by David Perry
“I think anyone paying one euro to pray for people in a fantasy called purgatory is weird.”
“Not all of them have the Opus Dei thingie,” said Lee, who was now shuffling through the cards like a champion casino dealer. “Actually, most of them don’t. Just a few. Ah, here’s another with the seal. Read it for me.”
“Forty. Per quelle che confidate nella misericordia di Dio, facilmente peccarono. Forty. Per quelle che confidate nella misericordia di Dio, facil-mente peccarono”
“That’s strange,” Lee screwed up his face. “Why would they repeat the same petition twice?”
“You’re asking me, Reverend Mother?”
“What’s the translation?”
“For those that trusted in God’s mercy, easily they sinned.”
“Finish it.”
“Three. Per le anime di questa famiglia che ancora penanon in purgatorio. For the souls of this family that still languish in purgatory. Six. Per quelle che in vita loro ti hanno perseguitato. For those who in their lives have persecuted you.”
“Why would Luke be praying for stuff like that?” Lee asked.
“You don’t even know that Luke wrote these cards,” said Adriano. “Trust me, Luke isn’t the only member of Opus Dei in Italy, and I’m sure not the only one with that secret decoder ring of his.”
“This close to Orvieto?”
“There’s Archbishop Arnaud,” Lee observed. “Maybe Arnaud stamped them and Luke brought them here for some reason.”
Adriano just frowned. Somewhere in town, a telephone rang.
“Here, what about these two. There’s just one line on each card, and they don’t have the secret decoder ring Opus Dei stamp.”
“Eighteen. Per quelle che per i loro occhi troppo licenziosi patiscono. For those who suffer for the licentiousness of their eyes. Hey, honey, someone must have seen how you were looking at Grigori the other day in the garden.”
“Nice.” Lee smiled, ignoring the bull’s-eye. “How about the next one?”
“Twenty. Per quelle che sono castigate per i loro disordinate amori e desideri. For those who are punished for their disorderly love and desires. Ah! One for both of us! Homosexuals in purgatory! I’m so glad the Church thinks we can be saved!”
“Dante too,” said Lee straight-faced. “The Florentine sodomites he meets in The Inferno are quite the nicest sinners he meets along the way.”
“Hocus-pocus.” Adriano was already moving toward the door. “The whole religion, all religion, is one big scam. What are you doing?”
Lee had quietly knelt down in front of the purgatory board, picked up the pencil and was filling out a card. After a few seconds, he put down the pencil, folded the card, and slipped it into the slot.
Just then, the wooden door of the church crashed back on its hinges, followed by the feminine sound of hurried and clicking heels ricocheting toward them. A thin beam of moonlight projected the shadow onto their faces seconds before their visitor’s arrival.
“I have to go.” Clarissa Bernardone was frantically pulling on a coat and gloves and rushing toward them. Her visage was unsmiling, pale, and drawn tight across a face wrinkled in anxiety. All of the evening’s earlier cheerful hospitality had been completely banished from her features. “Something…ah…ah, it-a come up. I must-a go. Ciao, ciao. I leav-a key. Bye.”
She was halfway out the door of San Donato before Lee could toss the question at her.
“What about the bill? What about our breakfast?”
“What?”
She had the look of someone who had just been awakened by the news of a loved one’s death. Lee knew the look.
“Bill? No-a worry. Just-a talk to La Donna Volsini when you back in Orvieto. I getta the money from-a her. Someone-a come tomorrow morning to make you breakfast. They-a be-a here by eight o’clock. Ciao.” she said, and she was gone.
A few seconds later, he heard her running into La Torre dei Sigreti, then out again, then back in as if she’d forgotten something. Within two minutes, Adriano and Lee heard her aging Ape putter into life and surge through the abandoned square and careen toward the bridge leading away from Civita and into Bagnoregio proper.
They were alone.
“What was that about?” Lee asked in slack-jawed consternation, crossing himself and getting up from the kneeler in front of the purgatory board.
“I don’t know,” Adriano said. “Hey, what’s that on the sole of your shoe?”
“Did I step in something?” Lee asked, cringing. Not afraid of mice or rats, nonetheless he was squeamish when it came to dog, cat, or pigeon poop.
“Actually, yes.” Adriano smiled mysteriously. “That’s exactly what you’ve done. Stepped right into something.”
Lee lifted his left foot to see a name, thickly inscribed, in black waterproof ink on the rubber sole of his borrowed boot.
Diacono Andrea Bernardone.
Lee was walking in a dead man’s shoes.
CHAPTER XLV
Death Comes Knocking
Saturday, December 21, 2013, 9:03 p.m., the road from Rome
There are bad people in the world. They do bad things. They hurt people. They do not care. They have no fear of death but neither do they have a fear of life. They are. They breathe. They eat. They shit. Some kill for money. Some kill for sexual gratification. Some kill for revenge. Some call it justice.
Such a man was sitting in the back of the bus headed north from Rome this night, the nativity of winter. He had taken the local. There were few people on with him tonight, mostly students or workers headed out of town. No one would remember him. He could sleep at will and wake up fully loaded. Once, when he was in the service in Africa, he had shot a man within seconds of morning consciousness. He had dreamed of it, and on opening his eyes his target was there. That had been gratifying.
He had never been surprised or captured or tricked. He was well paid. He ate well, fucked well, and lived well. He spoke seven languages and was a fan of American cartoons. He read self-help books and Eastern philosophy. Once in a cave, a Sufi wise man had told him, “Hitler went to heaven. When you understand that, you will comprehend the reckless love and unfathomable forgiveness of God.”
He had killed the man then, a quick, painless snap of the neck. Take that, Adolf. He didn’t like hearing stories about Hitler. Amateur. Coward. Suicide.
Mussolini had come first: Il Duce del fascismo. Nay, Il CREATORE del fascismo.
The bus hit a pothole in the road, bumping his thoughts to another track, like a misfiring eight-track cassette player. He was proud of his work. His anonymous career had been widely documented but never proven in the pages of Le Monde, on the television affiliates of CNN, on the computer screens of Al Jazeera, and on internet sites—banned and reinstituted and rebanned around the planet—of the most degrading war sites imaginable.
The bus screeched to a halt, a deserted and graffiti-mocked stop just outside of the almost deserted town. Across the road, an “Amer---n Bar” sign winked its sporadic neon of lascivious Morse code. Brothel. A Nigerian prostitute, two months ago a teacher in Bengazi, leaned pathetically outside one of the doors. She caught his eye as he stepped from the bus. She smiled. He smiled back.
He would have preferred a boy tonight. After all, diversity was the spice, but, she would do. He walked toward the hotel. He’d need his sleep, but before, why not a bit of diversion. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.
The hooker shifted her stance in anticipation of her late-night client. She twirled a cheap crucifix between her breasts as the man approached. Perfect, the assassin thought, as he grabbed her by the waist and pushed her inside. Anyone wearing a cross deserved to die.
CHAPTER XLVI
The Tower of Secrets
Sunday, December 22, 2013, just after midnight, Civita di Bagnoregio
Adriano watched Clemente yawn, stretch his back, and settle in to observe the crime unfold with a bored but not totally disapproving nonchalance.
“You know this is
breaking and entering,” he scowled.
“We’re not breaking and we’ve already entered. We’re just looking. Hold the flashlight higher.”
Lee sat at Signora Bernardone’s small, tidy desk in the back room-cum-office for La Torre dei Segriti, B and B.
“I don’t know why you don’t just turn on the lights. There’s no one else in town,” Adriano huffed, surrendered now to his own curiosity despite moral and fearful misgivings.
“This building overlooks the valley. A light could be seen all the way from Lubriano. Plus, maybe Andrea’s mother was wrong. Maybe she forgot someone and there are others in town.”
“Meow!” Clemente padded in, purring like a furry Vespa-on-paws, and jumped into Adriano’s lap.
“See, only thee, me, Clemente, and an army of cats. What are we looking for anyway?”
“I don’t know,” said Lee. “Something. Anything. Hand me the flashlight.”
As Adriano reached for the torch, Clemente jumped to find a more suitable perch, landing smack in the middle of a precariously stacked tower of books that instantly went tumbling onto the floor.
“Jesus Christ!” Adriano roared, his exasperation fully unsheathed. “Now Andrea’s mother will know we’ve been snooping!”
“Shh… We can blame it on the cat, and well, that will be true. Nothing broke. It’s only an old album full of pictures. Hey, who’s this?”
Lee picked up one of the scattered photo pages.
“It’s Andrea,” said Adriano, taking the page.
“And Grigori.” Lee pointed to the photo’s second subject.
Andrea and Grigori were seated at a table at some seaside café, the young deacon in shorts and simple black T-shirt, Grigori in a bathing suit and, well, a smile. They were leaning away from each other, but underneath the table, Adriano could see that their feet were touching.
“Well, Andrea’s certainly not wearing clericals here,” said Adriano, handing back the photo.
“And Grigori’s not in uniform.”
“Uniform?”
Lee sighed. “Grigori is—was, I guess is more correct—a Swiss Guard for the Pope at the Vatican.” “How do you know?”
“You know too. You’ve seen the picture. Here. I’ll show you.” Lee whipped out his iPhone and googled. The search came up in the handheld’s memory: Swiss Guard Pope Benedict Communion.
“I called up the image right after that day working on the living Nativity when I got a close-up view, and whiff, of Grigori.
“It’s that picture from the program at the pope thingy you dragged me to,” said Adriano.
“Exactly. That’s Grigori, admittedly seven years and a few hundred workouts ago, taking Holy Communion from Pope Benedict.”
“Hmmmm. Well, maybe that rumor that Peg told you was true. Andrea and Grigori were lovers. I can see the headlines now. ‘Pope’s Bodyguard in Gay Love Triangle With Young Priest.’ Your Vatican press guy…”
“…Gorgeous George.”
“Yeah, even Roman Catholicism’s flack-in-chief would have been hard-pressed keeping that one under wraps.”
“Maybe he did before the story hit the media.”
“You mean, someone killed Andrea to keep this story from going public?” Adriano’s eyebrows were raised higher than a Vulcan’s.
“No. I mean a story with that headline, or the threat of one, might just be enough to have the Vatican intervene in the ordination of an idealistic young priest from Orvieto. And, that intervention might just be enough to push said priest over the edge. More to the point, to jump over the edge.”
Adriano started to speak but stopped. The subject of jumping from heights was one not lightly entered into during their marriage. If broached, Lee would have to initiate the conversation.
Lee picked up another page from the album, and another, and another, all laden with images of Andrea and Grigori together. There were photos at the beach—seemingly from the same day as the first one given their outfits, or in Grigori’s case, lack thereof—and in front of the Duomo in Orvieto (this time both of them in jeans and polo shirts). There was a black-and-white triptych of Andrea and Grigori, one of those vertical film strips taken in a coin-operated photo booth. The first two images were goofy and laughing. The third, taken a split-second later, showed Grigori’s face turning for what, obviously, would have been a kiss in frame four. As if to confirm the narrative even more completely, there was a photo of them both in the garments of their respective ranks, Grigori in full Swiss Guard attire standing at the entrance to the Vatican, unsmiling, rigid, on duty. Next to him stood Andrea in clericals.
Turning the page, Lee revealed an envelope stuffed to the point of bursting. On its cover was written three words: il purgatorio è la chiave.
“Purgatory is the key,” Adriano translated.
The couple looked at each other. The envelope was unsealed. They turned it on its end and watched the contents spill out.
File cards, dozens of file cards, just like the ones from the Church of San Donato next door, spilled onto the desk like entries from a ballot box. Plus, there were two other items, a folded map of the world and a final picture of Andrea and Grigori standing in front of the purgatory prayer board. Lee turned over the photo. There was a handwritten date: 30 Novembre 2012.
Andrea’s birthday. The day he jumped.
Lee was already rising from his chair and headed for the door.
“We’re going back to the church, aren’t we?” said Adriano. All his hopes of putting a stake through Lee’s paranoiac obsession with Andrea were now crushed. The gay Romeo & Juliet of Andrea and Grigori was once again a bad film noir plot. He watched with annoyed trepidation as Lee pushed all the cards, the photo, and the map back into the envelope, and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.
“Let’s go.”
The plaza of San Donato was now fully lit by moonlight, the intermission scrim of clouds completely retracted in anticipation of the second act with Adriano and Lee, the only actors on stage. Civita di Bagnoregio. Population: two humans, a cat named Clemente, and a supporting chorus of feline falsettos.
They opened the church door.
It is said that cemeteries are the most frightening things at night, but the ancient, moldy, and abandoned interior of San Donato ranked right up there. For once, Adriano didn’t push back against Lee’s dip into the holy water next to the entrance. Frankly, like the punchline to a dirty joke about fallen Irish nuns, he was ready to gargle with it. Opting for a quick splash, he held on to his husband’s coattail and tiptoed across the sanctuary toward the purgatory board, wondering as he did why the pretense of quiet. There was no one to wake, except the dead.
Santa Vittoria’s freeze-dried visage glowed brothel red in the shimmering reflections of a dozen glass-encased votive candles. Undoubtedly Clarissa, in her enigmatic haste to leave, had forgotten to extinguish them before her exit. Adriano wondered if they posed a fire danger. He’d take the risk. Rats didn’t like fire.
In the flickering rose of the candles, everything was as it has been, save one thing.
The box was gone.
CHAPTER XLVII
Time Grows Short
Sunday, December 22, 2013, late evening, Orvieto
For once, the smoke bothered Arnaud. His visitor’s cigarette was hand-rolled, and made of strong Egyptian tobacco. It was unfiltered and cloying, like the smell of freshly killed game. The scent of death.
The Archbishop clasped his hands tightly in front of him. He hoped his companion could not see that they were shaking in the darkness.
The man inhaled deeply of his cigarette, then casually dropped it onto the tapestry carpet of the Bishop’s office. Briefly, a flare destroyed a fourteenth-century motif before the man stamped it out, in no particular hurry. The Bishop said nothing. He would have to invent a story about an acolyte being clumsy with a candle to explain the damage or move the desk to cover the scar. That could wait. There were other things to be dealt with now.
Finally, th
e man spoke.
“Your Eminence, the package has not been delivered.”
“What do you mean?” Arnaud croaked.
“The girl. She has not arrived as promised.”
“Oh.”
“And one more thing. The box is missing.”
A foul puddle congealed on the floor underneath the desk. The Archbishop had wet himself.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Songs from the Grave
Monday, December 23, 2013, 8:10 am, Orvieto
Kiri Te Kanawa was singing.
“Happy birthday, dear one.” Lee turned up the volume on his iPhone and put the portable vocals next to Brian’s ashes on the bookcase.
Adriano saluted their friend with a lifted cup of cappuccino. “How old would he have been?”
“Ninety,” Lee said, lighting a special birthday candle in front of his best friend’s ashes and moving the Padre Pio battery-operated one to the side. Today required wax and wicks. Birthdays were special, and especially to Brian—his own, Lee’s, Adriano’s, the Queen’s. Every birthday required a morning of music, generally at an hour guaranteed to awaken the celebrant before he was ready. For the last three years of Brian’s life, living in Adriano and Lee’s downstairs guest room, birthday preludes included a full-throated and fully volumed recording of opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa singing “Happy Birthday” to Queen Elizabeth II during the opening ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia. A global audience of 1.5 billion people had tuned in to see Her Majesty receive her due in front of 80,000 spectators. Slightly fewer across San Francisco could hear the Kiwi icon belting it out when Brian turned up his speakers.
“Well, as Brian used to say about the Anglican Church, ‘If they do something twice, it’s a tradition.’”
“Exactly,” Lee agreed, somewhat distractedly. “And just because someone is dead doesn’t mean you cancel a tradition. All the more reason, actually, to continue it.” Why is it I’m always celebrating the birthdays of people now dead? he thought, but pushed it away. Adriano nodded in agreement and took a sip of his coffee.