“Coming later today to hand over to you, officially, authority over the city.”
“And their soldiers?”
“Many have deserted. Some remain loyal.”
“And their arms? Depots? Armories? Have we secured them?”
“Some, yes.”
“Some?”
“Yes, sir. Most.”
“And the others?”
“There seems to be some confusion, sir, as to where they are, exactly, and how many. Some of the soldiers who deserted were guarding those places—their own storage facilities and so on—and we’ve never had an exact—”
“Captain,” Scholl said, slapping one palm against the top of the desk for emphasis, “first assignment: secure the arms storages, wherever they may be. Every one of them. Second assignment: have the proclamation printed up—it was received here?”
“Yesterday morning, sir.”
“Printed up and posted everywhere across the city. Everywhere. As soon as possible. I’d hoped they’d be visible by now. Third assignment: if you haven’t done so already, identify every Jew in Naples and the surrounding areas. Names, ages, addresses. Of every single one, and have that information ready for use. You’re aware of Reichsführer Himmler’s plans for this coming week?”
“Yes, sir. To arrest the Jews and bring them to the train station for shipment north.”
“You’ve been collecting names?”
“Yes, sir, and some Jews have already been shipped. The files are kept at the Municipio, at Castel Nuovo. Marshal Bruni is in charge there.”
“An Italian?”
“An Austrian-Italian, sir.”
“Trustworthy?”
“Absolutely, Herr Colonel.”
“Good. Make sure no one is missed in the collection. Fourth assignment: once the proclamation is posted, begin arresting Italian men who fail to report. Summarily execute anyone who resists in any way. Anyone, man, woman, child, old, young. Anyone and everyone who resists. Hold the men we can use, for shipment. Bring deserting soldiers to the Gestapo. Shoot the rest. Clear?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Dismissed, then.”
Nitzermann saluted and left.
Alone, Scholl stepped out onto the balcony and studied the sunbeams angling through a line of purple clouds out over the bay. Soldiers deserting. Arms depots unsecured. Pockets of resistance. Fleeing generals turning over their authority. All of it had the scent of disaster. If the reports were correct, the Allied forces were moving up steadily from the south and were within a hundred kilometers of where he now stood. Perhaps closer. It made no sense to wait. He’d spend a day, two days at most, getting a better sense of Naples, subduing whatever resistance he encountered, collecting as many Jews as possible, and then he’d ask permission to burn the city to the ground.
Eighteen
Walking home from the Archives that afternoon, Giuseppe marveled at what a good day it had been—the lovemaking with Lucia, her gift of food (he carried a potato in each pocket), the continued absence of bombing raids, the fact that “Captain Horseshit,” as he thought of the man, hadn’t seen the rolled-up map on the floor behind the desk. Amazing how little it took now to make a perfect day, compared to what it had taken in the past, when there would be lovemaking and three meals, no threat of arrest or death, no concern about bombers overhead, when Via Foria would be alive with couples and friends having an aperitivo at the cafés at this hour, not littered with the rubble of blown-apart homes and offices.
The air was already growing cooler, smelling of the sea—la bell’aria Napoletana, his mother had called it, the beautiful Neapolitan air—but at the same time, there was something odd about the afternoon. It took him a few minutes to realize what it was: the streets were almost completely empty. He glanced up and to his right, instinctively, to see if the sky above Vesuvius had darkened, if the volcano, quiet for the last fourteen years, had suddenly decided to erupt again. But no: the sky there was blue and quiet.
Rumors and real news always raced around Naples like swirling flocks of birds, touching down here, rising into the air and changing shape before touching down in another neighborhood. He wondered if the Allies had reached Ercolano at the southern edge of the metropolis, and everyone else had heard the news and was in hiding. He saw one little boy—barefoot, filthy, naked except for his sagging underpants—run out of a doorway as if fleeing a bath. A woman appeared, captured him in her arms, and carried him hastily back inside.
He turned a corner onto Via Degli Scalzi. Quiet even here, on a busy avenue.
But then, ahead, close to the western edge of the Stella, he saw a cloud of brown dust, a line of vehicles. For a few seconds, he remembered what Lucia had said and allowed himself to believe it was the Allies, making their assault at last. But there was no sound of gunfire, and when they came, they would surely come from the south, not the northeast.
Something else, then.
Moved by a peculiar premonition, he ducked into a doorway and stood there, motionless. Motorcycle engines. The low rumble growing louder and louder until it was a deafening roar. His back was to the wall of the entranceway, and he couldn’t see them until they were even with him, and then past. He leaned out, following them with his eyes. A line of black cars, swastika flags flapping, three motorcycles to each side. Behind the cars, a German military vehicle—like a tank without guns. The top was open, and standing there like a prince, a god, stiff-backed, hands on the metal near his hips, was an officer in a German uniform. For two seconds, given the amount of fanfare, Giuseppe thought it might be Hitler himself.
The caravan raced on, toward the German headquarters. One starving brown dog appeared, trotting along in the vehicles’ dusty wake as if hoping to be thrown a scrap of bread. Giuseppe waited until the noise of the motorcycles could no longer be heard, then he stepped out onto the sidewalk and turned in the direction of home.
Nineteen
That afternoon, Lucia left the office later than usual—the long lunch hour with Giuseppe and then extra translation work and an extended conversation with Rosalia—and decided to take a different route back to her tiny ground-floor apartment, her basso. Ordinarily, she’d go along Via Medina and through Piazza Cavour to Via Miracoli, off which her short alleyway curled to a dead end. But on that afternoon, with the sun dipping behind a flat bank of clouds and casting a lavender light over the bay and the city’s western edge, she wondered if the hideous German captain might somehow have learned of her regular route. He had followed her as far as the Santa Lucia hotel when she went to see her father that morning; he’d likely followed her on one of her visits to Giuseppe at the Archives, and that’s why he’d shown up there at lunch. If he trailed her to the basso, she’d have to start staying elsewhere, and so many buildings had been destroyed, so many families made homeless, that nearly every person she knew already had a house full of friends sleeping on their floor. Staying at Giuseppe’s might be an option, but there were complications: first, unless it was unavoidable, neither of them wanted to move in together until they were officially married, and they weren’t yet even engaged, and second, the room where his parents had slept had not been touched for the past two weeks, since their murder, and Giuseppe and his uncle had single beds, so whatever sleeping arrangements they agreed on would mean a constant awkwardness of one kind or another.