by Peter Murphy
Cum Nimis Absurdum had, with all the weight of papal infallibility, condemned Rome’s Jews to yet more centuries of segregation and, as he walked the narrow streets, Patrick was always mindful of his share of inherited guilt. Davide Pontecorvo’s forefathers had come to Rome as slaves before the spread of Christianity and had lived at the edge of all that came and went since.
Davide was a friend of Giovanni’s and often came to the café where they talked and laughed about all that they remembered, sometimes slipping in and out of the old Giudeo-Romanesco. They’d known each other since that day in October 1943. Davide’s family had hidden in the Vatican and Giovanni’s father sent him over with food. They’d remained friends since. “We are Romans and we stick together, no matter who sets themselves up to rule over us.” Giovanni was proud of that and of the seven thousand who had been saved in monasteries and churches around the city.
The old man was busy with another customer so Patrick rummaged for a while, browsing the shelves of books stacked to the ceiling. Signore Pontecorvo’s family had been saving books from pilferers and pillagers for centuries, and even now most of the clientele were referred. Patrick felt at home there even though the old man always seemed to be overshadowed by the wings of death—not unlike John.
Giovanni had told him that most of the things the old man had loved had been taken from him, some forcefully and some by the slow gnawing of time, and now he could only find true solace amidst dusty old tomes that most people never knew about. And when it was time for Patrick to pay for his book and leave, the old man looked over his glasses and shook his head.
“Today, you do not pay.”
“Well that’s very kind of you, Signore, but I must.”
“Not today. Today is a happy day for you and I give you this as a gift.”
“That is very kind of you.”
“Kindness?” He smiled and wrapped R. H. Charles’ The Book of Enoch in brown paper, tied it with string and handed it to Patrick with a strange little smile on his face. “It is the only way for us all to live together.”
*
Dinner with John was far less pleasant. The news of the wider world had swirled in again and unsettled the old man. “They have finally withdrawn from Lebanon,” he remarked, with more than a touch of rancor. He wasn’t anti-Semitic; he was anti-war in all its shapes and forms.
“Do you not think, John, that it could be a goodwill gesture? You know, before Camp David? Maybe this time peace will be given a real chance.”
Patrick so wanted to believe that, even if it was too late for the dead and disfigured women and children in the refugee camps. They were the ones Jesus would have been most concerned about—the poor innocent pawns in a deadly game of tit for tat.
He didn’t want to dwell on that tonight and he wanted to change to subject. “It is an odd thing to think that Judaism was already here when word of Christ was spread. I can only assume that piqued a few popes along the way.”
“Yes,” John agreed. “And we must always feel a degree of shame about how the Church behaved back then.”
It was something Patrick’s uncle had written about. He too had shared in the guilt of Europe having once endorsed those who stood against the communists only to let the greater evil rise unchecked. “We sowed the seeds,” he had written, “and yet in a way, if one is to believe in what it says in the Bible, we were all just playing our parts in God’s grand plan.” Patrick was hesitant about accepting that but he had always been bothered by the god of the Old Testament. “A vicious, vengeful thing of man’s creation. And you can learn all you need to know about people by the gods they create,” his uncle had also remarked.
“We are, despite all that we know about ourselves, just prisoners of the past,” John continued. “But we can choose our guards far more carefully.”
Patrick didn’t respond. He knew the old Jesuit was worried. Bush and Cheney had won the Republican ticket, endorsed by the righteous and the rich. John had been less concerned under Clinton. “The kinder face of Imperialism,” he used to call it.
“If they win we will have a rising clamor for confronting those who do not share our Judeo-Christian view of the world.
“Soon,” he spoke again, thinking aloud, “our masters will once again convince us that we have a need to go to war with the Muslim world.”
They finished their meal in silence as John sat as though he was pondering the whisperings of the dead, and Patrick looked back along the road he had come.
He couldn’t hear the dead but he had read all they had left as warnings, crying out to the living, beseeching them to rid themselves of the devils they’d raised as gods. The culture of hate, they told him in a thousand different ways, made no sense. And the dead never spoke of vengeance. Never.
Perhaps it was because they were finally content.
*
Toward the end of September it was obvious; Mrs. Flanagan was giving up the ghost.
The doctors weren’t sure what was causing it, but she was failing right before their eyes. She told Jacinta what was going on. “I want to go and try to catch up on some of the time I missed out on with my Anthony. You understand, don’t you, Mrs. Boyle?”
Jacinta did but still felt she had to make some kind of argument for living. It was reflex. “But what about the rest of your family? Don’t you think they’ll be lost without you?”
“They’ve had me for all of their lives, but Anthony—he’s been alone all this time with no one to turn to.”
“Are you sure that’s how it works? Are you sure that you and Anthony will get to meet?”
“I am. When he got out of purgatory he came to see me instead of going on, don’t you see?”
“And he’s still waiting?”
“He is, indeed. He comes and talks to me every night as I’m falling asleep.”
If it had been anyone else she would have thought the dying woman was delusional, but Jacinta knew better. She raised her old friend’s hand to her lips and kissed it softly. “Well then, as long as you’re sure.”
“I am indeed, Mrs. Boyle, and let me thank you once again for all that you’ve done. I’d have had no peace if it wasn’t for you—and the holy Jesuit. But I have peace now and there’s nothing else I want from this life.”
She was good to her word and died a few days later. Jacinta went to the funeral and almost smiled. She wanted to tell Mrs. Flanagan’s family but she couldn’t. They would think she was going mad again. And after Mrs. Flanagan was laid to rest, Jacinta walked around the old graveyard to pay her respects to all that she knew there.
The whole world was different now and she wondered what they’d make of it. Nora would be happy that they finally closed Long Kesh. “It never did a bit of good,” she’d sniff, “except to make the people harder.” Jerry would agree with her. He always said it did wonders for IRA recruitment—something that always happened when governments treated people like terrorists.
Jacinta still missed them all, and that feeling lingered through the evening as she pottered around the large empty house where they all had lived. Things hadn’t always been rosy between them, but now she felt left behind—left alone to deal with whatever was going to happen with Danny.
“If you’re not too busy,” she said to her bedroom ceiling as she finally lay down to sleep, “maybe one of you could drop by and let me know what it is I’m supposed to do about him.”
She wasn’t surprised that it was Martin who came to see her. He’d always been so good to her but she couldn’t let on. “Well it took you long enough. And I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from that Jerry of mine?”
Jerry? He’s fine. He’s with his parents—they have a lot to catch up on.
“I’m sure they do.”
C’mon, Jass. The past is over. People move on. Besides, they’ll all be waiting for you when you get here.
“
Are you so sure I’ll be going there?”
Yes, I’m sure. You’ve already done all your suffering.
She was so happy to hear him say that. She’d always wanted to believe it but she could never be sure. The nuns had filled her head with guilt and all kinds of nonsense that never totally went away.
“Martin . . .” She hesitated. It wasn’t the type of thing she was used to asking people, even dead ones. “Why are you still here?” She assumed he would have been in the better place but, then again, he had gone and gotten himself cremated. “Are you not at peace?”
I’m fine, Jass. I’m just fulfilling an old promise.
“The one you made to Nora?”
Danny still phoned every other week and tried to sound as he did when he first got sober, but his mother could tell. “Is he going to be all right?”
Yes, Martin answered, the way he always did when she became concerned. Only he has a few more trials and tribulations to go.
*
Billie was sitting at the table when Danny got home, long and lean with her black dress clinging to her hips and waist. Her hair was still up but a few strands had escaped down the back of her neck. She had her pearl necklace on and played with it as she watched him come in. She had kicked her shoes off and poured herself a glass of wine.
They had an uneasy truce about that. He was trying to live and let live, and she was trying to let him. She’d explained her position: she was no longer an alcoholic. She may never have been. She did have a problem with cocaine but she’d left that behind. She understood how, in his reformed zeal, he could misunderstand but she really wanted him to be able to accept it.
She also told him that she still loved him and wanted to stay with him. She would understand if he couldn’t, but she really hoped he could.
“How was your meeting?”
“Fine. How was the show?”
“The art was beautiful, the crowd was happy, and my boss made a shit load of money. All in all, it was better than getting slapped by a frozen fish.”
She waited until he smiled and rose and put her arms around him. She didn’t kiss him in case she had wine on her lips. “Oh, Danny boy, you look like you have all the cares of the world on your shoulders.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not. Why don’t you go and relax. The hockey is still on. I could bring you a cup of tea.”
The Leafs were losing so he switched to the news and listened to the media’s veiled displeasure with the recent protests in Prague. Fifteen thousand had come out to decry the workings of the IMF and the World Bank, and the consensus of the panel of political experts was that they were malcontents, trouble makers, and probably communists, even in the city of the Velvet Revolution.
It was the same when they covered Temple Mount, except they used words like “terrorist” and “Islamist Extremists.”
It was the one thing that had really begun bothering him. People whose idea of a foreign vacation was a trip to Disney were forming opinions about the world through the narrow little window of their TVs, getting narrower and narrower. “It makes you realize that we’re so lucky to live in the best country in the world,” the panel would agree smugly, after serving up more and more doom and gloom. Danny had to change the channel again.
“Danny?” Billie returned with two cups of tea and settled at the opposite end of the couch. “I was talking about you with some people at the show. They’re musicians. Would you ever think of doing it again?”
“I’m too old for all that.”
“I don’t think so. I think you should sit down and write a few songs again and then, when you’re ready, you could meet these guys.”
“What would I write songs about?”
“You could sing about all the stuff that’s bothering you.”
“They’d just be dirges.”
“With the right sound they could be good, and I think it would be great for you.”
He looked directly at her for the first time in months. Age had been pecking at the corners of her eyes and around her lips but she still looked beautiful. She was still that woman who’d turned his head all those years ago in the Windsor. Only now she had far more depth. She’d learned all she needed to know about sorrow and failure and she had come through it all.
Not unlike himself. He reached for her hand and trembled as their fingers entwined.
*
As Christians everywhere rose to celebrate Christmas Eve, word came of the bombings. Churches all over Indonesia had been targeted.
“It’s only the beginning,” Karl warned them. He had been brooding for months over things he wouldn’t share with Miriam. That was why she insisted they go to Rome—to be with friends, her only family now.
“Perhaps,” John answered cautiously.
“The warning shots were fired when they attacked the Cole, Padre.”
“Or, perhaps that was just retaliation for our attacks on them. We did fire our missiles at them two years ago.”
“But this is a direct challenge. They killed seventeen of ours. We cannot allow that to go unanswered.”
“We have before. We let our only friend in the region attack the USS Liberty and kill twice as many. How do you differentiate between the two? Is it because the Islamists do not have influential lobbyists? Our elected representatives have always been available to the highest bidder and we did get our pieces of silver for each of the Liberty dead.”
“The world is full of dangerous men.”
“Yes, and we have elected those who will go hand in glove with the worst of them.”
“And what would you have us do, Padre?”
“I would have us select our enemies and our friends far more carefully.”
“Now boys,” Miriam had to interject. She was getting so tired of it all. “Can we not call a Christmas truce?”
Karl nodded, but John just turned and stared at her.
She knew that look. He was disappointed in her. He would think she had become what he once called “a selective liberal.” One of those who chose their outrage by gender, color and whatever was topical. “American Liberalism,” he had often said, “is nothing more than the yapping of domesticated dogs at the end of short leashes.”
It almost made her cry, something Patrick noticed.
Sometimes Patrick thought that Americans could be very trying, and Miriam was practically one of them now. He presumed it was because they’d all grown up watching westerns and liked to see themselves as the good guys. He heard them all around the city: “We liberated this place and look at how they treat us. We’re just walking wallets to them.”
There was some truth to it. The people of the Eternal City had learned how to survive no matter who was liberating them, and there was always somebody trying.
“Well.” He raised his glass. “A merry Christmas to us all.”
They raised their glasses but weren’t enthusiastic. The Year for the Culture of Peace had been far too hard on them all. He’d been a fool for ever getting his hopes up; he knew better by now. This life was never supposed to be anything but chaos and disorder. That was the challenge of it all. They weren’t supposed to just go along with it all—they were supposed to shun it and all its trappings and seek the solace of God.
He tried to focus on that as he walked home alone, but from every side street and from the old places, he could almost hear the whispers of dissent—still echoing through the Eternal City. Still decrying the way things were.
Chapter 5 – 2001
It all began with the barber, Pasquino,” Davide Pontecorvo began and settled back into his chair. Like all old men, he and Giovanni hashed and re-hashed the things they loved talking about.
“He was a tailor,” Giovanni interrupted, but Davide just shrugged and sighed. They’d been competing since they were kids. They both considered themselves exper
ts on their city. Giovanni even took Patrick aside one day to tell him, “Signore Pontecorvo, he knows what books tell him and that is a good thing, but Giovanni”—he paused to swell out a little—“he knows the people.”
They were sitting at the back of the café as it was far too cold to sit outside. It was a quiet day. There were very few tourists about and Romans could get on with their day-to-day in relative peace. Signore Pontecorvo visited on Mondays and Patrick was always welcome to join them.
“He was a barber.”
“Everyone knows that Pasquino make the robes for the bishops and the cardinals.”
“Then everyone is wrong.”
“Of course, everybody is wrong but you.” Giovanni looked over at Patrick to see which side he was on, but Davide held up his hand.
“He was a barber and every day he went to the Vatican to shave and cut the hair of the bishops and the cardinals. And because he was just a barber, they talked like he couldn’t understand them. Now Pasquino was a wise man and, for a while, he kept all that he heard to himself.” He paused to sip his Macchiato and to gauge Patrick’s face.
Giovanni had also told him that Signore Pontecorvo’s sister had been one of those who were taken that day in October. And her husband and her four-year-old boy. They were never seen again—not even after the war. “Gone,” Giovanni had explained as his face grew troubled. “Like smoke,” he’d added as he sat back and looked out at the piazza where people from all over the world walked in and out of the Pantheon.
“But the people,” Davide continued, “they know that a good barber always has news and came and asked him to tell them what was really going on. At first, he no want to say anything, but the people asked until he did.” He paused to see if Giovanni had any other corrections but he just nodded along in collusion.
“Then, Pasquino became the most famous barber in all of Rome because everyone wanted him to cut their hair so they could hear what he had to say. And then, after he died, the people named an old statue after him.”