Gospel (55 page)

But if Lucy had not gone then to the bar she would have seen an old acquaintance, the Man in the Cheap Suit, loitering in the lounge by the magazine stand. He was wearing something just as attractive today, but different: a plaid sports coat, a yellow shirt with a bolo tie with a turquoise Indian design on it, a pair of green golf trousers under that.

And Lucy could also have seen Rabbi Hersch carrying his suitcase into the lounge, his ticket in hand.

The rabbi spotted the Man in the Cheap Suit. He walked over to him:

“Had a feeling you were nearby. From what my friends were saying, you can be identified a mile off in that getup.”

The man looked up from his picture magazine, a topless European model his interest. “Hello, Rabbi. Funny seeing you in Rome. Didya get to see the pope?”

“Amusing, you're not. What are you doing here?”

PUGLIA

J
ULY
8
TH

O'Hanrahan had his little train vendor snack, a tin foil–wrapped package of dry biscuits, and a half-bottle of
acqua minerale
under his seat as the countryside of northern Campania, the feisty little province of Molise, and finally Puglia raced by.

When his train pulled into the Bari station, O'Hanrahan stared at the station sign and felt a tinge of affection for the old whitewashed city on the backside of modern Italy. Home of the Church of St. Nicholas, the 4th-Century Syrian Greek whose remains found their way to Bari. There was a butcher in his town whose appetites for young boys included chopping them into pieces and preserving them in brine. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, miraculously reassembled them. Best not to tell the kiddies the source of Santa Claus, O'Hanrahan mused with a smile.

Puglia, the land of Padre Pio, the Capuchin man of God! All along the Gargano, that inexplicable peninsula jutting into the Adriatic, O'Hanrahan had noticed the proud postcards of Pio displaying his stigmata. Remember that village high in the Gargano? The Greek-styled town of Monte Sant'Angelo, arranged like Santorini on the hillside, rows of white houses, the ubiquitous women in black patrolling the quiet streets. It is here that the Angel Michael appeared to some shepherds—what he said to them still remains a secret of the town.

(The usual stuff concerning the End Times.)

To prove he had been there, the Archangel left behind his red cape, on display in a cathedral in a cave beneath the town.

(No odder than the Virgin Mary dropping her girdle into St. Thomas's waiting hands, now on display in Lucca. Don't forget Joseph of Copertino, Patrick.)

St. Joseph of Copertino, the Flying Monk, laughed O'Hanrahan. He flew throughout the 1600s, observed by men of unimpeachable integrity, once before a group of doubting Lutherans, and severe Inquisition officials. Joseph would be struck by a vision of the beyond, fall into an ecstatic trance and levitate, once during an audience with the disbelieving Pope Urban VIII, who was then convinced.

… Ah, but there is a cure for Puglian nostalgia: Brindisi.

Brindisi, where the train was slowing to a stop, is sacrificed to the tourist-ferries-to-Greece racket. O'Hanrahan left the train and stood at the exit to the station and braced himself for the long haul, dragging his suitcase and his satchel. From the station to the port is an avenue of English and German signs—get your ferry tickets here, cheapest fare to Greece, gyp joints that announced a fixed-price menu for L. 5000 but don't you believe it. An Italian café owner accosting passersby, hawking them with a variety of languages: “American, yes? We love Americans here, special joost for you!” O'Hanrahan always hated that kind of thing. Reminded him of the world after the war, Europeans whoring for G.I. pocket change.

O'Hanrahan checked in at the terminal and booked his cabin on the
Argos,
the last one available. Then, with an afternoon to kill, he wandered along the seafront with an eye to having some wine; a perusal of displayed menus showed
turistico
prices were in effect. O'Hanrahan selected a café on the main drag so he could people-watch. The harbor was not exactly photogenic. The Brindisani … What was the adjective? Brindisani? Brindisese?… decided they should erect a monument to the Sailor, a giant concrete rudder, eight stories high.

Soon the wine arrived, the wine of the house but very good.

He sipped and enjoyed the mouthful. This is why I drink, he thought. This is what I cherish and misguidedly have all those other less successful drinks for, this: the sun, the blue sky, and gentle breeze, my work spread before me, around young people—and today, he couldn't even resent their youth and beauty—laughing, about to sail, all of us bound for foreign lands. O'Hanrahan complacently observed the pedestrian traffic to the ferries, the Eurobackpackers and the vacationers fool enough to holiday in Brindisi, sunning themselves near the marina. There's a pretty girl … California blonde, maybe Swedish. No, I think American. The way she uses her hands. You never had a girl like
that,
Paddy.

(You committed quite enough adultery for one man.)

And lookee there, thought Patrick, leaning forward, adjusting his glasses. There's an Italian beauty. Heh heh, she knows it too. Look at that disdain. Of course with the wolves in this country, walking around in a dress like that means 24-hours-a-day harassment. God, there's nothing like Mediterranean beauty … here today, gone by twenty-five. Enjoy it now,
carissima.
And look, there's Lucy—

“LUCY!” he cried, rising to his feet.

“Dr. O'Hanrahan,” she said, dragging her suitcase behind her, beaming. “So glad I found you!” She lumbered up to his café table. “I figured you'd be near the ferry terminal. It was the
Argos,
right?”

“What happened to good-bye forever?” He sat down dazed, wondering if she was a product of too much wine and sun.

“You remember what you were saying in Rome? I think you need an assistant. You said you needed one.”

He poured himself half a glass and tried to overcome his speechlessness. “Look, that's very kind, but I can get half a dozen assistants in Athens—”

“Yeah, but I know the background. You don't wanna break in a whole new person.”

O'Hanrahan eyed her carefully. No, no he didn't. In fact, welling up inside him was a happiness that now he wouldn't be alone, a joy in dispensing with that half-hearted, bolstering rhetoric about being an old man of theology, alone, misanthropic but uncompromised. That's all he ever really wanted: an audience who could appreciate him! A willing listener to chart the complex play of his mind! If Beatrice had just
listened
to him … But O'Hanrahan became aware he was smiling and he immediately looked down. Mustn't let Lucy Dantan think she can just walk all over the old man, nosiree.

“Don't you agree, sir, that breaking in a whole new person would be wasted time?”

“I'm not through breaking in
you.
” He waved to the waiter.
“Scusi. Un'altro bicchiere per la signorina, per favore.”
O'Hanrahan dictated to her seriously: “You're going to help me through this bottle.”

Out of breath from suitcase-dragging, she settled herself into the chair across from him, saying lightly, “I suppose it will please you to know I missed my flight yesterday because I had a bottle of wine that put me to sleep in the lounge.”

“Aprocryphal tales, not to be believed.”

“It's true, sir, a whole bottle. I was depressed. I suppose deep down I wasn't ready to go home. Wonder what my psychology-major roommate would make of that.”

The glass arrived. The waiter put it down in front of her and O'Hanrahan began to pour. “Greek, I can do. Secretarial skills, I got. A drinking buddy, I don't got.” He pushed the box of Winstons across the table. “Have a cigarette, Luce.”

She wasn't going to blink here. She had smoked intermittently at St. Eulalia's to the distress of the nuns, who looked at her with pitiful the-Virgin-Mary-is-watching-you eyes, eyes that looked upon the damned once so beloved of Our Lady.

“You gotta light?”

O'Hanrahan leaned across with his lighter. “Some ground rules,” he said, settling back into his chair. “You smoke. You drink. You don't lecture me about my health or my smoking or my drinking. You look pretty each day.”

She shrugged. “Inasmuch as I can look pretty.” As soon as she said it they both realized how automatic her self-put-downs were—

“And no more of that Catholic frump-talk either,” he snarled. “I'd take it from you if you were a frump, but you're not. You're a lovely young woman.”

But her face colored slightly from having been called out for her self-deprecations. It came from years of practice with Judy back in the Kimbark Street apartment: no,
I've
got the thighs of death, no,
I've
got the fattest behind, no,
I've
got less of a chance than you for going out …

“You're not listening, Miss Dantan,” said the professor. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“I'm supposed to look pretty.” Lucy suggested quickly, “Don't you think I ought to go book a ticket? I'm sure the ferry will be crowded.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn't count on getting a seat or a bunk. You'll be sleeping outside on the deck tonight, buying a ticket this late in the day.”

“Well then, I better go—”

“I'm not done with my ground rules. I don't want to see those insect glasses ever again. You got contacts, wear them. That lousy, welcome-mat, circus-tent sweater.”

She interrupted: “I got rid of it in Rome already.”

“No digestion reports. I don't care if you
drown
in your own diarrhea. I don't want to hear about it. Or periods.”

They sat there a moment, staring at each other.

“Whatever you say. Do I get to stop calling you Dr. O'Hanrahan and call you Patrick like Gabriel got to?” She added immediately: “Sir?”

“No.”

This was probably not the time to bring up sharing some credit on the eventual Matthias book with O'Hanrahan. And changing her thesis to a commentary on this very project. She would bide her time. “I accept your conditions,” she said. “Partner?” Her hand remained unshaken.

“A rather sudden and suspicious conversion. Perhaps you should break one of the Ten Commandments as a demonstration.”

Lucy adopted the deadpan she used when giving back smart remarks to her mother: “Hmmm. Shall I make a graven image?”

“You blush easy. That's another thing, no more blushing.”

Lucy stood up. “I'll work on it. After I get my ticket.”

He looked up at her innocently, ready for his confirmation photo. “Oh, but look! You haven't finished your wine yet.”

Lucy reached over and downed her glass in one, then grabbed
his
glass and downed it in one gulp as well.

“I'll be back,” she said.

Lucy got her ticket tediously enough, and soon the afternoon and two more bottles with O'Hanrahan were also gone and Lucy found herself staggering onto a gangway, onto a ferry, someone taking her ticket, someone checking her passport, someone directing her to the upper deck, where she was going to spend the night. And at some point, after what seemed an endless wait with much folderol on the dock, yelling sailors, and lines being thrown and taken in, portly corrupt officials going on and off the ship, the S.S.
Argos
backed slowly from the pier and began a slow turn to the east. To Greece!

Lucy propped herself up at the rail, looking back on Brindisi, squinting at the intense streak of orange sun on the water, a sun that would soon set behind the olive groves and red earth of Puglia.

O'Hanrahan appeared. He proferred her a cup of strong espresso—a double. “Brought you something.”

Feeling guilty, she figured, for intoxicating his new partner. Lucy took it and sipped the bitter brew.

“It's going to be a clear night, at least,” O'Hanrahan said, looking eastward. “You won't get rained on.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“In my first-class cabin, going over my notes.”

Lucy noticed the duty-free whiskey in a duty-free shopping bag. He was probably going to familiarize himself with that too. Poor man.

“You feeling all right after all the wine?” he asked, not exactly strained with concern. “A little tipsiness is a plus on a boat. If it gets rough, you just rock along with it.”

“It's not going to be rough, is it? I mean, is the Adriatic rough?”

O'Hanrahan calmed her—he had a new partner who was scared that luxury liner Mediterranean ferries were going to sink. What was she going to think of the West Bank? “Nope, almost never,” he said, fatherly. “Never known this sea to be rough. But you want a little rocking,” he added. “It's like the cradle. You never sleep better than at sea.”

“In Rome you called this ship a rustbucket…”

He winced. “Ignore lots of what I say. I give you permission.”

And soon they were a mile into the Adriatic, up to speed, Brindisi receding now, mingling with the dirty trail of the smokestack behind them. And the sea was wonderfully calm as it often is in the summer, glassy smooth, reflecting for a long twilight the dull violet of the sky. Then the night asserted itself, and the Evening Star revealed herself and soon others.

“I guess that's it for me,” said O'Hanrahan some hours later, encountering Lucy again on the deck. He was yawning, and Lucy detected the faint aroma of licorice from whatever he was drinking.

“I've never slept outside before,” she said.

“Not even in Campfire Girls?”

“My mother wouldn't let me be in those things, because the neighborhood was a bit rough. Rumors that the girls smoked cigarettes.”

“You would have corrupted them all, Sister Lucy.”