“Let me finish. He sent them away, and then he destroyed the records, all of them. And when he was done he killed himself.”

The horror of it swept over Antonina, engulfed her for a moment, and rushed away like the ebbing tide. She was left shaken, and grieving, and utterly certain of what they must do next.

“We have to go now. It won’t take long to pack, and if we leave things behind it doesn’t matter. They’re just things, you see, and not nearly as impor—”

“Antonina.” Her father took hold of her shoulders and pressed his forehead to hers. “Listen to me. I cannot leave. Too many people depend on me here. And I will not leave without your mother.”

“But we could—”

“No,” he insisted. “She is not well enough to travel. You know that as well as I do.” Now he enfolded her in his arms. “But you . . . you can leave.”

“I could never,” she protested. “How could you even ask me?”

“I have made all the arrangements. I had hoped this day would never come, but now it is here—no. No, my Nina. Stop shaking your head and simply listen to me,” he begged her.

He was crying, she realized suddenly, and that was far more frightening than anything he had yet told her.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked, defeated.

He looked over his shoulder, back down the corridor, but it was empty. “Father Bernardi has sent a man he trusts, a good man, and with his help you will go into hiding until this is over.”

“You would send me away with a stranger?”

“No. Not a stranger. A friend of a friend. To the village where Father Bernardi lives.”

She wanted to scream, to shout, to beg him to consider something else, anything else, but then he pulled away, just enough that she could see his ashen face and the fear carved upon his beloved features, and her protests withered to nothing.

“I understand,” she said, and it was true. At last she understood. “Is there time to say goodbye to Mamma?”

“Of course. Don’t say anything, though. Just your usual farewell. But first . . .”

He took out his handkerchief and wiped away her tears, and then she returned to her mother’s bedside for the last time.

“I have to go, Mamma, but Papà will return later.”

Antonina bent low to embrace her mother, and for an instant the desire to gather her up, as if she were the comforting parent and her mother the child, overwhelmed her. She would steal Mamma away, bear her weight for any distance, carry her over any mountain they were forced to climb. For her mother she would do it, and they would drag Papà along, too, and they would be together once more, and happy at last—

“We must be going,” her father said, and sanity of a sort descended again.