On the Third Day (30 page)

            The Bishop glanced up and smiled, wanly.  He nodded to the chair across the desk from him, and to the empty tumbler.  Donovan stepped inside and took the seat.  He glanced around the room.  Everything was much as he remembered it.  Books canted at odd angles from the myriad shelves.  Files awaited filing and letters awaited signing.  It was a comfortable chaos, and the corners of Donovan’s eyes stung with the bite of sudden tears.  He turned back to the bishop.

            “I never thought I’d be sitting alone in this room again,” Michaels said.  He grabbed his drink, swirled it in the tumbler, and then took a quick sip.   “I honestly didn’t expect to see Quentin in here again after this past weekend either, but I certainly didn’t want this.”

            He inclined his head in the direction of the cathedral and the coffin, the people and the memory’s that he couldn’t shake free of his mind.  He took another drink and lifted the bottle.  Without comment, and without glancing up to see if Donovan wanted it, he poured two fingers each into the two tumblers and screwed the cap back on the bottle.

            “Spent a lot of years in this office,” he said at last.  “Of course, it was neater then.  Polished.  I used to chide him about the appearance.  It seemed to me that if you were going to have an office where you met with members of the parish as the Vatican’s representative, that office should make the proper impression.

            Michaels took another drink, then said.  “He never listened to me.  Not on this, and not on much else.”

            Donovan studied the bishop’s features.  From a distance, in the cathedral, he’d seemed tired and harried.  Up close he looked almost skeletal, a caricature of his old self.  The lines of his features dug deeper into the flesh of his face than they had only a few short months before.  The bags under his eyes hung heavy and dark. 

            “You look like hell, Tony,” Donovan said.  “My God, when was the last time you slept?”

            “Three days,” the Bishop replied without thinking about it.  “Not in three days.  Not since…three days.”

            He took another drink, refilled his glass, and turned to see that Donovan had yet to touch his own.  With a shrug, he recapped the bottle and sat back with a heavy sigh.

            “Three days, Donovan.  You saw the videotape?  The new one?”

            Donovan nodded.  He’d watched it twice.

            “I saw what happened,” The Bishop replied.  “I saw what you did, and what he did.   It was real, wasn’t it?  All of it?”

            Donovan shook his head slightly.  He didn’t deny the bishop’s assertion was true, but his expression was troubled.

            “I just don’t know, Tony,” he said at last.  “I recall details, and vivid images, but there is so much I don’t remember, and so many other things that I
do
remember that aren’t on the tape.  It makes no sense.”

            “It doesn’t matter what you think you saw,” the bishop said.  “What is on that tape is enough.  I saw it, you saw it – I’ve seen it a hundred times since – the original of the tape had to be dubbed onto a fresh cartridge so I wouldn’t wear the damnable thing out.  You saw that tape, and still you doubt?”

            “I don’t doubt,” Donovan replied, “that something amazing took place.  I don’t doubt that in some way we all witnessed, and were a part of, something miraculous.  I just don’t remember it exactly the way the tape shows it.  I can’t verify what I don’t remember, and that is where my doubt lies.  I guess it’s in myself.”

            The bishop nodded, but his eyes were far away.  He downed his drink again and reached for the bottle.

            Donovan reached out and laid a hand on the older man’s wrist, stopping him from pouring.

            “What is this, Tony?” he asked.  “What are you doing?”

            Bishop Michaels didn’t release the bottle, and after a moment, Donovan let him finish pouring another drink.  He stared into its depths, gave it a swirl, and then turned to Father Prescott very suddenly.  His eyes were haunted.  They burned with intensity.

            “It’s funny, you know?” the Bishop said.  “I’ll know soon, and it’s all because of you – your presence, your investigation.  It’s sort of ironic that you’d be the one I’d see last before I got the answers I never asked for.”

            He fell silent a moment, but before Donovan could speak again, he continued.

             “It was you, Donovan, who wanted a miracle.  All I wanted was to grow old, to have my office, my church...to die in peace.  By tonight, I’ll know how much of it is a lie.”

            Donovan watched in silence as the bishop downed half of his drink absently and glanced to his bottle to be certain there was more where the one in hand had come from.

             “Tonight is the key.  Before it’s over, I’ll know what I have to look forward to, and possibly what I have to fear.”

             “I don’t understand,” Donovan said.  “What is special about tonight?  Easter Mass is long gone, and the services for Father Thomas are complete.  I was going to pass on Cardinal O’Brien’s hope that you’d take some time off and join him in Rome.”

             “I may do that, Donovan,” Bishop Michaels replied.  “I may well do that.  Tomorrow.  For now, I think I’d like to be alone.  You don’t need to wait for me – I know my way out.”

Still confused, Father Prescott stood, wavered a moment, then walked to the door.

             “You can shut that behind you, please,” Michaels called to him.  “I don’t want anyone else wandering in until this is over.”  He hesitated, and then said, “It’s the third day, Donovan.  Father Thomas died on the cross three days ago.”

            Donovan nodded.  He took the ornate doorknob in one hand and began to pull the door shut.  Just before the click that would cut the two of them off from one another, Bishop Michaels’ voice floated out to him.

             “Do you believe in God?”

            The door closed with a soft click, and Father Prescott’s footsteps echoed in the hall as he strode back to the world.

EPILOGUE

            Father Morrigan walked slowly along beside Father Prescott.  The streets were nearly deserted.  It was early evening, and the sun had already dropped beyond the skyline of the city, leaving long shadows stretching in all directions.  A few curious onlookers followed the pair of priests with their eyes, but neither wore more than the collar to show their office.

            Donovan watched the windows and alleys as they passed.  The further he walked down that street, the more surreal it became.  He knew it too well, had walked it a thousand times in his dreams, and he knew the eyes as well.  He knew the faces of those who had believed in him, and he heard their whispered voices even before they began to speak.

            Word spread quickly through the village, and Donovan had no doubt it would quickly reach Father Fernando’s ears at the chapel.  It didn’t matter.  He would be recognized soon enough.  Every time a face passed through the periphery of his vision, he was sure that he knew it.  Every time he heard the echo of a voice, he expected to know and understand it.

            Father Morrigan remained silent.  He’d asked his questions on the flight and the long drive after.  He’d gotten most of the answers he needed, though not all, but he knew they were near to the moment of understanding.  He was a little nervous, after hearing how things had gone on Father Prescott’s previous visit.  No one made any move to impede their progress, however, and before long the two of them stepped into the small square.

            It was a little dingier than Donovan remembered.  Without the words appearing in the soil, the statue of a long-dead martyr seemed to have lost most of its drawing power.  There were none of the faithful gathered and waiting to see if the ‘miracle’ would return. It was a quiet square in a village where half the inhabitants were settling in for the evening and the other half were preparing for the evening.  Somewhere in the middle the statue waited quietly, as if it had expected them all along.

            They crossed the square and Donovan stood for a long time staring at the statue. He knew it well enough; it had haunted his dreams, but he wanted this memory to supercede the others.  When he closed his eyes at night, if he were to be visited by the spirit of the martyr, Peter, he wanted this to be that visitation, and not his previous visit – or the moments in the Cathedral of San Marcos by the Sea.

            Donovan reached up and gripped the chain that had dangled about his neck since the day that Father Morrigan had tracked him down in the middle of the Peruvian jungle and delivered it.  He drew it from beneath his collar and held the small bag in his hand, studying it carefully.  He heard the Cardinal’s words, so long ago.  He traced a finger over the letters on the small pouch.  SPM.  He hadn’t understood, at first, what they stood for.  Now he did, and he thought that he knew why the relic had come into his possession – a reason beyond even the wisdom of the man who’d given it to him.

            SPM.  Saint Peter, Martyr.

            Donovan knelt in the dry soil of the square, directly in front of the statue.  Father Morrigan, uncertain what else to do, knelt beside him.  Donovan lowered his head, and he prayed.  He prayed for the parish in Peru and their bloody cross.  He prayed for the image of the virgin on the wall of the old barn, and he prayed for Peter, forgiving of his enemies, even unto death.  He held the small pouch reverently in his hands, and he did not look up until the soft crunch of earth to the opposite side of where Father Morrigan knelt told him he was not alone.

            “You’ve returned,” Father Fernando said.  His voice held no emotion.

            Donovan opened his eyes and met that dark stare.  He didn’t know what Father Fernando saw when he returned the gaze.  He didn’t know how he was thought of or remembered to the other man.  He knew what he had to do.

            “I wasn’t the only priest to visit here from Rome,” Donovan said at last.  “I don’t know when, or why, but another came before, and a long time ago – before he sent me here to investigate, he gave me this.”

            He held up the small pouch with its chain dangling over his palms, spilling toward the earth beneath them.  Father Fernando glanced at the pouch curiously, but showed no recognition.

            Father Prescott didn’t hesitate.  He took the small pouch gently in the fingers of both hands and worked at the seal.  It took only moments to open, and only when he had done so did Donovan speak again.

            The villagers had begun to gather at their backs now, inching closer, but remaining silent.  They didn’t know what was happening, or why, but they knew that it was important.

            Father Prescott upended the small pouch.  A trickle of dry soil, fine as dust after being pressed into the pouch for so long, poured from the lip and cascaded over the ground at the base of the statue.  There was no breeze, and Father Prescott held very still, watching as the dust struck the earth and spread in a small cloud.

            When the pouch was empty, he hung the chain about his neck once more.  Then, without a word, he dropped his head once again, and began to pray.  He didn’t pray in words, or fine phrases.  Instead, he allowed himself to grow very calm.  He cleared all thought from his mind; all the files and folders, questions and half-answers of a lifetime slipped down and out of him, into the soil.  Like the dust from the small pouch, he emptied himself of all he’d carried for so long.

            He had no idea how long he remained that way.  He didn’t open his eyes again until he heard two sharp intakes of breath.  One was Father Morrigan, and the other Father Fernando.  They didn’t speak.  They made no attempt to rouse him from his prayer, but he opened his eyes.

            The earth at the base of the statue was bathed in a strange light, and he smiled.  He did not wait to see the words form.  He didn’t look at Father Fernando, or at Brian, and he lowered his head as he passed through the gathered ranks of the villagers.  He knew what they would see.  He knew he had guessed correctly, and that was enough.

            Four words passed the lips of a hundred men, women and children that night, read from the dust at the feet of a half-forgotten saint.  They echoed on the faint evening breeze and drowned out his footsteps and he walked off into the night.