“But then?”
“Then the order came for all Yugoslavian Jews to be interned. About three thousand were brought into the camp.”
“To be killed?”
“No, no, not at all. We followed the orders of our government, but the army insisted that the Jews be well treated, not as a hostile force. They weren’t fighting us; they were only peaceful people who’d been swept up in this madness. So they were put in a separate part of the camp, and provided with what comfort we could give. My commander told me it was the only way to preserve a shred of honor. We had to obey the German commands and the orders from Il Duce, but we could at least do so with some dignity.”
“I didn’t know, Luca.”
“No, and not all camps were the same. In some, Jews were treated terribly. But on Rab, we did what little we could. We were sick of fighting the partisans and all the hatred. It felt good to do something halfway decent.”
“What happened?”
“After the fall of Mussolini, orders came from the government that the Jews were to be released. For their own safety, they could remain in the camp voluntarily under our protection. Several hundred left to join the partisans, and many others were taken to partisan-controlled territory. At this point, we had an uneasy truce with the Yugoslavs, and worried more about our former German allies.”
“All the Jews got out?” I knew this story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“No. There were two hundred elderly and sick left in the camp. My battalion was ordered back to Italy after the armistice, and I was in charge of a detachment, which was to close the camp. The last of the Slovene and Croat prisoners were released, and I was trying to find medical care for those Jews who could not travel.”
We sat in silence, and I could hear the low murmur of other Carabinieri in the yard and smell their cigarette smoke as they waited for Luca.
“There was none. No transport, no fuel. A German column approached the camp, several hundred men in armored vehicles. We were but a few dozen, with nothing more than rifles. I gave the order. We ran. We ran away, leaving two hundred innocents behind. The Germans took them. I heard later they were sent to a camp in Poland. I expect they are all dead, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” I didn’t expect they were dead, I knew it. From Zyklon B, probably in a place called Auschwitz. It had all been hard to believe when Diana told me Kurt Gerstein’s story in Switzerland, which seemed like another world, another time. But here it was, half a continent away. How large was this killing machine, that it would send an armored column to a little island in the Adriatic, and ship two hundred old and sick Jews to Poland? It made no sense. Of course, in a world where people were killed with assembly-line precision, nothing could make sense.
“Now you know my shame. I did nothing.”
“Once the Germans came, there was nothing you could do. Except die. And then you wouldn’t have been a witness. Believe me, I’m a cop, and sooner or later the law appreciates a good witness.”
“Perhaps. When the war is over, do you think anyone will care? The graveyards will be full. Who will want to hear the truth? Who will care?”
“The dead,” I said. I left Luca in the room staring at the wall. It wasn’t my job to absolve him. It wasn’t my job to explain that the methodical extermination of Jews and other undesirables could not be stopped by a single Carabiniere, that perhaps it was a small blessing that it was at least remembered. I began to feel the fervor with which Diana had told the story, her need to reveal the secret that burdened her.
I walked back to where the platoon was camped. Graves Registration wandered the field, carrying sacks of mattress covers, stacking the dead like cordwood. Medics treated the lightly wounded as the last of the ambulances trundled off over uneven ground to Hell’s Half Acre. The wind stiffened and I felt a cold chill rising from the damp earth.
“Billy, you won’t believe this,” Danny said as I approached the group. “The meat stew made it. It’s still warm. Have some, it’s not bad.” Danny had indeed passed over a threshold. On a field littered with the dead and injured, he still had his appetite, and celebrated what passed for the luck of the Irish at war: an intact pot of hot stew.
Father Dare ladled some into my mess tin, and I sat on a crate next to Danny. Everyone gathered around the pot and its feeble warmth. Charlie passed a bottle of wine, and it tasted good, sharp on my tongue, warm in my stomach. The living have to take what pleasures they can, from each other and whatever comes their way.
Phil Einsmann had a newspaper and was sharing pages around. “Only two weeks old,” he said. “The Chicago Tribune.”
“Says here Charlie Chaplin is demanding a Second Front now,” Flint read.
“They can give him this one,” Charlie said, and everyone laughed. Except him. He was serious.
“Coal miners are on strike for more money and decent working conditions,” Danny read from another section. “Sure feel bad for them, burrowing underground and all.” That got a laugh, and I drank some more wine, happy to be with Danny, happy to be alive.
I flipped through the paper as it was passed around. Nightclub owners in Miami were protesting having to close at midnight to conserve electricity. Business was good. In Michigan, thirteen legislators were arrested on bribery and corruption charges. Business was good there too, until you got caught.
I walked over to Einsmann, and gave him back the paper. “Phil, what do you know about what the Nazis are doing to the Jews?”
“What everybody knows, I guess. They take their property, send them to camps, shoot a lot of them. Why?”
“You ought to talk to Luca Amatori, a lieutenant with the Carabinieri here. He knows what went on in one of the Italian concentration camps.”
“No thanks. Not worth my time. The Italians are our allies now. No one wants to air dirty laundry, not when we need them fighting the Germans.”
“You’ve been told that?”
“Not in so many words. But you get the sense of things after enough stories have been squashed. Italian concentration camps? Not what the reading public wants to hear about.”
“Ask Luca about clean laundry then. Might be worth your time.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You’re the reporter, you find out,” I said as I got up and went back to my seat. Maybe if he got the story about the spies from Luca, he’d ask him about the camp. Maybe not. Maybe Einsmann was busy planning his next murder. Maybe not. Maybe I’d live to see the dawn.
We drank some more. Guys smoked and chatted. No one was trying to kill us. We had warm food and good wine, and deep holes to jump into. Anything beyond those immediate needs was insignificant.
“You sure keep that weapon mighty clean, Padre,” Flint said as he opened a letter. Father Dare had his automatic in pieces, cleaning each with a toothbrush.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness, they say. Letter from home?”
“Yeah,” Flint said. “Mail truck had this for me, and a couple for Louie and Rusty. That’s it. Sorry, fellas.” He looked around at the others, then scanned the single page, before tucking the letter back in the envelope and stowing it away. He shook a cigarette loose from a crumpled pack. “Anyone got a light?”
“I never saw a padre carry a pistol,” Bobby K said, tossing Flint a lighter while eyeing Father Dare.
“There’s a first time for everything, son,” Father Dare said, as he rubbed gun oil on the metal. He cleaned the pieces slowly, handling each like holy relics. When he had it all put back together, he held it between his palms, as if it gave off warmth. “Especially at war, there are many first times.”