Tomorrow's Vengeance (7 page)

Although Naddie's golf cart could accommodate four, we decided to walk the short distance back to Blackwalnut Hall. Izzy, I learned along the way, had moved to Annapolis from Pottstown, Pennsylvania, after the death of her husband so that she could be closer to her daughter's family. When the daughter and her navy husband got posted to Hawaii, she decided not to join them. Calvert Colony was ready to open, her house in Pennsylvania had just sold, so she decided it was a sign from God that she should buy in. ‘I decided to get rid of
all
the men in my life,' Izzy told me with a laugh. ‘The pool man, the plumber, the lawn guy and the exterminator. I want
no
maintenance issues. I have a town home in the block that backs up on the golf course,' Izzy continued after Filomena had shown us to a table near the bar and supplied us with menus. ‘Or what will be the golf course once the permits go through.'

‘Do you play golf, Izzy?'

‘Never. To me, it's about as exciting as watching bread rise. My late husband did, though. That's one of the reasons we were attracted to Pottstown. After my husband retired from the army he taught history at Valley Forge Military Academy. When he retired for the second time …' She shrugged. ‘We just liked the area, I guess.'

A server appeared at my elbow. She wore a laminated name badge embossed with her name: Susanna. ‘Are you ready to order?'

I took another quick look at the menu. I'd been so engrossed in our conversation that I hadn't made any selections. ‘The crab salad, I think, Susanna. And iced tea, unsweetened, with extra lemon.'

We were enjoying our entrées when a murmur of excitement washed over the diners. Something was happening at the other end of the room. My tablemates were staring past me, so I swiveled around in my chair.

One of the most beautiful young men I'd ever seen stood chatting with the diners at a table for four near the French doors. He was Tab Hunter in
The Burning Hills
; Michael York in
The Three Musketeers
; Leonardo DiCaprio in
Titanic
. Tall and tanned, his neatly trimmed blond hair curling out just so from under the brim of his white pleated toque. He wore a white chef's jacket, spotless, with a double row of buttons marching up the front and black-and-white houndstooth pants. As he talked he gestured with his hands so gracefully that he might well have been conducting a symphony orchestra.

His jacket was embroidered in red script: Raniero Buccho, Chef.

‘“Tall and tan and young and lovely, the boy from Ipanema goes walking …”' I sang
sotto voce
.

‘Behave yourself, Hannah!' Naddie swatted me playfully with her napkin.

Izzy looked up from her minestrone and smiled indulgently. ‘I used to be in love with Frank Sinatra, back in the day. Whenever he sang, “All the Things That You Are” I melted into a little pool of tiger butter puddled around his feet.'

‘I felt the same way about Anthony Andrews when I first saw him in
Danger UXB
, Izzy.' I fanned my face with my hand. ‘Sorry, I lost control there for a moment.'

‘Ipanema is in Brazil, not Argentina,' Naddie scolded.

I set my fork down on my plate and sighed dramatically. ‘But he is absolutely gorgeous, isn't he?'

The beautiful boy was making the rounds, working the crowd. Smiling here, bowing modestly there, gradually heading our way. I couldn't take my eyes off him. When he reached our table he rested a hand on the back of Izzy's chair and drawled,
Buenos días
, ladies. Everything is to your satisfaction, yes?'

‘I'm looking forward to the crème brulée,' I stammered.

He turned his neon-blue eyes on me. ‘Ah, madame, it will be
delicioso
! My pastry chef, Michelle, I have chosen her myself. She is magic with the
dolce
.'

Izzy had just polished off her
calamari vinagreta
. She kissed the tips of her fingers and saluted the chef. ‘You are a genius!'

Beneath his tan Raniero flushed becomingly, then turned to me. ‘You are new here?'

‘Just a guest,' I told him.

‘Ah. Well, you tell Mrs Milanesi …' a big wink in Izzy's direction, ‘to invite you for dinner tomorrow night. We have
Pasta e Fagioli. Ossobucco
.
Polipo alla Luciana.
Melanzane
.'

He paused to let the awesomeness of the menu sink in, which in my case – French major! – wasn't very far. ‘
Polipo?
' I asked.

‘Octopus,' Izzy replied, ‘in a tomato sauce with olives and garlic.'

Yuck
, I thought. ‘Yummy,' I said, smiling toothily.

Raniero picked up Izzy's hand and touched it to his lips. ‘
A domani
,
nonna
.' Then, in a wave of aftershave mingled with garlic, he moved on.

‘He's flirting with you!' I teased after Raniero had returned to his kitchen.

Izzy flushed and slipped the tip of her spoon into the tiramisu that Susanna had just placed in front of her. ‘Nonsense. He's just happy to have somebody he can speak Italian with, other than his sister.'

I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. ‘Duh. With a name like Ysabelle Milanesi, how could you be anything
but
Italian! Is Milanesi your maiden name?'

‘My husband was Italian, too, but he came from the North End of Boston. Second generation. His parents owned a market on Salem Street.'

‘Izzy was a war bride,' Naddie explained.

Izzy polished off the last of her tiramisu, shoved the dish toward the center of the table, then rested her forearms on the tablecloth. ‘That's true, Hannah, but I spent most of the Second World War in a convent outside of Rome.'

‘You were a nun?' I asked.

Izzy shook her head. ‘No, I was a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl.'

I sat in stunned silence for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds as I struggled to form the words to the questions that were ricocheting around my brain.

Izzy came to my rescue. ‘It is a long story, and a sad one.'

Was she dismissing me, or did she really want to talk about it? ‘If it's not too difficult for you,' I encouraged, ‘I'd really like to hear it.'

Residents at the tables around us had finished their meals and begun to trickle out of the dining room. I stole a quick look at Naddie, who nodded almost imperceptibly, then raised a hand, summoning Susanna over from a table she'd been busily clearing nearby.

‘Coffee all around, I think, Susanna.'

‘Yes ma'am.'

‘Do you mind if we sit here chatting for a while? We're finished with these dishes so you can clear them away.'

‘No trouble at all, Mrs Gray. I'll be back in a minute with your coffee.'

Izzy took a deep breath then let it out slowly. ‘So, where do I begin?'

‘The Italians are extremely lax in their treatment of Jews. They protect Italian Jews both in Tunis and in occupied France and won't permit their being drafted for work or compelled to wear the Star of David.'

Joseph Goebbels,
The Goebbels Diaries
,

December 13, 1942.

‘I
n the years before the war, my family and I lived comfortably in Rome, in Trastavere,' Izzy began, stirring a generous portion of cream into her coffee.

‘Trastavere! I know it. The old Jewish quarter, right?'

When Izzy nodded, I told her, ‘Paul and I vacationed in Rome a couple of years ago and we stayed in Borgo, near the Vatican. Several evenings we strolled along the Tiber to Trastavere for dinner. There are some wonderful restaurants there. I remember, oh, what was it? This marvelous fried artichoke dish; it looked like an exploded sunflower.' I demonstrated with my hands.

‘
Carciofi alla giudia
,' Izzy supplied. ‘Artichoke in the Jewish style.'

‘Yes, that's it. Crisp, nutty. Totally delicious.'

Naddie passed me the sugar. ‘We should put it on Raniero's list.'

‘Absolutely.' I sipped my coffee. ‘What did your father do, Izzy?'

‘He owned a small art gallery which was popular with local artists, but he made most of his money restoring paintings for larger galleries like the Vatican Museum.'

I set my cup down. ‘Wow.'

Izzy smiled sadly. ‘I was too young then to be impressed.
Abba
worked primarily in the
Pinacoteca
, specializing in fifteenth-century restorations. When he began, the museum had been open only a few years, and many of the works had been in storage since 1815 when they were returned from Paris, so there was much work to do.'

Paris?
Then the penny dropped. ‘Napoleon took off with them, I suppose.'

Izzy nodded. ‘Years later, when Bruno and I visited the galleries, I found myself looking closely at the paintings. This Fra Angelico, that Raphael, a glorious Bellini … searching for any small detail that could be by my father's hand. The halo of a saint, a Pope's ring, a cherub's toe.'

‘Bruno was your husband?'

She nodded. ‘But Bruno's part of the story comes much later.'

Filomena materialized at my right elbow, creeping up on us so quietly that I was startled. ‘Biscotti? We make them here.'

‘Yes, thank you, Filomena,' Naddie said as the catering manager set a silver tray carrying an artistically stacked pyramid of biscotti down on the table in front of us.

‘In Argentina, we call these cookies
cantuccini
,' Filomena said.

I loomed hungrily over the tray, as if I hadn't just eaten a monster crab salad and a crème brulee. ‘That was very thoughtful,' I said, selecting a chocolate-covered
cantuccini
dotted with almonds. ‘I hope we're not keeping you?'

Filomena waved away our concerns. ‘No worries! Stay as long as you like.' Then she disappeared as quickly as she had come.

Izzy selected a biscotti for herself, dunked it into her coffee and held it there. ‘After the war began, my father believed we were safe because he had joined the Fascist Party, and was even active at their meetings.' She bit into the soggy biscotti, chewed, then continued. ‘In those days
everybody
in Italy was a Fascist, at least on paper.

‘Until the
Manifesto della razza
in 1938, that is. That was when Mussolini's Fascist government forbid Jewish children from attending schools. Mother taught my little brother and me at home, but in the forties the persecutions got worse. My father was forced to sell his business to Aryans at fire-sale prices, and we lost the gallery that had been in our family for three generations.'

The unfairness of it, the cruelty, stung me. ‘How awful,' I said. ‘I heard about the persecutions in Nazi Germany, of course, but Italy?'

‘The racial laws took everyone by surprise,' Izzy continued. ‘The Jewish community of Rome goes back to the second century BC when the Roman Empire had an alliance of sorts with Judea under the leadership of Judah Maccabeus.' She shrugged. ‘I think the government wanted to prevent people like my father, who had quite a bit of money, from transferring it out of the country. Father continued working for a while – his work at the Vatican offered him some protection – but when the Germans occupied my country in 1943, they came looking for us.'

I'd forgotten my biscotti; my coffee had grown cold. ‘Good Lord.'

‘My mother spoke five different languages, Hannah. The Nazis
said
they wanted to employ her as a translator but that was a lie. Instead, they sent my parents to Risiera de San Sabba, a rice mill on the outskirts of Trieste, but it was really a concentration camp. From there, they were taken to Auschwitz.'

I swallowed hard and put down the biscotti I'd been nibbling, no longer particularly hungry for it.

Naddie reached out covered Izzy's hand with her own. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘That was before the Nazis installed a crematorium at Risiera to save themselves the trouble of shipping undesirables out of the country,' Izzy said bitterly. ‘I never saw my parents again. The Nazis took everything from us. Everything.'

I dabbed at my eyes with my napkin, trying to take in the enormity of it all. Like millions before me, I'd had a teary, gut-wrenching visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., but I'd never known anyone who had personally experienced the Holocaust. Those who had survived, like Izzy, were now in their eighties and nineties, and I hoped that testimonies like hers were being recorded before it was too late.

‘How did you and your brother escape the Nazis when they came for your parents?' I asked after a few moments of respectful silence.

‘When rumors reached Rome that the Germans were coming, my parents sent Umberto and me to live with family friends in the country, the DeLucas, but even there we were not safe. One day, the German soldiers came looking, but the word had gotten around, so the DeLucas hid us under the floorboards under a bed.'

‘Someone had turned you in?' Naddie asked.

‘Exactly. In those days, it was dangerous to put your trust in anybody. After the soldiers went away, the DeLucas quickly arranged shelter for us in a convent just outside of Rome. My father's connections with the Vatican made that possible. If it weren't for that …' She shrugged.

‘I wore the habit of a novice,' she continued. ‘The Nazis were watching the convent, I know, and soldiers knocked on the gates from time to time, but even the Nazis wouldn't mess with the Reverend Mother Francesca Louise!' She managed a smile. ‘Oh, she could be a terror!'

‘What was it like, living in the convent?' Naddie asked.

‘What I remember most is being hungry. The nuns shared what food they had with us, but we were always hungry. And the flour had weevils in it.'

‘Ugh,' I said.

Izzy's mouth twitched. ‘Extra protein, Reverend Mother used to say.'