“Of course not. But I had just got the man to agree to leave the boys here with us. Being rude to him would have achieved nothing.”

“I suppose you’re right. You just didn’t have to sound so . . . so fine about it.”

“Nothing about what just happened was fine. Beginning with his forcing Nina to stitch that soldier’s wound.”

“Do you think he’ll leave us alone now?”

“Let’s pray that he does.”

“DO YOU THINK he was here because of the people you’ve been helping?” she asked Nico in bed that night.

Their room was achingly cold, and the hot bricks at their feet had long ago lost their warmth, and that, she told herself, was the only reason they now lay so close together, her face tucked close to his chest, his arm a welcome weight across her back.

“No. If he’d suspected me of anything, he’d have brought enough men to reduce the farm to rubble. I honestly think he wanted to see what had become of me—and to have me see what had become of him.”

“Truly? That’s all?”

“Yes. Even so, he is with the SD, and they’re as depraved and vicious a group of men as you’ll ever find. Dannecker in particular. If Zwerger comes back and I’m not home, and especially if he’s with other men from the SD, I want you to go to the hiding place. Don’t hesitate—just go. I’ll leave the ladder under the bed so you can get up there by yourself. Promise me?”

“I promise.”

“I know we ought to be getting to sleep, but seeing him again . . . it threw me,” Nico admitted. “It’s been so long since I thought of those days.”

“How did you end up being chosen for the priesthood? Or was it something you asked to do?”

“If I’m honest, I was too young to know what I wanted. I’d done well in school, well enough for Father Bernardi to insist that I stay on for a few extra years. And then it just . . . happened. He asked my parents if they’d allow me to become a priest, and if they could manage if I went away to school, and of course they said yes. It was an honor beyond imagining for them.”

“Did anyone ask you if you wanted it?”

“Not in so many words. At least, not that I recall. I do remember being excited when they told me, especially since I knew it would take me away from the farm and what I saw as a lifetime of endless work. In that I wasn’t wrong.”

“How long did you have to go to school for it?”

“First I went to the college in Asolo. When I finished at eighteen, I went to the seminary in Padua. I was twenty-three when I came home.”