A Thread of Grace
Mary Doria Russell
What you are, we were.
What we are, you shall be.
— FROM AN ITALIAN CEMETERY
Renzo Leoni, a. k. a. Ugo Messner, Stefano Savoca, Don Gino Righetti
Lidia Segre Leoni, his widowed mother;
Tranquillo Loeb, her eldest daughter’s husband
Iacopo Soncini, chief rabbi of Sant’Andrea
Mirella Casutto Soncini, his wife
Angelo, their young son
Altira, their first daughter, deceased
Rosina, their second daughter
Giacomo Tura, elderly Hebrew scribe
Claudette Blum, Belgian teenager;
Claudia Fiori,
Albert Blum, her father
Duno Brössler, Austrian teenager, partisan
Herrmann and Frieda Brössler, his parents
Liesl and Steffi, his younger sisters
Rivka Ivanova Brössler, his paternal grandmother
Jakub Landau, organizer for the Italian CNL (Committee for National Liberation);
Suora (Sister) Marta, middle-aged nun
Suora Corniglia, novice, later nun; Suora Fossette (Sister Dimples)
Massimo Malcovato, her father;
Don (male honorific) Osvaldo Tomitz, priest, Sant’Andrea
Don Leto Girotti, priest, San Mauro;
Santino Cicala, infantryman, Calabrian draftee
Catarina Dolcino, the Leonis’ landlady; Rina
Serafino Brizzolari, municipal bureaucrat, Sant’Andrea
Antonia Usodimare, proprietress, Pensione Usodimare
Tercilla Lovera,
Pierino, Tercilla’s son;
Bettina, his sister
Battista Goletta, Fascist farmer, Valdottavo
Attilio Goletta, his cousin, Communist sharecropper
Tullio Goletta, Attilio’s son, partisan
Adele Toselli, elderly housekeeper, San Mauro rectory
Nello Toselli, her nephew, partisan
Maria Avoni, partisan;
Otello Rollero, partisan, interpreter for Simon Henley
Simon Henley, signalman, Special Operations executive
Werner Schramm, deserter, Oberstabsarzt (medical officer) Waffen-SS
Irmgard, his sister, deceased
Erhardt von Thadden, Gruppenführer (division commander) Waffen-SS; the Schoolmaster
Martina, his wife
Helmut Reinecke, his adjutant, Hauptsturmführer (captain), later Standartenführer (colonel, regimental commander)
Ernst Kunkel, Oberscharführer (staff sergeant), aide to von Thadden
Artur Huppenkothen, Oberstpolizei (police colonel), Gestapo
Erna, his sister
AUSTRIA
1907
This is what everyone would remember about his mother: her home was immaculate.
Even in a place where cleanliness was pursued with religious zeal, her household was renowned for its faultless order. In Klara’s mind, there was no gradation between purity and filth.She had sinned as a girl, made pregnant by her married uncle. Adultery stained her soul black, and God punished her as she deserved. Her sin child died.