Book review: Enchanted by the spirit of resistance

It is February, 1944, and the German forces under Gestapo boss, Paul Hauptmann have occupied Rome for six months. 

The motley band of Escape Line activists known as ‘the Choir’ are tired and malnourished but go on identifying and rescuing Allied soldiers and refugees and helping them escape from Rome.

This is the second part of a trilogy, the sequel to My Father’s House, Joseph O’Connor’s magnificent novel based on the real-life adventures of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, the Kerry-born Vatican priest.

This time, the focus shifts from the unpredictable Monsignor to his co-conspirator, the Contessa Giovanna Landini, Jo to her friends. 

A beautiful widow, she volunteered as a Red Cross motorcycle courier at the start of the war, and inherited the exquisite Palazzo Landini on her husband’s death. 

The motorbike is still her favoured means of transport, and she is still mourning her beloved husband’s untimely death.

‘The Choir’, based in the tiny Vatican City, operates by hiding in plain sight, mingling quietly with the Vatican’s many visitors, identifying Allied POWs on the run from the Nazis and whisking them away to safe houses where they will find food (of sorts), shelter, and clothes to disguise themselves.

Thanks to the presence of characters from the first book — the singer and diplomat’s wife, Delia Murphy-Kiernan, and her likeable student-daughter, Blon, escaped prisoner and British intelligence officer Major Sam Derry, sharp-witted East Ender, John May — it takes no time at all to catch up with the story and remember the cast of old pals.

You don’t need to have read the first book, but it will probably help if you have.

The enemy is also familiar, in the form of Obersturmbannführer Paul Hauptmann. His beautiful wife and children have been ordered back to Berlin. When his command of Rome falters, Himmler likes to remind Hauptmann of this fact.

The novel opens during a big, early morning air raid: “Bombs falling on Rome. Stone countenances of the prophets watch the firestorm from their plinths. Children run through the collapsing streets and cracked-apart school yards.” 

We follow a badly-wounded parachutist — he could be American, Polish, or German — who lands in someone’s garden: 

Falling he sees Rome, a misted map below him. Maze of streets, terracotta roof tiles. A God’s-eye view of the thousand spires. The eggshell that is the dome of St Peter’s.

The struggle to save the airman’s life holds the fast-moving story together. O’Connor employs his many skills to keep readers both entertained and informed. 

The ghosts of the title are often evoked in the dim evening light as the Choir go about their missions of mercy.

The energy and polish of O’Connor’s prose is remarkable. The realism is heightened by quoting official documents, contemporary posters, and intimate letters. 

There are also gut-wrenching descriptions of the sights and smells of the beleaguered city, as well as many jokes. 

The writing varies from dramatic to poetic to comic in the flick of a comma, while O’Connor ensures that the reader follows every twist of the plot.

Hauptmann requisitions the Contessa’s home and moves in, increasing his infatuation with the woman herself.

The emphasis here is on the women of ‘the Choir’, including 19-year-old Blon Kiernan who attempts to escape her diplomatic privileges and live independently, and her friend, the brilliant trainee surgeon Mademoiselle Manon Gastaud.

The many who died in that conflict are remembered years later by the airman, when visiting a memorial Mass for Monsignor O’Flaherty in Killarney: “But there are still nights when the unreturned friends come to him through dreamfields of sleep like horses trotting across a meadow in the rain.”