“Bring us a bottle of champagne,” the bishop said to me in Italian, then added: “No, Sister, make that two bottles. Tonight is a night for celebration.”
A moment later, I returned with the two bottles. One of them exploded when I opened it, and champagne spilled onto the floor and my habit. “I told you she was a peasant girl,” the bishop said. “She must have shaken it on the way.”
The others had a good laugh at my expense, and once again, I had to smile and pretend as though I had not understood. I poured out the champagne and turned to leave, but Bishop Lorenzi took my arm. “Why don’t you join us in a glass, Sister Regina?”
“No, I couldn’t, Your Grace. It wouldn’t be proper.”
“Nonsense!” Then he turned to Herr Luther and, in German, asked whether it would be all right if I had a glass of champagne after all my hard work preparing the meal.
“Ja, Ja,” shouted Herr Luther. “Indeed, I insist.”
And so I stood there, in my stained habit, and I drank their champagne. And I pretended not to understand when they congratulated themselves on a very successful evening of work. And as they were leaving, I shook hands with the murderer named Luther and kissed the proffered ring of his accomplice, Bishop Lorenzi. I can still taste the bitterness on my lips.
In my own room, I painstakingly transcribed the conversation I had just overheard. Then I lay awake in my bed until dawn. It was a night of perfect agony.
I am writing this now on an evening in September in the year 1947. It is the eve of my wedding day, a day I never wanted. I am about to marry a man who I am fond of but whom I do not truly love. I am doing it because it is easier this way. How can I tell them the real reason I am leaving? Who would believe such a story?
I have no plans to tell anyone about that night, no plans to show anyone this document. It is a document of shame. The deaths of six million weigh heavily upon my conscience. I had knowledge, and I kept silent. Some nights they come to me, with their emaciated bodies and ragged prison clothing, and they ask me why I did not speak up in their defense. I do not have an acceptable answer. I was just a simple nun from the north of Italy. They were the most powerful people in the world. What could I have done? What could any of us have done?
Chiara stumbled into the powder room. A moment later, Gabriel could hear her being violently sick into the toilet. Antonella Huber sat silently, her eyes blank and damp, staring out the French doors at the garden, which was twisting in the wind. Gabriel stared at the pages in her lap; at the careful, precise script of Sister Regina Carcassi. It had been a torturous thing to hear, but at the same time he was overwhelmed by a swell of pride. An amazing document, those few yellowed pages. It dovetailed perfectly with things he had learned independently already. Had not Licio, the old man from the convent, told him about Sister Regina and Luther? Had not Alessio Rossi told him about the mysterious disappearances of two priests from the Germany desk of the Secretariat of State, Monsignors Felici and Manzini? Did not Sister Regina Carcassi place those same two priests at the side of Bishop Sebastiano Lorenzi, official of the Secretariat of State, member of Crux Vera, friend of Germany?
“
And fortunately for you, Herr Luther, there is another true friend of the German people inside the Vatican—a man who outranks me significantly.”
Here was an explanation of the inexplicable. Why had Pius XII remained silent in the face of the greatest case of mass murder in history? Was it because Martin Luther convinced an influential member of the Secretariat of State, a member of the secret order known as Crux Vera, that a papal condemnation of the Holocaust would ultimately lead to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine and Jewish control of Christian holy sites? If so, it explained why Crux Vera was so desperate to keep the meeting at Brenzone a secret, for it linked the order, and by extension the Church itself, to the murders of six million Jews in Europe.
Chiara came out of the bathroom, her eyes damp and raw, and sat down next to Gabriel. Antonella Huber turned her gaze from the garden, and her dark eyes settled on Chiara’s face.
“You are Jewish, yes?”
Chiara nodded and lifted her chin. “I am from Venice.”
“There was a terrible roundup in Venice, wasn’t there? While my mother was safe behind the walls of the Convent of the Sacred Heart, the Nazis and their friends were hunting down the Jews of Venice.” She turned from Chiara and looked at Gabriel. “And what about you?”
“My family came from Germany.” He said nothing more. There was nothing else to be said.
“Could my mother have done something to help them?” She looked out the French doors once more. “Am I guilty too? Do I bear my mother’s original sin?”
“I don’t believe in collective guilt,” Gabriel said. “As for your mother, there was nothing she could have done. Even if she had defied the orders of the bishop and leaked word of the meeting at Brenzone, nothing would have changed. Herr Luther was right. The machinery was in place, the killing had begun, and nothing but the defeat of Nazi Germany was going to stop it. Besides, no one would have believed her.”
“Maybe no one will believe her now.”
“It’s a devastating document.”
“It’s a death sentence,” she said. “They’ll just dismiss it as a forgery. They’ll say you’re out to destroy the Church. That’s what they do. That’s what they
always
do.”
“I have enough corroborating evidence to make it impossible for them to dismiss it as a hoax. Your mother may have been powerless to do anything in 1942, but she’s not powerless any longer. Let me have this—the one she wrote with her own hand. It’s important that I have the original.”
“You may have it on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“That you destroy the people who murdered my mother.”
Gabriel held out his hand.
G
ABRIEL EASED AWAY
from Antonella Huber’s villa through the gathering darkness, accompanied by the savage barking of the Belgian shepherds. Chiara sat next to him, clutching the letter. At the bottom of the hill, he turned onto a two-lane highway and headed west toward Grasse. The day’s last light lay on the ridgeline of the distant hills like a scarlet wound.
Five minutes later, he noticed the dark gray Fiat sedan. The man behind the wheel was too careful. He stayed in his own lane at all times, and even when Gabriel allowed his speed to dip well below the limit, the Fiat remained several car-lengths off his rear bumper. No, thought Gabriel, this is not your average suicidal Frenchman behind the wheel.
He followed the highway into Grasse, then turned down the hill, into the old town center. It had been taken over long ago by Middle Eastern immigrants, and for a moment Gabriel might have imagined he was in Algiers or Marrakech.
“Put away the letter.”
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re being followed.”
Gabriel made a series of quick turns and accelerations.
“Is he still there?”
“Still there.”
“What do we do?”
“Take him for a ride.”
Gabriel left the old town and made his way back up the hill to the main highway, the Fiat following closely behind. He sped through the center of town, then turned onto the N85, a highway that runs from Grasse high into the Maritime Alps. Ten seconds later the Fiat swerved into his rearview mirror. Gabriel pressed the accelerator to the floor and pushed the Peugeot hard up the steep grade.
Grasse gradually fell away. The road was winding, full of switchbacks and hairpin turns. To their right rose the scrub-covered slope of the mountain; to their left, a deep gorge, falling away toward the sea. The Peugeot had less power than Gabriel would have liked, and no matter how hard he pushed it, the Fiat sedan easily kept pace. Whenever a straight section of road stretched before him, he would lift his eyes into the rearview mirror and check on the Fiat: always there, a few car-lengths back. Once, he thought he could see the driver talking on a mobile phone.
Who do you work for? Who are you calling? And how in the hell did you find us?
Antonella Huber . . . They’d killed her mother. They probably had a man watching the villa.
Ten minutes later, the village of St-Vallier appeared before them, quiet and tightly shuttered. Gabriel pulled over in the center of town, next to a small square, and traded places with Chiara. The Fiat parked on the opposite side of the square and waited. Gabriel told Chiara to take the D5 toward St-Cézaire, then he took out the Beretta nine-millimeter he’d been given by Shimon Pazner in Rome. The Fiat followed after them.
It was a long descent, winding and difficult in some sections, straight and fast in others. Chiara drove the same way she’d handled the motor yacht, with skill and a certain easy confidence that Gabriel couldn’t help but find attractive.
“Did you take the defensive driving classes at the Academy?”
“Of course.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“Number one in my group.”
“Show me.”
She downshifted and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The Peugeot shot forward, engine screaming. She stayed in that gear, foot to the floor, until the needle topped the red zone, then power-shifted. Gabriel looked over at the speedometer and saw it inching toward 180 kilometers per hour. Her rapid acceleration seemed to catch the driver of the Fiat by surprise, but he recovered quickly and soon was sitting in his usual place, twenty meters off their rear bumper.
“Our friend is back.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Make him work. I want his nerves on edge.”
During a long downhill straightaway, Chiara pushed the Peugeot above two hundred. Then she entered a winding section, expertly downshifting and breaking in and out of the turns. Obviously, she had learned her lessons well at the Academy. The man in the Fiat was having trouble keeping pace. Twice, he nearly lost control in the turns.
At the rate of speed they were traveling, it did not take long to reach St-Cézaire. It was a medieval town, walled in places and split in half by the D5. Chiara slowed. Gabriel shouted at her to go faster.
“What if someone crosses the fucking road?”
“I don’t care! Go faster, damn it!”
“Gabriel!”
They flashed through the darkened town in a blur. The driver of the Fiat did not have the courage to follow their lead, and slowed as he passed through the town. As a result, he emerged trailing them by some three hundred meters.
“That was fucking insane. We could have killed someone.”
“Don’t let him get any closer.”
The road became a four-lane highway. On their left was a large nature area, famous for its caves and grottoes, and in the distance was a ridge of stark mountains, visible in the bright moonlight.
“Turn there!”
Chiara slammed on the brakes, throwing the Peugeot into a power slide. Then she simultaneously downshifted and hit the accelerator, sending them careening along a dirt track. Gabriel turned around and took another long look over his shoulder. The Fiat had made the turn and was racing after them.
“Kill the lights.”
“I won’t be able to see.”
“Kill them now!”
She switched off the lights and instinctively eased off the gas, but Gabriel shouted at her to go faster, and soon they were plunging through the luminous glow of the moonlight. They entered a grove of scrub oak and umbrella pine. The track hooked sharply to the right. The headlights of the Fiat were nowhere to be seen.
“Stop!”
“Here?
“Stop!”
She slammed on the brakes. Gabriel threw open the door. The air was filled with a choking dust. “Keep going,” he said, then leapt out and slammed the door shut.
Chiara did as she was told, continuing in the direction of the mountain ridge. A few seconds later, Gabriel could hear the Fiat speeding toward his position. He stepped off the track and knelt behind an oak, the Beretta in his outstretched hands. As the Fiat came hurtling around the corner, Gabriel fired several shots into the tires.
At least two exploded. The Fiat instantly lost control, bucking and fishtailing, before the centrifugal force of the turn threw it into a violent leftward roll. Gabriel lost count of how many times the car flipped over; a half-dozen at least, perhaps more. He rose to his feet and slowly walked toward the crumpled mass of steel, the Beretta at his side. Somewhere, a mobile phone was ringing.