August 1939

909 18 7
                                    

(Excerpted from A Tyranny of God © 2015 Francesco Rizzuto)

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(Excerpted from A Tyranny of God © 2015 Francesco Rizzuto)

Jacob Mortillaro held the crisp paper envelope between his forefinger and thumb, turning it front to back then back to front again, as if deciding whether to slice it open with the pearl-mounted pen knife that dangled from the bright golden links of his watch chain, put it back in the post after scribbling 'return to sender' across the front, or toss it into the coal stove.  Of course, he would open it.  He'd been waiting months for news of Lucrezia.

Jacob refolded the single sheet, returning it to the envelope that he placed inside a sheaf of music under a tall pile of leather bound librettos and books

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Jacob refolded the single sheet, returning it to the envelope that he placed inside a sheaf of music under a tall pile of leather bound librettos and books.  He thought he could detect Lucrezia Malatesta's faint perfume emanating from between the lines of her husband's letter.  When he thought of Manufredi's offer of the male lead in Aida, it was the smooth, moist passage between the diva's thighs that more immediately came to mind.

Working at the Metropolitan Opera would put him close to her again, this time away from the prying eyes of Anna, his wife. It would be a difficult sell but in the end she would accept his decision to go. He would frame the proposal as an opportunity to move the family far away from what was shaping up as another exercise in collective madness and the latest chapter in a long history of oppression and abuse of European Jewry.

Anna took the proposal with resolve. They barely survived on his small salary from the Teatro dell'Opera and whatever extra Lira he managed to earn entertaining at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Their fourteen year-old daughter Atalia was next to useless.  Mussolini had expelled all the Jewish children from the Italian schools after enacting the racial laws only the year before. Now the girl lay in bed all day, poring over her dog-eared collection of movie magazines and frequented a nearby cinema after dark, the subject of many a heated family argument. Little Adamo, practically at his mother's breast, was too young to contribute anything to the family larder. Finally, they didn't have sufficient savings to purchase even one third-class steamship ticket to New York, never mind four.

Other than that, he was free to go.

* * *

In the first week of October, Jacob Mortillaro booked passage on the French steamship St. Nazaire sailing from Genoa to New York via Marseille and Gibraltar using the money that his friend Manufredi had wired him. When he reached the Genoa waterfront with the looming St. Nazaire tethered at dockside, a smartly uniformed customs officer examined Jacob's passport and boarding papers then asked to see his exit visa.

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