The Fifth Gospel(8)
A gendarme comes by, taking pictures of footprints in the mud. There are police everywhere in these gardens now. But my eyes return to Ugo.
What is his special claim on my heart? His exhibit will make him, now posthumously, one of the most talked-about men in Rome, and I’ll be able to say I had a hand in that. But what won me over were his battle scars. The eyeglasses he never found time to repair. The holes in his shoes. The awkwardness that evaporated once he began talking about his great project. Even his neurotic, incurable drinking. Nothing on earth mattered to him except his exhibit, and on it he lavished every waking thought. He existed for its future. That, I realize, is the source of my feelings. To this exhibit, Ugo was a father.
Simon returns now, followed by the gendarme who questioned him. My brother’s eyes are blank and wet. I wait for him to say something. Instead it’s the officer who speaks.
“You may go now,” he says. “Fathers.”
But the body bag has just arrived. Neither of us moves. Two gendarmes lift Ugo on top of it and stretch the sides around him. The zipper makes a sound like velvet ripping. They begin to carry him off when Simon says, “Stop.”
The policemen turn.
Simon lifts a hand in the air and says:
“O Lord, incline Your ear.”
Both gendarmes lower the body bag. Everyone within earshot—every cop, every gardener, every man of every caste—reaches up to remove his hat.
“Humbly I ask,” Simon says, “that You show mercy on the soul of Your servant Ugolino Nogara, whom You commanded to pass out of this world into the region of peace and light. Let him be partaker with Your saints. Through Christ the Lord, amen.”
In my heart, I add those two essential Greek words, the most succinct and powerful of all Christian prayers.
Kyrie, eleison.
Lord, have mercy.
Hats return to heads. The bag rises once more. Wherever it is going, it goes.
There is an aching stillness between my ribs.
Ugo Nogara is gone.
WHEN WE REACH THE Fiat, Simon pops open the glove box and feels it out with his fingers. In a faint voice he says, “Where’s my pack of cigarettes?”
“I threw it away.”
The screen of my mobile phone says Sister Helena has called twice. Peter must be frantic with worry. But there isn’t enough service here to get a connection.
Simon scratches his neck needfully.
“We’ll get you some when we get back,” I tell him. “What happened back there?”
He breathes out the corner of his mouth, a plume of invisible smoke. I notice his right hand squeezing the top of his right thigh.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
He shakes his head but readjusts himself to make that leg more comfortable. His left hand reaches into the other sleeve of his cassock, dipping into the French cuffs that priests use like pockets. He’s looking for cigarettes again.
I turn the key. When the Fiat comes to life, I lean forward and kiss the rosary Mona hung from the rearview mirror long ago. “We’ll be home soon,” I say. “When you’re ready to talk, let me know.”
He nods but doesn’t speak. Drumming his fingers against his lips, he stares toward the clearing where Ugo lost his life.
* * *
WE COULD GET TO Rome faster driving elephants over the Alps. My father’s old Fiat is on its last cylinder, down from the original two. There are lawn mowers with more horsepower these days. The dial of the car stereo has rusted in place at 105 FM, Vatican Radio, which is broadcasting the rosary. Simon takes the string of beads off the mirror and begins to finger it. The voice on the radio says: Pontius Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, had Jesus scourged and handed him over to be crucified. Those words cue the usual prayers—an Our Father, ten Hail Marys, a Glory Be—and the prayers plunge Simon into faraway contemplation.