Текст книги "The Book of Q"

Автор книги: Jonathan Rabb

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

“Now, before I hand you over to the colonel, who has been so kind to join us here this morning”-Conroy’s accent and demeanor reeked of southern hospitality, with a little medicine show thrown in just for fun-“I want him to know who is with him today, joining him in prayer.” Conroy paused. “I think I would be right in saying it’s a community of the faithful.” Amens from the crowd. “Which embraces anyone of faith.” He smiled and looked over at Harris. “Even an Anglican, Colonel. Even an Anglican.” A wave of laughter from the audience. Harris could see Conroy wasn’t quite ready to cede the stage.

“Because we area community here, even though you may be sitting next to someone you don’t know, whose own brand of faith is unknown to you. Look around you. Does he call himself a Baptist? Does she call herself a Methodist? Another a Pentecostal?” Again he turned to Harris. “I think it’s a pretty safe bet you’ll be the only Anglican here, Colonel.” Harris nodded with a smile as the audience laughed. Conroy turned to his congregation. “But does any of it matter if we are a true community in faith? As Paul tells us in Romans, ‘Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.’ Or elsewhere, when he tells us, ‘With one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord.’ ‘One voice.’ For ‘if the dough offered as first fruitsis holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.’ Look around you at those branches. ‘One voice.’ Can you say that with me?”

The entire congregation echoed, “‘One voice.’”

“Again.”

“‘One voice,’” this time louder.

“Can you hear the power in that? Can you sense the power of that one indomitable spirit-unbroken, untarnished by personal desire, by personal lusts, by personal affectation. ‘One voice.’ Paul warns us in Philippians. He tells us that there are those who ‘preach Christ from envy and rivalry.’ ‘Envy and rivalry,’” he repeated. “How? How can they preach it that way? Because they ‘proclaim Christ out of partisanship.’ ‘Partisanship,’” each syllable given its due. “Those walls they build high, as if somehow they can keep the Word only for themselves, hold Christ within their churches? Can the Lord be so tethered? Can the Lord be kept for only one group, no matter what they call themselves? No. He alone flies free to all who would embrace Him. But to those who embrace ‘partisanship,’ He has only one answer: ‘Affliction and imprisonment.’ Choose to build those walls, choose to place those stumbling blocks between brothers, and you will not find Salvation in Him.

“It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? One God, one salvation, one faith, one voice. How else would He hear us? Even when He afflicted us with the Tower of Babel-that voice scattered throughout, altered, and divided-His message was clear. Those differences don’t matter. Language, culture, wealth”-he paused for emphasis-“denomination. Seek Him out, and you speak but one language. The language of God. The language of Christ.

“Now, I know there are plenty of preachers who think my views on inclusion only complicate things.” He began to pace, nodding, eyes staring straight ahead. “‘Leave things the way they are,’ they say to me. ‘Archie-Baptist with Baptist. Methodist with Methodist. We all have different needs,’ they tell me. And maybe they’re right. Who am I to argue with the status quo? Who am I to say we’re stronger than that, that the only thing that matters is our faith in Christ? What other needs do we have? I don’t know.” He stopped and turned to face the audience again. “When the Pharisees told Jesus that His ways were too dangerous, His message of love and inclusion too bold, He continued on. I don’t know if I have that strength. I can find it only through Him. But henever talked about different needs. He never talked about the status quo. He talked of love and salvation. He talked of ‘one voice.’”

Archie turned again to Harris. “It’s a kind of salvation itself, isn’t it, Colonel?” For all his homespun rhetoric, Conroy knew exactly how to lead a crowd. He was making Harris an essential part of the message-the dissolution of denominational differences, with its personification sitting up onstage with him. An English Anglican and a southern Pentecostal. What could be clearer? Harris was beginning to understand why the contessa had insisted on this venue.

“A kind of protection,” Conroy continued, addressing the audience. “But protection from what? It’s so hard to talk of inclusion when there are those whose very existence is bent on destroying that voice, whose sole aim is to maintain a ‘noisy gong or a clanging cymbal’-as Paul tells us in Corinthians 1:13-rather than to embrace the singular Truth that is Him.” He stopped. “And I’m not talking about my fellow preachers who say, ‘Archie, give it a break.’” A few titters from the audience.

“We’ve been doing it to ourselves for centuries, haven’t we? Allowing personal ends, political ends, commercial ends dictate the destruction of that ‘one voice.’ Within our own community of faithful.” He paused. “And outside it.” He waited for complete silence.

“How many of you think I’m talking about our friends in Rome?”

The response was minimal, the congregants having been too well prepped over the last few weeks of sermons not to know where he was going. “I’m sure I could find fault there. More so than with my fellow preachers. I could give you reasons for five centuries of animosities, bring in experts to explain why that conflict exists, justify the ongoing division. I’m sure the colonel here could tell you far more about that than I could.

“But I won’t ask him, because I believe in ‘one voice.’ Because I believe that maybe, just maybe, we can begin to recognize what binds us and not what separates us. Maybe there’s a chance that we can begin to see beyond our own history to our future. Maybe there’s something in the air that gives us hope, a new beginning”-he again looked to Harris-“a brave new dawn. You’ll forgive me, Colonel, but it is such a nice phrase.” Harris laughed along with the audience.

“Things are happening here that give us that hope, organizations, like the colonel’s, that are saying, ‘Haven’t we come to a point when we’re sick and tired of using our faith to differentiate rather than to incorporate? Disharmonize rather than harmonize? Rend apart rather than heal within?’ We must remember, ‘if two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, “Move from here!” and it will move.’ And there’s never been a better time to make peace in our house.” Another pause.

“Because there is something far more dangerous than our own bickering out there now that demands our attention. Those who want to talk about doctrines and rituals and five hundred years of contention might be too caught up in their own little worlds to recognize when something far more profound appears on the horizon. If we’re to find salvation, we must remember that ‘that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition.’ Thessalonians 2:3. He who encourages that ‘noisy gong,’ that ‘clanging cymbal’ revealed. He who delights in our own disunion. He who so desperately needs to keep our house divided. For if we were to unite, he would have no hope of defeating us.

“He’s an old foe in a new garb, still intent on his holy war. Who am I talking about?”

A murmur swept through the hall, all of those listening once again too well prepared not to understand whom Conroy meant.

“And he has the audacity to call us godless.” He paused once more. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. I think it’s time to let the colonel tell you all about that, and the wonderful work he and his Faith Alliance are planning.” Conroy turned to him. “It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you, Colonel Nigel Harris.”

The audience erupted as Harris stepped to the podium to shake Conroy’s hand. The man had set him up masterfully. The audience was primed. Harris only hoped that the other ministries the contessa had scheduled would make his job as easy.

Eeema, Eeema, Ayo.

Black smoke.

From his perch on a balcony above the Arco della Campane, Kleist watched as the mass of humanity let out a collective groan. The second vote of the morning. He could only imagine the cardinal’s mood right now.

They had taken the girl last night in Berlin, centrally located enough so that the story had hit most of the European papers and television shows by midmorning. Maybe not early enough. Kleist had to hope that the news would find its way to the appropriate ears by the afternoon vote, for his own sake, if not for von Neurath’s.

Even so, they’d already targeted a second child-in Sao Paulo, with enough traces left behind at the scene to point a finger at yet one more of the soon-to-be-infamous groups out of the Middle East. It would be sufficient to get the message across.

While he watched the horde pulse within St. Peter’s Square, Kleist pulled what looked to be a calculator from his jacket pocket, the device no bigger than his palm. He flipped open its lid, revealing a small screen with three or four buttons below. Using the tip of his pen, he began to tap out various instructions, file after file appearing then disappearing before he reached deep enough into the system to find what he wanted. He pressed one of the buttons; the hum of a phone line began to emanate from the device. Within a few seconds, it was dialing, the sound of a fax connection moments later. With another quick tap, the information on the screen began its cyberspace journey to the editors of Corriere della Serain Milan. Von Neurath’s choice. Something about completing the circle. Kleist hadn’t bothered to ask.

When the transmission was complete, he pulled up a second file, more information linked to the Syrian involvement with the Vatican Bank, various holes from the first file filled in, others made more ambiguous. This time, La Repubblicain Rome the destination. A third file for La Stampain Turin. Il Gazzetinoin Venice was the last to receive the anonymous tip. Together, the four papers would be able to piece together enough to make the story front-page news. And always with the name Arturo Ludovisi at its center.

Sacrificing one of their own for the sins of the many.

At least that was how von Neurath had explained it-the choice of words, thought Kleist, a clear indication that perhaps thirty years within the fold had affected the cardinal more than he realized.

No matter. By tonight, the entire world would be privy to the latest mind-bending catastrophe out of the Institute of Religious Works, a mere trickle of the deluge to come. But the bloodhounds would have to wait for at least a few more days. Time enough to place von Neurath on the papal throne.

And by that time, there’d be much bigger stories holding their attention.

Pen at the ready, Kleist stared at the delete command flashing up at him. For some reason, he was having trouble following von Neurath’s instructions to erase the files. He stood alone on the balcony, the room behind him empty. Still, he felt the need to glance over his shoulder. No one. Kleist looked back at the tiny screen, his pen once again poised above.

With a gentle tap, he reengaged the phone line. Another connection, this one somewhere in Barcelona. A second tap.

All four files went at once.

Von Neurath had given him a direct order.

The contessa, however, had always given him far more.

And she would understand.

“No, no. That’s more than enough.” Mendravic placed what he thought was the last bag of food in the back of the van, the woman at his side insisting he take one more. “We’ll be able to pick up what we need along the way,” he tried to explain.

“Not if someone’s looking for you,” she answered, and pushed the bag into his arms.

The woman was somewhere in her late forties. She held her hands atop two full hips, broad shoulders below an equally wide, if almost square, head. Her face, though, was that of a much younger woman, lovely pale skin, with bright blue eyes that peered over at Mendravic. Pearse sensed there was something of a history between them. Funny that he’d never thought to ask about that part of Salko’s life. Or any part of his life, come to think of it. An affinity built on circumstance.

“All right,” said Mendravic, smiling, “but if I take it, I get to take you, as well.” He bent over and placed the bag alongside the others in the van.

“You’d be so lucky. You barely fit inside the car yourself.” She reached underneath and pinched the middle of his stomach. “You’d probably make me sit in the back with all the food.”

“Would I do that?” Mendravic answered, still fiddling with the bags. “I’d have Ian drive. Then I’d show you what the back of this van is really good for.”

A mighty wallop landed on his back, the woman looking over at Pearse, the paleness of her skin unable to hide the hint of a blush.

“He didn’t mean that, Father,” she said, the red growing on her face.

“Oh yes he did,” said Mendravic, head still buried inside the van.

Another slap on the back.

She smiled. “Well, maybe he did.” And with that, she turned, giving Mendravic a final swat before heading back to the house. “But not likely it’s going to happen.”

Mendravic emerged from the van just in time to see her step to the door. “Poor woman doesn’t know what she’s missing, Ian,” he said, loudly enough for her to hear.

“Oh yes she does,” she answered, not bothering to look back. A moment later, she was gone.

Mendravic laughed to himself, then turned to Pearse, handing him the keys. “Lady friend or not, you drive. I’m tired.”

“I wanted to say good-bye to Petra and Ivo.”

“Of course. So do I. You wouldn’t be needing the back of the van, would you?”

“I can hit a lot harder than your friend can.”

“Does Petra know that?”

Pearse started to answer, only to find he had nothing to say. “Do we know where she is?”

“I said quarter to. Give her another five minutes.”

As if on cue, Petra emerged from the house, a pack on her shoulder. “Is he in the front?” she asked, tossing the pack into the back of the van.

“What are you doing?” asked Mendravic as he retrieved the pack and handed it to her.

“Getting ready to leave,” she answered.

“I thought we discussed this.”

“No, you told me what you wanted me to do. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided that we’re going with you.”

“I think that’s a mistake,” answered Mendravic.

“Yes, I know that’s what you think. And I think we’d be worse off staying here if they did get a trace on the place.” Again, she tried to toss the pack in; again, he stopped her.

“I told you this morning,” Mendravic’s tone more pointed, “they’d have been here by now.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Getting out of here is the only way to be sure.”

“She does have a point,” Pearse piped in.

The look from Mendravic was enough to stifle any other helpful comments.

“If it were just you, I’d understand,” Mendravic continued. “In fact, we’d be better off with you. But I’ve no interest in taking Ivo into God knows what. They might or might not show up here. Fine. But they’ll definitely be in Visegrad. That doesn’t seem like too difficult a choice to me.”

“Then you stay here.”

“You want me to …” His frustration was mounting. “Fine, then Ivo and I will stay here.”

“Ivo comes with me.”

Pearse had forgotten how the two of them approached “discussions.”

“You’re not making any sense here, Petra.”

“No. You’re just not understanding what I’m saying.”

“I understand perfectly well what-”

“No, you don’t.”

“Look, if you’re afraid of losing Ian again-” Mendravic stopped, realizing he’d overstepped the bounds. The ice in Petra’s eyes was all the confirmation he needed. “Try and understand,” he said, his tone less shrill. “My only concern here is Ivo.”

Petra held his gaze, the venom no less intense. She tossed her pack past him and into the van, then started for the front. “I’ll take him on my lap for the first part of the trip.” She opened the door, the cold stare replaced by a look of confusion. She turned to Mendravic. “Where is he?”

It took a moment for the question to register. “What?”

“Ivo. Where is he?”

“I thought he was in the house with you.”

An anxious look crossed her face. “I told you that he was coming out to help you with the car.”

Mendravic continued to stare at her, his eyes replaying an earlier conversation between them. “I thought-”

“He never came out?” she broke in, now looking past Mendravic to Pearse.

Pearse shook his head. “He must still be in the house.”

It was an obvious answer, but one that seemed to catch Petra completely by surprise. Without even so much as a nod, she raced back up the steps, shouting Ivo’s name as she went.

Clearly addled, Mendravic turned to Pearse. “I could have sworn she said-”

“I’m sure he’s just waiting for her.”

Mendravic nodded slowly.

“He’s not there,” she said when she reappeared. “I told you that he was coming outside-”

“I’m sure you did.” It was Pearse who spoke, trying to calm her. Strange, he thought, to have the roles reversed, Petra and Salko always so unflappable. Not that he didn’t understand their reaction, but somehow he trusted little Ivo, sensed that he was all right, no reason for panic to cloud the response.

“He’s probably just taken off on another adventure,” Pearse continued, waiting for Petra to turn and look at him. When she did, he said, “I’m sure he’s fine. We just have to find him.” Before she could answer, he added, “I’ll take the houses down this way, Salko can take the ones up that way, and you stay here in case he shows up.”

Petra listened, then nodded.

Mendravic was already halfway to the first house, shouting out a resonant “Ivo” every few steps; Pearse turned and began to do the same.

The streets were all but deserted, everyone either enjoying lunch or an early nap. The few who were out hadn’t seen the boy. Pearse was nearing the edge of the village, his faith in his own intuition dwindling, when he heard a voice from above.

“Little guy?” the voice said. Pearse looked up, to see a man sitting on his roof, various tools for repairing a leak scattered about. “Light brown hair, with a thousand questions?”

“That sounds like him,” said Pearse.

The man nodded. “He had to know what each one of these pieces was for,” he said, positioning a sheet of tin as he spoke. “Why I hadn’t made the roof better the first time. Why I was the only one who had to fix his roof. Turned out that all he really wanted to talk about was Pavle.” When Pearse continued to stare, the man said, “The boy who died yesterday.”

Pearse nodded. Evidently, their distraction hadn’t worked quite as well as they’d thought.

“You ask me, he was a little too curious. Things like that shouldn’t … Anyway. I finally told him to go find the hohxaif he was so interested. He went in maybe fifteen minutes ago.” The man nodded toward the holy man’s house.

Pearse thanked him and made his way to the edge of the village.

It was clear why the little hut stood off by itself. Smaller than the rest, it seemed overburdened by its own dilapidation, a rutted heap of veined stonework lumbering against the hillside, the right-hand side with a pronounced hump. The two windows on either side of the door seemed equally downtrodden, staring groggily out from behind a haze of dirt and dried rain, no indication as to when they’d last been cleaned. But it was the roof that looked most out of place, unlike anything he’d seen in the village, a misshapen dome atop four clumsy walls. A distant reminder of the church of San Bernardo, pious inelegance reduced here to a rural oafishness.

And yet, it retained an undeniable spirituality, a stillness amid a world trampling it underfoot.

Pearse stepped up to the small porch.

The door stood ajar, a faint light coming from inside, the odor of incense wafting out to greet him; he pushed through, uttering a hesitant “Hello.” The state of the windows made outside light an impossibility, a few candles here and there to bring the place to life-table, chairs, oaken chest lost to the shadows. Otherwise, the room slept in a kind of stasis, even the candlelight unwilling to flicker.

No response.

He moved farther in. He noticed a staircase along the left wall, uneven boards rammed into the stone, no railing, naked steps, barely wide enough for one. More light from above. He headed across the room and made his way up.

Reaching the second floor, he came upon the hohxaeating quietly in front of a flimsy wooden table, an equally ancient chair supporting what Pearse could only describe as one of the thinnest bodies he had ever seen. The man wore a brimless hat far back on his head, the panoply of colors having faded to a dull brown, a few threads of blue and red still visible at the crown. No less aged, a vest hung loose on his shoulders, a striped long-sleeved shirt-no collar-beneath. He kept his legs tucked neatly under the chair, his back and head stooped painfully over the bowl, a gnarled hand clutching at a wedge of bread that seemed more prop than meal. He squeezed at it repeatedly as he brought the spoon to his lips, always careful to scoop up the excess from his chin before plunging in for another helping. When the bowl was all but empty, he mopped the bread across the last few drops, then slowly began to gnaw at the soggy crust.

Only when Pearse had drawn to within a few feet of him did he look up.

“You’ve misplaced your boy,” he said.

“Yes,” Pearse answered, not exactly sure what protocol demanded.

“Nice little fellow,” said the hohxa. “Clever. You don’t seem too worried.”

Pearse realized he wasn’t. Again, no answer why. “I’m not.”

“Good. Do you want some soup? I have plenty.”

“Actually-”

“You want the boy.”

Pearse nodded. There was something oddly serene to the little man and his bread, much like his house, both broken beyond repair, yet somehow comfortable in their easy deterioration.

With significant effort, he pulled himself up, his back only marginally straighter, a quick adjustment of the hat as he shuffled to the far end of the room.

“You’re the priest, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m the priest.”

“Strange how it all comes together, isn’t it?”

Pearse had no idea what the man meant; he nodded.

“It’s important for children to see this. You could learn something.” He slowly pulled back the edge of a curtain to reveal a tiny alcove, the smell of incense and camphor oil at once stronger. “This isn’t something to protect them from.”

Inside, Pavle’s body lay on a bier, shrouded under three large white linen sheets. At his side sat Ivo, hands in his lap, baseball in hands, his back to the curtain.

“He wanted to know,” said the holy man in a whisper. “And when they’re curious, you have to tell them.”

Pearse started in, but the hohxaheld his arm.

“We sat together for a while. He wanted to stay. I told him to come out and eat when he was ready.”

The hohxareleased his arm; Pearse pulled the curtain farther to the side and stepped into the alcove as the man returned to the table. As quietly as he could, Pearse crouched by Ivo’s side.

For perhaps half a minute, he said nothing. Ivo seemed content to sit, as well. “Pretty brave coming here by yourself,” Pearse said at last.

Ivo nodded, his eyes still on the covered body.

He wasn’t sure exactly what was holding the boy’s fascination, beyond the obvious. He decided not to press it. Another few seconds, and Ivo finally turned to him. “It’s different from last time.”

Pearse nodded slowly.

“When you don’t know someone,” said Ivo, looking back at the body, “it’s different.”

Petra evidently hadn’t told him everything about their stay in the country during the Mostar bombings. Again he waited.

“It doesn’t make me as sad this time. Is that bad?”

“I don’t think so,” said Pearse. “It doesn’t make me as sad, either.”

Ivo turned to him. “You didn’t know Radisav.”

“You’re right. I didn’t. But I’ve known other people. When your Mommy and Salko and I fought in the war.”

Ivo thought about it, then nodded. “I guess so. But you didn’t know Radisav.”

Pearse shook his head. “No, I didn’t know him.”

“It makes me sad when I think of him.”

Very hesitantly, Pearse placed his hand on Ivo’s shoulder. The two sat for several minutes. Finally, Ivo stood up. “It’s just different,” he said, clutching the ball in his left hand. With the other, he reached out to the shrouded body, placing his hand on it, a little boy’s need to touch.

Pearse’s natural instinct was to say a prayer. He quietly stood and crossed himself. Probably best, though, not to say a paternoster with a Muslim holy man nearby, especially given the events surrounding the young man’s death. For some reason, the image of Ivo’s outstretched hand reminded Pearse of the five-line couplets, the Ribadeneyra verse never too far from his thoughts, even at a moment like this. Somehow, the prayer seemed strangely appropriate.

With his eyes on Ivo, and not quite knowing why, Pearse began to speak the Latin, words for a young man he had known only in final whispers: “‘So do I stretch out my two hands toward You, all to be formed in the orbit of light.’” Ivo turned back and smiled. He took Pearse’s hand, then looked again at the body.

Ivo began to sing the Latin: “‘When I am sent to the contest with darkness, knowing that You can assist me in sight.’”

Pearse stopped. Ivo stopped as well, again the smile as he looked up at Pearse.

“I know that song,” Ivo said. “Salko sings it with me. ‘The fragrance of life is always within me, O living water, O child of light….’”

Pearse stared down at the little face, his body suddenly numb. His mind frozen.

Eeema, Eeema, Ayo.