“Why not?”
“Do you remember what he said before he left? What you promised him?”
Peter nods, but he’s miserable.
Even as I hold him, I imagine my altar boys back in their dorm, spreading the news. I wonder how many people in this country have heard.
Mona is a hundred feet off, still watching. I should be angry with her. She shouldn’t be here; we made that decision together. But I understand the compulsion that brought her here. For a moment we stare at each other over Peter’s shoulder. She hovers on the hilltop like a vision. But then she raises a hand in the air, telling me that she’s leaving.
I prop Peter up and offer to take him for an Orange Fanta. It’s safer to go somewhere outside the walls than to risk staying here. Anyone we run into might know about Simon.
But Peter says, “Prozio has Orange Fanta. I want to go back to the palace.”
Lucio’s apartments. At his age, the place I dreaded most.
“You’re sure? You don’t want to go somewhere else?”
He shakes his head. “I want to play cards with Diego.”
He wraps his arms around my hips and squeezes.
“All right. Then that’s where we’ll go.”
He collects his soccer ball from under a bush to bring it home. Like all his toys, he has written his name all over it, for fear of losing it. He has no idea the confusion I feel. The inversion of everything I’ve known for so long. Mona so close by, and Simon so far.
“Let’s go,” I say, pointing to Lucio’s palace on the hill. “I’ll race you there.”
CHAPTER 21
THE WONDERS OF a child’s mind. Once Peter is engrossed in a game of scopa with Diego, Giorgio becomes a distant memory.
“Where is Simon really, Babbo?” he asks, just once, never moving his eyes from his cards.
“Talking to some people about Mister Nogara’s exhibit,” I say.
Peter nods as if this sounds important. “Diego,” he says, “can you deal again?”
While they play, I call Leo to see if he’s heard anything about Simon. There’s something in his voice when he answers, “Give me an hour. I think we’re onto something.” While I wait, an idea comes to me. I decide to slip inside Simon’s bedroom and see what he left behind.
The room is almost bare. The dresser and desktop are empty. His wallet and mobile phone were probably on him when he was taken away. Father’s old garment bag hangs alone in the closet. A note pinned to it in Diego’s hand tells Simon that he left it in the car-service sedan that drove him from the airport. My brother doesn’t seem to have touched it, but in one of the small outer pockets of the bag, I find a little brown booklet with a golden emblem of the papal tiara and keys. Below are the words PASSEPORT DIPLOMATIQUE. I open the cover.
On the right-hand page is a passport photo of Simon in his cassock. Stamped in red are the words SEGRETERIA DI STATO—RAPPORTI CON GLI STATI. Secretariat of State—Relations with States. My eyes skip to the handwritten calligraphy in Latin.
The Reverend Simon Andreou, Secretary Second Class, Secretariat of State. This passport is valid for five years until the day June 1, 2005.
The bottom is signed by the Secretary of State: D. Card. Boia.
I fan the pages forward to the visa section, the entry and exit stamps. No surprises here. Bulgaria, Turkey, and Italy. Nowhere else. Even the dates match up to visits I recall.
I keep fishing. Zipped into one of the inner plastic pockets of the garment bag is Simon’s day planner. Tucked inside it is an envelope addressed to Simon in familiar handwriting. The postmark is three weeks ago. Ugo mailed this to Simon at the nunciature just a few days before he wrote his final e-mail to me.