Chapter 23 Chapter Twenty Two

Brigadier General Raguchou got incorrect information about where Natalie was. At noon a dark storm fell over Siena.Jastrow was in a bad mood, sitting by the window where the rain was dripping, writing on his desk by the lamplight.When it rains, his shoulders hurt; his old man's fingers become inflexible; the words he writes in the sunshine outside are always smoother.Nata's soft knock on the door hinted: "It's a trivial matter; if you don't have time, don't pay attention to it." "Huh? Come in." The chapter he is writing requires a more detailed lookup of Martin.Luther's views on celibacy.Jastrow felt that getting old was tiring, and there was never enough work to be done anyway, so an interruption would be welcome.In the shadow of the lamp, her skinny face looked pale and sad.She still hasn't recovered from the shock of detention, he thought.

"Ellen, do you know Moser Sachdot?" "The Jew who owns a movie theater and owns half a Barnki. Dee Sopra?" He pulled off his glasses annoyed. "I might. I know this guy." "He called. He said you met at the Archbishop's house." "What's the matter with him?" Jastrow waved his glasses annoyedly. "If he's the one I remember, he's a white-eyed old man with a sad face all the time." "He wants you to sign his copy of "Jesus of a Jew." "What? I've been here for eleven years, and he's asking for my autograph?"

"I'll answer if you're not free, okay?" Jastrow gave a thoughtful smile slowly, breathed on his glasses, wiped them clean, "'Sachedot', you know, is Italian, equal to Cuhan. It means 'priest'. We'd better find out what Mr. Moser. Coohan wants. Tell him to come after my nap." The storm was over, the sun was shining, and the rain was glistening on the flowers on the terrace, when an old car whizzed up to the gate.Natalie walked around the puddles to meet the dumpy old man in black.Jastrow sat on a deck chair drinking tea.He waved his hand and beckoned Sachedot to sit down on a bench beside him.

The old man brought two books, and when he handed Jastrow one of the unremarkable ones in blue letters, Jastrow said, "Oh, oh. The Italian edition, A Jew Jesus." He put on his glasses and turned the pages of the cheap, rough paper. "I don't have one myself. I'm afraid only bibliophiles will have it? That edition only had a print run of about a thousand copies, and it was published in 1934." "Ah, that's right. Very rare, very precious.—Oh, thank you, no milk and no sugar." Natalie was pouring tea at a small light table.Sacchedot spoke Italian with a pure Tuscan accent, sweet and clear. "A treasure, Dr. Jastrow. A fine book. For example, what an influence your account of the 'Last Supper' has on our young people! They see the Last Supper on the church wall, They partake of Seid at Passover - not always willingly - but they don't connect the two things until you point it out to them. You prove that the Romans executed Jesus as a political radical and that ordinary It is very important that all the Jews loved him from the bottom of their hearts. If your proofs were better understood. How nice it would be! Our mutual friend the Archbishop once spoke to me of this passage."

Jastrow looked down and smiled.He loves compliments.No matter how trivial.Lately, however, it's almost nonexistent. "What's the other book?" Thachedot handed Jastrow a small frayed book. "It is also a rare and rare book. I have spent a lot of time on this book recently." "Oh, I didn't know there was such a book." He handed it to Nata to read. "Contemporary Hebrew. Incredible!" "The Zionist Organization of Milan published it a long time ago. It's a small group, but it's well funded," Sachedot said in a low voice. "Our family might go to Palestine."

Natalie stopped cutting the cake, cleared her throat, and said, "How the hell are you going to get there?" "My son-in-law is arranging this. I think you know him. Bernardo. Dr. Castelnuovo, who sees your baby." "Exactly. Is he your son-in-law?" Hearing this surprised tone, Sachedot smiled wearily, showing his gold teeth, and nodded. "Then he is a Jew?" "In days like these, no one would boast of it, Mrs. Henry." "Oh I'm surprised. I never thought of that before." Jastrow handed him back the Chinese textbook, uncapped his pen, and began to sign on the blank page of J A Jew's Jesus. "Do you feel unsafe here? The trip you're considering is risky. We know it firsthand."

"Are you referring to your voyage on the 'Izmir'? My son-in-law and I paid for the 'Izmir' voyage." Natalie and Jastrow exchanged He gave a surprised look. "Today is Shabbat, Dr. Jastrow. Will you and your niece join us for dinner? Bernardo is here too. How long has it been since you had a real Shabbat meal?" "About forty years. Thank you for your kindness, but I think our cook is already cooking, so..." Natalie said flatly, "I'd love to go." Ellen said, "And what about Louis?" "Oh, you must take the doll!" said Sachedot. "My granddaughter Miriam will treasure him."

Jastrow hurriedly signed the blank page. "Well, well, let's go, thank you." Sachedot held the book tightly. "Now our family has a treasure." Natalie pushed her hair back into a bun with her hands. "What happened to the 'Izmir'? What happened to Avran Rabinowitz, you know? Is he still alive?" "Bernardo will tell you everything." The Sacchedots and the Castelnuovos lived in the new quarter outside the old walls of Siena, in the Mosé.The top floor of an ugly, brushed-concrete apartment that Sachedot owned, which Sachedot called The Fortress.The lift was out of service; they had to climb five flights of antiquated stairs.Using several keys in succession to different locks, he ushered them into a spacious apartment room filled with the appetizing smell of food, heavy and shiny furniture, books lined against the walls, and large chests of drawers. It is full of fine silver and china.

Doctor Castelnuovo met them in the passage.Natalie had never taken him seriously: a doctor in a small city, but the best in Siena; she was somewhat fond of him by his courteous professionalism.With his thick black hair, watery brown eyes, and long dark face, he looked exactly like the Tuscans one sees in old Sienese paintings.It never crossed Natalie's mind that the man might be Jewish. In the dining room, the doctor introduced them to his wife and mother-in-law, who also looked very Italian: both were stocky, both wore black silk, both had double eyelids, a large chin, and a similar look. Sweet, innocent smile.The mother has gray hair and no makeup on her face; the daughter has brown hair and a little lipstick on her lips.The afterglow of the setting sun made those officers red, and they lit the repose candles placed on the luxuriously furnished dining table in the evening light.As they put on their black lace caps, a little girl in brown velvet with a haggard face came running briskly into the room.She stopped beside her mother, smiling at the baby in Natalie's arms.Candles sparkle in four ornate silver candlesticks.The two women covered their eyes and murmured blessings.Sitting on a chair, the little girl stretched out her arms and screamed in clear Italian, "I love him. Let me hold him."

Nata put the baby in Miriam's arms.Two thin, pale arms hugged the baby tightly with comic competence.Louis looked her over carefully, leaned against her, and hooked her neck. Sachedot said hesitantly, "Doctor Jastrow, would you like to come with us to the synagogue?" "Ah, yes. The Archbishop told me years ago that there was a synagogue somewhere near Field Square." Jastrow sounded both surprised and pleased. "Is its architecture interesting?" "It's just an old synagogue," said Castelnuovo irritably. "We're not very religious. Papa is the chairman. It's never easy to get ten people, so I'll go. Sometimes there I can hear some news."

"You'll forgive me if I don't go?" said Jastrow, smiling. "I'd startle Almighty God and probably ruin His Sabbath. I'll just stay here and admire your library." Natalie feeds the two children in the kitchen with the doctor's wife, Anna.Castelnuovo chattered on and on in the manner of a woman talking to a woman.She was not religious at all, she admitted straight out, but followed all religious ceremonies to please her parents.She is also indifferent to her own husband's Zionism.Her hobby is reading novels, especially by American authors.She was very excited to have an American writer, even if he was not a novelist, come to her house as a guest.The doctor's wife was fascinated by Natalie's story of her marriage to a submarine officer. "It's almost like a novel," she said, "a novel written by Ernest Hemingway. It's full of romance." Miriam fed Louise, and the two children were very clear about it. They put on a ridiculously solemn look, and they couldn't help laughing.Later they put Miriam and the baby in the little girl's room full of toys. "She will take better care of him than any other housekeeper," said Anna. "I hear papa and Bernardo. Come to supper." Satchedot and Dr. Castelnuovo came home, looking sullen.The old man put on an old white cap, said his blessing over the wine, and then took off the cap.- Natalie noticed from the whispered conversations of the family that one of them hadn't come yet. "Oh, let's eat," Sachedot said, "Let's sit down." One seat was empty. The food was neither Italian nor kosher, as Nata had vaguely expected.A spiced fish dish, a fruit soup dish, a chicken dish, rice with safflower and roast pork with eggplant.The conversation proceeded slowly.Halfway through the meal, a son named Arnoto walks in: thin, short, about twenty, his dirty sweatshirt.The long, shaggy hair and open-collared shirts contrasted sharply with the family's formal habits.He ate in silence and wolfed down.As soon as he walked in, the staccato conversation stopped.Sachedot put on his cap again, and took the lead in singing a short Hebrew song, and the others followed him, but Arnoto did not. Natalie began to regret having insisted on Ellen's dinner.Ellen passed the time by drinking his glass as soon as the doctor's wife filled it.There was a constant look of uneasiness on the faces of the family, and a vague fear which seemed to have contributed to the gloom.Natalie wanted to ask the doctor about Rabinovitz and the Izmir, but the stern look on his face prevented her from speaking. Judaism always depresses Nata anyhow, and the repose candle still lit on the table hurts her especially.Seeing Miriam tonight, she felt a painful old, forgotten wound ache again.Twenty years ago, she had stood in the same way beside her mother, asking her why she lit candles during the day.The answer was that lighting fires after sunset was forbidden on Shabbat Eve, which sounded perfectly reasonable, since life was full of unreasonable taboos for a little girl.But after Friday's sumptuous supper, her father struck a flaming match to light his long cigar.She said naively, "Daddy, you're not allowed to light a fire after sunset." Her parents exchanged a look of embarrassment and amusement.She couldn't remember how her father answered while he was smoking; but she never forgot the look because it destroyed her faith in Judaism in that split second.From that night on she was mischievous in Sunday-school, and before long her parents couldn't get her there, even though her father was a worker in the temple. Arnoldo straightened his stained sweatshirt and stood up while everyone else was eating; and with a flattering smile, showing his white teeth, he spoke quickly to Jastello in Italian. : "I'm sorry, I have to go out. I read your book, sir. It's a good book." Her mother said sadly: "On the eve of the Sabbath, there are guests at home, Anudo, can't you stay a little longer?" The smiling face suddenly sank.Gritting his teeth hostilely, he spat out a girl's name: "Vlascheska is waiting for me. Good-bye." He removed them, and there was a heavy silence in the room.Dr. Castelnuovo breaks the ice by turning to Jastrow and Natalie. "Oh! Now let me tell you some good news. The ship 'Izmir' has reached Palestine, and the British did not arrest the passengers when they disembarked." "Oh, my God!" cried Natalie, with joyful relief. "Is your news reliable?" "I've had contact with Avran Rabinovitz. They've had bad situations, but on the whole it's been a success." Jastrow put a wet little hand on Natalie's. "Great news!" "This voyage cost us a lot of money." Sachedot smiled happily. "Satisfyingly, it turned out well. Things haven't always been this smooth." Natale said to the doctor: "But the newspapers and the radio said that the ship was missing. I had a lot of nightmares, dreaming that it had the same experience as the 'Struma'." Castelnuovo grimaced bitterly. "Yes, you hear bad news all the time. When the Jews suffer, the press all over the world report it with enthusiasm. Their successes are best left unreported." "And Rabinovitz? What's the matter with him?" "He's gone back to Marseilles. That's his base. He's there now." "How do you get in touch with him? May I know?" Castelnuovo shrugged his shoulders. "Why not? My father-in-law used to rent films from the man Herbert Ross who went on that boat. Rabinovitz was short on delays and repairs in Naples, and Ross asked if we could Help him. Afran comes up here by train. We gave him a lot of money." "But you have to be careful in doing things like this," Sachdotte put in sullenly. "Be careful! Our situation here is delicate, very delicate." "Oh, yes," said the doctor. "He has been in touch with me since then. He is a fine man to know." Castelnuovo spoke of the increasingly dangerous situation for Italian Jews.Jews have no future anywhere in Europe, he said.He had seen this a long time ago, back in medical school in Siena.This tough fight made him a Zionist.All of Europe is poisoned by nationalist hatred of the Jews; the Dreyfus incident in ultra-liberal France was a warning sign long ago.Under Mussolini's anti-Semitic laws, he was able to practice medicine himself only because Siena's health authorities publicly demanded him.His father-in-law managed to retain control of his estate by some subtle legal maneuvering, so that his fate was entirely in the hands of his Catholic partners.That same evening, they had just heard in the synagogue that the Fascist regime was building concentration camps for Italian Jews, like the ones already in place for the Jewish diaspora.Four months later, the roundups would start on Yom Kippur, when the Jews could be wiped out of the synagogues.Once the Jews were collected, they were to be handed over to the Germans to be transported to the East, where the terrible pogroms were taking place. Sachedot interrupted the doctor, insisting that the news was the ramblings of a terrified man.The messenger was a rumour-monger with no connection to the upper echelons, and the stories of secret massacres were stupid nonsense.The Archbishop himself had assured Satchedot that the Vatican's intelligence network was the most well-informed in Europe; if there had been any truth to this information, the Pope would have denounced Nazi Germany and denied Hitler a Christian. "I've financed the archbishop's projects a lot." Thachedot turned his tearful, anxious black eyes to stare at Jastrow. "I'm the president of the orphanage, and that's his proudest and beloved cause. He won't let me get in trouble. You know him. Do you agree with me?" "His Excellency the Archbishop is an Italian gentleman and a good man." Jastrow drank another glass.His face was already very red, but he still spoke clearly. "I agree with you. Even if the leader of the Germans was a lunatic—for I have already established that Hitler was insane—their advanced culture, their love of order, and their obsession with law ruled out the validity of these rumors. Authenticity. The Nazis were outright, savage anti-Semites, and on the basis of that fact, it's all too easy to spin some horrific nonsense." "Dr. Jastrow," said Castelnuovo, "what's the matter with Lidice? A product of an advanced civilization?" "That fellow Heydrich is an SS chief. Retaliatory measures are nothing new in war," Jastrow answered briskly in a dry, academic tone. "Don't ask me to justify the Germans' planned military atrocities. He doesn't need to be defended. He announced it. He announced with great fanfare that he had wiped out that poor Czech village." Castelnuovo spoke dryly and quickly in Italian.Not everything the Pope knows the Archbishop knows.The Pope has reason to remain silent, chiefly to protect the Church's property and influence in those countries under German occupation; but also for the ancient Christian doctrine that the Jews must suffer for generations to prove that they have wronged Christ , and one day they will surely admit him.Miriam could no longer live in the clutches of the Germans; he and his wife had made up their minds.He is already in contact with Rabinowitz about ways and means of leaving. At this point the old man interrupted again.How dreadful the idea of ​​running away was to himself and his wife.Siena is their home.Italian is their language.To make matters worse, Arnoldo decides to stay; he is in love with a Sienese girl.The family would be scattered, and the wealth accumulated over a lifetime would be wiped out. Louis and Miriam laughed in a room far apart. "Oh, it's unbelievable that the boy isn't asleep yet," said Natalie. "He's never had such a good time, but I've got to take him home and put him to bed." "Mrs. Henry, why didn't you leave with the other Americans?" asked the doctor suddenly and bluntly. "Rabinowitz was always confused and worried. He kept asking about you." She looked at her uncle and felt her face flush. "We were temporarily detained." "But for what?" Jastrow replied: "Another retaliatory measure. Three German spies were arrested in Brazil posing as Italian journalists, so..." "German spies in Brazil?" Castelnuovo interrupted, wrinkling his brow. "What does that have to do with you? You are Americans." "It doesn't make sense at all," said his wife. " "There's no reason," Jastrow said. "Our State Department, through Bern, is putting pressure on the Italian government to send us to Switzerland right away. They're still working on getting the few people released in the Spies in Brazil, in case pressure fails. I'm not worried." "I'm worried," Natalie said. Jastrow said lightly: "My niece can't agree that our government has one or two other things to think about besides our release. Like, for example, it seems like there's fighting going on on all fronts right now." Lost. But we have other protections. A different kind of protection." He gave Natalie a drunken cocoa-elm smile. "What do you think, my dear? Shall we tell our lovely new friends the secret?" "As you please, Ellen." Natalie pushed back her chair.He annoyed her by putting on airs with these rich but miserable people. "It's strange that the two children suddenly have no sound at all. I have to go and see Louis." She found him asleep in Miriam's bed, in his favorite sleeping position: face down, knees tucked, buttocks in the air, arms outstretched.He looked very uncomfortable.She often put him in the right position, but watched him go back to his old self, still asleep, as if he were a rubber doll always returning to the shape he had made.Miriam sat beside him, with her hands folded in her lap, her ankles crossed, and her feet dangling. "How long has he been asleep, dear?" "Only a few minutes. I'll cover him a little, shall I?" "Don't cover it. I'll take him home right away." "If only he could stay here!" "Oh, come to our house tomorrow and play with him." "Ah, can I come?" The little girl clapped her hands gently. "Please tell my mother, okay?" "Of course. You should have a little brother. I hope, one day, you will." "I have. He's dead," said the little girl, whose calmness made Natalie shudder. She returns to the table.Ellen is speaking, at the time of the Jewish diaspora being detained, due to Werner.Thanks to Beck's mediation, the secret police withdrew the summons. "We've lived in peace ever since," said Jastrow. "Werner was so caring and protective. He even brought me letters from America that were delivered illegally. Just think! A senior German diplomats saved two Jews from being detained by the fascists, because I once helped an enthusiastic young history graduate student write his doctoral dissertation. There was no hope of getting anything in return!" The old lady spoke. "Then why didn't he help you, Dr. Jastrow, with that tangled Brazil incident?" "He's helping, helping. He's been frantically telegraphing Berlin. He's assuring us that this absurdity will be corrected and that it's only a matter of time before we get our release through Switzerland." "Do you believe these words?" Castelnuovo asked Natalie. She bit her lower lip. "Well, we know that diplomacy is in a hurry, and he is concerned about it. I have a friend at the American Legation in Berne who wrote to tell me the same thing." "My guess is," said the doctor, "that this Dr. Baker is preventing you from leaving Italy." "How ridiculous!" exclaimed Jastrow. But Castelnuovo's words aroused in Natalie a dreadful and ominous apprehension. "Why? What good does it do him?" "You have asked a good question. It is to his advantage to detain the famous Dr. Jastrow in Italy, and to make the Doctor depend on him for everything. You will find out which is in his interest." "You're such a cynic," Jastrow said, getting angry. "Considering that I am a Jew, here and now I only believe in the worst possible possibilities. This is not cynicism, it is common sense. Now I have a message for you both from Avran Rabinowitz," said the doctor To Natalie, "he said, 'Just go as soon as you can. "'" But how to get there? "She almost screamed at Castelnuovo." Don't you think I don't want to go? " Jastrow looked at his watch and said stiffly to the Thachedots, "Your family treated us as if they were your own. My sincere thanks. We should go. Goodbye."