Petra listened, then nodded.
Mendravic was already halfway to the first house, shouting out a resonant “Ivo” every few steps; Pearse turned and began to do the same.
The streets were all but deserted, everyone either enjoying lunch or an early nap. The few who were out hadn’t seen the boy. Pearse was nearing the edge of the village, his faith in his own intuition dwindling, when he heard a voice from above.
“Little guy?” the voice said. Pearse looked up, to see a man sitting on his roof, various tools for repairing a leak scattered about. “Light brown hair, with a thousand questions?”
“That sounds like him,” said Pearse.
The man nodded. “He had to know what each one of these pieces was for,” he said, positioning a sheet of tin as he spoke. “Why I hadn’t made the roof better the first time. Why I was the only one who had to fix his roof. Turned out that all he really wanted to talk about was Pavle.” When Pearse continued to stare, the man said, “The boy who died yesterday.”
Pearse nodded. Evidently, their distraction hadn’t worked quite as well as they’d thought.
“You ask me, he was a little too curious. Things like that shouldn’t … Anyway. I finally told him to go find the hohxa if he was so interested. He went in maybe fifteen minutes ago.” The man nodded toward the holy man’s house.
Pearse thanked him and made his way to the edge of the village.
It was clear why the little hut stood off by itself. Smaller than the rest, it seemed overburdened by its own dilapidation, a rutted heap of veined stonework lumbering against the hillside, the right-hand side with a pronounced hump. The two windows on either side of the door seemed equally downtrodden, staring groggily out from behind a haze of dirt and dried rain, no indication as to when they’d last been cleaned. But it was the roof that looked most out of place, unlike anything he’d seen in the village, a misshapen dome atop four clumsy walls. A distant reminder of the church of San Bernardo, pious inelegance reduced here to a rural oafishness.
And yet, it retained an undeniable spirituality, a stillness amid a world trampling it underfoot.
Pearse stepped up to the small porch.
The door stood ajar, a faint light coming from inside, the odor of incense wafting out to greet him; he pushed through, uttering a hesitant “Hello.” The state of the windows made outside light an impossibility, a few candles here and there to bring the place to life-table, chairs, oaken chest lost to the shadows. Otherwise, the room slept in a kind of stasis, even the candlelight unwilling to flicker.
No response.
He moved farther in. He noticed a staircase along the left wall, uneven boards rammed into the stone, no railing, naked steps, barely wide enough for one. More light from above. He headed across the room and made his way up.
Reaching the second floor, he came upon the hohxa eating quietly in front of a flimsy wooden table, an equally ancient chair supporting what Pearse could only describe as one of the thinnest bodies he had ever seen. The man wore a brimless hat far back on his head, the panoply of colors having faded to a dull brown, a few threads of blue and red still visible at the crown. No less aged, a vest hung loose on his shoulders, a striped long-sleeved shirt-no collar-beneath. He kept his legs tucked neatly under the chair, his back and head stooped painfully over the bowl, a gnarled hand clutching at a wedge of bread that seemed more prop than meal. He squeezed at it repeatedly as he brought the spoon to his lips, always careful to scoop up the excess from his chin before plunging in for another helping. When the bowl was all but empty, he mopped the bread across the last few drops, then slowly began to gnaw at the soggy crust.
Only when Pearse had drawn to within a few feet of him did he look up.
“You’ve misplaced your boy,” he said.
“Yes,” Pearse answered, not exactly sure what protocol demanded.
“Nice little fellow,” said the hohxa. “Clever. You don’t seem too worried.”
Pearse realized he wasn’t. Again, no answer why. “I’m not.”
“Good. Do you want some soup? I have plenty.”
“Actually-”
“You want the boy.”
Pearse nodded. There was something oddly serene to the little man and his bread, much like his house, both broken beyond repair, yet somehow comfortable in their easy deterioration.
With significant effort, he pulled himself up, his back only marginally straighter, a quick adjustment of the hat as he shuffled to the far end of the room.
“You’re the priest, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’m the priest.”
“Strange how it all comes together, isn’t it?”
Pearse had no idea what the man meant; he nodded.
“It’s important for children to see this. You could learn something.” He slowly pulled back the edge of a curtain to reveal a tiny alcove, the smell of incense and camphor oil at once stronger. “This isn’t something to protect them from.”
Inside, Pavle’s body lay on a bier, shrouded under three large white linen sheets. At his side sat Ivo, hands in his lap, baseball in hands, his back to the curtain.
“He wanted to know,” said the holy man in a whisper. “And when they’re curious, you have to tell them.”
Pearse started in, but the hohxa held his arm.
“We sat together for a while. He wanted to stay. I told him to come out and eat when he was ready.”
The hohxa released his arm; Pearse pulled the curtain farther to the side and stepped into the alcove as the man returned to the table. As quietly as he could, Pearse crouched by Ivo’s side.
For perhaps half a minute, he said nothing. Ivo seemed content to sit, as well. “Pretty brave coming here by yourself,” Pearse said at last.
Ivo nodded, his eyes still on the covered body.
He wasn’t sure exactly what was holding the boy’s fascination, beyond the obvious. He decided not to press it. Another few seconds, and Ivo finally turned to him. “It’s different from last time.”
Pearse nodded slowly.
“When you don’t know someone,” said Ivo, looking back at the body, “it’s different.”
Petra evidently hadn’t told him everything about their stay in the country during the Mostar bombings. Again he waited.
“It doesn’t make me as sad this time. Is that bad?”
“I don’t think so,” said Pearse. “It doesn’t make me as sad, either.”
Ivo turned to him. “You didn’t know Radisav.”
“You’re right. I didn’t. But I’ve known other people. When your Mommy and Salko and I fought in the war.”
Ivo thought about it, then nodded. “I guess so. But you didn’t know Radisav.”
Pearse shook his head. “No, I didn’t know him.”
“It makes me sad when I think of him.”
Very hesitantly, Pearse placed his hand on Ivo’s shoulder. The two sat for several minutes. Finally, Ivo stood up. “It’s just different,” he said, clutching the ball in his left hand. With the other, he reached out to the shrouded body, placing his hand on it, a little boy’s need to touch.
Pearse’s natural instinct was to say a prayer. He quietly stood and crossed himself. Probably best, though, not to say a paternoster with a Muslim holy man nearby, especially given the events surrounding the young man’s death. For some reason, the image of Ivo’s outstretched hand reminded Pearse of the five-line couplets, the Ribadeneyra verse never too far from his thoughts, even at a moment like this. Somehow, the prayer seemed strangely appropriate.
With his eyes on Ivo, and not quite knowing why, Pearse began to speak the Latin, words for a young man he had known only in final whispers: “‘So do I stretch out my two hands toward You, all to be formed in the orbit of light.’” Ivo turned back and smiled. He took Pearse’s hand, then looked again at the body.
Ivo began to sing the Latin: “‘When I am sent to the contest with darkness, knowing that You can assist me in sight.’”