"That isn't what I meant." Mazzare's voice was gentle, weary.
"It is not?"
"Where am I in all this?" Mazzare spoke quietly, pleading.
Mazarini placed a hand on his arm. "I am sorry, Padre. I do not know. I truly do not. No one is paying mind to such petty matters as religion. Or peace."
Silence fell. Mazarini made his excuses and retired to the presbytery's guest room.
* * *
Mazzare did not go to bed that night. Had anyone been up and about, they would have seen lights on in the church.
For a little while, at least, sitting in the presiding chair on the sanctuary—itself an anachronism in this century—he could be seen to be at peace. Over his shoulder, the crucifixion scene behind the tabernacle. In his lap, his well-worn rosary.
For some time after, sitting perfectly still, he stared across the sanctuary at the lectern, the missal open on it. Now he sat in a less composed fashion, his face closed and tight as he considered the sight of the book of liturgy.
And when he could bear that no longer, he simply stared, eyes unfocused, into the empty pews, his face candid in its misery as he awaited a dawn that had still not come when he turned off the lights and left the church.
* * *
Mazarini, as was his habit, arose before dawn and descended to find Mazzare, Heinzerling and the redoubtable Frau Hannelore Heinzerling in the kitchen.
Like breakfast tables since the dawn of time, there was little conversation among the adults while the children—three beefy little boys, the eldest about eight—chattered. Frau Heinzerling served up just about everything that it was possible to fry in heroic portions, and coffee and beer in similar quantities. Mazarini declined coffee and beer, but noted that Mazzare was drinking coffee like his life depended on it.
"You like coffee?" Mazarini tried to open some form of conversation once breakfast had gone down and Frau Heinzerling had rounded the boys up for school. St. Mary's, it seemed, was a rich parish to afford schooling for three children.
"Didn't sleep much, last night," was the mumbled reply.
Mazarini noted a peculiar expression on Heinzerling's face. Reproach for his former master, concern for the American priest—it was hard to tell.
Another gambit, then. "Perhaps we might discuss how I am to spend my time in Grantville?" Something was troubling Mazzare, it seemed, and Mazarini thought that perhaps a practical topic would concentrate his wits.
At that, Heinzerling rose from the table. "I will go and open the church for morning mass, ja?" he said, and left.
"Doesn't want to hear anything he'd have to report," said Mazzare. His voice was as tired as his face. "The man's torn."
"You are troubled?"
"Somewhat."
"I will not pry. Perhaps I might presume upon you for introductions to Grantville's notables? If I can do nothing else, I can at least be plying my trade."
"Already tried. I called Rebecca Stearns, but she's gone up to the school for the morning, I was told. Everyone else is out of town at the moment." With a sudden burst of vigor, Mazzare wrenched himself from his chair. "Come on, I'll give you the ten-dollar tour. Need some fresh air, anyway."
* * *
It was a fresh, bright September morning, the pale moon still showing in the west, the sun low in the east. The town of Grantville, seen only briefly the day before, had some intriguing novelty on every street and corner.
The architecture was odd; severely plain in some instances, strangely fanciful in others and here and there, bizarrely, echoing classical Rome. Tastes in ornamentation were radically different from his own.
Mazzare was clearly well known. Those up and about were, in the main, women and the elderly. Most with a greeting or a wave or a nod for the American priest.
Children he saw assembling to be taken to school, and the notion of schooling for all was explained to him. It was more than even the Jesuits attempted.
Then he saw the buses, and was startled almost out of his wits. He had read of the engine-vehicles of Grantville, but the first encounter was a shock. In that shock, he made the mistake of asking Mazzare how the engine worked.
Half an hour later, and dazed by the flood of information and the first genuine enthusiasm the American priest had evinced in his presence, Mazarini was, if no wiser about the operation of the internal combustion engine, at least ignorant in more detail than before.
Their walk had taken them down by the creek that ran through Grantville when the alarms began to sound. It began with a wail, somewhere between a wolf and night wind in a chimney-cowl.