Eternal

by Lisa Scottoline

If Sandro had ever wondered what an anti-Semite looked like, he realized that they looked like everybody else.

Marco looked up at the sky, agonized over losing Sandro. The clouds concealed the moon and the stars. All he could see above was darkness, impenetrable. He wondered where the blackness ended, or if it ever did, like grief itself, having no bottom, top, or sides, but was limitless, borderless, surrounding him.

“Marco, you’re upset—” “Yes, I am. Why isn’t anybody doing anything? If they had, Sandro would be alive. So would Papa and Gemma. Massimo would be here. It’s madness! Why isn’t anybody stopping this?” Marco found himself rising, his emotions coming to a boil. “Don’t give me prayers, brother! Don’t give me sympathy! Papa fought for what he believed in! So do I! I would kill every last Nazi with my bare hands! Sandro died because nobody did anything!”

“Sandro made the choice to save you. God was there, in him. Sandro was love, not hate. Don’t betray him now. Don’t answer the love he showed with hate.”

Yet he had learned that Rome, as magnificent as she was, was merely a bystander to the glory and horror wrought by man, and that was the way of the world, now and forever. War was eternal, but so was peace. Death was eternal, but so was life. Darkness was eternal, but so was light. Hate was eternal, but above all, so was love.