“Do you want me to ask Brother Samuel for a pack you can smoke?” I ask as we climb the stairs.
Simon’s hand is shaking. “No, don’t wake him. I’ve got a stash inside somewhere.”
A second gendarme, passing us on the steps, can’t help noticing Simon’s bedraggled appearance. Out of respect, though, he looks away.
I stop.
“Officer,” I blurt, wheeling around on the stairs, “what are you doing here?”
From down the stairwell he looks up. He’s a cadet, with the eyes of a child.
“Fathers . . .” He kneads his service cap. “There was an incident.”
Simon frowns. “What do you mean, an incident?”
But I’m already racing up the stairs.
* * *
MY APARTMENT DOOR IS open. Three men are huddled in my living room. In the kitchen, a chair has been thrown on its back. A plate of food is shattered on the floor.
“Where’s Peter?” I shout. “Where’s my son?”
The men turn. They are Hospitaller Brothers from next door, still wearing white lab coats over black habits after a day of work at the pharmacy. One of them points down the hall toward the bedrooms. He says nothing.
I feel disoriented. In the hall, a credenza is overturned. The hardwood floor is littered with papers. Staring up at me, innocent and fragile, is my father’s icon of the Christ child. Its red clay frame has been smashed by the fall. From behind the bedroom door comes the sound of a woman sobbing.
Sister Helena.
I push open the bedroom door. They’re both here, huddled on the bed. Peter sits in Helena’s lap, cocooned in her crossed arms. Opposite them, on the bed where Simon slept as a boy, a gendarme is taking notes.
“. . . taller, I suppose,” she is saying, “but I never got a good look.”
The gendarme abruptly looks up at Simon, who has arrived behind me, giant and storm-swept.
“What happened?” I say, rushing forward. “Are you hurt?”
“Babbo!” Peter says, squirming out of her arms to reach me.
His face is pink and puffy. The moment he reaches my embrace, he begins crying again.
“Oh, thank heaven,” Sister Helena exclaims, rising from the bed to greet me.
Peter trembles in my arms. I pat him, searching for injuries.
“Unharmed,” Helena whispers.
“What’s going on?”
She places a hand over her mouth. The pouched skin beneath her eyes weakens. “A man,” she says. “Came inside.”
“What? When?”
“We were in the kitchen. Having dinner.”
“I don’t understand. How did he get in?”
“I don’t know. We heard him at the door. Then he was inside.”
I turn to the gendarme. “You caught him?”
“No. But we’re stopping everyone who tries to cross the border.”
I press Peter against me. The officer in the parking lot wasn’t checking permits, then.
“What did he want?” I ask him.