The liaison ran the muzzle along the tent-top, as if cocking a tennis racquet for a serve. The fabric buzzed against the steel.
“Terremoto?” the officer asked. “Sono io il terremoto.”
Barb realized she hated the man. Whatever name she’d given her feelings before this, it hadn’t been nearly strong enough.
“Y’all want an earthquake?” Kahlberg went on — the dandy, the power freak. “You don’t understand, Fm the earthquake.” He stepped around the startled chaplain. “I’ll bury y’all so deep your Mama won’t know where to look.”
DiPio was the first to move, scuttling back into the corner beside the mother and Paul. The doctor held his neckwear as he went; he didn’t want it to rattle. Nonetheless by the time he reached Barbara, a white man in motion, the refugees had begun to allow themselves the same. The mountain-woman with the scarred chest eased herself and her discolored child back down off the riser, away from the weapon, and with her shifted the crowd’s center of gravity. The cave-dancers turned to sleepwalkers. Arms down and eyes averted, they backed around fallen chairs and reporters pushing forward.
Barbara hated this Lieutenant Major — now the creep would say he’d rescued her — but she had better things to worry about. One of the reporters had stepped between her and Kahlberg, raising a camera. These digital models made everyone an expert, and the PR man didn’t mind having his picture taken with a gun in his hand. Barb retightened her hold on her boy, not yet Paulie, and she tried to think. She remembered Silky’s huddle with his troops, before they’d left the Vomero; more than likely the blue-shirts were on their way already. The cavalry was coming, and the clandestini were running off The congregants found ways out all over the tent, their splashy outfits turning to shadows beyond the synthetic walls. The space grew airy and the bunting that hadn’t fallen dangled freely again. In five minutes the scene had changed from Armageddon to the End of the Prom.
Behind her the boy began to speak: Mom, come, come on, 1-let me go.
Then Jay showed up, bear-like and ready for trouble, under the far flap. Barbara made sure he had the kids with him, the girls in particular. The youngest in fact appeared to be the safest, bracketed between both their own older brothers and the NATO gunmen. Not that Dora and Syl took any time for Mama. For them, slack and moon-eyed, this was all about Paul. They’d heard what their brother had done, of course they had. The whole camp was on the network, no-secrets-dot-com. Barb’s husband however took in the scene more carefully. He looked over the puddles of torn and bunched drapery and the naked metal branches of the upended chairs. The wheelchair had wound up face-down against one nylon wall and the gypsy girl, up on her feet, kept whispering to the camerawoman. Finally, for a long, crook-necked moment, the Jaybird stared across the tent at his wife and middle child. When he at last spoke, he gave orders.
“Silky, hey. Lose the gun. Come on, man. Nothing happens till that happens.”
“You know the drill, big shooter.” The liaison sounded conversational. “Escalating situation.”
But he was already lowering the gun. After the iron was hidden once more under Kahlberg’s jacket, Barbara realized how her shoulders were aching. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep her arm around Paul.
Jay carried his arms loose at his sides, his chest up. A polar bear, in those whites. “Silky,” he said, “translate for me.”
Barb tugged her dress more into place. Why should the NATO man translate?
“Help me, Silky. You know the drill.”
What drill, and why Kahlberg? Barbara could handle the Italian for whatever the capo had to say. Then there was the chaplain, hardly brainless, though a little shaky still. His purple stole had somehow gotten knotted around his wrist.
Once the Jaybird began to speak, Barb didn’t catch every word. She needed to concentrate elsewhere, on the upheaval of her interior strata, the outrage and lingering panic and fresh suspicions. Jay’s voice came across the wrecked chapel as if via a transatlantic relay.
Hear me, my people! You know you can trust the Boss.
Around the still-steamy tent, the refugees turned towards the husband. Never mind that it was Kahlberg who spoke the language most of them understood. Here and there members of the congregation found a chair, almost reverent in how they looked up at Jay. The gypsy cut off her interview, shaking a finger.
With the Boss, there can be no question. And now you know his family.
Barbara’s only distraction was the doctor at her side, asking if there was pain.
Now you know about the Boss and you know his family. Everything is clear, and everything is good.
Chapter Five
“Signora, I do realize, your life seems to have confronted you with nothing but strangers. As if the very image in the mirror were a stranger.”
Seductively, or almost, the priest cocked an eyebrow.
“But at the head of the host,” he went on, “there’s Paul.”
“Yes.” She began to nod. “Paul.”
Cesare’s look turned sober again, and the mother stopped nodding. God knows, today’s visit must seem strange. It wasn’t a week yet since the Refugee Center, the second “healing episode,” and every evening before dinner Barbara had arranged for time with the old man. Today they occupied their usual pew, a couple of rows back from the altar to the New Age, and the priest lounged as comfortably as his robes allowed. Nonetheless this must’ve seemed like something different. Barb had come poking at the front intercom during the afternoon riposo, when even a rabble-rouser like Cesare shut up shop for a couple of hours. By the time the father answered the buzz she’d actually pulled off one of her flats, preparing to rap the heel on a window somewhere, and — a stranger to herself — she’d found herself leaking tears too.
She must’ve been a sight, through the viewing slot. She had to wonder, was this menopause? Was it time she took a serious look at the possibility?
What had brought her to the church today, wet-eyed and unshod and flushed from climbing, was hardly a tragedy. Her family excursion had been cut short, that’s all. In the morning Barb and the kids had headed out with the Lieutenant Major, him and his army, and then they’d come back early and liaison-free.
Cesare returned to his point. “I do realize that what I’ve asked of you and Paul, it might seem like overmuch, just now. The straw that broke the owl’s back.”
She reached to tug an armpit, then let her hand drop. “Oh, listen. The least I could expect was that you’d try to enlist us in your cause.”
“Well I won’t withdraw my request. I want you to stay on in Naples.”
Through the thin leather of her purse, she could feel the vertebra of her rosary.
“Forgive me for saying so, but I believe it’s what Christ wants too.”
“All right. I told you already, when I ask myself what I’m still doing here, that’s always one of the answers I come up with. We can do a lot of good in this city.”