Precious Blood(16)

On the other side of the door, chains and locks rattled—not because they were being opened, but because Tibor never remembered to work them shut. The door slid inward and Tibor’s head popped out, coming no higher than the middle of Gregor’s chest. Gregor always had to remind himself that this was a man who had spent most of his life persecuted: in Soviet Armenia, in Siberia, in God knew where. Tibor had such quick dark eyes, such fundamental humor, such visceral optimism. Gregor had known upper-middle-class men with no more pain in their histories than the boredom brought on by too much leisure who had a less hopeful vision of the world than Tibor.

Tibor stepped back, drew the door in a little farther, and said, “I was looking out for spies. The street has been very quiet today, Krekor. I don’t like it.”

“Two of the spies are back at my place,” Gregor said, coming in from the cold. The weather was typical for late March in Philly, a steady half-frozen rain that turned to mud as soon as it hit the ground. “Bennis just gave me the third degree, and Donna is in my kitchen talking about, talking about—”

“Orgasms,” Tibor said. “Yes, I know. Donna and Bennis, they have been talking about orgasms for a week now.”

“Marvelous.”

Tibor shut the door and led Gregor toward the living room, down a narrow hallway crammed with boxes wrapped in plain brown paper. The boxes were full of clothes to be distributed at the homeless shelter Tibor’s friend, Father Ryan, was running in the basement of Our Lady, Queen of Angels Roman Catholic Church.

“Still,” Tibor said, “there is Lida Arkmanian to be considered. I haven’t seen her, and it is nearly noon. That is not normal, Krekor. Not on a day when you’re leaving town.”

“How is it that everyone in this place always knows when I’m leaving town?”

“Well, Krekor, that is only to be expected. Would you like me to make you some coffee?”

Gregor did not want to be made some coffee, especially not by Tibor. Tibor’s coffee was even worse than his own, and could only be made palatable by large doses of sugar. There would be no sugar in Tibor’s apartment during Lent. Gregor took a pile of books off the biggest chair in Tibor’s living room—the only one that would hold him, given his height and bulk—and sat down. The twenty minutes Bennis had taken out of him had made his time a little tight. He didn’t have the leeway he’d intended to have, to talk things over. And he needed to talk things over. He didn’t think he’d ever dealt with a man as exasperating as John Cardinal O’Bannion.

Tibor had disappeared momentarily. Now he came back, holding two cups of coffee, both steaming. He looked around this room that was really no more than a warehouse for an extraordinary number of books and a corkboard for news of the Soviet Bloc, and passed both cups to Gregor so he’d have his hands free to clear another chair. Books were the first thing Gregor had ever noticed about Father Tibor Kasparian. Tibor had books the way other people had dust.

Tibor pitched a six-volume collection of the complete works of Aristotle—in the original Greek, of course—off his rocking chair and sat down. “Look at this coffee,” he said. “I have a new machine for coffee. Hannah Krekorian gave it to me for Christmas. You put coffee in a little tray. Then you pour water through this funnel that is over the tray. Then the water comes through at the bottom and you have coffee.” He blushed suddenly. “Sometimes you have coffee, Krekor. Sometimes, I forget to put the little jug into the bottom, and the coffee goes all over the floor.”

Gregor gave the coffee a try. It was just as bad as Tibor’s usual. It might even have been worse. He put one cup down on the pile of books that were covering the table at his elbow and passed the other to Tibor. Hannah Krekorian had a lot to answer for, even without this.

“So,” Tibor said, “you are finally going to Colchester. It’s the middle of Lent, Krekor. How will you be able to keep your fast?”

The Eastern churches—Greek, Armenian, Russian, and the like—were on a different calendar than the Western ones. For Cavanaugh Street and Holy Trinity Church, Easter wouldn’t come this year until three weeks after the American one. This tended to be a boon for children, who weren’t required to fast and who often ended up with two sets of Easter baskets, chocolate bunnies and all.

For adults, it was different. No meat, no eggs, no cheese: as a child, Gregor had often thought that Lent had been named for the fact that lentils were the only thing you were allowed to eat while it was going on. In the years he’d lived away from here, in his entire adult life, he’d never kept the fast once. Now that he was back on Cavanaugh Street, he had to. Any other course would be a slap in Tibor’s face, and the faces of everybody else he cared about in the neighborhood. But he had to admit he was looking forward to Colchester on at least one count. He wanted red meat.