He pulses with emotion. “I don’t know.”
I take the printed sheet from my pocket and slide it across the table. “Did he ever say anything like this to you?”
It takes him only a few seconds to read. Then he slides it back in my direction, frowning. “No.”
“Do you think it could be something?”
He leans back and pours another glass. “Probably not.” His giant finger alights on the page, pointing to the date on the message. Two weeks ago.
I read the words a second time.
Dear Ugo,
Sorry to hear about that. From now on, though, I think you should ask someone else for help. I can recommend several other scriptural scholars who would be more than qualified to answer your questions. Let me know if you’re interested. Best of luck with the exhibit.
Alex
Below it is Ugo’s original message. The one I was replying to. These are the last words he ever wrote to me.
Fr. Alex—Something has come up. Urgent. Tried calling you, but no answer. Please contact me immediately, before word of this gets out. —Ugo
“He never said anything about this to you?” I say.
Simon shakes his head dolefully. “But trust me,” he says, “I’ll find out what’s happening.”
In his tone is a touch of Secretariat superiority. Stand by while we save the world.
“Who would’ve known you were staying at the apartment tonight?” I ask.
“Everyone at the nunciature knew I was flying back for the exhibit.” The nunciature: the Holy See embassy. “But,” he adds, “I didn’t tell them where I was staying.”
His tone suggests that this bothers him, too. The Vatican has a small phone book that lists the home and work numbers of most employees, including my own. But it provides no addresses.
“And how,” I ask, “could anyone have gotten from Castel Gandolfo to here so fast?”
Simon is a long time answering. He rolls the glass between his palms. Finally he says, “You’re probably right. They couldn’t have.”
And yet he says it without any relief, as if he’s just trying to assuage me.
Distant church bells toll ten PM. The change of shifts begins. We watch as guard patrols appear in their night fatigues, returning from duty, making the room repopulate like a tide pool. It becomes clear that this will be no refuge from the shocks of tonight. These men, while on duty, have heard the news trickle in from Castel Gandolfo. Simon and I are celebrities in a way we hadn’t anticipated.
The first man to sit down beside us is my old friend Leo. We met the spring of my third year of seminary, at the funeral after the only other murder I can remember on Vatican soil. A Swiss Guard had killed his commanding officer in this barracks before turning the service weapon on himself, and Leo was the first man on the scene that night. Mona and I nursed him through more than a year of recovery, including double dates with women who saw no upside in an underpaid foreigner who was bound by oath not to discuss the memory that haunted him. When Mona left, though, it was Leo who helped Simon tend to me. At his wedding to Sofia this spring, I was scheduled to officiate until Cardinal Ratzinger honored them by volunteering. Now, after years of heartache, we will both have sons. I’m gladdened to see his face tonight. Ours is a friendship of survivors.
Simon lifts his glass an inch, acknowledging Leo’s arrival. A handful of cadets follows their leader to our banquet table. Soon beer and wine make the rounds. Glasses clink. After hours of compulsory motionlessness, arms and mouths move with gusto. The men here usually speak in German, but they toggle to Italian so we can participate. Not realizing that we’re anything more than their leader’s friends, they begin asking each other questions that are grotesquely military.