Read Online Warburg in Rome by James Carroll - Free Book Online Page A

Rome. It was touch and go here for months. After Clark blew up Monte Cassino, the Church was as afraid of the Allies as of the Germans. With good reason, actually. The only destruction you’ll see when we get to the city was caused by our own B-17s.”
    An awkward silence settled between them. Deane went back to his breviary. After some moments, though, he lifted his eyes to stare straight ahead. “WRB,” he said.
    Warburg did not reply.
    “You said WRB.”
    “That’s right. War Refugee Board.”
    “Morgenthau.”
    “Yes. I told you, I’m with the Treasury Department. I’m setting up in Rome.”
    “Where?”
    “To be determined. A lot to be determined.”
    “But the ‘Board’. . . the name is ‘War Refugee,’ but actually your work is about . . .”
    What is it with this word, Warburg wondered, that makes people hesitate before using it? He finished Deane’s sentence. “About the Jews. Yes. If we put the word ‘Jew’ in the name, Roosevelt couldn’t possibly have approved it, and Congress would have howled. But Jews are the point.”
    “I know what’s happened to Jews.”
    “What’s still happening, Father.”
    “I share your concern, David,” Deane said, but with the air of a man steering away from what he’s thinking. “In fact, you and I have a lot in common. Call it coincidence. You’ve come here for the War Refugee Board. I’ve come for Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza. Catholic Relief Services. Have you heard of us?”
    “Of course.”
    “Boils down to the same thing—refugee assistance. Archbishop Spellman provides most of the funds for the Vatican relief agency. We’ve raised millions in the States, a nationwide campaign, still at it. Now that Rome is open, we’re betting the farm. Call it the Belmont Stakes, third race in the Triple Crown. I’m Spellman’s jockey. I’m to be the Commissione’s deputy director.” Something in the way Deane announced this implied it was to be his official role—but perhaps not his only one. “Maybe I can help you.”
    “I’d appreciate anything we can do together,” Warburg said, but carefully. He could not put his finger on the source of his unease with this guy. Everything he said carried an echo of the unsaid. Warburg added, “My operation is not off the ground yet.”
    “My operation’s been going strong since Emperor Constantine.” A crack, but there was no levity in Deane as he made it. “We’re feeding people across the continent,” he continued. “Every Catholic parish in Europe is a franchise soup kitchen of the Holy See. And we’ve been poised for this moment. With the liberation of Rome, the walking dead will start to climb out of their graves. All the feeding and caring that’s been done up to now is mere prelude. As the liberation line moves north behind Clark’s red-hot rake, you’ll see. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Not just Jews.”
    Warburg heard the echo of Morgenthau’s D.C. critics: the Nazis are oppressing millions—why single out one group? “Relief is one thing,” Warburg said. “I’m still thinking about rescue. That’s what the R in WRB means to me.”
    “What can you do from Rome?”
    “More than I can do from Washington.”
    “We protected them in Rome,” Deane said. “You’ll see.”
    “By ‘them’ you mean Jews? By ‘we’ you mean—the Vatican?”
    “No offense, David, but you may not know much about how the Holy See and its dependencies operate. A mark of the Catholic Church is unity.”
    “Does that include bishops? I’ve been paying attention to Budapest, waiting to hear some moral instruction from the archbishop there. He seems friendly to Hitler, to put it mildly.”
    “We were speaking of Rome.”
    “Yes. I’ve been paying attention there, too. Do you know of the Cistercian nunnery in the Via Sicilia?”
    “No. There are a thousand convents in Rome. If the Cistercians are helping, so are many others. ‘Nunnery,’ by the way, is a pejorative word.