The Sparrow (51 page)

Sandoz looked at him. The strange brown eyes were less disturbing to Supaari now; he was used to the tiny round iris and knew that Sandoz and the others did not see through some sorcery but in a normal way. "You are kind," Sandoz said at last.

"Someone will return before the end of Partan."

"Our hearts will be glad of it."

Supaari cast off and backed the powerboat around the dock, turning it into the southern channel toward the village of Lanjeri, where he had business to attend to. He looked back once before his boat rounded the bend and saw the foreigner still standing on the dock, a small black silhouette against the Kashan cliffside.

T
HE LONG EVENING
passed with George alternately sitting and pacing, sobbing suddenly and then laughing through the tears, telling Jimmy and Sofia stories of Anne and of their marriage, and then falling silent. It was almost impossible to go home to where Anne wasn't, but George finally moved to leave. Sofia burst into tears again, undone by memories of her widowed father's grief and by her own sadness and by the thought of losing Jimmy as George had lost Anne. Pressing George's hand against her belly, she said with fierce conviction, "You are this baby's grandfather. You will live with us." And held him until the crying stopped and got him into the bed Jimmy made up. The two of them watched over George until at last he slept.

"I'm all right," Sofia whispered to Jimmy then. "See about Emilio. It was bad, Jimmy. You can't imagine. It was terrible."

Jimmy nodded and kissed her and left to check on the priests, neither of whom had been seen for hours. Stooping to peer into their apartment, he saw how things were and motioned Marc outside. "D.W. would tell you to write up the damn report," Jimmy said very softly, stepping back to the far side of the terrace with Marc. "It can probably wait until tomorrow, if you don't feel up to it."

A fitful smile appeared on Marc's face, pale in the moonlight. He understood that he was being offered a good excuse to shirk his real duty, which was to comfort Emilio somehow. He regretted his own lack of pastoral experience. What could one say? Sandoz, he knew, had been prepared for the Father Superior's death, but Anne, too—a staggering blow, to lose them both at once, and horrifically. "Thank you. I shall write the report tonight. It will be good to have something to do."

Marc ducked into the apartment for his tablet, hesitated, and then picked up the Father Superior's, with its preprogrammed transmission codes; Yarbrough had shown him how to use it, knowing this day was coming. He looked to Sandoz, concerned that this practical reminder of D.W.'s passing would distress him, but Emilio seemed not to know Marc was in the room. Returning to the terrace, Marc told Jimmy quietly, "I shall be in Aycha's apartment." He turned back toward Sandoz and then faced Jimmy again, giving a small shrug.

Putting a hand on Marc's shoulder, Jimmy looked past him at Emilio sitting in the gloom. "It's okay. I'll see what I can do."

Jimmy went inside. For a while, he was as helpless as Marc had been, unable to imagine what was keeping Emilio from falling apart. The Irish weep and drink and sing and talk at a wake, so George's reaction had seemed normal and predictable to Jimmy, a kind of grief he understood. But this … You poor macho bastard, Jimmy thought suddenly, realizing that Sandoz probably just wanted some privacy so he could finally cry without witnesses and shame. Jimmy got to his feet but then hunkered down on his heels so he could see Emilio's face. "¿Quieres compañeros o estar solo?" he asked gently, to be sure before he left Sandoz alone.

"Soy solo."

Jimmy was almost out of the apartment before he caught the change in the verb and went back. "
Mírame
,
'mano
. Look at me!" he said, dropped down to Emilio's level again. He put his hands on Emilio's shoulders and shook him a little. From a great distance, Emilio's eyes came to him. "You are
not
alone, Emilio. Sofia loved them and I loved them, too. Do you hear me? Maybe not for so long, maybe not so deeply, but truly and well. We loved them, too." It was only then, saying it, that the reality of the deaths hit Jimmy, and no burden of stoicism dammed up his tears. Emilio's eyes closed and he turned his head away and then at last, Jimmy understood the rest of it. "Oh, Jesus. You're not alone, Emilio. I love you. Sofia loves you. And our kid's gonna need an uncle, man. You're not alone. You've still got us, right? Oh, Jesus," he said again, taking Sandoz in his arms. "That's better. Thank God! That's better …"

It was over sooner than Jimmy thought was good for him but at least there'd been some release. Jimmy waited until he thought the time was right and then, wiping his own eyes on his sleeve, lifted Sandoz to his feet. "Come on. No one sleeps alone tonight. You're coming with me." He steered Emilio out of the apartment and, voice roughened by tears, called to Robichaux, "Marc, you come on up to our place, too. No one sleeps alone tonight!"

W
HEN
J
IMMY BROUGHT
Emilio and Marc into the apartment, Sofia was still awake, dark eyes huge in her small face, lips and eyelids swollen. She had heard what her husband had called out to Marc and guessed what had given rise to it. Flooded with love, she thought to herself: I have chosen well. She watched, too worn out to help, as Jimmy cobbled together sleeping cushions for the two priests. Marc was subdued but fine. Emilio, she knew, was not fine but he was spent, and slept almost as soon as Jimmy covered him.

When everyone else was taken care of, Jimmy came to her and she took his hand, getting to her feet wearily. They walked out to their terrace and sat close together in the two-person glider George and Manuzhai had built, Sofia nestling under Jimmy's arm, her small hand on his thigh. Jimmy set the chair in motion and for a while, they rocked in companionable quiet. It was clouding up. Moons that had been bright only half an hour earlier were already reduced to hazy glowing disks in the sky. Sofia felt the baby move and drew Jimmy's hand to her belly and watched his face light up, his red-rimmed eyes unfocused as he listened with his fingers to the dance within her.

They spoke then, with the dear and ordinary intimacy of the well-married in the eye of a storm. George was doing okay, considering. Marc was getting his bearings. Emilio seemed stunned but had been able to cry a little.

"And you, Sofia? You look so tired," Jimmy said, worried about her and the child. My God, he thought suddenly. What will we do without Anne? What if the baby is breech? Please, God, let it be a girl, a tiny girl who takes after Sofia and my mom. An easy birth, please, God. And he wondered if they could get back home before the due date if the lander fuel could be manufactured soon enough. But he said, "Do you want to tell me about it tonight or wait until later?"

She had sworn she would never again keep anything from him. Her vow to herself and to him: she would not carry burdens alone. So she began, voice pitched low, to tell him of the past two days.

"S
ANDOZ?
I'
M SORRY.
" She watched him struggle awake, feeling terrible for waking him. "I'm sorry," she repeated as he sat up blinking.

Emilio looked around him, a little confused yet. Then his eyes opened wide and he asked anxiously, "D.W.?"

Sofia shook her head and shrugged. "It's only that I heard something a while ago. I'm probably being an alarmist, but Anne and D.W have been gone a long time. I think we should go find them."

Still thickheaded, he nodded agreeably: Sure, absolutely, if you say so. And looked around for his clothes, his hand dropping onto his discarded shirt, where he looked at it for a moment, as though he had no idea what to do with it. Finally, he seemed to come fully awake and Sofia said, "I'll wait outside."

As he dressed, she berated herself for timidity. "I should have gone out myself," she called. "I shouldn't have gotten you up." Emilio was showing the effects of broken nights spent nursing D.W. and needed all the sleep he could get during the day. She felt like a caricature of a pregnant woman, scared of noises, apt to burst into tears for no good reason. The early weeks of her pregnancy had been an embarrassing emotional roller coaster.

"No. It's okay. You did the right thing." A minute later, Sandoz appeared on the terrace, reasonably alert. He'd had perhaps four or five hours of sleep.

They went first to the
hampiy
and saw the cup with its dregs of soup. Stepping back outside, Sandoz looked around. "It's quiet out there," he drawled, squinty-eyed, like an old-time cinema cowboy. "Too quiet." He said it to make her laugh, and she smiled but wished she could see Anne and D.W. somewhere.

"They usually walk off that way." He waved vaguely toward the south. "You stay here. I can manage." D.W. was so thin now that Emilio could almost carry him alone. He and Anne could lock hands and make a sort of sling for him.

"No," Sofia said, practical even about her own emotional upheavals. "I'll only sit and worry. I may as well come." He looked at her doubtfully so she added, "It's all right. I feel fine. Really."

They were still north of the lander when they began to know something was wrong. The wind must have shifted because their first indication of what had happened was the odor, the unmistakable smell of blood. Emilio went to the lander and quietly opened the cargo door a few inches, enough to reach in and grab D.W.'s Winchester. "Get inside, lock the door and stay there," he told her. He checked to see that the rifle was loaded, that a round was in the chamber, and walked around the lander without looking back.

She was not sure what made her disobey the order. Maybe she was frightened to be alone and unknowing or simply determined not to shrink from whatever was waiting, but she followed him around the lander and saw then, as he did, the carnage, indistinct in the distance. Even from where they stood, some things were clear. Whatever Sandoz had thought to do with the rifle, it was too late now. Emilio turned, ashen, and saw her. "Stay here," he said, and this time she did as she was told, frozen by memories of her mother's corpse.

She watched Emilio move toward the bodies, saw the rifle fall from his hands, saw his head turn down and away. He looked back toward it all almost immediately, and she saw his hands rise toward his head as he stood, taking in the details. She knew suddenly that it was insupportable for him to be alone with this. I am Mendes, she thought, and she forced herself to go closer but stumbled at the sight of it, and fought nausea. Nimrod, she thought numbly. The hunter of Genesis, whose prey was man.

Emilio turned and saw her moving toward him again. She meant to pull him away from it or hold him, but before she could get closer, he said in a quiet level voice, "There are tarps and a shovel in the lander." He looked at her, eyes steady and dry, until finally she realized why he wanted her to leave. Craven, she walked back to the plane. When she returned, he was streaked and smeared and soaked with blood, and had laid the two bodies out, putting limbs in position. He wiped his gory hand on his shirt and then reached out to close the eyes, smooth the hair.