by Mark Rader
As they waited for the check, Paul lifted his head to the buildings flanking the square. All but a few of the windows were shuttered. In one, an old woman looked down, her fingers scratching the back of a gray cat. In another, a drooping ficus plant. And two windows over from that, a tall man with a shaved head standing beside a shorter man with uncombed Mediterranean curls, arm slung over his shoulder. Partners, clearly. A couple in love.
Paul decided to watch them; from this distance he could look and look. Shaved Head was talking passionately about something, his free hand whipping the air beside him. Curls nodded, but his gaze was unfocused and distant: he was somewhere else, as if hypnotized. For a while, Paul stared at the man’s vacant face; he decided there was an imbalance at work here. Curls had fallen out of love with Shaved Head but didn’t have the heart to tell him. But then, just as he’d convinced himself his theory was true, Curls snapped out of it and smiled. Shaved Head was saying something and laughing, and now Curls chuckled to himself, lips still closed. Encouraged, Shaved Head continued, free hand chopping the air like a cleaver, his face more expressive, until, finally, he got what he’d been after: Curls laughing, exposing a set of perfect teeth. Satisfied with this outcome, Shaved Head turned and kissed his partner’s ear, right smack in the middle. Then, as if to seal his victory, he thumped his partner’s chest twice with the hand hovering near his heart, and they turned away as if one unit and slipped out of sight.
For a while, Paul stared at the empty window. Then, as if hoping they might pop up elsewhere, he scanned the rest of the building, until he realized how silly that was. When he dropped his head, Britta was across the table watching him: one of her squinting, pitying looks. It lasted only a moment: caught, she guiltily glanced down at the table. But he’d seen what he’d seen. And she’d seen what she’d seen. The pity this time wasn’t for his recent suffering, all wrapped up in death. It was for what she would imagine must be going through the mind of her gay older brother—a stranger, she’d assume wrongly, to such intimacy—caught looking at two men in love.
According to their plan, it was still Britta’s day to call the shots, but when Paul asked if she wanted to see anything else this afternoon, she said, adamantly, that from now on they should only do Paul things. This trip was for him, not her, and who knew how he’d feel tomorrow. He didn’t protest. And he knew immediately where he wanted to go.
In the cab, Britta unfolded her map of Rome and laid it on her lap. Borghese Park was near the middle, in the shape of a green cartoon heart, if half of its left curve had dissolved away. But he didn’t study it like she did: he remembered it well enough, each area in his mind leading to the next like the verses of a song.
At Paul’s request, the driver dropped them off at Porta Pinciana, and they passed through the arched Roman gate, heading northeast down the hardpan paths, keeping to the edges for shade. In clearings, the sunlight was laser-bright, so he slipped his clip-on shades over his bifocals. When they arrived at the Galleria Borghese, Britta asked if he wanted to go inside, but he realized he didn’t—not here or anywhere. All he wanted to do was walk.
Everywhere he looked, he saw both what was here and what was missing, a kind of double vision. Near the zoo, a peacock strutted past them, its tail feathers lightly brushing the ground behind it like a regal broom, the descendant, no doubt, of the peacocks that had strutted around these paths forty years ago. At the edge of the duck pond beside the Temple of Asclepius, an Asian father and mother rowed their daughter to the middle of the pond, at which the girl, afraid of being so far from shore, began to cry—and he remembered how, once, he’d watched two teenaged boys rock their rented boat until it capsized and come walking out, white T-shirts soaked to transparency, laughing. Happy swamp monsters.
Over there, he told Britta, pointing to the lawn in front of the Villa Giulia, was where the hippies liked to hang out, smoking pot, napping on blankets, playing guitar, trying and failing to do headstands. Here by this fountain, a young man with a fifties pompadour, hopelessly out of style, always played the trumpet, curled in on himself like Miles Davis. And in this spot there once was a gelato stand; he could still remember the woman who did the scooping, a shy creature in her forties who was very pretty but for the tufts of dark hair on her chin.
And then, finally, they came to the spot he’d been guiding them toward all along: a span of close-cut grass beside the Fontana Rotunda, where he’d met Luca. He could see it all so vividly: the old men in vests and caps, hands clasped behind their backs; Luca crouched in his feline way, eyeing up his shot, red ball heavy in one hand like an alien egg, the other hand rubbing his jeans to wipe the sweat off. The wedge of tan skin this exposed between his jeans and the bottom of his T-shirt. How all this made his stomach contract, his heart quicken.
Tears rushed to his eyes but he blinked them away. “I used to play bocce with some local guys over there,” he said at last. But immediately he wished he hadn’t: it was such a meager thing to say. One of them became a close friend, he thought, trying out the words. His name was Luca. It was as if he were standing before a door, behind which was a pile of heavy boxes, pressing against it, his right hand on the doorknob. All he had to do was open it, a quick turn of the wrist. This whole trip is really about him.
“I remember you mentioning that once,” Britta said. She looked where he looked but saw nothing. “Neat.”
By the time they reached the puppet theater near the park’s other entrance, it was almost six. As if to ceremonially acknowledge the end of their walk, Britta treated them to pistachio gelatos and they dispatched them on a bench, wiping their lips and fingers with thin brown napkins.
“So,” she said, once they were finished. She set a comradely hand on his knee. “Anything else you want to see here?”
“Nope,” he said. He smiled to reassure her. “I think I got my fill.”
It was true: there was nothing more he wanted to see. And yet, as they returned to the apartment in another cab, and as he stood beside Britta while she bought two bottles of limoncello at a corner store, and as they sat for a while in silence in their apartment’s living room, both of them on their laptops, checking email, and then sat watching TV, Paul didn’t feel like a man who’d gotten his fill in the least. Anything but.
At quarter till eight, Britta announced that she was hungry again and suggested they grab dinner in Trastevere tonight instead of tomorrow: strike while the iron was hot. And though Paul didn’t feel exactly ready, or hungry, he agreed.
Twenty minutes later, they were sitting at a table outside a trattoria overlooking the Tiber River. The sun was setting, a pink sky softly glowing in the spaces between the peach and orange buildings before them, their windows on fire with reflected light. The air had cooled and was silky against his skin. From inside the restaurant came trickles of laughter and the sweet sound of a guitar, and along the river walk, little packs of tourists moved as unhurried as the water beside them. At dusk, it was as though the anxious creature that was Rome had decided to yawn, curl up in sunlight like a cat on a windowsill, and, finally, rest.
A reasonable person, Paul knew, would feel content right now: this morning’s collapse aside, everything had gone according to plan. He’d wanted to return one last time to Rome—and look, here he was. He’d wanted to visit his old student haunts and the places that reminded him of Luca and to remember things that only being here would dredge up. And that had happened too. After dinner tonight, he could direct their next driver to meander through the maze that was Trastevere until he found Luca’s apartment building, to stop at the Basilica di Santa Maria, where they’d gone for that walk. Tomorrow, body willing, he could ride out with Britta to Sperlonga, do his secret pilgrimage there.
Yes, he thought, sipping his sparkling water, I should feel grateful to be here. Leave it at that. And yet, what he felt blooming at the bottom of his throat was a pang of desperation so familiar he couldn’t help feeling a perverse fondness for it, despite the pain it caused. The questi
on wasn’t whether he’d gotten what he’d come for. It was whether it really mattered either way in the end.
Deep in his life’s routine, it had been easier to not question the path he was on. There was no time to; his duties led him forward like a horse. But sometimes, of course, the routine fell away and he became vulnerable. A feeling of fruitlessness would take hold. Sitting on his sofa on a Saturday afternoon, all his errands complete, no plans for the evening. Sick with the flu or a cold, his schedule and all its urgent demands suddenly beside the point. Sitting at a table on a beautiful night in Rome, thousands of miles from home, the usual rhythms of his life gone perfectly silent…
He knew he wasn’t alone in sometimes feeling that nothing he did really mattered in the end. Many people lost the thread at some point in their lives, usually after a loss. And it was during those times, so often, that they had turned to him, their pastor, for help. In his office at the church, he would listen to their heartbreak or their dilemma, asking questions when necessary. When it came time to respond, he would speak plainly, look them in the eyes. In whatever way seemed most appropriate to the person, he’d offered counsel, doing his best to remind them that, in a world that seemed void of meaning, void even of God, there was still, always, the call to love. Their job, above all else, was to love. And if they weren’t up to giving it, to accept what was given to them. No more, no less.
If someone asked directly for his intercession, he would push the chair from behind his desk to a spot beside them and pray on their behalf. Always he closed his eyes; sometimes he held their hand. Before they left, he would remind them to lean on friends and family and their community here at St. Iggy’s. Remind them that God wasn’t out there somewhere but here, all around them. Then he’d escort them to the front doors of the church, and if they asked for a hug, or just seemed to need one, that’s how he’d leave them.
There were many times, of course, that he’d felt insufficient to the task. That in retrospect he wished he’d done things differently. In some cases, even his best hadn’t mattered. The two suicides. Three, if you counted Tom McAllister’s overdose. But more often than not, his counsel, imperfect as it was, had seemed to offer people solace.
So why was he so bad at consoling himself?
By the time they finished dinner, night had fallen. The pink sky was now a rich dark blue, and the buildings now appeared vaguely medieval—a dramatic study in lantern light and shadows.
As they stood from their chairs, the bill paid, Britta asked if he might have any interest in walking back, at least partway. He took stock of how he felt and decided he did; though it was past his normal bedtime, after this morning’s long rest, he felt okay.
When they arrived at the apartment twenty minutes later, neither of them was ready for bed. Britta said she might read for a bit and picked up her true crime book, and Paul decided he might try reading too: Amalia had left them yesterday’s New York Times. But as he held the paper in his hands, he realized, as far as world news was concerned, he couldn’t care less.
As they’d walked, arms linked, along the river and over the bridge and then slipped into the narrow streets that would lead them west, he’d glanced over at his sister a few times and felt a surge of affection for her that nearly made him cry. Drunk on wine, as she often was at this hour, she wasn’t the steadiest walking partner. But he forgave her that.
Careful not to stare, he glanced at her now, sitting in a highbacked chair, her glasses halfway down the bridge of her nose, his recent caretaker. Growing up, it had been the opposite, of course: six years older, he’d been the one to look after her. When they’d go fishing at the lake, he’d grab the crook of her arm to keep her upright as they carefully descended the hill that led to their spot. The Saturday nights their parents went dancing, it was up to him to put her to bed, hum her to sleep. That dynamic had held into their early adulthood: after Ray, her first husband, left her, the kids still too young for school, she’d been bitter and desperate, and he’d supported her from five hundred miles away. Called her often, sent what little money he could spare. Prayed for her too, though she wouldn’t have cared much about that.
After Don came into the picture and saved her from her misery—he still thought of it that way, and maybe she did too—things had evened out. She was safe now, finally at home, and when they talked over the phone or visited, she assumed he was too. And sometimes that was true. As they settled deeper into their lives, they needed each other less—or at least this was what he’d come to believe. They checked in every month or so on the phone, caught each other up on news. They weren’t each other’s confidants, like some siblings were, usually a brother to a brother, a sister to a sister; it wasn’t quite like that. But she knew more about him, say, than their mother had. Not everything, but a lot.
Though she claimed she’d known he was gay as far back as the seventies, they’d talked about it only once, about fifteen years ago. It was the year Philadelphia had come out, a winter night; they were talking on the phone. Had he seen it yet? she asked. He had, he’d replied. And what had he thought? Loved it, he said. She told him she’d cried at the ending, that she kept playing the theme song by Bruce Springsteen on repeat. Yes, he said. I like it too. And then, out of the blue, she asked him.
Well, he answered after a moment, what do you think?
I’ve always assumed you were, she said, but you never actually said it.
I didn’t think I needed to, he replied.
Then silence.
Has that been hard for you? she continued.
What do you mean? he asked.
Always around guys, you know, in school?
I don’t think it was any harder or easier than it would have been anywhere else, he said.
She asked him if he’d ever had a crush on anyone, rather abruptly.
Of course, he said.
Yeah? she said. More than one?
Well, yeah. A few.
Like who? she asked.
He said she wouldn’t know who any of them were, so why bother naming names?
Oh, come on…tell me anyway, she said.
But here he’d balked. Her tone was all wrong for the moment: too proprietary, too slight. She didn’t think him capable of more than schoolboy crushes, and he wasn’t going to be fooled into convincing her otherwise.
I’m not sure how much I want to get into this, to be honest, he said.
Okay! she said, slightly taken aback. We don’t have to if you don’t want to.
Yeah, he said, trying to be polite now. I guess I don’t.
In the years since, she must have considered returning to the subject but, out of respect for his wishes, decided against it. Really, she would have thought, what was there to know? So he’d had crushes. And the crushes had names. So what? In matters of the heart she assumed he knew nothing of what he’d seen today in the square. That he was a virgin who’d put his desires in a jar on a shelf. Poor Paul, who’d done so much good, but who’d missed out on so much.
Of course she’d think this: he hadn’t told her anything about any of it on purpose. He didn’t want her pity. He wanted to prove to her, with his devotion, that he’d been right to serve the Church she’d long ago left. So he’d shown her the person he wanted her to see, the one who had chosen wisely and wouldn’t trouble her, instead of the person he really was. And if he wanted to, he could continue being that person for her, right up until the end. Take his secrets, as they say, to the grave.
When he said her name, she didn’t look up from her book.
“Hmm?”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Of course. What is it?” She closed her book on her finger, slowly looked his way.
“I want to tell you something.”
She set her book facedown on the armrest to give him her full attention. “Okay,” she said. “Shoot.”
And here it was. He hadn’t planned how to say it, so he would just say the first things that came to his mind. Just tell the
truth.
“I wanted to tell you why I’ve been so down lately. It’s more than you think.”
“Okay,” she said cautiously.
“I’ve been feeling a lot of regret. For things I didn’t do.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Like”—he took a breath—“not leaving the priesthood. And never having a partner.”
Blunt. Direct. But there it was.
She scooted an inch forward and frowned, still gauging him for sincerity. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” he said.
Her frown softened. Not pity, only concern. And then something on his face made her say, “Oh, Paul.”
He wasn’t crying yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time; he could feel his chest swelling, his sinuses thickening. Britta pulled her chair closer beside him, sat, and clasped her hand lightly on his forearm, a loving shackle.
“I always thought you liked your life at St. Iggy’s.”
“I did,” he said. “Some of the time, at least. But I always wondered if I might have been happier if I’d—” Here his voice broke.
Britta nodded and searched his face, a wince disguised as a soft smile. “How long have you felt this way?” she asked.
“Oh, you know. Thirty-five, forty years.”
She inhaled slightly, then nodded. “So why didn’t you do it, you think? If you wanted it so badly?”
His chest quivered when he exhaled. “I was afraid,” he said, “of what people would say, at first, at least. Back when it was more of a scandal. And I guess the older I got, the more I was afraid of where I’d end up if it didn’t work out.”
“It can be hard to meet someone,” she said. “For anybody. The most wonderful people in the world struggle to find love.”