Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

OCTOBER 1943

Within a few days, Emilia found it routine to add pictures to the supper club cards, so Tomas would know where to meet Corinna. It was just another task as she worked with Signora Jorelini to keep feeding the Jewish people making their way out of Italy. But food was getting scarcer. Often there was no meat at all when Signora Jorelini arrived home after venturing out in the early morning hours, the sky still dark as fall unfolded and the days grew shorter. Sometimes the vegetables Signora Jorelini brought home were all but inedible, the carrots and potatoes black with decay or the rice rancid. Emilia did her best to cut away the bad spots from the vegetables, and Signora Jorelini made soups or stews with what remained.

Still, she went out in the mornings and returned with as much as she could. Her stews and soups were thinner, less flavorful, and most of the time without any meat at all. But she never stopped cooking.

"I know it sounds strange…but I do feel lucky," she said one afternoon to Emilia and Corinna as she examined a head of cabbage. Emilia knew she was trying to decide whether there were enough edible spots to make it worthwhile to use. "We are still together, making food, and we are safe, the three of us. I pray every night that nothing more will change. That all will remain the same until this war is finally over."

Emilia had nodded as Signora Jorelini handed her the cabbage, gesturing that she should go ahead and start chopping. She kept her head down, hoping no one would notice the flush she felt rising up her neck and to her cheeks, or would just think she was reacting to the heat of the stove. Corinna stayed silent, too, her eyes focused on washing the utensils and soiled plates. She and Corinna both knew that things were not the same. The town was changing right beneath Signora Jorelini's nose, thanks to the daughter she loved. Corinna had brought Tomas to Caccipulia, and with it had come a new level of danger. Now it wasn't so simple to deliver food. As she went out every night to make deliveries, Emilia was terrified that this would be the night the Nazis would arrive, looking for Tomas. And maybe looking for other Jews, too. Jews being sheltered in houses around town or any Jew they happened to find—even Jews like her, with only one Jewish parent. Or maybe they'd be looking for people like Corinna, who had helped Tomas in Rome or were helping him now. Or other people—the ones hiding the Jews in town, the ones delivering food, the ones guiding them to the next safe location. Wonderful, brave people like Signora Jorelini.

And what made her fears even harder to bear was that she couldn't tell Signora Jorelini what was frightening her. Because she'd have to describe what Corinna had told her about Tomas, the level of his Resistance work. And she knew it would all come spilling out, how Corinna was in love with Tomas. And she'd sworn to Corinna she wouldn't tell.

Corinna had changed everything by urging Tomas to flee to Caccipulia, shaken things up like an earthquake deep beneath the ground. It was calm now, but the effects could soon be enormous.

Emilia hated being so secretive when Signora Jorelini was so good to her. But Corinna and Tomas's love for one another was an irresistible force. It was the only thing that made sense to Emilia, in this town where she'd lost her father and been abandoned by her sisters in just a few short weeks. What else was there to feel good about? Everything else was so awful. People fleeing their homes just because they were Jewish; her father being forced to sell his home and his shop; Signora Jorelini selling her keepsakes to get food…it was so wrong and so confusing. But this all-consuming love between two beautiful people—it alone made sense. And without it, Emilia didn't know how she could possibly believe that anything would ever be right again.

She knew Corinna would always love Tomas. It didn't matter that he was Jewish and she was not. Just like it hadn't mattered to her own parents, Papa and her beautiful Mama, whom she didn't even remember. But she knew how much they loved each other. How Papa had missed Mama every waking moment of the rest of his life, once he'd lost her. And now, the two of them, together, Corinna and Tomas, were Emilia's beacon, her touchstone, her way of being sure there was some good in the world after all. As long as they were together, there was hope.

So she drew the coded pictures that Corinna whispered to her each afternoon as she crafted Tomas's menu card, supporting Corinna's conviction that changing up the place where she and Tomas would meet was the only way to keep them safe and their secret hidden: a bunch of black olives, to indicate the olive grove alongside the Possano house; a gray, oval stone atop a field of green, if they were to meet by the boulder at the rear gate to the park; a whimsical array of books, to suggest the trees behind the library; a steeple, if they were to meet by the church. The pictures should look like idle doodles, Corinna had instructed, so that no one in the Possano house would pay them much mind except Tomas—the one person who'd be scouring the cards for their hidden message.

Tomas understood the codes, Emilia learned. Because he was always where he was meant to be.

Sometimes at night, Emilia would stay awake, keeping her eyes closed so Corinna wouldn't know. And a few minutes after Corinna left the bedroom, Emilia would follow her, closing the bedroom door softly and tiptoeing past Signora Jorelini's bedroom, the loud, rhythmic snores assuring Emilia that she was fast asleep. Downstairs, she'd throw on a coat and her shoes and steal across the front yard and down the street, knowing exactly where Corinna and Tomas would be. The fall was chilly but the moon was often bright, the sky clear and the darkness glowing, the night not nearly as dark as it could be. She'd find where the two lovers were and, hiding behind a tree or among thick shrubbery, she'd watch.

Because she couldn't turn away. There was something so entrancing about that moment when Tomas would open his arms and Corinna would run into them, and he'd lift her and twirl her around and around, her head thrown back and the bottom of her coat floating behind her. Sometimes Emilia would imagine that she was Corinna, being spun around by this lovely man who only had eyes for her. She'd watch the two of them sit on a rock or a bench, or on the grass with their backs against a tall tree, and they'd clasp their hands together on Corinna's lap, each one grasping and stroking and rubbing the other's fingers. Sometimes Emilia was close enough to see Corinna's eyes glistening, before Tomas reached out to sweep away a tear that had fallen to the top of her cheekbone.

Often, their conversation would be teasing. Like when they talked one night about the evening they met, and Emilia crept behind a nearby tree, close enough to hear their every word.

"Those chocolates you brought to the party—that clinched it for me," Tomas said. "I wanted to eat those chocolates every night for the rest of my life. I said to myself, this is the girl for me, a girl who can make something so heavenly."

She pushed him playfully with her shoulder. "That's the only reason?"

"They were delicious only because you made them. Your touch added the magic."

"I see," she said, kissing his fingers.

"And I couldn't believe when you agreed to dance with me," he added. "You could have had any boy in the room. They were all looking at you. The most beautiful girl by far."

"You know that's not true."

"Oh, yes. It is."

"And then you tripped when you went down the steps. I felt so bad for you."

"I couldn't stop looking at you. So I lost my footing."

"I was scared you were hurt. That scrape by your eye."

"I was glad it happened. It brought you over."

"I felt terrible after that, telling Antonio I wasn't leaving when he wanted to. So terrible to be stood up by your date at a party."

" I felt bad. Stealing his girl."

"He could see what was going on. He told me later he knew he'd lost me the minute you walked in."

"He saw the way I was looking at you?"

"And the way I was looking at you."

Emilia listened to their banter, their shared retelling of that evening. Nobody else these days reminisced about anything. There was no time. You had to always be on guard, glad at the end of each day that you could still lay your head on your pillows. Each night, Emilia knew, everyone in town slept with one eye open, one ear alert for the sound of a car engine, the slamming of car doors, the bark of German commands. Everyone had heard the stories, even Emilia. She'd overheard Signora Jorelini speaking with the neighbors, or she was told things when she delivered the baskets, terrifying things. Someone's cousin in Rome had been arrested. Someone's friend had disappeared. Whole families, Jewish families, were disappearing, leaving their homes empty.

And sometimes Emilia would see Signora Jorelini look at her with fear in her eyes. Emilia wondered if Signora Jorelini would ever turn her out because of her Jewish father. If she'd ever say it was too dangerous for her to stay, that she couldn't risk it anymore. Then what would she do? Many of the neighbors knew Emilia was there. Would they keep her presence a secret? Or would the promise of food or money cause them to reveal that Emilia was there, right in Signora Jorelini's house, right in that upstairs bedroom, helping other Jews escape the country?

One day, Signora Jorelini took Emilia to the attic and led her to a closet that was concealed by an old wardrobe. She showed her a little bed she'd prepared on the ground, an old wooden palette covered in sheets and blankets.

"Just in case," she said. "Just in case there comes a time when you need to, when it's too dangerous…you know what I mean, don't you? This is what all the Jews who are left in town are doing. If you hear those cars, that language, you know where to go—don't wait for me to tell you…"

But being here in the woods or the park, listening to Corinna and Tomas talk about their memories, she could almost imagine that life was different. That life was the way it was at the castle when she was there with her sisters, that life was like that around the world, all over the universe. Safety and calm seemed to abound in the nature surrounding her, the sweet beauty of the treetops against that glowing midnight-blue sky. Corinna and Tomas's laughter, their melodic voices, swept her back to the magical moment they first fell in love. They rose and strolled to a tree, and as Emilia had ducked deeper into the shadows, she saw Corinna press herself against the tree trunk and Tomas move toward her. He ran his fingers through her hair, as she raised her chin and moved her lips toward his.

And sometimes their conversation was serious. One night when Emilia arrived at the courtyard behind the olive trees, the meeting spot she'd woven into that day's menu card, she'd found the two of them sitting on a curved marble bench on the stone patio. Tomas had his hands clasped between his knees, his chin down, and Corinna was seated beside him, one of her hands in his and the other stroking the back of his neck.

"Why did I run? Why did I leave them?" he said.

"You didn't have a choice," Corinna said.

"I left them alone. I left them there."

"It was you who were in danger. It was you the Nazis wanted. That's why you left, to protect them."

"But now they are missing…"

"Maybe just hiding…"

"My family. My family…"

He'd dropped his head lower and she'd pressed herself against him, their shoulders touching, stroking his neck. At one point he leaned his head on her shoulder and she kissed his forehead, his temple. "We'll all be together one day," she promised.

He kept his head down.

"We will," she said. "We will be back with the people we love. And it won't be necessary to hide anymore. This isn't the way it ends, Tomas. This isn't the way that our families' stories end."

He shook his head. "The Nazis broke into the house," he said. "My parents—they were pulled out, in their nightclothes. They didn't have coats. The people watched, and some cheered. That's all I was told."

"I know."

"My father would have taken my mother's hand," he said, his voice cracking. "To give her strength. I can't even think of them being tortured. Being humiliated and jeered. And ending up…"

"I know, my love," Corinna said, rubbing his back. "I know."

They sat that way for a long time, the two of them, Tomas's head on Corinna's shoulder. Emilia wondered if she'd ever know a love like that. It seemed so remote to her now. As if the two of them were here only in body, but really existed somewhere else, on some distant planet. Love seemed the perfect escape, the only escape. She envied them, but she also rooted for them. They'd found a solution to a problem that was haunting everyone. And she wanted that solution to prove long-lasting. To protect them always. If love like that existed in the world, then Corinna was right. Everything else was temporary. Everything else would finally be over.

Emilia watched them, captivated. This was the kind of love that overcame everything. She longed to enter their world, to be a part of their universe. But she didn't see how she ever could. They were floating on air, the two of them. And they belonged together on a planet far away from here. Because their kind of love couldn't thrive in this world. This world was too broken.

But they weren't on another planet. They were right here, trying to make something beautiful work in a world that could never bear anything beautiful. It suddenly seemed to Emilia that they were trying to do something impossible. Put a square peg in a round hole.

The breeze kicked up, chilly and strong. Emilia shivered and turned to go back to the house.