I sit in the first pew and offer my prayers. Then, to fill the silence, I talk to him. I tell him about his exhibit. I tell him what a success it was. I look at the coffin when I speak, but in my mind I am talking to the still-living Ugo, in whatever place he now finds himself.
Just before dark I hear someone enter the church. I turn and see Ugo’s assistant, Bachmeier. He takes a middle pew and prays for almost a quarter hour. When he’s done, he comes forward and puts a hand on my shoulder, taking me for the bereaved. Ugo thought this man never cared for him. Before Bachmeier goes, I thank him.
When he’s gone, the parish priest comes up to me. “Father,” he says, “you know you’re welcome to stay as long as you want. But if you’re waiting out the storm, I’m happy to lend you my umbrella.”
I explain that I won’t be leaving. That my brother will be here soon. The priest keeps me company a moment, asking how I knew Ugo, admitting that he didn’t know Ugo well himself. A funeral silence is so different from the silence of a baptism or wedding, so unlike the hush that builds with hope and expectation. To fill it, the pastor asks about my Greek rite, about the ring on my right hand. And though I don’t want to talk about it, we are all ambassadors for our churches and traditions. Married six years, I tell him. Eighth-generation Vatican priest, and my son’s only dream in the world is to be a professional footballer. He smiles. “Your cassock’s still wet,” he says. “May I dry it for you?”
I decline and let him drift away.
Midnight comes. The candles around the coffin burn their brightest. Suddenly the air behind me changes. The noise of the rain is dampened. Something large is blocking the sound. I recognize the way it makes the air part; I recognize the long strides of the quiet footfalls as they approach.
He kneels beside me. His silhouette is gold in the candlelight. My fingers grip the coffin rails. With one stabbing breath, he reaches his hands across the casket, as if to hold Ugo in his arms. Then he lowers his head against the wood and moans.
I watch his hand reach into his collar. His fingers remove the chain from around his neck. On the end of it, beside the Latin cross, is a ring. A bishop’s ring. He closes his palm around it and puts it on the casket. Then he turns and puts his hands on my shoulders. We clasp each other.
I whisper, “What did they do to you?”
He doesn’t hear me. His only answer is, “I’m so sorry.”
“Did they dismiss you?”
From the priesthood. From the only life we have ever known.
He answers, “Who gave Ugo’s eulogies?”
“No one. Nobody even knows he’s here.”
He clamps his fists together and presses them against his jaw. He rises and peers at the wood of the coffin. His gaze seems to stare down through it.
“Ugo,” he murmurs.
His voice is thin, the volume of a prayer, not a eulogy. I step back, giving him space. But the silence is so pure that I can hear even his shallow breaths, even the dry rasp before his words.
“You were wrong,” he says. “God didn’t abandon you. God didn’t let you fail.”
He bends over, almost stooping, the way I imagine he did long ago, finding our father on the floor after his heart attack. Wanting to cradle, to give comfort even in death. His words are stern but his hands reach out into the darkness tentatively, tenderly, seeming to find this wooden box so unyielding and cruel. Mighty the boundary that even these mighty hands can’t shatter. And I think, as I watch his great form lower itself to the edge of the coffin to whisper to his friend: how I love my brother. How impossible it will be to think of him as anything other than a priest.