He pulled the last of the papers from the table and flipped to the end of the A section, the op-ed pieces, with no hint of yesterday’s events. Instead, they offered the usual New York Times fare: a Hoover Institution expert on U.S. policy in Kosovo; Safire on Clinton (one more chance to paint Nixon in a softer hue); the mayor on tax restructuring. No doubt tomorrow, things would be different. For now, though, he’d have to settle for the editorials. He’d already made it through fifteen of the world’s leading papers, a mixed bag of responses to the Faith Alliance’s mission statement. He’d saved the Times for last. Best to build up his stamina.
The title of the first piece said it alclass="underline" “Savonarola in a Suit.”
He sat back and read:
Yesterday, Nigel Harris, former executive director of the Testament Council, began his latest campaign to assert himself as moral beacon of the West. His most recent attempt comes in the form of the loosely defined Faith Alliance, a group that boasts a following from as far afield as Hollywood and academe, Wall Street and the church. A broad base, to be sure. With a set of Twelve Guiding Principles (the number only fitting), the new apostles of ethical probity have decided the time is ripe to confront those elements within society that threaten the basic tenets of decency. Their answer: a cross-cultural, multifaith incentive “devoid of political ambition.”
While on an abstract level we applaud Mr. Harris and his colleagues for their concerns, we find enough in the alliance’s mission statement to raise serious questions. Although never pinpointing the focus of the campaign, Mr. Harris does hint at where we might expect to find his alliance making its presence known: rap music, the Internet, single-sex marriages, prayer in the schools, etc. It seems somewhat disingenuous to dive into these hotly debated issues while claiming to have no political agenda.
More troubling, though, is the ambiguous definition he gives for an “alliance of faith,” one in which “religious differences fade in favor of a wider spiritual commitment.” That Mr. Harris champions tolerance is commendable, especially given the history of his former associates at the Testament Council, who shied away from such inclusiveness. That he chooses to characterize that coherence, however, as a response to “a threat from those who understand holy war as a form of diplomacy” paints a far more divisive picture. Islam as straw man hardly seems the best way to foster decency.
For the fifteenth-century Savonarola, the scourge …
Harris glanced at the final paragraph, the historical tie-in something of a stretch, though amusing, a stern reminder of the fate the Florentine preacher had met at the hands of his own followers. Given the response from the majority of papers, however, Harris had little reason to heed the warning. Overwhelming approval. Confirmation of the fifty thousand E-mails that had arrived just in the last two hours.
Not bad for quarter to eight in the morning.
Pearse sat on a slab of rock, the mountainside strewn with countless such mounds, the camp some two hundred yards below. To the east, an artificial lake-courtesy of the Fierza hydropower station-spread out like a wide pancake, serenely smooth within a curve of mountains, the water long ago contaminated, unfit for drinking or bathing, according to the latest Red Cross bulletin. It didn’t seem to matter. The refugees continued to put it to use, dysentery, diarrhea, and fungus acceptable tradeoffs when pitted against their own squalor. He could just make out a small group of women huddled by the shore, too far, though, to see what they were doing. Still, from this distance, it looked quite tranquil, his perch a temporary refuge from the chaos below.
Mendravic sat at his side, silently waiting. They’d been here for over an hour, sitting, staring. Finally, Pearse spoke.
“She should have told me.”
Mendravic said nothing.
“Does he know about me?”
Mendravic started to answer, then stopped. “An hour ago, I would have said yes. Now …” He let the thought trail off. “I thought she’d told you. I haven’t seen them in months.”
Pearse nodded and continued to stare out. His eyes fixed on a clump of burned grass, a spray of blackened roots, only the tips still green. He had no idea what had caused its singular presence. Nothing other than to stare blankly into the charred wound.
At some point-not quite remembering when-he’d reached up and pulled the collar from his shirt. Seeing it in his hand now, he turned to Mendravic.
“Still think it suits me?”
Mendravic waited, then answered. “What are you really doing here, Ian?”
“That’s a very good question.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” Whatever Mendravic had meant, Pearse had been asking himself the same question for the last hour, his only answer one that seemed to define the past eight years of his life.
Running.
Not that he’d known about Petra and the boy, not that he could have known. But whatever he thought he’d find in the church hadn’t really been there. Not for a long time now. Granted, he’d never lost his faith in the Word, in its power-he did have that-but it didn’t make much sense to be a servant of the church when the church itself was causing all the misgivings. He couldn’t help but wonder: Except for a collar and an address at the Vatican, how different had he really turned out from his dad? Priest or not, he’d made a habit of keeping everything at a distance. He’d abandoned Bosnia and Petra to become a priest. He’d abandoned Boston to become a scholar. He’d abandoned Cecilia Angeli … What reason this time? Kukes was simply one more noble distraction in an all-too-predictable pattern. And one that rang equally hollow.
His devastation at hearing of his son had nothing to do with the profligacy of a priest, the corruption of canon law, the depravity of mortal sin. It had to do with a boy, a woman, and a man. And the realization of a life lived in flight.
“You’re not here because you came to help the refugees,” said Mendravic, as if having read his mind.
Pearse slowly turned to him. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you don’t really belong here, do you? The ICMC had no record of you. And the Vatican thought you were in Rome. It looks as if you simply appeared out of nowhere.”
“You contacted Rome?”
“I had to make sure I had the right priest, didn’t I? I wasn’t going to trek halfway across Kosovo for the wrong one.”
It took Pearse several moments to answer. Somehow, the mention of Rome brought him out of himself. He looked at Mendravic. “I have to get to Visegrad.”
The sudden shift caught Mendravic off guard. “What?”
“And then you have to take me to Petra.”
Before Mendravic could answer, Pearse was on his feet. “You’re right. I didn’t come here for the refugees. And I let myself forget that.”
Without waiting, he started down the mountain.
Via Condotti on a summer afternoon is, more often than not, a swirl of wall-to-wall people. The spill of tourists from the Spanish Steps combined with the surge of shoppers on the Corso take it to critical mass at around 4:00 P.M., not the moment to be fighting one’s way toward a building nestled at its midpoint. Poor timing, to be sure, for Arturo Ludovisi, whose plane from Frankfurt had been delayed just long enough so that he now had the pleasure of experiencing Via Condotti at its most lunatic. Still, given the ledgers he had taken with him, he knew it was best to deposit them back in the safe as quickly as possible.