The Fifth Gospel(89)
Helena places a hand on her cheek in dismay.
“You did everything you could,” I assure her. “Let me take it from here.”
Behind her, Maria Teresa is descending on us. I step away, but Sister Helena grabs my wrist and whispers, “She won’t let me watch Peter anymore.”
“Why not?”
“It scandalized her to have a gendarme come here. I’m trying to change her mind, but I’m so sorry, Father.”
Before I can answer, she is backing away. The prioress gives me a heavy look, then guides Sister Helena to the door. Six silhouettes peep down at me from convent windows as I return to Leo on the unlit road.
He veers down the path toward Lucio’s palace, asking me with a glance what Helena told me. But I motion him in the other direction.
“Where are we going?” Leo says.
“To my apartment.”
* * *
THE WINDOWS OF THE Belvedere Palace are still shot with light. Televisions flicker. The Argentine woman who married Signor Serra on the second floor is dancing in her kitchen. Before Leo and I reach the door, two teenagers loitering in a corner release from an embrace. I feel a spontaneous burst of happiness to be back here.
Home.
Inside the back door we find one of my neighbors sitting like a porter. “Father!” he cries, leaping to his feet.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Ambrosio is the all-hours computer repairman for the Holy See Internet Office.
He lowers his voice. “After the gendarmes stopped guarding the building, a few of us began taking turns.”
I give him a grateful clap on the arm. At least they believe Sister Helena.
Ambrosio asks if I’ve heard any more news, but I tell him no and quickly mount the stairs, not wanting to attract more notice. At the top floor, someone has replaced a broken lightbulb on the way to my apartment. More vigilance. When we reach my door, I kneel and inspect it. The strike plate looks untouched. There are no signs of damage to the door frame. I have the key, but I turn to Leo and say, “Know how to pick a lock?”
He smiles. “Better than you.”
We give it a crack, but the mechanism is old and scratchy. The pins don’t like to move.
“Embarrassing,” he says. “I used to be good at that.”
I step down the hall to the next apartment, where the brothers of the pharmacy live. This is what I’ve been afraid of.
“Where are you going?” Leo says.
I pull up the doormat.
“Damn,” he whispers, seeing it.
Since my parents first moved into the Belvedere Palace, this is where we’ve kept the spare key. Ours beneath the brothers’ mat, theirs beneath ours. But not anymore.
I turn and lift my own mat. The brothers’ key is still there. I rub my temples.
“How could someone know that?” Leo asks.
“Michael,” I murmur.
“What?”
“Michael Black told them.”
He told them where I live and how to get inside. Father was always forgetting his keys. Michael knew about the spare.
“I thought he was a friend of your family’s,” Leo says.