The west-facing windows have their shutters closed. Other rooms have their drapes opened, but the occupant in that one room wants no air at all. Wants no view of the Roman afternoon. I open my phone and dial the front desk.
“Sister, please connect me to three twenty-eight.”
“Just a moment.”
The phone rings without stop. Whoever’s up there doesn’t want to talk, either.
I hang up. The last car drives off from the gas station. The air becomes quiet again. A breeze snaps the Vatican flag on the pole above the Casa entrance.
I stand. With a feathery feeling in my chest I begin walking toward those doors.
AT THE DESK, THE nun surprises me.
“Welcome, Father. How are you?”
She says the words in Greek.
Instinct tells me to respond in the same tongue. “Very well, Sister. Thank you.”
“Are you enjoying your stay in our country?”
“Very much.”
“How may I help you?”
“Just returning to my room.” I flash my old room key and walk on.
But the security has been heightened since I left. A notice in the lobby says that each elevator will now serve only a specific floor of the building. I overhear the elevator operators asking passengers to show their keys before boarding the car.
I take the stairs instead. But just as I’m about to open the door to the third floor, a voice comes from overhead.
“Father, you’ve got the wrong floor. Up here.”
A Swiss Guard comes double-stepping down from the fourth-floor landing. Fortunately, we don’t know each other.
“May I see your key?” he says.
He seems to have been posted just outside the fire door.
When I show him, he nods. The key to the room Peter and I shared says 435.
“Follow me, Father,” he says in slow Italian. And with an exaggerated wave of the hand, he leads me upstairs.
* * *
THE FOURTH FLOOR BRIMS with activity. There are priests everywhere. I’m astonished. Every single one is dressed in Eastern attire. These must be Simon’s Orthodox. I count eleven of them standing in the hall. A twelfth priest opens his door, says something to a colleague outside, then turns back. His language is unfamiliar to me. Serbian? I wonder. Bulgarian?
Then it hits me: at least a few of these other priests must be Greek. The nun at the front desk, without knowing which country I came from, welcomed me in Greek. So Simon must’ve traveled there, too. He must’ve spread his invitations in the fatherland.
I wonder how many countries he visited in all. How many priests, from how many nations, are staying on this hall. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before.
I glance back at the Swiss Guard outside the fire door. Another thought settles over me. Only the pope controls the Swiss. Only John Paul and Nowak could’ve sent these soldiers here. They must know the scope of what Simon has done.
For a moment, all I can do is watch. The groups of priests form and re-form. Orthodox have no central power, no pope as Catholics do. The patriarch of Constantinople is their honorary leader, but really the Orthodox Church is a federation of national churches, many with patriarchs of their own. The mere idea of this kind of clerical democracy, with no bishop taking orders from any other, is a Catholic’s nightmare, a recipe for chaos. Yet for two thousand years, the bonds of tradition and communion have made Orthodox priests from every corner of Christendom into brothers. Even in the nervous atmosphere of this hallway, with its air of expectation, men cross boundaries and greet each other. They speak, sometimes fluently, sometimes haltingly, in one another’s languages. There are almost as many smiles as beards. I feel as if I’m witnessing the ancient Church, the world the apostles left behind. I feel strangely, deeply at home.