At the very least, he wanted somebody to assure him that nobody else would die in that tight little circle in which he lived his life—not now, and not in the next few months, and maybe not ever, although he knew that was impossible. He was tired of the dying. He was more than tired of the nightmares he had of blood spreading out across the slate tiles of the walk in front of Tony Ross’s house.
2
Father Tibor Kasparian had come to a conclusion, over a long night of sitting in Bennis Hannaford’s apartment listening to a CD by a Portuguese neo-fado group called Madredeus. He could go on sitting by himself, feeling immobile and useless and hopeless and depressed, or he could get out and get on with his life, even if he didn’t yet know how he was supposed to get on with it. Looking back, he could see whole periods of immobility. When he had first made it out of the Soviet union , he had spent nearly six months in Israel. He had nothing against Israel, but he had been there by accident. It was the place he’d been able to find a safe haven in when he’d been without all his proper paperwork and not yet recognized as a dissident by the United States. He’d known from the start he wouldn’t be able to stay there. He had felt so leaden, he hadn’t been able to move himself to do anything about finding another place to go. He hadn’t even been able to deal with the American embassy, where he had contacts dedicated to getting him to New York. If it hadn’t been for those contacts, he might have stayed in the Middle East forever, or been sent back to Armenia when his ability to stall ran out. He’d been lucky. The contacts had had other contacts. He might not be moving, but they were. They sent him to Paris, where he proceeded to vegetate for another four months, going out every morning for coffee in a little café at the end of the block where his dismal small hotel took up the center, reading newspapers, wondering what he was supposed to do now that he no longer had to worry about being arrested at every minute of every day. It was only after they had finally gotten him to New York that he had begun to snap out of it. Even then, it had taken him weeks, and that peculiar energy that was New York’s alone, coupled with the friendship of a very nice young woman in blue hair and safety pins. He wondered what had happened to her. He’d always worried that the safety pins would infect, or that the holes in her skin that they were stuck through would, but they never seemed to, and she never mentioned them.
What he needed, Tibor decided, was to get back into a routine, and to begin planning his week in an ordinary way, including planning to celebrate the liturgy on Sunday. He was not sure what he would be able to do about that, but he thought there must be a way. They couldn’t use the church, but surely, throughout the history of Christianity there must have been many times when there was no church to use. There were a few large spaces on Ca-vanaugh Street: Lida Arkmanian’s living room; the first floor of Donna and Russ’s apartment. He would need permission from the bishop, but he thought he could get that without too much trouble. What he didn’t want was for the people of Cavanaugh Street to go looking for another church to celebrate in before this one was rebuilt. There was a very large Armenian community in Philadelphia. There were plenty of other churches. Tibor thought it would be the worst possible thing if the people of Cavanaugh Street had to go to them, instead of staying home, and behaving as if this nutcase did not exist.
He was up too early, so he waited. He took his shower and got dressed and spent half an hour on the computer, answering e-mail from people on RAM wanting to know how he was and what the progress was in finding the people who had blown up his church. Then Bennis’s little clock chimed—it was a beautiful thing, all polished brass and crystal dome so that you could see its works moving if you weren’t in need of the time—and he got his coat and went out to the landing.
He considered going upstairs to see if Gregor was coming to the Ararat for breakfast, but decided against it. Gregor always came to the Ararat for breakfast, usually with Bennis in tow. He could meet them both there. He listened for Grace’s harpsichord but didn’t hear it. Maybe she didn’t get up early. He was astounded at how fond he’d become of the sound of that instrument. It was much better for him than the neo-fado Portuguese group, and much less melancholy. He went downstairs and knocked on old George Tekemanian’s apartment.
Old George must have been standing just inside the door. Tibor still had his hand in the air to knock for the third time when the door opened and George nearly hopped into the hall, all enthusiasm and morning vigor.
“Father,” he said. “Father. I wasn’t expecting you. I thought Grace had come down and we’d go out to breakfast together.”