by David Perry
Yes. Orvieto had many secrets, and most of them still hiding in plain sight. Some of them buried in unmarked, unsanctified graves between here and Camorena. Even a priest could not be expected to give Christian burial to a Christian who murdered in the name of Mussolini, couldn’t he? Couldn’t he? After so many years?
Today, the memories came rushing back, and the name, Camorena.
Why? Why today did the incident whose memory still was barely scabbed over in Orvieto after more than seven decades come rushing back? Something had resurrected it, rolled back the stone of his carefully sequestered past to collide with his thoughts this day. His thoughts of Andrea.
Andrea.
Camorena.
He knew why the secret and his secret grief had returned. The photo. He saw it today as if for the first time. The photo from the crinkled newspaper reporting on Andrea’s jump from the cliff’s last year. He had never really looked closely at it before, at him. At him.
But today, he looked. He looked deep into the newsprint and for the first time he saw. He saw. He knew. He knew how—no, that he had always known, the how. But like a vision from above, for the first time looking at the photo accompanying that painful article, he had truly seen its subject, and he knew something more important than the how of last year. He knew who, and he knew why. Peering at the faded photo in newsprint had driven him deep into his cedar chest, flat on his stomach, pulling the ancient valise from under his bed, stuffed with photos from Orvieto’s past. Families and funerals and futilities. Finally, he had found it. The photo of a boy, at the funeral of his father. Carefully, he laid it next to the photo in the paper from last year, and he knew they were the same.
The grieving boy had become a killer of men, of many.
I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.
So much for the existence of a loving God. The sins of the father had indeed been visited upon the son, upon many mother’s sons.
How many people have died keeping this secret, he thought, and how did I not see it until now?
That whole dreadful winter of 1944 came pouring back into his brain, like slides dropped across his eyes. January 28, 1944, the bombing of the Bridge at Allerona just beyond Orvieto. March 24, 1944, the Ardeatine Massacre in Rome. March 29, 1944, the Camorena.
A trinity of horrors, whose connection had been kept secret until today. Today, when Don Bello made the connection between the faded photo under his bed and the picture in last year’s newspaper.
“The sins of the father…”
I will die with these secrets, mine and Orvieto’s, and my guilt, Don Bello thought, wrestling himself back to the present. Enough. Stop the vanity of such thoughts. You are a priest. Holding the confessions of seventy years worth of sins is not your cross, it’s your job. Pull yourself together.
And yet, some sins were difficult to forget. Forgiveness was easy. That was the job of the Almighty. But forgetting? That was the occupation of men. But Don Bello was the earpiece of the Almighty. He was supposed to be able to do both. Forgive and forget. The sins of a Nazi colonel? They were forgiven. The sins of a pregnant girl? They were forgiven. The sins of a fallen priest? They were forgiven.
But who would forgive the unforgivable? Who would forgive him? Who would forgive a priest who had refused to give Christian burial to a murderer?
Only God can forgive the sins I have cataloged, mine included. The sins flow over me, like waterfalls from a cliff, a cascade of human misery and desperation relieved by the sign of a cross, a few Hail Marys, and the obligatory Act of Contrition. They touch my stony face, weep down and disappear. Ego absolve. I absolve you. I absolve nothing. No one. All I do is prattle and dictate prayers. I’m not a priest. I’m a theological stenographer. I help no one. I couldn’t even help Andrea last year. Seventy years ago, I couldn’t save seven young boys whose only sin was believing that one day their home, Orvieto, might again be free.
“Don Bello?”
The priest looked up, but too late. The giant had entered silently and thrown himself at the Pastor of San Giovanale before he could stand.
“Help me!” he cried, and Don Bello enfolded the weeping man in his arms. “Help me! They have come for her.”
Don Bello rose and pulled his companion up with him. Forgiveness would have to wait.
CHAPTER L
What Child Is This?
Monday, December 23, 2013, 11:45 a.m., Orvieto
The woman’s screams led Lee, followed by Adriano, to a doorway one flight up from their own. Locked.
Shrieks punctuated by groans of unmistakable pain echoed through the empty corridor. This time, words accompanied them. “!يتدعاسم ءاجرل”
“That sounds like Arabic,” Adriano said.
“What does it mean?”
“Even I don’t speak Arabic. I just know the sound. Whatever it means, she’s in trouble. We’ll have to break it down.” Adriano was already pulling backward, ready to throw himself at the portal.
Lee grabbed his arm.
“What if there’s a murderer in there!”
Adriano opened his mouth to say something but nodded instead.
”!ءاجر .ملألا فقو ،هللا اي“
“We’ll have to risk it,” Adriano said. “Let’s roll.”
Just then, the front door three flights down burst open. Lee looked over the railing to hear two pair of footsteps pounding up the stairs, both taking the steps two at a time. Lee looked at Adriano and mouthed “I love you.” There was nowhere to go. Whatever was about to happen would be over in about twenty seconds. They held each other’s hands tightly and steeled themselves for conflict as the shadows dashing up the stairs crossed their faces and then materialized into two familiar faces.
“Grigori?”
“Luke!”
Rushing past them without a word, Grigori pulled out a Swiss flag-emblazoned key ring, and with practiced ease slipped one of its members into the lock. Nonetheless, the tumbler wouldn’t turn.
“Hurry, Grigori!” the German doctor urged frantically. “It may already be too late!”
“Back off, Doc,” Grigori snarled, pushing Luke backward with his substantial shoulder muscles. “I’m doing the best that I can! The lock is stuck.”
Suddenly, the door gave way and the quartet tumbled into the darkened apartment.
The young woman was lying on the bed in a pool of blood. The sheets congealed around her legs in a sticky cocoon. The young doctor was beside her instantly, and just as quickly shouting out orders that even the belligerent Grigori obeyed without hesitation.
“Get me as much hot water as you can, and towels. Schnell!”
For the next few minutes everything was purposeful chaos. Grigori and Luke tended to their patient as if slipping into previously practiced roles that even their obviously mutual antagonism could not prohibit. Lee and Adriano stood in the background like the lost tourists they were. Adriano tapped his husband on the shoulder and pointed. The wall opposite the bed held a bulletin board overflowing with a cacophony of content held intact by multi-colored push pins. Holy cards, a map of Italy dotted with Post-it notes, and a laminated sheet listing the sins from San Donato’s purgatory board in Bagnoregio, 1–90. Beneath it, a small desk groaned beneath an Arabic/Italian dictionary, an aging computer, printer, fax machine, and…
The stolen purgatory box.
“I’m beginning to think we should leave,” Adriano whispered to Lee.
“The apartment?”
“No. Orvieto.”
Just then, a sliver of light from the back of the apartment shot across the room. Everyone turned to its source. Clemente the cat padded in like a verger leading the principal celebrant.
“Am I too late?” sighed Don Bello, making a mysterious and panting appearance in the doorway to the kitchen. “How is she? How is Maryam? I brought my holy oils.”
“She’s lost a lot o
f blood,” Luke said, dropping his stethoscope into his pocket. “I can’t tell yet, but I think the baby’s umbilical cord may be wrapped around its neck and putting pressure on the mother as well.” The young doctor had a strange look on his face as he spoke, as if he repeating a diagnosis he had given before.
“I’d forgotten how steep those stairs were, and how low the ceiling,” said Don Bello. He leaned on Grigori as he gently descended into an armchair whose frame seemingly matched his own age. Clemente immediately jumped up into his lap and settled in for a nap, a kitty calm in the midst of chaos. “It’s been a long time since I used them.”
“A year,” Grigori stated flatly.
“Quite so.” The old cleric smiled with a pained melancholy. “Exactly, a year.”
“Don Bello, we need to get her to the hospital,” said Luke.
“We can’t go out the front door. They could be watching,” said Grigori.
“Watching? Who’s watching?” asked Adriano in alarm.
“Probably too late for that,” Luke said, ignoring Adriano’s query. “We could have been seen rushing into the apartment. What about Arnaud?”
“The Archbishop won’t bother us tonight,” said Don Bello. “It’s others I’m worried about.”
“ARRRRGGGHH!” Adriano howled, freezing everyone in place.
“Oh, my dear boys, I didn’t see you there,” said Don Bello, as if Adriano’s scream was as normal as breath. “Buon Natale.”
“What is going on here and where did you come from?” Adriano pressed, heaving from his outburst.
The room was silent except for Maryam’s moans. Luke started to speak but thought the better of it. Grigori opened his mouth, but Don Bello motioned for silence.
“Well?”
“I came from San Giovanale,” Don Bello said simply, folding his hands.
Adriano just stared at the old man.
“Through the basement.”
“We’re on the third floor,” Adriano said dryly.
“Oh, all right.” Don Bello surrendered with a slap of his palms to his sides. “I came up through the secret passage.”
“The secret passage,” said Lee, who was beginning to feel like a game piece in the penultimate move of Clue.
The elderly cleric just shrugged. “Grigori, get me a little something to revive my flagging spirits. I’ll need it if we’re going to retrace my steps. Can you find us some grappa?”
“Meowwww.”
“And some condensed milk for Clemente.”
“It’s been a while, but I think I remember where the stash is kept,” Grigori said blankly.
“Isn’t this your apartment?” Lee asked, remembering Grigori’s key ring. It was the priest who answered. “This is the apartment of Deacon Andrea Bernadone.”
Lee’s mouth opened, and closed.
CHAPTER LI
Black Market Art
Monday, December 23, 2013, 11:45 a.m., Vatican City
A phone rang in the Vatican Museum. The man who answered didn’t need caller ID to know who the call came from. How many black market purveyors of ancient Etruscan art had his direct line? Answer: only one. Only her.
“Buonoserra.”
“Buonoserra, Tua Eminenza. You received the shipment?”
The cardinal curator inhaled deeply. So typical a question from his caller. She knew that he had gotten everything. She also knew that he was getting ready to vest for the midday audience in St. Peter’s Basilica and didn’t have time for this call, which, of course, he would take. He also knew that she’d gotten what she was waiting for. The exchange was simultaneous.
“Si, Signora. Si. I have everything. And, as usual, it is of the highest quality. Unique. It has been a long time since we did business. I had forgotten the excellence of your work and the exquisite nature of your product.”
“You shouldn’t have.” The voice on the other end of the line obviously wasn’t interested in mindless pleasantries. “Save the flattery for grant applications.”
“Of course, of course. And, I trust you received your, paym—ah, your package as well?”
“Would we be having this cordial conversation now if I hadn’t?”
Good point, the Cardinal thought, frowning and chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Is there anything else?” He dared to push his caller as he looked at the clock. He was expected at the Pope’s anteroom in less than ten minutes. He didn’t want to be late. This was the new pope’s first Christmas season and everyone from the previous regime was on ice as thin as a communion wafer. Oiy. If this latest escapade ever became public, he’d be flattened just as surely.
“No, that is all. Good afternoon, Your Eminence.”
“Good afternoon. Buon Natale. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” said La Donna Volsini and hung up the phone.
Christ on a bike. What I don’t do for art. He rushed out to meet the Pope. Lucky him. All he had to do was bless people.
CHAPTER LII
Nativity of Truth
Monday, December 23, 2013, 2013, 3 p.m., Orvieto
Lee held his discovery tightly in his right hand and stood in the middle of the last place Deacon Andrea had called home.
The apartment looked like a crime scene.
Maybe it is…or was, Lee thought, fingering the piece of paper he’d discovered in Andrea’s desk. The silence was total. For a brief moment, it was just him, here in this place. He felt like a tomb raider. After three weeks of wondering about, obsessing about the young deacon, Lee was now alone in the room Andrea had left before he jumped. He remembered his own trip to the Golden Gate Bridge railing years before and wondered if Andrea had locked the door behind him. Turned on a night light, made the bed, put away the dishes. That’s what Lee had done. He closed his eyes against the memory. A sharp bang shook him from his thoughts and he wheeled around to see the trap door as it fell back against the tiled floor. A cloud of dust hung in the air like a mini atomic blast.
“A secret passage.” Adriano stated the obvious, pulling himself up from the hole in the kitchen floor.
Lee helped his husband out of the hole and stared back down a steeply sloping corridor cut from Orvieto’s ubiquitous tufo—the place from where Don Bello had mysteriously appeared and just as suddenly retreated, followed by Grigori and Dr. Luke gently carrying Maryam to the hospital.
“Where does it lead?” Lee brushed dust off his husband’s shoulders.
“I don’t know,” Adriano said, looking back. “I only walked about thirty feet down and then it splits into two different tunnels.”
“Hmmm,” was all Lee could manage, looking around the apartment. Maryam’s blouse and bloody bed clothes having been tossed aside, Clemente was now curled up at the foot of the bed, seemingly quite at home.
“OK, let’s review.” Adriano exhaled. “We just stumbled onto a pregnant refugee hiding in a dead man’s apartment.”
Lee shook his head in the affirmative, putting together the clues in his head.
“Complete with the James Bond-like appearance of a humpy Swiss Guard and a German doctor right out of central casting.”
Another nod.
“Oh, and the sudden appearance of Pandora’s box, last seen by us before it was mysteriously stolen from a semi-abandoned church in a town with three people.”
“Uh-huh,” Lee grunted.
“Have I missed anything?”
“Just this.” Lee put a neatly folded piece of printer paper into his husband’s hand.
“Peg’s missing blog post?”
“Bingo. While you’ve been playing Beneath the Planet of the Apes I’ve been going through Andrea’s desk. It was right there.”
“Anything useful?”
“Judge for yourself.”
Adriano read aloud.
Heresy, Homo-cide, and Homosexuality in a Small Italian Town
30 November, 2012—A Special Report from Lady Peg
Adriano put down the paper. “That’s the day that Andrea jumped.” �
��Yep. The day he got the ax by the Vatican. Keep going.”
In an extensive and exclusive interview given to this reporter, Archbishop Jean Claude Arnaud, senior prelate at the Vatican, said that a “cabal of homosexuals” exists at the heart of the Holy See, operating within steps of the Pope himself. In fact, in one of the more shocking revelations, at the epicenter of the carnal conspiracy are perverse and sexually adventurous members of the once pure and hitherto elite Swiss Guard, sworn to protect His Holiness to point of their own death. One of the Guards—a young “male” with ties to Orvieto, Grigori Morgarten—was forced to resign last year following scandalous revelations about his part in a bisexual prostitution ring operating out of the Swiss Guard barracks. Perhaps their new motto should be “Bisexual, as in buy me something and I’ll be sexual,” and they should be called “The Swish Guard.”
“Bitch!” they exclaimed as one.
“I cannot refute the claim that there is a hive of immorality and homosexual influence within the Church,” said Arnaud, alternating tears with prayers during our hour-long conversation. These revelations follow the shocking and controversial experiment at Orvieto’s storied church of Sant’Andrea earlier this month on All Souls Day, a display of radical ecumenicalism presided over by the pin-up girl for American Episcopalianism, “Vicar Vicky.” According to Arnaud, the femme fatale Episcopal priestess is beginning to exert a troubling and growing influence over the hitherto bastion of traditional morality, Bishop Gio Sancarlo. It is of some concern to Arnaud, and to hear him explain it, to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI.
“Yeah, right,” Adriano huffed, looking up from the page. “Ratzinger, the new Nazi pope and Arnaud as Bishop Goebbels.”
“Or Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader,” Lee agreed. “Don’t stop. It gets better. Or worse.”
Adriano continued.