those prisoners. The measurable worsening of thousands of lives. When there was no need for that. A pity.”

  “Have you finished?”

  “Ask yourself sometime, who brought about your removal from the delegation.”

  “The Papacy brought it about.”

  “You think so?”

  His question, which was not a question, floated between us for a moment.

  “I know there is an Escape Line,” he said. “I will crack it. Believe me.”

  I offered no reply. His voice became quieter.

  “Berlin has ordered, no Escape Line. Or I shall suffer harsh consequences. Which means my family would suffer in turn, and I do not permit that to happen. I do not suffer consequences. I inflict them.”

  “So I notice.”

  “Order in Rome is my duty,” he continued. “Do not make further difficulties, Monsignor. The slightest cooperation with an Escape Line would result in sentence of death. If you find that your friends are tempted—if you are tempted yourself—remember this conversation.”

  “There are people awaiting confession. Again, I ask you to leave.”

  “Your stubbornness, Monsignor, is standing in your way. Clouding your thinking. You are drunk on false virtue. Our movement will not be halted. Indeed, we have many priests, many Roman Catholics who support us. You would be amazed if I told you.”

  “I would be disgusted and ashamed but not amazed.”

  “My own wife is a Roman Catholic.”

  “In that case, she too should be ashamed.”

  “Of her husband? Of her country?”

  “And herself.”

  “Rome fell, Monsignor. The British Empire will fall. So, too, the Soviet Union and the United States. All empires will fall. But one.”

  “Yours will fall, too. Sooner than you think.”

  “Not certain, are you, Monsignor? I hear the doubt in your voice. It is part of my training, to hear the doubt in the voice. But it is part of your own training, too, no? To listen to the poor captives? As they stutter their little failings in this box.”

  “There is no captive here but yourself.”

  “Be part of the march, Monsignor. Or don’t stand in its way, I warn you.”

  “You are part of nothing at all but your own self-hatred and irrelevance. Parades and processions and games of dressing up.”

  A sob of grim laughter. “Says a priest?”

  “You are each of you alone in the pit of your inadequacies.”

  “Rhetoric, Monsignor. Get down from your pulpit. I am not one of the sheep to be impressed by old women’s prattle, and in truth you’re not much of a sheepdog.”

  “Get out,” I repeated. “Before I kick you out.”

  “You like hearing yourself say that, don’t you, Monsignor? Not that you’d try it. All posturers are cowards. And all priests are afraid of life.”

  “We’ll see who the coward is when they’re dragging you up a gallows.”

  “Only know that you can be liquidated at any instant, Monsignor. It would be like snuffing out one of the candles those deluded outside pay a few lire to light, as they cower before gilt-stained idols set up by you and your ilk to frighten them into doing your will. You are alive because I tolerate it. You are the candle I burn. And I can choose my moment carefully for when your extinguishment is most useful. In the meantime, good day to you, Monsignor. Consider yourself advised.”

  “I am not afraid of you,” I said.

  “You will be,” he replied.

  After he left, I stayed where I was for a couple of minutes, trying to calm myself. When I went outside, my motorcycle was in flames.

  From the distance, the stutter of machine guns.

  5

  As he walks away from the burning motorcycle outside the church of San Clemente, Paul Hauptmann wipes his fingers on a scrap of paper he rips from a loose-flapping poster, “DEATH TO THE FASCIST INVADERS.” Glad he didn’t take the car. A good day to stroll a few kilometres.

  The September sunshine is warm and golden, autumnally Roman; laurels sweeten the air as he crosses the little park near the marble staircase on which, people say, Christ once walked. Nonsense, of course, but let them have their stories. A line from Shakespeare arises at the thought. “What fools these mortals be.”

  From time to time, they stare at him, the conquered Romans and their children. Let them stare. They’ll get used to him. No choice. He is new, unfamiliar, only a few days in command of their city; they can be forgiven a slight sullenness; their situation is not easy. He could go about with a bodyguard but that would be seen as weakness. The Luger on his hip is all the bodyguard he needs. That, and the reputation he’s been careful to stoke through his leaks to the Fascist press. Should a Roman attack the Gestapo, the reprisal will be the dynamiting of seven city blocks and the hanging of the attacker’s parents.

  At the headquarters he’s established at the German Cultural Institute on Via Tasso, he issues a directive to his men: No Looting, Rome’s Businesses Are Not to Be Thieved from. Women are to be respected. Proven rape will be punishable by death. The enemy shall be permitted to bury his battle-dead with dignity. Furlough will be allowed, but you will behave as a soldier of Germany. I am proud of you. Commander Paul Hauptmann.

  It rankles, the priest’s accusation about being alone. He shouldn’t let it bother him but when one is tired and under strain, nonsenses can hit home harder.

  Typists have arrived, radio engineers, Nazi clerks. Wehrmacht masons are mortaring bars into the windows of the smaller rooms on each floor, installing manacles and leg-irons, draping the walls with horse blankets for soundproofing. A dentist’s chair has been requisitioned and is being bolted to the floor of the cellar, restraint straps and a strangle-wire will be added soon. His second-incommand, Dollman, wants a gallows erected on the stage of what used to be the concert room, more for the dread its sight will induce in prisoners than for everyday usage, but that might be a bit much, the room adjoins the typists’ office after all. The electrical supply to most of the building has failed; men are coming to get it reconnected. It pleases him to see the work being done, the set-up of governance. A lick of paint would be good; he records a memorandum on the subject. Perhaps a bit of new furniture. Those curtains are shabby. The sundial in the garden is broken.

  As for those cheap, horrible reproductions adorning every wall, have them removed, he tells a secretary, we are in the city of Michelangelo. Fresh flowers and a borrowed Madonna in every public room of the headquarters. “My wife says I’m inhuman,” he deadpans, “before my coffee in the morning. Be sure I never need wait too long.”

  At three o’clock, a captured deserter is brought before him, a young soldier from Bremen. He listens to the weeping boy’s case, wishes there was an option for clemency. “I will write to your parents to say you died in battle,” he says, “so there will be no disgrace. It is sad we’ve come to this, be brave at the last,” shakes his hand before sending him downstairs to the yard to be shot. The sordidness of war. The wretched, filthy waste. When all of us have moments in which we would desert our lives if we could, if only it weren’t too late. But it is. The crack of the pistol volley appears to upset one of the typists, but that can’t be helped. Christ, the squalor things come to. War is war.

  An idea has been nudging him, to bring the family to Rome. Is it feasible? Where would they live? Would the danger be immense? It’s a balance, but isn’t everything, now. The warmth, the sunlight, the statuary, ancient temples. Perhaps good for the children, to live a season or two abroad.

  On the telephone from Berlin, his wife seems distracted. Their daughter has a cold, their son is in trouble again at school, very slow with his letters, disobedient, introspective. In her voice, he hears anxiety, a sort of false glee she attempts when he calls. He wonders if she’s drinking again. She sounds tired.

  “Are you eating properly, Paul?”

  He tells her he is.

  “Is your barrack all right?”

  “It’s good.”

  “I miss you,” she says. “I wish you were home.”

  “Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte,” he whispers, the title of an old love song they associate with their courtship. “If I could wish for something.” The phrase has become a sort of private tenderness between them.

  “You’re sweet,” she says.

  “Because I love you.”

  “Paul, did Himmler call again?”

  “I can’t say on the telephone.”

  “Are we in trouble, Paul?”

  “No.”

  “Then, why does he keep calling you?”

  “There’s no need to worry. It’s only a difficulty.”

  “That’s why they pay you the big money, my darling,” she jokes. “To solve them.”

  “That’s why they pay me the big money, you’re right.”

  A line from an American gangster movie they saw while on honeymoon in Guernsey. Somehow it became part of their couple-talk.

  “Have those prisoners stopped escaping?” she asks.

  “Sweetness, I can’t discuss it.”

  “So unfair of them, rotten nuisances, causing problems for my Paul. You’d tell me the truth, wouldn’t you? If we were in trouble with Himmler?”

  “I’d tell you the truth. We’re not.”

  “If those prisoners keep escaping—”

  “Elise, let’s not speak of it.”

  “Are the Roman women beautiful?”

  “Not as beautiful as you.”

  “Liar.” She laughs. “I wish I could kiss you.”

  “I wish that, too, darling. To cover your body with kisses.”

  “Don’t say such things, Paul, when I’m lonely without you.”

  “Sweet girl, get some rest. I adore you.”

  “I, you.”

  “Goodnight then, little dove. Let’s speak again tomorrow. I’ve an idea to put to you, might be a nice thing for the family.”

  “One last time, can you tell me we’re not in trouble with Himmler? Because I’d worry myself sick, Paul. Those rotten, escaping troublemakers. Why can’t they stay in their prison camps, must they always cause a problem? Don’t they want their wives and girlfriends to know they’re safe, away from war? If you were in a prisoner-of-war camp, I’d be glad you were safe.”